Blog Homework?

Barry Saide nominated me as one of 11 bloggers he reads and wanted to complete this meme. I first met Barry at TeachMeetNJ in Stockton, NJ this past summer.  As I sit at my desk and ponder my takeaways from 2013, Barry's excitement and commitment to improving instruction at all levels for the students of New Jersey stands at the forefront. I am honored that Barry thought to include me in this conversation, and I will now share 11 facts - some personal and some professional - about me that readers of my blog probably don't know...

1. I converted to Judaism. 

2.  I had every intention of being a high school history teacher when I left high school. After taking one history course in college, I discovered something about teaching and myself. I didn't love history. I was inspired and driven by the teachers of history I had in high school. I didn't want to be a history teacher. I wanted to be an inspiring teacher.

3. I was the director's assistant on a feature film, and it was an amazing experience.

4. I'm an ELA guy with a math mind.  I see formulas in writing, and I've always tried to break down assignments for my students to help them see that.

5. I lost a teacher to another district over the summer.  Perhaps it's evident, but I took it personally. It's a "better" district according to demographic, graduation rate, state rankings, and basically every indicator. I was furious with him. He's an amazing teacher, and I wanted him on my team.  I figured out that I would have done the same thing, but I thought he was better than me. That's why I was so upset. In reality, I am happy for him.  He's a great educator with a promising future, and I like knowing that we still connect and talk shop.  

6. I pumped gas in high school and found a man's wallet that he had left on the pump. It had $700 cash in it. When I returned it to its owner, it had $700 inside. I'm no saint. It was hard to do. $700 is a lot of money to me now. Forget being a 16 year old kid.

7. I'm too wordy.

8. I'm a late bloomer: I didn't learn to swim until I was 10, I didn't start smoking until I was 20, and I never flew on a plane until I was 21. I still do 2 of those pretty regularly.  The ultrasound picture of my first son cured the smoking thing.

9. I played basketball and rugby in college. I still play basketball. With some exceptions and hiatuses, I've been playing once a week at the YMCA for the past 8 years.  I have met some great people and developed lasting friendships through that game.

10. I see value in students sitting in rows. I think there is something to be gained from sitting quietly and listening for extended periods of time.  There are points in life when sitting and engaging on a listening level is a must. It cannot and must not be the only or primary way that students are being taught, but to avoid it entirely is a disservice to our students.

11. I am the oldest of 4 children.

Task 2: Answer Barry's 11 questions:

1. What keeps you positive?

I fight with this daily. I look at many of the challenges facing teachers, administrators, and students in my state and country, and I worry. However, I feed off the positivity of my wife, the professional drive of my Twitter colleagues, and the innocence of children - my own as well as those in the schools I service.  

2. What did you think when you heard Twinkies were gone forever?

"What will they do with any of the extra cream filling that is left over? Will there be a raffle?" Because seriously, I have a reckless disregard for my own well-being when it comes to the cream filling in Hostess snacks.

3. What makes someone easy to be around?

I find that people are easy to be around when they are quick to laugh, and they are willing to show a level of vulnerability. I don't need life story, but be willing to risk openness. 

4. Favorite movie line?

"The dude abides." The Big Lebowski

5. Best food to eat on the grill?

I love a delicious steak, and a grilled one is amazing, but it's really hard to beat a good, old-fashioned hot dog right off the grill.. 

6. If you could master one of the martial arts, which would it be and why?

Kung Fu because I've always wanted to roam around from place to place helping people.  (I'm not really old enough to even understand whether or not that's a real pop culture reference.)

7. Favorite Star Wars movie quote?

"Who's the more foolish? The fool or the fool who follows him?" Ben Kenobi 

8. Have you ever hit someone on purpose?

In fifth grade, I swung a lot at a kid, but he moved. Then he swung at me a lot, and I didn't move so much. I discovered fighting wasn't for me.

