A New Kind of Freedom

You may or may not be aware, but somebody declared October "Connected Educator Month."  For me, the connected part started in September, when I accepted the challenge to blog for 30 days through the Te@chthought folks using their prompts.  Since then, the topics have been largely my own, although Thursdays have been "Collaboration Focused" thanks to Te@chthought, once again.

The weird thing about this journey is that, as I shared with my colleagues at A Lunch today, I feel more grounded and focused as an educator this year.  I'm now reflecting more on my own pedagogical practices, and reading much more from a variety of sites through connections on Twitter and Facebook.

Connection and Collaboration and Justice for All...

Mindshift - How We Will Learn, has an interesting article that dates back a little more than a year that resonates strongly with me.  Katrina Schwartz's premise is that "through connection and collaboration teachers can start down a learning path that parallels the one they try to create for students." 

Boy, this had me flashing back to recent in service training where we were instructed, for more than THREE HOURS, in an auditorium where we were not permitted to have anything -- not even water -- as the presenter droned on about the need for lively, interactive, and varied activities.  Oh, by the way, she DRONED on about the necessity for these lively, interactive, and varied activities.  FOR THREE HOURS.  (Did I mention that it was THREE HOURS of droning?) 

While we can all claim the "do as I say, not as I do" model for education occasionally, this was a half day of our lives that we will never get back.  Was it a productive use of our time?  (A resounding NO from the audience!)  Did we get the message?  Yes.  In the first 30 seconds.  (Thanks for the 3 hour reinforcement.)

If you've never witnessed the genius that is Sir Kenneth Robinson, the RSAnimate version of his TED Talk on changing paradigms in education is worth the 11:41 of your time to consider.  Further, David Price's book, Open, shakes up the focus even further, allowing everyone the option of considering why we need to consider the future method of the educational model and its delivery.  Price strongly suggests the value of authenticity, project-based learning, and collaborative projects with community mentors.  (All the sorts of things that are cut from curriculum due to lack of time.)

Today I had the chance to transport a student home from an off campus seminar.  His brother had been a student of mine, and is now a senior at a private boarding school.  I inquired about his college plans, and was surprised to learn that he had been offered a hefty-salaried opportunity and might choose to go right into the workforce.   This shouldn't surprise me, after all, many famous and successful people -- including Bill Gates -- walked away from pursuing a sheepskin to enter the workforce.

So where am I going with all this?  There are hundreds of people with hands on ideas that I come in contact with every single day.  Classroom teachers are challenged to prepare kids for life -- and perhaps that shift needs to be even more collaborative, more OPEN, and more paradigm-shifted than we ever imagined.  Everyone can agree that a three hour lecture is ineffective.  Trusting educators to collaborate in meaningful ways, to share their research and insights with each other, and have discussions that last longer than it takes to consume a quick sandwich in the faculty room each day will, ultimately, allow the networking necessary to collectively educate our learners in authentic, meaningful, and cooperative connections. 

Meanwhile, I keep reading the Twitter feed, take recommendations from friends (and Amazon) for new books, and network with new teachers every day. 

And every night I go home and realize how much less I know, and how much farther I must travel on this road called education.

FIVE paragraphs does not equal five pages...

As an English teacher writing lesson plans on a weekend and realizing that Monday is the logical time to visit the next required career essay from her freshmen Info. Literacy students, I was naturally more than excited filled with dread at the prospect of this latest goal for first period Monday morning.  Somebody, somewhere, decided that the "perfect" formula to teach writing is the Never-popular FIVE PARAGRAPH essay.    

It seems so simple:  Introductory paragraph, three strong supporting paragraphs, and a conclusion.  What happens, instead, is that  kids count to five, and stop.  No matter what is in their heads, they are FINISHED at five paragraphs.  This year, I have encountered an even more perplexing phenomenon.  The question, "how many SENTENCES makes a paragraph?"  

