Words of Fire: Part 2

There are plenty of pieces of literature that I love and many of them really work in the classroom. I enjoy teaching Shakespeare. A student once asked why we study Shakespeare. I asked him if he wanted the company line or the real reason. The company line is that it makes students culturally literate, helps teach decoding, will be useful in future English classes and blah, blah, blah. I told the young man that I wanted to show students something that was really beautiful! I wanted them to be able to understand and appreciate why Shakespeare’s plays were magnificent.

It is that enjoyment of language and playfulness with words that Shakespeare engenders made me think that what I wanted to write about was one of Will Shortz’s Sunday word games. I have used these in class for many years and kids love playing with language. I want my class to be a language playground with fun rides and challenging tasks.

Kurt Vonnegut Jr.’s collection of short stories, Welcome to the Monkey House is always a huge success and for good reason. Students are challenged to go beyond the surface meanings and examine Vonnegut’s social satire. Some of the stories have a science fiction flavor while others are very much grounded in our contemporary world. Vonnegut wonders if, “most of the world’s ills can be traced to the fact that Man’s knowledge of himself has not kept pace with his knowledge of the physical world.” Vonnegut’s stories ask students (and me) what really makes us human beings and what elements in our world threaten that? What do we become when we sacrifice our humanity for convenience, beauty, longevity, or power?

Although I’ve never taught one of Robert Heinlein’s works of science fiction, I would love to do so. I remember the aphorisms that are the intermissions in his novel Time Enough For Love. Lazarus Long’s little lists of wisdom spoke to me so strongly that many of them still go through my head on a daily basis. Here are only a few:

“Everything in excess! To enjoy the flavor of life, take big bites. Moderation is for monks.

Do not handicap your children by making their lives easy.

Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.

Does history record any case in which the majority was right?

Secrecy is the beginning of tyranny.

Yield to temptation; it may not pass your way again.

Anything free is worth what you pay for it. “

I have used some of these statements as the seeds of debates in Sophomore English and they have appeared on t-shirts for the writing performance club I sponsor. Maybe someday, my students and l will read Stranger In A Strange Land and grok together!

I am not sure that this is what my department chair was assigning. When I asked some of my colleagues what they were doing, one just said, “Don’t over think it, David. Just find a poem you like and write about why you like it.” I hope that isn’t what this is about. In any case, that is not what the assignment will be for me.

And that choice is perhaps the best reflection of me as a teacher. I made the assignment my own. I took it where I needed to go with it. If students have the skill and freedom to do that in my classroom, that will be my real “fire.”

Words Of Fire: Part 1

Recently, my department chairman asked all of us to write about a piece of literature that was important to us. He asked us to find a quotation and then write about what it means to us. His assignment was based on the collection, Teaching with Fire, which is described as a, “glorious collection of the poetry that has restored the faith of teachers in the highest, most transcendent values of their work with children.”

What do I choose? What do I write about? Frankly, I haven’t had a crisis of faith about teaching, so there hasn’t been a piece of literature that has restored it. I do not have a single text that is my touchstone and source. So I tried to reframe the assignment: could I find a piece of literature that represented my teaching values? What about a piece of literature that I loved? How about something that really worked in the classroom?

The real source of my teaching values is my own educational experience. It was in the classrooms of giving and gifted educators that I discovered the reasons I am a teacher. It helped that I studied with the same college professors who had trained many of my high school teachers. My mentors’ mentors guided me! Yet, I can clearly recall a statement that shaped my beliefs and crystallized my “prime directive:” the goal that I should do everything I can to foster the independence of my students. So it made perfect sense, when I read about the concept of approval/disapproval in Viola Spolin’s Improvisation for the Theater:
“We either fear that we will not get approval, or we accept outside comment and interpretation unquestionably. In a culture where approval/disapproval has become the predominate regulator of effort and position, and often the substitute for love, our personal freedoms are dissipated… We do not know our own substance, and in the attempt to live through (or avoid living through) the eyes of others, self-identity is obscured, our bodies become misshapened, natural grace is gone and learning is affected…The expectancy of judgment prevents free relationships within the acting workshop…True personal freedom and self-expression can flower only in an atmosphere where attitudes permit equality between student and teacher and the dependencies of teacher for student and student for teacher are done away with. The problems within the subject matter will teach both of them.”
I clearly remember the extensive discussion of this concept in my college class. The goal is to help students find intrinsic motivation for their learning rather than do it to be patted on the head like a good dog. We were warned against motivating students merely with the desire to please us, their teachers, or the fear of displeasing us. Instead, we were challenged with the task of helping them meet the subject matter on their own terms and find themselves in the learning. It is a powerful and difficult concept. With each of my choices in the classroom, I try to say to my students, “don’t do this for me; don’t do this because I will smile or frown on you; don’t do this because you like or dislike me. It isn’t about me. It is about you.” It is my job as the teacher to create the environment and circumstances for my students’ learning and then get out of the way!

