This evening, Tomomi was cleaning out the closet while I worked on prep for the coming week. She found the notebook that I brought to Japan back in 2009 (back when I still used a spiral-bound notebook). Leafing through was a trip down memory lane. One thing in particular stood out to me: an introduction to a book that my brother, several friends and I had started writing in Summer of 2008. I think the introduction is pretty good, myself! Here's the introduction to "We Must Be Monsters". I hold out hope that someday when we all retire from our respective careers, we'll sit down and finish this or one of the several other stories we've started writing over the years.
Thinking back to middle school, it's not hard to remember who the popular kids were. They could run faster, jump higher, and sink the game-winning shots. When they spoke, everyone listened. Where they lead, everyone followed. Maybe you were one of them, one of these playground deities. Or, maybe you were like me. If I'd been one of those kids, I probably wouldn't be telling this story today. My name is Curtis Baker, and I'm a follower. Always was. Sure, people liked me well enough. I treated others decently, and they returned the courtesy.
Still, every once in a while, one of us gets the chance to do something great, to be someone important. Under extraordinary circumstances, we humans are capable of surprising things. Popularity and schoolyard cliques are broken down, shuffled and re-dealt. Everyone has a role to play, and it's not always what you might expect. For us, that extraordinary circumstance was the cave.
Much of the brainstorming having slipped my mind over the past six years, I found myself wanting to read the story and find out what was so important about the cave, and what happened to Curtis Baker. I guess that's a good sign we wrote a decent intro! Reading this encouraged me not to give up on my dream of writing a book someday, even if it doesn't happen until many years from now!
Monday, October 13, 2014
Friday, October 3, 2014
#Patrick Henry
Let me begin with a confession: the idea of teaching reading terrifies me.
I LOVE teaching speaking skills.
I remember so vividly how it felt to fear public speaking, and I'll never forget how liberating a feeling it was to become not only comfortable with public speaking, but to actually enjoy it. I have a passion for sharing this with my students.
I love teaching writing a little bit more each year.
I've always loved writing, and in school, I was generally very good at it, though I was incredibly disorganized until my sophomore year of college, when I learned to write a thesis. The older I get, the more comfortable I find myself with teaching writing skills, particularly related to organization of ideas.
Teaching reading, on the other hand...
I'm a slow reader. Literature classes provided no shortage of infuriation and frustration for me when I was younger. I didn't read just for fun for the first time until after high school. Don't misunderstand me: I love reading. I've just always felt ill-equipped to teach reading.
This goes doubly when it comes to writings from the 18th or 19th century; texts that are outdated even to native English speakers' ears, and which can be downright baffling to anyone who has learned English as an additional language. In our current unit, we are studying rhetoric and the topic of the day on Thursday was subtext.
As I wrestled with how on earth I would teach subtext with Revolutionary-Era speeches, I asked myself how I would manage to work through Patrick Henry's "Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death" speech. I realized that the first step would need to be to break the speech down into manageable chunks. The second step would need to be identifying the tone or underlying idea of each chunk. Suddenly, it dawned on me: this is exactly what people do on Twitter! Subtext can be tricky to identify, except on Twitter, where the subtext is brought to the surface through hashtags. With that point of reference in mind, I crafted an activity in which the kids would need to view Patrick Henry's speech as though it were a series of tweets, and their task would be to come up with hashtags.
For this activity, I posted the speech on Moodle and had the kids respond with their hashtags using Moodle's discussion function. To make this more manageable, I limited the online discussion groups to six, so the students would not have to read every classmate's post. As the students posted their hashtags over the course of roughly half an hour, I compiled them, copying and pasting into the text-box on Tagxedo (an online word-cloud generator). The students were completely engaged and trying to think of better and sharper hashtags as they read on. In nearly six years of teaching, I've never heard my students so into a piece of Revolutionary writing! When all was said and done, here were the word-clouds generated in my 1st period English class and my 3rd-4th period Humanities class, respectively:
For the first time, I now recognize the potential for fun in teaching reading skills. It's not quite as intimidating, the idea, not quite so distasteful as it was in the past. I hope I can continue to develop strategies as engaging as this one as the year goes on!
