An April Homework Assignent Gone Awry

My younger child has become quite the word puzzle person. He is a master of anagrams, does Wordle and Spelling Bee daily, and is becoming a crossword aficionado.  It wasn’t always the case – and his love of words is strongly connected to today. 

When he was in first grade, his teacher sent home a kind of word jumble exercise. It was a list of letters and a kind of triangle of squares. Students were to use the letters to make a two-letter word, a three-letter word, a four-letter word, and so on until they used all of the letters listed. It was very frustrating for my child. 

My solution was to put the letters on index cards so he could manipulate them like Scrabble tiles. Side note: I now cannot solve Wordle without using Scrabble tiles, so perhaps this technique was as much for me as for him. 

It was easier to be able to move the letters around on the table and not just in his head. I would sit next to him and encourage him. I would never give him answers, but I might help with spelling or pull out a dictionary. 

One of these puzzles was particularly challenging. He got all the smaller words, but when it came to using all the letters, he was very frustrated. He had the building blocks of the smaller words, but they didn’t connect to make a natural word or phrase. 

His father was also frustrated. I did not have my own set of manipulatives, so I was trying to unjumble the letters in my head. I came up with what I thought was the solution before my child. However, I was baffled. We knew this teacher well. She had been my elder child’s teacher as well. The answer was bizarre and unlike any of the other earlier solutions. This was the end of April and we had a good sense of these weekly word puzzles – or so we thought. 

With some gentle support and an occasional hint, my son arrived at the same answer I had come to earlier. He knew the phrase because we frequently played a musical version of H.G. Wells’ War of the World at home. The big phrase, which used all the words was death ray. Or so we thought. 

My child didn’t think much of the solution. Rather, he was delighted to be done with his homework. I was confused, but a little happy that the teacher was using a science fiction reference, even if it was obscure and odd. 

You already know where this is going, I am sure. 

He took his homework to school the next morning, the morning of April 22. When he came home, we got a big lesson in anagrams. The solution was not death ray, although that did work with the letters. Who knew that a perfect anagram for death ray was Earth Day? 

Earth Day and death ray and this story of a clever word exercise are now forever linked in my family. 

Happy Death Ray – I mean Earth Day!  

Pointless

Recently, I heard teachers complaining about their districts’ grading policies. One teacher was against the policy of giving students 50% for missing work. Another railed against grade inflation and giving students points as behavior or completion rewards. 

Whatever you think about these issues, they both presuppose two ideas: that kids should earn points for classwork and these points should be used to arrive at their grades. I would like to challenge both of these assumptions. 

I have written about grading many times. I have asked questions about the side-effects of grades, made an argument against averaged grading, discussed grading’s arbitrary nature, presented the mathematical reality of averaged grades, discussed my way of evaluating students, and presented many stories and examples of the problems of our current grading systems. 

All of these issues rest on the reduction of student learning to points. We use points to make grading seem fair and based on students’ performance. Like money, students receive point payment for tasks: the better the proficiency, the more points. Usually, the total points possible are considered the top grade and students are given a letter grade based on how far away they are from perfect. 

So, a student who walks in without any skills or knowledge and, by the end of the term, has reached the desired goals, would end up with something like fifty percent (a failing grade). That doesn’t seem right, so we break down our goals and give students points for taking baby steps. Some students need more baby steps. These students’ grades will probably be lower.  This is because making more errors costs points, even if the student ends up fully proficient by the end of the term. Thus, the point average grade is really a measure of how quickly a student achieves proficiency. 

Teachers, schools, and districts have contorted themselves to find ways to make this system make sense. The “no zeros” rule is one of those attempts. The reason for this rule is that half of the grading scale is failure; each grade band is ten percent and everything under 60 is failing. Some schools have redistributed that scale more evenly. Some schools have said that practice (sometimes called formative) assignments should not be graded and points should only be given on end-of-unit exams and assignments (summative evaluations). 

How does a teacher determine the value of a point? Is a good thesis worth ten grammatical errors? Why is a question worth two, three, or twenty points? Points are not objective: the teacher makes professional judgments about what activities are worth. Good teachers do this well. Poor teachers can manipulate this – and kids can then manipulate their teachers and the system. 

Rather than learning, students can become grade grubbing point collectors. They must work hard and have a high degree of maturity to see the goal through the point payment. Every teacher can tell too many stories of the students who would negotiate every point. “It’s not about the points,” teacher says. “If the points don’t matter,” the student retorts, “then just give them to me!” Both points of view are misguided. 

Learning is not an average of accumulated minutia. Averaging points, as I have written before, devalues the learning process and penalizes students for taking more time to learn or thinking divergently, even if they eventually succeed in fully reaching the goals. Shouldn’t a course’s evaluation really reflect the student’s ultimate proficiency? 

How do you measure proficiency? What does it look like? The more complex the subject, the more difficult to do. Elementary arithmetic is straightforward. What about high school social studies, science, or literature? Points simplify this problem so completely that the real worth and complexity of the subject is turned into the collection of green stamps. Put your points on a page and trade them in for a prize! 

Points are not aligned with the way the working world measures effectively reaching goals. Many professions use object metrics, like sales and billable hours, there are many things like interpersonal relationships, team contribution, and non-quantifiable results that figure into employees’ evaluation. Is there a job where each thing is translated into pennies and put in a pot and then, at arbitrary times, pulled out and evaluated? There must be. Points are far too seductive not to transcend education. There must be employee evaluation systems that mirror grading. I’ll bet they have the same issues we are discussing here. Ironically, most teachers are not evaluated the way they evaluate students. 

The reason the point system is so popular is that the alternatives are messier and more difficult to implement. Teachers will average themselves into oblivion to prove that their grades are objective.  There it is: to make points unimportant and create a grading system that really values learning and the achievement of educational objectives, we must let go of the idea that learners must be labeled by letter-based categories.  

You can get rid of points but still assign letter grades. I did it. Teachers all over the world have lots of ways to do it. Here is a video of one talking about it. However, if we want systemic wide change that acknowledges that our real goal isn’t an A, but is helping students to be able to learn specific skills and understand specific content, then we must stop tallying the trivia and instead focus on the learning!  

To Retire or Not To Retire

Because I retired earlier than most, I have become a go-to guy on retirement for others. They ask about what I am doing in retirement (anything I like) and if I like it (I love it). What they are really asking is, should they retire? I can’t answer that question. I can provide some information about my retirement, but I am not sure how much that will help others make a very personal decision. 

I always tell them that my retirement date was pretty much set in 1986 when I started teaching. Of course, I had to choose to retire, but the basic structure of my retirement was built into my job. 

From the moment I started teaching, people were talking about retirement. Most of the teachers at my school were old enough to be my parents when I arrived. It took a few years before there were five or six of us under thirty! We would roll our eyes as these old fogies would go on and on about retirement. It was so far away and we were so tired of hearing about it. During my first decade of teaching, the State of Illinois had a retirement incentive and large numbers of teachers retired. 

A teacher only gets paid for nine or ten months of the year. My wife and I had to stretch our money over summers every year. I believe that summers, both having no classes and having to work within a narrow budget, were great preparation for retirement. We did this for more than thirty years, so by the time retirement rolled around, we knew the drill. 

We also had wonderful retirement mentors. Many of our friends who retired before helped prepare us. They played the role of big siblings and coached us through our final few years. I remember a wonderful drive with a retired teacher. She talked about how, now that she was retired, she was no longer a teacher. She had stopped coaching and her children were grown up, so she wasn’t a coach or a parent, either. Who was she? She asked questions that hadn’t even appeared on my radar. As she shared her experiences, she provided me (and my wife) with plenty to consider as we moved toward retirement. I am happy to help people think through these retirement questions. That may be the best service I can provide. 

