how I learn and why I'll talk more about it in 2010-11

just had a realization as I read

Medium does matter. And the textbook is generally a medium that inspires neither motivation nor imagination.

Increase Student Engagement by Getting Rid of Textbooks

In this new school year, I decide that I will consistently pursue reference to my learning online as often as possible, coupled with discussion opps for how and what students learn (& wish to learn) online.

Last year I remember thinking quickly, should I talk about my own learning? I usually decided No, since it was "off topic."

But I think learning is always "on topic" so I am going to follow my gut and use my own examples to spark students' interest and action.

great week

I sent the following in an email to Dar. I want to share it with our blog. It's got some very "inside my head" sections, but we'll live with that.

I have had such a thought-productive week. Last summer I became aware of the English Companion Ning. I must have joined it and then done nothing more with it.

This summer for some reason I bumped into it again, tried to join, discovered I had already.... So then I saw the ECNing is having its first ever Webstitute (via Elluminate) on 13 and 14 July. So I signed up to "attend." It was excellent. Mostly the speakers were about technology and connections using the web with students. I learned and learned and learned.

I created a second Twitter account for educational use. Currently I'm using it to follow some of the education people I was already following; I added some people I met at the webstitute. One of the wonderful characteristics of many outstanding teachers is that they are so generous with their time and wisdom.  In her keynote presentation, Laura Nicosia talked about Diigo and described how she finds it useful. and now I am crazy about it. We are following each other on Twitter. 

Sunday I'm joining a 2-week-long online discussion of a book co-written by Releah Cossett Lent (who wrote that cool book Dar also liked) and Jimmy Santiago Baca called "Adolescents on the Edge."

One of the most valuable aspects of all this online professional feasting is that it removes all the horrible, depressing parts of our job from my immediate concern, and it spurs me to have ideas and questions and joyful anticipation of the coming school year.

I am going to protect that feeling/attitude fiercely when we return to school and have our trainings and information and dictates from the great omniscient bureaucrats. I am going to let that part of the job lightly intersect with my being but not penetrate. I am going to protect my teaching joy fiercely. The feeling is too wonderful to let it be shut down.

So I'm working a bit on "protection strategies."  I think I must sound way over the edge, but I'm not going to go back and edit for clarity. We can talk. That's quicker than re-writing about how I feel.

voice

» The Week in Tweets for 2010-04-19 Bud the Teacher

• @ddraper So long as teachers believe that someone needs to "give them a voice," they/we won't have much of one. @bcrosby in reply to ddraper # 

I have learned so much this week: diigo, more twitter, tweetdeck, slideshare, google docs, more. Will elaborate later.



wow.  love it.

how am I going to set up my classroom for 2010-11?

I'm thinking of making four quadrants/groups of desks.

I'm thinking of putting my teacher desk in the middle of the quadrants. I won't have a desktop computer anymore, so if the new teacher laptop can connect wirelessly to the net (for attendance and grade recording and email), then I can put myself in the middle. HA!!!!

I also want to have a small table near the door where students pick up handouts, tokens, etc. as they enter.

about quadrants.... students could name their quadrant group.  how to choose who is in a quadrant.... I'll figure that out.

I'm listening to Alan Sitomer talk about Project Based Learning.  oh wow. and he's wearing a beret.

Alan Sitomer about Project Based Learning

I learned the word apodictic this afternoon.

I'm reading Joseph Campbell. I bump into this word: apodictic. I do not recognize the word; I observe the context, and it doesn't lead me to the specific meaning of the word.  I know that dict means word or say or judge/direct. It's the apo part that i don't know. APO.... what word(s) do I know that have that as a prefix?  can't think of any, so I have to go to the dictionary. I used M-W.com . Here's the screen print.

I started thinking about students memorizing and what was worth memorizing. Memorizing should contribute to something more significant than the things memorized. For example, memorizing prefixes should help me know more words than I knew without knowing those prefixes.

I observe that the root dict had no relation to the actual meaning of apodictic. I confess, I am so enamoured of etymologies and roots and prefixes and languages that I sometimes have hypotheses that collapse upon examination. But I have exhilarating mental exercise, no matter what.