I LOVE teaching speaking skills.
I remember so vividly how it felt to fear public speaking, and I'll never forget how liberating a feeling it was to become not only comfortable with public speaking, but to actually enjoy it. I have a passion for sharing this with my students.
I love teaching writing a little bit more each year.
I've always loved writing, and in school, I was generally very good at it, though I was incredibly disorganized until my sophomore year of college, when I learned to write a thesis. The older I get, the more comfortable I find myself with teaching writing skills, particularly related to organization of ideas.
Teaching reading, on the other hand...
I'm a slow reader. Literature classes provided no shortage of infuriation and frustration for me when I was younger. I didn't read just for fun for the first time until after high school. Don't misunderstand me: I love reading. I've just always felt ill-equipped to teach reading.
This goes doubly when it comes to writings from the 18th or 19th century; texts that are outdated even to native English speakers' ears, and which can be downright baffling to anyone who has learned English as an additional language. In our current unit, we are studying rhetoric and the topic of the day on Thursday was subtext.
As I wrestled with how on earth I would teach subtext with Revolutionary-Era speeches, I asked myself how I would manage to work through Patrick Henry's "Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death" speech. I realized that the first step would need to be to break the speech down into manageable chunks. The second step would need to be identifying the tone or underlying idea of each chunk. Suddenly, it dawned on me: this is exactly what people do on Twitter! Subtext can be tricky to identify, except on Twitter, where the subtext is brought to the surface through hashtags. With that point of reference in mind, I crafted an activity in which the kids would need to view Patrick Henry's speech as though it were a series of tweets, and their task would be to come up with hashtags.
For this activity, I posted the speech on Moodle and had the kids respond with their hashtags using Moodle's discussion function. To make this more manageable, I limited the online discussion groups to six, so the students would not have to read every classmate's post. As the students posted their hashtags over the course of roughly half an hour, I compiled them, copying and pasting into the text-box on Tagxedo (an online word-cloud generator). The students were completely engaged and trying to think of better and sharper hashtags as they read on. In nearly six years of teaching, I've never heard my students so into a piece of Revolutionary writing! When all was said and done, here were the word-clouds generated in my 1st period English class and my 3rd-4th period Humanities class, respectively:
Friday, September 26, 2014
Understanding is Not a Zero-Sum Game
Why can't skill-based grades reveal achievement in an understanding-based subject?
This is the question I wish I'd been asking five years ago as I was making my first grading scale. Over my teaching career, I've graded on such categories as writing, presentations, projects, participation, tests and general homework. These are all important things to assess... the problem is, they are all primarily skill-based. A good writer can occasionally mask a lack of understanding through their organization and eloquence--I speak from experience here--and even if is clear that they do not really understand, their high marks in the technical aspects of writing will offset weak understanding to at least some extent. The same goes for eloquent speakers, artistic project-designers, and savvy test-takers. On the flip side, students who may understand perfectly, but struggle with the skill-set necessary to complete the assessment are unlikely to be accurately represented either. I was confronted with the fact that none of these categories purely get at what a student understands; not really.
This year, I decided to include Understanding as a category in my Humanities grade-book all on its own. Each unit has between three and five enduring understandings: big takeaways based on the departmental objectives.
There will be at least one official assessment for each understanding, often two. For example, in this first unit on "Conquest, Colonists and a City on a Hill", one of the enduring understandings revolved around the reciprocal relationship between trade and demand. Demand leads to the establishment of trading relationships, which in turn lead to new and higher demands. The first assessment on this was a test. Most of the test consisted of different economic scenarios for the students to respond to. When I graded the test, I entered the scores under the "Trade & Demands" heading of the "Understanding" category in my grade-book.
The second assessment required the students to select a contemporary nation and conduct basic research into the top imports, exports, and GDP, as well as the relationship between the nation's economy and culture/lifestyle. I explained to the students that while everybody needed to complete the contemporary economics posting for a completion credit, they could opt to have me evaluate their posting more deeply if they felt it to be a better representation of their understanding of economics than the test revealed. I told them that if they scored higher on the economics posting, I would replace their test score with the posting score. Several students took me up on this offer right away and did a beautiful job of researching and sharing about the economies of such varied nations as India, Qatar, Russia, Hong Kong, Argentina and Japan.