9. What scared you most?

In the world? That I'll mess up being a parent. There is so much grey area that changes from child to child.  It's a hard job - parenting - and one where the right answer last week might not be the right answer this week. 

10. Favorite non-mainstream cartoon you liked as a kid?

I have fond memories of Duck Tales from my childhood, but that's Disney, and you can't get much more mainstream. I really liked ProStars with Michael Jordan, Wayne Gretzky, and Bo Jackson. Athlete spies with amazing gadgets who could use sports skills to take down terrorist threats? Right up my alley.

11. Do you ever wish you could still ride a big wheel and why?

I don't have a memory of riding a big wheel as a kid, so while I can see the novelty of it, I don't have a hankering to get myself into a riding toy that low to the ground!

My third task is to generate a list of 11 questions for 11 other bloggers to answer:

1. What would you do with a lottery win of $50,000?

2. What was the first thing you read that you remember loving?

3. Diving - Sky or Scuba?

4. What is your favorite season?

5. Would you move for a job?

6. Have you monetized your blog? Do you plan to?

7. Are you a cat or a dog person? There can be only one!

8. Pick one musical instrument to learn now that you're an adult. Why that one?

9. To where did you fly on your first flight? Does anything about the experience stand out as significant?

10. Do you play video games? If not, WHY? If yes, which system/games?

11. What was the first CD you ever bought? Do you still have it?

My last task is to nominate 11 bloggers that I want to see join the More Homework Meme: (in no order)

1. Marc Siegel

2. Kate Baker

3. Caroline Durley

4. Heather Rocco

5. Anthony Celini

6. Sam Patterson

7. Andrew Thomasson

8. Sarah Thomas

9. Joe Sanfelippo

10. Paul Bogush

11. Allen Martin

Here's how it works:

1. Acknowledge the nominating blogger.

2. Share 11 random facts about yourself.

3. Answer the 11 questions the nominating blogger has created for you.

4. List 11 bloggers after you write this.  

5. Post 11 questions for the bloggers you nominate to answer and let all the bloggers know they have been nominated.  Don’t nominate a blogger who has nominated you.

Go on, you have homework to do.

All the best.

Paint the Fence: The Story of Two Learners

My wife is currently pursuing her supervision certification. Recently a professor gave an assignment following the final essay she had submitted: "Find an article about curriculum. Write a one page response to the article."

So after the Final (early 14c., from Old French final and directly from Latin finalis "of or pertaining to an end, concluding, final," from finis "end" (see finish). As a noun, late 14c., "that which comes last;" - from the Online Etymology Dictionary), there was yet another assignment that seemingly had little connection with any of the learning done previously in the class. The fact that the word curriculum is in the assignment did little to bolster the cohesiveness of the study of curriculum that had taken place over the past 14 weeks.

There was much colorful commentary about the senselessness of such a task.

The assignment actually spurred a conversation about curriculum, teacher efficacy, how we learn, and The Karate Kid (the real one).

When I was in school, I was told to do work, and I did work.  I didn't need to know why. I didn't need relevance. I needed to get it done. Down the road, the work I was doing would translate, and I would understand the why. I thought I was a normal learner.

However, once I started teaching, I realized that there are those learners in the world who will not do an assignment simply because it is assigned.  Those learners want to know why.

"Why do I need to do this?"

"When am I going to use this in the real world?"

"How is this going to impact me in the future?"

I was stymied. Who are these students who question the pedagogue?! Just do it.  Look at Daniel Larusso! He didn't see how painting the fence was going to help. He didn't understand why he was required to wax on and wax off for hours on end, but guess what.  He did it.  He did all of it, and he beat nearly all members of Cobra Kai and won the All Valley Tournament as a heavy underdog.

Yes, that was the way I thought about it. The Karate Kid supported my argument that although we may not know the point from the beginning, when the time is right, we will ultimately be able to use what we've learned to do something amazing.

