Musings from a Not-So-Master Teacher

A few months ago, I logged onto the Obama website for the first time.  I expected to see the standard stream of videos, professional pictures and links asking me to give.  Although the site had aspects of each, I found it to be welcoming, intuitive and inviting me to participate. From the discussion boards to the small donations, the Obama campaign has revolutionized politics in a multimedia, online world.  (In a similar, but less mainstream way, Ron Paul has done the same thing.  However, his campaign was so libertarian that the web of participation was so complex and so scattered that it seemed almost too "Web 2.0" in its approach).  Through small donations, Obama has raised millions of dollars. 

Radiohead released an album where they asked people to donate what they felt was a fair market value for their music.  Like Dave Mathews Band, Radiohead knows how to take care of their fans.  Rather than milking the fan base through promotional t-shirts and pimping out their music for the highest bidders, they realize that their small, core group is who will carry it through the long haul. 

So, in my classroom (and IMPACT Program) re-think, I am attempting to follow Radiohead and Obama in a few respects:

1. Keep it positive - Both Obama and Radiohead have an optimisitic feel in their message to the fan base. 
2. Dare to be innovative - Obama had crushing blows in some of the early primaries.  People told him he had to go negative and go on the attack.  Radiohead faced harsh criticism when they first went electronic.  In both cases, they realized that innovation includes many mistakes.
3. Offer choices - In both cases, the fans and the supporters can participate and have choices.  I want to offer a variety of projects and encourage students to choose.  Thus, they can pick the murals, the plays, the documentaries, the websites - and, like Radiohead, I will allow students to participate according to what they can handle.  I think I burnt a few students out this year and I regret it. 
4. Keep it simple - I made things too complex.  I want the Social Voice website to have an easy, intuitive feel, with a stronger sense of participation.  I want students to log on and feel that they are participating in an ongoing dialogue between the community and the classroom. 

I'm listening to a soft, subdued version of "Chicago," but Sufjan Stevens.  It's a life studio set taped on an indie station, KCRW, in Los Angeles.  Somehow, with the lone guitar and trumpet, I can hear the words echoing the sentiments of this school year. 

At the beginning of the year, everything was going really well.  The school board asked to see information on our IMPACT program and district personnel visited my classroom.  They had me speak to new teachers.  As we approached reconstruction of the school, I was confident in my role in helping shape it.  Then, I felt confident in creating the technology magnet.  The IMPACT program was working with the Social Awareness Club, sharing projects, logging in service hours and collaborating well.  My team was awesome and I felt a great vibe about who we were as a community. Then I developed Teacher Commons (a professional development site for our school) with the hope that I could help facilitate collaboration. 

I watched it all crumble.  The reconstruction fell through and the promised Technology Magnet fizzled.  I am now embaressed by the fact that I spent hours researching and writing a huge proposal and creating a website for both.  I've seen the numbers and the enthusiasm for IMPACT decrease steadily.  However, people tell me this is normal for eighth graders.  (I usually teach seventh grade)

My team is split apart and I won't be working with any of them next year.  Meanwhile, a few of the people on staff I really trusted have mocked my ability as a team leader.  I was stoked about the Teacher Commons site only to see no staff support.  Not one staff member has left a comment; not even those I consider closest to me. 

I feel disconnected from community.  I feel completely alone in what I am doing.  I feel that the collaboration we had planned is now on the back burner.  I have no one helping me with anything, which is difficult when I have lost all confidence in my ability to lead and to teach. I am doing nothing different, but the results are opposite of what I have had in the past.  Part of what makes this tough is that, when I share how I am feeling, I recieve unsolicited advice instead of encouragement.  I feel the message reinforced that I am not needed at my school and it spirals into shame.

So, with Sufjan on KCRW, I hear the words, "I've made a lot of mistakes, in my mind. In my mind" and the repetition of the chorus, "All things go, All things go." I start to feel alone, like Jack Keroac, but I have no urban landscape to go and take a walk and I lack the cool, calm existentialist temprament. 

I start to think about what I want to do differently.  Next year, I won't join any committees.  I won't attempt to launch any programs.  I'm going to spend more time writing comments on student blogs and really perfecting my lessons.  I'll do fewer projects, but more time making the projects the best they can be.  I want to worry less about what admin thinks and more time living out the vocation of who I am.

 

 

 

I read an article about why evangelicals are ditching the GOP . I feel like I fit into this category, though I see it in broader terms. It's not simply an issue of the War in Iraq or the economy. It's about taking care of the poor, being stewards of the Read More...

