Power of a Whim

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Some teachers plan meticulously, then reflect exhaustively. I am not that kind of teacher. I like to plan with broad brush strokes– set a destination (assessment), decide what we must see on the way there (criterion, objectives) and take a map (rubric). I have been know to start a trip without the map, but I like to check in on it every once in a while. Once my unit is planned, I often improvise and go with my gut. Sometimes I will think of an idea minutes before class, and I’ll take a risk and run with it. Sometimes this helps, sometimes we get lost. Sometimes getting lost helps us get closer to where we want to be.

We are starting a poetry unit in grade seven, and I have been teaching middle school kids poetry for long enough to know it ain’t easy and/or cool. Problem is I love the stuff. I love the idea of the stuff. Throughout my career, I have tried different techniques to approaching poetry, but I seldom start with text or the word poetry.

I want students to understand that poetry is a way of life not a skill set. I will write more about poetry soon, this was meant to be a short post highlighting the power of whim.

Today was the first day back from break and after the initial- how was you week chit-chat– I told the kids to put their laptops away and read these words, which I projected on the wall:

so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens.

This is what I said:

I will put on some music. I want you to grab some paper, some crayons, color pencils, whatever you want and draw these words. There are few rules. Please remain silent and in your head. Then just draw. You are not done until the time is up, even if it feels like you are. Fill the whole page and take your time.

Then I turned on my iPod, put it on shuffle and we all started to draw. We listened to the Beastie Boys, Nirvana and Miles Davis. For an entire hour every kid, head down, drew. Not a word. No clarification, no griping, no nothing. Just music, poetry, and drawing. I wasn’t sure why asking kids to draw poem would be a good idea, or where it would lead us, when I started, but as I listened to the saxophone jazz and stained my fingers with pastel oils, and contemplated what actually does depend on the red wheel barrow, a funny thing happened–my brain began to work. Ideas began to grow. Flames flickered. Poetry became clear. I noticed the word glazed and I drew it. I created the world where this wheelbarrow lives. I could smell the depleted storm. I heard the chickens. I thought. I felt.

Then I got up and walked about the room. I could not hear the student thoughts, but I could see by what they were drawing that something powerful was happening in there. I let them continue for the entire class. Tomorrow we will explore the worlds they drew. We will ask questions about what they chose to draw and what they left out. We will discuss what they were thinking as they created their world. Then I will tell them that a poem is merely a door into a world they already know. A door intro their mind, their heart…

I start WWI poetry with grade 10’s tomorrow as well, and I will start the same way. We will draw:

Dark clouds are smouldering into red
While down the craters morning burns.
The dying soldier shifts his head
To watch the glory that returns;
He lifts his fingers toward the skies
Where holy brightness breaks in flame;
Radiance reflected in his eyes,
And on his lips a whispered name.

You’d think, to hear some people talk,
That lads go West with sobs and curses,
And sullen faces white as chalk,
Hankering for wreaths and tombs and hearses.
But they’ve been taught the way to do it
Like Christian soldiers; not with haste
And shuddering groans; but passing through it
With due regard for decent taste.

by Siegfried Sassoon and we might listen to this.

Teacher-Learner

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I was talking to some friends/co-workers the other night when inevitably the subject turned to school. After some initial chatter about curriculum, school governance etc… I came up with an outrageous idea! I am quite certain that no school will ever implement what I am about to propose, but I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since last week. I will share the idea here, then I will share this post with every administrator I work with from now until the end of my career and see if, perhaps, at some point, it will be possible. If the idea appeals to you, I suggest you do the same.

We were, my friends and I, talking about the Grade 12 IB art exhibition and discussing the mind-blowing work most students produce at the end of this two-year course. I mentioned how impressed I have always been with the accompanying process journals, when I casually mentioned that I would love to take an IB art course. Like right now! As an adult. While I am at school. With the grade 12 students. While I teach. As part of my schedule.

Here is my idea:

What if part of your teaching load as a teacher was to take one course at your school with the students. It could be IB or AP or any course you find interesting. You teach one less class and use that time to sit in with the class of your choice as a student. You do the work, you participate, you model learning. You are a Teacher-learner.