The truth of it is that for a teacher to be truly effective, there has to be a plan.  The lessons are scaffolded, and there is a plan for how the work being done will enable the students to use the skills being developed in activities that involve bigger, more advanced, higher order thinking. When an educator communicates the process with the students, they are able to see the road map, and they are able to take ownership of their own arrival at the destination. Students won't have to hope they notice that the time is right to apply what they've learned, they'll be ready and on the lookout for the opportunities to do so.

Are you someone who needs to know where you're going? Do you give your students the road map so they'll be prepared? Or do you get them to sand the deck and paint the house to surprise them with what they're actually learning? I'd love to hear from you.

Cutting The Arts By Attrition

I am fortunate in my position in the Curriculum and Instruction department to be able to speak with educators across disciplines and grade levels.  It provides me with points of view to which I would normally never have access.  I see how content delivery in the sciences has been impacted by the Common Core State Standard in the English Language Arts.  I am able to see the stress in the physical education as they try to figure out what writing across the curriculum is going to look like for them.

On Friday, the director of the Visual and Performing Arts department called me in to his office to discuss our collaboration on the first play of the year, The Great Gatsby. Many of our students have already read the book in their classes, and in order to drive the ticket sales, we had been spoken about getting them to write critiques of the play for classroom credit.  The thought is that by bringing in students who must be there, it will follow that they will bring people with them to the performances. This activity also ensures that there are literacy components being exercised in conjunction with the play.

Then we hit a snag in our cross-curricular collaboration.  He asked about bringing students out of their English classes for a preview of the show during the school day.  He eagerly looked up at me and said, "what do you think about bringing the kids for a preview? We can have all the ELA groups who read it, and then invite a couple other groups to come along to see just a bit of the play.  That could really get them excited about going home and telling everyone they know that they should come see the show."

On the surface, it seems like a great idea.  Kids could be writing about what they've read and what they're seeing. Comparing, analyzing creative decision-making, and perhaps creating a play they feel works better are all ways that students could engage with the material, so it actually surprised me to hear the words leave my mouth. "No, Pete. We can't take the classroom time away from the teacher. The kids have assessments the following week, and the teachers need the time to ensure they're ready."

Yup. I opted my students out of exposure to the school play because they needed to focus on getting ready for their Model Curriculum Unit 2 Benchmark Assessment.

But maybe that's the point.  We have been celebrating for years that we're a district that hasn't cut their arts department.  When I look that the evidence, it seems to me that there is something darker underway.  Our lower grades have had their after-school activities reduced to only Fridays in favor of Monday - Thursday educational support time after school. Students are no longer able to take all the arts classes they want due to required test-prep courses.

No one needed to cut our arts budget.  Students not taking the arts classes will ultimately spell the end of the arts in our district.  It is a case of the arts being cut by attrition, and it's strangling the variety of courses to which our students have access.

(Violin pic taken from http://www.flickr.com/photos/27206818@N08/3194317755/sizes/m/in/photostream/)

Just a Teacher

We in education live in interesting times. We are easy political pawns as the general public looks for answers as to where their money goes.  We're just teachers. Plenty has been written about the overpaid and underworked teachers in public education.  Plenty has been written to refute those misguided notions.  More should be written detailing the salaries when comparing similar years of experience and education and certifications. Unfortunately, it is often met with scorn and resentment and disbelief. I have had these conversations with friends, family, and neighbors, but that's not what this is.

It's easy to push educators. If we push back, we don't care about the children.  We've heard it all before.  We're just teachers.  We work part time. We want full time pay. We have too many benefits provided to us.  Our underfunded pension system is sucking money from the system.  We don't have enough accountability.  We are not making our students competitive with the rest of the world.  I can argue each of those points, but that's not what this is.

So what does it mean to be just a teacher? It means we make a difference in the lives of the students placed in front of us. Good, bad, or indifferent, we impact those lives.  Through our words and actions, those students feel worth, pride, shame, success, failure, satisfaction, pain, and joy.  We hold that power.  To be just a teacher is to understand that we are no longer the keeper of the information.  It is up to us to determine the path that a student needs to travel to gain the experiences in a field for which you already have expertise. It is up to us to inspire students to want to learn more than we planned.  We have the ability - the responsibility - to ensure that the students we teach have the tools and desire to become bigger and brighter than we ever hoped to be.

