What Should Learning Look Like?

One thing I've noticed since becoming a teacher is that just about everywhere I look, I see things that make me think about how I teach, my students, or education in general. Sometimes these flickers of thought are inspired by the kinds of things you would expect- an article about education, an advertisement on the radio about increasing graduation rates, etc.- but sometimes, the spark comes from an unexpected place. I had this kind of experience yesterday. I was at my brother's house, and he put the movie Dolphin Tale in for our kids to watch. I had heard of the movie, and it is currently on my waiting list with Netflix, but I figured it was a movie my kids would enjoy, but that I would find fairly boring. I was wrong.

photo courtesy of www.moviepostershop.com

While the movie has a very heartwarming message about helping others and the power of hope, that is not what made the movie worthwhile for me. The thing that caught my attention is the role education played in the film. Here's the rundown:

The main character, Sawyer, is a very introverted kid. He doesn't have many, if any, friends, and we learn that he fails pretty much every subject in school. As teachers, we all know kids like Sawyer. For Sawyer, school just doesn't seem to click for him. This is not to say that he isn't intelligent. Early in the movie, we find that he has his own little workshop in the garage where he repairs the remote-controlled helicopters he likes to fly as a hobby, as skill many of us would probably have a difficult time mastering. As the movie unfolds, it is revealed that Sawyer must attend summer school to get credit for the classes he failed. It is while he is on his way to summer school that things begin to happen. Sawyer is riding along the beach when a fisherman yells at him for help. A dolphin has washed up on shore and is caught in the rope from a crab box. Sawyer stays with the dolphin until a marine life rescue unit can come take the dolphin away, during which time he cuts the rope and apparently forms a bond with the animal.

After school, Sawyer goes to check on the dolphin and ends up making friends with the people at the marine hospital. Long story short (too late, I know), Sawyer ends up skipping school (where he was learning about prepositions in a way that makes me, an English teacher who does still teach grammar, want to run out screaming) to spend time working with the dolphin on her recovery. While there, he begins learning about the biology of all of the animals in the center and how to care for them. As an audience, we don't even realize he is learning because it just looks like a kid enjoying what he is doing and the people he is doing it with, but when he bring his mother to center, and she sees her chronic F student giving her an expert tour of the facility and interacting with everyone there instead of quietly sitting in the corner, she realizes what we need to realize as educators- learning is more genuine and more real when it applies to real things. She lobbies the summer school teacher to excuse Sawyer from the rest of the class so he can continue his work at the center, offering to have him write a report to receive credit for the course. The teacher, dumbly in my opinion, refuses. Sawyer continues his work and writes the report anyway. In the end, after seeing how much Sawyer accomplished when he wasn't chained to a desk, the teacher, wisely in my opinion, decides to give Sawyer credit.

The message here- We, as educators, need to be paying attention to our students to see if we have any Sawyers in our midst. I, for one, have made an real effort to start including more project-based learning into my classroom, and I began a project with one of my senior-level classes last year, which I am continuing this year, that requires them to work with a mentor in the community to learn more about their intended career and work with that person to create a project/product that gives them real-world experience in that field, but that isn't enough. I need to open my eyes and ears to find out if there are any kids in my classes that are doing amazing things on their own and figure out a way to tap that enthusiasm and let them bring it to my classroom. So, to any students who may be reading this (for extra credit, which just makes the whole thing feel tainted), do you have a passion for some kind of learning that you aren't getting in school? Are you like Sawyer in any way? To any teachers who may be reading this, do you have any success stories of helping a kid like Sawyer by plugging into their passion, even when it didn't fit your curriculum? Do you have any stories of missed opportunities to do this? How can use what happened in this movie as an inspiration to allow our students the freedom to really learn while still meeting all of our accountability requirements? The challenge is large, but all of the really worthwhile in challenges in life generally are. I look forward to hearing from you.

Priorities

"The key is not to prioritize what's on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities."

~Stephen R. Covey

I'm always amazed when I talk to people with hobbies. Whether it is golfing, making crafts, reading (for pleasure), or just about any other thing people do for no purpose other than the feeling they get from doing, I am always envious of hobbyists. It isn't that I necessarily want to do what they do; the fact is that many people's hobbies would bore the daylights out of me. No, the thing that paints me green is simply that they have a hobby. I've never really had what I would call a hobby. I've flirted with hobbies before, and there are a list of things that I would love to spend time doing, but I have to admit that I have always failed to establish something that I regularly do for enjoyment. Don't get me wrong, I do things for enjoyment, but not many of them are productive. I think hobbies should be productive. The problem I have is that by the time I'm done with all of the productive things I have to do on any given day, I don't have much left in the tank for something unnecessarily productive. Then, while doing something enjoyable but wholly unproductive- watching television- I had an epiphany.

