A New Beginning

I have long believed that each of us has the potential to make living better for others, to make this world a better place.  With that belief I have also held a belief that what is right is apparent and true.  In other words, I struggle with accepting that some people put their own needs, or more precisely their own wants before the needs of others.  But it holds true that some people want the world to be a better place for them, regardless of the expense to others.  It is the self-centered view of life that so many seem to hold that prevents the world from becoming a better place for all of us.  In this respect, I still hold that what is right is true, but I recognize that what is right is not immediately apparent.

I suppose that is of the highest calling to remove desire from one's heart and mind so that one may give more readily to those in need.  In this time of Christmas when every Christian speaks nobly of giving, it seems a bit ironic that the giving has also created a zeal for receiving that borders on avarice, which is one of the seven deadly sins.  Even in the act of giving, the self withholds much.  I walk out of the grocery store to hear the bell ringing and I see the red bucket that asks for any amount I would be willing to give.  Perhaps out of shame, I cannot walk past the bucket without putting something inside it.  But I find myself limiting my donation to a dollar.  In my mind I justify my meager donation: I will pass by several buckets this season.  If I give a dollar each time, I will have given several dollars to charity.  But I wonder if I am not also thinking, I will give a dollar so that those who see me will think of me as charitable, but I cannot give more than that for I need the rest of the dollars that I have.  My donation is marred by my desire to be seen as noble and by my desire to keep what wealth I have to myself.

As educators, we must know the value of an education.  When a student learns, the student becomes hopeful.  That which he or she learns speaks of the potential of a better tomorrow.  A girl becomes the first in her family to graduate from high school.  She wonders how far she might go.  A boy learns to enjoy reading for the first time, and he wonders what he might learn all his life.  When we offer a person an education, we offer that person hope, we nurture goodness and potential.

But too many educators have not made this their goal.  I am not sure what it is they have set as their goal.  Dr. Tony Bennett, the lame duck superintendent of Indiana schools, has prided himself on school reform.  He points to numbers stating that test scores have improved.  But does he ever ask himself whether those test scores prove that students have the ability to learn on their own.  Students regurgitate what they have been taught to regurgitate, but can they think on their own.

When we allow our self-image to be of more importance than the education of a child, we fail not only the child and a generation.  When we join bandwagons for popular ideas that have no merit we make ourselves feel better, but we fail our society. 

Do we dare disrupt the order of the world?

Kids who demonstrate potential are chosen for opportunities to realize their ambitions, while other kids languish, surrounded by latent possibilities. What would happen if we chose not the first who came to mind but the second or the third child and gave the opportunity to that one instead. In what way might we disrupt the order of the world and for what good?

I recently finished reading Gladwell's Outliers in which he talked, among other topics, about the advantages that some kids have as they grow up, because of when they were born or where they lived or who they knew. What struck me clearly was that many students are denied the opportunities to fully realize their potential. They get passed over in school because they don't show the right character.

The movie Moneyball touched upon this. Players were passed over because they were too old or because they had an ugly girlfriend. People made superficial judgments that denied others opportunities to realize their potential.

The thing I'm driving at is that we need to give a kid a chance, not just the kid who looks the way we think a kid should look, but every kid. Every kid needs a chance. Every kid needs a break. Every kid needs an opportunity to realize what he can be.

Maybe I'm Being Cynical

It has occurred to me that the farther away a person is from a classroom, the more critical he or she is about the education that occurs in that classroom. Building-level administrators often find it difficult to get into the classrooms to see what is going on there. So they assume that nothing good is happening. Central office administration is farther away still, so they naturally know that nothing good is happening. Board members avoid setting foot into the buildings, so they are convinced that nothing good is happening in the buildings, which proves that nothing good is happening in the classrooms. State legislators will never lower themselves to be seen in a public school because they hold schools in complete contempt and loathe that schools exist.

Yes, I'm probably being cynical. But it seems that way.

Consider, as an example, the movement to standardize instruction across the state. That is essentially what the universal appraisal project is set to accomplish. Every teacher will be measured by the same standards, meaning that every teacher has to do the same things to be considered effective. That just doesn't hold true.

There have been teachers throughout time that have, in spite of their leadership and the cries of outrage across the country, they have done a fantastic job teaching kids.

When I was in the classroom, before I'd ever heard the word "rubric," I was using a rubric to assess my students' writing. It was organic, in that it changed as the class moved through the year, shifting emphasis to what we studied and what was emphasized in class. The rubric had three main areas (as opposed to six as in the 6+ traits--I guess I was probably failing there): Content, Format, and GUMS--that's Grammar, Usage, Mechanics, and Sentence Structure. (Maybe it should have been GUMSS.) The rubric was working. Later in the year, the content component broke down into organization, voice, and ideas. And my students learned to write. No kidding--I used to get letters from college professors thanking me for teaching my kids how to write.

