Stuck in the Classroom

I had a teacher come to me and ask if she could get some advice on moving into administration. "I need to make more money," she said. I told her not to get into adminitration then. "Yes, you'll make more money, but you'll lose time and gain stress that isn't soothed by the daily miracles you see in the classroom," I replied.

I see numbers. You see souls.
I see the product. You see the process.
I see the plan. You see the players.
I see the whole. You KNOW the individuals.

I'm in the so-called leadership position on my campus. What a bunch of poo! That's right. Poo! For those who feel "stuck in the classroom" read the quote below. (I did steal this from my brother's blog www.pastorjeffflowers.com).

You can buy a person's time; you can buy their physical presence at a given place; you can even buy a measured number of their skilled muscular motions per hour. But you cannot buy enthusiasm. You cannot buy initiative. You cannot buy loyalty. You cannot buy the devotion of hearts, minds, or souls. You must earn these. - Clarence Francis

In a way I feel like the former described in the quote. While I don't directly pay teachers, I do require their time, presence, and skills. But it is the latter that is real leadership. It is what the teachers are doing in the classrooms that earns the devotion of hearts, minds, and souls. Real leaders see those that they lead grow and expand well beyond their teachers. And isn't that why you got into teaching in the first? To get students well beyond where they ever imagined they thought they could be.

Coefficient of Restitution? What?

Given a constant, in this case, a concrete sidewalk, and two variables, in this case a softball and a superball, which will bounce higher if each ball is thrown with the same force? The concept of this answer is called 'coefficient of restitution'. This is term I learned by reading an article about how to cheat in baseball ("Baseball's Dirt Tricks" (1983) Hall, Steven S., Science Magazine.) Of course the superball will bounce higher because its "C.O.R" is higher than the softball's. The same rule of physics fuels the "live ball" debate in baseball. A harder, more compact ball flies farther than a softer, less dense sphere. So how do I apply this to situatinal learning?

Here goes:

The concepts, objectives, theories, and skills we are teaching students are the constant is this analogy. Whether they are as easy as splashing into a swimming pool or as hard as the impact of slipping on an ice rink, the level of simplicity or difficulty is relatively consistent to the aptitude of the learner. It is what is "bounced off" these concepts, objective, etc., that produces the "heightened" result of the learning. Loosely created worksheets or matching items rarely resonate between the material and the learning like a well-designed situation to simulate how the knowledge works. It's like a basketball landing in a puddle. The effect is hollow and shallow. But when a compact, dense learning situation is applied to the material, a higher, more intense result is produced. Like a golf ball in the same puddle. The effect is streamlined and higher because the design of the ball helps it go deeper into the water. Situaltional learning creates depth and produces a higher result.

Bringing a higher coefficient of restitution of assignments to students will produce a "live era" of learning in our classrooms.

In the Red

This past week I was in charge of an accreditation visit to my school. This preparation included attending a meeting (one day gone from campus), spending hundreds of dollars on "the right surveys", and wasting time of my teachers, staff, business owners, parents, and district personnel. All to put on a "dog and pony show" to four people who've never been in our school and most likely won't ever be back. Our school passed with flying colors, but I had to wonder how much money this process took. On our end we spent money on paper, copies, a lot of food, and "production time" because our teachers had to use their conference periods to talk to the committee. I'm sure the committee members made something for their time. And I'm sure there are millions spent each year to fund this entire process. Is it really necessary? What did this accreditation accomplish for a public school under the thumb of NCLB pressure? When I think about school finance, I get upset at the waste. This entire process that lasted two days, but took six months to prepare for, ended with very superficial suggestions for our campus. Ironically, these improvements cost money that isn't available. I wonder if it would be if money wan't wasted on worthless endeavors like an accreditation visit.

