Month: December 2011

Things I Know 306 of 375: We know who we are by what happens when things go wrong

An apology is the superglue of life.  It can repair just about anything.

– Lynn Johnston

“I just wanted to apologize for what I said up here. This is a space for coming together, and talk like that isn’t what this is about. I’m sorry.”

Then there were applause and shouts of “It’s okay” as the young man walked back to his seat.

From the other side of the auditorium, I watched as those seated around him patted the student on the back.

I’d been there to see the moment he was apologizing for. As part of a student sketch at Codman Academy’s Community Circle, the student had decided to ad lib one of his lines when describing the character played by one of Codman’s teachers. He’d said the character was a “douche.” A visitor to the school, I could still tell the student had gone off book.

Several things were remarkable to me about the episode. The least of these was what the student said.

Put an adolescent student in front of his peers with a microphone and you are asking him to play with power, to experiment with voice and discover where the line of what he can and cannot get away with lies. In the most fitting and least academic terms, he was feelin’ himself, and the school had invited it.

More interesting was the school’s reaction. The collective inhale after the line was uttered told me everyone else in the room recognized we’d left the script behind for a moment. But there was no outburst. No yells of agreement or signs students in the audience agreed with the statement. And that’s the thing, I know those students existed. At some point in time, this teacher had to have made a comment or taken an action that put him on the other side of at least one student’s good graces. If ever there were a moment for that student to give voice to his frustration anonymously, this was it. No one did.

And that’s culture. No one yelled assent because everyone understood the norms of the space. It was the message I attempted to convey when I would respond to student cursing in my classroom with, “We don’t use those words here.”

Whatever their differences, the assembled students knew they did not use those words here.

I should point out there was a space of about 20 minutes between the ad lib and the apology. Other business had been attended to, and I’d almost forgotten what had happened. Somewhere in that 20 minutes, someone had reached out to the student. Someone had removed the act from the moment and worked to process how what had been said fit with the definition of what it means to be a positive member of the community. I have no proof for this, but years of experience working with teenagers tell me I’m probably correct here. Naturally non-reflective, teens need intervention to help process actions and events. Some adult had likely intervened, and it is to their credit.

In many schools, the student would have been pulled from the circle, yelled at, and assigned a punishment with no mention of apology or what it means to be a community member.

That wasn’t what happened. Someone in the audience, I’m guessing the student’s advisor, had the clarity of thought and purpose to ask what they could do in that moment to help the student understand and learn from the verbal gaff. They’d responded as a teacher.

More than anything else, I was impressed by the student. Public speaking is more terrifying to the masses than anything else, and he stood alone in front of his peers to speak. Not only that, what he had to say was an apology. Few teenagers want to stand in front of their entire school. None wants to stand before the assembled masses and say they were wrong. Somewhere within this young man was a strength of character and commitment to community that allowed him to learn the power of saying “I’m sorry.” It did not excuse what he’d said. The words were out there. Saying he was sorry did work to make amends, to show that he valued the space and the people enough to ask for a chance to earn their trust again.

Many schools have Community Circle or some version thereof. Many schools get the circle part of it right. Few schools get right or focus resources on the community part. Codman does. At SLA and Phoenix, I knew we’d gotten it right when I saw how we reacted when someone went wrong. If anything, that’s the measure of a community.

Things I Know 305 of 365: The initial results are in

Efforts and courage are not enough without purpose and direction.

– John F. Kennedy

Thank you to everyone who has taken a moment to add their thoughts to the School Purpose Project so far. A particular shout out goes to Marcie Hull, Patrick Higgins, Meredith Stewart and Karl Fisch who have pushed the link to the project out to their students and faculty.

The close of the semester meant my partner Trevor and I had to do something with the data we’ve collected so far and turn in our initial results to our professor. That report can be read here.

Though the report has been submitted, we’re not done with the project. The variety of responses has been amazing, and we’re hungry for more. We’ve also decided to submit a proposal to present further findings at the upcoming Student Research Conference at HGSE.

This means we still need your responses, your friends’ responses, your families’ responses and your students’ responses.

It also means our coded data is available for use by anyone who’s interested. Admittedly, I don’t yet know how to create any sort of dynamic infographics, but I hope you do. Maybe you’re a classroom teacher looking to incorporate a data set into your lessons. Maybe you’re a student looking for an only project. Maybe you’re just looking for numbers to play around with.

The SPP is as much about the process of collecting and sharing our process and data as it is about people’s responses. Please, take a look and see what you can build. If you’ve any questions, please comment below. If you build anything, we’d love to see it and feature it on the site.

At the very least, if you haven’t shared your answer to the question, “What should be the purpose of school?” now’s the time.

