Accessibility: Reaching Beyond

 

 

The Push and New Horizons

What does it mean to "push" students? This concept is touted as a benefit of an independent education or the mark of a "strong" teacher, but the term is applied to such myriad situations as to become hackneyed and jargon. Of course we push students; don't all teachers? We push them to organize, plan, prepare, complete, create, analyze, evaluate, compare- to think. Perhaps it takes a more social emotional twist when teachers push students into realms of moral thought that are uncomfortable (a buzzword from the "parlance of our times") for them. However, simply producing an uncomfortable emotion or a stress is not an achievement; it may be a side-effect of rigor, but it is far from a goal. Pushing students to learn basic skills, to learn to become learners, is laudable, but hardly the meaning thought of when considering what truly pushing a student might entail. The balance and truth of the term "push" is deciding what is gained by the push, what is learned, and what emotions lie on the other side of the the work: confidence, clarity, relief, even perhaps the epiphany of the Dubliners' snow. I have once heard the term "lifting" applied, and though I'm not one for the issuing of words to replace others that are already acceptable (the contradictory new word "irregardless" comes to mind), I do appreciate the more explicative nature of "lift." The implication is obvious, allowing a student to see beyond that which was formerly visible: a greater horizon and the possibilities replete in the discovery. To truly "push" a student, you create situations that require them to work in ways that might seem, at first, beyond their abilities, their comprehension, and their perceived limits. This requires rigor and struggle -which is necessary in all worthwhile endeavors- and, at times, failures. Without the risk of failure, there can be no true push. Instead of lifting, we are carrying, and so teaching the student that risk and struggle are imaginary as there will always be an easier path or a servile Sherpa ready to "short-rope" them up the frozen slope (read Krakauer's Into Thin Air for that reference). It is with this pedagogical concept that I approach my planning for every year to create a specific learning experience in the classroom. 

What is Accessibility?

 

Well, beyond the setting's selection on my phone, accessibility seems to run counter to the idea of the push and the beyond. If it is accessible, then it's at your finger tips, it's an answer from Siri, it's waiting and easy to find. This is a modern reconstruction of the term lensed through technology and the swift flow of information. We think of accessibility as a ramp allowing access, a path made easier on which all can travel. Is Everest accessible (to continue with that earlier reference)? Not for all surely, but for those with abilities that suit the terrain and who are willing to expend the effort, clearly, it is. In deciding how to create the challenges of the year, how accessible should they be? Tasks should definitely vary in intensity. Some are simple ones, creating content or performing tasks on a regular basis to instill the ethic and organization necessary for the larger projects. While others take on a more challenging aspect, building on those rote skills, now well-practiced. And then, when possible, a few mountains are raised up that provide summits from which new worlds are visible. All is accessible, all is reachable, but some require the struggle and the risk and the push. Level of accessibility varies, challenge varies, and so the designing of certain units, lessons, and projects must vary to match. In the second half of this entry, I will examine one such 120 minute project that rises as a small mountain in the hilly terrain.

Downhill: Start with the Summit, then Work Your Way Down

In designing the challenge, I start with the goal. For this short project, the goal is explicating and analyzing a brand new poem, without the guidance of the teacher, and utilizing a text that is advanced and pushes the students beyond their perceived abilities. For this I choose the dense and beautiful verse of T.S. Eliot's The Hollow Men. Beyond a fifth grader? Absolutely! Let's be honest, beyond many college students. But the skills learned throughout our poetry unit of recognizing symbol and metaphor, understanding Rhyme and Meter, peeling the union (to repeat an analogy I use in class) to discover new layers hiding beneath the surface will be utilized and their application will demonstrate student knowledge. I want to remove myself from the equation (no carrying), and so instead of lecture, a series of guiding questions that point out areas of focus provides the framework on which they build. They are Socratic in nature, designed to build on past knowledge learned and spur new thinking and the synthesis of the virgin material with prior knowledge and experience. During work, the only answers to questions asked of me are quoted lines and stanzas to redirect them to particular sections of the poem in which the answers may lie.  Though studies show that creativity is best achieved in individual work, selecting a group format (3-4 students) in analyzing new text, allowing ideas to bounce and build, hearing even the work of other groups (actually encouraged in this project) allows for deeper understanding and interconnected learning with new material. The true purpose of group work is to unlock the potential of multiple minds in a way that allows the group to achieve together what would be incredibly difficult (if not impossible) alone. In short, if you want students to write original poems, they should work alone. If you want them to analyze something new and incredibly challenging, allow them to combine strengths and cover weaknesses. Finally, force them to be blind. For this particular project, I do not want them to know a thing about Eliot, his time period, his association and response to WWI, the politics or history of the early 20th century, etc. I love History and context, and often give them quite short history lessons when discussing Shakespeare or Hughes. But for this, such a context would initially be too constraining, too limiting. Students will be trying too hard to fit their ideas into a frame, to find the "correct" interpretation instead of their own. No, for this project I save the context for the end. 