Unsurprisingly I conclude that it is worth students' time and effort to learn prefixes. Then how do I assess this learning?  I have been reading and thinking about mastery.  So now I explore that.

Is 80% mastery? and what traditional letter grade should I assign that 80% to? my gut tells me B, with 90% being an A.

But if the material is essential, and I want my students to achieve mastery, then nothing short of that should be "gradeable." C and D will not have a part of this essential* learning.

... which leads me to think about re-testing, re-assessing (with conditions) until mastery. Until my student achieves mastery, I assign no official letter grade. I break the massive quantity of prefixes and roots into 5 sections, roughly one section per grading period. If a student declines to achieve mastery of any one section, the student fails that section and the official letter grade is an F.  At this point, I am thinking of advanced classes. Regular classes have Rev it up, which I am very happy with.

back to Joseph Campbell and things that relate to necessary truth or absolute certainty.


* It's essential because I say it's essential.

Alfie and Doug

I'm reading the available free Kindle sample of Alfie Kohn's Beyond Discipline: From Compliance to Community. I will be buying the book.

First, our blog is officially about our thoughts and experiences with Doug Lemov's Teach like a Champion. Weeks ago on an ed blog (or somewhere on the net) I read Kohn's observation about Champion, that it was about compliance. I won't elaborate now, because that's not my point. I could see Kohn's objection. I am suspicious of anything that leads toward mere compliance-- my own or someone else's.

But I had read enough of Champion to think that isn't what it's about.
Lemov and the teachers he cites are intense about having their students listen, learn, remember, demonstrate learning. Education is a matter of "life or death." In order for this listening, etc. to occur, each student must be giving maximum attention to the class activity.

My sense, what I value in the book, is that it shows me or reinforces ways to increase the probability of my students getting from me what they need, sharing with each other, remembering, being confident... because class activities occur where students are paying attention to the activity. For me that's the value. Last year's classes were ok, but... I'm not pleased to acknowledge that inadequate attention from many students kept the whole class from getting the maximum learning. Frequent (and often useless, stupid) interruptions (bathroom, talking, lead breaking, dress code, lack of materials, someone sneezing.... an endless and unpredictable menu) fragmented momentum and focus.

So what I want and need is to be reinforced that some of what I am doing is on the mark and I want  more options to consider. I'm used to what I do and it's quite effective. But in the flurry of the school year, I seldom have time to cogitate on significant alternate ways of being. I want Doug's and Alfie's help (and Frances's and Dar's and Cynthia's) to get some alternatives well-thought out, and to summon and nurture the inner energy necessary to do differently what I know I already do more than adequately.

sorry if this is vague to a reader. I guess I am writing to get my thinking moving rather than to describe or persuade another.

Back to Lemov and Kohn--

 I am unwilling to accomodate discipline practice that I philosophically disagree with: specifically, discipline practice that is based on the belief that students cannot be trusted, do not care, etc. I don't believe that, and I cannot treat anyone else that way. And I refuse to be be treated that way myself. What Kohn says strengthens my resolve to assert my belief, rather than just give in as I have been doing (with my style used quietly in my class, but not articulated to admin or parents).

still working out my thought on this,
scared to put it out there in case I fail
or give up,
decide it's too much trouble,
the kids won't like it anyway,
on and on ad nauseum,
ad nihil

putting it out there because I really do believe it
that it's worth the effort
that I can do it
that it is what I believe will be best for all directly concerned

and anyone not directly involved doesn't deserve a say.

~ I untied the string ~
Robert Graves "Warning to Children "
Read the complete poem. 

about the comic website

I think it would be cool to have students make summaries, extend or invent stories, conflicts, etc.



I think this could be fun.

http://pixton.com/

comic website

Alfie Kohn interview

I'm listening for the second time to an interview with Alfie  Kohn.

"Kids don't learn to make decisions by following directions. Kids learn to make decisions by     [wait for it...]   making decisions."

Yup. even bad ones (kids, decisions, either).


more to come as I continue re-listening.
Alfie Kohn interview


You can download the interview as a podcast and listen to it at your convenience in iTunes.

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?

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.

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.

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

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?