"Seriously?  You are a freshman in high school and you want to know the numerical formula I will accept for a paragraph?  You write until you have given all the information you need to give, in a relevant and engaging manner,"  I responded.

"How do I know what is relevant?"  I should have seen that one coming, I guess.  There was no mention of engagement.  So back we went to the basics.  It was then that I realized that going back to the basics is what killed the notion of advanced writing. 

The conversation is even more frustrating for educators when there is a page limit established for a project.  "FIVE PAGES?  How the heck do I write a full page-long paragraph?" 

"Perhaps you write more than five paragraphs...."

"BUT HOW?????"

In the instant nature of twitter and texts, minimalist writing is now the norm.  Of course we are all struggling with the LOLs and CUL8trs, and most kids understand that being cute and writing in textspeak doesn't cut it for formal writing.  What they seem to have missed is the distinct connection between research, writing, and actual thinking, and started teaching a formula that takes the notes from a pre-constructed graphic organizer and translates them into sentences.

Several years ago, Ray Salazar wrote a blog entry entitled If You Teach or Write 5 Paragraph Essays, Stop It!  Truer words have never been written.  Ray's argument is sound, and his formula for success is worthy of consideration by every writer everywhere.  Encouraging kids to put their research into historical or scientific context, questioning cause-effect relationships, and reacting on a personal level, although NOT IN FIRST PERSON, should be a goal of every teacher requesting writing assignments from their learners.

I've mentioned before in this blog that Common Core seems to be lacking the goals or time (or standards) to explicitly teach thought and thinking skills as part of the current generation's education.  Sometimes the implicit needs to be more explicit.  Especially when it comes to written expression.  Somehow, we as educators are responsible (or must be responsible) for finding the time to overcome this oversight.

We can do it, yes we can!  It may mean that we need to ask students to find a meme to express what they truly feel about the topic they are researching, and sketch it on their graphic organizers, but the formula for success is all about thinking, formulating an opinion, and supporting that opinion with analysis and research....

and not using the words I or YOU in the process.

Facebook - the SparkNotes for the Perfect High School Reunion

On the night that my students were either dancing the night away at the annual Homecoming dance 

or winning the Tournament of Bands Chapter 6 Group 1 Championship (with a score of 92.15!), I was hanging out with a bunch of my own high school class celebrating our 35th year reunion at Miller's Ale House in Willow Grove.  As I woke up this morning, I realized that I share something with those students -- we're all sleep-deprived this morning, and probably just recovering our full hearing potential.

The SparkNotes for the Perfect High School Reunion

My graduating class was nearly a thousand students.  A stark contrast to the high school where I teach today which graduates approximately 200 - 220 each year.  When I headed to college, I remember seeing someone walking around campus wearing an Abington jacket with the Class of 79 on the breast logo.  I truly didn't recall ever having seen her before, and decided that she must have borrowed her roommate's jacket.  (Turned out I was wrong -- how embarrassing is it to not recognize someone from your own high school?)  

The informal nature of the "meet in the back room by the fireplace" model meant no crazy name tags or sign ins, although I'd estimate that there were close to 200 people who showed up over the course of the evening.  A 20% attendance at a party 35 years in the making seems pretty impressive to me, although I attribute a lot of that to the success of social media and the groups established on facebook for the collaboration and planning of the invasion in Willow Grove last evening.  This observation comes in stark contrast to the recent research suggesting that social media is making high school reunions obsolete.   When NPR weighs in on such a sincere topic, people usually listen. 

I was a band geek in high school; obviously, based on the statistics above, I still am!  I don't remember ever attending at homecoming dance, although I did do some mean disco moves at both the junior and senior proms.  Thirty-five years later, we did tend to cluster into the clicks of people with whom we spent the most time in high school, but this reunion was much different -- because of the unlikely friendships that have been forged online over the last decade.  In a strange way, facebook provided the SparkNotes for many of those attending. Many of us see each other, or have stalked profiles to know where people worked, what they did, and whether they are covering the gray hair of being a grandparent.  That background also provided for something more meaningful than the cursory conversation than reunions of fifteen or twenty years ago.  