Thinking creatively about retirement early is my biggest piece of advice. Diving into retirement without any preparation feels like a belly flop into an unheated pool. Boom and ouch! I made a list of “In retirement, I might…” on my phone.  As I talked to people and went about my day, I made notes about things that I might like to do if I had more time or flexibility. Some were very concrete: take guitar lessons. Some were more a reflection of my working life: have a slower morning. Some were things I could never do on a school schedule: visit my children on their birthdays. I still have this list and I still add to and remove from it. It is not a contract. It is a set of “maybes” and possibilities. 

Just as seniors in high school or college often dislike that, “What are you going to do next year?” question, people peppered me with the “What are your retirement plans?” question. I knew a teacher who answered, “Move my house one inch to the right.” I told people that I was going to take a gap year or two (or more). I gave myself permission to explore, experiment, and see what worked (or didn’t). I had promised myself that I was not going to make any long-term commitments for my first years of retirement. 

I did end up substitute teaching briefly and, although it was nice to be back in the classroom and with my friends, it reinforced to me that I was ready to try other things. I was glad I did it because it validated my desire to go in a new direction. 

Of course, retirement is a financial decision, too. Some of us are lucky enough to have pensions. Some of us have been great planners and have ample retirement savings. Some of us need to figure out how to make ends meet. I met with the great folks at the Illinois Teachers Retirement System, so I knew exactly what my resources would be. 

I am happy to talk about retirement. I am delighted to share my five years of retirement experience. I love being retired – and my circumstances may not apply to everyone. I recommend retirement. I like it. I think many others will like it, too. I fear that there are far too many people who will never get to experience it and that is unfortunate. Don’t write it off. Consider it. Plan for it. Imagine it. Find folks who will help you see what your retirement might be – I am happy to be one of them! 

Reading for Treasure: What is "Woke?"

Recently, someone asked me if the teachers in my school were woke. I asked him what he meant by “woke.” He struggled to give me any form of answer. Does it just mean liberal? Does it mean Black? Does it mean whatever those in Florida want it to mean? What do they want it to mean? Do they know? 

Those who are banning books, worrying about drag shows, and storming school board meetings know what they are doing. It doesn’t matter what woke means. They have turned it into a weapon against those who coined it. It is an attempt to make schools and society white-centric – again. After accusing liberals of being snowflakes, the battle against woke is an attempt to protect the feelings and power of those who benefit from the status quo and don’t wish to be reminded of it. 

If eliminating any signs of “wokeness” might make some comfortable, it will make others uncomfortable and unsafe. There are some who stand to benefit if “woke” ideas are suppressed and we all go to sleep. But those who have been bullied, beaten, and brutalized also deserve to have their voices heard. Their history is our history, it is American history. We must face it because it is painful and difficult. 

The issues of our past do not go away because we wish they never happened. If we ignore health issues, things don’t get better because we pretend we are well when we know there is cause for concern. We must have the courage and fortitude to confront the issues that the anti-woke people are trying to silence. We can’t move forward until we deal with our past and present. 

With that in mind, here are some other voices that helped shape my view and may give more context to this issue:  

Clarence Page’s editorial in the Chicago Tribune, “What is ‘woke’? More than a joke.” 

NewsOne’s article, “Fox News Host Whitesplains Why Conservatives Can’t Define ‘Woke,’ Says It’s Just A ‘Feeling.’” 

Two articles from The Atlantic: “Woke Is Just Another Word for Liberal” and  “Wokeness Has Replaced Socialism as the Great Conservative Bogeyman.”

Michael Harriott, writing in The Grio, looks at how the word “woke” and other terms have been twisted into new definitions and speculates on what other words might suffer the same fate, “After white people redefined ‘woke’ and ‘critical race theory,’ these 6 words or phrases might be next.” 

Reading for Treasure is my list of articles that are worth your attention. Click here for an introduction.

I am currently reading The Spare Man by Mary Robinette Kowal

Reading for Treasure: Guns, Again- and Again, and Again and Again

Reading for Treasure is my list of articles that are worth your attention. Click here for an introduction!

Why do I keep listing articles that deal with the problem of gun violence? Because we have yet to confront the issue fully and deal with the consequences. It is one of our greatest public health problems today. Most Americans are in favor of “common sense” gun laws, but somehow, we still lack sense of any kind when it comes to firearms. Some of these articles are a little old, but unfortunately just as timely as when they were published. What a sad statement that mass shootings are always a current event. 

Peter Bergen says we should ban assault weapons, pass and enforce red flag laws, and look at a concept he calls leakage in his CNN oped:  “Opinion: This is how we stem America’s mass shootings” 

Two pieces from The Atlantic are very much worth your attention. First, a look at the police’s inaction, at Uvalde : “Where Were The Police?” And then a wonderful portrait of how marketing and profit drive the American gun problem: “The Gun Industry Created a New Consumer. Now It’s Killing Us”

It is a sad statement to say that I got so much déjà vu reading this article from Medium that I searched to see if I had already included it in a Reading for Treasure list:  “Why is America the Only Country in the World With Regular School Shootings?”  

This article in The Grio shows us what we really didn’t need proof to believe. Gun violence hurts some of us more than others. “Allowing guns in public without permits could create increased risks for Black Americans, experts say”

This link is not an article, but a website that tracks gun violence in America. The Gun Violence Archive tracks gun deaths broken down by location, age of those killed, suicides, mass shootings, mass murders, and much more. The statistics are horrific. 

As of the publishing of this post, in 2023, there have been 

2097 gun deaths 

909 homicides

1188 suicides 

32 mass shootings

4 mass murders

56 defensive use deaths 

73 unintentional shootings

2 officer killed and 17 injured 

61 subject-suspects killed and 35 injured

41 children under 11 killed or injured

253 children under 12 to 17 killed or injured 

This must stop. We must make it stop. 

Two cases, one from Washington, D.C. reported in The Grio, and one from Newport News, Virginia from CNN. The headlines paint the picture clearly: 

“Man guns down 13-year-old boy he thought was car vandal; cops won’t release killer’s name”

“A 6-year-old shoots his teacher. Now what?”

Finally, some good news. The Daily Herald reports from my home state of Illinois which has banned assault weapons: “Pritzker signs state's new ban on high-powered weapons: The final details”

I am currently reading She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan

Reading For Treasure: Education Issues

Reading for Treasure is my list of articles that are worth your attention. Click here for an introduction!

Earlier this month, I spent two days back at school working with teachers and librarians and talking to kids about books. It was wonderful, rejuvenating, and exhausting! One of the reasons I started this list of articles was I didn’t want to keep sending my not-yet-retired colleagues articles that I thought they would find interesting or useful. So I post them here instead. My mind is on all the different aspects of education: grading, social and emotional health, classroom practices, athletics, safety, and many other topics. Since my list is long this month, I am limiting myself to a very short description of each article.  

First, some articles that focus on teaching and the teacher experience: 

“I No Longer Grade My Students’ Work — And I Wish I Had Stopped Sooner” in Blavity. “I’ve been teaching college English for more than 30 years. Four years ago, I stopped putting grades on written work, and it has transformed my teaching and my students’ learning. My only regret is that I didn’t do it sooner.” 

“The Case Against Zeros in Grading” in Edutopia. I am shocked that some teachers still need to hear this argument. This article and the accompanying video make it clear: zeros demotivate students and count more than their successes! 

“Why So Many Teachers Are Leaving, and Why Others Stay” in Cult of Pedagogy.. Jennifer Gonzalez shares eight teachers’ stories: four who are leaving and four who are not. These are critically important voices that need to be heard.  

“Stress, Hypervigilance, and Decision Fatigue: Teaching During Omicron And, no, “self care” isn’t the answer” in Education Week. Katy Faber paints a vivid picture of what it is like to teach during this difficult time in America. 

"Why is America the Only Country in the World With Regular School Shootings?" in Eudaimonia and Co via Medium. Umair Haque has gone to school all over the world and shares how American schools are horribly unique. The issues we are having are not functions of adolescent development but of American culture. 

"Pandemic Shadow Syllabus" in Sonya Hubor's blog. This is a short and wonderful teacher struggling with the pandemic point of view piece. Teachers – if you read only one of these, let it be this one. 

