EDUflect

Julian Treasure: 5 ways to listen better | Video on TED.com

2011-08-01T23:18:00.000-07:00

Julian Treasure: 5 ways to listen better | Video on TED.com

Teaching Metaphor

2011-06-13T16:05:00.000-07:00

Although accounting for only about 1% of the total of the world’s total water supplies, fresh water is undoubtedly the single most important resource we have available to us. It is the water we drink, the water we bath in, the water we grow our crops with and it’s natural power, when harnessed properly, provides a large portion of the electricity we use on a daily basis. How we utilize and distribute this severely limited resource has long been a point of contention and will continue to be so (if not in a much more extreme sense) in the future.

Recently, while on a sight seeing tour with an uncle of mine in the Snake River Valley, it struck me in a way that I had never realized previously, how difficult and complex the process is to get water out of my tap, and to the fields that grow the crops that I eat. My uncle works for the Twin Falls Canal Company, and has a crucial voice in deciding how the areas water supplies are used. The needs of the people, the needs of the farmers, the needs of the corporations, the needs of the future are all things to be considered and weighed in turn.

While it may seem at first glance that my uncle holds the power in this situation, one is mistaken to view it in this way: the true power here is held by the water itself, and the natural energy and balance provided by its chemical makeup. With or without my uncle, the water will move forward and forge paths, destroy and create in equal measure. My uncle’s job is simply to understand how the water works and direct it in the path of which it will do the most good, as opposed to doing damage, or by misuse or misguidance, the path which might render it effectively useless.

It stuck me that this could make a rather useful teaching metaphor. If one views students as this valuable and powerful natural resource with a natural propensity to move forward, one can orient themselves and their teaching practices to harness or maintain the power rather than create it from scratch. In this metaphor the student’s natural curiosity and desire to master any number of different crafts and subjects represents the innate momentum of the water. As evidenced by the number of hours a young boy or girl will dedicate to master a videogame, fingerings on a guitar, or putting a ball into a hoop/net, for the sure satisfaction that comes from of doing something well. A teacher that is able to recognize this and focus the energy and curiosity on knowledge or skills of consequence, helps the student reach for their potential and gives them a set of tools that will help them continue forward progress after the teacher is out of the picture.

This metaphor is also useful in that it not only allows for all the good a teacher can do for a student, it shows how one can stilt or misdirect a students natural movement and energy. A teacher can damn up the students progress in any number of ways; he/she can try to do too many things with the stream, go too many directions, thus stretching it too thin rendering it powerless; the teacher can intentionally or unintentionally direct the stream towards those that will misuse or pollute its natural purity and balance.

Ultimately it is a teacher’s duty to help a student realize their natural potential to create or destroy, or in a less abstract sense, to help them see themselves as an integral part of a larger community in which they can choose to better their own lives as well as the lives and those around them. By helping students realize and utilize their own unique talents and directing them in the way consistent with their natural drives, he or she gives the student their greatest opportunity to become a constructive part of the ever-expanding world around them.

A couple random things

2011-02-13T21:33:00.000-08:00

Skyping/video chatting guest speakers.

Guest speakers for a class would be not only much more convenient, but could occur much more frequently if done via some form of video conferencing software. Just think if a public official, or local business person could take 15-20 minutes off 2 or three times in a day rather than take off an entire workday to talk to your class about something. Then the teacher and the individual also need not worry about the awkwardness of having the guest speaker around the rest of the day (having to deal with meals, what to do with them before/after they speak etc.)

I would think in my English class, it would be particularly useful to have a number of different professionals in a variety of different fields talk about how they use language/writing in their workplace. Have them elaborate on the expectations of their employees/clients/co-workers on their communication skills and level of professionalism (as well as visa-versa)

Rather than making these visits big, difficult to arrange events, a teacher and a speaker could much more easily manage to clear out 30 minutes of time to create an authentic, engaging educational experience.

ON A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT NOTE-

I was thinking about the importance of the word convention to an English classroom and decided that this is a term/concept I would like to introduce early on in my classes and come back to again and again to re-enforce it’s significance in language studies. It is applicable in units/lessons on language usage (formal standard English, vs. non-standard varieties), spelling/grammar, writing structures, genre, originality/creativity in writing, avant-garde/experimental writing, culture/community rites and rituals, etc.