Some Examples

Enough talk this time, let's look at the project in parts. First there is the poem itself. They are provided their two copies (always this for poetry, one to mark and annotate, the other to keep pristine out of respect for the art that it is). They are given several minutes to read individually and "rip it into its pieces," as we say in class. For those who have not read this work since High School or College, or would simply enjoy reading some of the best verse in modern times, here it is: 

The Hollow Men

Next, form groups of 3-4, being sure to equip them all with a good mix of creative, organized, and high-reading-level students. The mix is not essential, but it does create a more complete experience as the individual talents support each other. Then provide them with the guiding questions and tell them they have a time limit. That time limit requires that they produce, not simply discuss. To quote Kipling: "If you can think, but not make thoughts your aim." Here's a look at those. Try them for yourself!

Guiding Questions

And then, watch the work. As aforementioned, when responding to questions meant to find that easy ramp, I respond only with quotations. There is of course the added bonus of witnessing the consternation tinged with joy that kids emote when met with a challenge. Do I care that they cannot link the first few words to Conrad or Guy Fawkes? Does it bother me that they have never read Milton or Dante? Will it destroy their interpretations should they stumble with the vocabulary and terminology? No, not one bit. At the museum, do we say: don't look at Picasso, you're too young to understand the transformative nature of his technique as a response to the realists and the photograph? Or perhaps at the concert, do we cover the ears of our children thinking: no, Beethoven is too advanced for you until you understand the way romantic emotions and feelings evoked by music began to trump the mathematical beauty of Mozart and Bach? Then, why do this with poetry? They have enough tools, they have my guiding questions, and they begin to climb. And, at the end, they produce analysis that is equal to any one might hear in far higher levels of education. Below, I'll include a couple of group's answers from two different classes. I have left their grammatical and rhetorical errors intact to remind us that these are the products of 5th graders after a single quarter of the study of poetry. These are only two out of many groups offering amazing answers and interpretations.

Two Groups' Answers

Extension

Now the context. For those that finish early, a video linking the poem to WWI soldiers. This one. I enjoy it as students point out to me the few times the reader makes a mistake: their ears are open. Most groups begin with the same comments: "We were wrong!" And, they receive my inevitable answer: "No, you're not wrong, there is no right interpretation, this is only opinion. But, how can you tie your former answer to this new information?" And for some, a new summit peaks (sp. intended) above the clouds.

 

Universal Engagement

Our "Impossible" Dreams

Thinking about teaching, and, more to the point, considering the goals and dreams we have as teachers, there is one aspect that is often considered impossible: achieving buy-in and exuberant participation from every student during multiple lessons, units, or activities. It is the classic idiom (shortened) that "one cannot please everyone all of the time." And, perhaps that's true. Even when you think you've succeeded, as I hope to illustrate later on, you may have students feigning more interest than they actually have because of their desire to please or to escape from work that day or...

However, I think that the hackneyed quote from John Lydgate (often repeated by President Lincoln) is one of those misused (misunderstood?) American sayings. To many, it seems to imply that as you cannot please everyone, why try? This, to me, as a teacher of English, is as mistaken as the attempt to find promise and positivity in Frost's less-traveled road or Cervantes's paradoxical protagonist. Though often heaped with our praise and emulation, deeper readings of that literature suggest something entirely contradictory and depressing about human nature, about our hopes and dreams and then their ultimate destruction once in conflict with the tangible world. Therefore, I also take issue with the common interpretation of Lydgate. I think even though it may seem impossible, the dream is worth it; there is something to be said about the attempt; it is the job of a teacher to work to find ways to engage all students at high-levels. This post is about my attempts to achieve this dream over the past year or so, specifically involving the "hook, ladder, and landing" approach I employ, with a reflection on the efficacy of two units from two different years.

Hook and Ladder

To achieve universal buy-in, the students must be hooked from the very outset of the unit. Really, this goes back to the beginning of the school year, laying out those units as a road map, talking-up each capstone project, and selling -Yes, Selling!- your product. The hook for each unit is imperative. And, the hook must work across the board. For a better explanation than I can afford to offer here, please see Dave Burgess's Teach Like a Pirate. (Not only does he examine the purpose of the hook, but he provides a lengthy list of examples of hooks of varying types and for diverse lessons and units.) I think what is most important for the hook is authenticity. More directly, the teacher's authenticity. Where Burgess and I disagree is that he claims that on bad days the teacher may need to fake his enthusiasm and energy. Perhaps he is an accomplished enough dramatist to do this. For most of us, kids will see right through any facade we might throw up. So, it is important that your hook is something you enjoy, reflects your strengths, and is authentic to you. Then, once the students are energized by the initial hook, the adrenaline is going, the eyes are wide, there is noise, laughter, whispers, movement, questions, etc-- you provide the challenge, which must be difficult and require work, with the appropriate levels of support outlined. This is the ladder: the structured steps to reach a goal that is interesting, hopefully captivating, but will require the necessary rigor (true rigor) to bring to realization. (Side: To read a good book about rigor and it's differences from busy work, especially as applied in the Finnish vs Korean approaches, see Amanda Ripley's The Smartest Kids in the World and how they got that Way.)