A few articles that deal with education’s social context: 

“Young people need power.' Southern students on safety, accountability, and what they need from adults” in Scalawag.  This is a series of statements from young people about what it is like to be in school now. Read what the kids say about their experiences! 

"Is Your Child Too Popular for Their Own Good?" in Lifehaker. While some parents are clueless and others are ruthless, there are many kinds of popular in school and this article explores what some studies say about how popularity in middle and high school translates into adulthood. 

“OP-ED: When It Comes To Book Bans, America Could Learn From Apartheid South Africa” in NewsOne. The comparison is eerie and frightening – and right on the money: book challenges in America today are frighteningly similar to those in South Africa during Apartheid. 

Two pieces that focus on equity in college admissions from The Atlantic: 

"College Admissions Are Still Unfair" Colleges are eliminating legacy admissions, but this will not make things much better. At Amherst, there is a greater percentage of white athletes than in the general student body – and many play sports like crew and squash. Sounds like white affirmative action to me. 

"Colleges Can Fix the Broken Admissions Process They Created" This is a great list of ways colleges could improve the admission process to benefit everyone! 

Two very different focuses on kids and youth sports: 

“Do youth sports really build character? What kids gain from sports depends on adults”  in KQED Mindshift. The benefits of sports participation for kids are entirely dependent on coaches and contexts. This article spells out clearly the nature of adult’s influence, for better or worse, on children. 

“Guys, I Swear I’m Only Transitioning So I Can Cheat at Girls’ Sports” in McSweeny's. This older McSweeny’s satire makes the point well: the controversy over trans students in sports is an invented issue that fans the flames of hate at the expense of kids who really need to be part of the team!  

I am currently reading House of Suns by Alastair Reynolds 

Watch Out Parents: Big Conservative is Not Just Coming After Teachers and Librarians

We need to talk about how you are interacting with your children at home. What are you teaching them? How are you modeling well? Are you making the right choices - the best choices? Would your legislators and political leaders approve of how you are raising your children? Do you talk about CRT? Are you too accepting of gender non-conforming behavior or ideas? Would you allow your child to use they/them pronouns? If so, Big Conservative might knock on your door for this kind of thought crime. 

We hear about parents’ choice. That is the rationale for a slew of censorship across more than a dozen states. However, which parents? What choices? For the most part, these book-banning (and sometimes burning) movements are aligned with a far wrong wing political agenda. They do not reflect ALL parents’ choices, just a specific conservative religious and usually white one.  

So this isn’t just about parents having a say in what their kids read in school. This is about ideologues having control over your children’s educations. Teachers and librarians were the first to experience this intense scrutiny and vitriol, but this movement will not end with them. 

You may think, what I teach my children in my own home is not anyone’s business but my own – and you would be right as long as what you were doing was aligned with Big Conservative. But if it is not, your behavior might be labeled child abuse and you as a negligent parent. 

Several states banned children who identify as a gender other than the one assigned at birth from receiving any interventions. They criminalized the act of assisting these children from even exploring anything beyond their gender at birth – even if their parents did it! 

So if you are looking at teachers and librarians and thinking, just pick less controversial texts, just make your lessons about the subject area and not about social issues, know this: that same message will be tailored for parents who don’t agree with the censors and extremists. 

Let’s go one step further: How will these wrong wing censors know you are veering away from their prescribed curriculum? Your children will tell them. The idea that children would “turn in” their parents was common in totalitarian and fascist regimes. Whether it was the Hitler Youth, the Soviet Union’s Young Pioneers, or Communist Youth reading Mao’s Little Red Book, this technique has deep roots in authoritarian governments’ control of parenting. 

So as you are confronting those who don’t want their kids to “feel uncomfortable” in school because topics deal with parts of our past that are problematic, this is just the first battle in a larger war for who decides what your child learns – in and out of school. 

As with abortion, immigration, and elections, choice just means sticking with Big Conservative’s point of view; freedom means the right to express opinions that echo specific politicians in a specific party. They are not advocating for freedom and choice, they are creating vehicles to coerce and control – and their reach will not end at the schoolhouse – if we don’t stop it, it is going to ram through the door and enter your house! 

Thank Goodness for Teachers!

The school year is starting. Some of us welcome the “back to school” sales, while others see them as the death knell of summer’s freedom. And even though they are not paid during the summer, schoolteachers have spent an unfair and disproportionate part of it getting ready to receive our children. 

Professors, teachers, and especially public school faculty have become political punching bags recently. Not only is it disgusting and unfair, but it is also sharper than a serpent’s tooth! Public schoolteachers are the masons of success and, as we continue to learn from the pandemic, the foundation of our economy. When the schools stopped, the great machinery of business and industry stalled and sputtered. 

So let us give thanks for those wonderful souls who teach our children. Let us give thanks to those who have earned enough education to join the upwardly mobile and the moneyed upper middle classes, but eschew just earning a living and instead choose a vocation of giving. 

Let’s face it; those who teach could have been bankers, lawyers, doctors, scientists, artists, and all manner of professionals. Instead, they chose service to the children and our communities. They deserve our gratitude – and support! 

Get off their backs! If you don’t like the book, read your child another one. If you don’t like the ideas, discuss your beliefs with your children. While what happens in school certainly shapes children, it pales compared to what happens at home. If what you, as parents, are teaching your children can be so easily washed away by school lessons or activities, that speaks to what is going on at home far more than what is happening in the classroom. 

Consider this: teachers receive and welcome your children, even on the days when things have not gone well, even on the days when your kids were upset with you or you with them, even when you thought that maybe this whole parenting thing was a big mistake, even on the days when your children wondered if you still loved them. To whom did they turn? Their teachers. And their teachers reassured and supported them. You’re welcome. 

I have been concerned about using the term love here because it has been dirtied and maligned by those who cheat on their spouses, swindle their customers, lie to their constituents, and then tell you that you can’t trust teachers. It has been sexualized by those who pay hush money to sex workers and similarly would silence teachers who want to help our children make this a safer and saner society –for our kids and all of us. 

Because, like good parents, teachers love our children. They sacrifice for our children. They are not perfect. Like parents, they range from stellar to so-so. Like politicians, they make mistakes, even in service of larger goals. Yet, like good shepherds, they lead our children to find nourishment, comfort, community, and enlightenment. 

Stop beating up teachers and start extolling and exalting them. They hold our country together. They love our children even when we falter. 

And frankly, some of your children have questions they are afraid to ask you. Some of your children are curious about the books you have stolen from the library and destroyed. They want to talk to you about the concepts you want teachers to hide from them. Banning these ideas from the classroom will not prevent this exploration. It will not stop kids from thinking. It will change their view of their parents.  

Do you want your children to realize that, sometimes, their teachers have their best interests at heart even when their parents are silent and afraid? Thank goodness their teachers are there even when their parents want to shut down the conversation. In the age of the internet, banning books and forbidding discussion will never stop the ideas. Teachers know this. Some folks fear this. There is no stopping it. 

Teachers are the support structure and safety net of our society. As we send our children back to the classrooms, let us be grateful. 

Impossible Doublethink Before Breakfast

In Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland, the Red Queen believed at least six impossible things before breakfast. George Orwell’s 1984 gave us the concept of doublethink: being able to believe two completely contradictory ideas, acknowledge that they are incompatible with each other, yet fully endorse both of them. Doublethink was the critical component in maintaining 1984’s totalitarian state. Although there are more literary examples, recent events move these concepts from fiction to frightening reality. 

I don’t understand how someone can fervently support the police, believe that “blue lives matter” and yet want unlimited and open access to guns. Likewise, if one wants to be “tough on crime,” how does one accomplish this if guns are more accessible than cigarettes or allergy medication? And the police in Uvalde? 

How can one condemn violence after Black people are killed by police, but then condone violence against our own elected lawmakers who are certifying an election? How can people threaten and intimidate local election officials when they disagree with the results of an election? If violence is bad, shouldn’t it be bad no matter who commits it? 

