Every once in awhile all the pockets of spark that I come across intersect and whether it's true or not it really feels like the universe is pulling together to communicate something important. Today I had to write about it. The trigger was an impromptu conversation with my student teacher about how sometimes, teaching core curricular outcomes gets set aside for a period and this is okay. Because sometimes it's important to have a conversation about how to be a good person; about what it means to be kind, to make a thoughtful decision, to show compassion or respect. If real teaching is inspiring the hearts and minds of children, then taking time for these conversations, creating space and modelling the kind of brave compassion that leads to hope and change is the most important thing we do.
Showing posts with label justanotherpartofthestory. Show all posts
Showing posts with label justanotherpartofthestory. Show all posts
April 9, 2013
March 5, 2013
Tortuga
I've got a turtle in my classroom. She's 25 years old and will outlive me. She likes to climb things, even though she's not built for it. She falls a lot but it never stops her. Once, earlier in her life, someone tried to drill a hole in her shell, maybe to flag her so they wouldn't lose her in the grass... It must have hurt. They probably thought she couldn't feel it. Maybe they never had the opportunity to get to know her so they didn't understand. Sometimes children forget that she can't see them properly and they try to pat her face. It's probably terrifying. She always comes back out though. Game face on, ready to forgive, adapt, and continue with her investigation, carefully negotiating her next obstacle; balanced, careful, determined.
February 5, 2013
Work that is Real
Just over a week ago today, Chris Lehmann concluded a conversation at #Educon with a question that struck me as really important:
In a consumption driven economy, education conversation inevitably revolves around the insistence that the purpose of schooling is to prepare students for the ‘real world’. Why? Because everyone needs a car and a house and a reliable job that makes good money when they grow up, ask any kid in Calgary. Reliability is synonymous with dependability making inconstancy and ambiguity the enemy. We can’t prepare for what we can’t predict which terrifies us. So though living itself is chaotic by nature, we lose ourselves in the idea that we can, if bureaucratically diligent enough, assure a utopian future with no risk or uncertainty, no need for further thinking, negotiating or venture. “Just do your homework so you can get a good job and have a good life when you grow up.”
This attitude inescapably precedes the idea that a didactic fractured pedagogy is the best tool for cultivating competence, security and safety. It worked for Ford’s cars. Right? At least if it didn’t, the process was simple, measurable, easy to follow and creditably efficient. It also lends itself to the notion that we can get ahead simply by speeding up, adding time to a growing list of commodities we presume to possess. It is hardly unexpected that as we negotiate the system, we learn to account for every minute and live in fear of ‘wasting’ them. Our work becomes inexorably detached from fun because with the proverbial clock always ticking away in the corner we’re scared of losing this made-up race we’re in; and when our species feels embattled we try to tack things down. How often do we rationalize with ourselves or with our children that if “we just get down to it” we’ll have fun after work?
The irony is that while rushing to stay a step ahead of life’s impending chaos, boxing things neatly so they can’t escape us and driving a wedge between passion and education in the process, we have completely forgotten that the trivialization of joy in learning isn’t the real world. In our rush for scholarship and superficial memorization of out-of-context data, we unthinkingly absorb the message that this just is the way things are. It isn’t the way things are, it’s the way we’ve made them. History has handed us over to a way of living and learning that doesn’t allow us the opportunity to know things properly. We have been born into a world within which the prevalent impression is that “knowing” can be bottled giving it an end and that the first man to the destination wins, but we are not born with this perspective.
Our nature is inherently inquisitive. A child’s first instinct is to search for understanding by questioning and exploring the collective memory of what is. We are all familiar with a toddler’s search for meaning through which every seemingly simple object becomes worthy of investigation. They answer every statement with a “why” which almost inevitably leads to the eventual acknowledgement by a besieged adult that they “don’t know”. Then, conventional schooling tends to forego in-depth inquiry for the sake of broad ground cover because “OMG more and faster is totally better” (see curriculum in general) and as a result children eventually come to accept that questioning has an end. The great tragedy of our school system is that it fails to clarify that circumscribing knowledge does not make it finite.
What if instead of “because that’s just the way things are,” the prevailing response to the relentless “why” question became “because that’s how things have turned out, but I wonder...” I’d like to imagine that how we learn and how we live might be different if we were more often encouraged to consider that today’s realities are often but a consequence of decisions that have been perpetuated throughout human history. Imagine if we were to shift from talking about what things are or what they aren’t, to talking about how they appear. Instead of what and how, we would have to ask why, on who’s behalf, in relation to what, in support of what, using what language and from where? What if we were comfortable enough to allow the multiplicity of a thing’s appearance to count as what it is?
