At TEDxNYED, Alan November kicked off the event with his “TALK” – Who Owns The Learning? where he asks, “Are your students leaving a legacy?” It’s a very worthwhile 15 minutes. While watching him that day I thought back to this post on my blog from 2 years ago, because it was my exact point, my students were leaving a legacy.  As you read it, and perhaps follow some of the links, think about the work your students are doing:

LEAVING THEIR MARK

The end of the school year is always tough. Lots still to do, lots of emotions, lots of memories. This one is tougher than most because not only are we closing in on the end of another school year, we are coming to the end of 3 years together. As I was reflecting upon this the other day it occurred to me just how large a legacy this class is leaving behind.

This has been my first experience in a 1:1 laptop classroom. It certainly isn’t all about the technology, but the technology really has leveraged what they have accomplished because it has connected them easily to so many and allowed them to share and archive those connections easily along the way.

It started in fourth grade when we began blogging and learning about being understood and being careful with language so it meant what we meant and was clear to the reader. Their blogs became a way to share their stories, but also what we did and learned and what we accomplished, and we accomplished a lot. When I broke the news to them in December of 2006 that we had a student that showed up on my attendance and that we had never seen her – but that there might be a way to include her in our classroom using Skype video-conferencing, they were intrigued and awed that we might do that. After our first experience we decided to share it with the world and in just a few short weeks the students had designed and produced a video that taught the world just how powerful these new tools can be.  Their video has been downloaded thousands and thousands of times. (Update – about a million times now)

Not only did we use Skype most days to include our classmate, we also began making connections with others. We were interviewed over Skype by Lee Baber’s class in Virginia about our experience and made connections with other classrooms about science and other topics.

We were very fortunate that our classroom was chosen to have a special guest. Grace Corrigan, the mother of Christa McAuliffe, the  “Teacher in Space” who died tragically when the space shuttle Challenger exploded during launch visited our room, and we Skyped out her visit to classrooms in Virginia and New York and they were able to take part in the question and answer period Grace agreed to.

To finish off that year we visited a local animal park, Animal Ark, and afterwards designed a wiki page to help further anyone’s learning about the animals there and included a lesson and video about designing your own animal.

In fifth grade as we continued to blog about our experiences, my students’ exploits became known to others and so we would get contacted by schools to participate with them – usually because they didn’t know of anyone else that knew how. One such experience was Skyping in George Mayo’s middle school class from Maryland. They had made some short videos and wanted us to watch them and give them feedback. It was easier for them to have us do this than the elementary school NEXT DOOR because they were at lunch when this class met and they couldn’t work out the details. We watched  and wrote our reactions to their videos and gave them feedback when we Skyped, and they asked us questions about including our classmate.

I was contacted by Skype about making a short film about our “Inclusion” experience. They sent a film crew to our classroom to shoot a mini documentary about how we did it. Even though our classmate was now with us in the classroom, they had her stay home one day and do school from her computer. They hung lights in our room and shot video all morning as we did what we usually do. They interviewed students and then packed up and shot in the afternoon from our classmate’s house. They produced 2 versions of the video. Here and here.

We continued to blog almost every day either writing new posts or reading and commenting on others. We built relationships with a number of classes around the world and to help keep track we began adding links to them on our class wiki page. Most of my students are second language learners and when we started blogging it would take most of them a week to edit a post into publishable quality. I don’t require my students to have zero errors on a piece before it publishes, but my students’ writing skills were very poor in general. They used poor English and grammar and punctuation was almost nonexistent in some students’ work. They left out the details that made meaning for the reader, and we won’t go into spelling. At first students would write their posts by hand on lined paper and edit them several times before word processing them. Next they would print them out in a large size, double spaced to have room for editing. Many students would have 5 or more copies of their story all marked up by me in 1:1 meetings with them before their work was “publishable.” That’s why it took a week. By the end of fourth grade about half the class would publish in 2 days. And by the middle of 5th grade some students were publishing the same day as the assignment was given, and almost all were publishing in 2 days. We killed a lot of trees the first year, and I (and they) felt bad about that, but the impact it had on their English, spelling, punctuation, style and more was worth it. And the students continue to write and write and write (but we don’t print very often anymore).

