education and teaching

Tabula Rasa

Tuesday 09 April 2013 | 0 Comments

Dear Terrence,

I handed out report cards today along with the notices to your parents about which classes some of you guys are failing for the year. Of course we only include the core academic classes in that list: English, science, math, and social studies. You’re failing all four.

Why?

I think we all know, but you provided eloquently ironic commentary on this when I asked you guys to do your quarterly grade assessment. Three simple questions:

What are your grades like?
Are your grades what you expected? Why are/aren’t they like you expected?
What specific actions can you take to change this for the fourth quarter?

When I took up the papers, yours was blank. Just your name in the corner. Nothing else.

This has your modus operandi throughout the school year. When I ask you about it, you always respond the same: “It’s hard. I don’t get it.” Surely you can’t say the same thing about this, though. Surely you understand this. It’s simple. But it’s hard: self-reflection, honest self-reflection, always is.

As I was thinking about today’s letter to you, I was helping my daughter with her homework. She gets monthly homework tables, and she’s trying to get the whole month done in a single week. Today she had to do the following:

Remember your 3-D shapes. Draw a sphere, cylinder, cube, cone, and pyramid. List something around your house that is shaped like each one.

“Daddy!” she exclaimed, “I can’t do pyramids!”

We looked online, found a drawing of a pyramid, talked about the lighter and darker lines, and she said, “Okay, I can try.”

That’s all you need to do. I’m not looking for perfection; no teacher is looking for perfection. We just need effort. You just need effort, because you’re creating such dangerous habits for yourself with this chronic underachieving.

If I could, I’d sit by you all the time, like I sat by my daughter, but I can’t. No one can. It’s the tragedy and beauty of growing up.

With hope,
Your Teacher

Park

Thursday 04 April 2013 | 0 Comments

Dear Terrence,

I took my kids to the park today. Yesterday, too. “Daddy, can we come back tomorrow?” my daughter asked just before we left, so it looks like we might be heading back tomorrow as well.

It’s a real privilege to be able to spend so much time with my kids. It’s one of the perks of being a teacher: I get spring break off too. And so I spend it with my family.

I wonder how many times you got to spend the afternoon at the park with your dad. I know you live with your mom, and for all I know, your dad could be out of the picture altogether. It’s not at all uncommon these days.

I know you’ll likely say, “It is what it is.” Perhaps. It is, but it shouldn’t be. I’m always a little taken aback at how cavalierly some of you guys take the fact that your parents are divorced. I cannot image my parents divorcing; I cannot imagine divorcing my wife. We’re in to for good — there is no problem we won’t work out somehow. And so I’ll always be able to take my kid to the park on sunny spring afternoons. Because it’s important — the smallest things always are.

I hope you’ll take this to heart when you start your own family. It’s likely to be difficult for you, not having any solid role model to serve as a pattern. Still, it’s possible. Just say to yourself daily, “My child will have a more stable family life than I did.” Say it now. Say it again. There — that’s a start.

Tired but satisfied,
Your Teacher

#21 — Filling and Creating Emptiness

Friday 08 March 2013 | 0 Comments

To harm a person is to receive something from him. [...] We have gained in importance. We have expanded. We have filled an emptiness by creating one in somebody else (50).

Perhaps the best example of filling an emptiness by creating one in another is bullying. Working at a middle school, I'm witness to many major and minor instances of bullying on a daily basis, and it seems to be getting only worse. Statisticians tell us that's definitely the case, but even if they weren't providing empirical evidence, I get enough anecdotal evidence daily to make a strong case.

As a teacher, I find I have to walk a thin line. On the one hand, we've seen the headlines of recent years, this or that tragic suicide traced back to prolonged bullying, actions that have created situations in which some people feel suicide is the only alternative. Bullying, then, is literally a deadly serious, and as the authority figure in the room or hallways, I have a responsibility to put an end to it when I encounter it. Yet most bullying today is not like the bullying I occasionally encountered. Today's bullying, ban and large, is verbal. Indeed, there is a whole category of bullying that could be only mental: cyber bullying. In other words, a lot of bullying is of the type "Sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me." Yet the truth is, words do hurt. Still, we need resilient, self-assured kids who can take care of themselves and who know how to avoid internalizing the stupid little comments they hear and will hear, in one form or another, throughout life, so I don't want to help kids become dependent on me -- or anyone else -- to swoop in and save the day every single time says something mean and bullying.

And so when I do encounter something that I judge to be relatively minor but still behavior that could be considered "bullying," I try to strike a balance. I deal with the individual who said the hateful words, but I spend more time talking to the person to whom he or she directed the words. (That was a long way to get around saying "victim." It was a conscious choice.) I tell her that there are individuals who only feel good about themselves when making others feel bad. To quote Weil, these individuals have "gained in importance," but only in their own mind.

A Day in the Life

Tuesday 29 January 2013 | 0 Comments

Chalk dust is a thing of the past, as are dry erase markers. Today, I'm more likely to be frustrated with some technological glitch rather than dry skin from chalk dusk or headaches from whiteboard cleaner. The advantages, of course, vastly outweigh the disadvantages.

