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.

Grades, Huh, Yeh...What are they good for?

Okay...The title was my lame attempt at humor, calling on the well recognized phrasing from the song "War." Perhaps I wanted to go on to the next part of that phrasing..."absolutely nothing."

I'm not sure that I would say grades are worth nothing, but the reality is that grades are not a good indicator of what a student has learned. I know most teachers state that students have to earn the grades, like earning an allowance. What some students have learned all too well is that jumping through prescribed hoops in a prescribed manner gets them the grade they want. Taking that grade home and showing it to their parents results in smiles and hugs and dinners at their favorite restaurant and new video games. Grades have become the carrots that get kids to perform as we would have them perform. Grades are what we use to control kids. And they work for some kids and not for others. Those for whom grades do not work are considered failures.

So the purpose of grades is to control kids, to sort kids into categories of those we like and those we don't like, and to delude us into thinking that kids are actually learning what we want them to learn (which sounds like another mind-control objective). So, there are a lot of evils related to using the grading system that has defined education in America for over 100 years, but we seem to be stuck with it for the time being. (I stated that the grading system defines education. I think this is an important statement, for one would think that the grading system is only a part of education and that education defines the grading system. I am suggesting that it has been and is quite the other way around. I hope to address that topic at a later date.)

If we are to use the grading system, how might we use it best?

I will contend that the first step is to establish a clear understanding of the meaning of an A, B, etc. What are we saying about a student's work and learning when we award that student with a grade? After that, we have to consider the impact of giving a student a low grade or a high grade or an average grade. We cannot avoid the fact that awarding a student a grade is labeling that student. A student who earns an A is a star. A student who earns a C is just average, okay, nothing to write home about, but he'll do in a pinch. A student who earns a D is an annoyance. Why can't he work harder? Why doesn't he try to be like the other students? A student who earns an F is a failure--a failure as a child, as a student. We're likely to be paying his way through life forever. How can we avoid labeling students with grades?

The two questions posed here are deeply related, for it is the integrity of the grade that is in question. When a grade has integrity, it relates directly to how well a student was able to demonstrate an understanding of the concepts posed to be learned. When a grade has integrity, it is also only an indicator of where the student's learning is at that given moment in time. A grade of integrity provides direction for the student. The student is directed to revisit concepts for which he failed to show proficiency. Therefore, a grade of integrity has the potential to change to show that the student has mastered at this time what he had not mastered earlier. A grade of integrity also relates to the learning of the student relative to where the student began as a learner, rather than relative to his classmates.

We all know that some students come into the classroom far ahead of their classmates. We want them to move to 100 yards of learning and they are starting on the 90 yard line. Other students come in having done all right. They are on the 50 yard line. Still others are on the 10 yard line. At the end of the semester, the stars and those average students have crossed the 100 yard line. But those who started the furthest from the goal only made it to the 80 yard line. They failed.

But let's consider the learning that took place. The stars moved 10 yards, and for that we heap the glory on them. The average kids moved 50 yards, which certainly seems like more of an accomplishment. But those failing kids, they moved 70 yards. They didn't meet the goal set by the teacher for the class, but they showed the greatest improvement. So, why did we give them an F?

There is a lot wrong with our grading system. Maybe we should start with something new.

The Purpose of the American School System

I'm not and I am speaking of the purpose of education. Today, because of the political focus on education that has charged the American school system with negative energy bent on serving those seeking votes to secure their jobs, we are subjugated to talk of the purpose of the American school system apart from the purpose of education. When we talk of the purpose of the American school system, we are talking of our schools serving the corporate imperative, preparing students to be good citizens--which today varies according to which extreme you are enlisted to defend. When we talk of the purpose of education, we ignore the political structures and the corporate imperative, we ignore the economic status of the United States and the comparisons of state and national standardized, norm-referenced tests designed to classify every child based on a choice between A, B, C, or D. When we talk about the purpose of education, we have to talk about the human factor, the factor of one child, of one future with or without hope, for that is what education gives--HOPE!

Kids come into our schools with their minds bent and twisted by television and Facebook and video games and churches and politicians and moms and dads. I say bent and twisted as opposed to shaped because some of their minds have no discernible shape. Like a garden left unto itself, their minds have grown wild. Their minds have hundreds of bent and twisted branches all gnarled together--largely green, but with scars where one branch rubs against the other in the wind. Largely green, but faded underneath and showing signs of illness and weakness and decay. Suffering from the lack of care. Suffering from freedom that ignores responsibility. The kids come to our schools in this condition and our schools are charged by the corporate imperative to clean up those gardens, to make them all healthy and productive--to produce fruit from acidic soil and the undergrowth.

