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Sustainable or Die!

Chris Lehmann posted today about “Sustainability“. I’ve noted for years and done my best to point out to people outside of education that the success stories of teachers and schools portrayed in the movies and books while inspirational, are not generally reproducible. Certainly any teacher might note certain techniques or attitudes they could emulate, but how many teachers can really consistently put in 60 to 80 hours a week and have a family and any kind of life beyond school? How healthy for the teacher is that kind of effort? Do teachers really have to completely give their time and lives to their profession to be successful?

To me though the real point is this. If what it takes to be a successful teacher is anything close to the true stories of the teachers in books and movies like “Stand and Deliver” and “Freedom Writers”, then something is wrong with how we do school. If the system of schools we put teachers in requires that level of work and dedication to do a good job then maybe we better be willing to redesign it, reinvent it.

I note how many teachers involved in these success stories often only last a few years as actual classroom teachers. KIPP schools and schools with similar philosophies that lengthen the day and the week and require the hours noted above turn over teachers like fast food restaurants go through high school students.

It points out yet again that what we really have to overcome is this reluctance for humans to deal with change. If they were at least generally successful in school, they know how to be successful in that system and therefore will say they are willing to have the schools change. But when faced with a report card or assignments or methods that are different from their experience, they tend to want to run home to the familiar. “But is that like getting all A’s?” 

Learning is messy!

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Travel The Oregon Trail

I was in my wife’s classroom on Saturday helping her turn her tables into “Covered Wagons.” She is reading the book- Patty Reed’s Doll: The Story of the Donner Party by Rachel K. Laurgaard in her 4th grade class. In a few weeks they will go on a trip to Donner State Park and visit the actual site where theDonner Party spent that horrible winter in 1846-47. I actually got this idea from an old friend Hal Resnik. We figured out today that we bought the PVC pipes 14 years ago and they still work great. The PVC has to be half inch (three-quarter inch is too thick). We use twin bed sheets we bought at K-Mart for $3 each, and clothespins to hold the sheets on.

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Note clothespin:

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Each class period when you read the book the students attach the cover and read “inside” their wagons. I’ve also used the covered wagons when reading Tree in the Trail by Holling C. Holling.

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WE attach the “hoops” (PVC) with duct tape. Like us, you’ll want to error on the heavy side with the tape to make sure they are very secure.

One fun activity we always include is having the students put up the covers as fast as they can. They get very good at it. I designed an art project as a prep for doing the covered wagons. We research what was brought along in the wagons. Supplies, foods, etc. Then the students make folded paper wagons and “stock” their wagons with all their provisions.

 

It’s a great MESSY project.

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I show scenes of covered wagons traveling the trail from the movie “How The West Was Won” to build the students’ schema.

 

My wife clothespinning the cover with her recovering broken wrist.

Learning is messy!

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Dear Senator McCain and Senator Obama,

I wanted my sixth graders to be involved at even a minimal level in this election for several reasons. Foremost was that their families tend to NOT be involved in decisions that effect them. I even received notes from several parents telling me they don’t know enough about the issues to discuss them with their child, but they didn’t want them to receive a poor grade because of that.

On the first day of the project we spent time talking about why elections are important. Then we talked about what issues presidents might influence or want to influence. “My little brother is a pain, make him go away” OR “Make a law that allows us to chew gum at school,” OR “Pizza for lunch every day!” were discussed as not issues presidents get involved in. Next we brainstormed issues that were important to them and I was really impressed with what they came up with: Immigration, food prices, the war in Iraq, more jobs, gas prices, more parks (closer skateboard park), mortgage problem (which they asked me to explain), homelessness and more.

The next day for homework they were to ask their parents what issues and concerns help them decide who to vote for … I impressed on them this WAS NOT about WHO their parents would vote for, but what issues were important. The list we produced yesterday and the discussions and questions that went along with that was really much better than I expected.

So today we will re-visit the discussion for a few minutes and then students are to pick the issues most important to them and write to the candidates about them.

Below is from our class blog explaining our latest writing project.

What are the issues that are important to YOU that you want the next president to do something about? We brainstormed and discussed what issues concern us and asked our parents about what issues concern them (without asking who they are voting for, just what issues concern them the most). Then we revisited our list, answered questions and clarified what the issues were about. Next we each thought about which issues are most important.

Now your job is to write a post expressing your concerns to the presidential candidates. Explain what each of your important issues are, why they are important to you and why they should be important to the next president.

Be persuasive enough and maybe you’ll have some influence on the decisions the next president makes!

Learning is messy!

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Tea Tasting


One of the highlights of my visit to Shanghai was tea tasting. Jeff Utecht took us to a tea shop and we not only got to taste different teas, we also learned how to prepare it. I bought several varieties and with Jeff’s expert bargaining skills and prodding they also threw-in a foil bag of loose jasmin tea. My students read some books about China while I was gone and it just seemed like a nice follow-up experience for them to do a  “Tea”.

This morning while I was taking attendance and doing lunch counts and the like, they were reading some web pages I found about the history of tea. Then when they walked in the room after lunch I had tea brewing. I didn’t have real tea cups, we just used paper, but I still taught them how to stick out their pinky finger while sipping their tea.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

During the tasting I had them take notes while they breathed in the smells and decided what they smelled like, what it reminded them of, if it made them feel differently and what they liked or didn’t like about it. They did the same for the taste, described the color, and then sipped quietly while adding anything else they could think of to their notes.


