math and us

I found a new blog to absorb.  It's by a math teacher. I watched his talk on TED

and went to his blog and have been there on and off for about 4 hours.

Here's the post (of many I could choose) that I think is for me now

http://blog.mrmeyer.com/?p=5781

and an excerpt; for algebra, substitute reading, grammar, literature, composition, spelling, etc.

3. This kind of algebra makes our students dumb, unimaginative, and scared of real problems. At the end of the model lesson, the coach put up our homework, which was a carbon copy of the original problem, new numbers swapped in for the old. ¶ I can't describe my contempt for this arrangement. ¶ This is how we make kids stupid and impatient with irresolution, eager for contrived problems that look just like the last contrived problem, completely lost if we so much as switch around the order of a few words. "We don't teach them problem solving skills anymore," my department head said to me. "We teach them problem types."

Algebra teachers sell students a cheap distortion of the real world while insisting at the same time that it really is the real world. The cognitive dissonance is obvious and terrible. Students know the difference. It cheapens my relationship to them and their relationship to mathematics when you ask me to lie to them.

It's like offering someone lust or manipulation while insisting that it's love. Not only are the short-term consequences devastating but it makes that person distrustful or wary of the real thing. Make no mistake. We are making an alien of algebra. We are doing real damage here.

This kind of thinking will change what I do and how I do it even more.

I'm reading some really good stuff about teaching & thinking a lot.
I wonder if we could meet a few times over the summer-- maybe at Panera's in Tarpon ?
Whoever's in town could come-- no pressure-- just collaboration.
We could talk and spur each other to go farther, go deeper than any one of us might do alone.
I don't want to let our fire die over the summer.
Thoughts?

strategies & the use thereof

I keep thinking of new things I want to write about
things I have been pondering for years.

so here is another entry from me--

Often I think teachers use strategies (are told to use them with lots of ese kiddos), especially behavior strategies to avoid having to deal with an actual individual human being (aka student). E.g., I don't have to look in a student's eyes or try to reach that student where she is right now. I can pull a research-based strategy from my vast repertoire of strategies and use that on her, as if she were an animal I am to train instead of a human being to interact with, to teach and to learn from.

over-simplified, but important in my mind, based on my experience and what I have observed.

I'm not dismissing strategies, just the use of them to avoid the unpredictable and sometimes difficult interaction with another person.

thinking and not thinking

This weekend I have been trying not to think of school


but I can't stop thinking about learning and education.

the job of schools

from an old piece on Bill Ayers's blog

It’s worth asking ourselves what makes education in a democracy distinct.  Of course we want children to study hard, to be responsible, to stay away from drugs, and to be prepared for work.  But those are goals we share with totalitarian regimes, monarchies, dictators and kings.  So what is uniquely characteristic of democratic education?

The founders of American education spoke of forging a common culture and preparing youth for lives of citizenship.  The democratic aspiration was that young people would grow into reflective, critical citizens, capable of work and also self-governance, full participation and free thinking.  The aim of production in a democracy is not the production of things but the production of free human beings, the goal, in W.E.B. DuBois’ phrase, not so much to make carpenters of men, but to make full human beings of carpenters. 

A basic tenet of democracy is that the ultimate authority on any individual’s hurt or desire is that individual himself or herself.  Education in a democracy demands equity, access, and an acknowledgment of the humanity of each person.  The job of schools is to stimulate latent interests, desires, and dreams that cause people to question, to challenge, to criticize, and to act.  Obedience and conformity are the enemies of democracy; initiative and courage are its hallmarks

http://billayers.wordpress.com/2008/02/01/the-education-president/


Good thing the school year is almost over. The sentence in the larger print resonates with me.  I need a lot of serious time for thinking and reflection.

complex

research        heart & gut

We need them both.

about "To Teach"

I've been wandering the web a lot today.

On
http://laughingsquid.com/to-teach-the-journey-in-comics/
I saw a piece about a comic book version of Bill Ayers's book To Teach, the journey. I wondered if that was THE Bill Ayers, the person spoken of as a domestic terrorist. Yes, it was and is.

I had no idea of his views on education; I knew he was a professor but hadn't remembered he was a prof of ed.


I was curious about what he had to say about teaching. I was hooked almost immediately. I ordered the book.
I made a screen shot of one of the pictures from the YouTube video on laughing squid.

I had to have the complete book. This picture is going up on the wall in 7-203. This picture communicates why I am suspicious of education matters that are only research based, things that see only numbers but no human faces.

mastering a skill

continuing the thought from franrod68-- I tried to post a comment, but the blog on which I am an author kept rejecting my comment.   Such audacity and How ironic!

When I was first teaching middle school at Meadowlawn, I assumed the people who made the texts knew what students needed and were capable of. I let that erroneous assumption drive my teaching pace for too long.

Early in my career I started looking into students' eye to see if the kid got it, was about to get it, might get it, or was tuned out. As often as I feel right about it, I use kids' eyes to help me pace.

One of the things I love about our profession is the fresh start we get each year, preceded by several weeks of downtime and re-charging.

s w e e t !!!

Mastering a skill

While reading "Teach Like a Champion", I was reminded that I need to spend more time working a skills and going over material until I'm sure everyone has mastered it. I find myself rushing through material, because I have a time frame in my lesson plans, and not slowing down to see if my students truly understand the material. I know that quite a few do learn in my sometimes frenzied pace, but now I'm feeling guilty about those handful of students who are left in the dust!

