Ludicrous

I’m generally one to abstain from conspiracy theories. I’m generally one to see the glass half full, I’m generally one to see both sides of an issue, but I’m having a hard time with this one.

Say you’re a kid, 12 years old. Your Dad sends you to the store.

“Go get us four ribeyes, a couple pounds of shrimp, chocolate milk,” he smiles, “and ice cream, any flavor you want.”

This sounds great to you as he just rambled off all of your favorites.

You wait for him to give you the money.

But there’s no money.

You look at him.

He looks at you.

“Go on, you heard me,” he glares, raising his voice “And don’t come back without ‘em!”

You scurry out the door and make your way toward the store without a clue as to what you’ll do when you get there, much less where you’re going to sleep tonight.

Ludicrous? Yes.

Abusive parenting? Without a doubt.

But perfectly analogous to what the Wisconsin State Legislature has done recently to its Public School Districts. State Statute 118.52 (known as Course Options) allows any student enrolled in a Wisconsin public school district to take up to two courses per semester at any other public or charter school or any public or private college while their school district foots the bill.

Sure, it’s a great learning opportunity for students—steak, shrimp, chocolate milk AND their favorite flavor of ice cream—but absolutely unaffordable for local school districts.

Wisconsin legislators are sending districts to the store with no money.

Since Act 10, since public funding of Charter Schools, since Youth Options, Wisconsin legislation has continued to financially devastate local school districts resulting in reduction of teachers, larger class sizes, and decreased programming.

And now, by law, districts will need to pay up to two classes of college tuition ($2902 at UW Milwaukee, $5730 at Marquette, for example) for any student who requests it. Multiply that  by 10 students, 20, 30 or more per semester, and the declaration of bankruptcy by school districts across Wisconsin isn’t far behind.

I’m generally not one for conspiracy theories, but with a mandate that is as ludicrous and wholly unsustainable as Course Options, it’s hard not to believe that there’s an agenda out there, alive and well and powerful, trying to defund and dismantle public education.

Facebook, Cheese Whiz, My Husband and other such things

Cheese Whiz? TMZ? Farmville? Justin Bieber? Any shameful indulgences you’re not particularly proud of? Any guilty pleasure you’d like precisely no one else to know about?

Three weeks ago a secret sin of mine was revealed to the greater Facebook community by none other than the man I married. That was the day I quit Facebook.

Those in my world know me as an English teacher, as a reader, a writer, a lover of words. I watch very little television, read whenever possible, and accuse most mass media of numbing the American mind.

Yet there I was that Wednesday night, doing schoolwork on my laptop while Nashville, a nighttime soap opera set in the country music scene, played in the background. It was then that my husband walked in.

This was not the woman he had married.

He stared at me in disbelief and grabbed his iPhone. “I cannot believe what my wife is watching,” he typed and said aloud at the same time. His salacious post inspired much speculation from our Facebook friends. The Kardashians? Barney? Polyamory? Home Shopping Network?

“Stop right now,” I warned him, carefully articulating each word and never losing eye contact.

But he didn’t.

Humorous Facebook comments from others followed, calling me out for my hypocrisy: “This from the queen of high culture?” “Does this mean we can listen to country music during our English department meetings?”  ”GET OUT NOW,” another warned, “first Nashville, next NASCAR, then Monster Trucks.”

I was not as amused as they were. Watching a country soap opera was not a badge I cared to wear. It was a mindless diversion, an escape, a stress ball for the eyes.  It was my guilty pleasure. I neither desired nor appreciated public commentary about it.

What followed was at once immature and life changing.

First, the immature part: My final Facebook post was “I just unfriended Mike Felske.”

I immediately hated that post. For its rudeness, its pettiness, its association in any and every way with me. I then decided I would, at once, return to the practice of using words for meaningful and beautiful purposes, period. And that, for me, meant no more Facebook.

The more I thought about what had just happened, the stranger it seemed.

Strange to unfriend my best friend, unfriend the one person I this world I willingly and enthusiastically agreed to spend my life with.

Strange that social media somehow compelled my soulmate to reveal something to the world that I had expressly asked him not to.

Strange that I would willingly partake in Facebook, that which I now viewed as a vainglorious middle schoolesque platform, often spending 30 minutes or more on it per day.