We wrapped up our unit today with a journal reflection, in which I asked the students to respond to the big questions we'd covered over the past month. This was another opportunity for the students to demonstrate their understanding--I told the students that I'd only assign a specific grade to their journal if they felt it was a better representation of their understanding than anything earlier in the unit.
Finally, I informed the students that if they were dissatisfied with any of their "Understanding" scores, they could schedule a time to meet and conference with me: either to discuss a better way to demonstrate their understanding, or to actually demonstrate to me verbally that they understand what I hoped they would.
I want to give as many chances as the students need to reveal their understanding, because I, myself, understand something now that I did not understand five years ago: understanding is not a zero-sum game. If they don't "get" a concept on the test at the start of the year, I shouldn't etch that into the grade-book in stone; rather I should mark it in with pencil, with the hope and expectation that the student will correct their misunderstanding and come back to me later, ready to show that they've studied, thought, and grown in their understanding. My desire is to see the students grow and gain understanding, and I want the grades to reflect this rather than reflect the errors that accompanied the earliest trials. After all, understanding can be won. Sometimes the battle is fierce and exhausting, but even a loss does not mean that the war is over.
I've already seen positive responses to my new system and I am looking forward to watching this play out over the course of the entire year.
This is the question I wish I'd been asking five years ago as I was making my first grading scale. Over my teaching career, I've graded on such categories as writing, presentations, projects, participation, tests and general homework. These are all important things to assess... the problem is, they are all primarily skill-based. A good writer can occasionally mask a lack of understanding through their organization and eloquence--I speak from experience here--and even if is clear that they do not really understand, their high marks in the technical aspects of writing will offset weak understanding to at least some extent. The same goes for eloquent speakers, artistic project-designers, and savvy test-takers. On the flip side, students who may understand perfectly, but struggle with the skill-set necessary to complete the assessment are unlikely to be accurately represented either. I was confronted with the fact that none of these categories purely get at what a student understands; not really.
This year, I decided to include Understanding as a category in my Humanities grade-book all on its own. Each unit has between three and five enduring understandings: big takeaways based on the departmental objectives.
There will be at least one official assessment for each understanding, often two. For example, in this first unit on "Conquest, Colonists and a City on a Hill", one of the enduring understandings revolved around the reciprocal relationship between trade and demand. Demand leads to the establishment of trading relationships, which in turn lead to new and higher demands. The first assessment on this was a test. Most of the test consisted of different economic scenarios for the students to respond to. When I graded the test, I entered the scores under the "Trade & Demands" heading of the "Understanding" category in my grade-book.
The second assessment required the students to select a contemporary nation and conduct basic research into the top imports, exports, and GDP, as well as the relationship between the nation's economy and culture/lifestyle. I explained to the students that while everybody needed to complete the contemporary economics posting for a completion credit, they could opt to have me evaluate their posting more deeply if they felt it to be a better representation of their understanding of economics than the test revealed. I told them that if they scored higher on the economics posting, I would replace their test score with the posting score. Several students took me up on this offer right away and did a beautiful job of researching and sharing about the economies of such varied nations as India, Qatar, Russia, Hong Kong, Argentina and Japan.
We wrapped up our unit today with a journal reflection, in which I asked the students to respond to the big questions we'd covered over the past month. This was another opportunity for the students to demonstrate their understanding--I told the students that I'd only assign a specific grade to their journal if they felt it was a better representation of their understanding than anything earlier in the unit.
Finally, I informed the students that if they were dissatisfied with any of their "Understanding" scores, they could schedule a time to meet and conference with me: either to discuss a better way to demonstrate their understanding, or to actually demonstrate to me verbally that they understand what I hoped they would.
I want to give as many chances as the students need to reveal their understanding, because I, myself, understand something now that I did not understand five years ago: understanding is not a zero-sum game. If they don't "get" a concept on the test at the start of the year, I shouldn't etch that into the grade-book in stone; rather I should mark it in with pencil, with the hope and expectation that the student will correct their misunderstanding and come back to me later, ready to show that they've studied, thought, and grown in their understanding. My desire is to see the students grow and gain understanding, and I want the grades to reflect this rather than reflect the errors that accompanied the earliest trials. After all, understanding can be won. Sometimes the battle is fierce and exhausting, but even a loss does not mean that the war is over.