My experience with inquiry-driven pedagogy began with asking kids what they wanted to know and how their questions could be effectively investigated. As I listened to their ideas, the dawning realization that they were capable stole gradually into my conscience until I was increasingly aware of the ways in which nature was almost asking to be questioned by this next generation, provided I was willing to hold the door open for them. I found myself purposefully turning worlds of knowledge over to children, offering them an opportunity to call things like additive systems or the scientific method into question and their impassioned investigations led to heartfelt articulation and re-interpretation of ancient ideas.
When we allow kids to write something, to read something or to mathematize, we provide language or mathematics with a future. Students who have managed to grasp regrouping in addition as a procedural series of algorithms will never invest in a defense of place value with the passion and conviction of those who have become sure of it, not thanks to columns and alignment but thanks to a researched conceptual understanding of base ten, expanded notation and equivalence. They have re-constructed mathematical ideas and discovered their conjectures to be supported by century-old findings and in so doing, have breathed life back into the world of mathematics. This reality has vertigo. Kids will lean in.
What else will change if our pedagogy becomes more inquiry-driven... if it is authentic, does it live only in the classroom?The answer is no; but it’s also not that simple which might be the point. Inquiry isn’t how we learn in the 21st century classroom, it’s how learning is.
In a consumption driven economy, education conversation inevitably revolves around the insistence that the purpose of schooling is to prepare students for the ‘real world’. Why? Because everyone needs a car and a house and a reliable job that makes good money when they grow up, ask any kid in Calgary. Reliability is synonymous with dependability making inconstancy and ambiguity the enemy. We can’t prepare for what we can’t predict which terrifies us. So though living itself is chaotic by nature, we lose ourselves in the idea that we can, if bureaucratically diligent enough, assure a utopian future with no risk or uncertainty, no need for further thinking, negotiating or venture. “Just do your homework so you can get a good job and have a good life when you grow up.”
This attitude inescapably precedes the idea that a didactic fractured pedagogy is the best tool for cultivating competence, security and safety. It worked for Ford’s cars. Right? At least if it didn’t, the process was simple, measurable, easy to follow and creditably efficient. It also lends itself to the notion that we can get ahead simply by speeding up, adding time to a growing list of commodities we presume to possess. It is hardly unexpected that as we negotiate the system, we learn to account for every minute and live in fear of ‘wasting’ them. Our work becomes inexorably detached from fun because with the proverbial clock always ticking away in the corner we’re scared of losing this made-up race we’re in; and when our species feels embattled we try to tack things down. How often do we rationalize with ourselves or with our children that if “we just get down to it” we’ll have fun after work?
The irony is that while rushing to stay a step ahead of life’s impending chaos, boxing things neatly so they can’t escape us and driving a wedge between passion and education in the process, we have completely forgotten that the trivialization of joy in learning isn’t the real world. In our rush for scholarship and superficial memorization of out-of-context data, we unthinkingly absorb the message that this just is the way things are. It isn’t the way things are, it’s the way we’ve made them. History has handed us over to a way of living and learning that doesn’t allow us the opportunity to know things properly. We have been born into a world within which the prevalent impression is that “knowing” can be bottled giving it an end and that the first man to the destination wins, but we are not born with this perspective.
Our nature is inherently inquisitive. A child’s first instinct is to search for understanding by questioning and exploring the collective memory of what is. We are all familiar with a toddler’s search for meaning through which every seemingly simple object becomes worthy of investigation. They answer every statement with a “why” which almost inevitably leads to the eventual acknowledgement by a besieged adult that they “don’t know”. Then, conventional schooling tends to forego in-depth inquiry for the sake of broad ground cover because “OMG more and faster is totally better” (see curriculum in general) and as a result children eventually come to accept that questioning has an end. The great tragedy of our school system is that it fails to clarify that circumscribing knowledge does not make it finite.