The best teachers know that they cannot serve the standardized tests. They cannot serve the corporate imperative. They serve their students. And they do this by caring first about the child. These teachers know that what they have to do is give this child the hope that he can grow straight and strong and be fruitful. People only learn when they have hope. I saw a poster that said something to the fact that wonder and awe were the foundation of learning. Yes, but hope is the foundation of wonder and awe. Without hope, one does not care to wonder and one cannot be in awe. To the hopeless, the awesome is one more reminder that he doesn't stand a chance.

The purpose of the American School System is to serve the corporate imperative. But the purpose of education is to give every child enduring hope. If a child has hope, then he will wonder and be in awe. A child with hope will have a reason to learn and want to learn. And we have never been able to stop a child from learning who wanted to learn. A child who wants to learn no longer needs his teacher, and that is the mark of a great teacher--When a child can learn without dependency on his teacher, the teacher has done his or her job well and deserves all the awards. If a child has a reason to learn, we don't have to worry about the corporate imperative, the corporate tests, measuring and comparing the status of the U.S. against any other country. When a child has a reason to learn, she will learn in spite of corporate America. She will learn in spite of No Child Left Behind. She will learn in spite of Democrats and Republicans and Tea Baggers.

Teachers have to give some attention to the expeditiously evil standardized, norm-referenced, corporate-sating tests. But I urge teachers to work first and foremost from the desire to give every child hope. Every child. Especially those who are most bent and twisted and have the least hope. Give every child hope.

Learning is an Act of Choice

Having my interest in the concept of the intentional non-learner renewed, I spent some time reviewing notes that I had taken from a presentation made by Larry Lazotte at the Model Schools Conference in June of 2006. In that presentation, he had stated that learning is an act of choice. I wish I knew more as to his thoughts about learning as an act of choice. Not having more on the topic, I decided to attempt some understanding.

Without a doubt, some of our students choose not to learn, or not to learn what it is that we want them to learn. This is to suggest that there are students who are at varying levels of compliance. Some will do whatever we ask of them and others won't. The question becomes, "why won't they do what we ask?" Why do students choose not to learn?

I think there are at least two answers to this question. First, the learning often involves effort and there are many of us--I am included--who would prefer to avoid effort, if possible. (I believe that I have resigned myself to the understanding that the harder I work, the better off my life is. Therefore, I do what I have to do.) So, the learning looks like work...some students decide they really would rather not do the work.

Other students have tried to do the work and failed. Failure is a hurtful thing. They eventually come to the conclusion that when they try, they fail. Therefore, if they do not try, they do not fail and they can feel better about themselves.

Yes, learning is an act of choice...but there must be more to this topic.

Intentional Non-Learners Revisited

It has been a long time since I revisited this topic and a long time since I have posted an entry on my blog. There is so much to do every day that I've taken to placing more value on my down time. Probably a bad habit that I'm forming.

Anyway, I was researching Intentional Non-Learners and it led me back to my own blog...an entry from February, 2009. There I found a comment from a parent. His son's principal had told him that his son was a non-learner. I'm sure this made the father angry, although his comment on my blog does not come across as anger but certainly frustration and perhaps misunderstanding.

Let's be direct. If the principal actually said that the son was a non-learner, then the principal does not understand learning. The father talks about how his son asks so many questions that Dad has to ask the son to be quiet. This is indicative of an enthusiastic curiosity, which is the motivation to learn. If a kid is asking questions, he's a learner. Curiously, our schools often work to stop kids from asking questions. We kill the natural curiosity that students have, then we bemoan the fact that they don't want to learn what we want them to learn. Why do we do this? Because letting kids ask questions and make discoveries is messy business and we like everything neat and pretty and quiet and orderly. We don't really like kids that much. We would prefer that they all act like adults.

I'd prefer if adults would act more like kids from time to time.

Anyway...the term "intentional non-learner" does not mean that kids cannot learn. It means that some students choose not to learn what we want them to learn. They have decided that the system does not meet their needs, that they cannot function successfully in the system, that we don't really care about them, and that trying results in failure; therefore, why try? This is not a condemnation of the students. This is a statement against teaching practices in our schools. We not only allow students to become intentional non-learners, but we create the intentional non-learners.

