We have to stop pretending...

Dr. Scott McLeod issued a challenge a few days ago to post five things that we need to stop pretending in education.  I am taking on this challenge with my five things that we need to stop pretending.  Please visit Scott's blog and please take the challenge yourself, but most importantly you need to share and share again!  So here it goes:

We have to stop pretending...

• ...that if we made more money we would be more motivated to teach and educate students better.
• ...that students are digital natives and automatically know more than us (about technology) just because they were born more recently.
• ...that any type of structural change will fix education.
• ...that poor kids, black kids, Hispanic kids, kids from broken homes, special education kids, or any other kid who has been dealt a difficult hand doesn't want to learn or can't learn.
• ...that a clock, calender, or room will dictate learning.

Please feel free to comment below and happy posting!

A Call for Response from Elie Wiesel, Harper Lee, and JK Rowling

Disclaimer to Begin: If any teacher is offended by this post take a step back and reflect on why it is being written.  Don't be offended, use it as constructive criticism on a system that may be flawed.

I recently read the book Night by Elie Wiesel.  I had never read the book previously, though I was supposed to in high school.  In a recent blog post about the book I stated that I am glad I waited to read the book, as I feel like I got more out of it now than I would have in high school.  The book, to me, was much more than a book.  It evoked emotions I didn't really know a book could evoke.  At times I was angered, saddened, depressed, enlightened, inspired, and frustrated.  More imporatantly though, Night is not just a book, it is Wiesel's life, his account.  The book itself is horrifying, but the story is real.  I found myself thinking about how this book would be great to discuss and share, so that is what I did.  I discussed my reading with people and shared my reading and new-found learning with the world.  I felt it was the best way to honor such an important book from where I sat.  That is, until I spoke with Erin Olson.

Erin works as an instructional technology consultant with a background in English language arts.  We have similar backgrounds and current occupations, though there really is no comparison to the genius of Erin.  If there is one ELA person out there I would love to teach with more than anyone it's Erin.  I could go on and on, but let's get back on track.  Erin and I were discussing how certain literature is taught in schools and were laughing back and forth, as well as sharing horror stories.  We were specifically talking about the book Night, as I had just finished reading it.

Now, it's no surprise that copy machines still run constantly in schools, printing off worksheets, packets, quizzes, and tests.  Learning that schools are teaching novels like Night is great, until you find out how many teachers are teaching the book.  Night is arguably one of the most powerful works ever written.  The imagery and symbolism are enough to brag about, but it's so much more than that.  Upon seeing the way teachers are subjecting their kids to this book, well, is an injustice to the book.  I am by no means saying there is a right way to read a book, but when you strip down something, like Night, to vocabulary, quote memorization, and simple recall of facts/events I feel students may miss the point.  The students are not to blame though, it's the design of the learning experience.  Take a look at this unit plan for Night: Unit Plan.  That unit plan, and many others that you find on sites like TeachersPayTeachers are reading checks.  It's the illusion of engagement,  The one linked above, in particular, has some discussion (only for the sake of a unit test though), zero extension outside the book, and at one point has an activity labeled "Interpretation" with questions that are not really open to interpretation.  At one point a question is asked, "Did you enjoy reading Night? Why or why not?"  I can only imagine the many students responding to this question having been told how to read this book through the lens of endless vocabulary, memorization, and recall.

I remember in late elementary school starting to read the Harry Potter series.  Those books will forever mean a lot to me.  They inspired me to continue reading and are one of the main reasons I am an avid reader today.  They were powerful books for me, and still are to this day.  I dread the day when an English teacher begins stripping those books down to vocabulary definitions, memorization, and recall.  Erin and I fear that day has already come, though, as seen by this unit.  What are we doing to students?  What are we doing to literature?  I fear Shakespeare would scream Elizabethan profanities if he knew how a majority of the nations English teachers were teaching his works.  How do students see meaning in works like Night when this is how they are taught it?  What does their perception become of a man like Elie Wiesel and of an evil event like the holocaust?  You are limiting their perception of these to words with dictionary definitions and questions like: "What was the setting and the year for the first section of the book?", or having them complete activities like: "Use words from the word jumble page and have students spell them correctly".

I wouldn't be so critical if this was a minority of what we are asking students to do, but that's not the case.  And that's not the case with many novels.  Whether it is Night, To Kill a Mockingbird, Harry Potter, Of Mice and Men, or "Romeo and Juliet" these works are being taught in a way that takes away meaning, purpose, emotion, and power and replaces it with recall.  How sad.  I know so many great teachers, and I hope they recognize their strengths, and I am not saying a teacher who teaches this way is a bad teacher.  I am simply saying, it might be time to change our methods and start honoring these authors better for their works of art.

Erin and I have a plan (it was her idea though).  We want to try and see what Elie Wiesel, Harper Lee, and J.K. Rowling think about how their works are being taught, or better yet, what are their hopes, wishes, requests, and desires for the teaching of their books?  What do they hope students get to do with the reading of their books and what do they hope these students might gain?  I know this post has centered around Night, but it goes much farther than that, which is why we put the calling out to the other two incredible authors.  We need this post shared, re-shared, and pushed out all over to spread the word.  We know this may end up a complete failure and we may forever wonder what these great minds think about this issue.  Perhaps they don't care.  I think this issue is deeper than their books though, because it really is about education and how we are potentially failing our students.  So, if one of those three, or any other published author is reading this, please weigh in on the conversation.  My email is schmiaah@gmail.com and Erin's email is eolson@aea8.k12.ia.us.  We would love to hear from you and potentially set up some sort of virtual meeting to discuss this and how we can start to change this.  Our voices are small, but collectively we can be heard.  And what English teacher wouldn't love hearing from Wiesel, Lee, or Rowling?  Even it is to bash on their teaching methods.  Happy reading folks and please leave a comment if you feel so inclined.