What if instead of “because that’s just the way things are,” the prevailing response to the relentless “why” question became “because that’s how things have turned out, but I wonder...” I’d like to imagine that how we learn and how we live might be different if we were more often encouraged to consider that today’s realities are often but a consequence of decisions that have been perpetuated throughout human history. Imagine if we were to shift from talking about what things are or what they aren’t, to talking about how they appear. Instead of what and how, we would have to ask why, on who’s behalf, in relation to what, in support of what, using what language and from where? What if we were comfortable enough to allow the multiplicity of a thing’s appearance to count as what it is?
My experience with inquiry-driven pedagogy began with asking kids what they wanted to know and how their questions could be effectively investigated. As I listened to their ideas, the dawning realization that they were capable stole gradually into my conscience until I was increasingly aware of the ways in which nature was almost asking to be questioned by this next generation, provided I was willing to hold the door open for them. I found myself purposefully turning worlds of knowledge over to children, offering them an opportunity to call things like additive systems or the scientific method into question and their impassioned investigations led to heartfelt articulation and re-interpretation of ancient ideas.
When we allow kids to write something, to read something or to mathematize, we provide language or mathematics with a future. Students who have managed to grasp regrouping in addition as a procedural series of algorithms will never invest in a defense of place value with the passion and conviction of those who have become sure of it, not thanks to columns and alignment but thanks to a researched conceptual understanding of base ten, expanded notation and equivalence. They have re-constructed mathematical ideas and discovered their conjectures to be supported by century-old findings and in so doing, have breathed life back into the world of mathematics. This reality has vertigo. Kids will lean in.
The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.”
excerpt from To Be of Use
Marge Piercy (1973)
June 5, 2012
A symptom
Deirdre Bailey
A child gets a zero. This is sad statement no matter the story. They're failing. They're fighting the system. They're lazy. They're disengaged. They're "entitled". They "don't care". They're crying for attention.
I have no idea of the specifics surrounding the situation in Edmonton and while I have been reflecting on the possibilities personally, to date I have refrained from participating in the conversation because I have not felt that my evolving opinion is educated enough. But tonight is my tipping point. Not because I now know enough about the specifics, but because I have an overwhelming feeling in my gut that the resulting conversations have been about the wrong things.
CBC talkback has been flooded with callers adamant that children need to be "taught a lesson", to 'fail' (they mean numerically) early in life so they can learn from their mistakes. Facebook has been streaming with everyone's two cents on the "ridiculousness" of a "no-zero" policy and classic political rhetoric advocating that we hold kids 'accountable' by slapping those zeroes on the top of their papers. Family and friends have brought up the "real world" argument. "How will they learn how to keep a job in the real world if they don't learn that you have to do what is expected when you're asked?"
There are a few things that no one has been asking.
What are grades for? What is school for? Why are some of our children 'failing'?
To those arguing that zeroes "teach them a lesson," I would urge you to consider that there is so much more to teaching and learning than quantitative communication. Real learning is intimate personal reflection that comes from lived experience, engagement in practice, and an evolution in thinking. Learning cannot be 'done' to the learner by posting a zero next to their name.
To those arguing that zeroes ensure children 'fail early,' failure is a lack of success. The word implies that something has been attempted. Zeroes are not failed attempts. There was no work here. No effort perhaps, but where then, is the lesson? No work, no pay? No work, no reward? Do we believe that rewards or pay are what should motivate our youth? (see Dan Pink) If so, some of them continue to cry loudly that they do not care for either of these. What's up with those kids? No diploma for them unless they 'play the game?'
On accountability, the definition of which is connected to 'requiring justification, explanation, and responsibility for actions;' is this genuinely possible without conversation? What might that conversation look like? Would a recurring conversation or an impersonal zero be more likely to hold kids accountable for the work they do? And then there is the question again of whether we genuinely believe that our education system should be reduced to indoctrinating the masses into our post-industrial, hierarchical social system.
The real world argument though, is my favourite, because it comes up constantly and often as the trump card. It is the one I have most often struggled with, because everybody's right; our society is rewards based and "jobs won't pay you for work you don't do." But as of recently, I can counter this argument; because I no longer work for the money - I have found my passion and it has changed everything (see Sir Ken Robinson). Often, I work well over 40 hours a week and some days I can't sleep and I am genuinely inspired on a daily basis. You could pay me 10 times as much to work in a different sector, but I wouldn't be nearly as productive because I wouldn't love it. So here's my trump card: if passion is the ultimate motivator, and education could be restructured to better inspire children to find their passion, would zeroes even come into play? I repeat a question asked by Philadelphia school principal Chris Lehmann, "should schools model the world as it is, or as it should be?"