Sure, you're just a teacher. Think back to the people who made you who you are today.  The teachers on that list - and you'll be hard pressed to find the individual who claims to have gotten where they are without the inspiration of at least one teacher - are sure to have something in common.  Those teachers represented more than a courier of information.  They were friends and mentors and role models.  They were counselors and financial advisors and motivational speakers. They were parents and grandparents and religious leaders and coaches. So yeah, we're just a teacher, and that's all part of it.  It's part of the job, and quite frankly, it's the part of the job we love, and it's the part of the job that makes us an easy target because we're so unwilling to allow the pain we feel in our personal lives to break down the experiences we're giving our students.  Every teacher who inspires is just a teacher.  For that reason, I'm proud to be just a teacher.

If you're just a teacher, too, I'd love to hear from you. Leave your comment here or use #JustaTeacher to let the world know what being just a teacher means to you.




(Picture above taken from: http://www.spidvid.com/blog/2011/02/multiple-video-projects-time/)

My First Haiku Deck

My first effort at creating a presentation using Haiku Deck. Incredibly user friendly, and aesthetically pleasing. This will be used for my departmental meeting on connecting informational text to their narrative texts.

I'd love to hear your feedback.

Click here to access the slides with the accompanying notes. http://www.haikudeck.com/p/ua5gCguR4L

First Day Butterflies

Welcome! You're a Tornado now!

I met with my new staff members today.  I thought back to when I used to first meet my classes for the school year.  I wanted to be engaging.  I wanted them to know they could trust that I was going to develop their scholarly skills in ways that were meaningful to their futures. I wanted to be fun.  I wanted to be the teacher they raved about at the end of the day when they were talking with peers about which classes they were looking forward to. 

Today - all that still applied.  I want my new teachers to know that they are being supported.  I want them to recognize that there are lots of chances for collaboration, and they will never need to feel like they're on their own.  I want them to know that they are the newest members of the best department in the district.

In all of my eagerness, I forget one thing, and it's something I've forgotten at times as a teacher and as a coach and as a parent.  What do they want?  When I stop to listen, I find out that they have concerns.  They're nervous.  They're not all brand new to teaching, but my district is brand new to all of them.  They have questions to which I have no answers.  They wonder how their students will receive them.  They wonder what their classroom will look like.  They wonder how their coworkers will receive them and maybe what they look like.

I know that I am confident in their abilities.  I know that I'm excited for them to share their talents with our students.  I know they'll learn so much about themselves in the process, and I'm excited to be a part of their growth.

What do you wish someone shared with you before your first day of school?

Portfolio Presentation Reflection

As promised at TeachMeet NJ, this is the backchannel from todaysmeet.com/mrlebrun regarding the portfolio process. It seems that a majority of the posts focused on the reality of the current portfolio system being something that dies in a file cabinet and never gets revisited.

There were two conversations that came out of the portfolio presentation which I felt warranted further thought.  The first was the question in the session that came up more than once about the danger of a student accidentally deleting a file.  One of the aspects of the teaching job that comes through at every level is the gradual release of control. In the Danielson Framework, the most highly-effective teachers are those who allow their classes to be truly student-driven. From discussion topics to input on grading rubrics, highly effective scores are reserved for those teachers willing to relinquish control.  The same should be said in this process.  The more responsibility we give to our young people, the more likely they are to be effectively using the tools they are given.  We have to instill in them a sense of responsibility.  They have to be aware that if they're not careful, they may lose the work they have done.  How many times have we forgotten to save with frequency and then had the unimaginable happen and the work disappears?  Accidents will happen, but if we are careful to guard against them, we can minimize them.