Oh, and besides my bestie band-geek friends, who did I spend the most time talking to last night?  

Teachers.  Amazing teachers from all over the country, some of whom read this blog.  Want to guess where the conversation started?  Right here.  

And it continued face to face in a very noisy Ale House in Willow Grove PA.

Is the high school reunion dead?  Absolutely not.  Here's hoping that the skeptics show up for the 40th -- you missed a great time last night!

The weekend of SLOP.

  

My mother has often accused me of speaking a foreign language.  As an educator, my every day vocabulary is filled with SLOs, GIEPs, LDC, IEPs, SDIs, and countless other acronyms that are normal jargon to me.  She's a fairly good sport as I spout these with the fluency I never achieved learning to speak French in high school, leaving her scratching her head in frustration and wonder.

Perhaps it's our text saavy society that is contributing to our increased use of acronyms - LOL, BRB, TTYL are certainly commonplace in the texting world these days.  Education, however, has had the greatest handle on acronyms for years, confusing parents, teachers, and students a like for decades.  

acronym

[ak-ruh-nim]

Word Origin and History for acronym

n.

word formed from the first letters of a series of words, 1943, American English coinage from acro- + -onym "name" (abstracted from homonym ; see name (n.)). But for cabalistic esoterica and acrostic poetry, the practice was practically non-existent before 20c.

It might be helpful to know that acronyms are now so popular that they are no longer identified solely as nouns.  The fine folks at dictionary.com recognized the past tense verb, acronymed, the adjectives acronymous and acrymonic, and, of course, the adverb, acronymically, although I suspect that the afore-mentioned mother will object to these words as non-qualifiers on her Scrabble board.

It seems that in education, people are so adjusted to the use of acronyms that they innately identify them, without regard for intention.  Take, for example, the administrator who asked that one in-service day be dedicated to curriculum review.  Innocent enough, until the reviewers were asked to complete a curriculum review action plan.

Yes, complete CRAP.  It was a directive.

While it is evident that the intent of that administrator was strong, the seriousness with which that assignment was received was less than enthusiastic.  And it is not isolated to a single district. There are great examples of poorly-considered acronyms on the A.S.S. site.  (I know you'll look -- just probably not on your work computer.)

Another favorite of mine came from the district of an acquaintance, who was working hard to assist struggling teachers with their Teacher Improvement Training System.  It was strongly suggested that that program might result in sexual harassment lawsuits from female employees.

As educators, we're expected to be above reproach when it comes to inadvertent stupidity.  It seems that there should be strong acronymic (see what I did there?) consideration given when titling anything, particularly anything related to assessment.  Sadly, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania's Department of Education has acronymically fallen victim to their own lack of acronymic awareness and are now requiring that all public school teachers in Pennsylvania complete Student Learning Objectives (SLOs) which will count, in my case, as 35% of my total evaluation profile for this school year.  Oh, and how do I design and present my SLO?  Why on the SLO Process Template.

Yes, this weekend I am revising my SLOP Template to present to my principal next week.  It's also a bit of a struggle to consider that the SLOP should really be valued so highly, given the apparent lack of consideration that went into the process.
 
 Meanwhile, I'll stay focused on what I can, I guess.  (Today I get to see my high school classmates at my 35th reunion - GREAT!)





I'll perfect that SLOP in the best way possible, creating MAGIC.

and do my best to find Peace.









"Serenity now!"  - George Costanza

The Spirit of Green and White

Sooo, 434 people (to date) viewed yesterday's blogpost -- an all-time high.  Michael Jan must have many friends out there in cyberland, even if he claims not to be there himself.  

Today was no different than any other day at Donegal, unless you count the Green and White, the feathers, and the horse playing the baritone in the pep band.

The senior class celebrates the awarding of the coveted "Spirit Stick."

A female Indian this year...