Then my department chair announced that central office had decided we should all use one rubric to assess writing. There was no listening. My organic rubric was dead. It had to go. There was no way that what I was doing could be equal to what they were bringing to the table. My assistant superintendent did not know what I was doing, but was convinced that I wasn't dong anything of value. My department chair didn't know what I was doing, but had been told that I wasn't doing anything of value. So the insanity ruled, because they were far away from the classroom and in positions of power. And I can tell you my students suffered. It was madness. I did the best I could do with their lock-step rubric, but it was not responsive to students. Their rubric demanded that every student be alike. Then those ladies came back and told me I was to differentiate instruction.

Can you see the insanity?

Listen. If a teacher is doing a good job, leave him or her alone. Reminds me of the Pink Floyd chant, "Hey, Teacher, Leave those kids alone." Let's change it..."Hey, Moron, leave good teachers alone."

Always Maintain Professional Decorum: The pitfalls of open forums, cell phones, and social networks

Teachers bear a professional, legal, and ethical responsibility to set and maintain appropriate boundaries with students. Although staff members have a sincere interest in students as individuals, partiality and the appearance of impropriety must be avoided. School personnel shall maintain a reasonable standard of care for the supervision, control, and protection of students commensurate with their assigned duties and responsibilities, but may not allow students to regard them as peers. Specifically, three areas of concern are creating open forums during class time, having inappropriate personal relationships with students involving cell phones, and teacher involvement with social networking sites.

Open Forums: The concept of an open forum can be misleading. When it comes to learning, an open forum allows the free exchange of ideas in a civil manner, leading to students becoming aware of alternative perspectives and developing a greater sense of empathy and understanding. However, the classroom is not an open forum in allowing a teacher or a student to disseminate the propaganda of his or her personal beliefs. This is especially true concerning the teacher, for students are not in the habit of challenging the teacher and will often remain respectfully quiet, even when they do not agree. The teacher is to be neutral when discussing topics, thereby allowing students to examine the facts related to an issue and to draw their own conclusions. The teacher is to refrain from announcing personal beliefs regarding the State, the community, the school, or any such topic. As educators are neither to deny nor promote a specific religious belief, neither should they deny nor promote any specific political agenda.

Others consider an open forum as a place where students are free to tell a teacher about personal issues and troubles. Students develop a special trust in teachers; therefore, adults must not take advantage of students’ vulnerability or confidence. A teacher’s impact as a mentor in a student’s life outside of class is important, but a teacher encountering students with personal issues needs to refer the student to a qualified counselor. In fact, teachers who become aware of students in potentially harmful or illegal situations have a legal obligation to report the situation to a counselor, administrator, or the Department of Child Services.

Teachers are cautioned to maintain professional decorum in the classroom and whenever relating to students.

Cell Phone: Cell phones are culturally permeative. The anomaly is the person who does not have a cell phone, the person who does not send text messages. Many teachers and coaches have found the cell phone to be a good tool for contacting students, answering questions about assignments or passing along information about a change in practice. It is reasonable to expect that teachers will communicate with students through the use of cell phones.

However, teachers are not to engage in inappropriate personal relationships, having private conversations, texts, or instant messages with students. Teachers have an obligation to report improper communications with students to their supervisor immediately. Many authorities consider such communication to be “grooming,” a gateway to improper relationships between students and teachers. At the very least, these personal after-hours conversations with students lead to the perception that there is a double standard—every student does not have an equal opportunity to communicate with his or her teacher. This fosters the image that teachers have favorites.

There are times when communicating by cell phone—whether talking or texting—is appropriate and times when it is not. The teacher, as a professional, is to know the difference and not to cross the line.

Social Networking Sites: Social Networks are like cell phones in that they have become a part of the culture. Also as with cell phones, the educator must maintain proper professional boundaries with students. When a teacher uses his personal account to communicate with students, he is inviting the students into a closer relationship, which can be helpful in promoting learning but may also be misinterpreted. Therefore, it is not advisable for teachers to use personal accounts for school purposes. The school provides teachers with e-mail and Moodle accounts for professional correspondence.

If a teacher is enrolled in a social networking site, then the following restrictions should be followed:

• Keep privacy settings high so that only people chosen to relate to can see it.
• Use discretion; do not post comments on a site that would not be said face to face.
• Refrain from communicating with current students.

Currently there are court hearings in other states addressing whether schools may restrict teachers from communicating with students through the use of cell phones and social networks. A judge in St. Louis recently declared that doing so is limiting the freedom of speech of teachers. I tend to agree. But let us not forget that with the freedom we are granted comes responsibility and accountability. The line between what is right and what is wrong is not always clearly marked, but we, as professionals, know when we have crossed that line, and we know that consequences that we would rather avoid may well follow.

Remember to exercise discretion when communicating with students, whether that is in your classroom, on your cell phone, or through a social network, such as Facebook or Twitter. Always maintain professional decorum.

