My Next Job

I heard today that there are people paid to post negative or positive comments about products, people, and ideas on all sorts of blogs. Apparently these people create hundreds of fake identities to simulate (and stimulate) public opinion. I don't know why I was surprised; I guess I haven't reached that level of cynicism yet, but I don't really doubt it's true.

Recently, I have been posting close to a hundred comments a day, too, but all under my real identity. Between my students' slice of life posts, the adults taking the online Early Adolescent Development course I'm facilitating, and the good folks who are participating in the annual challenge over at Two Writing Teachers, I'm logging a lot of screen time.

One of the challenges of composing so many comments is to remain positive and centered on the writer. Especially with less advanced writers, it's so easy to focus on what needs fixing and to overlook what is good, and I have seen the discouragement on their faces when I lead with even the most constructive of criticisms. Katherine Bomer has a wonderful book called Hidden Gems: Naming and Teaching From the Brilliance in Every Student's Writing, which I return to again and again.

Contrary to what you might expect, with adults, it can be even harder to stay positive, especially if they express an idea that I happen to disagree with. For example, yesterday, in an online discussion, one of the participants posted the following:

Some students may never graduate to abstract thinking. Often, the expected tasks and activities have more to do with the skills to succeed: proper behavior, pleasant personality, following directions, time on-task, etc. are the REAL goals and the activities are merely a vehicle to reach the "skills" necessary to succeed.

A pleasant, respectful individual merits better care/attention than one that does not show these skills.

And although I wanted to ask where "pleasant personality" could be found in our state's standards of learning, instead I replied:  But is it our mandate as educators to develop pleasant and respectful individuals?

And the answer was: It is our mandate as teachers to turn out "productive" members of society.

I let it go. I suppose the validity of that response depends on how we define productive, and I lay much of the blame on the way the current conversation on education is being framed-- it's too focused on the language of commerce. Personally, I believe there is more to education than turning out cogs for our nation's economy. Abstract thinking in the form of creativity, critical or even divergent thinking, and healthy skepticism are qualities that I feel a productive citizen should have in any democracy.

And I'll post that a hundred times if I have to.

(Click here for today's sample of my 6th grade students' response to the 2011 SOLSC challenge.)

Some Days You're the Windshield; Some Days You're the Bug

Over the years I've had a few classroom pets-- fish for a while, some rescued mice, an orphaned hamster. They were fun to have until tragedy befell them: the pygmy frogs constantly disappeared without a trace; the bleeding heart tetras harassed the angel fish; the mice developed grotesque tumors; the hamster died of loneliness, I think. Each loss broke my heart a tiny bit, and ultimately, the brevity of their lives made it difficult for me to justify keeping them; if I was honest with myself, they were really no more than captives.

I have colleagues in the building who keep animals in their rooms; I don't think they would call them pets. Some keep turtles and frogs, and one teacher keeps a big black snake. All of them have to be fed live food. The turtle and frog eat crickets and feeder goldfish, and the snake eats mice and rats. Many of the students in those classrooms consider it a treat to be present at feeding time-- they are thrilled by the speed and lethalness of the predators, conveniently ignoring the mortal terror of the prey. Or perhaps they don't overlook the victim at all, maybe its death is a big part of their morbid fascination.

The truth is, most kids identify with the predator, and few have any compassion for the prey. Is that attitude simply a naive expression of their youth, or is it human nature to assume that we are the top of the food chain? Because really? Not many of us are.

(Click here for today's sample of my 6th grade students' response to the 2011 SOLSC challenge.)

Men in Hats

We saw the movie The Adjustment Bureau this weekend. Based on a Phillip K. Dick story and starring Matt Damon and Emily Blunt, it's a romantic meditation on free will and fate. After reading Matt Damon's recent comments on education, ("the idea that we're testing kids and we're tying teachers salaries to how kids are performing on tests, that kind of mechanized thinking has nothing to do with higher order. We're training them, not teaching them") I was more than willing to suspend my disbelief; plus that Emily Blunt is as cute as Abby Cadabby.

My review? Thought-provoking concept, fair execution, and good chemistry between Blunt and Damon, but I left the theater wondering why there are no women in the adjustment bureau.

(Click here for today's sample of my 6th grade students' response to the 2011 SOLSC challenge.)

Angry Birds

It's surprisingly easy to see crows in the dark, especially when hundreds of them are roosting at the tops of all the trees in the neighborhood. The lightlessness of their shadows brightens the night sky. In the morning, on the off-chance that you missed their raucous departure, the evidence of their stay is also unmistakable, the sidewalks and roads are all poop spatter and feathers.