Whose Education Is it Anyway?

Let’s face it, teenagers can’t do anything right. If you let them do what they want, they will just hurt themselves and create expensive problems. It is up to their parents to make the right choices, ensure they get good grades, get into good colleges and are able to do the same for their children.

As my children grow up, I supervise every aspect of their lives. Homework is monitored at the kitchen table every night. I sit down with them and get things started and then I guide them through each math problem or science worksheet. I outline their essays in advance and mark important passages in each book. We often read aloud and I go over the themes, characters and other concepts aloud.

When problems arise, which happens all too frequently with children of this age, I take charge and make sure that my kids don’t have to deal with any unpleasantness. If a teacher gives one of my kids a poor grade or they do not make the team or play, or are unfairly punished, I am on the phone right away. Many a time have I had to march right into that school to defend my children! I will not permit anyone, no matter what degrees they may have, to treat my children unjustly.

Each morning, I wake up my kids and get them into the shower. Sometimes, I have to check to be sure that they are using soap. You know how children will be! I make their beds and prepare breakfast while they are getting dressed. As I am laying out their lunches, books, and backpacks, we discuss the agenda for the day. Then we load up the SUV and it is off to school. Time seems to fly and I am always at the head of the line to pick them up at the end of the day. We get home and have a snack that I have prepared in advance. Depending on the evening, we will have a variety of activities and, of course, plenty of homework together.

Recently, we have begun the college search . I attended two programs at the high school discussing this process. I took a great deal of notes and I had lots of questions. I have hired a private college counselor to assist me, and we are developing a close relationship.

I have contacted my child’s favorite teachers and requested letters of recommendation. I am spending my afternoons filling out all the paperwork. There are so many forms to fill out. I am so busy dealing with financial aid surveys, online applications, transcript requests and standardized testing dates.

Frankly, I don’t know what I am going to do when my kids go to college. I want them to go to really good schools, so that means that they will most likely be on the east coast or in northern California. I have researched the costs of condominiums in those areas and I think it is practical to have additional homes near their colleges. I think it is cruel to expect children of this age to move away from their parents. It is not reasonable to think that they can navigate the complexities of college life without their parents’ love and assistance. Besides, whose paying for all this anyway?

A Bomb of A Tantrum

There are many ways that parents deal with children’s tantrums. How parents handle tantrums is a good indicator of who is really in charge: the parent or the child. Effective parents know, if you give in to children’s tantrums, they learn that such tactics work and more will follow.

On Tuesday, our school found a threat written on a bathroom stall indicating there would be a bomb on Friday. This is the second time this has happened. Kids have learned that this kind of tantrum works; they can take our school hostage with a bit of graffiti.

Although threats like these happen in many schools, none have ever been carried out. There has never been a school bombing in Illinois. However, it is natural for this kind of incident to make parents anxious. Some parents and children are so anxious that they could not function while worrying about a threat like this.

However, most people understand that this is merely a tantrum, an attempt at manipulation on the part of a misguided child. The police call it, a “low level threat.” Yet, school attendance plummets on these days. Although our school reported 70% attendance on that Friday, I saw fewer than half my students. Are there that many parents and students for whom this anxiety is paralyzing?

No. Students are very open about their motives. They talk about taking advantage of both the situation and their parents. “If I can get my parents to let me have a day off, I am going to take it,” they say. It is not about bomb anxiety.

