Tag Archives: Passion

Irrelevance is the Distraction

Really? Am I writing this post, my third one in a week, (News Alert Humans Like to Socialize and Shackled By Fear) about how computers and the Internet are ruining our children’s lives? More importantly are you reading it? Are we not past this topic yet? News flash! The use of technology, whatever that nebulous term even means, is changing the world and nowhere is this shift more apparent than in our schools. Why? Because most schools are based on antiquated models of what learning used to look like. We can bemoan the fact that students no longer want to sit dopey eyed in rows and hear us ramble on and on about whatever we feel is the most important thing in the world, but really wouldn’t it be better if we started to learn how to bridge our two worlds?

We’ve all heard it before; I am not saying anything new, which begs the question why am I writing this post? Why are you reading? Why can’t we seem to move forward? Why do we need a six-page New York Times article telling us that teenagers are distracted and Facebooking instead of reading novels?

My main gripe and perhaps the impetus of my new crusade is that I refuse to be polarized by the Ed-tech evangelists and the paranoid chalk and talk dinosaurs. I refuse to be forced to make a choice between the book and the computer, between the organic and the digital, between a walk in the woods and a flight through second life, between “real” and virtual life. I refuse to believe that there is only one way to reach young people today. I want to be able to reach them on their level by helping them understand identity creation and digital footprints, but I also want to reach them on their level by taking trips into nature where we write poetry about what we see. There is a middle ground between kids watching Brain Pop videos and creating Power Point videos no one will ever see and calling it integrated technology, and doing worksheets; it is called teaching. It is not the technology that is distracting kids, it is the irrelevance of what we are teaching them and our inability to make it meaningful. You can teach under a tree with a piece of chalk if the kids are buying what you are selling. How do you do that, you may ask? Well that is the million-dollar question isn’t it? I am still learning. That’s the beauty of teaching.

This latest article epitomizes this polarity. Offering examples of exasperated teachers who can’t get their students to read a book versus the cool guy teacher, who is teaching them how to use Pro-Tools, doesn’t help our understanding. We simply cannot make students, teachers, and parents choose between being connected and “tech savvy” and “Old School.” There has to be a middle ground. Where are the stories about teachers who have infused technology to make it ubiquitous like air, (Love that Chris Lehmann quote) so that students can use their talents and newly found knowledge to change the world? Where are the stories about teachers who with passion and love of literature have convinced seventh graders that the pages in a novel can be just as excited or more so that a Facebook feed. I mean really, do we have such little faith in literature that we think a text message is competing with John Steinbeck? If you believe in what you teach and you make it relevant for your students there is nothing they won’t stop doing to follow where you lead.

It is still possible to connect to students without bells and whistles and show them the beauty of well-written prose or the magic of science. I am tired of both sides thinking that students will only learn and stay engaged if the teacher offers a technological carrot. I can no longer, with a straight face say, “It is about the learning and not the tools.” I cannot say that teachers need to create and build meaningful relationships with their students based on trust and honesty if they want them to read on their own.

I could go on and on, but you have heard it all before, and unfortunately most people who will read this post already agree with me, so maybe this connected technology is not as great as it appears. Besides, I have a movie to start editing and I am feeling a bit distracted after reading a six-page article. Maybe, if I can get my work done in time I can actually curl up with a good book. It is really a collection of online columns. Does that count?

Teaching Unmasked- A Review

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I first met John Spencer through his blog, Spencer’s Scratch Pad and through Twitter. I can’t remember which came first. I was immediately struck by his raw, passionate and humble voice. He seldom seemed to have any definite answers, and he rarely preached the trite Ed-Tech gospel, instead he wrote…I guess I should switch this to the present tense… he writes from the heart about his love of learning. His posts and his tweets strike a chord with me as they are honest snapshots into his classroom, his pedagogy, and his heart. I have been inspired by his short post style and often find myself needing to leave a quick comment. He is a prolific writer who has the skill to always keep his topics fresh and relevant.