The Complexity of Confidence

"Kids these days" is a phrase uttered almost annoyingly when a kid whips out there smartphone, logs onto twitter, or even decides to avoid eye contact and a good old fashioned handshake.  I am not a fan of the phrase as it implies there is something wrong with this generation of kids and they are to blame.  It's an excuse to just give up on them and let them suffer in the realm of social media and bulky headphones.  There are certain behaviors that need to be reinforced and taught to this generation of students, ones that are not defined by the Common Core, Universal Constructs, or any text book in any class.  One behavior in particular is confidence.  Now before I get rolling I am going to give credit to Dane Barner for accurately defining confidence as a behavior as I potentially started to misidentify it as a skill or trait.

I see kids walking hallways hugging the walls, awkwardly shying away from any sort of interaction with another human.  I will talk to kids who fill their sentences with nerves and umms.  I see kids who cannot carry on a conversation, wont shake a hand, and feel like no matter what they do they will fail.  Some of these can be attributed to poor communication skills, potentially poor collaboration skills, but I think at the heart and soul of it is lack of confidence.  I think to accurately define how to foster confidence we need to figure out why kids are not confident.  People lack confidence because they have not experienced success.  You can have differing levels of confidence for different skills and activities.  People lack confidence because failure was an end point.  People lack confidence because they were never given the opportunity or chance to redeem themselves.  Knowing why people lack confidence therefore can give us insight into what needs to change.

Is there a recipe for confidence?  I argue, maybe, but it isn't easy.  I think it could bei a flow chart of sorts.  We have to acknowledge the "function of failure and the role of success" (thank you Dane).  We have to separate cockiness from confidence.  In many cases and conversations confidence is defined by success, but I argue that success is, perhaps, determined by failure, or an individuals reaction to failure.  My argument is simple, success does not happen without failure.  More accurately, success does not occur without application of new learning.  And new learning doesn't occur without failure and feedback.

Failure has such a negative connotation, so let's focus on that word.  The Titanic failed because it sunk, the Green Bay Packers failed because they lost to the Patriots on Sunday, I failed this Sunday when I ran 50k with a slower pace than I did the year previously.  Failure varies, it's that simple.  It can be labeled as an error, a mistake, or even the harsh "failure" but all of these words have something in common when it comes to performance.  They can be fixed.  I can run a faster pace with more training, the Green Bay Packers can come back next year knowing how they could have won that game and tweak their style of play, and the Titanic...well it gave us ideas on how we can potentially prevent such a catastrophe in the future.  You can't erase the past through fixing the failures, you can only prepare for the future.  Preparation, coaching, teaching, learning, doesn't guarantee success though.

The individual who "failed" must take that new learning and apply it, change, tweak things and then maybe success will happen.  This may take awhile, and contributes to perseverance (likely another behavior that needs some fostering).  Preparation takes success and failures, and perfection can never really be achieved.  Meb is not a perfect marathoner, he still needs training, he still needs coaching, and he will always have areas to improve.  Our kids need to know this.  We pump it into our kids' brains early that "practice makes perfect," when in reality practice makes us better when we are given the tools and skills necessary to make us better...but that doesn't roll off the tongue.

So let's say that success is equal to application plus new learning, and new learning is reliant on failure.  Written out in math terminology, success = application + new learning, and new learning = feedback + failure.  Then what is failure equal to?  Failure is not equal to anything, but results for a multitude of reasons.  It could be lack of preparation, lack of knowledge, execution issues, missed opportunities, misinterpreted feedback, etc.  All need to be handled with care.  So let's say, for example failure was result of lack of knowledge.  Then the proper feedback would be that the individual lacks knowledge, guaranteed it has to be more specific than that.  Next that feedback needs to be taught or coached and then applied.  Only then can we reach success.  Any scientist will tell you that success cannot be determined by one experiment, it needs to be repeated multiple times.  I outline this with a specific equation here relating to running (that's the cross country coach in me): Confidence Equation Thoughts.

The biggest thing about all of this is we won't see overnight results in behavior, more than likely.  Behavior needs to be repeated and acknowledged.  In classes that students take they may lack confidence because they failed an exam or performed poorly on a project.  It is up to the teacher at that point to give specific and meaningful feedback so the students can apply it later.  Without the chance to reapply their new found skill or knowledge they miss the opportunity for success, and after all success determined by preparation equals confidence.  That preparation is so meaningful and it takes persistence and application of necessary skills.  The best coaches point out failures and assist with fixing those failures, and they also reinforce the positive behaviors.

We need to foster confident behavior in all students and in a vast array of areas.  Whether it is communication, math, art, writing, running, or building.  I want confident communicators, confident mathematicians, confident artists, confident writers, confident runners, and confident builders.  Imagine the alternative.  We get trapped into thinking that confidence is only defined by success, which at the surface might be true.  Underneath that surface lies the truth though, that confidence is much more complex than simply success, because success is much more complex than we perceive it.