The Witch Trials (last school year, 2018-19)

This two week PBL is something I had practiced for several years. It was stale. It needed rejuvenation, especially my rejuvenation. And so, I reworked the hook. Everything else was the same: Students were given rotating roles as prosecutors, defenders, accused witches, witnesses, and jurors (well, I did invent two new roles as separate hooks for individual kids for the last trial). They had to develop arguments utilizing the information gained from two common sources -a novel: The Witch of Blackbird Pond, and a true-story movie: "Three Sovereigns for Sarah." Individually, they were given access to a few approved online sources particular to each role; they then were given lists of the facts for each accused (the witness testimony, charges, and any admissions); and, they prepared their cases. Their joy found in this type of project is often engendered by the constant uncertainty, the moving goal-posts of any debate arena. The students simply do not know where the other sides will go, they must prepare broadly and yet be able to adapt quickly. These are not skills I expect a fifth grader to master, but the journey, the climb up the ladder, is what matters most.

So, to juice this unit a bit, I had to re-imagine my hook. First, there needs to be mystery and anticipation. I remember my first years of teaching when I had the "Forbidden Book" on display in the classroom. It was usually something of value that I owned, a rare first edition or something hard to find that they could ask me about. It was a prize, when all other work was completed, that they could achieve: the opportunity to peruse the Forbidden Book! And the hook, though simple, really worked! The kids would beg, plead, cajole to be able to read a book! I was forced to stop the practice though, when, one year, a first edition worth quite a bit of money was damaged. Well, so it goes...  For the Witch Trials, the mystery and suspense was easy to create, just cover the door. Make the room itself a mystery. I made a point of being seen bringing in supplies through the hanging black butcher paper that blocked the doorway the day before. Then, the morning of the trials, a sign appeared (stolen almost directly from Burgess): "Yes! Everything You've Heard about the 5th Grade Witch Trials is True!" Inside the room, I hung more

butcher paper to create a box for a jail, turned down the lights (the jail was actually very dark), created a jurors' box, a judge's bench, and desks for the two sides. It's effect was incredible! Throughout the preparation, as the accused witches were kept in fake shackles in the jail and allowed short intervals of time with which to communicate with their defenders, as the prosecution teams worked to perfect traps and tests, as the witnesses developed their testimony (and secret plans and secret roles meant to enrich the event), I was able to simply move about and enjoy something wonderful (and may yet be impossible): total buy-in, 100% engagement. Every student was working, and was working with energy and enthusiasm. Now that's incredible.

End of an Era

As I planned out the current year, "The Witch of Blackbird Pond" found its way to the chopping block...so it goes. My new curricular plan required a hybrid model of reading workshop and the more traditional novel-study style classroom. In short, I wanted the students reading more, reading more deeply, constantly engaging with their texts, and writing about their reading. To achieve this, class novels needed to be short, universally accessible, and a stepping stone to reading skills and strategies that were to be practiced, honed, and mastered in texts of their own choosing that were just at or above their individual reading levels. There just wasn't enough time in the year for them to read a 300 page novel, watch a movie, engage in a new history, and then utilize those sources for a capstone project. However, addressing similar themes involving our responsibilities to family, country, and truth with their inevitable conflicts, I found a wonderful book that would meet all the needed criteria yet was simple enough and short enough to serve as a mentor text, in that it was accessible to every student and could be easily read in a week of assigned reading.

Breaking Stalin's Nose

A Newbery Award winning novel, Breaking Stalin's Nose by Eugene Yelchin provided a formidable platform upon which to launch into the essential questions that The Witch of Blackbird Pond had tackled for us in past years. They are comprised of two simple interrogatives: What happens when responsibilities are in conflict? And, What is truth? The novel follows the fictional story of a boy caught up in the purges of Stalinist Communism. His father (an NKVD secret policeman) is arrested in the middle of the night, and the narrative follows him as he searches for meaning and answers amid a flood of propaganda so thick that any flicker of truth is blackened out by the obscuring miasma, and he is left to stumble and grope in symbolic darkness. He finds no solace, no answers, only a glint of hope in the kindness shown to him by another traveler in the gloom who promises that one day they will find their way out of their self-imposed prisons, but until then "we have a lot of waiting to do. So let's wait..."  I worked to create lessons and activities to create student understanding of symbol, theme, and metaphor, to understand (at least superficially) the historical context, and to illuminate the warnings Yelchin so carefully constructs. However, at the onset of planning, I had not intended to pursue a trial as a capstone.

