Month: August 2013

135/365 Teachers as Co-Enjoyers

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I had the chance to go bowling today.It was a mixed bag. Adults, adolescents, elementary school kids.

Three lanes, three games, mixed- ages. The three youngest kids were in the same lane together with one adult. I was in the lane next to them. It was quite the scene. Because we’d arrived early, much of the bowling alley was ours to disrupt with celebrations and good-natured chiding.

At some point, I started to pay more direct attention to the game beside mine. We’d been celebrating the small successes of the younger kids throughout. My attention, though, became more direct.

Their game had started with the bumpers up on the lane and an assistive apparatus that acted like a metal slide to help the ball build momentum and be aimed down the lane. A few frames in to the first game, the two youngest kids decided they didn’t want to use the slide. They looked at the games happening around them and realized the older folks were throwing the balls independently. I’m guessing this pushed them to try the same thing.

Once the slide was gone, it never returned. They could do ti without the added help. The bumpers stayed up throughout both games. Either the kids never realized they were optional, or they decided they wanted to keep them.

Either way, they realized they were getting more help than they needed with the slide, and could perform the task to their own satisfaction without it.

This is key, and I needed to remember it in the middle of the second game. The kids were able to perform the task to their satisfaction without the slide. They weren’t worried about whether the adults around would praise or chastise their performance. They set to doing what they wanted to do and were allowed to shape their experience to their own terms insomuch as they were in control of the environment.

The part I had to remember became apparent when the third grader stepped to the line to throw midway through the second game. It wasn’t my turn in my lane for a few more players, and I was struck with the idea, “Well, maybe I should help him learn to throw the ball better.”

Luckily, immediately, my better judgement got ahold of me. Had he asked for help? No. Did anything I might have to say have a chance of improving his experience? No.

Most importantly, was he learning to adjust to the task at hand to meet his needs without any word from me? Yes.

I didn’t offer any “help” because he was helping himself. He had figured out the thing he wanted to do, and he was doing it. My task was to sit alongside and co-enjoy the experience.

Even coaching from my chair was unwarranted. I didn’t need to be the quaintly and condescendingly-phrased “guide on the side.” My job was to co-enjoy the learning experience. I took a pause to watch what was happening, register the victories and defeats, and enjoyed the learning in pursuit of an internal goal.

Perhaps our classrooms could do with more co-enjoyers.

134/365 What Keeps our Ideal from becoming Real in Education

The ideal is not necessarily ideal if we want to get things done.

Digging through the files I’ve been squirreling away to read “one day” I finished Laura Valentini’s article “On the Apparent Paradox of Ideal Theory” yesterday.

While much of it invited re-reading a time or two to really dig into the intense philosophical text, I got enough practical understanding to move the furniture in my brain around a little bit.

I’ll outline the basics as I understand them here, and let others who understand these things better than I chime in with clarifications.

The paradox Valentini describes is akin to letting the great be the enemy of the good. The problem of basing our goals or understandings of the world on the ideal comes in the application to the real world. The ideal is not the real world.

The imagining ignore the reality.

Then, as I understand Valentini, the application of plans to move toward the ideal runs the risk of nullifying the ideal because we didn’t think about the real world in our imagining.

The good, becomes the enemy of the great.

Another way to think about this.

A. I have a plan for an ideal school.
B. I build the structure necessary for the school.
C. The people who populate the school are not ideal.
D. I treat those people as though they are ideal and have ideal abilities.
E. Frustration sets in because people are not who I imagined them to be.
F. The school fails because we did not take into account the non-ideal nature of people, thereby nullifying my image of the ideal school.

While Valentini is talking about ideals of social justice, the argument travels nicely to systems like schools.

If we imagine the ideal school and take into account that people and extant systems are not perfect and ideal, then we can move the pieces of practice necessary to help all actors increase their ability to create the ideal.

In social justice terms, Valentini refers to the application of affirmative action toward the ideal of social justice as a recognition that people do not act without prejudice even after discrimination has been outlawed. The ideal vision holds while the system is adjusted in recognition of the unideal actors.

In the school scenario, the example would be the teachers and other school leaders who imagine all that needs to be done is working harder and longer hours to make up for their shortcomings in making their school the ideal.

This amounts to working much harder to fall short and not build the envisioned school.

Instead, other steps must be taken. Practically, this could include adjusting the school’s schedule, teacher course loads, course materials, training in new practices, etc. Whatever it takes to adjust for the unideal reality can keep the ideal vision from fading away. It might also include things like focusing first on whether or not all students have access to proper medical care, questioning the dietary needs of students and what the school can do to help, connecting students to adult mentors, etc.

The ideal need not die in education because the system isn’t build to bridge the gap between the ideal and reality. It can remain a viable possibility if we realize the needs of the system and move them toward the capacity of the ideal.