I was watching a show called The Middle. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this program, it is a sitcom that centers on a family of five in rural Indiana. The parents both work, and the kids are a strangely familiar mix of people you may actually know. They live in a house that has clearly been decorated bit by bit over a couple of decades of not being able to afford an interior designer, and their dishwasher requires duct tape in order to work. In a sentence, it is a show about my family and quite a few families I know. It is refreshing to see a sitcom that I can relate to. Don't get me wrong, I also enjoy shows about Naval Criminal Investigation Service agents and lovable physicists with a passion for all things nerdy, but I don't really connect with those characters. This connection to the characters in The Middle is the source of my epiphany. The mother, Frankie, comes to the realization in last week's episode that they spend so much time doing the unpleasant things they don't really want to do that they don't have time to the things they really do want to do. She references missing fun holiday events to do laundry and passing on birthdays and anniversaries in order to fulfill other menial household tasks. She realized her "To Do" list was out of whack. Her realization became my realization. My priorities are usually listed like this:

-Things I have to do.

-Things I really should do

-Fall asleep

-Dream about the things I'd really like to do

-Wake up

-Repeat

The fact is that I have a hobby. There are a couple of things that I really enjoy doing. In fact, I enjoy doing these two things so much, that I actually majored in it in college. I love to read books, and I love to write. The problem is that I put all of the things that are supposedly more important ahead of doing either of them as a hobby. Do I read? Sure. I read all of the time, but very little of it is based on enjoyment. I read emails, instructions, and homework assignments. Do I write? Absolutely. I write assignment instructions, emails, hall passes, and feedback on IEP progress reports. I've spent the last couple of years lamenting the fact that I don't have time to read the books I'd like to read or write the things I'd like to write. I find pockets of time here and there, spread out over months of time for these activities, but I'd hardly call that a rewarding hobby. That is until that episode of The Middle when I realized that much like the characters on the screen, I've had my priorities out of whack. I need to start putting my hobbies higher on the list. It depresses me to look at my two blogs (this post appears on both) and realize that children born on the dates of my last posts are old enough to walk. I am resolving with this post to change that. I am resolving to put my hobbies closer to the top of the list. I am resolving to blog once a week (I require my Creative Writing students to do it, why shouldn't I allow myself to do it?) and read a novel a month (A pathetic goal for someone who used to read a novel in a day, but it takes baby steps).

Just to prove that this isn't an empty goal, I am writing this post with a stack of work sitting next to me. I have student work to grade, lesson plans to create, hundreds of pages of assigned reading and assignments from my grad classes, and laundry to fold, but I am taking the time to do something I want to do before I even touch the things I need to do, and I feel better about the day already.

Would This Work?

I had a really fun conversation with my principal and a couple of fellow teachers on Twitter last week. It was about an idea that my principal (@phsprincipal for you Twitterers or www.davemeister.net for those who like his blog) and I have talked about before, but this time it felt more realistic, like we could actually give it a try. Anyway, we decided to throw the idea out to a larger audience to get more feedback and maybe even more ideas as we look further into trying to implement this on a small scale to see how effective (or ineffective) it is. Here is the basic idea:

1. Form a teacher team of four or five teachers- Language Arts, Math, Science, Social Sciences, and Special Education if we can swing it.

2. Assign that team a group of 50-75 students. Students would be enrolled onto teams based on interests or maybe desired educational outcomes.

3. The team would operate almost entirely outside of the traditional school schedule. The idea of bell schedules and set patterns for moving from one room to another would be out the window. The team would spend the majority of the day working together as a whole. There would be times when the teachers could pull smaller groups of students aside to provide specialized instruction within their content area, but for the most part, learning would be viewed as a collaborative process that does not recognize the boundaries between subjects. They would tackle projects or explore all aspects of a given topic. For example, instead of kids learning about ancient Greece from a purely historic perspective in history class, the team could spend a large unit exploring the history of the time period while also reading the literature and exploring the mathematic and scientific discoveries of the period. The whole unit would be geared towards some final project/product, maybe a student-created documentary about ancient Greece.