After lunch, I was stopped on my way into the App Smackdown by Allen Martin (@AlsTechTime) with a question I couldn't answer. He asked me what the real-world value of the portfolio was.  I pointed to the ability of the student to share growth and knowledge gained.  I pointed to the ability for a person to put those skills on display for colleges and potential employers.

And he said, "But why? Have you ever heard that a college made its decision to enroll a student because of the work presented in his or her portfolio?" And I froze. I hadn't. I actually hadn't ever asked a candidate to share his or her portfolio with me, nor had I ever been asked to produce my portfolio during an interview.  So the next step in my process is to connect with area colleges and university admission folks to see exactly what role, if any, the portfolio plays.  After that, we, as educators will really have to identify the ways in which we're going to use portfolios in our classrooms.

Click here to find my presentations page including my portfolio presentations.


The transcript from the backchannel follows:

mrlebrun

What aspects of portfolios are challenging? 07:39PM Tue, 20 August 2013 GMT by MrLeBrun

Seems like others are using back-channeling today! Love it! 01:13PM Thu, 22 August 2013 GMT by MrLeBrun

Portfolios die in a file cabinet. No time to review them! 03:32PM Thu, 22 August 2013 GMT by Kate B. @KtBkr4

I agree with you Kate. I never get a chance to look through paper file folders. 03:33PM Thu, 22 August 2013 GMT by Jawharah

It seems there is so much material, it gets lost and pushed around. I agree it gets lost in a file cabinet. 03:33PM Thu, 22 August 2013 GMT by Allen

does anyone actually look at all portfolios for their students...time consuming 03:34PM Thu, 22 August 2013 GMT by kyle

when we did portfolios, i was never able to look at them for incoming students. 03:34PM Thu, 22 August 2013 GMT by Kate B. @KtBkr4

Rubrics! 03:34PM Thu, 22 August 2013 GMT by Mike

they just traveled in boxes, dusted off, stuffed w new stuff, transported to next teacher 03:35PM Thu, 22 August 2013 GMT by Kate B. @KtBkr4

I am interested in how high school students can use their work and "show it off" to potential colleges or businesses. 03:35PM Thu, 22 August 2013 GMT by Allen

YES! Lack of access! Locked in a room is not effective! 03:36PM Thu, 22 August 2013 GMT by Kate B. @KtBkr4

YES! Student self evaluation is a MUST! #validation 03:42PM Thu, 22 August 2013 GMT by Kate B. @KtBkr4

Smart! Only those pieces self evaluated are included in portfolio. 03:43PM Thu, 22 August 2013 GMT by Kate B. @KtBkr4

Negativity and Nerves: The Hallmarks of Any Worthwhile Endeavor

I made a resolution for 2013. Fine, I made a resolution for the 2nd half of 2013. I decided I'm going to say yes more often. Yes to spending time with friends (I'm a notorious homebody). Yes to drives down the shore (I'm really opposed to traffic). Yes to attending conferences (I don't like to steal time away from the family).  Yes to myself when I ask if I can really do <fill in antecedent for "it" here> (Self-doubt and I have known each other a really long time).

Today I signed up to present at TeachMeet New Jersey. It looks so easy in that sentence.  It went more like this.

Me: Cool, they're still looking for presenters.
Negative Me: But you're going to be learning so much already.
Me: I could probably just present one session and then be a participant and still get a lot out of it.
Negative Me: Maybe not.
Me: I could ask if that's how it works. The guy in the email said reach out with any questions.
Negative Me: Yeah, but that's not a great question.
Me: I'll ask.
Negative Me: But what would you present.
Me: Google Docs, Drive, QR codes, Today's Meet, Inkle Studios, One Word, Go Animate. I've used all that stuff in my classes.
Negative Me: Probably everyone attending this thing has seen that stuff.
Me: But I've done presentations in my building.
Negative Me: Those people don't know that stuff. They're Luddites.
Me: That's not nice. Some of them are very tech savvy.
Negative Me: (Blinks) They are not going to a tech conference.
Me: (stares)
Negative Me: (shrugs)
Me: Whatever. I'm doing it. I'm going to talk about digital portfolios with drive.
Negative Me: They know about that.
Me: I'm doing it.
Negative Me:
Me: No more negativity? (pause) Hello?
Nervous Me: Oh, hey. I heard you signed up to be a presenter.  I'll be here til then.
Me: Perfect.