How can someone claim that the 2020 election was riddled with fraud when it comes to the election of the president, but make no objections to all the Republican candidates who won on the very same “rigged” ballots? If there were issues with one race on the ballot, wouldn’t there be problems with the other races, too? And where is the evidence of all these irregularities? If there were so many, wouldn’t some have led to criminal charges, successful lawsuits, or altered election results? The only verified instances of election fraud I could find were people voting for the former president! 

Some people say they want to honor the past and thus preserve confederate statues, monuments, or symbols, but when discussing historical aspects of the civil war that deal with enslaved people and systemic racism, their discomfort trumps honoring and remembering other shameful aspects of the past. Could this perhaps maybe possibly be about race? 

Many of these same people are eager to protect the unborn, but do not give any protection to already-born children sitting in schools. Some of these folks also refused to protect anyone by wearing a mask or getting the COVID vaccine. Is life only worth protecting when it is not yet here? Do children have to protect themselves – from guns and illness? Is it only embryos who deserve protection? Why? 

If people don’t want teachers discussing the racism of our past and present, the diversity of gender identities, or any subject that might make some (white) kids (and/or their parents) uncomfortable, who decides what is or isn’t included? Wouldn’t the exclusion of this content make other students uncomfortable? Wouldn’t its inclusion eventually create understanding and thus bring more comfort? How are people evaluating this harm? How is repressing some people’s ideas and history not just another form of bullying and bigotry? 

Some of these folks claim to be religious people acting on precepts from scripture. However, they worship people who are adulterers and bullies whose behavior is the opposite of the religious figures they claim to revere. They take minor biblical passages out of context and hold them as more important than the Ten Commandments and key statements from Jesus, Moses, and other key figures. Whatever happened to “love thy neighbor as thyself” and “thou shalt not murder?” 

The slogans of the state in 1984 were: “War is peace, freedom is slavery, and ignorance is strength. Today, many people are holding a complementary set of commandments: 

Morality is Indecency

Honesty is Deception

Bigotry is Equality

Freedom is Selfishness

Cruelty is Compassion

Rage is Virtue

Hypocrisy is Integrity

I don’t see how we can move beyond our current political impasse without civil discourse, common ground, a shared sense of right and wrong, and a moral commitment to improving the conditions for everyone (not just a few).  Instead, so many are practicing deadly doublethink before, during, and after breakfast – and it is not only unhealthy for them, as Orwell predicted, it is poisoning all of us. 

Reading For Treasure: Gun Terrorism

Reading for Treasure is my list of articles that are worth your attention. Click here for an introduction!

Guns and their extremist worshippers are terrorizing our country. There are shootings so often that this entry will be out of date the moment it is posted. We have no regulated militia or anything when it comes to firearms of all types: hunting rifles and automatic weapons designed to rip people to shreds. It is far past the time that the majority of Americans who support common sense gun legislation insist that our lawmakers make our schools, malls, movie theaters, churches, synagogues, and communities safe from the terrorists who insist that their right to kill trumps everyone else’s right to life. Here is a selection of articles exploring this issue. 

While Uvalde and Highland Park have proven that the “good guy with a gun” will not stop loss of life from gun terrorists, there is another issue with school resource officers: they may make some students feel less safe and be more likely to arrested. The AP in The Grio’s article, “No. Placing more officers in schools will not make Black students feel safer in the wake of mass shootings” provides this perspective. 

Even though a "good guy with a gun" shot the terrorist in Indiana, this opinion piece from The Grio makes it clear that, "An Armed Bystander Is Not Your Savior."

The Highland Park, Uvalde, and Buffalo shooters acquired their guns legally! The New York Amsterdam News lists how the shooters from 22 recent acts of gun terrorism got their weapons: “22 mass shootings. 374 dead. Here’s where the guns came from” 

I love this idea even if I am skeptical that it would work. However, Gal Beckerman acknowledges all of this in his article “Students Should Refuse to Go Back to School” in The Atlantic. Could we mobilize in the next few months? 

Get ready to be frustrated by this second article from The Atlantic. In, “The Real Reason America Doesn’t Have Gun Control,” author Ronald Brownstein shows how a minority has “veto over national policy.” 

Scalawag Magazine shares powerful Southern student voices about guns, fear, and the need for student power: “'Young people need power.' Southern students on safety, school, and accountability.” 

Peter Bergen lays the case out succinctly and clearly in his article in CNN: “Opinion: This is how we stem America's mass shootings” 

Finally, arming teachers in school is so dangerous that only satire can do it justice. Read this school memo from McSweeny’s. I don’t want to tell you more, just read it: “Regarding the Recently Passed ‘Arm the Teachers” Bill.” 

I am currently reading Light From Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki and I love it! It is wonderful! If you are looking for a delightful and delicious book, read it and then talk to me about it! 

Where are the Guardian Angels?

The shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas is overwhelming. Each time I think about the horrible events of May 24, I find it is so painful that I need to deflect to something else, anything else. The thought of that kind of loss is nearly too difficult to imagine.  

I was teaching the day that Laurie Dann walked into Hubbard Woods Elementary School in Winnetka and began shooting. My school moved to “red alert,” which was designed to prevent senior pranks, when it was reported that the shooter was headed northwest. My school is only a few miles northwest of Hubbard Woods. This was more than thirty years ago. 

There are no words to console a grieving parent or partner. There is no pain I can imagine worse than the death of a child. It is so hideous and powerful and painful. Why must parents keep experiencing loss because of school shootings? 

What is wrong with us that we refuse to protect our children sitting in their classrooms? What is wrong with us that we argue about the rights of children not yet born, but we refuse to protect fourth graders? How can people rush to protect gun rights at the cost of children’s lives?  Anyone who has worked in education knows that putting more guns in school will not address this problem. It is a false fantasy solution that ignores everything we know about these situations. 

Even the National Rifle Association prohibits guns at its convention! Arming teachers will work, but having a convention full of gun owners won’t? I don’t understand. 

Let’s start a new organization: No Retro Abortions. This organization would advocate that we ban abortions beyond the 15-week or 3-month or the latest of late-term timelines and argue that even abortions that take place after birth should be forbidden. The organization could be called by its initials: N.R.A. 

Recently, I read a short story called, “Mr. Death” by Alix Harrow. The story is nominated for the prestigious Hugo award, and.I read the nominees every year so I vote for the winners. 

This fantasy story follows a relatively new “reaper” who ferries souls across the river of death. He is given assignments and then sits with the person as they die and accompanies them to the other side. However, as the story opens, he is given a horrible assignment: a child of only 30 month: a two year old. 

Our focal character has deep misgivings and does his best to rationalize and justify the child’s death. But he can’t. He lost his own child and has experienced this kind of pain first hand. As the story proceeds, he moves from giving the child a little extra time to being unable to complete his assignment. He refuses to complete the assignment even though it will mean much more than losing his job, it will probably mean he will be consigned to oblivion. 

If you are going to read the story, this is the place to stop reading. I am about to spoil it. Read the story and come back or skip to the paragraph beginning, “Lovers of life…” 

Here is the connection: when our reaper refuses to take the child and is willing to sacrifice everything, he is surprised to find that he is transformed. He is no longer a reaper and instead, he is a guardian. He stands beside the child as a  protector. 

Lovers of life, pro-choice, pro-life, we need guardians now. Our children need us all to become angels who protect them: in their classrooms, churches, synagogues, movie theaters, and homes. Not with more instruments of death, but with thoughtful and rational laws and rules. Other countries do this; we can do this. 

Can we transform from partners of death to protectors of life? The Supreme Court will soon rule about how the unborn should be protected. What about the newly born? What about the fourth graders? What about our children and grandchildren? 

Thou shall not murder. Put down your weapon and accept your wings. Protect the children. Please. 