4. There would be time built into the schedule to allow students to leave the team and participate in courses still maintained within the traditional school structure. This would be used to allow students to take classes that wouldn't be available within the team (foreign languages, drivers ed., etc.). The team would also coordinate with vocational and fine arts teachers to incorporate those areas as much as possible.

5. With the emphasis on Common Core Standards, the team would obviously make sure that they are meeting learning standards in the core subjects over the course of the year, and on paper at least, students would be enrolled in separate classes, but in reality, they would be taking all of the classes simultaneously.

This is our basic idea right now. I hope I didn't leave out any key details. Let us know what you think.

Not Even For Threeeeee Scooby Snacks?

I've been thinking about motivation lately. I used to think about curriculum and how I could change my class to make it more engaging, and I still do, but now that I have made a lot of changes toward making my class more student-centered and project/product based, I am left with motivation. You see, the amount of students really "getting into it" hasn't really changed even though my class looks drastically different than it did three years ago when I began. I spend very little time lecturing and try to leave all of my assignments open to student exploration and inquiry. I want them to find their own routes of learning. Yet, a majority of my students refuse to answer the challenge. I give them social media projects, and they complain, asking instead for worksheets. I give them the freedom to explore topics of their own choice, and they ask to be spoon-fed information. I'm told that they probably know more about technology than I do, but they need me to stand over their shoulder every time they attach something to an email. It flies in the face of everything I read about reaching these kids, and I can't help but come to the conclusion that it is all simply a matter of motivation.

The problem with motivation is that it is so darn hard to figure out. I looked up the definition on meriamwebster.com, and this is what they have:

1: a : the act or process of motivating
b : the condition of being motivated
2: a motivating force, stimulus, or influence : incentive, drive

Even the dictionary can't define motivation without using the word motivation. By rule, if a word can't be described without using itself, it is a tricky thing. Too often we get caught up in thinking about motivation in terms of external rewards. When my students aren't motivated to work in my class, I talk to them about their chance of graduating. I talk to them about their grades. I talk to them about their future job. I talk to them about a lot of things that are external. Not surprisingly, it never works.

I've come to realize that motivation is so internal that nobody outside of ourselves can see what it looks like for us. Nobody outside of ourselves can unlock it. The best example I can think of from my own life is basic training. I went to basic training simply to qualify for college money. I joined the military not out of some sense of patriotism or duty, but rather for the very selfish reason of cold hard cash- an external motivator. I quickly realized that money will not motivate you to low crawl through a cactus patch. Money will not motivate you to complete a twenty-five mile forced march on about an hour of sleep. I had to find something deeper within myself to accomplish those things. I found that motivation in a blue cord. The blue cord is awarded to soldiers upon completion of infantry school to be worn on the dress uniform. Our company commander in basic training clipped his on the back of his ruck sack and led every road march we went on. I wanted my blue cord. I was going to get that blue cord, but not because I valued it as an object. I wanted it for what it represented. It represented pride in accomplishing something that few people accomplish, something that most people in my life didn't think I could accomplish. I made up my mind early on that I wasn't leaving Fort Benning, Georgia, without that stinking blue cord, and it was a very proud moment in my life when my father was able to pin it to my uniform the day before graduation.

I understand motivation... but only for myself. The challenge we all face as educators is figuring out how to unlock something in others that we hold so deep within ourselves, and even if we find it, how do we know what to do with it? If someone had known how much that cord motivated me, they probably would've just bought me one online. Sometimes I think that is what we are trying to do with our students. We shouldn't be surprised that it doesn't work.

I don't have the answers. I think all I'm hoping to do at this point is get a better idea of the questions.

Up the Down Staircase

I had the pleasure of attending the PCHS Drama Club's production of "Up the Down Staircase" this past weekend. Even though I was involved in Drama Club in high school and whole-heartedly support our wonderful Drama Club, it has never worked out for me to come see one of their productions. While I know that all of the ones I missed were equally fantastic, I am glad I had the opportunity to see this one. Not only did the students do an amazing job, but the message of the play is so relevant for many of the teachers in this building, myself included. We work in a profession full of contradictions and interruptions and expectations that stand in the way of what we really want to be doing, something the play illustrates very well with the endless paperwork and announcements being heaped on the new teacher.