Things I Know 304 of 365: It’s important to trust the rope

‘Tis not enough to help the feeble up, but to support them after.

– William Shakespeare

When my friend Adam and I climb together, Adam comments on how fast I climb, and I comment on how contemplative his climbing appears from my stance belaying him on the ground.

Thursday, Adam and I went climbing with our friend Julie.

It was the first time I’d had anything to compare to Adam’s style of climbing.

Julie has been taking dance classes for the last 27 years. She climb’s with the grace and elegance of a dancer. As odd as it may sound, she knows her feet better than any other climber I’ve seen – knows what they can do and climbs with an understanding of how they work in relation to the rest of her body.

With a strong upper body, Adam’s climbing starts in his torso and arms. He grips and hangs and waits as he  contemplates his next move.

Watching either of them approach a climb helps me better understand how I will attempt the same route.

It helps me better understand, but it doesn’t show me the way I will climb. I do not have Adam’s upper-body strength or Julie’s surefootedness. From marathon training, my feet know the repetition of moving forward and my legs know the enduring power necessary to support the effort. While I adopt pieces of what Adam and Julie bring to the wall, my skills and strengths are not theirs.

But that is the physical.

Thursday, Julie fell – several times – over and over.

Like me, she prefers to move quickly up the wall. Her approach, though, is a model of the ideal of the design process, fail often and as quickly as possible. It was amazing to see.

After I lowered her to the ground after she successfully completed the first route, I commented on the fact that she would jump for holds more often than Adam or I. Her falling wasn’t a result of weaknesses, it was a result of the passion with which she approached the climb.

“There’s a rope,” Julie answered, “I figured I might as well use it.”

Not often do I get to recognize the moment I’m changing my mind and understanding of something.

I didn’t trust the rope. My climbs to that point had included a visualization of the rope as something that was there for safety. If something went wrong on my climb, the rope was there.

Julie thought of the rope as one of the tools there to help her on her climb.

With each jump, she was acknowledging she might not make it, but trusting that the rope would hold her in place to pick up from where she’d left off.

I’d never done that. The rope was there to ensure I’d be fine if I lost my grip, but I’d never considered it as something that allowed me to take greater chances.

My last climb of the night Thursday was a route I have immense respect for and had very little business attempting with tired arms and legs.

A third of the way up, my body was telling me it might be time to tell Adam I was ready for him to let me down. I was tired, and the likelihood of making it to the top was wee.

I paused for a second, my hands wrapped around a grip and one foot supporting me.

I decided to trust the rope.

If I was coming down, it would be because I fell, not because I decided I couldn’t make it.

I pushed against a hold with my right arm and pulled myself up with my left as I’d seen Adam do on his ascent. At the same time, I brought my foot up to a toe hold at about thigh level. It was a move I’d seen Julie execute several times that night, but hadn’t considered before.

And I climbed the wall – all 60′.

I was exhausted. My forearms were numb, I was sweating, and I’d learned to trust the rope.

Things I Know 303 of 365: Teachers have grandteachers

For a while, I thought a lot about lineage. Where do I belong? Who am I standing next to?

– Jim Hodges

As I’ve said before, I was entrusted with the supervision of several pre-service teachers when I was in the classroom. Last week, I sent the following email to Marc Engel who did his student teaching in my classroom:

you have a blog yet?

Katie Sauvain, who student taught with me the year prior to Marc blogged privately while completing her student teaching. After our official roles had finished, Katie opened up her blog for me to see how she had been processing her experiences. They opened up my understanding of how my guidance was heard and which points landed most saliently.

Though she had been blogging for her own reflection, Katie’s posts served to inspire my own reflection.

The role I played while supervising Marc’s student teaching was refined because of Katie’s thoughts. She had not been writing to me. Her posts were not course evaluations or any type of evaluation, really. She was reflecting and I (and hopefully Marc) benefitted from that reflection.

Marc started blogging last week. He’s in his second year at the head of his own classroom and the pressure I put on him to engage in a semi-transparent reflective process is the result of having a limited understanding of my own learning from that point in my teaching career. It wasn’t until my third or fourth year in the classroom that I began blogging. The slings and arrows of my earliest practice exist only in a smathering of journal entries I wrote alongside my students as they wrote. They are Polaroids compared to the mural of practice I’ve come to consider this space to be.

For now, Marc’s blog is private. I’m uncertain whom else he’s opened it to, but I feel privileged he’s opened to me this new window into his practice. I’ve commented on every post. I’ll keep doing so as long as he’s writing.

Reading Katie and Marc’s thoughts as they reflect on their teaching and the learning of their students helps me to continue to feel connected to the teachers I had a hand in preparing. It is continued affirmation of my belief in building community and ritual in the teaching profession.