133/365 Change for Good (that made me feel good)

I’ve never seen Wicked. I’ve started the book, and enjoyed what I read before I got distracted by other, louder things. That said, I can sing along with the entirety of the soundtrack and have taken the road trips to prove it. #noshame

I saw the video below come across several of my feeds. Nothing flashy, just notes from various bloggers and news sources that something good had happened and they were passing it along.

Finally, last night, I took the time to watch. I don’t know why this video caught my eye or seemed important to pass on. Maybe it’s the hope of the moment captured here. Maybe it’s the fact that one of the messages is that the surprisingly talented voice belongs to a teacher. I’m not quite sure. What I do know is that I’ll likely be stockpiling this in the playlist of videos that make me smile. I’m always glad to add to that list.

132/365 What are Our Schools’ Sidewalks and are They Safe?

Hallway from mingchuno via flickr.com

I’ve been reading Jane Jacobs’ The Death and Life of Great American Cities. It’s slow going, and the tome invites some pauses through it’s heft, let alone its content.

Early in the book, Jacobs focuses her examination not on blocks or parks or buildings, but on sidewalks as the keys to urban environments. Most specifically, Jacobs’ argument in the chapter centers on sidewalks a mechanisms for safety.

It is not police patrols that make the difference, she says, but the patrols of those who inhabit the space.

This, as most things do, got me thinking about education.

If, as Jacobs argues, it is the use of streets and their sidewalks that keeps these spaces safe, where are our best sidewalks in education?

The choisest answer would be the hallways of our schools. This, base don my own empirical evidence is not so. The bullying of my childhood, the fear of those who would torment me was greatest in the hallways and other similar spaces.

If anything, our classrooms are the most closely monitored educational spaces in schools. They are where our eyes are surveying for “appropriate behavior” and the like. Thse spaces are not the sidewalks of schools. They are the homes. They are the living rooms, kitchens, and dining rooms of schools. The safety of our classrooms is the safety we afford our families and those guests we welcome into our private spaces.

By all accounts, our hallways should be the sidewalks of our school communities. They are where we catch up, where we transact, where we get our news. Most importantly and most upsettingly, they are where we decide not to enforce the standards of our community.

In visiting schools across the country, I listen to the words of the hallways and watch the physical interactions. No matter the professed attitudes of respect, the lessons on character in the classrooms, the hallways bely the true stories of the cultures of our learning spaces. They are where we can look to measure what is expected and professed against what it allowed.

I do not mean to argue that we should monitor our hallways with draconian measures or install greater numbers of cameras. I would prefer the absence of guardians to such measures.

No, what we must do in our hallways, to keep the sidewalks of our schools safe, is simple. We must be present. Physically. Mentally. Morally.

For many schools, this is nothing new. The policy for teachers has been to stand outside their doors during passing periods for quite some time.

The extent to which I’m arguing presence, though, is new. It is not enough to stand outside classroom doors. Instead, we must be present like the neighbors Jacobs describes, interact with those passing through, and create the social capital of community.

To do less is to be another version of Big Brother. To do only a little more is to create spaces of safety and community.

131/365 Trust the Start

My new job has me thinking quite a bit about the flow of systems. For the majority of my career, I’ve been at one end of the educational system – in the classroom – working directly with students and other teachers to make learning and formal education better.

Now, I find myself somewhere in the middle of the system. I’m not in charge of anything, per se, at either end of the system. I support teachers and students and I support the leadership of the district. Sometimes (not often) that support looks drastically different.

I’ve found myself realizing and hoping for a specific string of trust to be enacted and embodied by the district.

It starts like this – Trust that teachers are doing all they can to support students’ growth and learning.

From there, direct interactions should be set up in such a way to give them support they need to do what they feel they need to do to help kids. This would be at the principal level. From there, outside the schools, intermediate district personnel should move to support principals based on the assumption that they trust that teachers are doing all they can to support students’ growth and learning.

If I believe that’s what principals believe, I’m going to be better at my job.

The same assumption is what I hope for those to whom I report. As I move through schools, help teachers and administrators learn and consider new practices, I hope that those in charge of me assume that I trust that teachers are doing all they can to support students growth and learning.

I want others to assume it in the system, and I want those others to assume that I believe it as well.

If we all operate from this believe, if we all trust that teachers are doing all they can to support students’ growth and learning, a foundation is established on which we can build, improve and design pathways to even greater capacity.

Assuming teachers are doing all they can is not assuming that they are doing the absolute best, it is assuming that they are doing their absolute best in the moment, and that it can always be augmented.

If I work with a group of teachers to build capacity around some new tool or practice, approaching our time together from the assumption that they are doing all they can will result in conversations much more replete with respect, listening, and care than conversations based on the assumption they are slacking, skating, or faking their way through the school year.

I want the best for anyone who endeavors to add to the learning, understanding, and choices of students. The best way I can think of to support and work alongside these folks is to trust they are doing the best they can and move from there.