Strangest of all that I cared about any of this.

So amid all of these strangenesses, I quit.

(That’s the life changing part).  

Three weeks later, here’s my report on being Facebook-free:

1. I’m more productive: I no longer begin my laptop work sessions with a time-draining cruise down Facebook lane. After a quick email check, I get right to work.
2. I’m more present: If I’m enjoying an amazing meal, I don’t feel compelled to tell anyone other than the person across the table from me. If my son says something hilarious, I laugh and stay fully in the moment with him instead of documenting it on Facebook.
3. I’m more observant: I find myself noticing others’ cell phone behavior as deviant and anti-social. Facebook frequenters now strike me as willfully inviting a certain freneticism into their lives. Three weeks ago, that was me. 

You may, dear reader, be asking yourself at this point what any of this has to do with education. This is an educational blog, right? Good point. So here it is: educational relevance.

I’d like to challenge my Facebook-using students and colleagues to ask themselves this question and answer with candor:

Why do you use Facebook?

Is it to avoid your to do list? Is it to gain approval? Is it to exercise your self-righteousness? Is it for self-affirmation? Vanity? Do you feel deflated if a post of yours receives few likes or none? Do you spend 20, 30, 60, 90 minutes or more on Facebook per day? Is the something else more productive or rewarding you could do with that time? Wish you had more time to read, to play with your kids, to exercise? Do you find yourself documenting your life instead of fully experiencing it?  

If you don’t like one or more of your answers, give serious consideration to whether stay or leave the Face Place.

If we, as educators, are trying to model authentic experiences,self empowerment, and a strong work ethic and focus, perhaps we could all stand a reexamination of Facebook’s value (or lack thereof) in our lives.

What is the quality, after all, of our Facebook communications?  What is the quality of our Facebook friendships?  Exactly two (of several hundred FB friends) have contacted me to see if and why I quit (I posted no formal farewell). Only a few more asked my husband of my whereabouts. This suggests what I’d always suspected: most Facebook friendships are superficial: “friends” who are happy to comment if I post, but otherwise I’m off their radar.

At the end of the day, If you don’t document the sushi you’re eating, is it any less delicious? If you don’t post your child’s silver medal in gymnastics, is it a lesser achievement? Are there more authentic ways for us to feel “liked” and connected than a Facebook post?

Yes they can, thankyouverymuch. And here's the evidence.

If you believe the notion of equal air time, give these two student essays a read—and remember them when you hear about our “broken public schools.”

Tired of reading articles and hearing commentary about how far behind our students are, how they can’t read or write, I feel compelled to share two papers I just corrected from my Freshman English class here at  East Troy High School.

That’s right, FRESHMEN in the PUBLIC school system. 

After reading Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew, students were asked to explore a question or theory they had about the play. I was humbled by the results. Here are just two of them, unedited, with names removed.

No doubt you’ve heard the “failing schools” bullhorn booming from all directions lately. If you believe in the notion of equal air time, give these two student essays a read—and remember them when you hear about our “broken public schools.” 

Shakespeare’s Observation: The Battle of the Alpha and Omega

A Shrew or a Modern Woman?  A Shakespearean Identity Quandary

 That is all. 

Top Teachers in America are Bipolar

 Okay, I’ll admit it. My attention  getter is  a bit on the tawdry and  dramatic side,  but according to  the 2013  Perspective  of   Irreplaceable Teachers: What    America’s Best Teachers Think  about  Teaching, America’s top  teachers have a  love-hate relationship with their  profession: loving the act of  teaching  children while loathing the teaching conditions that surround  them.

 Worse yet, 75% of top teachers plan on leaving their positions in  the next 5 years, a most troubling exodus. Exactly what education  cannot afford.

The survey, conducted by the nonprofit The New Teacher Project founded by controversial educational reformer Michelle Rea, surveyed 117 of America’s top teachers representing 36 states and all 10 of the nation’s largest school districts, collectively having won almost the nation’s major teaching awards including National Board certification, state “Teacher of the Year” honors, Milken Educator Awards, TNTP, NEA and KIPP.