During fifth grade, I believe initially over Twitter, but then in email, a fifth grade teacher in New York, Lisa Parisi, mentioned to me how much she liked the comments my students left on her students’ blogs. I explained that we had really been working on the quality and substance of our comments, not just saying, “Nice post” or “I liked your post” but also explaining why. Our students began doing more reading and commenting on each others posts.

Lisa and I wanted our classes to do a project together and so the “Mysteries of Harris Burdick” writing project was born. This book, written by Chris Van Allsburg, is the ultimate writing starter I’ve ever seen. After reading and discussing the book in class our students wrote collaborative stories using Google Docs so they could work at the same time on their stories even though they were thousands of miles apart. They even discussed things over Skype so they could meet their co-writers and have discussions about where their stories were going. Other teachers joined the project and paired their classes. The project won an award.

This year we participated in 2 projects that stressed being safe online. We talk about safety fairly often, pretty much anytime we use a new application – blogs, wikis, Flickr and so on and anytime it comes up in the news we tend to review the issues and what the people involved did right or wrong that caused or helped the problem that came up. We participated with a bunch of schools all over the world in the “7 Random Facts” project … sharing seven random facts about yourself without revealing any information that could identify you. By request we followed that up by participating with another class in another safety project where the students wrote vignettes about someone NOT being safe online and then wrote a moral to the story. We shared them in a Skype session with the other class. During this time students in my class shared that they had MySpace and other sites that they were really too young to have and that they had taken down inappropriate information about themselves.

The “Around the World with 80 Schools” project this year has been incredible in how it has made my students more aware of world geography as they met and talked with students on almost every continent.

Most recently we are finishing up our Reno Bike Project, project where we are helping a local non-profit organization that rehabilitates old bikes and sells them inexpensively, spread the word to get people to donate bikes to them. The Public Service Announcement and web pages they designed were just published and we are doing some other activities to help get word out.

I’ve left plenty out here to save space, but the point is these students have left a mark, a legacy that will survive their graduation to middle school and beyond. Not only have they done community service that effects their community, but they have participated globally and left the archive for others to ponder and I hope improve on. Most importantly they have vastly improved their writing, research, communication and numerous other skills along the way. They were only held back by my limitations and the limitations of the system.

I’ve learned at least as much as they have and I believe I’m a better teacher for it. I’m chomping at the bit to take what I’ve learned and share it with my new class. As of this writing I’m being moved down to 4th grade again to begin a roll up to 5th and hopefully sixth grade again. I’m really going to miss this class and I want them to know that and to know they have made more of a difference in this world than they realize. They can be proud!

Learning is messy!

I think I’ve spent just about an hour (maybe more) for every minute of my TEDxNYED talk (I get 15 minutes) … I think that is ridiculous at one level … but REALLY, I’m not complaining on the other. As a preview I will say that I’m trying to spread the word about a different pedagogy .. a new REAL reform model. I am trying NOT to point my message at those that already know the message, but at those that don’t. Just remember that next Saturday … and be kind. : )

Learning is messy!

So in a week I will be jetting across the country, weather permitting, to New York to do my 15 minutes on stage at TEDxNYED. Based on a few Tweets and emails from the last week, I’ve been relieved to learn I’m not the only one in deep, nay, in my case, almost obsessive contemplation about that 15 minutes. I will say that my goal is to share what I and so many of my colleagues have been trying, doing and having success with – with this new (maybe only newish at this point?) pedagogy. In many ways, the pressure is on.

Learning is messy!

NOTE: The pending blizzard hitting the central US and soon the east coast made me think of this post from 2 years ago. It was written in response to the H1N1 flu epidemic that was hitting at the time – and the experience this last week at the EDuCon conference in Philadelphia when students came to school even after it was cancelled due to heavy snow to help run and participate in the conference . Ironically I could not make this claim now … that I could run class from home if school was cancelled… even though more of my students have internet at home now because we have just not learned as much about being connected as my last class (partly my fault for allowing things/policies to take me away from what I feel strongly about). I’m trying hard to change that situation. This really could work well. Here’s the post from May 2009:

Think of all the learning time being lost by those students already on leave because of theH1N1 flu issue. What if this did become more widespread and we did have many students out of school for a week or more? My school district has already informed us that if even 1 student is diagnosed at our school with H1N1 then they would close that school for 5 to 7 days AND those days don’t have to be made up at the end of the school year. That’s a lot of lost learning time AND lots of free time on the hands of kids that may lead to other issues.