Notes from first and fifth about determining the main idea from progress report 4

Of all the high, sophisticated advantages, there are some more simple, basic boosts to productivity.

For example, I can save every single thing we put on the board. Which I'm sure can be somewhat overwhelming to some students.

Hidden Skills

Friday 25 January 2013 | 0 Comments

"Teachers, please check your email now. Again, teachers, please check your email now." With the weather forecast that students had been bouncing around among themselves before school started -- snow, sleet, blizzard, nothing, depending on the individual student's optimism -- it seemed obvious what the email would tell us. Sure enough: "School will be dismissed early today. Will let you know more details later."

I finished reading and, turning around, met a chorus of pleas: "What did it say?!" "Tell us!" "Are we getting out early!?" I just smiled and continued with where I'd been in the lesson.

"Come on!!" was the only response I got.

Still, I pressed on. We were working on using transition words as markers in an argument. "Even if" was our phrase of the moment, and I smiled and gave as an example, "Even if we have early dismissal today, it won't affect our first period class."

Still later, a trickle of announcements begins interrupting our work: "Jane Doe, please come to the office for early dismissal." "Michael Smith, please come to the office. You have an early dismissal."

It seemed obvious by now, but still, I said nothing.

Finally, though, the clincher: "Those students who borrowed a belt from Mrs. Thomas, please return them now." With a mandatory belt a part of our school's dress code, Mrs. Thomas has taken to lending belts to students who arrive without in an effort to help them avoid the inconvenient consequences. But that's not what the students heard. They heard, "We're getting an early dismissal."

It was a teachable moment I couldn't pass up. Recalling a student's comment earlier in the year about how she never infers as part of her day, I asked the class, "Since you all now think you're getting an early dismissal, would you mind telling me what skill you're employing to reach that conclusion?"

Miss I-Never-Infer-And-Likely-Was-Only-Trying-To-Be-Contrary said, "We inferred!"

We went through the observations we'd made in order to make that inference:

"You got that email. No one ever makes an announcement for teachers to check their email!"
"You used that 'Even if' example!"
"We've been having half the school called to the front for early dismissal."
"Everyone only has to take their belts back to Mrs. Thomas. You only have to do that at the end of the day."

I agreed to each one, probing a bit further to get them to express their reasoning a little more fully. Finally, I asked, "What about the most obvious piece of evidence?"

Seemingly all hands in the room pointed to the window. "The weather!"

Only one thing to do -- put a bow on it: "So don't tell me you don't infer endlessly on a daily basis."

Overheard

Thursday 24 January 2013 | 0 Comments

Overheard, after passing out report cards:

“My parents don’t care what I get, as long as I pass. Sometimes, when I brought home an F, my dad would yell at me. But I yell back. He knows better. He sometimes forgets, but I yell back, and he backs off.”

Empathy

Wednesday 23 January 2013 | 0 Comments

The questions for the anticipation guide were seemingly straightforward. One would think that responses -- "Do you agree or disagree and why?" -- to these questions would be somewhat predictable.

Sometimes, it's better to remain ignorant about certain things.
It's fair to treat people differently based on their intelligence.
It is better to be smart and lonely than unintelligent and happy.
Our relationships with other people, not our achievements, are what fulfill us.
It is better to accept your fate than to try to change it.
It is important to have empathy for others.

Granted, for question one, adolescents might not necessarily have learned the beauty of ignorance. It seems unlikely that any adult would disagree with the statement, and in fact, a slight majority of the students agreed this afternoon.

Question two is a bit tricky: most kids think of it as a question of politeness and manners. I'm almost always the only person indicating agreement with the statement. When I explain about differentiation and remind them of special education services, most students understand where I'm coming from and smile at how I "tricked" them.

Question three is fluff. It gets conversation going, but there's really no expected response for what I (and I hope others) would consider a well-adjusted, emotionally healthy individual.

Question four hints at the shallowness of materialism. Students seem split on the issue, but for eighth graders, one might expect that.

Question five is an interesting question for my students because so many of them -- particularly those who struggle in school -- are completely fatalistic. Perhaps they don't see that in themselves, though, because many disagree with this statement.

Question six, though, seems almost painfully predictable in a room of well-adjusted, emotionally healthy individuals. The inability to feel empathy, after all, is one of the most horrifying aspects of sociopaths and one of the most tragic facets of autism.

So when a young man looked at me this afternoon with an expression of disgust and almost anger when I asked him why he didn't think empathy is important, why he disagreed when almost everyone else agreed, why he seemed put off by the fact that I was unable to hide my surprise at his response, it left me briefly speechless.

"You mean don't think it's important to try to understand the lives of those less fortunate than you?" I asked after a moment.

"I never thought about it," came the flippant response.

"And now that you've thought about it?" I continued.

He shrugged and glared.