I started thinking about this issue because I was reading from one of my grammar books, and a particular passage caught my attention. The passage reads:

“One cannot overestimate the importance of being sensitive to these perceptions (the potential of Standard English to be oppressive/discriminatory) and to the admittedly complex issues surrounding Standard English and its usage conventions. But it also is important to recognize that there always is a cost involved when one fails to follow a convention.”

The idea of “the cost” of not following convention is what is particularly intriguing to me. This is not something that just applies to language usage/variety, but really any paradigm one may choose to apply it to: work, culture, film, writing, education, sports, politics, dating, sexuality...you name it. Deviation from any well developed cultural standards, or acceptable practices can be slightly dangerous (with varying meanings of danger) to the rule breaker in question. The tricky thing here is, that while I think breaking those standards is one of the most important things a person can do, understanding and appreciating them is enriching and ultimately imperative to function within any society.

Short Story

2011-01-26T15:24:00.000-08:00

My cousin and I wrote stories to read at the next 1st Thursday (Cole Marr Coffee house has a great little poetry/short story competition)and I figgured I'd post my entry for anyone to read who is interested as well as to get some feedback...Let me know what you think.

DIG

Brown blood oozed slowly out of the nearly-severed body; the two seemingly identical ends curled in agonizing spirals. Stephen stopped, then set the dull shovel aside, bending down to examine the collateral damage done by his aberrant stroke. He sat puzzled for a moment, deciding how to pick up the small, slimy creature without doing further damage. A thin layer of skin, like the twine his dad used to bind the chickens they sold, was all that connected the two squirming ends of the worm’s body. It was a very small worm Stephen thought as he looked down on it, just a baby really; he had almost not even seen it it was so small. He had been coming down for another strike with the shovel when he had seen the pitiful, injured creature and stopped before he hurt it beyond repair.

He gazed at the shovel: the evidence of his murder was slight--a tiny splat of wetness against the dirt-claude cliff on the shovel face. No one would know it was even there unless they were looking for it. He turned his attention back to the worm. Slowly, carefully, he picked up the wounded digger. His small, soft hands--now covered in earth and stinging slightly from the newly formed blisters—delicately handled the worm’s thin, weak tissue, making sure not to sever the only remaining connection. The faceless body squirmed, and squeezed and oozed in his fingers.

Stephen wondered where the worm had been going before he stuck it: home? His friend’s house? To get food? Or was he going to China too? How long had it taken him to get as far as he did? Minutes? Hours? Days? Stephen had been digging for what seemed like hours now and wasn’t even past his waist, but the worm he figured was much smaller than him and it would take him much longer. He touched his finger to the thin flap of skin. It felt like watery Jello--solid, yet somehow not. He wondered if the worm would still be able to continue his journey now that he was nearly split it two.

“What are you doing?” Kyle asked startling Stephen out of his remorseful reverie. “Why did you stop?” Stephen turned to see the outline of his brother through the semi-wrecked wood wall. The barn was old and had begun to rot and fall apart in certain places, although much of the damage had been done by the boys themselves, who liked the idea of secret passages: places that only they knew about and could pass through. Kyle held a small pile of something in his hands, but the ever-increasing darkness kept Stephen from being able to make out exactly what it was. He clambered through the wall and moved towards the hole Stephen had been digging.

“Why aren’t you further? We should be like… at least half-way there!” Kyle said in exasperation. He set down what now showed to be a small pile of mixed leaves on the ground.

“Leaves?” Stephen asked.

“Money.” Kyle said. “Stuart Smith told me they don’t have trees in China, so I figure if we bring leaves we could tell them it’s American money and they’ll never know the difference. We could live like kings over there if we bring enough of this stuff!”

“Kings?” Stephen asked puzzled.

“Yeah!” Kyle said, projecting all the safety and luxury they were about to enjoy in his one word reply.

“Oh.” Stephen said.

There was a short pause before Kyle remembered that he had pilfered something else in his raids. Out of his pocket he drew a small candle and a book of matches.

“I thought we could use some light once we got deep down in there. It’ll be dark once we get near the center of the earth.” He snapped off a small match and bending the book backwards, struck it effortlessly. They both admired the small fire for a moment. Kyle lit the candle and moved closer to the hole. Looking down he saw that Stephen was carefully cradling a delicate secret in his hands.