As I'm dealing with these internal versions of myself, I realized that in everything worthwhile I've ever done, these conversations have happened within me.  In the times that I've been left wondering what might have been and what if, I've allowed negative me and nervous me to talk me out of doing whatever it might be. 

So here's to the nerves that come with deciding to go into the unknown.  I welcome you now. We can do this together.

My First Goal As A Supervisor

If you follow me on Twitter - chances are, if you're reading this, you probably do - you're aware that I recently began work in my new position as the supervisor of ELA in grades 9-12.  The past few weeks have been incredibly productive, as I have been given the time that teachers so often complain they do not have.  I have been able to connect with my PLN, build a new website to connect with my new staff, write a couple blog posts, develop curriculum guides, and help revise grading and portfolio guides. 

The irony of this is that I am no longer a teacher of students.  To do any of these things, a teacher would need to squeeze them in around meetings, PD, grading, and finally - the true purpose - teaching classes.

Recognizing that the time it takes to be effective is as critical as any other factor in a teacher's preparedness, I am setting the goal now - publicly - to offer as much time as is possible to my staff so that they can prepare amazing experiences for their classes.  In addition to prep time are 2 weekly departmental meetings of 83 minutes each, and I am seeking to ensure that the agendas for those meetings are largely constructed by my staff.  It's their time and their department. They should be heavily involved in determining how to most effectively spend their cooperative time.

Given the time to collaborate with your colleagues, what would you most like to work toward accomplishing?

Shakespeare and Spidey

I’m an English teacher in an urban high school. I’m currently working on a unit with my senior classes about decision making.  One of our touchstone texts for the unit is Hamlet.  I could have given my students two choices for the study - A) here’s the book, now go home and read various acts to yourself, or as I’ve done so many times before - B) we’re going to read this aloud in class since “it’s a play and should be performed.”

Then this. 

I read “Stop Reading Whole Class Novels” by a blogger called Mr. Chase.  In it, the author points out that despite what a curriculum or lesson plan says, every student is never doing every assignment.  Devastating to a teacher who likes to point out to the one or two students who get caught not doing the reading that they are probably the only students in the history of my career who didn’t do an assignment. So the question became, how do I teach my students Hamlet without having them read Hamlet the way I had taught it so many times before? 

So I started developing projects around the concept of decision making, which is really what this unit has always been about. I decided my students watch the PBS video “Shakespeare Uncovered: Hamlet with David Tennant”.  It’s an engaging look at the character as well as the actors who have played him.  It covers a lot of the plot as it seeks to determine why a 400-year-old play is still as relevant and popular as it is. The video is supplemental in nature, and when discussing major soliloquies or scenes, we open the play and read as a class.  From there, we can analyze and discuss the importance to the characters and plot. 

When the video discussed Hamlet and the concept of a son vowing revenge for his father’s murder, I cheered inside when one of my seniors, Tommy (a notorious non-reader), connected the concept to Spiderman.   

I cheered outwardly when one of his classmates, Amory (who I often admonish for his treatment of desk as pillow), questioned him on it, and he defended it with the example of Norman Osborne’s death and Harry Osborne’s subsequent vow to kill Spiderman, his father’s murderer. 

I stood on my chair and watched as the conversation began to spread through the room.  Dyllon told him it wasn’t the same because the Osbornes were villains, and Hamlet was the good guy.  That didn’t jive for Tre, as being on a revenge mission against a murderer doesn’t automatically make you the good guy - after all, Hamlet was letting his emotions get the best of him, and he ends up killing Polonius. 