The Value of Youth and Inexperience

Eighth graders are not typically known for their mastery of educational pedagogy or even their taste in music; however, I often poll older students for insight into my classroom and educational choices. I find that asking students who are divorced from their fifth grade year about their experiences in English can provide valuable insight. I can know what has stuck with them, what they feared, enjoyed, relished, and -most importantly- learned in their time in my class. What I was not expecting was the remorse and pleading, the gnashing of teeth and tearing of sackcloth! They could not believe that I would cut out the trials. They reminisced about their experiences, individual narratives, the great and poor acting, and the labels they would wear with feigned shame that identified them as "Convicted Witches." Had I made a terrible error? Had I sacrificed something valuable on the heap of pedagogy and best practices? I thought of Kipling speaking about virtue: "Trust yourself when all men doubt you/ But make allowance for their doubting too..."

Re-Examination and Re-Imagination

As the unit loomed, I looked back on why the old witch trials were such a success. Students were hooked and invigorated; they had a common text from which to weave related yet individual experiences; roles were matched with personality; endings and pathways were open providing -at least the illusion of- free choice; buy-in was nearly universal; secrets and mystery were interwoven; goal-posts moved and students were forced to think and adapt quickly to changes; and, rather foreboding and ominous themes were made accessible by a shared, first-person experience. The Hook, Ladder, and Landing. In thinking about the subject, it became plainly obvious that all of these could be accomplished with perhaps even more depth in utilizing the pre-war,  Soviet Show Trials as "Stalin's catafalque," supporting everything needed with a strong and visible foundation.

Hook- Day one after students have read the novel. Dress up like an NKVD officer. Officer's hat: $15. Russian naval pea-coat: Mr Minton's Drama supply. Checklist and pencil. A thick and rather stereotypical Russian accent. A Soviet flag to hang: $12. Some propaganda poster reproductions: $10. Now, play the soviet anthem over the speakers and segregate the students according to their family's occupations: engineers to the front, government jobs celebrated, lawyers suspect, business owners in the back, and woe to the child of a banker! Student buy-in requires my buy-in. A hook only works with commitment.

Ladder- The novel must be digested and internalized. Questions gauged and answered. This provides the common knowledge-base from which the rest of the unit may build. We spend time reading passages together, then dissecting, then analyzing. Students are learning how to identify conflicts, resolutions, themes, rising and falling actions, climax and anti-climax, character motivations, and other story elements/literary devices. They look for these in their own reading of individually leveled novels, describe them in their journals, and find commonalities and differences. Time is spent discussing the vocabulary and historical figures. Though most students are aware of the evils of fascism and racism, the extreme perfidy of authoritarian communism is something completely foreign to them. Most had never even heard of Stalin or his monumental body count. The word communism to them was only vaguely familiar, often they remembered some American politician being given the pejorative moniker at a Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner table during lively familial debates. How does one describe the political-economic theory of Marxist-Communism to a ten year old? Well, I tried. In the end, the students had the knowledge base, they were working on mastering the reading strategies I had outlined, and they were becoming familiar with the identification and usage of a variety of story elements and literary devices from the simplistic and concrete to the complex and abstract.