My students are at a bit of a disadvantage over others simply because not all of them are connected at home, but if I had time I could probably make this work for 60 to 80% of them if they were sent home due to a flu outbreak or other reason in the future. My wife’s students are 100% online at home, so think of this in terms of whatever your situation might be.

What could I make work? I could make school happen for my students from home. How?

Well first all my students blog, so I could leave them assignments on our class blog for them to research, write about and then submit to me to check and even comment back to them about. In fact just using their blog I could carry on a conversation about their work on almost any topic. I could even post math problems for them to do, science, social studies … really almost any subject. I could post photos on our Flickr account (and elsewhere), videos for them to watch, links to web pages of all kinds on any subject for them to read or interact with and then report to me about their learning in a way where I can interact with them about it. Oh, and they could do the same, posting video or photos they’ve taken (maybe just with their or a parents cell phone), to demonstrate learning or to build content to present online to the rest of us. And “US” doesn’t just have to be our class, others could join in or at least view and comment on our work.

I could even provide a field trip or guest speaker from anywhere in the world via Ustream or Mogulus and they could interact about it in the chat – ask questions, and then write about it afterwards and even have discussions.

Using Google Docs I could even enter a document with a student or even a group of students to work on or ask questions about or get feedback about.

Also we could collaborate on any of the above activities along with other students anywhere in the world.

Using the links we already have on our class wiki page I can have them visit different free online math, language, science, social studies activities and more … and add new ones as needed.

All for free, using tools students already know how to use. And understand, we could do this easily – including collaborating with other students because we already do this, we already have the contacts and network with other students and teachers set-up. We already blog and use Google Docs and Skype and wikis and more with students all over the world. We are ready to go.

Now I have just scratched the surface here, applications like Ning, Moodle, Elluminate and so many more could further facilitate what I described above.

So time spent at home instead of school could be just about as productive as being in school – I assume I’d still be getting paid even if school has been closed for the flu (or other reason), students have something productive to do, aren’t spreading germs, do you see a downside? – I’m not.

I hope others will further elaborate how they see this working  as comments. I really held back on ALL that is possible here so have at it!

Too bad school couldn’t be more like this all the time!

Learning is messy!

Four years ago, January 24, 2007, was the first day we Skyped into our classroom a classmate that couldn’t attend school because she had leukemia and the side effects from the chemo therapy she was receiving made it impossible for her to attend school. Through the efforts of a community of people my 4th graders embarked on an incredible experience using Skype video-conferencing software to include her in our class.

On cue it seems, as I was on morning crosswalk duty in front of our school Thursday, someone … actually 2 people I recognized were amongst about 15 students waiting to cross the street. Celest and her mom crossed and after several big hugs I had a quick conversation with them about how things were going. She is in 8th grade now, has put back all the weight she lost, and has a thick, full head of hair. She is in full remission and doing really well. She even helps counsel kids that have cancer based on her own experience.

The irony is that the street in front of our school is a nightmare of cars and kids and situations that would make you gasp 5 times every morning (it does me), so I was really pre-occupied with crossing kids and their families while Celest and her mom waited to talk to me (URGH!!!), so I wasn’t able to glean as much info as I wish I could have, or take a picture with my phone (dumb, dumb, dumb!) before they had to leave.

Every year this “anniversary” comes around and I debate whether to mention it. But, every month I hear from at least someone this story touches … someone that this is a new story for. We tend to forget that many of these technology tools have been around for long enough that some of us have been there and done that 50 or more times … but this is still someone’s cutting edge. So for now, for at least one more year I will mention and remember this anniversary that touched and touches so many lives.

And also know this was not just a Skype story. We used blogs, wikis, Flickr and much more to leverage the entire experience.