On Friday, our school was safer than it has ever been. If parents wanted their children to be in a safe place, those kids would have been at school. Police canine units had swept the building. All students and staff’s bags were checked on the way in. Police were in and around the building. Our school was a fortress. Students were in far more danger out of school, especially if their parents left them alone. So why did thirty percent of parents allow their kids to stay home?

That is the question. Kids are open about the manipulation involved. Are parents aware they are being played? And what did kids do with their day off?

The sad truth is that too many parents are not in charge. Too many teenagers run the home and make the real decisions. The real scare is not of a bomb, but of an epidemic of weak and ineffectual parenting.

The child who wrote the bomb threat is manipulating the entire community and these parents are giving in to the tantrum. If everyone came to school and held a regular day of classes, there would be no incentive for students to write threats in bathrooms. These parents are encouraging this behavior to the detriment of the entire school system. We all suffer because of their poor decisions.

No wonder weak parenting has bred the entitled child epidemic. And never was this problem clearer than on Friday. Entitled children and their wimpy parents allowed the entire school to be held hostage. Thousands of dollars were spent and who knows how much was lost in state funding because parents could not say to kids, “I know you would like a day off, but it really is safe to go to school today.” If everyone came to school normally, we would be far less likely to have another bomb scare. Children throw tantrums sometimes – even dangerous and scary ones. Giving in only reinforces that negative behavior and encourages more of it.

To Scantron or Not To Scantron: That is Not a Multiple Choice Question

I am teaching the wrong subject. While I love exploring reading, writing, and speaking with kids, grading all those essays is long and laborious.

I just turned in my grades. Of course, my students wrote essays for their finals. While I was grading, my daughter came in, looked at me and commented, “Most of my finals are scantron.” I asked what percentage of her tests were objective multiple-choice tests. She estimated about 80% of each of her tests, other than English, were objective questions answered on an electronic form. I asked myself, could I score an essay that way?

We give final exams by period of the day. First period is first and so on. However, years ago we did it differently. We used to give the tests by subject and English always went first. The rationale was that, since English teachers are giving subjectively graded written tests, they should have more time to grade.

As the years went on, teachers objected to English’s favored final status. They claimed that they too had subjective areas on their tests and needed additional time to grade. As a result, we went to a rotating system where departments traded that coveted first day slot.

The results were interesting. When English was not on the first day, English teachers began to ask students to prepare their finals at home and turn them in prior to finals week. Some shortened their tests or created more objective tests with quote identifications and short answers. It was very irritating to see many non-English teachers post their grades within a few hours of giving the exam.

So finally (pun intended), we landed on our present system of giving the tests by period of the day. It does ensure that English teachers will get their grading load distributed across the week. It still galls me to see the kids gather at other teachers’ doors to see their grades when I still have a huge stack of papers to read.

Yes, I know that other subjects are more content driven. It is easier to test them on the facts they can memorize, the problems they can solve, or the vocabulary they know. Because that would make my life so much easier, I often ask myself at these grating times of the year, why can’t I do that?

The answer is the skills I am teaching cannot be measured that way. My job is to teach them to read, write, communicate and, ultimately, think. No multiple-choice test can do that as well as a good old-fashioned writing sample. My final exam should be the culminating activity of the semester. What have we done? We have read books and analyzed them. We have written essays, papers, poems and notebook entries. We have discussed, given speeches, and debated. Is the use of a multiple-choice test an authentic way to assess students for those skills? I wish it were.

If scatron testing doesn’t work in English, should it work elsewhere? Should an objective test be the culmination of a semster’s study? In a world where facts change rapidly , we can look things up in a matter of microseconds, and computers do our calculating, are these kinds of finals the best way to teach? While memorizing has its place, is it the most important skill our children should master? The final skill?

While these are great questions, I have grading to do. If someday technology invents a scantron system to grade my essay, I might consider it. Until that happens, I don my glasses, rub my neck, and pick up my pen.

School's Cycles and Breaks

Returning to work after a vacation can be difficult. Going back to school after a break is often like diving into a cold swimming pool; it is a shock at first, but soon, you get used it. That is what I love about living in the world of education: the cycles. The academic calendar is built on a series of starts and stops, beginnings and endings. It is a constant spiral of cycles that never really repeat.