I am not sure of the logistics, or how it would work contractually. I am sure there is an administrator, somewhere out there who can work that out. I am an ideas guy! Perhaps, I need to actually sit down and work out the logistics, because let’s face it, for all the jargon of life-long learning, most schools would never seriously consider a plan like this. Paying teachers not only to teach classes, but also take them? Radical. I know.

cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cayoup

Just think of the community a model like this would create. Think of how the students would perceive teachers as learners, as people who love the act of learning new things. Teacher-learners would model behavior in terms of tech use, discussions, work ethic and more. Imagine siting with a group of grade 10 students trying to figure out how to graph a slope. (Yeah, I still don’t know what that means) Imagine showing students that you are not an expert in all fields. Yes, I can teach grade 8’s how to find inspiration and write poetry, but I am just like you when it comes to the final Drama assessment.

Here are some course I would love to take:

IB Art, Drama, and/or Music.
Any basic math class (maybe Algebra again)
TOK
Language B Chinese Foundation
IB Econmics
IB Film
IB Language A Lit (Yes, I know I can technically teach this class, but maybe it would be more fun to take it)

Like I said, I am not sure how all of this translates into pay-scales or teachable hours, but I do know that a school with Teacher-learners would be a pretty amazing place to work…I mean learn. It would be a school that takes learning communities and life-long learning pretty seriously. What do you think? Ridiculous or the best idea you have ever heard. Looks like I am may not be the only one and this is nothing new. Take a look at Freedom to Learn by Carl R. Rogers.

Give A Kid A Blog

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I had two eye-opening experiences this week, both really got me thinking about online sharing, curation of digital versus “real” work (E-portfolios) , and overall student learning, both in terms of motivation for and expressions of. The first was the grade 10 MYP Personal Project exhibition, the second my daughter, Kaia’s, student-led conference for her PYP Kindergarten class.

I will start with Kaia. This was her second student-led conference, and again I was very impressed and proud of her autonomy and independence. After greeting me at the door, her teacher handed Kaia a checklist which Kaia had filled in with the different examples of work she wanted to show me at the various stations: Portfolio, Math, Reading, Art, etc… Kaia proceeded to take my hand and lead me to her favorite spots. The first was her portfolio, at which she carefully and deliberately articulated her learning. She was a bit nervous (Still not sure how they can be nervous at that age) but she did a great job of explaining what we were looking at and was able to answer nearly all of the questions I fired at her! (Not sure if having your parents as teachers is a blessing or a curse.) She was confident and proud of herself and her work. We must have spent at least fifteen minutes discussing her learning. It was awesome to watch.

Next stop, she led me to a shiny iMac where she adeptly opened a folder called Kaia and hit play on a Keynote presentation. Before I continue, let me say that the presentation was beautifully made and showed tremendous amounts of work and time. Each slide had photos, text and little video clips of Kaia playing tennis, reading, acting, singing and more, but the weirdest thing happened–after twenty minutes of her being engaged and talking about her learning in a non-digital format, she became silent. We simply sat and watched a ten minute slide show. When I tried to ask questions, she said, “just watch daddy.”

Of course I see the irony here– part of my job is to promote and facilitate technology and the use of digital tools to enhance student learning. We have spent countless hours discussing what this looks like at every level of our school, but here I was wishing we could just turn off the video and go back to when she was telling me about what an herbivore is, or the features of a Triceratops. What is going on here? Let’s take a look and start with some questions.

Is a collection of photos and videos an effective use of technology? Is the presentation of an E-portfolio as part of a student-led conference the best use of time? I cannot emphasize enough that this post is not a critique of Kaia’s teachers. She has done an amazing job. Kaia is excited and passionate about everything they do in class. I am sure that the format they use is a standard protocol, that they have worked out in the elementary school. As a player in the decision making apparatus at our school, however, I feel that it is my duty to reflect on how our ideas are carried out.