But the story doesn’t stop with Celest. Her classmates were just as incredible in their own way. In less than 2 weeks they produced a movie that explained and archived the event for all to learn from. Some of the students that narrated the video didn’t even speak English, but learned their lines, spoken clearly (or we can’t use it) so they could be included. This video has been downloaded close to million times now (perhaps more).

The following year Skype sent a camera crew to film how we did it. Celest had improved and was now attending school “live” with everyone else (NOTE: I keep a class for 3 years – roll them from 4th to 5th to 6th, so Celest was in my 5th grade class too). So they filmed from our classroom and then Celest’s house, she stayed home one day and we recreated the previous year. A video (Here) was produced that day, and my students got to see how a film crew – including a photograper, lighting, sound specialist and producer do their jobs … they even let the students interview them before they went over to Celest’s house for the afternoon.

So many learning experiences and opportunities for all involved!

Learning is messy!

So I wrote this recently after a strenuous day at school … then coming home to see several posts on blogs and web sites that raised my ire:

” ‘Discussion’ About Ed Reform is Just like a Political Ad… Maybe Worse“

If you haven’t noticed we are at the end of the most recent political cycle. As usual the ads for various candidates and ballot measures have continued their geometric progression into negativity and double-speak hell. However, the current blitz about ed reform just might give political ads some competition when it comes to shallowness.

The most recent example I’ve seen came as I write this – on this very blog:

“There are many experts who would rather make the issue more complicated, tangled and inspire the rest of us to inaction.” Davis Guggenheim Film director and producer

Mr. Guggenheim doesn’t tell us who these “experts” that want to do nothing to improve education are, just makes a blanket unsubstantiated comment and hopes his celebrity will make you a believer. To him and too many others, having a different point of view on the possible causes and answers to our educational woes automatically means we want to do nothing – or he wants to twist it to mean that.

If you don’t fully support Michelle Rhee, Joel Klein, Bill Gates, and other “reformers” then you support the “Status Quo.” This is a sound bite that media has happily and uncritically repeated, uh, repeatedly. It’s used just like, “If you are not for the war, you are against the troops,” was during the Bush administration. If you are for the more than 100 year model of sitting students in rows and having them recite lessons and only teach a narrow readin’, ‘riting, ‘rithmetic curriculum you are for real change and innovation. if you are for real change, trying different models than test, test, test, … like maybe the models being used in places like Finland and elsewhere where they actually test much less than we do … you are for the “status quo.” Note, by the way that none of the people I’ve mentioned so far would send their own kids to the kinds of schools they promote.

Charter/KIPP and KIPP-like schools are the answer, case closed. I hope no one really believes this … but rhetoric being what it will be leads too many to get this message. I think those of us that know that charter schools could be great proving grounds if they were used the way they were originally envisioned, as a way to try many new models and pedagogies, as opposed to how they have been bastardized to instead do too much of the same model – hear this, and perhaps that is unfair. But we don’t hear much or seem to learn much from the other models that are out there … because the “neo-reformers” with money and power don’t like “those” charters? I hope that’s not the reason. But I’m suspicious.

“If we got rid of the bad teachers … problem solved,” – that overcomes all other issues. This is such dishonest and poor logic – you have to believe that just getting rid of the “bad teachers” would fix or very close to fix education … it is only surpassed by those those that claim teachers and unions don’t want teachers to get fired for incompetence or they make it too hard. Mr. Guggenheim even cherry picks a statistic for his movie that seems to show that lawyers and doctors get rid of their incompetent colleagues at a much higher rate than teachers … what he fails to mention is that one fourth of teachers leave the profession after 2 years and half before 5 years … I guess he assumes none of them left because they were “counseled out” by their colleagues and associations … maybe they left because they became rich?

I actually feel like maybe the “neo-reformers” are getting desperate when Joel Klein’s highly paid mouthpiece Natalie Ravitz comes out with another gem like: “Let’s Stop Pretending Poor Kids Can’t Learn” – This is the siren call of the truly desperate. No one says this, but she puts it out their like only a pseudo-ethical PR person can. This might be the most like a dishonest political ad example we have. This is what they put up as an argument to those of us that make the point that, yes, let’s do a better job of ferreting out the poor teachers, but let’s also do something about poverty and health care and parenting skills and other issues that hold students back much more so than only focusing on teacher quality (they also say that means we are for the status quo).