“What is that?” He demanded changing tones instantly. “What are you hiding?”
With Kyle’s sudden arrival, Stephen had almost forgotten about the worm and now the feelings of guilt came rushing back. “I think I killed it.” He said and slowly raising the still-twisting worm into the candlelight for Kyle to see.

“What do you mean? It’s not dead. It’s still moving isn’t it?”

“Yeah, but...”

“Well then it’s alive.”

“It is?” Stephen looked closer at the worm. It dawned on him that if it was still alive it was probably in tremendous pain. If he listened hard enough he thought, he would probably hear it screaming. He put his ear as close to the worm as he could feeling a little bit of the worms wetness attach itself to his ear lobe.

“What are you doing?” Kyle asked beginning to get angry.

“If he’s still alive he’s probably in pain. He’s probably calling out for help.”

“You’re stupid.” Kyle said. “Worms can’t scream, or yell, or even talk!”

“How do you know?” Stephen asked.

“Everyone knows that! Why are you so dumb?”

Stephen didn’t answer but looked down at the worm. Was it still alive, or was it like the chickens he had seen his dad kill? They always looked like they were still alive, but dad swore they were dead. Kyle and Dad always laughed, but the way they ran around had always terrified Stephen. He imagined them running right at him even though they didn’t have a head. He imagined them jumping on him, clawing him, hurting him, tearing at his face and eyes... Stephen shuttered at the image.

Kyle was getting impatient. “What are you doing? Why aren’t you digging?” We are almost out of time! We have to get there before... “
Stephen could not stop looking at the worm.

With a sudden viciousness Kyle stormed up to Stephen and snatched the worm out of his hands. Stephen open his mouth to protest, but it was too late, Kyle snapped the small creature the rest of the way in half and threw the carcass against the wall. The worm splattered against the rotting wood, squirmed once more and froze in position. If it was not dead before, it certainly was now.

“Get back to digging!” Kyle yelled.

“Why did you do that?” Stephen begged, his eyes beginning to well up with tears.

“Are you going to cry? Are you going to cry you little baby? You know what we do to cry babies?” Kyle raised his hand to hit Stephen.

“Kyle! Stephen!” A voice echoed out from the distance.

The boys froze. They heard the squeak of the screen door hinges, then silence.
Kyle unclenched his fist, and silently turned, walking wordlessly towards the barn door. Wiping tears from his eyes Stephen reached for the shovel and climbed back into the small hole, crouching as low as he could get.

Kyle peered cautiously through the large crack between the door and the wall. A small blast of cool fall air funneled through the opening hitting his face. He could not make out much at the house as it was cloaked in the darkling night.

He waited. There was no movement. Suddenly, the porch light flipped on and the screen door opened. A dark figure emerged from the house.

Kyle turned back to Stephen. “Blow out the candle.”

Stephen obeyed instantly, blowing out the only light source and leaving them both in almost complete darkness.

Through the crack Kyle saw the dark figure lite a cigarette, and stand smoking for a moment. The porch light illuminated the top of his head but left the rest of his face in dark obscurity. The coal burned a deep red. HE exhaled a large cloud.

“Kyle! Stephen!” the man yelled shattering the silence again.

He received no reply.

The cigarette butt flew from his hands and tumbled to a stop in the dirt yard. Smoke trickled slowly up the side disappearing in the dark night air. The cold, hard dirt crunched under his feet as he began walking towards the barn.

Science and story: some random thoughts.

2011-01-19T15:15:00.001-08:00

What is the difference between the time-bound cause and effect nature of stories and the cause and effect nature of scientific description/explanation? The scientist asks the question: why does this happen? What makes it fizz? What is the smoke? Why does it explode? etc, and attempts to answer it through experimentation. The storyteller asks the question why did he do this? What explains this breakup? How did she achieve that? And then attempts to explain it through a dramatization.

To answer these questions, relationships have to be established and fit into a theoretical paradigm (composed of a series of assumption i.e. gravity, conservation of energy, etc for science, and love, achievement, democracy, etc. for story) that allows for those elements to co-exist and interact in meaningful ways that will lead to the inevitable conclusion/answer (liquification,explosion -- murder, marriage).