If our goal is to develop creativity, inspire passion, or even raise the standards for rational thought and useful decision making; then our schools fail most of our citizens. At the start of this year, Amy and I had a conversation with our students about what defines 'great work.' These 9 year olds, four year veterans of our present education system, unanimously defined 'great work' as "doing what the teacher asks." At some point in these children's lives, some of them might come to understand that great work is not always necessarily exactly what a teacher asks for. Someone along the way might inspire them to think for themselves and some of them will take a good look at the world and resolve to "do what has to be done" (read: comply) to get through the system, while others will resist. Of those resistors, some might get a zero for work they do not do. If or when they do, the conversation should not be about whether or not they deserve that zero, rather, the conversation should be about whether an education system that dishes these out is one from which we can build the best version of our future.
It is always troublesome to witness how the living, cultivated detail of deepening understandings is inevitably occluded in an overly technical and methodological obsession with quantitative outcomes of the work. Just as children are not flat, anonymous, trainable beings, neither are they measurable entities. While I have no idea of the context for this zero, I fundamentally object to the conversation turning to how grades should serve as anything more than some antiquated form of incentive for better decision-making in future learning endeavours. Real learning needs no compensation, real learning sells itself.
A child gets a zero. This is sad statement no matter the story. They're failing. They're fighting the system. They're lazy. They're disengaged. They're "entitled". They "don't care". They're crying for attention.
I have no idea of the specifics surrounding the situation in Edmonton and while I have been reflecting on the possibilities personally, to date I have refrained from participating in the conversation because I have not felt that my evolving opinion is educated enough. But tonight is my tipping point. Not because I now know enough about the specifics, but because I have an overwhelming feeling in my gut that the resulting conversations have been about the wrong things.
CBC talkback has been flooded with callers adamant that children need to be "taught a lesson", to 'fail' (they mean numerically) early in life so they can learn from their mistakes. Facebook has been streaming with everyone's two cents on the "ridiculousness" of a "no-zero" policy and classic political rhetoric advocating that we hold kids 'accountable' by slapping those zeroes on the top of their papers. Family and friends have brought up the "real world" argument. "How will they learn how to keep a job in the real world if they don't learn that you have to do what is expected when you're asked?"
There are a few things that no one has been asking.
What are grades for? What is school for? Why are some of our children 'failing'?
To those arguing that zeroes "teach them a lesson," I would urge you to consider that there is so much more to teaching and learning than quantitative communication. Real learning is intimate personal reflection that comes from lived experience, engagement in practice, and an evolution in thinking. Learning cannot be 'done' to the learner by posting a zero next to their name.
To those arguing that zeroes ensure children 'fail early,' failure is a lack of success. The word implies that something has been attempted. Zeroes are not failed attempts. There was no work here. No effort perhaps, but where then, is the lesson? No work, no pay? No work, no reward? Do we believe that rewards or pay are what should motivate our youth? (see Dan Pink) If so, some of them continue to cry loudly that they do not care for either of these. What's up with those kids? No diploma for them unless they 'play the game?'
On accountability, the definition of which is connected to 'requiring justification, explanation, and responsibility for actions;' is this genuinely possible without conversation? What might that conversation look like? Would a recurring conversation or an impersonal zero be more likely to hold kids accountable for the work they do? And then there is the question again of whether we genuinely believe that our education system should be reduced to indoctrinating the masses into our post-industrial, hierarchical social system.
The real world argument though, is my favourite, because it comes up constantly and often as the trump card. It is the one I have most often struggled with, because everybody's right; our society is rewards based and "jobs won't pay you for work you don't do." But as of recently, I can counter this argument; because I no longer work for the money - I have found my passion and it has changed everything (see Sir Ken Robinson). Often, I work well over 40 hours a week and some days I can't sleep and I am genuinely inspired on a daily basis. You could pay me 10 times as much to work in a different sector, but I wouldn't be nearly as productive because I wouldn't love it. So here's my trump card: if passion is the ultimate motivator, and education could be restructured to better inspire children to find their passion, would zeroes even come into play? I repeat a question asked by Philadelphia school principal Chris Lehmann, "should schools model the world as it is, or as it should be?"