Good Riddence to the 2021-2022 School Year

I dreamed last night that I was visiting my old school on the last day of the year. I dreamed that I was going through offices and classrooms, wishing people well, and meeting new staff members. We joked and hugged and laughed and were all dressed in Halloween costumes. I dreamed that things were just as I left them, but different and better.

But that isn’t the school at which my friends and former co-workers teach. That isn’t the reality of education at the end of the 2021-2022 school year. That was my dream (really), but the truth is that my friends are survivors of a disaster. They end this year with anxiety, anger, frustration, grief, pain, and lots of tears. 

And it shouldn’t be this way. 

Teachers, Counselors, and other school staff are asked to carry it all. They are simultaneously hailed as heroes who will save, protect, and sacrifice for their students with opportunities and weapons and love and knowledge, and then derided as groomers and political opportunists, lazy slackers, and self-serving conspiracy puppets. When it serves the sound bite, they are the saviors of society and when it fits the narrative, they are taking our children into an uncomfortable world of race, gender, and masks. 

And it is too much. 

My colleagues have been carrying the pandemic. Their mantra has been “We’ll make it work,” and “We do what’s best for kids.” They have been performing a high wire acrobatic juggling. Sometimes, their administrators and school boards, and communities have stood by their sides and provided a net. But just as often, those who should be their allies have turned on them and thrown them flaming torches and shaken the tent, threatening to bring the entire circus crashing to the ground in flames and flesh. 

And teachers are exhausted. 

So as the end of the school year approaches, as summer rounds the corner, kids are fidgeting in their seats, and classrooms start to smell of sweat and cut grass, as the looming grading deadlines feel like Kuber-Ross’s stages, let us bid a not so fond goodbye bye to this disaster of a school year. 

Of course, we wish you a relaxing and rejuvenating summer, time with your family, and time to yourself. We wish you health, which has been Sisyphean these past two years.

And we thank you. 

I am not sure I know how to do this. As a retired teacher who left just before the sky fell, I can only half imagine what these years have felt like. For the first time, I have heard several school friends say to me, "I hate working here." As a supporter on the side, I have seen the disrespect and destruction, heard the yelling, and unbelievable thoughtlessness. Alice had it far easier. I felt both guilty that it was you and relief that it wasn’t me and anguish it was happening. People say to me every day – every.single.day – that I “got out at the right time.” I wish you could join me. Right now. 

And we should be concerned that you will. 

Teachers are leaving in droves. They watch their friends and colleagues of decades marching toward the cliff’s edge and feel the pull of gravity. Wonderful, inspiring, passionate professionals are packing their classrooms for the last time right now. As the lockers slam and the sneakers squeak down the hall, they are crying with relief and shame. Accountants are not asked to kill themselves for taxes, but sometimes healthcare folks are. 

And our teachers. 

This is not an exaggeration. I have heard a call for a student strike in the fall. What if students said, “We aren’t going back to our classrooms until it we are safe from gun terrorists.” What if parents said that?  What if teachers, across this nation, said, we will not conduct another active shooter drill until lawmakers stop the senseless stream of school shootings! 

So hear me clearly. Hear it from a retired veteran teacher: Teachers, you have been outstanding. You have made critical differences in children’s lives. You have nurtured, challenged, enriched, advocated – and educated. You have fought the good fight – over and over and over and over. What you have done matters and will continue to matter, even if you are no longer doing it. 

And now it is your time. 

Some of you will return to the classroom in the fall. Some of you will retire. Some of you will watch the stream of buses and kids with backpacks and step out of the line. Some of you will place your own children at the front and focus there. 

And that is okay.

The last bell is ringing. It brings relief and intense sorrow. Set down the load. Rest. Hold yourself and your loved ones. You have been through a war and, although it is not over, we are hoping for a few months of cease-fire. Go to your bunker. Hug your people. Cry. Unload. Recover. 

And this summer – and all that comes after it – do what heals and helps you. 

My Last Graduates

Have you ever visited your old school and found the students seem young, much younger than they appeared when you were there? And you didn’t know any of them. You might know only a few staff members. The place feels familiar but smaller and it doesn’t perfectly match up with your memories. It is a strange experience. 

I taught at Deerfield High School for thirty-three years and retired three years ago. Between COVID and school changes, the years since my retirement have been particularly dramatic for the school. There has been a lot of change and upheaval. I have remained in touch with many of my former coworkers and students. I have attended events at the school. It does not feel foreign – yet. 

Except for one very important change: my final freshmen are graduating seniors. Next year, I will no longer have any former students in the building. When I go to a play, concert, or sporting event, I will not know any of the kids. I will know some of the teachers, but more and more of them are retiring or leaving. 

By its definition, high school graduation is a one-time experience –for students. This year is my thirty-sixth Deerfield graduation - and my final one. Next year, none of the graduates will have studied with me. 

As my last class graduates, they will be spread across the country and the world. Teachers know this; our hearts leave with our students. Most, we will never see again. A few will keep in touch. A few we will bump into around town (and we’ll hope to remember their names). But this is the last time my students will be together. I share their moment of change; their transition. 

I wish them well. They are moving into a much more challenging world than their parents and teachers. However, they have endured lockdown and active shooter drills, masked classrooms, virtual classes, and countless educational fads and initiatives. They are facile with technology and social media. They hold the entirety of human knowledge in their hands literally and sometimes need to stop looking at it. 

There is nothing they cannot do. As their teacher, I happily put my fate in their hands. I have great faith that they will meet the future with creativity, compassion, resourcefulness, and determination. The future of our world rests with them – as it should. 

Congratulations, Class of 2022. Thank you for our year together  - and for all you will do in the future! 

Twenty One‘derful Years of Sunday School

I am retiring – again. I have been teaching Confirmation Class on Sunday mornings for twenty-one years. When we started the congregation in 2001, we wanted to be a full-service congregation; that meant a religious school, so I volunteered to teach Confirmation Class. 

We began with the curriculum from our prior congregation. It focused on comparative Judaism and comparative religion. I started with the continuum of Judaism. I took kids to Shabbat services at reform, conservative, reconstructing, and orthodox synagogues –and asked them to come to one of our Friday night services. Of course, high school students (and their parents) have many other things happening on Friday nights or Saturday mornings. And many students had been going to their friends’ mitzvahs at the very same congregations we were visiting. We had some very interesting conversations. 

I told students to dress nicely for these visits as they would for a B Mitzvah. When we visited a conservative synagogue for a Friday night service, one of my students arrived in a very short skirt and a bare midriff. I took off my coat as I saw her come into the sanctuary and said to her, “Put this on, you must be freezing!” I learned to be much more clear about my dress expectations. 

We also studied world religions and visited a Catholic Church and a nearby mosque. Through these seven field trips, the connections between all the religions were increasingly clear to the kids and me – and we were exhausted. It was too many field trips! 

In the third year, I decided to do a little of each: we studied some comparative Judaism and some comparative religion. I organized the years around the structures of the religions – and scheduled all field trips on Sunday mornings! One year, we went to an Orthodox Jewish shul, the Catholic church nearby, an Evangelical megachurch, the local mosque, and a Hindu mandir. The other year, we went to the Unitarian church, a United Church of Christ church, the Buddhist temple, the Bahai House of Worship, and a “classical reform” Jewish congregation that still had Sunday morning services. Five field trips a year was much more reasonable. 

And now, ninety-one kids, eighty-four field trips, and 470 class sessions later, I am handing Confirmation Class over to another teacher. Although I still love learning with students, the structure of Sunday mornings has become too restrictive. Both of my adult(ish) children live and work out of town. If I visit them, our time together must be on weekends. It is too hard to find ways to travel to see my kids and be back on Sunday mornings – and I feel way too guilty missing class. 

It has been a fantastic twenty-one years. I have learned with outstanding students. I have worked with fantastic colleagues and parents. I have talked with remarkable clergy. It has been joyous! 