Interesting to think about how that natural human inclination to ask the question WHY? in different times/cultures or indeed individuals, leads to both story explanation and scientific explanation (think of the American Indian's earlier explanations for a sunrise versus an astronomer's).

Is that scientific explanation still a KIND of story?

my father moved through dooms of love

2010-12-27T08:17:00.000-08:00

In recent weeks, I have begun to read a lot of poetry, and although I have really found a love for the form and the inventiveness of writers, none I have come across have had the effect on me that ee cummings has had. I think "anyone lived in a pretty how town" is now probably my favorite poem ever, but I just finished reading "my father moved through dooms of love," and it is right there in the runnings for sure.

Kind of interesting that on first reading of most of cummings poems, there does not seeem to be a whole lot of sense to be gleaned from them. They remind me much of some of the writings of Lewis Carol (whimsical, yet nonsensical), but as you begin to dig and get past the unusual grammar and syntax, a meaning which is more profound because of it's break with traditional forms seems to materialize.

There are a number of great passages in this poem, but a couple of my favorites are:

"his flesh was flesh his blood was blood:
no hungry man but wished him food;
no cripple wouldn't creep one mile
uphill to only see him smile."

"if every friend became his foe
he'd laugh and build a world with snow."

And the last 4 quatraines, some of the most powerful and profound poetry out there (I cant just put in a line or two, they all go together)

"then let men kill which cannot share,
let blood and flesh be mud and mire,
scheming imagine,passion willed,
freedom a drug that's bought and sold

giving to steal and cruel kind,
a heart to fear,to doubt a mind,
to differ a disease of same,
conform the pinnacle of am

though dull were all we taste as bright,
bitter all utterly things sweet,
maggoty minus and dumb death
all we inherit,all bequeath

and nothing quite so least as truth
—i say though hate were why man breathe—
because my father lived his soul
love is the whole and more than all"

Some wonderfully scary and powerful ideas/images in there! "To differ a disease of same,""conform the pinnacle of am" "dull all we taste as bright" Fantastic stuff for sure!

Dooms of love made no sense to me on first reading, but after getting to the end, and stuggling for a short while one negins to see how difficult cummings thinks it is to live an original life and a life steered by love. The fatalistic "dooms of love" takes on a meaning all it's own, with none of the usual deadness that comes attached to lifeless cliches most other writers choose to use. Of all the modernists that I have read, I find that cummings came closest to the ideal of creating new, original, exciting forms of expression. The testiment to this is that 71 years after it's original publication date, the poem seems as fresh and as vital as I am sure it did it did on day one.

Grammar Alive! Chapters 1 and 2

2010-07-11T10:27:00.000-07:00

We have traditionally taught grammar without appreciating the fact that they already have a full grammar system--an ability to organize language meaningfully--in their heads. Consequently, the grammar of the classroom has often seemed to students like so much unnecessary jargon they have to learn about a language they already know. (xiv)

It is through instruction like this that I believe that I have such a weak connection to grammar in the classroom. I was lucky in that I was raised in a family that spoke pretty darn close to Standard English, and did not have to struggle to be able to think, or write in that voice. The terminology never seemed that important to me because I never saw a practical use for it (not having then the plan to teach English in school) and it all seemed somewhat abstract, confusing, and used names that neither made sense, or were easily remembered. In addition to all of this, as I recall, instruction on the subject pretty much stopped after about 8th grade. Needless to say, I avoided having to teach grammar lessons like the plague while doing my student teaching.

Like many people, I am not scared to admit my own deficiencies, but that is only the first step, secondly you must face them head on. This is why I have decided to better understand my foe. I don't want to continue to have an Achilles heel or, worse yet, pass my own weakness on to my students. Time to man up and take my place back in Mr. Sawyers 8th grade English class; pick up my notebook with a new-found drive to comprehend.

After joining the NCTE and ordering a professional development packet for grammar, I started reading a book included that is entitled: Grammar Alive! And thus far I have been really impressed. It looks at grammar through a different lens than I haven't ever seen through before. It is not a book set around the rules for each part of language like all the other grammar books I have ever seen/purchased in the past. In fact they recommend doing the furthest thing from that in your classroom:

...it is not language that is the crucial issue here; it is people, and the match between the language they use and the circumstances they find themselves in. Language is "correct" or "incorrect" depending on the circumstances. (11)

Grammar, according to this book, is best taught through using authentic texts (i.e. newspapers, studied texts, student writing etc.), while simultaneously making explicit features of language that the students, and indeed any English speaker already implicitly knows.