“It isn’t about the money” – And certainly it isn’t all about the money, even though the “neo-reformers” see to it that the kinds of schools they like get extra money – sometimes lots of extra money. Odd?

“We should be getting results like Finland.” This is almost laughable since what Finland does to get those results we don’t seem to want to look into here. We want to do what we (“reformers”) think makes a difference (testing, which Finland does much less of than we do) but we want to get the same results. And if we aren’t getting those results, then it’s the teachers’ fault.

There’s more, but I’ll let others add them in the comments. PLEASE, let’s have a real local and national discussion about education without the rhetoric and quick-fix nonsense. So much about what is wrong with politics has overtaken and polluted a subject that deserves and requires serious and open discussion.

I often feel I post lesson ideas after we’ve just done them – too late for others’ if they are seasonal. So for once I thought I’d try to give you some time. Here is a post from 3 years ago about an incredible project we did about the history behind Thanksgiving (which was really part of a larger unit on explorers and the New World). At the bottom of the page I’ll include some other ideas after the main post that are shorter activities you can even do right before if you want to do something:

5th grade is the “American History” grade in my school district (and probably most US school districts). As part of our study of the colonies we spent time delving into the first Thanksgiving. For the last week we focused on using multiple sources in research, so we used books, documentary video, and the internet to find out what they REALLY ate at the first Thanksgiving. Based on our research we put on as authentic a Thanksgiving/Harvest Festival as we could. I brought in a barbecue and cooked an 18 pound turkey, and the students were tasked with bringing in the rest. My student from Viet Nam brought in duck, others brought cod, corn, green beans, pumpkin (in the form of pie which the Pilgrims didn’t make – no sugar), bread, cranberries, wild berries, ginger ale (a stand-in for beer) our ESL teacher brought salmon and our school secretary donated venison.

The students wrote about their Thanksgiving experiences and then about what they were looking forward to eating today – and then after our feast about what they had eaten. We noted colors, textures and smells. We took photos and watched video reenactments of the 1st Thanksgiving. Tomorrow we will work on blog posts … not sure how many will get posted, but our writing has been improving … so we’ll see.

The experience was incredible. Most had never had REAL turkey before (processed or “rolled” turkey) or most of the other meats – and my students were totally intrigued by the whole thing. Green beans were new to many, and half had never had pumpkin pie before. 6 have never celebrated Thanksgiving (come from counrties that don’t celebrate as a national holiday). Students from other classes and grades saw our 18 pound turkey cooking and thought it was a chicken … when we explained it was a turkey they got perplexed looks on their faces … like why would you be cooking a turkey for Thanksgiving? We have chicken or tamales or…? Had to explain the whole cooking concept and serving concept … solid messy learning.

When lunch was served … buffet style … students were tentative, but took some of everything. After everyone had been through the line I announced that there was plenty … don’t be shy … come back and have what you want without wasting food. Students came back and back and the food was eaten. The talk was all about how great it all was … I’ve never eaten food prepared like this,” was a common comment. We put the pumpkin pie on hold until late in the day. They loved it. Great conversations … and smiles … and good manners … students displayed joy.

It was a lot of work … but when you do this kind of thing with your students … you usually catch yourself saying, “I should do this kind of lesson more often.”

Here are those other ideas:

What the World Eats – Part 1
Is a feature done by Time magazine a few years back. It is a photo slideshow that simply shows what families in different parts of the world eat in a typical week and how much it costs. There are 4 parts to this now, so if part one isn’t enough for you search for the others, they are easy to find.

The Water Buffalo Movie
Is a modern classic and gives students a taste of what poverty really is (have tissue available). The video is about 7 minutes long and delivers a very powerful message about giving and what we have to be thankful for.

Using these resources can be just as stand alone pieces to ponder, or starts to writing pieces, art pieces and more.

Learning is messy!