Today was Green and White Day, as our principal officially declares as "the best day of the year."  As I left the building, the assistant principal was pushing a five foot wide mop down the hallway, apologizing to the maintenance staff, as he gathered enough green and white feathers for flocks of birds.

As expected/predicted, the seniors won the coveted "Spirit Stick."  The homecoming court did their usual presentations, the cheerleaders cheered and flipped, oh, and a horse played the baritone.  All in all, a typical afternoon the day of the big homecoming game.  The annual pep rally tradition encompasses the best of what small town America has to offer.  Parents get out of work a bit early, cameras record this annual right of passage, and, as I suggested yesterday, the SENIORS won the spirit stick.  Pictured above, the senior section did what senior sections have done for decades at Donegal;  they tried to rule the volume and level of enthusiasm to earn the stick. 

This year's freshmen answered back with their own chant of "I don't think so!"

Well.  Imagine that?  Freshmen, lowly freshmen, speaking out, and defending themselves against the mighty seniors! They may have actually won on the decibel meter, but no one was actually checking.  It was a truly impressive attempt, I must say, even if their voices and foot stomps were drowned out by the tradition that reigns supreme. 

After all, it's THEIR senior year.  They have to win.  They don't get another chance.  To quote my friend, Leann, this is their LAST senior pep rally.  Every senior year is a series of lasts.  Tomorrow will be the last homecoming dance, soon to be followed by the last band championships, the last holiday concert, the last senior sports banquet, and so on and so on.

But today they are seniors, holding the Spirit Stick.  Shout a little louder.  They couldn't be prouder.

And those freshmen?  Oh, yes.  They'll be raising the stick in victory in October, 2018. 

Guaranteed.

Can't wait until JANuary....

 Years ago, our district built a "low ropes course."  On one in service  day, we were divided into small groups and worked through the course with each other, supporting each other using our weaknesses and strengths.  Do I still smell Ryan's armpit when I see him in the hallway after that "arrange yourself by birthday while standing on a log without stepping off" activity all these years later?  Yup, kind of.    Do we wish we had pictures of that day?  Absolutely -- as long as they aren't of me hanging from a rope.  Did people grumble about spending a day in the woods doing this activity, sure.  Would we trade any of these bonding experiences.  Not on your life.

 Today's Te@chthought Blog Prompt for "Connected October" is:

"Why is it important to be connected as an educator?" 

You know that feeling that you get when you're overwhelmed all the time, the rules are constantly

changing, and everything seems high-stakes?  Have you ever played darts, and the target was moved repeatedly?  If so, you have a rough idea what it's like to be in education these days.  Chances are good that you also value the friends and colleagues with whom you dwell in the trenches.  I can't imagine a school which functions well without a faculty that relies on each other through thick and thin.

 It's pretty odd when I can honestly answer that my favorite time of the day is lunch.  Heck, I'm 53 years old, and I've loved school and learning my entire life, but "A Lunch" at Donegal is what gets me through the moving target, the high stakes, the confusion, and all the rest of the STUFF that mires me as an educator these days.  Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love my job. I also know that for 26 minutes (figuring 2 minutes to the faculty room and 2 minutes back) every single day, there is laughter, commiseration, and levity that defines us as an unlikely group of friends.

Case in point:  Today was "Multiples Day" at Donegal for Spirit Week.  Last year, through the miracle of school portrait misfiling, one teacher was innocently the recipient of a sheet of wallet sized photos of one of our beloved Chemistry teachers, Michael, in her packet of photos.  (Pictured above in the blue striped sweater, but I'm getting ahead of myself.)  For the entire 2013-14 school year, Michael was the recipient of significant good-natured ribbing through various "projects" that were created using his likeness.

Fast forward to this year.  When the pictures arrived in our mailboxes, Michael sprinted (and I mean SPRINTED) to retrieve his pictures.  Satisfied he had them all in his possession, he proclaimed that he was in control this year.