Each year I get a fresh set of faces in my classroom. Although I am teaching “the same” curriculum, it is never a rerun of the year before. Not only do my new students alter the way the class functions, I am never content to simply repeat what I did in the past. I must tinker and tweak, revise and improve my lessons. In fact, I spend much of the summer doing just that. I feel compelled to apply what I have learned one year to the next year.

As the year progresses, my students are no longer new. They become part of my family. As I plan, I ask myself, “How will James react to this?” or “Will this challenge Angela?” or “How can I make this work for Steven?” I tailor the instruction to the students in front of me. It is custom made and it will never fit another class like it fits the current one. That experience makes me a better teacher and I carry that into the next lesson and the next year.

Although I adore my students and my career, the days off and the three breaks are very welcome. They are rest notes in our beautiful academic symphony. Sometimes, they are short and they merely allow me to catch my breath. Sometimes, like winter break, they are long enough to divert me completely. Sometimes, they are long enough that, by the end, I am eager to return to my students and classroom.

The standard reply to the question, “how was your break?” is “not long enough.” However, the breaks accent the year in an important way. While there is debate about whether students should get homework over breaks (and similarly if teachers should grade over breaks), these breaks punctuate the learning experience and allow the learning “to sink in.”

People are not computers. We learn in a wide variety of ways. As we gain new skills, learn new concepts, we change. Especially for children (and their teachers), that process takes a ton of energy. I always know when my son is about to experience a growth spurt; he eats a ton and sleeps late. Learning is no different. Students need time to make connections, apply their learning to their daily experience and to gather energy for that next leap.

My entire professional career has been in education. I have never experienced a job that moves in a straight line. I watched my parents and friends and I think my cyclical career has advantages over the more conventional routine. Of course there are trade offs and many of those are all too obvious. However, as we finish this semester after winter break and a lovely three day holiday, I looked toward the renewal that comes after the breaks – and the breaks that come after the learning!

Save the Endangered "Thank You"

While it is the time of year when we are inundated with things for which we should be thankful, I am very worried that root word is on its way out. Thanksgiving may be a time to be grateful, but increasingly, fewer and fewer people are taking time to say, “thanks.”

How many times have you held the door open for someone who walks past you as if that is your job (and you are overpaid for it, too)? How many times have you seen kind acts ignored, taken for granted, or added to the list of obligations?

Last year, my daughter and I were standing in a long line at the omelet station while we were on vacation. The chef was working very hard. When people arrived at the front of the line, they gave him specific orders about what they wanted in the omelet, and how they wanted it cooked. They would then dash off to the rest of the buffet and get other things to eat. We noticed that, as they returned and picked up their food, many didn’t even make eye contact with the hard working chef. My daughter and I started counting how many of them said, “Thank you.” It was fewer than a third.

Friends of ours tell a similar story. While vacationing in Florida, their waiter asked them if they were from the Midwest. They asked if he knew this because of their accents. “No,” he replied, “You say, thank you.”

Please understand that I am advocating a spoken, “thank you.” I am not asking for thank you notes, gifts, banners, or full-page ads. Simply saying, “thank you” costs nothing and takes almost no time. Why then don’t we hear (and say it) more often.

Because, like infants, many people are increasingly solipsistic. This is not merely selfishness, it is a view that the entire world is merely an extension of the self. My family is an extension of my self. The products I purchase and the stores at which I buy them reflect my personality. We are spending our lives in front of a gigantic mirror and all we can think of to say is, “Does this make me look fat?”

This probably explains why thank you’s sibling is already dead. Next time you say, “thank you,” listen closely to the response. Most likely, you will hear some version of “no problem.” This is a very different response than, “You’re welcome.”

“No problem,” says that the act for which you were thanked didn’t cause any strain or issue. It is a self-focused response. “You’re welcome,” is focused on the other person. It says that the act was deliberately intended for you. “You’re welcome,” says that I was thinking, not about myself, but about you and I wanted what was best for you. “No problem,” acknowledges that, if there were any benefits to you, I am relieved that there were no costs for me.

Costs are what “thank you,” is all about. Thanksgiving is the start of the “season of giving.” Maybe it should be renamed the season of receiving. As our cause du jour on Thanksgiving, please consider reviving the old and honorable tradition of regularly using, “thank you,” and “you’re welcome” and expressing the value of reaching beyond ourselves.

Thank you.