I know that most jobs are like this, but most jobs don't require the level of passion and belief in the cause that it takes to be a good teacher. I think about professions like those in the medical field, firefighters, police officers, and a few others that I am sure I am missing, and I know they are in the same boat as teachers. Ours is a job where if you don't believe in what you are doing, you will never stay afloat. As I said, this isn't true of all professions. Most jobs that I can think of don't require a passion and a belief to do them well. Sure, if you don't like your job, you are going to be pretty miserable, but it isn't an essential ingredient to doing the job.

The play shows how important this belief is in the world of the teacher. Miss Barrett is full of hope and optimism when she awaits the arrival of her students on the first day of the year, but soon she gets bogged down with the realities of paperwork, announcements, shifting schedules, students dropping out, students not doing homework, students seeming to care very little about what she is trying to teach them, and soon she finds herself wondering if what she is doing even matters. I can relate to this. I think most teachers can relate to this. It is difficult to put time and energy into something when you don't get much feedback to show it has even mattered. It always seems to come back to that question, "Does what I do even matter?"

Luckily for Miss Barrett, she has a great mentor point out to her that just because the students aren't jumping up and down to read the Odyssey, doesn't mean that she isn't making a difference for them. She instructs Miss Barrett to listen to what the students are really saying in their comments to her. It is then that Miss Barrett realizes that the measure of a teacher's work, the way we can tell that what we do really matters, is not in the homework or the quizzes or the test scores but in the personal connections we make and the impact that we can have on a young person's life.

I thank the cast and crew of the PCHS Drama Club for putting on this wonderful production. If nothing else, it was a great opportunity for me to be reminded of what is really important about my job.

Share the Good News

Most of the talk going on about education today is negative. Pundits, politicians, talk show hosts, and just about anyone else they put in front of a camera is more than willing to point out every problem that currently exists in education. This general atmosphere of pessimism has started to make it difficult for students and teachers to see the positive in what we do. Here is a wall I have created for students, teachers, parents, and community members to post good things that are happening at PCHS.

www.wallwisher.com/wall/pchsrocks

Teachers- Post about students who are achieving great things in your class or even non-academic things that make you proud of your students.

Students- Post about what you have learned here or about a teacher who has made an impact on your life.

Parents- Post about positive interactions you or your child have had with school personel.

Community Members- Post about ways you have seen our students contributing to the community.

These are just suggestions to get you started. Feel free to write about anything the world should know about what we are doing here.

New School

From what I understand, there has been talk of building a new school in Paris for decades, but I've also been lead to believe that it has never been as serious as what is going on now. The school boards have selected an architecture firm to work with (actually, it is two firms who have teamed up for the job), students and faculty have been surveyed, and last night they had a community meeting to begin creating a community vision for the project. In light of these developments, I would like to outline the top three reasons I hope this project happens.

#1- One issue that I see in this school on a daily basis is that of students not motivated to do well in school. They simply do not see the value in education, and in many cases, who could blame them? Many of our students travel to other towns for sports, to visit family, or any one of countless other reasons and see communities that have shown the importance of education by investing in it. The physical school building as an obvious and unmistakable representation of the value a community places on education. I honestly believe that many of the issues plaguing our school- and by extension, the community- will be greatly alleviated by a new school.

#2- The location of our current building has many drawbacks.
a-Currently, school property consists of the building and the sidewalk around it. Students are able to simply cross the street and be outside the reach of the school's jurisdiction. This leads to a serious public relations issue. Anyone visiting the town (people looking to move to the area, perhaps) drives by and sees dozens of teens who are obviously students at the high school standing around smoking, swearing, and sometimes fighting in plain view of teachers and administrators who are unable to do anything about it. This does not present a very favorable picture of the school or the community.
b-Safety is another issue brought on by the location of our school. When students are entering or leaving the building, they must negotiate heavy traffic on one of the the busiest roads in town. It doesn't take an expert to realize that 600 hundred teenagers exiting a building into heavy traffic is a recipe for disaster.
c-This is one of the only schools I am aware of that doesn't provide parking for students and visitors to athletic events. Students have to park on side streets, sometimes blocks away, in order to attend school in this building. Others pay for parking. Fans visiting the school for sporting events in Eveland Gymnasium face the same parking problem and the same perils of crossing busy streets.

#3- Lastly, these facilities have simply become inadequate to house 21st century learners and educators. This building was designed and built over 100 years ago. How many other things in our life are still effective after a century of use? Don't get me wrong, there are a few things that are just as useful today as they were 100 years ago, but a school that needs to prepare its students for a dynamic and increasingly technologically-advanced workplace is not one of them.

Please respond by commenting on my reasons or add your own reasons to the list.