This is why reform is so very important, and it begins with believing that every child can learn. From there, we begin to identify the students who are reluctant learners. We talk to the guidance counselor. We talk to the parents. Most importantly, we talk to the child. And we try to find out why the kid has decided not to do the work. Then we modify our lessons and differentiate the instruction in an attempt to engage the learner.

The desire to learn is something that we all share as human beings. It is one of the universal characteristics of the human experience that transcends all barriers and makes us able to relate to each other, to love one another. It is the responsibility of the school to nurture each student's desire to learn, not to kill it.

The Intentional Non-Learner label is not intended to dismiss students. It is intended to raise the awareness of educators so that we might better meet the needs of our students.

Don't Take It Personal

When a parent meets with a teacher to discuss issues related to the student-teacher relationship and the performance of the student in the classroom, it is difficult for the teacher not to take the concern as a personal affront. However, the teacher--as the professional--must do exactly that: not take the concern as a personal affront.

Taking a concern as being personal translates in to personal criticism: there is something wrong with me. From that point on, the teacher is no longer hearing the concern or focused on the better interest of the student. From that point on, the teacher can only hear in his mind, "Why don't these people like me?" "I'm doing the best I can." "Am I the only one here who realizes that I have to deal with 150 kids who don't want to learn what I'm teaching?" In other words, the issue has become not only a personal affront, but also a personal defense. The teacher is now so completely self-absorbed that he cannot do what is expected of him, concentrate on the issue as it relates to the student and try to find a way to get the student to work to his potential.

At this point, I would like to suggest that having a student work to his potential is something different from having a student work to the teacher's expectations. This does not mean that the teacher's expectations are not important or should be ignored. High expectations are important to the success of all students. However, when those expectations take into consideration the student's potential, then it may be possible to really stretch the student and to have the student learn more. Expectations alone will not do the job.

Back to the making it personal...

Sitting in a conference between a teacher and a parent, the teacher stated, "You make me feel bad when..." I don't know that I have heard a statement of more personal self-absorption. The teacher could not hear the concern of the parent. The teacher was not interested in the needs of the student. The teacher felt that he was under attack and that those attacking him were wrong and needed to know that. In other words, the teacher was not being a professional in that moment.

It is important to know that parents have a privilege of being emotional. Teachers, as professionals, are not afforded the same privilege. Teachers are required to listen to a parent's concern and to respond to the concern, without making the issue personal. That will communicate to the parents that the teacher is a professional, that the teacher places the concern for a student's well being and achievement first, and that the student is in competent hands. And that is what is expected of us, as professionals.

Grading, Assessment, and Feedback

Grading is an issue. It really probably shouldn't be an issue, but it is. I think much of the issue hinges upon a complete unawareness of the purpose of grading.

When I think back about my personal realization of grades, I believe I became distinctly aware that it was a rating system, designed to determine who was smart and who was not, before I ever thought that grading expressed how well I might know or understand a concept.

In a very real sense, these are the dominant reasons for grades: sorting students in such a way that a grade A student is better than a grade B student, and using grades to determine whether a student has mastered or learned a concept.

Of the two, I much prefer the latter. People get sorted enough, often of their own doing, without needing grades to mark the differences. Honestly, as one student may need more time to complete a task that another can do faster, the reality is that both students can complete the task and therefore have somewhat equal reasoning skills. It is only that one is faster.

Okay, faster is better in some situations. But slow and steady is also good. Sometimes, it is better to take one's time. But I'm way off the topic.

The topic is still, "What is the purpose of grades?" I believe this is an important question that every faculty of every school has to answer and agree upon, for then every practice regarding grading will be founded upon this belief. And that will be a good thing.

Another Good Year Has Begun

I'm tired after the first day of a new school year, and I really don't have a lot to say. I must have walked around the building twenty times, stopping in to ask teachers if everything was going well, talking to students and helping them find their classes, and just taking it all in. As I talked with teachers, I tried to keep the conversation light. I tried to offer compliments when possible. I tried to build the teachers up, help them to believe that they were and are capable of doing incredible work. I think this stems from a belief that I hold about how to get the best work out of people: you have to help people to believe in themselves. When a person believes in himself, he is willing to take a risk. He is willing to put in the extra time. He is willing to hear a critical review. He is willing to become more. Perhaps it is because he trusts that he isn't going to be attacked. No one is going to yell at him. He is safe.