I've already seen positive responses to my new system and I am looking forward to watching this play out over the course of the entire year.
Friday, September 19, 2014
Breaking Writing Down
It is that time of year again. This week, the thermometer finally settled at a livable temperature, crispy yellow leaves began to fall from the cherry trees in our school plaza, parents gathered for our annual "Back-to-School Day", and the 11th graders set to work on their first major essay of the year.
In the past, I viewed essays as a largely independent endeavor: naturally, the students should be responsible for starting and making progress on their own time! If I were merely teaching content, this might be true. However, as I considered the skills I would be assessing this time (in particular, thesis and direction), I realized that I needed to give the students ample opportunity to practice. After all, most of the students had not written a thesis statement, or an essay, for that matter, since their major 10th Grade "Who Am I" paper in the Spring. What's more, students new to CAJ might never have written a thesis statement before, in which case this opportunity to learn is crucial!
With this in mind, I had my students engage in a thesis writing exercise in the 2nd week of school, following our discussion of labels, and how stories help us move beyond such assumptions. Using an intuitive journalling tool on Moodle (the program we use for online classes), I had the students choose a prompt and write only an introductory paragraph, including a thesis. Making my life easier, this particular Moodle function has a box for feedback under each student's submission. I spent an hour reading through and commenting on each student's introduction.
Fast-forward to this week. The rough draft of the first essay is due next week and remembering the panicked questions and emails that I would typically receive the day before an essay was due in past years, I decided to make use of the Moodle journal tool yet again.
Yesterday, I had my students write the introductory paragraph to their unit essay. I found myself giving higher-level feedback than I had the first time around, and seeing (overall) a trend of improvement. For example, rather than finding myself needing to remind the students what a thesis was countless times (as has happened in previous years), I gave suggestions for how to make the main points develop more logically, or how to rephrase an idea to make it stronger. Today, I asked the students to use their thesis to write up a brief outline of their body paragraphs, and to begin filling in possible support for each point. While each student ended in a slightly different place, I no longer have to deal with the sneaking fear that students are putting off work for a big assignment in my class, as I put off work for so many of my own teachers' classes when I was in school.
For the first time ever, I caught myself thinking, "If only I'd had a teacher like me when I was in school!" I mean this to be neither arrogant on my own part nor unduly disparaging to the English teachers I did have. I just don't have any recollection that any of my English teachers ever walked us through writing as a process. I'd find out only upon receiving a final grade that my thesis was either poor or completely absent, as though I should have been magically able to conjure up something I hadn't received direct, timely feedback on. I cannot judge my teachers too harshly for this; after all, I failed to provide this kind of feedback to several years' worth of my own students. On Tuesday, I will have my students workshop one of their body paragraphs in class, and then the essay itself is due on Wednesday. I am excited--if these rough draft essays are the product of feedback and several days of effort, they will be leagues ahead of the rough draft essays I have received in the past, many of which were the product of a frenzied last-minute rush and quite likely a lot of caffeine. I will have a clearer picture of what my students learned; what they are capable of; and what I can challenge them to work on for the final draft.
For the first time ever, I caught myself thinking, "If only I'd had a teacher like me when I was in school!" I mean this to be neither arrogant on my own part nor unduly disparaging to the English teachers I did have. I just don't have any recollection that any of my English teachers ever walked us through writing as a process. I'd find out only upon receiving a final grade that my thesis was either poor or completely absent, as though I should have been magically able to conjure up something I hadn't received direct, timely feedback on. I cannot judge my teachers too harshly for this; after all, I failed to provide this kind of feedback to several years' worth of my own students. On Tuesday, I will have my students workshop one of their body paragraphs in class, and then the essay itself is due on Wednesday. I am excited--if these rough draft essays are the product of feedback and several days of effort, they will be leagues ahead of the rough draft essays I have received in the past, many of which were the product of a frenzied last-minute rush and quite likely a lot of caffeine. I will have a clearer picture of what my students learned; what they are capable of; and what I can challenge them to work on for the final draft.