A year or two ago, my sixth-grade language arts teacher, Mrs. Haake, commented on a couple posts I’d written. In the space between my transition from middle school to our connection in this space, we had become peers. I’m uncertain if she still stops by to see what I’m thinking, but I choose to believe she does. I like to think of the lineage of practice that connects Mrs. Haake, Katie, Marc and me. Mrs. Haake is Katie and Marc’s grandteacher. The work she did to prepare sixth-grade me has ripples she’ll never see in the work Katie does each day in California and Marc does in New York.

Perhaps that’s why I look to Marc and Katie’s blogs. Teaching is heinously isolationist. Teachers in the same school oftentimes have no mental picture of the practice of their peers. This is to say nothing of those who have come before. The longitudinal connection I feel when I read what Katie and Marc are doing continue to inform my practice and understanding of education. I am learning from and with them with each post. And, of course, I’m incredibly proud.

Things I Know 302 of 365: Begin with the end in mind

I want our students to be thoughtful, wise, passionate, and kind.

– Chris Lehmann

I asked Codman Academy’s Co-Founder and Executive Director Meg Campbell what she hoped for the school’s graduates. She said the following:

They know how to learn and ask for help.

They know about their passions.

They have a big dream and a plan for it.

They are engaged members of society.

They have a healthy life and relationships.

They are life-long learners.

That’ll do.

Things I Know 301 of 365: It was one hell of a game of musical chairs

All around the Mulberry Bush,
The monkey chased the weasel.
The monkey stopped to scratch his nose
Pop! goes the weasel.

The requisite announcements had been completed, the student skit designed to encourage students to keep on track in the new trimester had been performed. I was feeling certain community circle was about to wrap up and the students of Codman Academy were about to head to classes.

I was wrong.

The sophomore with the microphone announced it was time for Crew Olympics. The couple hundred assembled high school students took a collective moment before the crowd was peppered with the start of cheers. Our host had another announcement. The game – musical chairs. The competitors – the faculty.

At 9:45 in this school that has had 100% of its graduates accepted to 4-year colleges saw the faculty who helped make that happen walk down the aisles of the meeting hall to represent their crews. Crews are what Codman calls its advisories, and these teachers were out to represent.

The chairs were assembled, Reel to Real’s “I like to move it” blasted from the PA and the teachers started circling the chairs – slowly. Painfully slowly. No one wanted to be out. Some deep pre-schoolian instincts were revived. Plus, they were doing it for the kids.

The first few eliminations were mundane. Expectedly, the more timid of the teachers were the first to go. They had spirit, but realized the dangers of the sport.

Things got interesting when Round 4 signaled the beginning of double eliminations. By that point, those teachers who remained were in it to win. A few went for chairs and found themselves on the floor. As they exited the arena, they were applauded and cheered for. Those who remained high-fived and “good game”-ed as they left.

A few rounds later, there were three. Somewhere, on the other side of the hall, chanting started. To quote the great Neil Diamond, “like a small earthquake.” Before long, little else could be heard other than the blaring of a hundred voices calling for their champion.

In that round, he fell.

Literally, he ended up on the ground.

The two others who remained helped him up and shook his hand.

I looked around.

Somewhere in the course of the 10 minutes of the game, the crowd had taken to its feet. I realized I was leaning in. I’d even picked my favorite in my head.

The music picked up somewhere in the middle of Beyoncé’s “Single ladies.” The competitors – two grown, college-educated men – circled a plastic chair. The students screamed in glee. The music played longer than it had in any other turn. On one down beat, the contestants thought the music stopped and attempted to sit only to be cheered on by the crowd. We would see the game played out.

Greg, one of my classmates from school completing his practicum at Codman, was the first to sit. But, his opponent lunged to lie flat across the seat as Greg was sitting back. The judges swarmed in as the chair and the two men toppled backward.

Seconds later, Greg’s opponent was named the winner and first his crew, then the entire room exploded in applause.

As both men, appropriately dizzy, walked back to their seats, a retraction was made.

Greg had won.

The students were dismissed. Classes began.

The entire episode took 15 minutes of the day. This semester, we’ve studied what Richard Elmore refers to as the Instructional Core – students, teachers, and content. When writing about this concept, Ted Sizer also included how the content was delivered as a fourth aspect.

In this game of musical chairs, the school and its faculty had taught many lessons.

The students had seen their teachers more fully and developed more complex understandings of who they were as people. They saw what sportsmanship could look like. While the teachers good-naturedly ribbed one another during the game, each eliminated player was sent out with a handshake or high five. Those leaving the game did so with smiles on their faces. They’d done what they’d come to do – play.

Though the teachers were representing separate crews, those separations never kept them from enjoying and supporting the whole. If all they’d been thinking of were their crews, the game could never have started.