In the beginning, my own children came to Sunday school with me. They would help set up my classroom and then run off to their own. We rejoined each other for the last half-hour, when the entire school gathered to sing. My parents would come to these music sessions, as would the parents (and often grandparents) of many of the students. It was a gathering of the congregation and a highlight of my week. 

I knew almost all of the families well. Once, as class came to an end, I joked with a student, telling him, “I’m going to tell your parents about this.” He looked at me and replied, “I’m going to tell your parents!” What a beautiful thing that he could! 

Every time we would study a religion or visit a different house of worship, I would learn with the kids. The first time we drove up to the huge megachurch, one of my students leaned over and said, “Oh, Mr. Hirsch, you’ve made a mistake. This is a mall!” Nope. It was a church – and it was bigger than a mall. 

I loved the moment that we drove through the gate at the BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir in Bartlet. I showed the kids photos. We had read about Hinduism. But nothing could adequately prepare them for the first sight of that magnificent structure. The collective gasp as we arrived more than made up for the long journey to get there. 

There have been challenging and memorable moments, too: the student who asked our host at the megachurch, “So, are we all going to hell?” The time a guide compared homosexuality to heroin addiction and my students were so flabbergasted that they literally began to move toward her. The pastor who was so approachable that one of my students whispered to me, “These are the coolest Christians I have ever met.” The charming and affable host at the mosque who just didn’t sit down, so we had our half-hour discussion standing (and swaying) on our feet. The host who thought, since he had grown up Jewish, that he was knowledgeable about our religion and made assumptions that were increasingly uncomfortable. The wonderful shofar-making activity at the orthodox shul – and the stuffed goat, and bumping into friends and neighbors at the Catholic church. 

One big issue we discussed a great deal is god. It is a very popular and important topic. We explore different ideas about god and different ways to conceptualize theism. I even show the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode, “Who Watches The Watchers” to help us articulate questions and answers about the concept of an anthropomorphic god. 

We didn’t study religion purely academically. The point was to think critically about our own beliefs. We learned about how others answered important religious questions so that we could explore them ourselves. We wrestled with moral dilemmas, talked about what it meant to proselytize, and discussed the line between belief and behavior. The test of belief is how it shows up in our daily lives. How do we walk our talk? How do our beliefs shape our identities and decisions? 

At the conclusion of the two-year class, students get a chance to talk about what they believe. At our confirmation service, they focus on one part of their journey they want to share. Some students talk about god. Some talk about different views of Judaism. Other students focus on some of the questions we asked on our field trips, ethical issues, or their own stories. One young woman started out by telling us that, to her, her mother was god. A young man described his ethical code simply by saying he did his best to “not be an asshole.” Another explored the difference between confirming and conforming. Students sometimes challenged or questioned things they had learned. They wrestled with the concept of what makes something a religion. They described how they navigated conversations about religion with their friends. Year after year, their reflections made me think about my own philosophy and how I could better guide the next group of students. 

It has been a privilege to learn at Kol Hadash’s Sunday School. It has been an honor to study with these students, teachers, and parents. I often said that I am the lucky teacher at the end of the line. I benefited from all the magnificent learning that happened in the classes before Confirmation. From our youngest students learning songs and holidays to studying lifecycle events, heroes, Israel, and wrestling with the Holocaust, students are well prepared for Confirmation Class. I can’t take credit for their brilliance. They have been primed by their families and their earlier classes. I am very proud of them when they stand before the congregation and share their wisdom. 

I am grateful to students with whom I have learned – and their families. Their commitment to Jewish learning is inspiring. I am grateful for the incredible teachers and education directors with whom I have worked – and our outstanding rabbi. For the last three years, I have co-taught Confirmation Class with a teacher who is one of the most able, empathetic, and perceptive educators I have ever met. She will take over Confirmation Class next year. It will be a big upgrade. 

I am only retiring from teaching. I am still very involved in our congregation. I chair our fundraising committee, sing in the choir, and do a variety of other tasks. And if someone needs some help on Sunday morning, I am happy to assist. I live next door, after all.  

When I was a young child, my parents never expected to find a congregation at which they would feel comfortable. When they found Humanistic Judaism, it matched their philosophy and the way they lived their lives. There are so many families like us out there. It gives me such nachas that our congregation and school continues to be a warm and welcoming place for anyone who wants to confirm that Judaism can be celebrated culturally, secularly, non-theistically, and joyfully! 

Reading For Treasure: Winter Break Reading

Reading for Treasure is my list of articles (and other readings) that are worth your attention. Click here for an introduction.

I started creating lists of articles because what I really wanted to do was either to email them to my teacher friends or post them on social media – but I didn’t want to be that retired guy who is always sending me articles I don’t have time (or desire) to read. I often do a short description of the article, but today I am trying only providing a quotation to whet your appetite. Let me know if that matters at all. Perhaps all we need is the title? Nonetheless, these are six good education-related articles worth your attention. 

“Trust the Teachers” by David W. Blight, The Atlantic 
 “What American teachers most need is autonomy, community respect, the right to some creativity within their craft, time to read, and, perhaps above all, support for their intellectual lives. Most would not mind a pay raise.” 

“When parents scream at school board meetings, how can I teach their children?” by Jennifer Wolfe, CNN
“My students know that to move forward toward understanding and engagement, we have to be willing to talk about the hard stuff….Our country deserves people willing to have difficult conversations and solve problems together. We need to turn toward each other, not away from each other into spaces where uncomfortable discussions are treated like a crime. Without civil discourse, we risk tumbling toward civil unrest.” 

“Parents slam state board’s proposal to triple number of annual standardized assessments for students: ‘We must keep testing at the absolute minimum’” by Karen Ann Cullotta, Chicago Tribune
“A state plan that could triple the number of federally mandated tests Illinois students must take in the coming years is being slammed by some educators and parents who say after the recent loss of classroom learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, the last thing kids need is more testing.” 

“Voice, Chat and DM: Remote Learning Tools That Make Sense In Person” by Caroline Smith, KQED Mindshift
"But Cohn discovered advantages to her students typing some of their assignments during virtual education. Watching her students’ writing appear on their respective Google Docs in real time meant she could provide simultaneous feedback. The process of editing on the computer — liberated from the messiness of revising on a piece of paper — made the process less burdensome and more enjoyable for her students."

“College Admissions Are Still Unfair” by James S. Murphy, The Atlantic
“There is also an important component of racial justice in dropping legacy preferences. The practice overwhelmingly benefits white applicants and harms first-generation, immigrant, low-income, and nonwhite students. A 2018 lawsuit against Harvard revealed that 77 percent of legacy admits were white, while just 5 percent were Black and 7 percent were Hispanic. At Notre Dame, the class of 2024 had five times as many legacies as Black students.” 

“School Stumbles Upon Chalkboards From 1917 During Renovation, Perfectly Preserved Lessons Provide Rare Look Into Past” Dusty Old Thing
“Construction workers were removing chalkboards– taking them down to replace them with new Smart Boards– when they stumbled upon some older chalkboards underneath. Luckily, they stopped to examine the chalkboards before destroying them, and they quickly realized that the boards were from 1917… Nearly 100 years ago! Stuck underneath layers of other boards, these antique chalkboards had been preserved with the chalk still on them, providing an amazing view of life in a mid-20th-century classroom.”

I am currently rereading The Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler  

My Comments at the Township High School District 113 Meeting Discussing Budget Issues and Consolidation of the High Schools

Here is what I said to the Township High School District 113 Board at the meeting on October 19 regarding budget issues and possible consolidation of Deerfield and Highland Park High Schools. I have also included the video of the entire meeting below if you want to hear the entire meeting. 

Good evening.  I am David Hirsch. I joined the District 113 family in 1986 when I was hired to teach theatre and English. I met my wife at DHS and our two children went first to Deerpark and then returned as DHS students. 

The district had inspiring leadership in my first decades: Jim Warren, Linda Hanson, and Anne Reibock held the same value that was repeated constantly: first and foremost, we do what is best for kids. 