I have started to rethink ways of making sure I repeat skills I've taught and am in the process of teaching. I actually have been putting it to action with bellwork that reintroduces concepts we learned early on in the year.

I like the metaphor the book uses of a student going to bat and practicing until they hit the ball. That really resonated with me.

I/we/you

I use this all the time. But I have probably never explained it to students. It's so obviously beneficial to me that I cannot imagine it's not equally obvious to them. But experience indicates they are clueless about how I teach using this structure.

So a near-term experiment is to be explicit about what I am doing and what students should do and get when I use this structure.


down-side-- this structure requires students to give attention to me. So often this year, and increasingly as the year gets closer to its end, I sense many students simply putting in time, thinking they are doing me a huge favor by just sitting and not causing problems. Sensing this is toxic to the spirit of my interaction; I never know how or if I'll be able to get through the cloud to connect with the other hearts and minds in the room.  also I just looked yesterday at the overall results of the three FAIR tests. I am devastated by how many students went down over the course of their year with me. If I am effective, I don't seem to be effective in what FAIR measures. so now what???

quote-- complexities of learning and teaching

from Making Connections, p. 11  Renatta Caine, Geoffrey Caine, 1991

"Unfortunately many teachers who are aware of the complexities of learning and teaching have been intimidated into ignoring what they know. They have had to fight both a factory model that places a premium on low-quality output and a research model that implies that their observations of what actually happens are invalid. It takes a strong personality and enormous conviction to ignore such pressures."

Jing

http://www.screencast.com/users/joylowell/folders/Jing/media/f734fa01-bbed-4fc1-8131-2ec4b07064ea

online video -- unfortunately our school system does not allow access to Jing.

but I wanted to get it on record on our blog.

Champion

My favorite line from today's reading is on p.54. "There's a special pleasure in exploding expectations." In addition our authors says, "Kids respond to challenges"
My new quest is to challenge myself to say in each class period one alternative to apologizing, which I feel I don't do now, but I love his lines. "When you're in college, (or reading class next year or in high school) you can show off how much you know about.....
I also found my opening line for Monday mornings parent conference.....way to go Doug

planning sequence

Reading Champions about planning p. 58
"plan a unit"
Use the SSS
How do I get a unit from those?
I realize the answer to that question has eluded me since I became aware of it.
Today did lots of good mid- range stuff
But did not get to long-range stuff.

failure and JK Rowling

JK Rowling 's commencement speech at Harvard-- should be required listening.

http://harvardmagazine.com/commencement/the-fringe-benefits-failure-the-importance-imagination

what about intelligence?

Alert: highly idiosyncratic stream of consciousness post


I webbed to a reference to

The Genius in All of Us: Why Everything You've Been Told About Genetics, Talent, and IQ Is Wrong by David Shenk

http://tinyurl.com/2bkytgy

I'm thinking about this quote from the author interview on Amazon:

"Find the thing you love to do, and work and work and work at it. Don't be discouraged by failure; realize that high achievers thrive on failure as a motivating mechanism and an instruction guide on how to get better."

.... the alleged interest in the County that we teachers engage our own passion.... how to incorporate students' passions in the curriculum


What if my intellectual passion (professionally speaking) does not align to the SSS or the GLE?


Where was this concept when I was trapped in the PCS system?  My perception: you don't get it the way we give it? You fail.     Next!






TBE

Find a way to record all "stories" read
TBE

Dialog about grades

What does an A mean in your class?

It no longer means excellence. Several years ago, the county removed that designation from letter grades. I don't recall any announcement, much less discussion about that.

I think it is a significant act, and I think it signaled a change in administrative attitude about grades, but I don't think anyone told the teachers or parents or students or any "stakeholders." And more importantly, I don't think the meaning of grades, except as passing or failing, is clear or remotely consistent from teacher to teacher.

Your thoughts?

idea for end of year project

rough draft thinking

Pick a character from any piece you have encountered this school year.You need another character from a different piece, either by working with one other person or simply by picking another character and doing the assignment by yourself.

The characters meet and communicate.

required elements:
reference to setting, other characters, events in the literature
main conflicts of each character
venn or similar diagram for the two character which includes details from their literature and appropriate imaginary features

presentation:
video
skit
web site
powerpoint
what else can students think of?

the thought or the correct English?

I'm sitting here in FAIR testing grading 3 Rev 6 sentences (per student) from students' quizzes on "A Mason Dixon Memory."

Some sentences are good. Some are very good. Some are depressingly bad.
bad = no capitals, no periods, illiterate grammar and/or usage

The criteria were:
1) use the word with its correct meaning
2) connect the word to "A Mason Dixon Memory"

Here's why I'm writing this-- next year with some goals of having student's habitually write (and compose) literate sentences
  Start the three sentence thing early in the year (next year I'll be starting Rev in Aug, not in Jan as I did this year)   and track  * meaning     *mechanics     *usage     *elaboration


TBE

Posting from my mobile device

champs are we

This is a post just to get a post. I'll return and edit so it says what I mean.


The technique I have been most aware of is Stand Square.

It has been different making myself stand still every time I want students to attend to my words. But I am pretty confident I detect some increased focus from them.