If our goal is to develop creativity, inspire passion, or even raise the standards for rational thought and useful decision making; then our schools fail most of our citizens. At the start of this year, Amy and I had a conversation with our students about what defines 'great work.' These 9 year olds, four year veterans of our present education system, unanimously defined 'great work' as "doing what the teacher asks." At some point in these children's lives, some of them might come to understand that great work is not always necessarily exactly what a teacher asks for. Someone along the way might inspire them to think for themselves and some of them will take a good look at the world and resolve to "do what has to be done" (read: comply) to get through the system, while others will resist. Of those resistors, some might get a zero for work they do not do. If or when they do, the conversation should not be about whether or not they deserve that zero, rather, the conversation should be about whether an education system that dishes these out is one from which we can build the best version of our future.
It is always troublesome to witness how the living, cultivated detail of deepening understandings is inevitably occluded in an overly technical and methodological obsession with quantitative outcomes of the work. Just as children are not flat, anonymous, trainable beings, neither are they measurable entities. While I have no idea of the context for this zero, I fundamentally object to the conversation turning to how grades should serve as anything more than some antiquated form of incentive for better decision-making in future learning endeavours. Real learning needs no compensation, real learning sells itself.
November 21, 2011
First Attempts In Learning
Deirdre Bailey
I used to think exclusively in black and white. I have a sincere appreciation for the clear-cut, precise and absolute and have argued that those who are not 100% sure of their accuracy should not be entitled to an opinion. I have spent most of my life infuriated by indecisiveness and I cringe to acknowledge that I have stormed off in irritation at people who would answer questions with questions instead of concrete opinions. I have been an equally harsh critic of my own confusion and have been guilty of rushing a process in order to arrive at a conclusion I could stand behind.
Recently, my thinking has changed. At a conference last week, when I was asked to choose an object to represent myself, I chose colored crayons. "Black and white are too singular, there just isn't enough room for progression in them," I reasoned, "you've got to have room for the process when you're learning. You've got to be able to make use of all those colors and their ability to blend, to mask and to complement." What I am recognizing is that absolutes are finite where learning is infinite and if you are open to it, then you can never be finished with it.
What this means for learners is that the process of moving ever closer to your goal will, at some point, necessitate feedback which might recognize and identify that you are not yet "there." That is the hard part. Inquiry is an elastic framework within which you have room to expand, to reach out and explore. But that elastic will recoil if you push too quickly or forcefully in one direction. The question will keep bringing you back, sometimes harshly if you run with an idea too "absolutely." I have recognized for a while now that feedback is necessary to the learning process. What I have recognized recently is that it can be a tough reality check when you are at your most excited; it is difficult to believe you have perfected a drawing, only to discover that your red needs to deepen to purple.
The lesson however, is not that the excitement should be tapered because recoil hurts. Neither is it that you should always expect a recoil. The lesson is that you should always be grateful for the added beauty of the re-direction, change in perspective or supplementary color. The challenge, as Maya Angelou so beautifully puts it, is that:
Perhaps shockingly, it is only recently that I have come to realize that no one has it all figured out, especially not the people who are acting like they do. Part of the inquiry process has to be understanding that you can never have all the answers. Part of never having all the answers has to mean that sometimes, you just might not be able to conclude a conversation with an absolute that blows all criticism to pieces and puts the argument to rest forever. Terry Pratchett has a great quote that states:
I used to think exclusively in black and white. I have a sincere appreciation for the clear-cut, precise and absolute and have argued that those who are not 100% sure of their accuracy should not be entitled to an opinion. I have spent most of my life infuriated by indecisiveness and I cringe to acknowledge that I have stormed off in irritation at people who would answer questions with questions instead of concrete opinions. I have been an equally harsh critic of my own confusion and have been guilty of rushing a process in order to arrive at a conclusion I could stand behind.
Recently, my thinking has changed. At a conference last week, when I was asked to choose an object to represent myself, I chose colored crayons. "Black and white are too singular, there just isn't enough room for progression in them," I reasoned, "you've got to have room for the process when you're learning. You've got to be able to make use of all those colors and their ability to blend, to mask and to complement." What I am recognizing is that absolutes are finite where learning is infinite and if you are open to it, then you can never be finished with it.
What this means for learners is that the process of moving ever closer to your goal will, at some point, necessitate feedback which might recognize and identify that you are not yet "there." That is the hard part. Inquiry is an elastic framework within which you have room to expand, to reach out and explore. But that elastic will recoil if you push too quickly or forcefully in one direction. The question will keep bringing you back, sometimes harshly if you run with an idea too "absolutely." I have recognized for a while now that feedback is necessary to the learning process. What I have recognized recently is that it can be a tough reality check when you are at your most excited; it is difficult to believe you have perfected a drawing, only to discover that your red needs to deepen to purple.