It was with great pleasure that I ordered his book Teaching Unmasked- Why I Am More of a Teacher When I Am Less of a Teacher. The book is available in a number of formats, you can read it for free online here, but I chose to buy a copy from Amazon. I am a sucker for books and have yet to make the shift to E-reading. If someone takes the time to write a book, I am doing it now and I know how difficult it can be, then I feel I owe it to them to hold their words in my hand and give them the respect they deserve.

The book is an easy read that leaves you thinking and questioning your practice. It is easy, not in the sense that it is simple, although it is, but that it is well written and filled with the depth of wisdom. Not the kind of wisdom arrived by knowing the answers, but from the kind of wisdom that comes from a childlike passion for questioning and of curiosity. This is not an Ed-Tech book that will revolutionize your classroom with a litany of fancy gadgets and tools. It is a candid reflection of a teacher doing his best. Filled with all the doubts and insecurities that accompany honest risk taking teaching, this is a book that reveals a teacher who is dedicated to his students, their learning, and what their shared understanding means to the greater good of humanity.

I sometimes feel like a groupie, and I hope I do not embarrass John by my constant attention and by how often I retweet his posts or for the amount of comments I leave, but I honestly see him as a kindred spirit. One rarely finds a voice who so closely resembles one’s own. My copy of his book is littered with highlighted passages, and I will take my copy and place it on my desk at school for the occasional reminder to question my practice ad how I interact with students. Some nuggets of wisdom may even make it up on the wall.

If you are teacher interested in the art and science of true reflective student centered learning this book is for you. I will stop gushing now, because I know that this is not the kind of attention John is after, but trust me read this book it will do your soul some good.

We Have No Choice

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I’ve been digging through some old files and journals, and I came across this old piece I wrote back in 2002 while living in New York City and working in The Bronx:

We are all sitting in the classroom. Above the door it says 169 and it is crossed out and written in pen it says 171. It used to be the math teacher’s lounge but space is tight, so now it is our classroom. The room is at Stevenson High School on Lafayette Ave. in the bronx. We would capitalize it but it doesn’t feel like a place that should be capitalized. It is usually gray and usually brings you down a few notches no matter how good your mood. But here in room 171 things seem to be okay today. The sun has been absent a few days, but being that we are on the ground floor we don’t see much of him anyway. The desks are in a circle and we are looking at each other and are trying to break the code and find out how we can all communicate. Some of us are from Bangladesh, some from Ecuador, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Ghana, Iran, Venezuela, China and New York City. We don’t all know each other’s names and most of us don’t know what fills the heads of our neighbors. They sit there they have a look of fatigue we can relate to, so we think that they must also being living this life. Usually the desks are set up in fours, we sit next to strangers and we write and read the things they put in front of us. Some of it interests us, some of it bores us. We have been reading Lord Of The Flies. Today there are two pieces of paper in front of us. They say that we have to put ourselves into groups and discuss a list of problems we face everyday, in shitty schools and hard lives. He wants us to talk to each other. He wants me to talk to the Bengali girl who is always sleeping. He has a lot of nerve. But we do sometimes wonder what their lives are like? Because we sometimes feel this way, we read the papers.

He is sitting on his next Indian style writing furiously, which is curious because nothing is happening. We want to say something. But the people who are always talking are talking. They seem a bit sad. The teacher says that we all lead difficult lives and that our surrounding influence our behavior. He says that people, all of us, crave attention, maybe its called love, maybe something else, but we all want to be notice. He says sometimes when we don’t get this love we act out so that someone may notice us. He says every criminal has been mistreated. He doesn’t need to tell us this, we know. We are brighter than we act. We want to speak. We don’t, not yet. The spotlight is never big enough to include all of us.

image by David Reeves

He tells us that we have to realize where we are and what we have to do, to go to other places. He tells us the world is huge and that there are many songs we have never heard, and foods we have never eaten and lives we have never lived. He says that in order to get there we have to learn the rules of the game we are playing. He says that by learning to talk in turn and get things done, we can ignore all the rules and be free. He says that if don’t we will always watch people beating the shit out of each other in all the hallways of our lives. Up in the bronx the trains are never quiet. Up here we have been abandon. He says we should see everybody’s point of view so we can find our place in the universe. Sometimes he says things that we don’t understand but they don’t seem that difficult to learn.