In public schools, we talk a lot about providing a safe environment, and we immediately think about Columbine and kids bringing weapons to school. We think about some guy gone crazy walking in and shooting up the place. Those are certainly threats that we have to take seriously, but I think there is something much more important regarding having a safe environment. Students and teachers and everyone in the school have to believe that it is okay to take risks, to take chances. It is okay to be wrong, as long as you're trying. It's not okay, certainly, to be wrong and remain wrong, but it is definitely okay to make a mistake. The problem is that most schools are places where people don't feel safe enough to risk being wrong. Certainly their peers will make fun of them, but that's because the teacher holds the mistake up to display it and to embarrass the student--I don't know why.

There are ways to look at student mistakes without causing embarrassment. I used to retype passages from student essays onto an overhead transparency so that I could talk about the mistakes without the student's name being on the paper. I also made sure that the student whose mistakes I was using was not in the class. Relevancy was not an issue. A good portion of the students in all of my classes were making the same mistakes. It was relevant.

The president of our school board spoke to the teachers and administrators and classified staff on the day before students arrived and said that we were engaged in profoundly important work. He was right. And because it is important work, everyone involved in the work needs to feel that they are in a place where it is safe to take a chance and to risk being wrong, hoping that they might just be right. And what they will learn is that learning is a journey of discovery that takes them to places they couldn't imagine.

Such rambling....

Awareness--Preparedness--Confidence

I've talked a lot about confidence. There is a balance between a lack of confidence and an abundance of confidence that is the point at which a person feels capable of handling a crisis, a conflict, or a situation. A lack of confidence undermines an individual's ability to address the crisis, conflict, or situation in a manner that will be beneficial or productive. Indeed, a lack of confidence almost ensures failure and reinforces the lack of confidence; you can bet the person isn't going to try that again soon. An abundance of confidence can be just as detrimental to successful resolution, for the person who has too much confidence will probably have already decided how the crisis is to be resolved, will dismiss the ideas and concerns of other people involved in the crisis because he already knows what needs to be done, and will expedite the resolution regardless.

A person has to have confidence that he can resolve the conflict, find a solution to the problem or crisis, while at the same time the person has to recognize and honor the concerns of other people involved in the conflict or crisis. Such confidence does not come naturally. Confidence has to be developed or nurtured. Through an understanding of the need to develop or nurture confidence, the individual understands that there is a process that moves him closer to true confidence. This process moves from awareness through preparedness to end in confidence.

Awareness is the key to all understanding. All learning, all understanding begins with awareness. We become aware that we are hungry, that we have a need to eat, and we move to satisfy that hunger. Consequently, the satisfying of the hunger preserves our being. When we become more aware of the relationship between satisfying our hunger and the preservation of our being, we realize that it is not simply eating that is important but what we eat. In other words, eating a large bag of chocolate covered peanuts and raisins may satisfy our hunger, but we would not be receiving the right nutrients for a healthy body; therefore, we may become overweight and lethargic. Our health might suffer in spite of our having plenty of food to eat. Becoming increasingly aware moves us to a better understanding of life, of our relationship with all that fills our world, and allows us to make better choices.

Once we have increased our awareness, we move to prepare ourselves better to meet the circumstances and situations of which we have become more aware. In the case of conflict and crisis, becoming more aware of the characteristics of conflict and crisis helps us to prepare to meet those qualities. For instance, when we understand that people become emotional when engaged in a crisis or conflict, we become aware that we need to allow people to express these emotions, we need to listen to what they are saying, and once we have identified their genuine concerns, we need to restate those concerns to them so that they will realize that we have heard their concerns and listened to them. This is a first step in conflict resolution and seems simple. However, if we are not aware that emotion is a natural part of conflict, then we may not take the time to allow people to express their emotion, we might not actually listen to them, and we tend to force our solution without taking into consideration the concerns of others. It all begins with awareness.

Once the individual has become more aware and moved to prepare himself to better meet the circumstances of the conflict or crisis, he becomes appropriately confident in his abilities. The confidence will not abandon him. He can face any conflict, no matter how angry another person might be, and rely on what he knows to move toward resolution.

It all begins with awareness that moves the individual to prepare, which gives rise to true confidence.

The Crisis of Confidence

Some years ago I sat in the cafeteria of the school I was teaching in to listen to a person present information about brain research relative to teaching. I consciously remember very little about the presentation; the concept of brain research relative to teaching was new and foreign to me. I am still barely knowledgeable about brain research as it relates to the educative process. However, I came away with one important idea that day: the crisis of competence.