The lesson however, is not that the excitement should be tapered because recoil hurts. Neither is it that you should always expect a recoil. The lesson is that you should always be grateful for the added beauty of the re-direction, change in perspective or supplementary color. The challenge, as Maya Angelou so beautifully puts it, is that:
"We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty."
As a society, we so rarely celebrate those moments in which we realize that our learning has hit a roadblock, that we are at risk of avoiding them entirely as we do not effectively value their worth. My first reaction to critical feedback is to defend myself. Why? I'm not sure. Maybe because I have been conditioned to see this feedback as critique of my ability and self worth? After all, traditional education has effectively perpetuated a grading system in which academic standards are an implement with which we are encouraged to measure ourselves.
Perhaps shockingly, it is only recently that I have come to realize that no one has it all figured out, especially not the people who are acting like they do. Part of the inquiry process has to be understanding that you can never have all the answers. Part of never having all the answers has to mean that sometimes, you just might not be able to conclude a conversation with an absolute that blows all criticism to pieces and puts the argument to rest forever. Terry Pratchett has a great quote that states:
"The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it."
The beauty of inquiry is that this trouble becomes an advantage as it adds to, conflicts with, redirects or refocuses what you already know and you, ultimately, become more colorful for it.
F.A.I.L.; First Attempt In Learning
Cross-posted on the Calgary Science School's Connect! blog
F.A.I.L.; First Attempt In Learning
Cross-posted on the Calgary Science School's Connect! blog
November 5, 2011
This is how it's supposed to feel...
Deirdre Bailey
The start to my day today was hectic at best. Snowy roads, a forgotten laptop and a first class full of glue and tissue paper. I asked the kids if they could do their best to be purposeful and respectful as they shredded piles of paper and painted white glue onto massive provincial cardboard cut outs. I handed a few of them some cameras and asked them to interview each other on the artistic process as I rushed around gathering materials. They generated their own questions, found their own space, and got to work. Twenty minutes before the end of class it was a disaster area. Ten minutes later it was spotless. Eight of them stayed back at recess to help wash glue cups. I hadn't asked.
The start to my day today was hectic at best. Snowy roads, a forgotten laptop and a first class full of glue and tissue paper. I asked the kids if they could do their best to be purposeful and respectful as they shredded piles of paper and painted white glue onto massive provincial cardboard cut outs. I handed a few of them some cameras and asked them to interview each other on the artistic process as I rushed around gathering materials. They generated their own questions, found their own space, and got to work. Twenty minutes before the end of class it was a disaster area. Ten minutes later it was spotless. Eight of them stayed back at recess to help wash glue cups. I hadn't asked.
In our classes after recess, we finished with an incredibly challenging math problem that they were tackling on their own in order to develop unique conjectures to contribute to a class discussion the following week. It was a really hard problem. We had worked through it as teachers earlier in the year and were averaging 45 minutes to arrive at solutions. We encouraged them to take their time and reminded them that partial solutions and questions were what we were really looking for. Their persistence and perceptiveness blew me away. We had 5 kids solve the problem.
I am away from school all next week. As I planned for my absence at the end of the day, all I could think about was how I really just didn't want to miss any of their moments... Where the light goes on and their faces light up. Where they walk out to recess mumbling about math because they're genuinely excited about being on the verge of a discovery...
Then it occurred to me, that this is what it's supposed to feel like.. When you figure out what you're supposed to do with your life and how to live it. When your 'work' is the only place you really want to be on a Monday morning. Ask me about 'how finding your passion changes everything.' I just figured it out.
"They ask me why I teach and I reply, 'Where could I find such splendid company?' There sits a statesman, strong, unbiased, wise; another Daniel Webster, silver-tongued. A doctor sits beside him, whose quick steady hand may mend a bone, or stem the life-blood's flow. And there a builder... And all about a gathering of teachers, farmers, merchants, laborers: those who work and vote and build and plan and pray into a great tomorrow. And I may say, I may not see the church, or hear the word or eat the food their hands may grow. But yet again I may. And later I may say, I knew him once, and he was weak, or strong, or bold or proud or gay. I knew him once, but then he was a boy. They ask me why I teach and I reply, 'Where could I find such splendid company?'"