Our minds are drifting. We are talking about the book. He says that people who can’t deal with authority need to be talked to, not disciplined. He says that they just need some one to listen. He knows because he says that when he was younger he had a hard time dealing with authority. We don’t like being talked to like we are animals. It feels nice when people hear us, even when the world is so loud. It feels nice to be spotted in the gray. We want to solve our own problems but it has been hard. We come form everywhere. We are fighting against forces beyond our control. He tells us this, but we know that life can’t be this hard unless, people are actively pushing us down. We see the TV, others are happier. Others have more. He tells us that we need to fight but we can’t fight the way we are. He says that we must be the next wave. We must educate our children. He says books will help. Forming our ideas will help. He says language is power and we have to understand sentences like, “he mired in his own irrelevance.” That’s a line from the book he brought. A fat boy who is smart but ignored says it. He says that we all have an id and sometimes it gets out of control. He tells us to look outside and see it in action. The other day we saw a boy hit another across the jaw with a lock and kick him when he fell. We didn’t know what that was called, but we knew what it was. Now we know that when the id gets out of control people break jaws.

He says we should trust him. “ I won’t let you done. If you need someone please come talk to me.” Others have said that and they have let us done every time. Some of us are 18 and we can’t write. We don’t want to be mechanics, we want to be Marines. He tells us that there is nothing wrong with that but we should make sure that we have choices. Not all of us want this. Some of us want to travel and see the world. Some of us want to experience things we have never seen. He says that we have to make sure we all work together. He says that until we teach the criminals none of us will be safe. He says that we need to listen. He talks a lot. We listen. We have no choice us they say we have to be here. But it beats what the other ones are saying. He seems to really be into being with us. It feels good.

Broken Record, or School is Not a Path to Wealth

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I feel like a broken record, but I have to say it again: when education is being discussed we should refrain from focusing on words like: grades, academics, work, success, and achievement. I think it best to frame our conversations around words like: growth, change, reflection, understanding, honesty, curiosity, and yes love.

As a middle school teacher, I work with students who are still quite fresh and just put into the oven. They are dealing with identity creation, understanding of social norms and expectations; in short they are messed up. I know because when I was thirteen I felt no one understood me, and now 23 years later I am still trying to recover.

I feel this is a critical stage in helping kids understand how to express themselves and feel comfortable in their own skin. This pastoral care guides much of what and how I teach. For the second time in a week, I have been reminded how right I am, and to be honest the validation feels great!

A few students from my old school in Doha are still blogging. I know because I have stayed subscribed to their blogs and continue to get updates. I think it is so amazing that these kids have found a voice and use their blogs for more than completing homework. Anyway, I opened this post from Nadia today and was moved to tears:

Two special people kept me calm and happy. One was my old English teacher. He was an amazing, inspiring person. He helped us to express our emotions, put them on to paper. He reminded me that lots of others have it much worse than we do, and we should be happy about what we have, everyday of our lives. He left us last year but I wish he could have stayed. He helped me become a better person and express myself, I wish he was here to help me now.

Education has a much bigger impact when we are focused more on creating kind beautiful people than collage applicants and corporate job seekers. For the record, I can “teach” a mean set of skills and convey large amounts of content and knowledge when needed. Go on and leave Nadia some advice…show that she has many teachers who care.