Next I passed out tea biscuits which they learned to dip in their tea, but also eat without a dip. During this time I also had relaxing music playing quietly. To top things off we had fortune cookies and then just sat for a few more minutes and drank tea and talked. We all had a good time and they began writing about their experience before we moved on to other things.


A nice messy experience.

Learning is messy!

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Exit Shanghai


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Originally uploaded by BCrosby

Like clockwork the ladies are out dancing in the park across the street like they have been everyday. The streets rumble to life and will soon become clogged because they are never wide enough to control the flood of cars and bikes and every kind of transportation. As fast as this city has sprung up I’m afraid it outstripped any chance to plan it for traffic flow and the like. It is also flooded by contrasts.

David Jakes, Alan Levine and I took the elevator to the top of the tallest building in the world yesterday (well it was the tallest building until a few weeks ago anyhow). It sits in the middle of the financial district along with other really tall buildings. You zoom to the top in state of the art elevators and when you look below you are struck by the sight of looking DOWN on the other tall buildings. As your eyes reach the ground there are rows of apartment-like buildings that stretch to the horizon, and those streets flooded by their inhabitants.

I’ve noted while here that although there is a large park across from our hotel and trees grow throughout the city wherever they can take root, you see no birds, squirrels … no sign of life other than the people. Perhaps in the rush to build the habitats were destroyed so fast, and for such a distance, that life hasn’t caught up yet. So perhaps Shanghai has that to look forward to. Perhaps it will catch up with itself and flourish as was promised and the Chinese people are counting on. We will see.

This has been a rush for me that I never could have attempted without having the students I have right now that can pursue learning on their own. If this had been a new class I don’t think I could have left them with a substitute teacher this early in the school year. I found out I was coming and had only days to prepare everything that was required for the trip … and it showed somewhat. My presentations were at least OK, but not as polished and well thought out as I would have liked. But this has been a trip and an education of a lifetime. The last minute dash was part of that experience and made it even more exciting.

I’m going to miss being with the people I worked with here, although we will stay connected through the network, it is not the same.
Exit

Learning is messy!

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The Adrenaline Rush Letdown


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Originally uploaded by BCrosby

One way this conference has been the same as all conferences is the pace. You get to the host city and maybe get a chance to look around a bit before the conference begins and then it does begin and you have to hit your pace. Where do I go? What sessions? Do I know you? Meeting up with people you only know online through your network, and then when you talk F2F with them you have this eerie realization that you know more about what they have been doing lately than some of your friends that live locally to you.

The pace of this conference was heightened for me just because of the sheer number of presentations and unconference sessions I was responsible for (or felt responsible for). And that is not a complaint, it’s just what happened. As I said yesterday, I loved it. Actually it reminds me of my favorite days as a teacher. Rushed, engaged, problem solving and tired at the end but feeling good about the day. As I write this it is donning on me that that is why I’m looking forward to getting back to my classroom for my next hit. My next adrenaline rush. I guess that’s why I’m still a teacher despite the myriad problems and issues and nonsense we are faced with each day – kind of scary in a way, but I mostly still love it even after 27 years.

And now I’m sitting in this comfortable room in the middle of a city of 24 million literally half way around the world from home, waiting to meet up with others to walk its streets – and I miss the pace a bit. That will change quickly as we hit our pace on the streets taking pictures, buying trinkets – memories.

But if you’ve conferenced before – you know what I mean.

Learning is messy!

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Initial Thoughts About Learning 2.008 Shanghai, China


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Originally uploaded by BCrosby

Just a few thoughts on my conference experience here while the impressions are fresh. But this might ramble around a bit. I’m posting this from Flickr so I can’t easily make links … I’ll try to add them from outside China.

First I was treated the whole time like a valued professional, by Jeff Utecht and all the people associated with the conference whose names are a blur right now. That might sound as an odd comment, but day in and day out that is not always the norm for teachers. I’ve never worked harder at a conference in my life, but thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it. I’d come back in a flash!

I found it interesting that bandwidth is a consistent struggle at edtech conferences, and that unfortunate fact continued here. However, beyond that the way the conference worked was mainly very well. Each morning the 1st 2 sessions were run like conferences you have probably attended. But after those sessions things changed. Based on your experiences and learning in those sessions attendees could Twitter requests for “follow-up” unconference sessions and/or we could just pick a topic that seemed of interest and offer it up as a possibility. Then a room was assigned and that session popped up on the Ning and the session started. I was in 3 Skype sessions Friday because I offered it once and it just kept getting requested. I was worried I’d become the “Skype Guy.” But Friday I did Web 2.0 unconference sessions and one on getting people off the dime and changing what school looks like and another that was just a general question answering, sharing, encouragement seeking kind of mash-up session that I can’t even remember what the original topic was.

The school was a palace compared to most schools I’ve worked in and the facilities were incredible.

Most of the attendees teach at “American Schools” in China, Thailand, Qatar, Singapore, and the rest of Asia. And most of these schools have enough tech to fill your wildest integration dreams. But guess what? They are also struggling to deal with the pedagogy of what that looks like … except they have the tech. What a perfect example of what happens when you don’t change the pedagogy but expect the tech to change it for you. What is worse is you’ve invested all that money in technology that is aging every day. And we have known this for 25 years! The good news is that there is a core group that gets that all too well. What will be worth watching is what transpires over the next few years. Will they get this done and become the model many have sought for years? A group of K-12 schools successfully changing what school looks like? Or another disappointment? I already knew some of the people in that core group, and now I have met more. They just might pull this off. I’ll be Watching.

It sure is tempting to come and be part of it too!

Learning is messy!!