On Friday, during first hour, I yelled at the students.  I mean, I really screamed at them.  By the end of the period, I was calm and told them honestly, "I'm sorry for yelling.  Anger has been a struggle for me my whole life.  When I was your age, I was getting in fights at school.  At this point in my life, I am just occasionally yelling at a class.  But it still doesn't feel good." 

The students were in shock.  None of them expected or demanded an apology.  It made me think of my friends who teach in the suburbs.  When they yell, they get e-mails.  When they use a word like "hell" or "crap," they are reprimanded by an angry mob. 

It's not that I hate the suburbs.  I live in a suburb - albeit a lower-middle income area, where the demographics are mixed at it wavers between red and blue politically.  The issue is that I have room to breath in the barrio where I teach.  Which leads me to a top ten reasons why I love teaching in the barrio:

1. I can say "crap" without anyone giving me crap
2. I get tamales at Chrismastime instead of mugs I don't want
3. Kids seem to appreciate the time I spend with them at lunch and before and after school
4. Parents almost always choose my side of the story
5. No one tells me I am being too liberal or too conservative when I teach government
6. When students turn in projects, it is almost always their work (as opposed to a helicopter parent)
7. I have had the opportunity to confront my own bias, racism and prejudice through some hard conversations
8. When we do service in the poor community, we get a chance to change the view of both the community and our school. In other words, it doesn't feel so much like imperialism, or a bunch of suburban kids "cleaning up" the ghetto
9. I actually get to use some of the four years of Spanish I had in high school
10. The students are excited about technology, rather than complaining that our computers are "ghetto"

Again, it's not that the suburbs are bad.  I know that in the 'burbs, there are fewer fights and the kids don't have Hot Cheetoh hands.  Yet, I just feel at home where I am. 

I read my brother's blog yesterday. The topic was real estate in Mexico, which is his line of work. As I read it, I could almost hear my own voice in it. He had a decent number of people who comment, because the style is so casual and personal; even introspective. Read More...

Changes in education often occur when there is a convergence of new technology and a shift in the social context. Thus, the Enlightenment ideology coincided with the rise of the nation-state and the Guttenberg Press. The current system of education coincided Read More...

Sometimes I feel like an outcaste as a teacher.  There is a certain sense that I relish in this status.  I have a few close friends whom I trust.  It's just that my personality doesn't fit the "teacher personality."  It's not that the "teacher personality" is bad.  I just can't relate to much of it.  So, I am composing a list of five things you will not see in my classroom:

1. A list of rules - I tried this for awhile my first year of school and found that students would claim, "I didn't know I am not allowed to do that.  It's not listed in the class rules."  So, now I have a few clear procedures and rely upon my teacher death stare and spatial proximity to kill most disruptions. 

2. Themed bulletin boards - I don't own any of the pre-fab bubbly letters.  I don't switch bulletin boards according to the seasons (not that we really get seasons here in Phoenix).  I create a massive collage with pictures and paint and then I use the boards to display student work.  Honestly, when I walk into some classrooms and see the detailed bulletin boards it makes me a little jealous. 

3. Pre-made teacher posters - You know that "hang in there" with the kitty or the man running up to the apex of a mountain.  Or the truisms like, "Today is the first day of your tomorrow."  Instead, I decorate with four paintings I made and a bunch of paintings from the students.  I'm waiting for permission to paint a real mural on the wall next.  Unlike #2, I am actually not jealous at all of teachers with kitten posters.  (or Garfield.  Why does he get the cartoon monopoly on all things educational?  He's not even a good role model.  He's lazy; what with his penchant for overstuffing himself on high-carb lasagna and taking constant naps, only to offer cynical rebukes to his loyal owner, Jon)

4. Anything with apples or chalkboards - I hate apples.  I think chocolate is what really gets teachers through the dark days before spring break.  So, I don't own any of those little trinkets with apples or mini-chalk boards and I don't have a specialized name tag thingy on my desk.  If the kids don't know my name by the first few weeks then there is a strong case that the child needs an IEP. Actually, I wouldn't mind a cool name plaque, but no one has ever bought me one.

5. Word Walls - They want us to put up word walls and in absolute defiance, I refuse.  Call it insubordination.  Call it "Spencer's being an elitist jackass."  But I had the conversation with them about it.  "Well, it helps them when their minds are wandering and you're teaching."  I responded that I do very little lecturing and I don't expect them to use my classroom space as a mini-tutoring session.  Besides, I keep a vocabulary list for them online that they actually use. 

 

In an attempt to redesign our class website, we have created two models.  The class is split 50/50 on it.  So, I was looking for more feedback.  Which one do you think looks better:

Option #1

Social Voice - Brown

Option #2

Social Voice - Blue

I really would like some input on it.