130/365 Three Rules I Like for Living

Keep your word to yourself and others…Be trustworthy with yourself.
Whenever you’re offered water, say “yes.” We’re human beings wherever we go…Be who you are, no matter where you are.

I’ve been experimenting with listening to podcasts as I run and commute to work lately. One I’ve subscribed to, which is in the review stage, is Bulletproof Executive Radio. I’m not yet certain if I’m going to keep it in the mix, but the words above from Guest Michael Fishman struck me as good ones this evening as I was finishing up my run.

What would be your three rules for living a better life?

129/365 Poverty is a Thing and We’re Getting Worse at Fighting it

From a recent Bill Moyers post:

Most people in poverty do not receive cash assistance. In 1996, for every 100 families with children in poverty, there were 68 families who accessed cash assistance. In 2011, for every 100 families with children in poverty, 27 accessed cash assistance.

With the Farm Bill’s faltering in Congress putting food assistance for children in poverty in a dangerous limbo, maybe it’s time we agreed poverty as the most important issue in education. Anyone who thinks differently can remove themselves from the line of helpful voices.

128/365 Zoomie Has Some Questions about American Education

One of the many folks I was fortunate to meet and talk with during IDEC2013 was a young Taiwanese student named Zoomie. She asked if I was available to sit at dinner and talk about education in America, but I had another commitment, so I wasn’t available. We worked out that she would email me, and I’d my best to answer whatever questions I could.

I got Zoomie’s email tonight, and thought I’d post her questions here in the hope that others might leave their answers in the comments and I could forward more than my own simple viewpoint on for Zoomie’s project.

So, what do you think?

Q1: Tell me about the school life for the students here  (middle or high school )
Q2: Do you like current USA education system?
Q3: Where do you think there are problems?
Q4: Do you like to change it ?
Q5: If so , how could it be changed？
Q6: What did you think the most America adults will think current education has problems?

As you answer, keep in mind that Zoomie is still working on her English so answers in the American idiom might prove puzzling. This has the added benefit of being a set of questions that has me curious as to others’ answers.

127/365 These are My Questions about Equity and Social Justice

I had the privilege today of participating in the Coffee Talk that opened today’s programming at the International Democratic Education Conference (IDEC).

Forgoing keynotes or panel discussions, conference organizers decided to pull together folks from different backgrounds but of similar interests to have conversations and then spread those to the larger group.

When I showed up, I realized today featured a different setup entirely. In an attempt to meet the wants of attendees (it is democratic, after all) organizers had collapsed the different coffe talks into one and then encouraged attendees to take part in a modified fishbowl.

Coffee talkers began in the center of a set of concentric circles. We could say our piece or not and then vacate our seats for attendees to jump in and participate.

It was an altogether difference scenario from that for which I’d prepared myself.

For the first hour, I sat and listened. The larger audience and set of speakers compounded my worries that I wouldn’t have anything to add.

As speakers took turns speaking theire thoughts into the mike, I knew I didn’t have any pronouncement that was necessary to lay upon the layers of declarations that had come before me.

I started listening for a different reason – What questions did these pronouncements raise for me.

In a room of people who spend much of their time considering democratic education, social justice, equity and all that accompany these thoughts, it struck me as a place to deploy questions.

Mine were as follows:

  1. How do we better understand those who disagree with us – whether on the importance of equity and social justice or on the path to these goals? It strikes me as less than enough to be against those who disagree with us. If there is hope for progress, we must come to a place of understanding. This is not an argument for abandoning our principles and beliefs. Rather, it is a call to ask questions of those who disagree so that they might consider their beliefs more closely through their answers.
  2. How do we prevent the drive for equity from meaning we are all equally unhappy? Not unlike a toxic relationship, those who speak of privilege and power often do so in a way that makes me think we are struggling to make those who aren’t us feel the unhappiness we have known rather than striving for equal happiness and joy.
  3. How do we remember adults are not fully formed? Several times during the conference and in general dealings with adults, I’ve noted tones of voice in comments that are less forgiving, less caring, and less empathetic as adults speak to adults than I think those same adult speakers’ voices would hold were they speaking to young people. We’re all unfinished. We are all growing, and we are all imperfect. How do we remember this as we help each other become more perfect?
  4. What does it take to pause and appreciate the small movements and moments of success as we work toward our ideals? This is tough. The race is difficult and the road is long. Because of this, we often lose track of the milestones we pass. When those with whom we disagree make small concessions, we must learn to pause and appreciate such movement. If not, we’ll lose the patience necessary for moving forward.

If we can consider and craft answers to these questions, I think there will be greater hope of progress in the walk toward more democratic systems of education. Maybe.

Image via m.gifford

Learning Grounds Ep. 021: From primary sources to private school to teaching kids history with Meredith Stewart

In this episode, Zac talks with History Teacher Meredith Stewart about primary sources, teaching at an independent school, education policy, and her approach to teaching history to middle and high schoolers.

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