I am here to ask the board of education to make doing what is best for the children of District 113 the most important criteria when making all decisions, but especially when talking about consolidating schools, calling for referendums, and dealing with difficult and painful budget issues. 

In education, smaller is better: smaller class sizes, smaller schools, smaller systems. We want our students to be seen, known, and get what they need – before they have to scream for it. We want our schools to be supportive, nurturing, and safe communities. 

One more thing: I am a 1982 graduate of New Trier High School. Mine was the first class after New Triers East and West merged. I participated in the consolidation of the two schools. It may have saved money, but it was not what was best for kids. 

Four years after I graduated high school, I taught at a DHS that had fewer students than my entire New Trier class. Students thrived! Kids were on sports teams and in theatre. Leadership opportunities abounded. Students and staff knew each other even when they didn’t share classes or activities. There was a tight and supportive safety net below every child. 

During that time, our board of education and administration made choices, sometimes difficult and expensive choices, to do what was best for kids – FIRST! 

So tonight, I am asking three things of you: 

First, put the best interests of our children ahead of all other concerns. All decisions must pass the “is this what is best for our children?” test.  If the answer is anything other than a clear and resounding yes, then please find another way. 

Second, clearly and definitively take a stand that consolidating the two schools is NOT good for kids and unequivocally state that no such plans will move forward. 

Third, closely collaborate with your best resource for doing what is best for kids: your staff. The board of education, administration, faculty, and staff must be trusting allies, not adversaries. 

This collaboration has not been nurtured. Jim, Linda, and Anne were experts at bringing everyone together. They were dynamic and skilled teachers, administrators, and team builders. They are the reason we are the only non-union high school district in Illinois. We need that kind of leadership now. 

Glynis and I did not want our children to be swallowed by Stevenson or get lost at New Trier. We loved what we saw where we worked and we wanted it for our children – and yours. 

Do what’s best for kids. Strongly reject consolidation. Engage and embrace your staff as partners. 

Thank you. 

Everlasting Gifts from Kathy Galvin

One of the gifts we receive from great teachers is that they continue to teach their students, even when they are separated by time and space; they continue to impact our lives. Their lessons become an integral part of our being. They are always with us. 

There is no one for whom this is truer than Kathleen Galvin. I met Kathy my sophomore year at Northwestern when I enrolled in Speech Teaching Methods class. I thought I might want to be a high school teacher. I thought I might want to be many things. I was a nineteen-year-old: part adult, part adolescent, part toddler, and part explorer. 

I found myself in a seminar room in the basement of Harris Hall with two dynamic professors: Pam Cooper and Kathy Galvin. They really had one name: PamandKathy. We sat in a circle and they guided us through far more than pedagogy and curriculum. They modeled how good teachers, good adults, and good people act. They overlooked our immaturity and gently guided us. They taught us to think like educators. They modeled phenomenal teaching and remarkable caring. 

With humor, creativity, and mountains of patience, they firmly and expertly helped us learn about communication, family dynamics, child development – and ourselves. They insisted we become outstanding learners and leaders – and, most difficult for me, listeners. 

They practiced what they professed. Every lesson worked on two levels: the content, of course, and the modeling from Pam and Kathy. Not every professor is a great teacher. Kathy and Pam were virtuoso teachers, pitch-perfect. 

Throughout my almost thirty-four years in the classroom, I lost track of the times I consciously thought, “What would Kathy do?” or “How would Kathy respond?” Over and over, I brought myself back to that seminar room and I recharged my patience and perspective. 

Pam and Kathy got me through a tumultuous student teaching experience. My cooperating teacher was magnificent and a fantastic role model. However, his mother became ill shortly after I arrived and he left for Florida for several weeks. I was on my own and way over my head. Kathy and Pam’s quiet and steady guidance helped me to thrive and learn to navigate solo in the classroom.

Whenever Kathy called me, I knew it was going to be life-changing. She called to tell me about a summer job at a prep school in New Hampshire, which started me on the path of teaching television, and eventually starting at TV class at my school a few years later. She called and told me about a job opening, which started an intense reflection of what I wanted to do and where I wanted to teach. When I decided to stay at my school and change positions, I called Kathy and she recommended my replacement!

Kathy guided my master’s process. Her family communications class not only helped me understand and empathize with my own family but also gave me new insight into hers. Kathy came and spoke to my wife’s professional group, the Lake County Counselors Association about the changing roles of parents in college. I remember Kathy going way beyond discussing helicopter parents and talking about attack and rescue helicopter parents. 

Even years after college, Kathy was still my teacher. I worked with student teachers and Kathy came to Deerfield and coached our pre-service teacher and me. The more time I spent with Kathy, the more I grew. Many years ago, we started having yearly summer lunches together. We shared what was happening personally and professionally.

When we had lunch the last time, I thought about all the students who had studied in that seminar room in Harris Hall - and other places. Many of us are teachers. Many of us have been teaching twenty, thirty- or more years. 

Our students are Kathy’s grand-students. Kathy’s legacy goes way beyond the people who studied with her. She was with me in the classroom every day. I have taught about Virginia Satir’s mobile, used cartoons to teach about communication, and tried to do my best Kathy Galvin impression when that talkative, awkward, slightly irritating, adolescent sidles his way into my room. 

And I kept calling Kathy for booster shots. Thank goodness I am retired. 

There is no way to quantify the gifts Kathy gave me, Northwestern, and the countless students who read her books, studied with her students, listened to her lessons, or were fortunate enough to share a lesson with her. 

Just before the pandemic, Kathy became ill and we could not see one another. Yet, truly, she is sitting beside me. In my teaching, parenting, and pursuit of all that is precious and beautiful, Kathy will continue to be my guide. I am so grateful I got to tell her this at her retirement party just before the pandemic. I just wish we could share retirement.

Learning Not Lecturing

As teachers and professors move back to in-person classes and distance learning becomes a last resort for special circumstances and snow days, we will see what no video chat camera could really show. We will see firsthand how much students have been struggling and families have been in crisis. We must not avert our eyes and pretend that the pandemic never happened. It will be hard work, but if we do not do it, our students will pay the price. So it is incumbent on anyone in a classroom to really reflect on learning strategies that worked and didn’t work during our time apart and before. 

One strategy that needs revision is the lecture. I love this piece from Math With Bad Drawings. It is an “origin fable” about how lectures came to be. Lectures were the way that professors and other instructors conveyed their ideas to their students before there were any other means of doing so. When it was too difficult to produce material to read or enough copies for the class before any form of recording could be made when the students were wealthy white men who going to run the world anyway. In fact, lecturing may be the oldest teaching strategy we have! 

As I researched the effectiveness of lectures, I found many articles discussed how to deliver an effective lecture. The advice was almost always the same: have meaningful slides, using engaging questions, speak in an entertaining and dynamic manner, and so on. In other words, lecture is effective when it is accompanied by other effective techniques. Look at this website from Iowa State!

This article from Edtopia and this one from the Washington Post cite research that should make any educator reconsider the lecture. NPR reported about physics professors at Harvard and other colleges who realized that all they were doing was repeating what their teachers did and their students did not really understand the concepts. All they did was parrot back the lecture! 

The NPR article is an extension of a fascinating radio documentary by American Radio Works called “Don’t Lecture Me” about college lecturing and a college that decided not to use them. If your hackles are up and you are feeling defensive about the lecture, I urge you to listen to this. 

There is a place for lecture in education. Lectures, done well and done for brief amounts of time, can be a good teaching tool. As with many other areas, all generalizations are false: lectures are not universally problematic. 

However, I will argue that the vast majority of lectures are ineffective because the lecturer is not using dynamic teaching techniques. According to research cited in the radio documentary referenced above, only about 10% of students will learn well from a lecture, and it is likely that those students would teach themselves the material no matter how it was presented. Is it possible that the people who most benefit from lectures are the lecturers (and perhaps the institutions they work for)? 