How Have I Learned about Socratic Seminars

I was introduced to Socratic Seminars in 1996. Two great educators, working for the Indiana DOE--Thompson and Wilkinson, had found a man to conduct workshops. His name was Burt Plumb. He had been trained by a former teacher from the Paideia Schools in Chicago. Burt became my mentor for the next twelve years.

The first trainings began with two days of indoctrination, engaging in seminars and learning how to lead a seminar. Then we were sent back to our classrooms with the assignment to conduct at least one seminar. I recall doing two in every class I taught. We then returned for two more days of training, that began with everyone reporting on their experiences of conducting seminars.

At a later date, Burt came to my school and spent some time coaching me, watching me conduct seminars and talking with me about what I was doing well and how I could improve. Coaching is a very important part of conducting seminars.

Still later, I attended a four day summer workshop where I learned what I needed to know to train other teachers how to conduct Socratic Seminars. Just like summer camp, I made a lot of new friends who were all as interested in the method as was I. We communicated online, through email, and at conferences where we made presentations about seminars. We were disciples, in some ways.

Even later, Burt allowed me to attend trainings he conducted at schools all over Indiana. I was learning from him and I was teaching teachers. Burt and I would stay in a cheap hotel and stay up late at night arguing about the limits of seminars. We always talked about writing a book, but haven't gotten around to it.

The bottom line is that I've been studying Socratic Seminars for at least 15 years. I'm still learning about seminars, but I definitely am on the right path.

What is a Socratic Seminar?

A Socratic Seminar is a method of engaging a group of people in a quest for deeper learning and deeper understanding through the use of civil discourse and dialogue.

Some of the characteristics of a Socratic Seminar are that the participants sit in a circle, so that they can see each other and talk to each other. The instructor is less an instructor and more of a facilitator. I will say more about this later. Another characteristic is that the participants do not raise their hands to speak but wait their turn to speak and allow each other a space in which to speak. One last characteristic, although there are more, is that the dialogue centers around a text. A seminar is not a wide open forum or bull session, a place for the free expression of any opinion that pops into anyone's head. The dialogue has to be focused on the text. Comments made are grounded in the text.

The teacher/facilitator does not participate in the dialogue. He keeps his thoughts to himself. Instead he uses questions to stimulate thinking--inviting others into the dialogue by asking them if they agree or disagree, asking questions challenging participants to clarify what they have already said, and directing participants to support their statements with references to the text. The participants may or may not have an objective for engaging in the seminar, but either way, it is the facilitator's duty to help them get where they are going.

A teacher in a workshop once said to me, "But you can't do a seminar every day." I couldn't agree more. In fact, if a teacher has one method that he uses every day, then that teacher is definitely not doing a good job teaching. Period. No, you can't use seminars every day and you should not. But knowing how to do a Socratic Seminar is one excellent tool that every teacher can use once a week or once every two weeks--at any opportunity to get students to engage in deeper learning and higher order thinking.

Choice in Reading Materials

A teacher in my school recently talked with me about choosing a book for her students to read. These students had enjoyed reading Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men and she wanted something like that, something they would enjoy. There were a few of us in the discussion, throwing out titles with the hope that one of them might work.

This evening I was reading a chapter from Alfie Kohn's book Punished by Rewards about constructivism and allowing students choice. An idea struck me that I will pitch to the teacher. It might work.

The idea is to select five titles that the students might like. The teacher would narrow the field of books by choosing five. Without having done that, students would have to choose from millions of titles, some completely inappropriate for a public high school in a conservative community. So, the teacher chooses five titles. She then secures three or four or five copies of each title. The next step is to put the students in groups of three or four.

One student in each group would be designated the task leader or time keeper, making certain that the group completes their project on time. Another student would be the recorder, taking notes on everything that is important to the group's work. Another student would be designated the presenter, the one who will present the findings of the group. If there is a fourth student, he is fortunate to have to do no more than all the others have to do in fulfilling the requirements of the project.

The project is to determine which of the five books the class should read. Each group would be required to create a rubric with the criteria that the group decides is important in choosing a book. During the presentation, the presenter would be required to explain the criteria and to defend it as important and valid.

Then the group would assess each book according to the criteria and rank them according to preference, resulting in one book being that group's choice. During the presentation, the presenter would make a strong case for the group's choice book.

While the presentations were being made, the whole class would take notes as to which book they would like. It could be that the presentation of one group might sway a vote from members of another group.

The end result would come from a whole class, secret ballot vote, and the class would have chosen a book to read.

Through the lesson, students would have learned collaboration, how to create a rubric in making a decision, how to make a persuasive presentation, and how differing perspectives might sway a person's thinking. Oh, and they would also have learned how a representative democracy operates.

Not to mention, they would have decided on a book that most of the class would want to read.

This process could be repeated every time the class reads a book, allowing that the same students would not always get to choose the book and creating a genuine learning community where students have voice and choice.

It couldn't be too bad.