Day Forty Seven. Morning, all. As I wrote yesterday’s post, I started reflecting on “help.” In some respects, “help” is a dirty word in education. Sadly, many kids come to believe early on that if they need help, they are somehow lesser than their peers. Of course, this is not true, but truth it becomes. And, they learn to hide from help. They don’t want the stigma. So, their needs go unmet. And therein lies the tragedy, for that is where we meet and live, in that place where help meets need. I tried to capture and communicate this to my kids yesterday in my daily #MyRoomMessage.
When I am helping is when I most feel like I am teaching. Whether it’s offering assurance, clarifying directions, providing feedback, alternating instruction, modifying assignments, etc., when I am helping, I am teaching. But my helping, my teaching is diminished when my kids can’t, don’t, or won’t indicate or articulate their needs. And by the time they get to me in the tenth grade their habits of hiding are deeply rooted. And despite my offers to help, they hide. I am not alone.
So, what can we do? Well, I think small changes can draw them out of hiding. Here’s a tweet that I shared yesterday, which has gotten the attention of and gained some traction from educators on Twitter.
I have long offered “if.” But I think this only reinforced their hiding, for they would have to call attention to themselves by asking for help. I think if we make the subtle shift to “when,” we can help destigmatize “need” by focusing on the expectation of the task, suggesting that the challenge of the task will create a “helping-need” situation for us, so we can do our job. We have to communicate this openly to kids. Not only is it okay but also necessary for the learning process. Learning should necessitate need for the learner, which in turn, activates the help reflex from teachers. Need is necessary. If we are not helping need, what are we doing? Yes, planning, assigning, grading, managing are all parts of the whole, but if they are not paving the path to the need-help sweet spot, then the whole is not complete.
To be clear, I am not suggesting that we have to raise our expectations to unreasonable levels. We should never expect more than we can support. More, I am not suggesting that we create a classroom of dependent drones who suffer from learned helplessness. Kids have to learn independence, and struggle is as necessary as need–they may actually be the same thing by a different name.
I am suggesting that we need to break down the barriers that have too long separated us from that sweet spot between need and help by establishing through word and deed that it is okay to need. And when they need, we will help.
Day Forty Six. Trying something new this week. I have begun playing around with Screencastify to produce “instructional videos” as a way to add a more personal touch to delivering our work, hoping to offer some assurance and clarity to kids who need more than the printed page. I feel a little clunky with it, but I think it has some promise for future applications as I reflect and get better with the platform, which, by the way, is free and super easy to use.
Here’s an introductory rap for the rhetorical appeals that I wrote and “performed” for my kids.
In addition, here’s the “walkthrough” of the week’s assignment. For me, the five minutes (limit for free version) was a challenge, but maybe it’s good because kids’ attention spans are not much longer. It’s nothing groundbreaking. Really, I’m just talking my kids through the assignment (maybe “talkthrough” is a better name), but I suppose much of our work is talking to and through. I have missed that part. I suspect the kids have, too. So, I decided to give this a shot to see if it helps. I hope, at least, it doesn’t hurt. It’ll be interesting to hear what the kids think.
Won’t be winning any awards, but I do feel like it adds something, like it closes the distance a bit. I hope my kids feel the same.
Day Forty Five. Morning, all. So I just realized my count is wrong. 163 is the number of P-180 posts I have done this year, but because I continued posting through “spring break,” my count is off. Oops. I suppose in the grand scheme it doesn’t matter, not like anything else has followed the expected pattern this year. That said, even though the posts will exceed 180, I will keep at it till done is done. Sorry for the slip.
“Sy, may I turn this in on Saturday again this week? I am swamped with other work.”
My response: “Abosfreakinlutely.”
She didn’t have to ask. She knows my policy. So–really–she didn’t need to ask. But she did. Matter of manners? Concern of conscience? Reach at responsibility? Yes. No. Maybe. All or none of the above, she asked.
Kids know my policies. Kids know I am flexible, and while some of the adults look in and see flexible as easy, I am sorry they misinterpret my practice, for if they were to look in a little more closely, I believe they would see something else at play.
I am not giving them an easy out. I am asking them to make decisions about their own journeys. I am asking them to weigh their own choices and consequences, their own causes and effects. But I don’t see it as my “teaching responsibility.” I don’t think that’s my job. I don’t think that’s our job. I think the only true teacher of responsibility is life. And as our lives come into contact with the kids we serve, we simply give them experiences. And from those experiences may come opportunities for them to regard responsibility from their own choices.
So, then, does that mean that the teacher who presents penalties for late work is providing an important experience in responsibility? Seems many believe this, but I do not believe that this–compliance–creates true responsibility. I think it creates deficit avoidance (often through inauthentic acts like “copying” work), and though we often sell this as “responsibility,” I don’t buy it. I think, commitment, not compliance, a better sell for reaching responsibility. So, maybe that’s it, then. Maybe my responsibility is to encourage kids to reach for responsibility. Either way–and in earnest–I don’t believe I am responsible for responsibility.
Day Forty Three. Morning, all. Not much on my mind this morning, so I’m gonna keep it short. Feel like I have off-loaded too much thinking the last two days. Just going to be a day of getting feedback to kids in an effort to get less-behind. Less-behind: the teacher’s lot. Not sure we ever get caught up. The best I ever do is “less-behind,” and then time runs out.
And while I’m usually torn about time running out this time of year (I want it to end, but I don’t want to let my kids go), I am ready for the clock to expire this year–for all of us. If a reset were ever needed, this seems to be the time we may need it most. But time sets its own petty pace, so I will just wait it out, one little grain of sand at a time.