Grading is usually one of my least favorite parts of teaching, but this time, I genuinely cannot wait to sit down and read what the students come up with!
Friday, September 12, 2014
Teaching With Integrity... again
On a Tuesday afternoon in mid-June, I slumped in the chair by my desk in my newly-empty classroom, exhausted and a bit discouraged. I sorted through my thoughts in a blog-post in which I concluded that over the course of three years, I'd drifted from my true self in my teaching. This summer, as I studied and applied various other crucial aspects of teaching to my curriculum design, I aslo mulled over what I could do to teach with integrity.
On the first day of class, I delivered an "inaugural address" to my students in which I promised I would give them my very best, if I was going to be asking them to give their very best. I vowed that I would sing, tell stories, give speeches, do voices, play characters, and write, all in the name of teaching. Of course, these things require both risk and effort, so in essence, I was vowing to pour myself into my teaching at every turn. I told the students that they were my witnesses to this vow and issued them an invitation and a challenge to join me on the risky, joyful path of integrity.
Three weeks in, I now look back and reflect on how I am doing thus far:
Singing: I sang "Colors of the Wind" to illustrate the theme of the "Noble Savage"--completely a-capella, the whole darn thing. I got thunderous applause and cheers both times, though I'm not sure if they were clapping for my performance or because the song had finally ended ;) Either way, it was a show-stopper, man.
Story-telling: I tell stories often--probably daily--but likely the highlight was telling the story of one of my own teachers from high school, who responded to a student miss the garbage can by dumping the entire trash can onto the middle of the floor. I used this story to teach how to use movement, gestures and tone to bring a scene to life while telling a story.
Giving speeches: Obviously, I opened the year with the inaugural address I mentioned earlier, but I also delivered a 5-minute speech on becoming people of justice, which is our major course theme.
Doing voices: This happens almost every day, but just yesterday as my students were divided into three groups researching the different regions of the colonies, I tried my best to talk to them in the accents from their respective regions. My Georgia accent was the best.
Playing characters: After the students had finished their research on the colonial region they'd been assigned to, I asked them to represent their colony at a convention during the next class period. I found a cardboard crown and a robe in my classroom closet and put on a pompous, affected accent to play the role of a generic King of England. I then personally interrogated each group in character regarding the society, economy and challenges within their respective colonies. This morning, I wore a long coat and played the role of a Puritan school-teacher as my English 11 students spent a class period in a Puritan school-house, studying the Puritan Primer, Anne Bradstreet and John Winthrop. I did my very best Alan Rickman-as-Severus Snape impersonation to make the dour severity of this role come alive.
Writing: Aside from attempting to blog with greater regularity, I've also written along with the students several times. When I assigned them to write a one-sided dialogue poem addressing stereotypes, I did so, too, with my computer hooked up to the projector so they could see me wrestle with the writing process. This week, as we took a class period to work-shop introductory paragraph/thesis statement-writing, I wrote an introductory paragraph of my own (even walking away from my computer to manually mark up my writing, which was projected onto the white-board).
All in all, it's been a wonderful start to the year. I'm putting a lot more work into my teaching than I can ever remember investing in the past, but the pay-off is incalculable. I have a genuine sense of joy in each class I teach, and the students are responding very well to what I am doing. Though the extra time I spend in preparation has come at the expense of activities that had been important to me in the past, the sacrifice has been completely worthwhile. I recognize that these gifts are not native to me, but have been entrusted to me by God. To not use them would be poor stewardship on my part.
For the first-time, I feel like my teaching matches where I am in life. I am truly happy with the work I am doing, and will continue to strive to teach with integrity to who I am.
On the first day of class, I delivered an "inaugural address" to my students in which I promised I would give them my very best, if I was going to be asking them to give their very best. I vowed that I would sing, tell stories, give speeches, do voices, play characters, and write, all in the name of teaching. Of course, these things require both risk and effort, so in essence, I was vowing to pour myself into my teaching at every turn. I told the students that they were my witnesses to this vow and issued them an invitation and a challenge to join me on the risky, joyful path of integrity.