As I already stated, I do not suggest that I know much about the brain, but I recall that the crisis of competence created a reaction within the amygdala, a portion of the brain responsible for the creation and storage of emotional memories. The most important emotional memories may well be those associated with fear, resulting in fear behavior. It is our memories of the things we fear that promote our survival. Certainly, when we are young and mistakenly touch a pan that has been used for cooking and receive a burn, we remember that a pan that has been on the stove may be hot and that we should use caution. But the reality is that we now fear the hot pan and that emotional memory is stored and retrieved when needed to keep us from burning ourselves over and over again. It is a survival skill.

At this point it is important to address then what the individual perceives as necessary to his or her survival, for it is not only that which threatens our physical health that may be perceived as a threat to our survival, but our emotional health is also threatened from time to time and is also important to our survival. Another way of saying this is that we have to feel good about who we are. We have to have a good sense of self worth. Those who lack a strong sense of self worth become targets for ridicule and perhaps more, making their survival tenuous on a daily basis.

Accepting that the individual needs a strong sense of self worth to survive and that the amygdala stores memories of the things that create fear--cause to be concerned about one's survival, it is reasonable to establish that an individual's self-worth may be threatened from time to time, causing the amygdala to send an alert through the brain, calling for the individual to move into survival mode. Moving into survival mode generally means that the individual resorts back to the skills that are most comfortable and most protective. During a physical attack, the body bends more toward a fetal position, protecting vital organs, and the individual may look for ways to strike out in defense. During an emotional attack, the individual again bends inward and looks to strike out. The bending inward is seeking that which is most comforting and protective, providing the stance to launch the counter-attack. These emotional attacks create in the individual the crisis of competence: sensing that the self is under attack, the individual's confidence is challenged, perhaps weakened. Therefore, the individual seeks that which is more familiar, that in which he or she has greater confidence, so that he or she may return to security, to survival.

When the teacher encounters a crisis of confidence in the classroom, he or she resorts back to the most comfortable methods of teaching or of classroom management, which tend to be those methods that were used when the teachers were students, teaching as they had been taught. And this is where teaching often falters. What the skilled educator must do is create a high degree of confidence in his teaching methods so that even when experiencing a crisis of confidence, he or she can continue to pursue the method chosen rather than resort to survival mode.

More on confidence and the crisis of confidence to come later.

The Posture of Conflict

When I speak of posture here, I mean more than a straight back and squared shoulders. Posture is the communication of an attitude or frame of mind, especially when one is involved in a conflict. Crossed arms communicate an unwillingness to listen and a resolve to have one's way. Rolling eyes communicates a disdain or disrespect for another person or for the other person's ideas. A loud sigh communicates a weariness with what another person may be saying, a message that one no longer has the patience for the other person or his ideas. In other words, posture is body language and we should make no mistake in recognizing that people hear what we say with our body sometimes better than what we say with words. For this reason, when one finds himself entering a conflict, he should be cautious and deliberate in his posture, if his intent is to find resolution.

As an educator, the conflicts I find myself involved with generally place me in the position of the professional, the one in charge. Consequently, my posture must be that of the professional, and I must assume a professional demeanor at all times. Without a doubt, there are times when I, too, want to scream profanities and yell louder than the other people, but screaming and yelling have never really resolved any conflicts. Certainly, there are conflicts that end when one party yells and screams, but this is not because the screamer has proved his point and won the conflict. It is more so because the other party has determined that the screamer has lost all contact with reality and that no resolution is possible; therefore, there is no reason to continue pursuing resolution. So, in spite of our desire to yell and scream, we have to remain calm and be the voice of reason.

A proper professional posture will communicate an openness and allow one to listen carefully to what is being said during the conflict. Through careful listening and through maintaining a calm, clear voice, the professional is then able to paraphrase what he has heard. This communicates to the person who is angry that he is indeed being heard, which often goes a long way toward resolving the conflict. But it all begins with the proper posture, with the proper body language.

The Origin of Conflict

In my last blog I alluded to the origins of conflict. I suggested that conflict arises from the fact that man is a social animal, that the conflict is a result of individual desires, ambitions, and space issues collide with those of other individuals. David Bohm, in his book On Dialogue, provides some discussion that supports this thinking (although I have to be careful because Bohm also identifies thought as the major culprit in creating conflict--more on that later, I hope).