Landing- It was time for the trials themselves. Each student was provided a particular role that was historical and as true to life as possible. We had confessed wreckers and saboteurs, accused accomplices, defense attorneys, NKVD officers, prosecutors, and prison guards (who would become the justices responsible for issuing verdicts). Woven into the blaze-red tapestry were secret missions, hidden objectives, and lies within lies that served to enrich the experience and provide further hooks for students who were anxious to reveal well laid traps and plans, to pull the rug out from under their enemies, to become confident in their abilities of convicting their classmates, and to struggle in the chaos and mistrust that authoritarian dictators utilize to maintain their grips on power. During the trial preparation, collaboration became the proverbial carrot! It was denied, forbidden, much like my book years earlier. As a result, students craved and begged for time to collaborate. All communication was to be written and would have to pass through the office of the NKVD. They were responsible for all mail between prisoner and attorney, prosecutor and witness, etc. They would check them against the appropriate, government form (grammar textbook- Business Letter) and clear or return them based on their review. Writing also became a forbidden fruit.  Prisoners were not given enough pencils or paper, requiring them to work together to request items in writing on each other's behalf. Students wrote more in thirty minutes than they had thought possible. Information became power, and power corrupted. One particular student (astute and insightful beyond his years) even took me aside to say: "Mr. Herrin, I see what you did, you made information into power!" Wow! From the mouth of babes... Officers and guards took their small (and really fantastical) modicum of power and wielded it like a war hammer; truth was entirely illusive; attorneys worked in secret to undermine their clients; a spy was put in the prison with secret orders to convince the other prisoners to confess and name each other (little knowing that the pardon deal he thought he had earned from the prosecutor was as fallacious as his own role!); the deputy chief of the NKVD worked with secret knowledge that would be the downfall of his superior; and, all was historically accurate and real, the names of the participants (though often proving difficult to pronounce for our young role players) were real, the fate of each was real, and the subterfuge, the illusion, the loss of truth all was real as well. Most importantly, the mystery, suspense, and enjoyment of the student engaged in the project was real. At one point, as I surveyed the last period class struggle, think, engage, write myriad and uncountable letters by hand, I realized that "impossible dream" with which we all struggle as teachers, and, at this school -surrounded by so many incredible and masterful teachers- so often achieve: 100% buy-in! Yes, of course some students were more proficient in their work, some more calculating, some needed a break or a small outburst to deal with the emotion or excitement, some preferred to plan overthrows or attempt jail breaks, but they were all immersed and all participating. For that moment, I just sat and watched, like so many similar moments repeated at St. John's.  This is why we choose to work at this place; it's how we measure our success and our chosen profession against the world itself. That moment is what we live for. So, perhaps the dream isn't that "impossible," but I really wanted to put that video from Man of La Mancha at the top of this post, so I'm not editing my title!  Below, I'll include the materials from this activity and few videos to illustrate. Feel free to peruse if you'd like. And, be ready! The next capstone, Poetry Parade, is by far my favorite project that we do.

Trial Clips

Preparation and Designed Chaos

Trial in Action (A Future Prosecutor is Born!)

Materials and Resources

Unit materials created specifically for this project:  Link

Videos shared with some or all students: Rise of Stalin;  Stalin Bio; Trial Reenactment

An Open Letter to St. John's Faculty

Below is the body of a letter sent to the SJES Faculty on Wednesday, November 30. 

So just take a breath! Breathe, just breathe. 

I wanted to follow up on what we are currently practicing in chapel.  Staci and I planned to present in January some of what we experienced at the latest conference by The Momentous Institute, but as we are now implementing some of the research-based practices, I thought I’d provide a bit of context to those interested. The science isn’t really that new, but it was well explained, and, unlike many brain research conferences I have attended, they did provide some concrete things we can do in order to assist students in preparing the brain for learning, dealing with stress or anxiety, and becoming more altruistic.

What is always funny to me, is when scientists are surprised by the fact that some things which religions do consistently are more than dogmatic ritual, but that they actually work! The same is to be said of the military (if there are ever any organizations where results matter, they would be the ones!).  And so, I giggle at times when these very brilliant and well-educated people are shocked to discover that some of the basic tenants/rituals of Western and Eastern religious practices have physical and measurable impacts.  After hearing the research results and some concrete ways to utilize these methods, Fr. Thorpe was excited to blend them in with our advent lessons.

Vagus Nerve

Breathing: The breathing, slow in, hold, slow out, hold, repeat (about four seconds for each inhale, hold, exhale, hold) has been shown to affect the Vagus nerve in very real and measurable ways. The Vagus nerve reaches from our amygdala to our digestive tract. It is the amygdala which is responsible for our fight or flight reflex. This will come in later. The breathing (far from really resting or shutting down the brain as scientists expected) is shown to activate many parts of the brain (especially our neo-cortex) while calming our more primitive and instinctual brain functions.  In short, the breathing practice has been clinically shown to increase students’ readiness to learn with marked and measurable improvement for students who practice the breathing for only about 2 minutes (or 16 breaths) at the beginning of the day. Over time, this has a positive, measurable, physical effect on the actual brain as well. Thus, the infusion of this with our quiet time in chapel.

Vagus nerve is in contact with everything from our primitive

Holding a person in your mind: A long tradition in Christian prayer is this act of praying for the gift of God’s grace directly to a specific person. Testing has shown that simply the act of wishing good things directly to individuals (praying for a specific person for a couple minutes each day) increases altruism in the person praying/wishing by a substantial percentage. If you consistently wish good things for others, you actually act in more generous ways toward society at large. Thus, the holding a specific person or people in your mind and praying directly about that person during our prayers of the people.

Fr. Thorpe has gone one step further in combining these steps (similar to Eastern meditative practices) of breathing while concentrating on prayer to specific people.

One last concrete step:  In my advisory, we are piloting/beta testing a method of dealing with student stress, anxiety, fear, or anger. Based on the aforementioned studies of the amygdala’s influence on our brain, scientists at the conference boiled down several approaches to assist students (or anyone) in independent ways to handle and overcome stress. I combined them into this strategy (Stop, Breathe, Think/Plan, Act) with which we are experimenting.