Day Forty Two. There’s a drawer in my kitchen. It’s likely in yours, too. It’s the catch-all, collect-all. Half the time it won’t easily open because it’s crammed full of things. Of those things, there’s little order: some of this, one of those, six of these, and “why-are-we-keeping that?” We call it our junk. It’s there. It’s messy. But it’s necessary. It must be, for every time we think about emptying it, we find ourselves unable to clear the clutter that we may need tomorrow. And, even if we muster the strength to get rid of it, it slowly makes its way back: an eternal essential it seems to life. So maybe we should just call it “living.”
There’s also a drawer of sorts in my head. It’s likely in yours, too. It’s the catch-all, collect-all. Half the time we can’t easily use it because it’s crammed full of things. Of those things, there’s little order: a snippet of this, a visual of that, six facts about something, a memory of these, and “why-do-I-remember that?” We call it our mind. It’s there. It’s messy. And it’s complicated. It must be, for every time we think about organizing it, we find ourselves unable to prioritize what we may need tomorrow. And, even if we are able to get things in working order, it soon returns to a mess that doesn’t always conform to our expectations–or others’: an eternal enigma it seems to processing the world . So maybe we should just call it “learning.”
Okay, admittedly my attempt to juxtapose these two things falls a little short, but I do think that living like learning is messy. I tried to capture that essence in a tweet earlier this morning, for which I also issued a general admission/apology to any who’ve had to endure their own “mess” not fitting into the boxes of their education.
Our entire lives. Our mess in either of our drawers never goes away; it never fully sorts itself out. And I think we know this, but I think we forget it or ignore it (mostly out of convenience) when it comes to educating our children. We know that kids learn in different ways and at different times, but we continue to issue standard boxes as we cling to the constructs of clocks and calendars. That has to change. We cannot keep the clutter away for the sake of convenience. We have to accept the messes as they are, and then we have to help them manage their messes, which–just as we’ve come to do–they will manage the whole of their lives.
Day Forty One. Though it’s not far removed from my practice in the real classroom, the learning opportunities I seek to give my kids in the distance classroom rely mostly on kids’ self-assessment of their work. And though some may think it’s more a matter of my saving myself time (it does), there’s a larger scheme at play here. I want kids to develop an intimate relationship with their learning.
If we imagine school a wilderness, then the kids are placed in a vast forest from the moment they begin, saplings set to fill their own space in the wood as they seek the sun through the canopy above. But, as they grow, they blend into the blur of a nondescript oil painting, a pretty painting from afar–wall worthy, indeed. But then something happens, later or sooner, they take a closer look to find themselves in the wood, and they struggle to see, to find their tree in the forest. Some are lucky. They find their trunks tall, distinct–a fingerprint in the wilderness. Others are not so lucky. They find their trunks stunted, their leaves withered–the tallness of others their only distinction. But most are fooled to focus from afar. They find their tree the forest, claiming to see what everyone else says they can see. And the scene endures. And the painting hangs in the living room of our nation.
But I want the kids to see their trees. Their trees. I don’t want them to blend and blur from the broad strokes of my brush on their experience. I want them to paint the finer details into their own landscapes that surround and support their trees. They have to develop an intimate relationship with their own growth, their own learning. And I believe that begins and ends with their own reflective/meta-cognitive assessment of their work. Those are the details. That is fingerprint in the wilderness. The original work. I can stamp out pretty prints with my evaluative assessment and call it learning, but if I fail to place the brush in the hand of the learner, she risks losing her tree in the surround. And so, I let her paint her own picture as I guide her through the wood we call school, hoping in earnest she keeps her tree.
Okay, fancy words aside, I believe we have to let kids–through reflection and meta-cognition–develop intimate relationships with their own learning. That said, this week’s assignment relies on kids’ assessing their own work. And though it will save me time, there’s a bigger picture to be found, one with distinct trees–fingerprints in the wilderness.
Here’s a glimpse at the assignment. Nothing fancy as far the product goes, but the process is intentionally designed for kids to take ownership, to take the brush. What will stick? I suppose that will be different for each kid. But I want to believe that whatever sticks is because of their efforts to better know their learning.
Day Forty. Lordy. Can it really be forty? Crazy. Seems like no time at all. Seems like an eternity. Seems like…well, crazy. But today, either way, I am not going to let it get me down. It is what it is, and I am just going to take it one day at a time. And today, Friday, I am just going to accept it. I can’t change it, anyway. So, today, forty days deep, I am just going to go with the flow.
Acceptance. That’s a step towards recovery, right?
Day Thirty Nine. Morning, all. Usually, at this time of year, the battery is running pretty low. The end is in sight. The majority of the race has been run. And, as always, I discover I didn’t pace myself as well as I should have. I become fatigued. I am ready to cross the line. We all are. But something always keeps me going. The kids.
Usually, another thing happens this time of year. Our yearlong journey begins to crystallize our community, and we get to a place many of the students probably imagined not possible when we started out back in September. We are tight. We are close. We are family. A year’s worth of cultivating community begins to pay off, and that keeps us going. For, on some level, we are sustained by our shared desire to make the most of what we don’t want to end: our time together.
That’s most years. But this is not most years. This is a year where the race fizzled out 2/3 of the way through. And though we have tried to limp along and get to the finish line together, it won’t be the same. In part, we never really got to the sweet spot in our relationship building. In a larger part, there are other more-pressing things occupying our time and minds. And the whole is less. A lot less. And that sparse reality has done little to sustain me here near the end of the race. Oh, I will cross the finish line. I have to. But, selfishly–and self-pityingly–the reward will not seem worth the effort. This year, I will have to settle for a participant ribbon. For, ever more, I feel like I am merely participating in a race no one signed up for.
Sorry for the pity party this morning. I’ll bounce back and find my stride again. But I am just limping along right now. And I know I am not alone. Strength to those limping along with me. We’ll find our race and pace again.
