Head Games

With two more days of school left the students are having a tough time keeping it together. Despite lovely lessons on American history and drawing anime eyes, I still found myself questioning a kid about what the guy next to him had actually said.

"I don't know," he told me. And when I raised my eyebrows in disbelief, he added, "I don't remember," and shrugged.

I think it was the shrug that got me, because it is my third-to-last day, too. "Really?" I said to him. "Then you must need a pass to the clinic."

He looked at me, confused.

"If you can't remember what happened 2 minutes ago, I think you should go talk to the nurse!" I snapped.

Strategic Implication

Pushing on the Stone of Hope was not an issue today, although I did tell my group of six super-smart, super-rambunctious boys that I was going to have to stay in the Mountain of Despair if they didn't curb their, ahem, enthusiasm a bit.

To their credit? They totally got what I was saying, and their behavior improved.

Cultural Competence

Is it somehow disrespectful to take a photograph of someone pushing on the Martin Luther King monument?

The part that has the sculpture of Dr. King is called the "Stone of Hope," and it has been visibly removed from the other section which is called the "Mountain of Despair." The park service describes it like this:

From the looming Mountain of Despair, a Stone of Hope surges forward as the focal point for the memorial. This references a line in King’s speech, “With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope.”

My idea when designing the tasks for the photo scavenger hunt tomorrow was that students would snap a picture of their group pushing on the stone to move it even farther from the mountain to symbolically become part of the solution. It would be fun and meaningful at the same time.

But, when we went down there today to test run the hunt, I felt a little uncomfortable with that particular photo op, and I'm not sure why.

Thoughts?

Down to the Wire

The end-of-the-year trip I have planned for my group of sixth graders involves a "selfie-scavenger-hunt" around the Tidal Basin. It's just something that I dreamed up, and as such I have been literally dreaming about it-- anxiety dreaming about it every night for the last couple of weeks.

In my imagination, it involves small groups, walking, smartphones, and social media, as well as a little friendly competition. I've been turning the specifics over and over in my mind, considering this, researching that, visiting there, photographing and posting and hashtagging.

And now, it's almost ready, and I have recruited a couple of neighbors to go down there with us tomorrow and take it for a test drive. I think it's going to be awesome!

Which is fortunate, since the trip is Monday.

Student-centered

As part of our school's annual International Game Day each homeroom was assigned a country. On the day of the event, we would compete Olympic-style as that country, but in the days leading up to the activity we were supposed to design and create a banner to carry in the opening ceremonies.

When it comes to homerooms, it's been my experience that some years the group just gels better, both with each other and me. By that yardstick, this has been a tough one, and so I was not too optimistic when it came to organizing the banner thing. Fortunately for me, one student took an immediate interest in the project, and so I put her in charge.

Oh, I gave advice and praise as they worked, but it was truly a student-directed and student-made product, and a it was good reminder that generally the more we let go, the better the kids do, because

it was also beautiful.

Nail Biter

One of the student-presented lessons today was called "My anti-nail-biting seminar." It consisted of a little video of a baby who grows up happily until... he starts biting his nails! There was also a slide show and an interactive online quiz. It was well-planned and well-executed, but not well-received. It just so happened that there were a lot of defensive nail-biters in the class who were not just grossed out by the pictures of paronychia, but dismissive of the dangers of salmonella and e-coli infection. "I've been biting my nails all my life!" stated one kid, "I've never had a problem!"

I knew what he meant. I'm a nail-biter myself, and I confess to harboring the notion that chewing on my fingers actually strengthens my immune system by exposing me to small doses of pathogens. Of course the same could be said about picking your nose and, you know.

Whether my theory is true or not,  I certainly don't want to encourage others to bite their nails, especially kids in my class. That would be wrong, but maybe we could accept nail-biters for who they are, rather than villainizing them.

I mean, us.

Every Student Succeeds

It has been so interesting watching my students design and deliver lessons to their peers. The process reveals a lot about what they think education is and is not. One of the most successful presentations so far was by two girls who made a video of themselves baking cookie bars, then designed an online quiz about their ingredients and procedures, and then gave samples and the recipe.

It was fun, engaging, and informative, but when it came to the assessment, it reminded me of one of the biggest challenges we have as educators. We are trying to provide our students with skills and knowledge they will use outside of the walls we are generally confined by. In this case, short of having everyone bake some cookie bars and bring them in, can we really know how effective the lesson was?

Which brings me to the most chaotic experience of the day. Two well-intentioned students planned to teach their classmates some simple origami. They had tips and directions on the interactive whiteboard, and printed instructions for each pair. "If you get confused," they directed the class, "raise your hand and we'll come help you." It was a relatively small group of 12, but they did not anticipate the questions or the level of frustration. Nor did they appreciate the difficulty of simply explaining a complex task. The class quickly descended into chaos, and I stepped in to restore order. Even so, there were not a lot of folded pecking birds by the end of the session.

I was pushing in chairs and tidying up as the two presenters packed their books to go to their next class. "Wow," said one, "I have a lot more respect for teachers now!"

I raised my eyebrows and laughed a little.

"I know" said his partner. "Hardly anyone got it!" She frowned. "Will that hurt our grade?"