Defining Courage

Monday 07 January 2013 | 0 Comments

I've been using ideas from George Hillocks, Jr.'s Teaching Argument Writing (Heinemann) in my classroom for some months now. South Carolina's shift to the Common Core standards necessitates a shift in writing focus to argumentative writing, which is not the same as persuasive writing. The latter relies on rhetorical tricks -- arguments from emotion, arguments from authority, etc. -- while the former involves claims, counterclaims, evidence, warrants, backing, and a host of other rhetorical goodies.

We've been working on "how to develop and support criteria for arguments" (to quote Jim Burke's blurb about the book), and one of the things Hillocks suggests is to use inductive reasoning to determine some general criteria from specific examples. The extended example he uses in his book is about courage, and since that fits perfectly with my current district-mandated heros-theme unit (the theme is mandated, not the unit itself -- well, not entirely), I thought I would use it as is, out of the box, so to speak.Â Hillocks provides specificÂ scenariosÂ for students to discuss and generalize about. I gave students all the scenarios and told the groups to choose five.

We began working as a class so we could get the feel for the work, and I gave them as an example the easiest.

In the small town of Clinton, teenage boys liked to play “chicken” with their cars. Two boys raced their cars directly at each other. The first boy to swerve to avoid the crash lost. Were the boys courageous when they played “chicken”?

Obviously, the boys of Clinton might be foolhardy or immature, but a courageous act this is not. Indeed, it somehow seems to be the opposite of courageous. Yet a handful of students doggedly insisted, against the judgment of the rest of the class that this acts lack of overriding noble cause (not their exact words) made this foolish at best, that this was a very courageous act.

"They're risking their lives! They could die!" they persisted.

I thought it might be a fluke, perhaps some kids insisting on playing devil's advocate. But these same kinds held the same line in all similar scenarios.

Harry learned that millions of dollars in gold would be moved by train from Washington, D.C. to Chicago. He knew it would be heavily guarded and protected by the very best alarm systems. The security guards were top-notch and heavily armed. Harry and his two companions were also heavily armed when they dropped from a bridge to the top of one of the train's boxcars. They immediately took fire from a guard stationed on the top of another car. They returned fire, killing the guard. Was their attempt to steal the gold courageous?

Who cares about these guys' motivation? Who cares that they were violating countless moral dictates and laws for material personal gain: these guys were risking their lives and that made their acts courageous.

On the oceanfront, Mr. Jones heard a swimmer shouting for help. He saw sights indicating that this part of the beach was extremely dangerous because of undertows. A lifeguard asked Jones to help him move a boat into the water to be used to help rescue the drowning man. Instead, Jones said, “Don't be silly!” He ran into the water to swim out to the drowning person. Was Jones's effort to save the swimmer courageous?

Who cares that the lifeguard clearly knows something Mr. Jones doesn't, hence his insistence on using the boat? Who cares that in acting impetuously, Mr. Jones was likely giving the lifeguard another potential victim. He was risking his life, and that's all that matters.

I know of course that much of this is a function of age: thirteen-year-olds are quite fond of justice and courage, and they see the lack of the former in as many places as they see examples of the latter.

Sonnets, Again

Friday 14 December 2012 | 0 Comments

We're writing sonnets again in English I. "The hardest thing I've ever written" is the common consensus. So much to worry about: meter, rhyme, thematic development.

The kids wonder why we're doing it. "It's not like we'll ever write one of these again," some protest, and it's true. At the same time, they've never struggled over a piece of writing word by word; they've never searched for the right word only to find it's actually not quite right; they've never planned a piece of writing simultaneously word by word, line by line, quatrain by quatrain. In short, they've never written like a poet.

What's the value in this? In a society where most of these kids are fluent with text shortcuts and seem never to slow down, the question almost answers itself.

Observing and Inferring

Thursday 13 December 2012 | 0 Comments

Of the many things I have to teach my students, one of the most difficult is the art of inference. When we read, we infer, but I try to show students that we infer constantly: about people’s body language, about who’s walking behind us, about the mood of our mothers and fathers — simply everything. But as we begin working with it at a visual level, inferring from photographs, I find that students often think an inference is merely an observation.Â In other words, they look at a situation, make a generalization about it, and think they’re merely reciting facts.

For example, take a look at the picture below.

It’s tempting to say that one observation is simple: this is in a store. After all, there’s plenty to indicate that:

in the foreground there’s a display case with meat;
in the background there’s what looks like a refrigerator display case; and
there are people who appear to be client and salesman.

However, the very verbage of the description belies the fact that it’s not an observation (after all, I used the term “indicate”) but instead an inference. It might be an inference with a very high degree of probability, but an inference it is.

I think that this might be a source of political friction between the liberals and conservatives. They’re both making inferences that they assume to be mere observations, and when the other side calls them on it, the discussion often slides into ad hominem arguments. Anyone who can’t see the obvious inference — which to the speaker is just an observation — is an idiot. After all, it’s as simple as seeing that the woman in the picture above is clearly shopping for Christmas dinner.