The traditional college lecture in an enormous hall with hundreds of students feels like mass education gone horribly wrong. Let’s not even talk about the tuition cost to the students for such an experience. What is the rationale for not simply recording these lectures and allowing students to view them online? In fact, why not get all these lectures recorded and then allow the teachers to really teach or go do research? 

Maybe there is something else going on here. Many students might love lecturing because it asks so little of them. They don’t have to do anything but listen – and sometimes not even that. I have had many students who prefer not to think, but to just repeat what the teacher said. It is easier. 

If you visit a crowded lecture hall, you might see many students taking notes. You might see others surfing the web, texting, or doing other things. You might also see some who were sleeping. For many of these students, attending the lecture is performative anyway. The professor is only reading from a Powerpoint, which they later publish. Perhaps they even include notes. Students fully understand that they don’t need to see the show, they can just read the script. Is this a good use of their time and tuition dollars? 

Lecturing does make teachers and professors feel professorial. It is great to get up before an audience and show off. It feels good to have children praise and adore you for your knowledge and wit. Of course, they also expect that you will pay them for their worship with grades, preferably good ones. It is fun to have fans, but let’s be honest, impressing children for ego gratification feels low indeed. 

While brief and focused lectures may be necessary once in a while, teachers and students would be far better served if the classroom were a place where learning was interactive and engaging. We used to sit in a little red schoolhouse and write down our lessons with chalk on slates. We don’t do that anymore. Students now have access to every piece of information on the planet. Reciting it to them is far less useful than teaching them how to evaluate and create it. 

Come down from your stage, teacher, and help kids to make their own meaning, forge their own education: more than that special 10% will benefit  - and your lessons will have far-reaching impact.

Advice for New Teachers

As another pandemic school year begins, I am concerned about those who are new to teaching. I worry about the first year and young teachers, our pre-service teachers, and newcomers to schools and communities. 

I wish I could go back in time and give myself the benefit of experience before I had any. I wish I could tell my younger self a few things that would have made my students’ and my experience far better. 

But I had to learn it on my own! 

I had mentors and guides who helped me along the way, and much of their wonderful wisdom stayed with me throughout my career. Sometimes I understood their advice and other times it took me years to realize what they were trying to teach me. I hope that, even with the problems of the pandemic, that our new teachers will find nurturing mentors, as I did. 

A little while ago, I was talking to some of my son’s friends who were either training to be teachers or just started teaching. I also had a long conversation with a man who is changing careers to become a teacher. I wanted to give them something practical they could use and straightforward strategies that could accelerate their growth as teachers. I wanted to help them avoid the mistakes I made early in my career. I am well aware they will make many mistakes, but I hoped they might not be the same ones I made. 

In the moment, it was difficult to prioritize – and not pontificate. Like our students, young teachers learn by doing, and words of advice have limited effect. With that limitation in mind, here are a few suggestions for those who are new to their roles in the classroom: 

It is all about relationships: building strong relationships takes time. It is easier to think about units, objectives, targets, tests, grades, and assignments. However, kids learn within the context of a social environment. Just as the presence of certain students can enhance or hinder learning, kids’ relationship with the teacher is the ground in which all learning grows. Like it or not, the kids’ feelings about their teacher are either moving learning forward or making it more difficult. There is no escaping this. We are not programming computers. 

This does not mean the teacher must be a namby-pamby pushover or a buddy-buddy friend. Nor do teachers need to manipulate their students by showing them how cool and connected they are. These are also traps that young teachers may fall into. There is a delicate balance between being a person and being a professional, between being distant and being close. While each teacher must navigate this on their own, they all must be aware that the creation of this relationship is crucial and the most powerful element in the classroom. 

The emotional environment teachers create in the classroom comes before any curriculum; it is the first curriculum. Without learning about the kids, the curriculum is handicapped. Teachers must create means of exploring each individual safely and simply. They might greet kids by name as they enter the room, learn their interests and hobbies, find out about their families and support networks, and look them in the eyes when they are speaking to them. Teachers must show students the respect they would want anyone to show a child anywhere – especially when the children least deserve it.  

Most of all, teachers must actively demonstrate to EVERY student that they like them – even (or especially) when they don’t. They must help EVERY student feel like they are the teacher’s secret favorite. Every student should see the teacher as an advocate and coach, a cheerleader and helper. This doesn’t mean we can’t disagree or discipline. A strong word from someone you respect has far more power than from someone who you think doesn’t like you anyway. 

The teacher must make it okay for kids to say, “I don’t understand,” “Please say that another way,” and “I need help with this.” Teachers should model those behaviors. Let kids teach and help the teacher, too! The classroom should be the safest of spaces and the place where it is okay to take off the teenage mask (even if retaining the one to prevent illness), if only for a few minutes. 

Which means the teacher must be their most authentic self: young teachers feel like they must establish their expertise and authority. Of course, they are unsure of themselves. They think they look weak if their students see them as less skilled than other teachers. The truth is that a new teacher is not as expert as a more experienced teacher. Trying to pretend to be one is a futile act that will certainly not fool students. Kids see through this kind of pretension and are eager to poke holes in the teacher’s false image – but they respect honesty. 

Instead, new teachers should lean into the fact that, like the students, they are learning as they go. They must be candid with kids when they are doing something new, scary, difficult, or complex. New teachers must embrace their neophyte status and enjoy it. I often encourage new staff members to use their “new kid” card as long as they can, “I was supposed to clear this with the assistant principal? I didn’t know that. I am new here,” “I have to call home? No one told me that. I’ll know better next time.” New kid permission goes away quickly. Enjoy it while it is still okay to make those errors. 

While I am clearly advocating being highly authentic in the classroom, there is an exception to this rule. Kids in a classroom are emotional mirrors. If the teacher is angry, soon there will be dozens of angry people in the room. If the teacher is distracted, sad, or anxious, the students will unconsciously amplify and respond to the teacher’s affect. So like the coach going into the locker room to give a pep talk to the team, teachers must have a good game face. To a certain degree, this is pure and simple professionalism. There is nothing wrong with starting a class by saying, “I am struggling today and I need your help.” That is authentic. However, the teacher must then do their best to put those challenges aside and be the best professional they can. While teachers shouldn’t fake the content, they must do their utmost to even out their emotions and put them aside until the kids leave the room. The worst classes I have ever experienced are almost always terrible because of my emotional state before the kids even arrive. A new teacher must ask themselves, “Would I want a classroom full of me right now?” If the answer is no, the teacher must become the person the students should be, if only for the class period! 

Part of teacher self-care is realizing when this is not possible. If my feelings are so powerful that I cannot hold it together in class, that is an indicator that I need to put my own needs first. A teacher’s mental well-being is at least as important as their students’. It is critically important that we take care of our own mental health needs. Just as one would not spread germs if one has a fever (or COVID), one should not come to school if one is in emotional or mental distress.  

Finally, kids come first, grades come second. New teachers get a ton of messages about the importance of assessment, specifically the all-important semester grade. It is often parents’ number one issue. However, the student comes before the grade. Almost without exception, if a teacher is asking themself, “Should I change this grade?” the answer is yes. I have already written, several times, that if ever a teacher thinks or says, “If I do this for you, I will have to do this for everyone,” then it is something that should be done for everyone right away. Grades, too. Grades feel so weighty and laden with meaning and import – and the truth is, they aren’t that important –except in how they reflect that emotional environment. Always round up on grades. Always give kids the benefit of the doubt. Always do what you would want the teacher of your child to do for them! 

Let’s say that again: If my child were in this situation, what would I want their teacher to do? 

Just to make this list too long. Here is an earlier piece I wrote about some things I learned by teaching in the same school my children attended. Some of these items are particularly applicable for new teachers. Some may be for later. 

If a traveler in a blue box comes by and scoops me up to go exploring through time and space, I will request a brief stop at Deerfield High School in the fall of 1986 to whisper a few words in my own ear. I hope I would listen to myself. I think I would. It would then take me a while to figure out how to put my advice in action, but there is no shortcut for that.