As I mentioned early, the product itself was great. A well told digital story of my daughter’s learning. It was great to see a slide that had a copy of the book she had written coupled with a short clip of her reading said book. I saw her in the art room, in PE and on the playground. I couldn’t help thinking about a few things as I watched: I wish her grandparents could watch this, I wish I wasn’t watching it now at this conference, I wish I could have seen this unfold throughout the year and not all presented in one package, I wish I could interact with it and leave comments. I wish others– family friends etc…could also interact with it. You guessed it, I wished this portion of the conference was on a blog, and that I had had access to it months earlier.

In a world that is increasingly applying pressure for the digitization of our lives, we must be careful not to go digital for its own sake. Sometimes, most times really, sitting and talking with a five year as she talks about symmetry, while building a perfectly symmetrical house– using blocks, is far better than sitting in silence as you both watch a video of an assembly that happened months ago.

What’s my point? None of this is easy. Finding the balance between the digital and analogue is a major theme for this generation. We cannot, however, assume that one method is better than another simply because it is digitized or “real.” In this case, I really enjoyed watching and interacting with Kaia’s independence and confidence as she showed off her work. I was disappointed, however, when we sat and watched her video. Especially when I knew that in a proper blogging platform, we could have been watching these digital events and interacting with them as they occurred in real time.

Final question–is curation of work in a digital format really using technology to enhance learning? Every school in the world is grappling with these questions. We are all at different levels of understanding and implementation of technology. Our school has made tremendous progress in the two years I have been here, but as we start crossing one bridge, it is time to look ahead and ask what’s next. What if Kaia had shown me content she had created using digital tools? She is an adept photographer and storyteller. I would have loved to have seen a movie that she had made. What if she had interacted with another classroom? What if her peers had commented on her work as well? What if…..

Soon we will have our middle school student-led conferences, and we are working hard on building a structure for students to highlight and eventually curate their work through their blogs. I would hate to see, however, parents and students, simply watching a screen and not talking. A blog should be an ongoing space. A place where work is current, relevant and interactive. While I feel, that our blogs will eventually be great e-portfolios housing a range of student work and learning, I do not think that they serve much of a purpose in a student-led conference. Unless, the students are coached on how to navigate their work on a blog, so as to engage their parents in conversations, not simply click from link-to-link.

The second experience I had this week, was the grade 10 MYP Personal Project exhibition. Once again an incredible display of student learning, motivation, and independence. A huge round of applause to everyone who was involved. The weeks of work and learning were evident in all the displays. Students had created original perfumes, compositions for piano, iBooks about golf and more. Students confidently presented their guiding questions and were able to answer all the annoying questions I asked.

All except for one? Is this online? Not one of the grade 10 students had thought to share their work and final product online. True that the majority of them had used their blog as a process journal, properly tagging their posts and keeping impressive running diaries of their progress, but not one student had felt the need to share their final product with a global audience. They saw nothing wrong with spending weeks on a project, building a display that would last only two days and then being done with it. Up and down. Gone! Why is this?

I think students are still thinking of everything they do at school as a part of school. Even their personal projects, which are meant to be based on a passion and personal interest are nothing more than a school assignment to be shared and evaluated by teachers and perhaps a few peers. Why? How do we change this? How do we instill in students that what they create has value in a larger context?

I want to teach kids that their content has a place on the web? It has value and they should look forward to sharing their ideas and content, rather than being afraid of the exposure. If you spend over ten weeks writing an original piano composition, doesn’t it make sense to post it on Soundcloud and have it live on the web? If you wrote an iBook on golf, why not go the extra step and put it on iTunes so other people can download it?

I will be talking to the grade 10’s today about the ephemeral nature of their projects. Ten weeks of work, two days of presentations and then gone! Vanished like dust in the wind. I hope that they see the value of etching a space online for their minds, for the work, for themselves. Like Kaia’s conference, there is definite value in the physical personal project exhibition. It is just disappointing that they are gone. I cannot go home and listen or watch and comment more deeply on what I saw. I cannot share their work with you or your students. We cannot build conversations and community around their content.