I’m posting my Huffington Post blog here since they said I could! : )

As a teacher with 30 years experience teaching in both private and public schools I really want to commend NBC News, Brian Williams and all the reporters that worked on their stellar Education Nation broadcast. They billed it as an “…in-depth conversation about improving education in America,” and truly it was just one informative segment after another.

NBC News’s staff obviously spent some time researching the real issues effecting America’s schools and then went about assembling panels of experts on all sides of each issue so that the public could become well informed about the complexities involved. This allowed viewers to benefit from the best minds and thinking about how to deal with these issues to improve education for all children. They made sure to include teachers, some award winning, that actually work with children and have firsthand experience with the subjects being discussed in almost every panel. Administrators, parents and students rounded out most of the panels that also included politicians, billionaires, business leaders, and others that had actual expertise in education.

For example, they astutely identified teacher tenure as an issue that has been bandied around for decades. So NBC brought in experts on the issue to speak about the history of tenure, how and why it was originally included in teacher contracts, is it really the problem it is purported to be, why it still exists, its downsides and upsides. Next the experts debated about ending tenure, or modifying it, or leaving it alone. I thought one of the panelists I usually don’t agree with made a great point about ending tenure I had never considered.

Another well rounded panel of experts explained and then discussed, “in depth,” the subject of charter schools. We again were regaled with a sometimes raucous, spirited dialogue about the benefits, shortcomings and statistics around charters (I forget who the NBC moderator was, but a couple of times I thought they might have to separate two of the panelists when they became rather heated during the “debate”).

If you didn’t catch any or much of Education Nation you should note that you missed similar “in depth” discussions about poverty, healthcare, teacher quality, pedagogy, testing and more.

Um… OK… I stretched the truth some here. What I described above is what America deserved to have NBC News deliver, but is absolutely NOT what actually happened. We did not actually get any depth at all. What we mainly got was apparently what the sponsors paid for. We got the “Teacher Townhall” or “Let’s-throw-teachers-a-bone-so-they-will-think-we-really-included-them-and-honored-their-expertise-and-knowledge-about-education.” As opposed to the “in-depth” treatment we were promised. The Teacher Townhall was just what many feared, a much less than in-depth circus. To be fair, it had some good points too.
Teachers and other actual educators were almost completely absent from nearly every “In-depth” discussion — as were parents and students. And note the townhall was broadcast at noon on a Sunday during football season and the end of the baseball season when teams are vying for playoff spots! I wonder if NBC News really honors teachers like they said, that maybe a primetime slot could have been worked out on NBC… and a different more in-depth format?

Additionally Brian Williams and staff cherry picked comments that supported their narrative for the week from the Townhall and reported them during the network news (I’m not an expert on education — but I tried to serve as questioner and host to the best of my ability,” Brian stated on his blog later.)

Note too that many concerned educators, parents and students contacted NBC for weeks in advance of the summit, after noting the line up of “experts,” and made it clear that no teachers, parents or students were included, and that almost all the “experts” had well established and similar opinions and attitudes about education – not a group that would produce an “In depth” discussion. Most had little to no actual experience teaching or working in schools – but did have money and / or power, or a movie to promote.

Assuming that NBC News was just naïve, many sent suggestions of other guests and topics that might lead to something closer to what I first described above. Those that made suggestions were repeatedly told that they were being listened to, changes were being made, and that teachers, parents and students would truly have an equal or strong voice. That somehow never came to be.

NBC News purported that they were sponsoring a meaningful debate — they did not succeed in any way. I get the sense from Brian Williams’ quote above that NBC bought a, “pig-in-a-poke” from well financed corporations, and politicians and really didn’t realize that the education debate is not as simple as the Billionaire Boys Club would have them believe. Mr. Williams’ ended his blog post saying, “Let’s do it again next year.” Please don’t if you are not going to learn from the narrow, almost insulting approach you took this year. Education is too important an issue to not do right by. Let’s have the quality discussion. Let’s help make a real difference in our children’s lives.

Learning is messy!

The Huffington Post requested that I write a few posts for their new “Education” section and they just posted the first one:

NBC’s Education Nation and the ‘In-Depth Education Discussion’

Go check it out. Maybe leave a comment – agree / disagree – add your opinion – it’s all good.

Learning is messy!