Speaking of Polonius, the students have embraced the advice he gives to his son, Laertes. They have been creating reverse memes to demonstrate what the advice means.  (Reverse memes are what I refer to as using pre-written words with found images rather than what they do with meme creation in which they take a picture and add their own words.)  

Here’s an example from a student:

 

Once the students have created these, they will view them, art-gallery-style, and analyze what about the picture is representing the words.  Going back to our original purpose in the unit - what led the creator of the piece to make the decision he or she made.

I’m still feeling out this new way of teaching Hamlet through a lens rather than for the sake of it’s-third-marking-cycle-and-I-have-to-teach-this-play-now.  It’s out of my comfort zone due to its newness, and there are days I worry that I’ve underprepared.  What my students are showing me is that I don’t have to fill the areas I perceive as gaps.  They are eager to have a voice in this because of how they are engaging in the work.  It’s been a rejuvenating lesson. 

Benchmarking My Principles

On Monday and Tuesday of last week, our department was directed to administer benchmark assessments for Unit 3 of the model curriculum of the New Jersey Department of Education, which was developed in response to the Common Core Standards. This marked the third time this year that instruction was interrupted to administer these benchmarks. For units one and two, we were instructed that the students would be given two class periods to complete the assessments. We teach an A-day, B-day block schedule, so we lost 8 days of instruction for both benchmarks.

Furthermore, the board office is interested in seeing the progress on the benchmark scores, and they issued a mandate that the results are disaggregated within a week. The problems here pile quickly.
1) With over 120 students, the workload is huge. You can’t forget that there are other assignments in the “to do” pile as well, so despite their perceived importance by the higher-ups in the district, they’re just another method of assessment used by the classroom teachers.
2) The instrument needs to be analyzed beyond grades by looking at individual questions to see where group deficiencies lie in order to determine what SLO’s (Student Learning Objectives) need to be revisited and retaught. This problem exists with some extended problems.
2A) Each unit in the Model Curriculum has a duration of 6 weeks, so there is little to no time (once disaggregating the benchmark data has been completed) to move back to what may have been missed.
2B) The first two administrations of these benchmarks were given with traditional pen and paper, so it fell to the teacher to chart each response as they graded the assessments. These were 2-day assessments that comprised a total of 168 minutes worth of work. We’re talking about a massive amount of work. This problem was addressed in the third administration by moving to scantron sheets and a test that lasted just one 84 minute class block.

The problems listed above were logistical in nature, and they do not even begin to address the issues I have with standardized testing as a way to measure learning success. Those issues are - well - not really worth getting into, since as everyone who has run my PD this year has told me, “The Common Core is here to stay. Just deal with it and move forward.” (Okay, maybe it wasn’t directly quoted like that, but the first sentence is exactly how it was said in each and every PD I attended regarding Common Core.) Suffice it to say, engaging in these benchmarks, their administrations, and their evaluations is an experience that - in the words of a colleague - “makes me itch.” They just make being a teacher a miserable existence in which students are nothing more than the score they receive on the same test, and their teachers are nothing more than the cummulative improvement of those scores. Turning in my data - my students’ scores - sickened me, and made me feel that all the work I’ve done to enhance the experiences of my students has been in vain.

If education continues down this road, we’re beat. As a society, we’re totally and completely beat. We will lose the individuality we claim to hold dear. We have already decreed that despite the pedagogical importance of differentiating instruction and student choice, what really matters is the students’ ability to perform on something as arbitrary as a standardized test.

I didn’t even sit down to write about this tonight. I was going to write about - well, it doesn’t matter. This is better. Eh, it might be better. It’s definitely different. And I think that’s my point in this rant. We don’t know, as people, where we’re going, but the thing that makes us great is our ability to explore, to search, and to learn. This is about the fight between greater opportunities for our students to find out who they can become and the mindset that believes each and every child is the same and can be assessed in the same way to determine their growth - and by extension - their worth.