The survey provides a glimpse into the minds of our country’s most successful teachers, and the view is of critical concern. The survey focussed on three areas: 1) How successful teaching should be measured  2) How teaching can be improved  3) How teachers perceive their profession.

How to measure good teaching

Top educators agree that successful teaching is multi-dimensional. It must be measured not only by student test performance, but also long-term student success, quality of student engagement, and evaluative feedback from students, peers, and administrators as opposed to a laser focus on standardized test results.

In fact, half of the teachers surveyed believe standardized tests do more harm than good. While acknowledging that measuring student learning is important, they believe standardized tests narrow our definition of what learning is, make educators focus on less rigorous thinking “because deeper thinking is harder to assess,” and take away valuable teaching time in the interest of test prep.

What contributes to successful teaching

First, what factors are least likely to foster good teaching. Teachers respond in unison:  formal education programs and staff professional development. Teachers cite lack of rigor in the teacher prep programs and lack of relevance of their professional development to actual classroom experiences.

This is astounding since these are the two dominant paths for teacher development, and both are ineffective in the minds of top teachers. It suggests that the millions spent by the government, universities and other institutions have a largely negligible effect on the quality of teaching.

What would most contribute to improved teaching?  Teachers crave the opportunity to master new methods and practices over a sustained period with structured feedback from their peers. In other words, time and support to incorporate best practices in their own classrooms.

How educators feel about their profession

Here’s the loving/hating part. America’s top teachers unabashedly love teaching, but in the same breath, they increasingly loathe the profession. They cite challenges including low pay, excessive bureaucracy, poor working conditions and ineffective leaders and colleagues.

Teaching is great; being a teacher not so much. Their long-term plans are telling: 75% of this distinguished group of educators plan on leaving their current position within 5 years, 60% plan on leaving the teaching profession altogether within that timeframe. This compares with a 2011 figure 43%.

In a field that needs more than ever to attract and retain outstanding educators, these statistics warrant serious soul searching for our system of public education. Loving teaching, but the  field, not so much: here’s a sampling of this dichotomy, in their own words:

“I love being with kids every day and hearing them say, “I get it now, miss.” I enjoy figuring out and applying strategies that will help my kids think and learn.”

“Almost every moment of the week, I feel that I am either sacrificing my students’ learning or my own health and personal satisfaction. I am constantly deciding to cut corners for students in order to prioritize my own life, or to prioritize my students and put my personal life second."

“With teaching, every day is different. You are constantly in motion, engaged and working toward something that is more important than yourself. Your work is critical, life-changing, and ultimately the most empowering gift you can give to your students.”

“I am particularly frustrated with how much of my time is demanded for things that do not help my students in any way. Bureaucracy, a lack of policy dedicated  to students, and top-down governance are destroying the profession.”

The study concludes that education today offers teachers “tremendous personal rewards but also exacts a great personal cost.” In an educational conversation which currently centers on finger pointing and reform-of-the-day, perhaps we need to take a step back and listen to the cries or our top teachers before they’re no longer around to be heard.

I'm Still Grateful

Yes, it’s Thanksgiving; Yes, I’m a teacher in Wisconsin; Yes, I’m still grateful.

Why?

1. I get to teach kids. Ten more dubious initiatives can come down from DPI, twenty more from the Dept. of Ed, but every morning, I still get to walk into my room and teach kids.

2. I’m still growing. I just returned from the National Conference for English Teachers.  I presented with colleagues, learned from educators across the country, experienced the great city of Boston, AND got a huge hug from a student when I came back.

3. I have purpose. Some people make widgets. Some people sell widgets. Some people make laws about widgets, sue over widgets, find loopholes in widgets. But, as Christa McAuliffe said, “I touch the future, I teach.”

4. I’m never bored. I get to spend my days with dynamic, unpredictable, brilliant, quirky, moody, creative, wonderful kids. No two days are ever the same. I am never bored. How many people can say the same?

5. I am ageless. Teenagers, natural Botox for the soul.


Yes, I'm still grateful, very.

Incredible or Idiotic? You be the Judge

Imagine letting students do whatever they want in your classroom. Imagine the chaos, the pandemonium, the accidents waiting to happen. Can you imagine anything more irresponsible?