Three weeks in, I now look back and reflect on how I am doing thus far:
Singing: I sang "Colors of the Wind" to illustrate the theme of the "Noble Savage"--completely a-capella, the whole darn thing. I got thunderous applause and cheers both times, though I'm not sure if they were clapping for my performance or because the song had finally ended ;) Either way, it was a show-stopper, man.
Story-telling: I tell stories often--probably daily--but likely the highlight was telling the story of one of my own teachers from high school, who responded to a student miss the garbage can by dumping the entire trash can onto the middle of the floor. I used this story to teach how to use movement, gestures and tone to bring a scene to life while telling a story.
Giving speeches: Obviously, I opened the year with the inaugural address I mentioned earlier, but I also delivered a 5-minute speech on becoming people of justice, which is our major course theme.
Doing voices: This happens almost every day, but just yesterday as my students were divided into three groups researching the different regions of the colonies, I tried my best to talk to them in the accents from their respective regions. My Georgia accent was the best.
Playing characters: After the students had finished their research on the colonial region they'd been assigned to, I asked them to represent their colony at a convention during the next class period. I found a cardboard crown and a robe in my classroom closet and put on a pompous, affected accent to play the role of a generic King of England. I then personally interrogated each group in character regarding the society, economy and challenges within their respective colonies. This morning, I wore a long coat and played the role of a Puritan school-teacher as my English 11 students spent a class period in a Puritan school-house, studying the Puritan Primer, Anne Bradstreet and John Winthrop. I did my very best Alan Rickman-as-Severus Snape impersonation to make the dour severity of this role come alive.
Writing: Aside from attempting to blog with greater regularity, I've also written along with the students several times. When I assigned them to write a one-sided dialogue poem addressing stereotypes, I did so, too, with my computer hooked up to the projector so they could see me wrestle with the writing process. This week, as we took a class period to work-shop introductory paragraph/thesis statement-writing, I wrote an introductory paragraph of my own (even walking away from my computer to manually mark up my writing, which was projected onto the white-board).
All in all, it's been a wonderful start to the year. I'm putting a lot more work into my teaching than I can ever remember investing in the past, but the pay-off is incalculable. I have a genuine sense of joy in each class I teach, and the students are responding very well to what I am doing. Though the extra time I spend in preparation has come at the expense of activities that had been important to me in the past, the sacrifice has been completely worthwhile. I recognize that these gifts are not native to me, but have been entrusted to me by God. To not use them would be poor stewardship on my part.
For the first-time, I feel like my teaching matches where I am in life. I am truly happy with the work I am doing, and will continue to strive to teach with integrity to who I am.
Friday, September 5, 2014
Community Through Story, Part II
The students closed this school-week by sharing their own stories in class on Thursday and Friday. I'd intentionally made the prompt somewhat vague: the kids simply needed to relate one or several watershed moments in their lives that brought them to where they are today (whether that be an explanation of how they came to CAJ in a geographical sense, or talking about events that shaped them into the people they are).
What an incredible variety of stories we heard! We listened to stories about moving across the country, we listened to stories about moving across the world. We listened to stories about struggles fitting in, we listened to stories about the power of friendship. We listened to stories about speech impediments, learning disabilities, torn ACLs, and the sting of not making Varsity basketball. We heard stories that made us laugh and stories that made us cry. Nobody was tuned out; nobody was sleeping; nobody was furtively working on something else. Everyone was riveted.
We started school only ten days ago, but 1st period English 11 and 3rd-4th period Humanities 11 no longer feel like new and unfamiliar groups chaotically clustered by dint of fate and scheduling. Instead, these groups have become communities. When we hear another person's story, a piece of their experience becomes part of our story. When we laugh with someone, we are invited into the joke. When we cry with someone, their hurts become ours. It can be terrifying to be so vulnerable, but the result is a connection nourished by empathy.
My students' newfound appreciation of their class community will be tested next week as we gain two new students, and another new student returns after nearly two weeks away. Will my students apply what they've learned? Will they seek out and listen to the stories of these new classmates? Will they make the space for these students to tell their stories?
