Number One... Engage!

I haven't blogged in a few days. As any educator knows, there's never enough time but never is that more apparent than the end of the year.

So... engaging students. I would call it the number two issue in teaching, number one being motivating students. As someone originally trained as a history teacher, I feel like I have a pretty good perspective on this one. I've long said that if you asked a group of adults what subject they found the most boring in school, most of them would say history. Come on - who wants to learn about a bunch of dead white guys? If you were a twelve-year-old girl with neon hair, would you be thrilled about Hammurabi?

We've spent this school year addressing the Big Question (eggghhhh.... buzzword), "Why should I care about history?" For those of you who have read my earlier posts, you know about my Historical Person Project. The heart of this is finding a way to make "old stuff" relevant.

So... Hammurabi. Mesopotamia. Who cares? Well, hopefully everyone, since these days Mesopotamia is known as Iraq. Got a relative or neighbor over there? Engaging students starts with respecting the fact that they won't care unless you shed some light on the relevance.

For another subject area, much has been said these past years about NASA and whether or not it makes sense to fund the space program when people are starving here on Earth. One look at the Velcro on a pair of sneakers brings a beautiful opportunity to talk about all of the terrestrial items that branch off of space program research. My students are currently exploring Newton's laws by building paper rockets that we're shooting off with compressed air. They are definitely engaged.

Why Standardized Tests Are Stupid and Make Me Want to Club Baby Seals With Dead Kittens

Harsh title? Maybe. I feel harsh right now.

This week, my students are taking a particular flavor of standardized test. I hate standardized tests. I UNDERSTAND WHY WE HAVE THEM, so please don’t e-mail me and explain it. I understand why we have urban decay, a hole in the ozone layer, and teen smoking—that doesn’t mean I think they’re swell.

This one day, the students are taking one test on one particular educational strand. The evidence is overwhelming that one assessment is never a good measure of… well, pretty much anything. (Don’t believe it? See Wormeli, O’Connor, Stiggins, etc., etc., etc…).

Did they stay up late watching the big game/TV show/Internet whatever?

Did they eat breakfast? A healthy one?

Are their parents in the middle of a divorce?

Are the test questions and multiple-guess choices well-worded, or were they pushed through as-is because the company who made them had time and budget constraints and couldn’t/wouldn’t/won’t go back and make much-needed repairs?

Did another class forget to walk quietly through the hallways as they passed my group (probably because they, too, have been in testing and, as a result, have WAY more excess energy than they usually have)?

Should I go on?

How about this: when I was a child, we took the California Achievement Test (despite the fact that we lived in New Hampshire… don’t even get me going…). I could not tell you what my scores were like.

Have I measured up to them?

Should I care if I measured up to them?


[Note for PETA, NSPCA, etc. - I would never--nor would I advocate anyone else--club baby seals with anything, let alone dead kittens. That is the point--that things have gotten so out of hand that I am prompted to act in a way that is completely contrary to my nature. Stop taking yourselves so seriously and go save the whales, ok?]

They All Grow Up

About a half hour ago, a group of eighth graders from my school left on their class trip. They were my second sixth grade class. Next year, they will be cruising the halls of the high school, thinking about "what they want to do with their lives" and longing to apply for driving permits.

Where does all the time go?

As I reflect back on almost twenty years in education (I started subbing the 1990-1991 school year... at the high school from which I had just graduated...), I think about all of the faces I have seen, all of the laughter I have heard. I've wiped away a tear or two--theirs as well as mine.

I came to education the hard way, learning the ropes as I went, an aid in many classrooms. I watched truly inspiring teaching, moderately mediocre teaching, and downright awful teaching. I learned how to relate to kids, often by doing it the wrong way, sometimes by stumbling across the True Path.

I imagine a bizarre cross between This is Your Life, A Christmas Carol, and Dante's Commedia, a phantasmal string of young people gathered facing me. How many of them are smiling?

Empathizing With Student Apathy

I am writing this post as I procrastinate about getting ready for a workshop I really don't want to attend, on a topic I do not believe in, having not finished a unit plan in a format I have no desire to follow...

So let's talk about student apathy.

There has been much discussion as of late (ok... the last 100+ years) about how to motivate and/or engage (they go hand-in-hand, don't they?) students in the American Educational System (or the Ukrainian, British, or Djiboutian, for that matter...). There are many in education--particularly at the secondary level--who feel that students should walk into class on the first day, Athena-like: sprung forth fully formed from their previous learning environment, "knowing what to do" to be students. The amount of time spent finger pointing these days (and usually in a downward direction) is ridiculous, insulting, and completely counterproductive. Educators have plenty of battles to fight without fighting each other.