Our ancestors needed a fight or flight response daily when dealing with the perils of nature.  There are times when we still need that.  But, most of the time, the amygdala is more of a hindrance to our daily life. It is on the constant look out for danger (to personify a bundle of neurons), and when it perceives a threat, it tends to hijack our thinking brain and we experience a flood of emotions. They

described it as if the amygdala requests an immediate explanation from our cortex of what the danger is and an immediate solution (fight it or run from it).  While this works great when dealing with a saber-tooth tiger, it works very poorly when dealing with an argument with a friend or a hard test question. Emotion, first-impression decision making, and the flood of adrenaline resulting from this hijacking often leads to improper decisions and actions.  It’s why in the heat of an argument, even with someone you love, you might think or even say terrible things: “I don’t want to know this person anymore,” “my best friend is out to get me!”  etc. This is the explanation your cortex has given for the danger.  There is an enemy, a danger, an opposing force, let’s fight it/run from it. The trick is to turn the amygdala off and then reconsider the problem rationally. This same breathing technique does just that (as mentioned above); it activates the thinking and rational brain and turns off the instinctual brain through the Vagus nerve bundles. Then, you are able to rationally consider and solve the problem. Below is what we are experimenting with in class: a suggested method for performing this process based on brain science.

In times of stress, anxiety, fear, or anger, students are practicing:

STOP

·                Stop what you are doing/thinking.

·                Settle yourself.

BREATHE

·               Military Tactical Breathing:

·               IN for four counts

·               HOLD for four counts

·              OUT for four counts

·              HOLD for four counts

·              Repeat this for a couple of minutes or about 16 breaths.

THINK/PLAN

·             Why did you feel/react that way?

·             What story did your brain try to tell you?

·             What’s the real problem?

·             What should/can you do to solve the problem?

·              PLAN the solution.

ACT

·             Do it!

·             Perform the actions that you planned.

This is not new in any way; however, I am always struck at how our students can struggle coping with stress, disappointment, anger, etc. We are going to try to experiment with this method, and I’ll let you know if it is internalized and worthwhile. Staci and I will have more to share around January. 

Sincerely,

Thor Herrin

5th Grade English

5th Grade Advisor

Head Coach:  Volleyball, Basketball, Tennis

214-538-1533

Breaking the Temporal Barrier

Collaboration is as much a buzz word in educational circles and professional communities as it ever has been.  We have never really produced in a vacuum, but we now see collaboration as a skill with a position on par with reading comprehension, study strategies, or any other typical skill learned in the traditional classroom. And, it's not as if great teachers have not required and instructed this skill for decades; they have, and they've done it well. However, with the virtual world flattening the working space, destroying typical borders, and allowing ideas to be generated quicker and with multiple minds involved in the engendering and creative processes, the need for successful collaboration (in concert with individual competence) seems of paramount importance in order to be successful in the world a decade from today.  I'm struck by the many futurists (insightful people who posit the real future and the changes the world will experience as a predictor for governments, think-tanks, corporations, etc.) who see humans working more and more as a hive-mind as thoughts and ideas begin to be generated and developed by multiple intelligences, virtually linked at a basic level and including the artificial and possibly even the deceased (we can argue the possible moral complications of this later!). To bring us back to 2025, though the world will not be a Borg Collective of linked hive-minds, collaboration is essential, and St. John's is replete with the teaching of collaborative inquiry, critical thinking, problem solving, and creative presentations of ideas.

As I have watched technology change and grow, capabilities rise and even fall, I have endeavored to continue to produce collaborative opportunities.  We work together on presentations involving independent reading, Greek Mythology, poetry, debate, and myriad small group and class activities that are surely similar in scope and purpose to what so many wonderful teachers do at our school. Technology began to present opportunities that were new, or at least it provided the methods to attempt to accomplish what before might have seemed impossible. Barriers or constraints that had existed in the traditional classroom might be breached and overcome.  And, collaboration across distance and even language became possible; students could visit far away places; and teachers were sharing ideas so quickly that information could become overwhelming.  But, there was one barrier that we have always worked hard at eliminating, stretching, or at least cheating- the constraint of time.  We could break down physical walls, pass over thousands of ocean miles in seconds, possess the wealth of human knowledge and opinion about any one subject with a simple hand motion, and yet we needed to find a way to break down the barrier of time as well as space.

