I don’t/won’t fail kids. For any reason. And I have my reasons, not the least of which is my not being so sure it’s not I who failed (the kid). For my longtime readers, this is not a revelation. I have not been quiet about my refusing to fail kids in a system that has long failed, still fails, and will continue to fail kids. No F’s in the Project 180 classroom.

So that leaves the D. D is for diploma. D is for dummy. I’ve heard both (and others). The former is technically true. One can get a diploma with straight D’s. The latter is…well, dumb. Regardless of the fourth letter’s storied past, in the 180 classroom, D has come to mean “didn’t.” Didn’t Do. So, didn’t (couldn’t) Reflect. And didn’t then (have the chance to) Do Better.

Simply, didn’t learn (as much as they might have).

DOing

There is value in doing. Action is an important cause to an important effect: growth. In the classroom, doing is an important part of learning. Seems obvious. Seems simple. Seems. But its value often escapes the obvious and confounds the simple. Because, as we know, kids, for various reasons and in various ways, don’t do. I call it the Do Dilemma. If all kids did, and if all do’s were true, we’d face no dilemmas with grading, with reporting, with learning. But didn’t “dilemmifies” our work. It has. It does. It will. So, then, I am compelled to build a better.

better Builder: How do I get my kids to value doing in my classroom?

I head back to the kitchen.

Here’s my latest batch of better for doing in the 180 Classroom.

First, the frame.

Dear Kiddos,

I don’t want you to do to do in here. I want you to do to grow. I can help you grow. I am trained for it. I am experienced in it. I’m actually kinda good at it. I can. If you do. That’s where I meet you in your learning, which is where my teaching begins. I need that from you. I need that for you. So, I will earnestly encourage you every day to do to learn, to grow. It’s why you’re here. It’s why I am here. Your doing leads to my doing leads to our doing. We do to learn.

It is this or something like this that I will share with my new group of kiddos this coming week for framing our work. I want doing to have value greater than a score in the book. So, to that end, I make minimal the numerical value. I record and report not doing (Learning Checks) as a .6 in Skyward. I do not record or report practice. I only report and record the things in which I engage with kids in the feedback-response process.

Of course, that does not mean that I don’t promote practice. I do. And I am very intentional about making sure there’s a clear connection between practice and performance. I want the kids to discover that there’s value in doing the practice as it prepares them for the performance. And that is why I ask them to do it. And “ask” is a key word here, for that’s really what it is insofar that practice is not something I make them do; it is something that I ask them to do, which is why I call them Learning tASKs. In order for a do to be true, kids must commit, kids must choose. They must choose to take responsibility for their learning. And so, I try to provide a frame for that home in which they must live–for the entirety of their lives.

.6, yes, that’s 60%. Yes, it’s a D. And, yes, that’s as low as I go. That’s the floor of the learning frame I provide in my room. And if it so happens that by the end, a kid didn’t do, then I will record and report that as a D, for that’s what a D means in my room. Of course, kids and parents will know that on day one, not day forty-five, and from day one, they both will come to understand more clearly its meaning as I engage with them, not in the deficit of not doing to fail, but in the concern of not doing to learn.

If they don’t do, then I can’t help them grow. That will be my constant and consistent messaging to parents, which begins with the letter D, which the will see in Skyward along with the key:

.6 = Invitation to do

And with that, I will end Part One, Doing.

Soon, hopefully tomorrow, I will get to Part Two, REFLECTing.

Hope everyone is well. Good to be back in the blogosphere. Happy Saturday, all.

Do. Reflect. Do Better.