John Wooden's TED Talk on 'True Success'
October 23, 2011
Permanent State of Re-Invention
I turn around and look at the teacher I was in August and my perspectives have changed so dramatically that I have some difficulty remembering exactly what it felt like 'before'. I remember sitting down to plan with Amy Park in August and being confused about how to allow for openness in learning while restricting inquiry to the curriculum topics. I remember answering a question about 'inquiry' in our first staff PD and feeling uncomfortable with the answer. I remember driving to the Shuswap reading Fosnot and having the feeling that we were on to something big by introducing conversation and conjectures in mathematics but being terribly unsure of how to properly explain the necessity of cultivating understanding vs. memorization. On my own journey of inquiry into how best to construct a classroom of passionate exploration and powerful educational experiences, I have had three important conversations that stand out.The first was two days before the school year began as I sat down to plan a year of learning with my new teaching partner. I had not yet given lesson design any thought, I knew Amy knew inquiry and expected the direction to come from her. We began with a look at the curriculum and I was instantly lost between a desire to open the topics completely and the feeling that we would be better to address each area of study bullet point by bullet point. Unsure of how to connect these, I asked Amy if, in an inquiry classroom, the teacher knew where they were heading. 'Absolutely,' was the response. 'If you don't know where you're going, how do you know when you get there?' First lightbulb! Start with 'what do I want them to 'get', see, appreciate or understand.' Ask questions but understand that directionless questioning will result in directionless exploration and people disengage without a destination. I love analogies, so here's an analogy of how I was suddenly able to appreciate an inquiry-based lesson design.
'Class, there's a mountaintop. We need to get there... It's pristine and inspiring. It will give phenomenal views of the valley and a new perspective on the world."
My second 'A-ha!' was during our first PD of the school year as I returned my 'what is inquiry' sheet to our PD and Outreach Coordinator Neil Stephenson. We had been asked to identify examples of inquiry in the work we had undertaken in our classrooms. I struggled to find examples. I wasn't sure they were good ones. I wasn't sure I had hit the nail on the head in my explanation of what inquiry was. I was uncomfortable with the fact that I was partly wrong. 'I'm not happy with my answers' was my comment to Neil as I returned my sheet. 'That's fine, you don't need to be' was the response. It was the first time that I considered there to be value in acknowledging an unknown. By identifying the fact that I was unsure about the answers I allowed for possibilities. Neil's response provided a challenge and opened a space in which to inquire. The topic of inquiry, what and how, became exciting because it was presented as uncharted territory. No one had given me an absolute answer and I was lead to believe that a permanent definition might not even yet exist. Second lightbulb! A 'hook'. Identify that there might be more than one way of answering a question or uncovering a solution. Suggest that there might even be strategies yet to be discovered. Suggest that a fresh approach might be pivotal, that our way of thinking could be the answer...
'I know there's at least one way to get there. I'm not sure if it's the fastest way. I'm not sure if it's the only way. I just know that mountaintop is worth getting to.'
The third lightbulb came over a weekend away at the Shuswap in which I took Fosnot's Young Mathematicians at Work - Multiplication and Division and David Perkins' Making Learning Whole and then tried to explain to my husband the irrelevance of 'training' children to memorize mathematical equations and concepts. I remember announcing with gusto 'It's just not good enough for them to tell me that 7x3 is 21 if they have no idea what it represents!' To which he responded: 'But if they can answer the question, why is it so necessary that they understand exactly what they're doing?' I remember being most frustrated by my inability to answer his question with authority. 'I just don't exactly know yet' was my mostly huffy response as I rushed back to the books I'd brought with me to blend a Fosnot/Perkins perspective into an answer. I didn't get an absolute answer for Scott from my reading. But I did get an appreciation for the things you learn on the path of discovery. And two weeks later, as Amy and I tossed around some questions for Math over the phone, I finally had that next 'A-ha!' as we reflected on the difference between teaching them answers and asking them questions... 'Are we getting kids to think, or are we telling them what to think?" was her question as I elaborated on how I had arrived at the idea that rather than give them strategies for each multiple, we ask them which to discover their own. I finally had an answer for Scott and was one step deeper into understanding the process.
'Is the path most traveled up that mountain the fastest? Is it the most rewarding? Can it connect to other paths along the way and in what way or how often? Explore. Imagine. Share what you discover along the way and remember that the experiences that change you along the way are what will make the top worthwhile.'