Some might find them menacing or at least a nuisance, but I love those few nights every winter when the crows choose our trees to be their beds. The spectacle is completely worth the mess, big black birds teem against purple sky, their colonies forming and re-forming, each crow looking for the perfect branch on which to rest the night. These birds are not angry in the least, probably because no one is bothering them, much less sling-shotting them at  round green pigs barricaded in forts of timber, glass, and stone.

I had heard of the smart phone game app sensation Angry Birds, but I never considered trying it until one of my students posted about it on her slice of life the other day. I was intrigued and I downloaded it this morning... um, addictive. I have a lot of other things to do than fling those birds, but today not many of them seemed more important. At least there are no poop and feathers.

(Click here for a sample of my 6th grade students' response to the 2011 SOLSC challenge.)

Turning the Tables

Today was spring conference day. At our school, we do student-led conferences, which makes a lot of sense for middle school kids. What good does it do them to have a bunch of adults sitting around behind closed doors conspiring-- even if our goal is their academic success?

Personally, I like the format, although it does take some work to prepare the students to do the heavy lifting on the day of the meeting. They review their current grades, do a self-assessment of their school work and study habits, compare that to one their teachers have completed, choose a piece of exemplary work to reflect on and present to their parents, and based on all of those things, they identify their strengths and areas where improvement is needed, and then set goals for the last three months of school. Then, student, parents, and teacher work together to make a plan for each child to reach those objectives.

Rather than the leader of the conference, the teacher is there as a support and a resource on that team. That's the theory, anyway. On my students' slice of life posting today, the topic of conferences was number one. Here are a few of their perspectives on the experience:

So today I had my conference. at first I was nervous and I thought everything was going to turn out awesome and okay until.... 

Today I went to my conference. And it was pretty fun, but it’s kind of freaky how the teachers just stare at you.

Annoying Conference. Two words. Grr.......

First of, I think it is a pain to go to the conference just because you have to explain to your parents. Especially if your conference time is at 8 a.m. 

I looked at them and thought these have got to be fake grades.

The nervousness washed right out my body and dissipated down a drainage pipe. The whole thing was super easy... I guess conferences are kinda like shots in the end. After you get over all the fretting and thinking about what to say, you just get the job done and part ways.

So now the conferences passed, I went and survived.

The vacation starts for students. My conference is finally over. 

(Click here for a further sample of my 6th grade students' response to the 2011 SOLSC challenge.)

What News?

Years ago I took a meditation class. I remember the instructor telling us to turn off the news and set aside the paper for a few days. "You won't really miss anything," he said, "and you'll eliminate a ton of stress and negativity from your life."

At twenty something, I could not even imagine following his advice.  The world to me was fascinating and full of possibilities; if anything, it was the people and things around me that made me a little anxious. In the end, I dropped out of the class because as soon as the lights were dimmed and that soothing music came on,  I fell asleep.

These days my view has flipped. It's hard to stay positive in a time when Democrats and Republicans alike agree that the only way to avoid a government shut down is to cut education. The National Writing Project, Reading is Fundamental, Arts in Education, and the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, were all de-funded yesterday at the stroke of the president's pen.

In such uncertain times for educators, I turn to some of the people I spend the most time with-- my students. We have worked hard together to create a community of learning and literacy; it's all that outside stuff that is unsettling. Oh, I still read the news and wake up to an alarm tuned to NPR, but I sure don't sleep quite as well as I used to.

(Click here for a sample of my 6th grade students' response to the 2011 SOLSC challenge.)

Preparing for the Harvest

Last summer we canned 40 quarts of tomatoes; after dinner tonight there were only 4 left. I have a stack of seed catalogs and gardening guides next to my chair in the living room. Lately, I like to throw a log or two on the fire and then take my time paging through them, visualizing our community garden plot in its July glory. We live in a townhouse-style condo with no basement, garage, or even shed, but we do have a mostly unused guest bathroom with some killer fluorescent light, and it's there that I've gathered my organic potting materials, ready to start the seeds for this year's crop.

As a teacher, I appreciate cycles of growth, but as a non-gardener until recently, I'm learning to treasure this connection between life and land, and the extra seasonal rhythm that it offers to my busy year.


(Here's the link for today's post on my 6th grade students' Slice of Life blog:)

http://thewhwnblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/aquarium.html