Perhaps not everyone will, but I am confident that many will. I saw inclusion happening around me today after my classes were over: an invitation for a new student to sit with the Junior group in Study Hall; an ever-so-slight shuffling of seats in the cafeteria; conversations between classmates who usually do not talk to each other. I am satisfied with how this year has started, and I firmly believe I've found my stride as a teacher after several years of trial and what sometimes felt like lots of error. As I finish this blog-post at Tully's on Friday evening, I am exhausted on many levels and my eyelids are heavy. I will cherish a weekend of rest at home with my wife. Yet, I'm also excited to dive into the next week of school. It's wonderful to look forward to each day!
What an incredible variety of stories we heard! We listened to stories about moving across the country, we listened to stories about moving across the world. We listened to stories about struggles fitting in, we listened to stories about the power of friendship. We listened to stories about speech impediments, learning disabilities, torn ACLs, and the sting of not making Varsity basketball. We heard stories that made us laugh and stories that made us cry. Nobody was tuned out; nobody was sleeping; nobody was furtively working on something else. Everyone was riveted.
We started school only ten days ago, but 1st period English 11 and 3rd-4th period Humanities 11 no longer feel like new and unfamiliar groups chaotically clustered by dint of fate and scheduling. Instead, these groups have become communities. When we hear another person's story, a piece of their experience becomes part of our story. When we laugh with someone, we are invited into the joke. When we cry with someone, their hurts become ours. It can be terrifying to be so vulnerable, but the result is a connection nourished by empathy.
My students' newfound appreciation of their class community will be tested next week as we gain two new students, and another new student returns after nearly two weeks away. Will my students apply what they've learned? Will they seek out and listen to the stories of these new classmates? Will they make the space for these students to tell their stories?
Perhaps not everyone will, but I am confident that many will. I saw inclusion happening around me today after my classes were over: an invitation for a new student to sit with the Junior group in Study Hall; an ever-so-slight shuffling of seats in the cafeteria; conversations between classmates who usually do not talk to each other. I am satisfied with how this year has started, and I firmly believe I've found my stride as a teacher after several years of trial and what sometimes felt like lots of error. As I finish this blog-post at Tully's on Friday evening, I am exhausted on many levels and my eyelids are heavy. I will cherish a weekend of rest at home with my wife. Yet, I'm also excited to dive into the next week of school. It's wonderful to look forward to each day!
Friday, August 29, 2014
Community Through Story
"I never knew Mrs. A. was a legendary prankster--she always seemed so quiet to me!"
"I'm gonna ask Mr. F for a story, I bet he has some good ones!"
"Did you know that one time Ms. L drove her motorcycle down the elementary hallway of the last school she taught at?"
Did you know Mrs. E. had a summer job where she had to cut up chicken parts?!"
"Oh my goodness... Mrs. F's proposal story..."
These were snippets of conversations that I heard in my classroom over the past few days.
With the overarching theme for 11th grade Humanities and English being "Becoming People of Justice", our first unit focuses in on what it means to live in community (more specifically, what it means to live as a genuine "City on a Hill"). Our first discussions brought us into confrontation with labels and assumptions--not only the labels used by others to define us, or the assumptions which others make about us based on our appearance, culture, family or interests, but also the biases we harbor, often unbeknownst to even ourselves.
We agreed that to push beyond our own biases, our own human tendency to categorize and label even the people around us, we absolutely need to get to know our neighbors and allow them to get to know us.
With this goal in mind, I turned the students loose on a pair of assignments related to story:
The first requires the students to prepare to tell their classmates how they came to be in the class of 2016 at CAJ.
The second requires the students to collect 6 stories from people in their lives--two from CAJ staff, two from classmates, two from family members--and write a brief summary of each.
I gave my students Post-it Notes which would serve as Story Collecting Hall Passes, and sent them out on a different kind of scavenger hunt.
I strolled the halls and was pleased to see groups of students listening raptly to not only their teachers, but also librarians, administration and office staff as these staff members shared significant stories from their own lives.
The excitement in the air was palpable and it was clear that each student emerged with a deeper understanding of the staff member they talked to, confirming that there is, indeed, more to people than meets the eye.