Through connecting with other brilliant educators on twitter, by reading an insane amount of blogposts, and trying to justify my new understandings to everyone I meet, I have had hundreds other lightbulb moments, but these three still stand out as transformative. For other teachers on the trip up the mountain, though I am still nowhere near the top (and am starting to think that getting there might not even be the point) I'm high enough that I've had glimpses of the view and man is it powerful. Inquiry is worth it.
"The re-invention of daily life means marching off the edge of our maps." Bob Black
September 29, 2011
We're making this collaborative
Because two minds are better than one. Especially two inspired ones with uniquely creative ideas on how to revolutionize education 100 kids at a time... Introducing Amy Park!
September 6, 2011
Second verse, same as the first...??
Not even remotely.
Last year caught up with me. I muddled through, effected some changes, kept my head above water but failed to document and the absence of valid reflection has left me sincerely sorry to myself. I feel robbed of the learning process. The U of C MT program would be so proud to see that 2 years too late I can finally acknowledge that there is value in metacognition.
The brief overview: New teaching position this year - Grade 4 Math/Sci with a homeroom. Phenomenal, innovative and decorated team teaching partner, somewhat traditional and less enthusiastic pod partner. So many more lessons to be learned, and this time, to be documented.
I'm not sure how this will look in the long run, whether the reflective process should be general and vague or focused, lesson-specific, it might be moments, it might be units, revelations.
Challenges:
Last year caught up with me. I muddled through, effected some changes, kept my head above water but failed to document and the absence of valid reflection has left me sincerely sorry to myself. I feel robbed of the learning process. The U of C MT program would be so proud to see that 2 years too late I can finally acknowledge that there is value in metacognition.
The brief overview: New teaching position this year - Grade 4 Math/Sci with a homeroom. Phenomenal, innovative and decorated team teaching partner, somewhat traditional and less enthusiastic pod partner. So many more lessons to be learned, and this time, to be documented.
I'm not sure how this will look in the long run, whether the reflective process should be general and vague or focused, lesson-specific, it might be moments, it might be units, revelations.
Challenges:
- Construct meaningful, valuable, innovative lessons
- Manage the classroom, papers, information, students diverse learning needs
- Master the art of dealing with people
Goals:
- Reflect daily on what went well, what I achieve, what I will make sure to do forever and must remember at all costs
- Reflect daily on what I would do differently in the future
Today was a PD day. It was productive, SO busy, lots of good ideas but they don't feel totally organized. I have written everything down but it is not all in one place which worries me a little. My biggest effort today was to start every reply with positivity (yes, definitely, lots of nodding). I think it went great distances in helping our team to build cohesiveness. We have big ideas. I hope we can make them feasible in the classroom. I also hope I don't get so excited that our my explanations are confusing or that tasks are not clear. In the last few weeks I have learned that children cannot see inside my brain and that my explanations, when I am excited, can become fairly muddled.
Tomorrow it is my goal to slow down. To allow them time for transitions, to settle, to ask questions at the start or end of each period and to make sure that I always wait until I have all of their attention to speak.
It is also my goal to consistently give indication of the amazing things I believe them to be capable of. I'll keep you "posted". HA!
September 29, 2010
What's up
In 2004, Peter H. Reynolds wrote a brilliant children's book called Ish in which a little boy named Ramon discovers the wonderful feeling that comes with capturing the world from his own perspective. Ishfully. How liberating to consider that it is permissible to have an opinion or creation independent of judgement or correction. The book captures a lot of what I believe to be the essence of education. Discovery, creativity, freedom of inhibition.
Since I started teaching officially, I have found it to be a constant exercise in modification, accommodation and revision; but I have had a blast discovering teaching (ish). I definitely don't have it all figured out. In fact, I don't expect that I will be anytime soon. Nevertheless, I do think it valuable to capture the process. I have had at least five days in the last three weeks in which I came home thinking to myself "Man, I should really write that down". So here it is.
My journey, as a teacher...ish.
My journey, as a teacher...ish.
"We shall not cease from exploration,
and the end of all our exploring
will be to arrive where we started
and know the place for the first time."
T.S. Eliot
"No man ever steps in the same river twice,
for it’s not the same river
and he’s not the same man."
Heraclitus
"It's good to have an end to journey toward;
but it's the journey that matters, in the end."
Ursula LeGuin
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