In conclusion, I hope I have laid out the value of online spaces for students from kindergarten to grade 10. Give a kid a blog as a space to tend their garden. Let them learn how to be just as independent and confident online as they are off. Teach them how to balance the digital and the organic. Let them present and talk to peers face-t0- face, but also create lasting portfolios of their work online. This is the road ahead. These understandings are what people mean when they speak of 21st century skills.

Would love to hear your ideas. Share your experiences in the comments below.

Copy Wrong

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I have an hour to write this post and I am pissed. Can I say that on the Interwebz? Let me warn you, that although I often advocate for measured tempered writing, this post is rooted in anger and frustration. I am not sure exactly who the recipient of my rage is, but I know that EMI music and Youtube will take the brunt of my attack. I am also unhappy with the overall concept of copyright, ownership culture, capitalism in general, and the need for our society to commodify every aspect of life to the point of ruining it.

Stop. Breathe. Context.

Over the last ten weeks, my grade ten students have been working hard watching, dissecting and analyzing the film The Wall by Pink Floyd. We have watched the film, listened to the songs, and examined the lyrics. We have discussed the metaphor of walls, the role of artists in the face of authoritative bodies in society, as well several other themes. For their final product, the students have taken the lessons learned in terms of symbolism and film techniques used by Alan Parker from the 1982 film and applied them to their own videos. Some students have chosen to sing the songs themselves, but most opted to use the existing songs because of the time crunch. They worked hard and created amazing videos. Short films with depth, sophistication and beautiful cinematography.

In an effort to share the work with as big of an audience as possible, we created this page and posted their videos to Youtube. Within hours some of the videos were blocked in certain countries, because of the copy-righted songs owned by EMI.

“You used copy-righted music on youtube and are now surprised that it has been blocked. That seems silly.”

That is what you are thinking right? Let me explain why I am frustrated with this process.

1. Firstly, I am annoyed by the irregularity and chaos of the screening process. There are thousands of copy-righted videos on Youtube that play without any warnings or blocks year round. There are several copies of the very songs that we have used on Youtube right now! They play without any problems, while our student films are blocked. If you are going to block copy-righted material then block it all.

2. There is no recourse or avenue for us to address our grievance. Who do we contact if we want to claim that the use of this material was for educational reasons and protected under the Fair Use clause? (Looks like I may owe Youtube an apology, thanks to Fair Use Tube.org I may have found a way to dispute the copyright claim and it looks like my videos have been freed?)

The 1961 Report of the Register of Copyrights on the General Revision of the U.S. Copyright Law cites examples of activities that courts have regarded as fair use: “quotation of excerpts in a review or criticism for purposes of illustration or comment; quotation of short passages in a scholarly or technical work, for illustration or clarification of the author’s observations; use in a parody of some of the content of the work parodied; summary of an address or article, with brief quotations, in a news report; reproduction by a library of a portion of a work to replace part of a damaged copy; reproduction by a teacher or student of a small part of a work to illustrate a lesson; reproduction of a work in legislative or judicial proceedings or reports; incidental and fortuitous reproduction, in a newsreel or broadcast, of a work located in the scene of an event being reported.”

A few seconds later it appears that the block has been removed. All my videos still say that third party content has been matched, but no block and no points against my account.

Back to rant…What does it say about a “free” web that Emi and Youtube can simply pick and choose what we are allowed to post. It has been an eye-opening experience to literally run into the wall of ownership and copy-right law. We like to think that the Internet is an open, democratic, free space, but the reality is that it is not. Your average user cannot post what they want, when or where we want. We are confined by what the owners of the spaces and materials tell us is okay. Really, we have little freedom. I am left asking how do we learn where to carve our own spaces online. I suppose we could post these videos on our own servers, but then we lose the ability to share widely, embed on the web etc…

3. I am irked by the notion that a corporation can own and restrict how we use art. We are not trying to use this material to make money or in any other commercial way. We are simply enjoying the process of derivative art creation, inspired by songs we love. Why does EMI get to choose what happens to the music once it has been produced? I am not happy with the notion that everything can be copy-righted and owned. These giant companies do not give us the option of even asking to use their material. Let’s say I want to ask them to use this work, where do I start? Can I fill out a form on youtube? Their website? It is as if they have gathered all their toys and said no one else can play with them. If you don’t it- tough! More importantly, does the artist have any say in this process?