This began by employing technology in a way that allowed students to collaborate virtually on the same project or problem even though they were in different traveling groups or sections. Now, several different classes were working together toward a common goal, even though they held no actual English time in common.  We used wikis and Google Docs to accomplish this.  We wanted students to engage in conversations about literature in a way that would allow each of them an opportunity to gain knowledge and insight from the entire grade; we were able to find programs that allowed this.  I wanted to bring in experts and people of experience during our Debate/Witch Trial unit, and Blogs served this purpose.  Technology was helping to break down barriers, but there was something missing. A lot of the work began to feel cold, dispassionate, detached.  And, even though I still use most of these methods, I really wanted the discussion and sharing of ideas to move to something physical, something semi-permanent yet malleable and modular that provided a platform for idea sharing that could span the different class periods and eliminate time from the list of prohibitive elements. So, what is old is new again!  The Idea Wall I have written of previously was an answer, and it is now becoming so much more than a simple depository of student humor or a useful space for activities, as shown in the last post.  Taking a cue from a passing comment from our Head of School, the students took it over, transformed it into a concept map or mind map of their collective experiences during our novel discussion on "The Watsons Go to Birmingham- 1963."  They brainstormed concept categories, voted and chose five, had an illustration challenge to determine the artists who would illustrate each category, then selected quotations that represented those categorized emotions or concepts.  By the final chapter, students were coming in at lunch and break to add their thoughts, and by our final essay, students were using the collective mind-map as a resource for selecting quotations in their formal, analytical writing.  It's time I begin thinking about providing more usable physical space, more student space, more collaborative space in my room.  It should be space that echoes the vastness of the virtual world that is at their fingertips.  A place for them to explore, discern, create, and refine. Right now my eyes are searching; I will find room for more!

The Video below provides a time lapse series of pictures with students moving through the mind-map of our novel.

The Art of Writing

Philosophy

Too often, writing is seen as formula, as a scripted act ruled by expectation and attention to instruction.  And though formula is important and required for adequate communication, writing is an act of individual expression; and, as such, it more closely resembles those curricula that mainstream education continues to debase, de-fund, and exclude: the arts. Teaching writing is not simply a matter of focusing on structure and form, but of inspiring and encouraging individual work ethic, creative text manipulation, and the effective persuasion required to amply communicate original thought and ideas. Though we focus on structure and process at the beginning, this is simply learning the brushstrokes, the keys and scales, the differing instruments and media by which artists convey elements of the human condition.  The goal is that the artist must learn the basics before true expression becomes paramount and supersedes technical ability.  The same is true for the effective writer.  The rules must be learned before they can be broken, before expression supersedes format.

The Beginning 

I've been watching my two year old learning how to run.  At first, it was a series of jerky leg movements, a quick time of tiny steps that increased his speed only marginally but perhaps required four times the effort of a simple walk.  Since then, he has begun to learn to trust his balance and take longer strides, and he is beginning to become a little dangerous in his speed as his mother and I try to contain him in the yard.  There's the haggard phrase "one must walk before he runs" that is thrown around whenever we start something new, something hard, something that requires effort, patience, persistence, and resilience.  But really, it's completely true.  There aren't that many ten year old writing prodigies in this world; nor are there fifth graders creating masterpieces of sculpture; nor do we really want to listen to a concerto composed by a tween.  Like all great art, writing requires that we conquer the basics, and, as teachers, the basics are where we must begin.  Sentence Structure, Paragraph Organization, Topic Sentence Construction, Thesis, Detail, Support, Explanation, Introduction, Body, Conclusion, Brainstorm, Outline, Draft, Revise, Edit, Proof, Publish...the vocabulary and process of writing must be internalized, absorbed, mastered before the words are polished, gleaming in musical phrases, and the voice, once hidden and unrefined, fills our inner ear with its unique rhythm and complex tones.  And yet, to the beginning, to the process we must bend our efforts.  Until writing is not some daunting mountain, but an instinctual process, we have to stay with the bland and necessary beginning, we must teach the basics, instruct the process, facilitate their eventual breakthroughs.