The students agreed during our class discussion that chipping away at bias and rising above labels and assumptions would require making an effort to get to know others. Then they did just that, and found that what had only been an idea from an in-class discussion had become a reality.
My takeaways from the success of this assignment are two-fold:
First, this assignment would not have had the weight that it did without backward design. Without being rooted in our unit goal of building community and our course goal of pursuing justice, this may have come across as a fluff-piece. Because the assignment came after identifying and discussing our bigger goals, and after wrestling with the problems presented by bias and stereotypes, the action had a more profound meaning for the students.
Second, there's so much power in giving students the opportunity to apply what they learn. Even more-so when it happens on a community level. If our learning had ended with the discussion, I might have been satisfied. After all, it was a good discussion. However, as the weeks roll on, I wonder what kind of staying power the ideas from a discussion on the second day of class would have had. I doubt the students will forget the stories they heard any time soon. The stories they collect will be a link to the understanding they uncovered in our discussion; a means to ensure that they remember this small piece of what it means to build community; what it means to be people of justice. Why? Because the assignment called for them to actively build community.
I am excited to apply this realization to upcoming units, to make sure that each learning experience rings with the authenticity needed to cement the understandings arrived at in class.
All in all, it was a good first week!
"I'm gonna ask Mr. F for a story, I bet he has some good ones!"
"Did you know that one time Ms. L drove her motorcycle down the elementary hallway of the last school she taught at?"
Did you know Mrs. E. had a summer job where she had to cut up chicken parts?!"
"Oh my goodness... Mrs. F's proposal story..."
These were snippets of conversations that I heard in my classroom over the past few days.
With the overarching theme for 11th grade Humanities and English being "Becoming People of Justice", our first unit focuses in on what it means to live in community (more specifically, what it means to live as a genuine "City on a Hill"). Our first discussions brought us into confrontation with labels and assumptions--not only the labels used by others to define us, or the assumptions which others make about us based on our appearance, culture, family or interests, but also the biases we harbor, often unbeknownst to even ourselves.
We agreed that to push beyond our own biases, our own human tendency to categorize and label even the people around us, we absolutely need to get to know our neighbors and allow them to get to know us.
With this goal in mind, I turned the students loose on a pair of assignments related to story:
The first requires the students to prepare to tell their classmates how they came to be in the class of 2016 at CAJ.
The second requires the students to collect 6 stories from people in their lives--two from CAJ staff, two from classmates, two from family members--and write a brief summary of each.
I gave my students Post-it Notes which would serve as Story Collecting Hall Passes, and sent them out on a different kind of scavenger hunt.
I strolled the halls and was pleased to see groups of students listening raptly to not only their teachers, but also librarians, administration and office staff as these staff members shared significant stories from their own lives.
The excitement in the air was palpable and it was clear that each student emerged with a deeper understanding of the staff member they talked to, confirming that there is, indeed, more to people than meets the eye.
The students agreed during our class discussion that chipping away at bias and rising above labels and assumptions would require making an effort to get to know others. Then they did just that, and found that what had only been an idea from an in-class discussion had become a reality.
My takeaways from the success of this assignment are two-fold:
First, this assignment would not have had the weight that it did without backward design. Without being rooted in our unit goal of building community and our course goal of pursuing justice, this may have come across as a fluff-piece. Because the assignment came after identifying and discussing our bigger goals, and after wrestling with the problems presented by bias and stereotypes, the action had a more profound meaning for the students.
Second, there's so much power in giving students the opportunity to apply what they learn. Even more-so when it happens on a community level. If our learning had ended with the discussion, I might have been satisfied. After all, it was a good discussion. However, as the weeks roll on, I wonder what kind of staying power the ideas from a discussion on the second day of class would have had. I doubt the students will forget the stories they heard any time soon. The stories they collect will be a link to the understanding they uncovered in our discussion; a means to ensure that they remember this small piece of what it means to build community; what it means to be people of justice. Why? Because the assignment called for them to actively build community.
I am excited to apply this realization to upcoming units, to make sure that each learning experience rings with the authenticity needed to cement the understandings arrived at in class.
All in all, it was a good first week!
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