The book argues that as English teachers, we should have three primary goals in our classroom:

A.) Every student, from every background, will complete school with the ability to communicate comfortably and effectively in both spoken and written Standard English, with an awareness of when use of Standard English is appropriate.

B.) Every student will complete school with the ability to analyze the grammatical structure of sentences within English texts, using grammatical terminology correctly and demonstrating knowledge of how sentence-level grammatical structure contributes to the coherence of paragraphs and texts.

C.) Every student will complete school with an understanding of, and appreciation for, the natural variation that occurs in language across time, social situation, and social group. While recognizing the need for mastering Standard English, students will also demonstrate an understanding of the equality in the expressive capacity and linguistic structure among a range of language varieties both vernacular and standard, as well as an understanding of language-based prejudice.

Through activities that use contrastive analysis (comparing texts from multiple different genres, defining what features/conventions each asks for specifically) and an familiarity with the process of code-switching (choosing between language varieties, or dialects, depending on the time, place, audience, and communicative purpose). These kinds of activities lead students to an overt awareness of not only themselves and their own identity through language, but of the society in which they live, its values, prejudices, and peculiarities.

More to come...

For all my debt-laden colleagues..

2010-07-09T13:42:00.001-07:00

Ditch Your Debt Gremlin, posted with vodpod

A Poem

2010-07-09T09:34:00.000-07:00

OK, so I know I am supposed to be writing about grammar, but as I was out back reading this morning, I witnessed an event that inspired another poem, and had to get it out before I lost it. I still have every intention of getting another one up here today. Patti, I blame you for getting me started ;-) As of yet, I haven't thought of a title for the poem. I welcome suggestions.... Enjoy!

The cat dashes with

Astute, ancestral strides.

The bird takes flight with

Instant, instinctual wings.

Narrowly escaping, alive,

He takes refuge above.

The miniature, menacing eyes below

Pace for a moment,

Then, spot something.

With a sudden, silver smirk

The little lion's mane disappears

Into the thick, green brush.

In an instant, the hidden home

Becomes a treacherous trap.

An un-hatched egg,

The precious, fragile gem,

Is now under the supervision

Of a cannibalistic caretaker.

Flipping, fretting, flying,

The small bird frantically flits back and forth.

Chirping, chattering, choking,

His piercing call agonizingly insistent.

But it is all to no avail.

His inconsequential clamor

Fails to flush the monster

Hidden within.

Soon, his voice will grow tired,

His wings will forget the fight,

As his image of the

Yellow-eyed devil

Fades to

Naught.

Passively, I sit and wonder if

The full-bellied feline is still there,

Waiting,

For the inevitable return,

Or if he has lost interest,

And moved on

To some other deadly game.

The Theatre

2010-02-05T06:58:00.000-08:00

Good morning!

Well, I'm finishing off my second week here at Centennial, and I have to say, I think I am made to teach theatre. I look back at all that I have been through already in the program and all the strife I went through with my English classes. While it wasn't all bad times (really enjoyed a number of lessons and the challenge of teaching English), I never felt as at home or as excited to be teaching as I do in the theatre classroom.

I have already pretty much taken the lead in all the classes (Acting A, B and Advanced Acting) and am somewhat unofficially directing the play "Rebel Without a Cause," and am loving every second of it! While I still feel that I have a lot to learn about the theatre (particularly pantomime and cross cultural forms of theatre), I feel that I have I have a natural knack for working with actors and just "playing" with the students. I literally get to come into work and play games and create things with my students every day. It's like a dream job! My lead teacher has already commented that she thinks I'm a natural theatre teacher, and while again, I think I have a lot to learn, it was a really great thing to hear.

Of course, I am not just coming in to have fun every day, the fun has to have a purpose, the games need to be tied to specific learning goals, and the kids need to be explicitly told why we are doing these games in order for them to see the games as training and opportunities for growth rather than just a way of wasting time. Admittedly, some of the games and some of the classes are easier to tie these games/lessons together than others, and I have to be sure that the kids keep their focus otherwise I need to change things up or do a different activity.