Well, that is precisely what I’m doing this year with my Accelerated Freshman English students.  I’m giving them complete ownership of 20% of their class time.*

What’s my deal? Stupidity? Masochism? A penchant for being fired?

I will attempt to explain.

It’s difficult to take in a day’s news without running across a story of our failing educational system, without hearing how public education is draining every ounce of creativity, individuality, autonomy from its students. Sir Ken Robinson is perhaps the most salient voice in this camp as evidenced by the 19 million hits on his Do Schools Kill Creativity TED Talk.

Robinson asserts that creativity is as important as reading, writing and arithmetic. He contends that students must follow their passions. They must try and fail, and learn from that failure: “If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never be able to come up with something original.” He says that our educational system succeeds at producing two extremes: point mongers and drop outs while it fails produce self-motivated, creative thinkers passionate about their learning.

I agree with Robinson’s assessment, and as an educator, I must bear some complicity.

Enter, “Genius Hour” based on Google and 3M’s 20% time. These mammoth conglomerates maintain policies seem counter-productive at face value. They require their workers to spend 80% of their time on company projects, but then allow them to spend 20% of their time (1 day per week) exploring leads, ideas, curiosities. Time to be creative.

This policy has proved worthy as Google’s Gmail, the #1 email provider in the world, is the result of 20% time as is the invention of 3M’s Post-it note (without which I personally would be at least 20% less efficient). It seems that time to play, time to be creative, time to dabble pays off both in innovation and profit.

So when I read about Kevin Brookhauser’s experience with 20% time in his classroom, I knew this was something I had to try. It was not a capricious decision on my part. Class time is golden. With the increasing demands on test scores and Common Core implementation, it seems there’s less time than ever for implementing innovative ideas in the classroom.

However, since educational relevance (or lack thereof) is something that keeps me up at night (as regular readers of my blog will testify), I felt not only justified but obliged to try 20% in my classroom this year.

I started with a fairly lengthy parent letter, explaining the what and why of this unconventional undertaking. I shared it with my principal, who was excited: “I expect we’ll get a lot of calls about this (dramatic pause to convey perceived anxiety) This is the kind of thing we need to be doing.”

Parents notified, it was now time to hook the kids. I showed them Ken Robinson’s “Do Schools Kill Creativity?” and asked them to blog their reactions. Here are a few representative quote:

• “If you are unprepared to be wrong, you will never be able to think of original ideas, and even if  you do, you won’t have the confidence to share your ideas with others.”
• “Creativity allows the chains on the mind to be released for a while. The real issue here is that parents and teachers have to decide what is more important; a child’s happiness, or molding their children into what THEY want for their future.”
• “School teaches us to focus on memorizing facts and that coming up with anything original is unimportant to our future. This is a terrible problem because the world needs creativity for that new invention that saves our earth, for that new book that starts a revolution, for that one vaccine that everyone needs. Yes, science and math is important for this as well, but creativity is also key.”
• “If schools want to have brilliant students that can change the world, they should make creativity just as important as social studies, science, math, and all the other ‘intelligent’  subjects.”

Clearly, my students were all singing the same song with Sir Ken Robinson as their conductor. Some were a bit skeptical about how to change the system, but not one questioned if it should be changed.  Student 20% “buy in” was mounting.

Next, I had them “Google” 20% project and react to their findings on a shared electronic bulletin board: I read their reactions aloud as they typed.

One wrote, “I wish w e could do this at school.”  “You know what?” I responded aloud, “We are!” It was at that moment that Travis (a student I had been warned about, a student who was reluctantly placed in Accelerated Freshman English) fell out of his chair in disbelief.

“Really? he asked, brushing his hair out of his eyes, “Seriously?”

“Really,” I said.  10 years of public education had left him incredulous.

“I can decide what I want to learn 1 day a week?” he asked from the floor.

“Yes!”

I was feeling pretty good about this. So were they. I was a bit surprised then upon receiving a heated email from a parent who “disapproves” of the project, asserting that her daughter can be “creative” and have “fun” outside of school when all of her work is done. She was concerned that this project would be “wasting” 20% of her daughter’s time and would not prepare her for the competitive world she will face upon graduation.