But maybe I've got this all wrong.  Maybe the two full weeks of instruction that my students have lost is right on point.  We're about halfway through the school year - 20 weeks or so.  Maybe students should be spending 10% of their schooling with standardized tests.  After all, the Common Core Standards focus on college and workplace readiness, and colleges and workplaces are certainly areas where uniqueness, originality, and individualism are NOT sought-after virtues.

I See Another Fish or The Reflection From Inside the Fishbowl

I had been looking for a way to engage my students in a real conversation about argumentation and appeals. I wanted them to really witness ethos, pathos, and logos being used by their peers. One idea kept coming up in all areas of my PLN - the fishbowl. The variable was how to best implement it.

An approximation of a common planning meeting 1/29/13:

Q1: How do I implement it?
A1: Just have a debate.
Great idea.
Q2: About what? (Devil’s advocate question, as I know the responses are often immediately disengaging.)
A2: Dress Code.
Played out.
A2: Extending the school day.
No way.
A2: Armed guards in school.
Again?
A2: The Superbowl.
(The group giggles.)
A2: Gun control.
Been discussed in every class at this point.
A2: Teen pregnancy.

Q3: Wait - what was that?
A3: Teen pregnancy.
Before that.
A3: Gun control.
Before that.
A3: Armed guards?
After that.
A3: The Superbowl?
That one.

Q4: Why does that make sense?
A4: We can engage kids who don’t want to talk about “school stuff”.
A4: It’s topical, and there is a lot being written about it by people with credibility (ethos).
A4: People care about so much especially if their team is playing (pathos).
A4: There are a ton of statistics to look at (logos).

Q5: What do we do about the kids who don’t like football?
A5: They are the outside of the fishbowl.

Q6: But what do they do?
A6: Analyze the conversation.

Q7: Like decide which side wins.
A7: No. That’s not fun for them. They don’t like football. They have to listen to the conversation for its appeals, not its content per se. They will analyze who brings what appeals to the debate. What examples are there of ethos, pathos, and logos? That way, they are not being asked to listen to a boring conversation about football, but they are being asked to listen to the formation of an argument.

*Friday, Feb 1 (Fishbowl day)

I arranged the desks so that I had 8 in the middle and 14 around the outside. Each of the middle desks had either a 49ers or Raven placard on it. This would determine the point of view of the student in that spot. Each desk also had primary source documents (a packet containing propaganda for the appropriate team, offensive and defensive statistics for both teams, and a copy of the schedules and results of both teams).

As the students in the middle familiarized themselves with the materials, the students on the outside jotted down notes about what they were seeing in the middle.

*note: At this point, I realized that I wished I had gotten the laptop cart to use Today’s Meet to record the backchannel. It would have provided real-time responses to what was happening in the middle. It would have also modeled for some students having trouble grasping the difference between studying the appeals and commenting on the conversations. Twitter would also have worked (@acelini modeled this here).

Once the conversation got going, the group in the middle quickly moved beyond having what they would define as a formal debate. They yelled over one another; they called each other names; they used some foul language. They clearly grasped the pathos.

But overall, an interesting thing happened. They used statistics to prove points. They pointed to the results against similar opponents to prove points. They pulled from their own knowledge base to tie in other facts not included in the documents. They were making appeals using ethos and logos.

The area that pleased me most about this process is that the group on the outside was able to pick up on the appeals that were being used. During the 2nd half of the activity, the inside group was silenced, and the outside group was allowed to report on what they had seen take place. They pointed out the members of the debate who demonstrated the most ethos, and they pulled examples of the logos that had been used. That understanding made the activity feel like a success.

In the future, I will pull in the social media component to keep a running tally of the outer conversation. I feel like that will model the type of commentary we’re looking for, while at the same time, offer ideas and insights to everyone involved. It will make the activity far more collaborative, and as we all know, getting everyone involved generally leads to better performance from the group as a whole.
Used the fishbowl before?  I'd love to hear your thoughts.