Bohm begins with the premise that everyone has basic opinions and assumptions. The term "basic" suggests, in Bohm's words, that these opinions and assumptions are "about the meaning of life; about your own self-interest, your country's interest, or your religious interest; about what you really think is important." (There's that word "think" again.) The reader may wish to revisit an earlier posting that I made regarding opinion. Bohm goes on to say that when these assumptions are challenged or attacked that we step up to defend them, because "a person identifies himself with them. They are tied up with his investment in self-interest."

We can, therefore, determine that conflict occurs when a person's self-interests and beliefs, upon which is founded the individual's identity, are threatened. Our beliefs, opinions, and assumptions may be ill-founded, completely wrong, but we are offended when it is brought to our attention that we may be wrong. There is a connection between our opinions and assumptions and our self-worth. If our opinions and assumptions are wrong, then we are at fault, and that can't be a good thing.

The reality is that we are bound to be wrong about some things. Therefore, what we have to do is remove the personal attachment to the ideas, to the thoughts, so that we might better assess the value of the thoughts, allowing us to communicate more openly, without taking a defensive stance and allowing an emotional attachment to prevent our resolving the conflict.

The First Rule of Conflict Resolution

I have recently been dealing with the stumblings of a colleague with regard to his manner of dealing with conflict. The circumstances of the conflict are irrelevant, as they always are. Allow me to explain. Conflict is bound to happen. I think it has something to do with man being a social animal. The conflict, from my perspective, occurs because the autonomy of the individual--I guess you could say the individual's solitude or oneness or ego--anyway, the individual with personal desires and personal ambitions and personal space issues comes in contact with other individuals, all with similar desires, ambitions, and space issues. The group of individuals actually benefit from being in contact with each other, but their personal desires and such are now bumping against the personal desires of others. That is what causes conflict and, consequently leads to the first rule of conflict resolution:

Don't make the conflict personal.

We have to recognize that the conflict is made up of a matter of circumstances that seem to be at odds. Therefore, the best way to resolve the conflict is to examine the circumstances and to consider how they might best be resolved. However, the conflict becomes more complicated when the persons involved choose to make the conflict a matter of personal pride, personal dignity, personal hurt. One can always tell when this happens because people begin to make accusations: "But you said...;" "You have never liked me;" "I was forced to act..." The people involved in the conflict want to blame somebody. They want to absolve themselves of all responsibility. They want to win and that means somebody else has to lose.

Conflicts are not sporting events, although sporting events are made of conflict. Indeed, if most people stopped thinking about their personal gain or loss before the conflict occurs, there would be less conflict. People would then base their actions on the integrity of the moment, on the more mutually beneficial way to act.

A good practice in training one's self to deal with conflict in line with the first rule of conflict resolution is to practice writing and talking without using personal pronouns or names. This practice gives communication an academic tone, and an academic tone is more objective, open to hearing the facts before passing judgment. In contrast, when people make a conflict personal, they pass judgment before considering the facts. The conflict is made complicated by personal prejudice.

Practice the first rule of conflict resolution. Don't make it personal

The Insanity of American High Schools

I apologize that I am not interested in accuracy, but I recall that Albert Einstein once said that if we continue to do as we have always done but expect different results, then we are insane. That, ladies and gentlemen, defines the problem with American high schools clearly.

Schools never did look to engage students in learning. Education has always been something that is done to the student. Schools discourage curiosity, questioning, thinking. Schools reward unquestioning conformity and mindless parroting. Our best and brightest are the ones who conform the most and think the least.

All efforts to educate students in the traditional American high school result in making students dependent on teachers for their learning, in allowing students to remain immature and prejudice in their thinking, in upholding all that stands in contrast to learning. And we do this with pride!

Something has got to change!

We have enabled our students to be ugly in their thinking and repulsive in their learning. People take pride in not reading. A colleague of mine--an English teacher, by God!--once admitted to me that he had read only one book in his entire life. How in name of humanity can a person go through life without knowing the joy of reading?

Some of the greatest books I have ever read have transformed my thinking, have inspired me to make a difference in my living, have made me proud of my humanity. Most importantly, my reading has made me independent of my teachers. I am not dependent on them for my learning, and that is a testimony to the good that my teachers have done. They did not want me to be dependent on them. The mark of a great teacher is that he or she becomes increasingly unnecessary. For a teacher to believe that no learning occurs without his or her being present is the ultimate self-indulgence and self-pride.

I am so very frustrated with stupid people and their damn pride in their stupidity. And I am more so frustrated with our schools' contributing to the stupidity.

When will it all end?