No one processed any of this with the students. It happened and the day moved on. As it should have. There are times to reflect and their are times for ritual. This game of musical chairs was silly, fun and energizing. And, it was ritual – an act of community to remind members who they are, of what they are a part, and how they play together.

Things I Know 300 of 365: It’s finals week

I wanted to write two full and thoughtful posts today.

But, it’s finals week, and my brain is stretched.

Instead, let me say, even though my plate is full, I’m truly enjoying synthesizing this semester’s knowledge.

Things I Know 299 of 365: I had a great conversation with Dean

A single conversation across the table with a wise man is better than ten years mere study of books.

– Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I’ve been reading, watching, and listening as Dean Shareski has been documenting the Learning Project he’s been completing with his students. The idea was inspired by the 100 Hour Challenge from Ewan McIntosh complete with these rules:

  1. Learn a skill, concept or idea you know very little or nothing about but that you’re interested in learning
  2. Document the learning. Write about it, video tape, audio record, whatever.
  3. Consider all the sources you use to learn. Collect those resources.
  4. Take a early baseline snapshot of your understand at the beginning and another one at the end. Compare and analyze.

If you haven’t been watching it unfold, you should.

The idea of asking students what they were interested in learning and then giving them space to learn and reflect is pretty tremendous.

So, I set up some time to talk to Dean. I was curious to hear his thoughts on his learning as a practitioner going through this project and try to figure out how it meshed with my experiences from the semester. While I don’t deserve many of the kind things he said in the opening to it, Dean’s posted a podcast of our conversation here.

I love talking to Dean. He thinks. He asks questions. He gives space to think.

The problem is, we generally don’t get a chance to really talk unless we meet up at EduCon or ISTE. As I processed the conversation after we’d hung up last night, it occurred to me that I don’t do enough of this. As often as I read something and say, “I wish I could talk to her about what she wrote,” I don’t actually do that. I’m talking more than comments or posting replies here.

I’m about as connected as I can stand, and those last few inches of picking up the Skype and saying, “Let’s synchronize the conversation and see what happens” still seem too far to travel.

As strong as the weak ties can be, as networked as the world gets and as global as our passports turn out, we’ll always have to work to have the next conversation.

Things I Know 298 of 365: Someones already invented the wheel of transplatform media

There is a fundamental change taking place in terms of how corporations create value and arguably, in terms of the core architecture of the corporation. I think it’s the biggest change in a century in the ways that companies build relationships and interact with other entities, institutions in the economy and in society and arguably, the nature of the corporation itself.

– Don Tapscott

Sparksheet has an interview Rosie Allimonos, the woman responsible for taking the BBC multiplatform. Of particular interest were Allimonos’s dos and don’ts for building transmedia platforms.

They struck me as being required reading and points of departure for anyone in schooling who is beginning to dabble in this work. I could see people in education trying to move from flipped classrooms to some sort of transmedia approach teaching and doing it badly because they feel like what they’re doing is new and they are the pioneers. While it might be pioneering in education, it’s not pioneering for other sectors.

Teachers like to look at wheels invented by other professions and then spend years attempting to invent the education model of that wheel. I anticipate transmedia’s methods and affordances being a big draw for educators. I’m also hopeful they’ll approach the idea willing to learn from those who have come before, but by different paths.

The entirety of the interview is worth a read. If you’re pressed for time, here are Allimonos’s top tips for moving transplatform:

  • Avoid appointment to view.
  • Acknowledge the medium.
  • Avoid leaving multiplatform to the end and to be involved right from the conception stage.

Those four provide enough to chew on for some time.

Things I Know 297 of 365: What I believed and what I did were out of sync

Espoused values represent the explicitly stated values and norms that are preferred by an organization. Enacted values, in contrast, reflect the values and norms that actually are exhibited or converted into employee behavior. Employees become cynical when management espouses one set of values and norms and then behaves in an inconsistent fashion.

– Robert Kreitner & Angelo Kinicki

I had a great conversation with Dean tonight. It led me to the following realization.

When I was teaching students reading, what I told myself and them was that I wanted to help them find the joy of reading that would lead to them being lifelong readers and thereby lifelong learners.

I learned last year, when I opened up the class to allowing students to read all books of their choice, was the difference between what I said and what I did.

By defining success as students reading, relating to and commenting on only the texts I saw fit, I was showing them I wanted them to be lifelong readers so long as they were lifelong readers of the books I liked. Oftentimes, this also meant lifelong readers of canonical books as well.

As soon as I opened up my practice to match the believe I’d been saying allowed to my students and myself, nearly all of them began voraciously reading whenever they could.

I hadn’t realized the misalignment of what I said I believed and what I had shown my students I believed until I talked to Dean. Thanks, Dean.