Little did he know that the photo company offered the option of various "gifts" that could be ordered with the school portrait likeness -- t shirts, puzzles, mugs, mousepads -- you get the idea.  No need for an actual picture, just the "photo code" that appeared on the photo pack.  (Conveniently retrieved by another spy -- err-- colleague.)  It didn't take long for the A Lunch gang, along with some folks in B and C lunches, to put together a t-shirt order, Fed Exed in time for Multiples Day.

This morning, Michael was paged to the library before school, to meet his likeness, several times over.  His reaction was priceless.  He's also one of the best sports around.

My point in all of this is that the connectedness of the people I work with, whether it be through collaboration on a serious project or something to lighten an otherwise intense day, makes all of us better teachers.  The silliness of today is the connectedness of many days to follow.


 

Happy S I I W E E !

Alternating school colors of green and white
creates a visually confusing poster that delights
the gifted students, offering an enrichment
language to speak during Spirit Week.
Happy S I I  W E E !

 Homecoming is Friday night, with the big dance scheduled for Saturday night. This week is Spirit Week at school. I am proud and pleased to be a part of a district that still sees an educational value in the social-ness that is Spirit Week.

The poster to the left has graced the hallways for a couple of weeks announcing the costume competitions hyped for each day of Spirit Week.  The gifted population has affectionately begun to refer to this week as SII-WEE, which sounds Native American.  Maybe that's appropriate...

  You see, Donegal's mascot is an Indian. Or should I say, we are the Donegal Indians.  Before you send me message about the political correctness of this, know that I am not responsible for the choice in the mascot, and Lancaster County is rich in history of our Native American friends.  

Putting the Fun in the Fundamentals of a Rounded Education

If you've never had the pleasure of celebrating Spirit Week -- and I'm surprised by how many of my colleagues admit to having no recollection of their own high school celebrations -- know that the focus is on competition, class pride, and bonding.  

Oh, and feathers.  LOTS of feathers.  Today was USA Day -- a day to show your Red White and Blue pride.  While adults would be inclined to pull out the $5 Old Navy shirt with the flag on it from last July, that is waaaaayyy too lame for high school kids.  To the left is the representative sampling of the molting that occurred in the hallway outside my classroom.  Today there was a spirit of unity throughout the population.  The same can not be said for yesterday -- Class Color Day -- where each class dressed in an assigned color.  There were YELLOW freshmen, some wearing Minion Shirts and socks, others with face paint and antennas, and MANY feathers.  There were RED sophomores, BLUE juniors and BLACK (nearly gothic!) seniors.  

Tomorrow is "Multiples Day."  I already am expecting to see a swarm of bumblebees, many twins and triplets, and be a part of the collective dressing of the faculty.  (See pictures on THAT surprise here tomorrow!)  

Due to the Columbus Day/In-Service day on Monday, this is a shortened week.  Our principal refers to Friday as "THE BEST DAY OF THE YEAR."  It's Green and White Day.  I really should say It's GREEN AND WHITE DAY, because it really is that big a deal.  Fourth period is cancelled, in favor of a deafening pep rally in the gym.  The band will play.  The various classes will compete for the "Spirit Stick", and no matter how hard they try, the freshmen will never win.  The hallway decorating competitions are in full force with posters, and streamers, and Christmas lights, with final judging on Friday.

All of this is what school is during Spirit Week.  A sense of community, a sense of pride, a sense of excitement and planning.  Long after the feathers have been swept up and the streamers are taken down, this week will be remembered as a time when kids came together for a common cause.

That cause is PRIDE. 

As amused as I am by Spirit Week, I get a bit teary-eyed by the small town innocence that exists within these walls.  I also pray that the rest of the kids in schools across the country get to put aside the preparation for the standardized tests and the common core standards and get to be kids some Friday in a gym with Spirit Sticks, deafening noise, and the incessant beat of the drums celebrating the community known as school.

"We are the Indians, the Mighty Mighty Indians.  Shout a little louder.  Couldn't be prouder."