I wrote her back with assurance that the other 80% of the week would be spent in intensive language arts study: reading, analyzing, writing. I also explained that while the 20% day would likely be “fun” and “creative” it would also involve higher order thinking and would require students to authentically apply language arts skills: speaking, researching, writing while following their  interests and leveraging their creativity and passion for meaningful learning. I assured her that her daughter would be mentored through the process (by me and by a community member) and would be required to generate a product and reflect on her learning at the conclusion of the project.

Her response: “I figured that relaying (my) opinion would not change this project. So we are perfectly clear, we still disagree with this project.” Interestingly, I while I was fully prepared to offer her daughter alternative use of the 20% time, I quickly discovered that she was (and is) through-the-roof excited about her 20% time.

I received only one other email from a parent. This one from the mother of Travis (fall-out-of-his-desk-in-disbelief Travis): “Sounds like an incredible experience. Thanks for your outside-the-box teaching! Can’t wait to see what comes of this!”

And so, we’ve started 20% time, and here are some of their projects:

•  Two word lovers are creating their own language (researching the grammatical and syntactical components of a language and then creating one anew).
•  Two athletes are creating a low-cost, highly effective sports drink (research, trial, error, and publishing the results).
•  An equestrienne is creating a website which houses a series of show patterns (video, voice, and diagram) to help other riders train and show their horses.
•  One student is examining her dream career: Pediatric Nursing: reading and researching and archiving everything she can find on it.
•  Three students are researching lucid dreaming and creating a documentary on what it is, its usefulness, and the controversies surrounding it.
•  A student who is a childhood cancer survivor is making and distributing hope bracelets for children with cancer.
•  A pianist is recording and publicizing her songs online.
•  Two students interested in 3D modeling are creating a model for a high-tech interactive residential house.
•  A superhero fan is writing and illustrating an original comic book in which Marvel superheroes battle DC comic superheroes.
•  A fishing fanatic is testing, creating and blogging the “how to’s” for making your own low-cost fishing lures.
• An aspiring artist is trying out a new artistic genre each week, taking pictures of each step and sharing it on a website.
• Two students are doing heavy duty ferret research, creating an online insider’s owners manual for ferrets.
• Two students are writing a multimedia ABC book about Female Basketball players.
• One student is making tennis racket dampeners (new to me) out of various household materials and sharing the “how to” instructions online.
• Two students have started a Club at school (Club 365) focused on celebrating every day and interacting with those around them  (Shake a Stranger’s Hand Day, Random Act of Kindness Day, etc.)

So time will tell.  We’ll see which parent was right: we’ll see if 20% time turns out to be “wasted time” or “an incredible experience.”

I’ll keep you posted.

* Note: How can you give someone something that’s already theirs? Isn’t time at school THEIR time? The question itself is comic and tragic. We consider students to be OURS when they’re in OUR classrooms. It’s OUR time. They are OUR captive audience. 20% is then an attempt to allow them to reclaim what is rightfully theirs.

Let's flip the pay scale too while we're at it

Seems everyone's flipping their classrooms these days, so why not flip the pay scale too while we're at it?

School district financing is an increasingly tricky business and perhaps no area is trickier or more in flux than teacher salaries.

I was giving this some serious thought the other day: How can we create a more equitable compensation system for educators?

And it hit me. What should the single biggest factor in deciding what someone in the field of education makes? How many kids he/she interacts with on a daily basis.

Pay those on the front line; pay those with the kids; pay those most directly responsible for student learning and student growth. Studies tell us time and again that the single biggest factor in student learning is the teacher in a given classroom. So pay them accordingly.

Professional football players make gobs more money than their coaches because without sufficient talent on the field, the touchdowns aren't 

Without sufficient talent in front of the classrooms, the learning isn't going to happen.

And before you smell "self-serving teacher propaganda" in this ideal, let me disclose that as a half-time classroom teacher / half-time technology integration specialist, under this plan, I'd make less than teachers who spend every day, all day in the classroom.  As should be.

Who would make even less than me?
School nurses, social workers, psychologists, learning coaches, counselors.

Who'd make even less?
Principals, Vice Principals, Deans of Students.

Even less?
Business Managers and Superintendents.

Topic for another blog: (back to that football analogy) if the administrators and support staff are the coaches, and the classroom teachers are the football players, that would make the students in today's educational climate....the football.