We are in the midst of a highly charged, market driven, hyper-capitalistic world where every thing we do, hear, see, create is owned by someone. Sure we can teach kids about copy-right and creative commons, but what about questioning the very notion of copy-right. How do we teach kids to be critical of who owns what and what that means to each of us in a globalized world? This has been a great teachable moment, because we are forced to look at ownership and use, beyond sticking it to the man and finding some way to sneak onto Youtube, but rather we are forced to ask why does EMI get to choose what happens to this art? (If they do have a choice, why are they not using this) The idea of ephemeral, creative, artistic ideas floating about the internet are not possible if there is a wall telling us what we can and cannot use.

We are not sure what we are going to do. We need to talk about it as a class. Perhaps move the videos to Vimeo and hope for more slack regulation there. Maybe we write to EMI and Youtube and get caught in the maze of bureaucracy. Nothing quite so radicalizing as banging your head against some mad buggers wall. This is, after all, a small school project dealing with media ownership, but what happens when we start talking about Monsanto and their battles with farmers over seed patents? Medicines? Ideas? Where does the ownership and profiting stop?

I know I don’t have any answers. I don’t think that was my point. I needed to vent and perhaps ask to hear your thoughts and gather some resources. What do you think about what I have said? How can we teach kids to be fair and ethical in a system that seems stacked in favor of the people who own what they experience.

Since sharing this post, I have been given some great resources. The first is RIP- A Remix Manifesto by Brett Gaylor. It comes with a complete .pdf teaching guide. I was also reminded of the great series- Everything is a Remix created by Kirby Ferguson. Watch the first one here and see the rest….well here and here.

Static Smiling Avatar

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Sitting here as the clouds begin to roll in for their daily rain dump, and the post-lunch procrastination fog is thick. (Did you hear that thunder?) I have a three-hour workshop to plan for this Saturday, but there is a blog post tangled in my brain that is keeping me from getting to my work. Pardon me while I detangle it now.

I recently changed my avatar across the webz. I have written about my obsession with avatars and identity before. So why bring it up again now? Let’s back up. Actually let’s take a look at the image first:

cc licensed ( BY NC ) flickr photo shared by Intrepid Flame

Not minutes after it was posted, I received a few responses:

What’s with the new avatar pic? Looks dangerous …

Your new avatar looks like some kind of stalker killer from a nasty video game nightmare.

Your avatar makes me think you’re gonna eat my brains.

These comments were all shared in good humor, and I was not upset by them. I get it. The picture looks odd, sinister, maybe even a bit scary. You must be asking yourself, does something so petty warrant a blog post? Bear with me. As we work with students and talk about the idea of identity creation and online communities and interactions, we often mention the importance of honesty and authenticity. We talk about being ourselves and the distrust of strangers we meet online–the importance of visual cues about who we are become more and more important. So why did I, inadvertently, choose an image that makes me look scary? Why aren’t I changing it any time soon?

Because this image, the look in the eye, the beard, the lighting, the mood, the tone is how I felt yesterday. It is a part of who I am at this time in my life. I have spent lots of energy creating authentic flashes of who I am to build my online persona. I am not a photoshopped head-shot, all smiles and professional looking. (No offense to those of you who use professional head-shots) Sometimes I am a silly dad, sometimes I am who you see above. I love seeing the various phases of who I have been, who I am, and who I might become, everytime I see images of myself reflected back from the interwebz

This may not be the most profound blog post, I will be the first to admit, but as we model behavior for our students I can’t help but insist that being yourself, even when that is not the best face forward is a valuable act. One of the most common criticism of online life is that, because participants can choose what they share, we only share positive images and tell happy stories from our lives, thus creating false images of who we really are. This image, and the others I share are my way of proving those critics wrong. What you see if what you get? But be careful, because that person is always changing and has more depth than a static smiling avatar.