Work Ethic

There are myths out there that our geniuses, our most celebrated minds, casually work toward their ends.  That somehow the greatness that has eluded their counterparts for centuries or even millennia simply falls about them and follows their every whim.  "Mozart wrote whole symphonies without making an error; Einstein failed math and simply played mind games to come up with his theories; Newton watched an apple fall and suddenly understood gravity."  Ridiculous.  Mozart drove himself mad due to his obsession and constant work on his music- that had several drafts; Einstein built a machine to wake himself up in the middle of the night so that he could record his dreams in case they should shed light on his work (it is said he slept 4-5 hours night and worked continuously); Newton invented an entirely new type of mathematics in order to explain his theories.  Genius is not easy. We are not going to be a janitor one day and suddenly, with little effort, solve extensive and complex geometric theorem left on chalkboards by conceited professors.  Success in any endeavor requires practice and effort and, perhaps most of all, stamina and resilience. We so readily accept this when it comes to sports. We are willing to schedule our kids for six or eight hours a week in practices; and yet, we shy away from expecting the same dedication in other pursuits. We would never expect our ten year old to be a master at the piano after a year of once-a-week lessons and little home practice. We'd say, "Well yeah, that's what I expected.  He never practiced."  We'd say the same if our child missed the free throw in the big game when he only practiced from the three point arc, or if he tried to build a simple chair without ever having held a saw.  Though, we still often wonder why his writing skills seem to remain stagnant or are only improving at what seems like a snail's pace.  What is acceptable practice for writing?  One half that of sports?  A quarter?  Considering the artistic nature of writing, can gains be as appreciable as they are in sports?  Can we see the development in front of us in the same way?  Hopefully, the advent of electronic data capture and virtual portfolios will help, but that's definitely not as exciting as watching your daughter finally get that ace in the game when just a few months ago she could barely serve over the net.  What does work ethic truly mean, and when it comes to artistic yet academic endeavors, what sort of expectations should we set?  I think relying on the geniuses whose examples began this section seems most appropriate.  Michelangelo comes to mind: "If people knew how hard I had to work to gain my mastery, it would not seem so wonderful at all."

Revise, Revise, Revise

Great writers improve their work.  This cannot be understated.  Most spend far more time (years even) revising their efforts than the initial drafting of them before finally relinquishing them into the world.  Hemingway's unfinished work, Islands in the Stream, is a great example of a master's work before the process of revision. It is said that he would go through his novels striking out every unnecessary adjective and adverb, every description that seemed superfluous, every turn of phrase that he deemed too cute, that muddled the truth he wished to express.  This process was unrelenting, personal, and time consuming. Islands never completed this process, and the novel is singularly distinct in his body of work. Personally, I find it un-Hemingway-like in many respects.  There is a reason: he wasn't finished yet. Of course, as I remind the students, writing -as art- cannot be finished. Calling once more to the artist for support, I lean on Leonardo da Vinci who once penned, "Art is never finished, only abandoned." And so it is.  We improve, we can always improve.  And this is the thrust of the process, where one must spend that energy, that time.  Revision, as taxing as it can be, as humble as it requires us in accepting our own fallibility, is the most necessary step in the writing process.  There should be appreciable improvement from draft to draft; there should be major changes- the questioning of one's own abilities and arguments; there should be mental capital expelled onto the page.

Let it Go

"If you truly love something, let it go.  If it comes back to you, it is yours forever."  I remember hearing this said about a variety of wounded animals my brother and I would find foundering in the tall grass of the field behind the house where we grew up.  If somehow it survived our makeshift hospital and constant poking, if by instinct or force of animal will it grew strong enough to survive on its own once more, then we we be told to let it go.  And every artist must go through the mental struggle of letting go of something that represents hours, weeks, years of effort, refinement, and personal investment.  My brother (a talented artist working out of Richmond and VCU) describes it as giving away his children, hoping they find good homes.  --Here's his gallery's website if you're interested. His work is amazing--  But, he has to let it go at some point.  And writing, like all art, is only truly art once it is shared with the world.  With written work, we call this the Publishing stage.  And, after multiple revisions, even though the work could be improved, even though it is not finished, because it is now a part of you or at least part of you is in it, you must let it go- you must send it out into the world.  As we endeavor to teach writing, even though this stage of the process is not time consuming or mentally taxing, we must continue to encourage writers to take pride in their work, to feel something for it, to understand the investment in it was purposeful and individually distinctive.  The work should be cherished by the artist.  Perhaps it is not to the degree of parental love and concern that my brother posed as analogous, but our students should feel something when looking at that finished piece. They should see it as an overcoming and a becoming: the next step on their journeys as writers, as artists, and as learners.

The End

Well, there isn't one.  Like a novel series that always leaves one wanting more and willing to spend $19.99 on the next new release, we're left hanging from a cliff.  We can take steps every day to become better writers, practice with letters, emails, journals, editorials, etc., or revise everything into polished glass; but, that's not the end.  Every artist learns from every piece of his own work; every artist improves. And, there is no real end.  I tell my students that their endings, their conclusions, should leave the reader thinking, not hanging.  I'm definitely still thinking about how to teach writing even as I close up this brief entry.  Unfortunately, perhaps from my earlier mention of him and his revision methodology, I am only able to think of the ending of For Whom the Bell Tolls- a novel in which Hemingway, knowing the rule, completely breaks it. Though we can assume what happens next, we never really know; we are left on the cliff, in a very similar place as the opening, our hearts pumping along with the protagonist: "Robert Jordan lay behind the tree, holding onto himself very carefully and delicately to keep his hands steady. He was waiting until the officer reached the sunlit place where the first trees of the pine forest joined the green slope of the meadow. He could feel his heart beating against the pine needle floor of the forest."