When I was first beginning as a teacher, the lady said, "Check out Fred Jones. He's really good. So is Lee Canter for another side of discipline. But personally, I'm all over Harry Wong." I was the only one in the room who laughed. Could an educational guru really have a name like Harry Wong? In response, I read Harry Wong and borrowed a few practical ideas. I thought, at the time, that it was a crucial book that would change my vocation forever. I was wrong about Wong.

A few years later, I read a book called "The Wisdom of Crowds." The book is scattered with various stories of research experiments and small anecdotes from a person who definately seems to live more of the urban/upper class Manhatten lifestyle. (For some reason books like "Wisdom of Crowds" and "Stumbling on Happiness" and "Tipping Point" always have stories that make me feel that the author is wearing a sports coat and sipping wine in a stodgy restaraunt). I didn't think much of the book, but I am realizing how much it has changed my teaching methods.

Yesterday, after analyzing the causes of the Great Depression, students predicted how the events would change society. From there, each group pasted their Google Document into one larger class Google Document. I then allowed groups to delete only the ones that were duplicates and re-organize the information into categories. Like a libertarian paradise, the class was able to self-organize and the finished result was an outline stronger than anything I could have ever created.

Students predicted random things, "Literacy might decrease when kids have to find new ways to make money for the family. Or it might go up when they quit working on a farm and have to move to a city" or "There would be a new push to get off the gold standard again." Others posed questions, "Would it lead to higher levels of domestic violence? Or would families grow closer instead?"

I am about to take computers out of teacher classrooms. Instead of asking, "Do you want to keep your computers?" I will be asking, "If you still need your computers, write a one paragraph rationale on why you use the computers, how often you use them and how it changes your instruction." This simple act of frame is a skill I learned from "Wisdom of Crowds." So is the concept that it is better to make something a default rather than an option. In other words, I am better off saying, "We'll take the computers unless you need them" rather than "Send me an e-mail if you don't need them."

What I am realizing is that there are some great lessons from social psychology and sociology that never trickle down into the Harry Wong, education-as-a-recipe books.

This is my second video blog. Read More...

It's a false cliche to say that we learn more from students than they do from us. The reality is that teachers typically teach more than they learn. By the end of the year, I will have taught a student about history, economics geography, how to construct Read More...

Every time I ride past fifty first avenue, I see the old sugar beet factory in downtown Glendale. It's located near some housing projects and industrial warehouses. This afternoon, I began to wish it could be re-established in downtown Phoenix. It doesn't Read More...

I don't believe in the notion that the district is run by a bunch of pricks.  I don't think that they are part of a vast conspiracy to make sure that we fail.  I don't even believe in the lie that they are cruel, heartless vindictive people.  However, I do believe they are ineffective and out of touch with the reality of my classroom. 

I am having a difficult time with the tech guy from district office.  We'll call him Tom.  We'll call him that, because that's his name.  Three of our teachers have e-mailed Tom asking for information on how to order ninety computer mice.  In a district of about thirty schools and millions of dollars, this doesn't sound outrageous.  After all, we are attempting to launch a tech-integrated social studies curriculum.  We are refurbishing old, crappy computers that had been gathering dust in classrooms. 

This process began about two months ago and we still can't get any solid answers.  A few times, his replies have been curt and condescending.  Yet, I don't believe he is a hateful man.  I highly doubt that he kicks puppies for fun or that he wants to commit genocide or that he wipes without washing his hands afterward.  Someone told me that he's actually a nice guy once I get to know. 

That's the problem with the system.  There is no chance to get to know him.  Beuracracy (a word whose spelling is too complicated in and of itself) turns people into procedures.  Paradoxically, while attempting to streamline the system to be more effecient, it creates unnecessary procedures; always out of fear about the "worst case scenario" and predicting all "what ifs." Like a hydra, it grows larger every time they attempt to make it more effecient.  Things run too slow, so they figure the answer is in accountability - the very thing that compounds it and makes it go even slower. 

Tom might be a nice guy if I get to know him.  In a relational community, I would know him.  I'd go stop by his office, share with him my vision and get my info on ordering 90 mice.  But the system has made him into a manager.  The procedures have created a gated community within the district office so that most people there are impotent.  No one can lead, because leading is, at its core, a relational skill.  So, we end up with hundreds of micromanagers and paper-pushers who work really hard at maintaining the status quo and in the process we never experience change.

The greatest man to ever teach me spent less than a full year in our educational system. It's not that he "couldn't make it," but that he had already made commitments to run a hospitality house before he ever fell in love with the vocation. To his core, Read More...

The following is a video blog post I created. I did this for a few reasons. First, we have to do it for our class. Also, I realized awhile ago that this is such a multimedia culture that this is the language people speak. Like my friend Dustin pointed Read More...