Today, a mother of a student at my school personally invited her son's foes to meet in her backyard to fight her son. "Ain't nobody gonna disrespect my boy!" After being in education for a decade, not much surprises me anymore, and this comment didn't either, but it did sadden me. First for the young man, then for our teachers who pour so much into their responsibilities to lead students away from bad choices. So much rides on the mindsets of our students when they enter to learn each day, yet the stumbling blocks in their way are enormous. I can't image what this young man would go through if he told his mom that he didn't want to fight. In order to hold his head high at home, he has no choice but to throw down. He truly sees no choice in the matter. One area of need in our school that has been missed (or really nismnamed) is getting students to make the right choices. Many of our students don't think they have choices to make. It's their reality, so teaching cause and effect of their decisions is useless for them. They are stuck with the cause, with no control or care of the effect. We try to teach kids that if they do this, that will happen. There is room for argument that the "ifs" in their lives are sometimes "whens" because they simply have no choice if a cause will happen. What we need to teach is how to create alternative choices we none are available. It's too simple to say, "If you make good choices, good things will happen, and vice versa." We need to teach, "Make good effects when the causes can't be avoided."

Appropriate Applicable Representations

Who carries the burden of providing rigor in the classroom? Ultimately it is the teacher’s job to provide challenging assignments, but there are three principles that can be modeled and practiced to take rigor from exercises that maintain an academic level and rigor that expands and generates higher levels of mental skills.
Allow me to use the age-old physical workout analogy to explain. As one lifts weights, with a goal in mind, he or she sets the number of reps to do one or two things: maintain their current level of fitness or grow and strengthen the muscle. In order to do the latter, the exerciser must push through what the body is accustomed to and fight out three more reps. It is during these extra reps that change occurs.
It is our job as teachers to implement a fundamental “academic workout” in our classes. We determine at what level our students are and get them to a level at which they can successfully compete. We should do this by simulating the situations in which they will perform. Once we get our students to that level and they can maintain our designed rigor, it is time to allow them to push for those extra three reps to induce growth and strength. I call this Appropriate Applicable Representations.

Appropriate Applicable Representations (AARs) allow students to increase the rigor of their own learning after they are “in shape” from the practice the teacher has provided. This is a good time to make the point that rigor is useless without its counterpart: relevance. AARs help students identify when and how their new knowledge will need to be used. They create additional situations. As the instructor you are assessing their learning in three ways:
1) Is the new situation appropriate for the knowledge known?
2) Is the new situation able to be applied with a result?
3) Does the new situation represent the general concept learned, rather than a limited specific skill?

Students should be taught how to create or observe situations that:
Three AAR Principles
1) Show relationships between sets of knowledge (skills) to solve problems.
2) Identify or create patterns from situations to situations.
3) Transform static information (facts) to viable situations (applicability.)

AARs are an excellent alternative assessment tool.

Situational Learning

I made a simple connection with a group of seniors in an Advanced Reading class this past week. I was a guest teacher in one of my English teacher's classes, and my objective was to have the students understand how Ernest Hemingway protrayed the coming-of-age experience through natural fears. We read two of his short stories, "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place" and "Indian Camp." Both stories that contrast how individuals compensate for their fears in unpleasant circumstances. The connection was this: I drew a T Chart on the board and labeled the two sides Ages 3-9 and Ages 10-18. Then each student filled in the chart with their fears they faced between those ages and how the comforted those fears. Every one of the 31 students had the Boogeyman as a fear in their early childhood, and each one used the covers on their bed to comfort themselves. You see the Boogeyman can't get you as long as the covers are over your head. This small task is the essence of Situational Learning. In this case, the students were able to connect because of a past situation they could relate to, even to the young Nick Adams in Indian Camp, when he witnesses the backwardness of birth and death. Situational Learning allows student to do three things:
1) Use prior knowledge
2) Add relevance to personal learning
3) Apply concepts, rather than just facts, to future situations
These students commented on how the "covers concept" of avoiding fears (rational or irrational, like the Boogeyman) only distances one from fears, instead of overcoming them. Now these students will be able to make critical choices about their future based in a concept learned in a situation , rather than from notes or a textbook.

Every objective taught in a classroom should hold the weight of this question: Can the concept or skill being taught be used by the learner in a relevant situation in their lives?