I Want The World To Know

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At the end of every year, I select five students who I have had a profound connection to and give them a copy of Letters To A Young Poet by Rilke. I know the book is over most of their heads, as I usually teach Middle School; I didn’t discover the book myself until I was well into my twenties, but there is something about the simple passages that I feel resonate with the big ideas I try to convey in my classes. If you are not familiar with the book, here is what Wikipedia has to say:

The letters were originally written to Franz Kappus, a 19-year-old student at the Military Academy of Vienna, of which Rilke was an alumnus. Discouraged by the prospect of military life, Kappus began to send his poetry to the 27-year-old Rilke, seeking both literary criticism and career advice. Their correspondence lasted from 1902 to 1908. In 1929, three years after Rilke’s death, Kappus assembled and published the ten letters.

I share this book with the five kids who have shown some appreciation for art, learning, and living life to the fullest. They are not necessarily the “best” students or the most academically successful, but they get “it.” I think it takes a special person to understand passages like this:

“Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language. Do not now look for the answers. They cannot now be given to you because you could not live them. It is a question of experiencing everything. At present you need to live the question. Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer, some distant day.”

I woke up today to a very pleasant email. One of the students who received a book from me last year was James. James is an interesting story. Let’s just say he had/has a difficult time being a “good” student. He reads well beyond his grade level and can contribute some of the most insightful ideas I have ever heard at his age in class discussions, but ask him to sit still, write something down, work on one thing for a long period of time, or to simply calm down-forget about it. He is all over the place, off the wall; if you are into letter clarifications he probably has a few A’s, D’s and H’s somewhere in his file.

At the beginning of last year, I saw something in James. I saw that he was smart, curious, and hungry to learn. His problem was that school was not the place where he could do these things. I knew instantly that his inability to play the school game would be a challenge for him and his teachers. I sat him down early and talked to him about what the year might look like.

Throughout the year James would come into my room to chat during break, we sometimes had lunch; he would tell me personal details about his life and what he was thinking. In short, we built a relationship based on trust and respect.

I was open, honest and frank when it came to my frustrations when he got in a fight over a girl, but I also commended him on getting the lead in the school play. James had a fantastic year in my class. But what did that mean?

Did he score well on assessments? Not really, he continued to skate by with mediocre work. Did he learn a list of skills and new knowledge? Maybe, but nothing compared to how some of his peers performed throughout the year. So how I can I claim he had a great year? Because he went from being a socially awkward seventh grader who couldn’t care less about school or grades to a person who wrote me this:

Hi Sir,

First week of school is done and i am ready to go on holiday. You know that book that you gave me last year i have fingered out what “it” is. Well to start “it” is different in every person. So “it” is the driving force of life your soul your DNA the molecules the seed that starts your life. “it” is with you your whole life even after and before life. You will never find out what “it” is. “it” can hide itself in you forever in your body. But “it” will be somewhere so simple you will just look over it. Now i know that this is a very simple description but i am going to find where “it” is and what “it” is and tell you cause i see this as a mission, a mission that i will complete whatever it takes. this is cause i want to know i want the world to know. And most of all cause you gave me the idea and i am thankful to every thing that you gave me last year and will give me in later on in my life.

Buy for now hope to hear from you soon.

You may be asking yourself, who this kid’s English teacher was. Sure the paragraph could use some love and editing. Yes it would score very low on a rubric, but my point is that sometimes school should be a place to ignite the lingering passion in young people. So many times we extinguish every ounce of excitement these kids have with our curriculum and assessments and grades, when all they really want is for someone to listen to them, respect who they are, and help them find “it.”

I have shared this post with James, and want to ask him at this time- if you are here and reading James, let me say thank you. I am so glad that you are here and alive and connected and curious and searching. That was the whole point of the book, my class, my life. Life is beautiful and perfect and always looking for people like you to join and move the parade forward. Please remember that, I am an email or a blog post away. Let me know how else I can help you. The classroom is not the only place we can learn from each other; we have the whole world. Have a great year and keep in touch. How is our garden doing by the way? You may need to start a new plot! Do it now before it gets too hot. There is interest, but ideas need leaders, and there is no reason why that can’t be you.