All Tricks, No Tweets: Looking Back at The School Year

At this time of year, I often the tweets from my classes as a way of summarizing the school year. However, I gradually realized that the way I was using Twitter was not effective and my classes and I stopped tweeting mid-year.

So I need another way to look back at the 2013-2014 school year and reflect. As the second week of summer break ends, I have the distance to look back and evaluate this year.

My daughter left for Africa just as the school year was starting. I was anxious and excited for her. Until she returned, I was not aware how those feelings weighed on me like thirty extra pounds.

It was hot when school started, and the heat didn’t leave. My three Freshman English classes (yes, three of them – that is probably a stressor, too) were in two different classrooms. One of these was so hot we started meeting in an air-conditioned science lab instead.

In early September, Chromebooks came to my classes! I had to figure out how to integrate them into our learning. The kids and I tried various strategies. It was clear that planning for Chromebooks took much more time. It took more than a month to discover approaches that worked. Although I spent the year adjusting and refining our use of Chromebooks, the first quarter was by far the most difficult.

In October, my daughter called at 6am to tell me there had been a terrorist attack at the shopping mall less than two kilometers from her apartment. That was when I started getting less sleep. Fortunately, that gave me more time to do the additional planning that Chromebooks required.

It was around that time that the behavioral issues in my last period class became problematic. One student would sabotage other students’ performances. Some students held it together all day long and, by last period, had no glue left. I had some very young and some very needy students. It was a less-than-perfect storm. I created some strong management structures to help them focus.

There were wonderful movements and it did get easier. The Chromebooks are very positive additions to the classroom. My classes were filled with great kids! Our wonderful teacher from the Czech Republic was a fantastic addition to our narrow Deerfield world.  My daughter came back to the states. We established a Chromebook routine.

Winter came, and we had more snow days than ever before. Earlier we were too hot. Now were too cold and there was a ton of snow. The schedule became a challenge when we missed a day, part of a day, or had to put a day back into the schedule!

Spring is always stressful, but it was more so this year. As kids register, courses fill or are dropped, and teachers receive their assignments. The quality of a year is strongly influenced by these decisions. The overall process was more painful and problematic than it has ever been in my twenty-eight years in the district. There were meetings upon meetings. Jobs were cut and then some reinstated. Courses were cut and some were brought back and some were combined. When I asked if we could get an outline of the process and the criteria by which these decisions were made, I was told it was not possible. No wonder our district is currently in turmoil.

Now it is summer, and I look toward next year. This cyclical process is one of the wonderful things about being a teacher. I get to try again. I get to expand on my successes and have another chance at my challenges. I do school planning in little bites each day. I spent an hour or so scheduling, reading, and of course, reflecting on how to make next year better.

Next year will be better. Next year is almost always better. And knowing about the bumps and bright spots from this year gives me even more tools to make 2014-2015, my twenty-ninth year at Deerfield High School, the best year yet.

Eight Rules to Prevent Public Self-Stimulation

It must have been an interesting sight; from the performer’s point of view, the three people at the back of the recital hall were looking at their laps, making small movements with their arms and hands, and periodically smiling and sighing. What might they be doing?

If you are thinking what you might be thinking, you aren’t far from correct. Although it would not get them arrested, they were involved in the new socially acceptable form of self-stimulation: use of their smart phones.

I was sitting next to them. While every singer in the recital may not have ready for Orchestra Hall, none deserved to be upstaged by texting, solitaire, or Facebook. And while they may have only been there to watch one performer, when that child was done, the polite and respectful thing to do would be to quietly listen to other singers. Their act was not as egregious as public masturbation, but it was inappropriate and rude nonetheless.

Smart phones are ubiquitous. Despite the constant reminders to turn them off, they ring in cinemas, theaters, religious services, and other inappropriate places. Worse, people use them in ways that are distracting, disrespectful, and dangerous. Why do they do this? Why can’t we keep our hands off our phones?

I am a gadget guy. I like electronic toys. I understand how much fun it is to have a new phone and explore the new tools it presents. However, smart phone novelty does not seem to wear off for some people. The rude use of smart phones is not about the gee-whiz factor.

Blackberries were called crackberries because their users became addicted to them. Is that what is happening? Do we feel compelled to check our emails, text messages, Facebook posts, and fantasy sports leagues? Do we start to sweat and shake if we aren’t connected to the people who aren’t physically in front of us? Do we worry that our clients or followers will leave us if we don’t reply to them immediately? While some people may have jobs that require constant communication, I do not think that staying in touch is the key cause either.

Frequently, I see children with smart phones or tablets in restaurants. Their parents often have them out while pushing the kiddies in the strollers. They are all over subway trains. Why do we feel the need to finger our devices or give them to our children?

Many of us are building up a tolerance for real world engagement. The actual physically present world is not enough. It does not provide us with the gratification and entertainment that our electronics do when we jack in.

Our public use of smart phones and other electronics is a sign that people no longer find adequate stimulation in the environment around them. The movie (even if it is on a huge IMAX screen) is not entertaining enough. We must text. The dinner, lecture, service, or conversation pales in comparison to Candy Crush.

What do we do about this? We could increase the razzle-dazzle of day-to-day life. We could have video cells on our clothing; we could play music from our shoes and project engaging images from our bow ties. We could amp up the real world so it competes more favorably with the little screen in our laps.

Or we could exercise self-control. After all, we don’t have people masturbating or having sex in public even though that would be more “interesting” than boring old mundane life.

So here are eight suggestions for polite and appropriate use of smart phones:

1. Do not use smart phones when there are people physically present: interact with them.

2. Do not check email, texts, or other forms of communication in public. Move to a private area and wash your hands afterward.

3. Keep your phone on silent when you are with other people. Set your default ringtone to silent and only assign ring tones to people whose calls would be important enough to answer right away.

4. No phones on the table. A phone on the table means you are waiting to use it. When we are eating or meeting, phones should be out of sight and hearing!

5. Never let your electronics come between you and an interpersonal interaction. Would you like someone to step between you and the person with whom you were talking? That would be rude! Don’t let your phone do that either. Why is the phone more important than a live person in front of you?

6. Be considerate about how your use of electronics may affect others around you. While you may feel alone in the theater, your texting is distracting to the other members of the audience.

7. Pledge to never touch your phone while you are the driver in a car. Insist the same of anyone driving a car in which you are riding. Reinforce this rule with young drivers.

8. Talk about cell phone use when it comes up. Ask the person who has whipped out his phone, “Why do you think people are constantly on their phones?” While this may seem difficult and even rude, is it as rude as the act of letting the phone interrupt the conversation? Perhaps the person on the phone’s child is ill, or his parent is in the hospital. That provides an opportunity for real human interaction. If he is just checking the Cubs score, it says that you were just too boring. You need to know that. So does he.

Let’s think about why we feel compelled to use our phones. Let’s critically examine how phones are affecting our relationships and our public environments. Let’s reassess our need for stimulation. And let’s reconnect to each other, and bring back a sense of public responsibility, decency, and discourse.