To quote an unattributable quote, students won't care what you know until they know that you care. To paraphrase that, students won't care what you're saying until you've demonstrated that you're worth listening to/respecting, etc., etc., etc... Maybe your students "aren't demonstrating the skills that they should already have mastered at this level" because you are lame. To be less harsh, maybe you haven't gone through the necessary process of clearly stating and--yes--reviewing the expectations that you so boldly claim to be prerequisite. Sit in a faculty meeting some time. Could there be a more fully-prepared group of people in terms of "demonstrating the necessary skills at this level"? How many are engaged in off-topic side conversations? How many are correcting papers? How many are feigning attention but are really thinking about the luscious cup of coffee (or whatever) they're going to savor on the ride home? [note: I'm not even talking about a lame faculty meeting, but rather one that actually does have value!]

Sound like your classroom?

Some Antics

Short entry today... hopefully some of you readers will plump it up with some comments...

I love language. I love words. As a graduation award, the English teachers at my high school named me an honorary member of the English Department. I love that, once upon a time, words had true power, true meaning.

I like to think they still do.

This leads me to sometimes drive others crazy. The way statements are worded--particularly policy-type statements-- is something I will fight tooth-and-nail about. In a non-educational example (kind of), regardless of your political views, no one can convince me that George W. Bush didn't know the implications when he declared, "This crusade, this war on terrorism is gonna take awhile." The word crusade has an awful lot of resonance in the Middle East. A graduate of Philips Andover and Yale didn't know that? Poppycock.

In education, we are awash in buzzwords. There are plenty of websites out there with lists and lists of them, so I won't bore you with another one (although the Illinois Loop one is pretty funny...). Some of these buzzwords do have meaning, but some are just... well...

poppycock.

Morale (or... The Beatings Will Continue Until Morale Improves)

I love my school. I've said it before--my school is the jewel in the crown. People walk through our doors and just feel the positive energy. Those of you who know anything about middle schools are aware there there are plenty of substances that could be dripping from the walls; the fact that we're talking about positive energy is definitely an anomaly.

So what makes for good (nay--great!) morale? Well, back in the day, I worked at another school with great morale. There were similarities to my current school; the staff was like a family, we had common outlooks but with enough variety to spurn healthy debate and competition. We LOVED pulling pranks on one another. In short, it was a place of surprise and wonder, where every day the ride in found you thinking, "I wonder what hi-jinks will ensue today."

As educators, we are walking targets. Most of us wear our hearts on our sleeves. We have GINORMOUS egos. (Think not? How many other jobs absolutely depend on your belief that you will walk in every day and change the world?). Any parent/child/community member/news agency can say pretty much whatever they want about us--individually or collectively--and privacy laws and just plain ethics require that we make no response. Don't even get me started about the Sisyphusian initiatives--local or otherwise--like NCLB. The very nature of teaching is giving; it's pretty easy to become depleted rather rapidly.

Personally--and rather selfishly--I recharge my batteries at the kids' expense. That's right--I said it. It had to be said. Your innocent little chidlers are coming to my classroom and I'm feeding off of their wonder, their enthusiasm, their love of life. I've already beat this horse.

At the end of the day, morale is about feeling appreciated for who you are and what you do. It's not about ego-stroking or butt-patting ("Look, Mommy! I went poopy!")--just being recognized.

Sometimes You Eat the Bear, or... Knowing When to Quit

I'm not a quitter. At least, I don't perceive myself to be one. I'm a fighter, sometimes when I shouldn't be. I'm an idealist. One of my favorite teachers described me as being, "like Kurt Vonnegut--you like putting sour coatings on sugar pills." I'm not talking about fighting just for the sake of fighting. I'm talking about saying that there's an elephant in the middle of the room... because there is.

Rage, rage... rage...

So, when is quitting not quitting? Live to fight another day, and all that. (No, Virginia, I'm not talking about quitting my job, or quitting teaching, or walking off the planet...). I guess I'm talking about picking your battles, but leaving the battlefield in such a way that the very act of leaving becomes the attack. More rambling, James... way to increase your readership...

The Point: with all that we are asked to do, sometimes we need to be willing to remove our name from something as a statement of our disapproval. We are--each of us--a gift to the world. I won't quote that often-misquoted (or mis-attributed)-quote about Our Deepest Fear, but you get the idea. I'm not talking about taking your ball home and pouting--that's just being a whining whiner who whines. I'm talking about recognizing that there are only so many hours in the day, and we have only so much to give. If your giving in a given situation is taking more from you than it is producing...

Walk away.