Having been through a couple theatre classes where I don't think the teacher really had specific intentions with the exercises or the teacher had what I would consider "fluffy"intentions (any time the word spirit or "energy" is thrown around my gag reflex kicks in), I am trying to make sure my theatre class stays in a corporeal realm, that the lessons are practical and comprehensible to any student, not just those of a new age sensibility.

One thing that I don't really like about Centennial however is the space we have to work with. We are in the old choir room and the room doesn't really have much a of a performance space per say. The lighting and the walls combine to create a rather sterile environment that I could tell the kids don't feel comfortable in. I back this statement up with the fact that when we give the students time to practice scenes, almost every single group chooses to go practice in the hall while the room sits all but empty every time. I have started to think of ways to improve this environment a little (Adding a circle of carpet that will be their acting space as well as getting some softer, performance lights in here), but we'll see what is practical considering my limited budget and control I have in the classroom...

The brain and connections...

2010-01-28T20:42:00.000-08:00

So this one is probably going to be a little random...but what the hay, its my blog, and I'll do what I want with it.

So I was driving home from Meridian today (I spend a good portion of my life in my car at this point), and I was listening to an audiobook (Made To Stick at the moment which is FANTASTIC and I highly recommend to all would-be teachers) and had wanted to re-listen to a bit that I had listened to earlier in the day because it was particularly interesting.

Anyhow, as I hit a particular segment of audio, something triggered in my brain and I could recall precisely where I was driving, the last time I had listened to it. I could remember distinctly the odd subdivision entrance I had been passing, the dull gray clouds gridlocking the skies, and the leisurely speed at which I was cruising along at. The memory didnt last long, but for all it lacked in duration, it made up for in vividness.

I got to thinking about this for a little bit, because this is not a new occurrence to me, especially since I had really gotten into audiobooks. The brain seems to have a STRONG connection between auditory memory and spacial orientation.

My mind flashes back to the concept of "songlines" which I came across while doing some research for a lesson on rites of passage at Vallivue. In an Australian aboriginal walkabout, the young man would use a song which included many references to location and direction to guide him down the same paths his ancestors walked.

By singing the songs in the appropriate sequence, Indigenous people could navigate vast distances, often travelling through the deserts of Australia's interior. The continent of Australia contains an extensive system of songlines, some of which are of a few kilometres, whilst others traverse hundreds of kilometres through lands of many different Indigenous peoples — peoples who may speak markedly different languages and champion significantly different cultural traditions.

This idea was very interesting to me for a number of reasons (as I have often thought about the trance like state that is induced during running and the connection music does have/has had in the past to a runner), but it also shows the brains connection between auditory stimulus and spacial orientation.

While I was thinking about this idea in my car I decided to try a little experiment. I wanted to see if my brain could hold on to the second location in the same way as it did the first one (in other words I wanted to see that if I listened to the passage a 3rd time I could see vividly both locations, both contexts in my mind). I noted two things, and although this was in no way a scientific experiment, I feel pretty confident something in them is true.

1. When trying to commit the 2nd location to memory, I felt a lot of resistance. While the first correlation happened naturally and without any additional effort, the second attempt found me having to think hard about the colors, the object, the atmosphere I was observing.

2. When I attempted to stuff in the 2nd memory, I could feel the 1st one diminishing in its original vividness. When I tried to recall the images later, I did not have the same connection to it as I had had before my little experiment.

The second point there is backed up in my own mind by the example of music. I noted long ago that "special" songs always became less special the more times and the more contexts you listened to them in. The song that reminded me of that awkward first kiss seems to pack less of a punch when you hear it for the 300th time two years later. I actually avoid listening to my "favorite" albums and songs (as well as try not to re-watch some of my favorite films) out of fear of losing a valued memory/connection that I have with the work.

Again not very scientific, but very interesting I think...

A looong overdue entry

2010-01-24T13:00:00.000-08:00

Apologies to the legions of die-hard EDUflect fans out there that have been patiently awaiting this entry (Patti I'm looking in your direction). Regrettably, it has been quite a while since my last blog (if brevity is the soul of wit, then by God, I'd say I'm bout the smartest man on the face of the planet...which might not be saying a whole lot) and very much has happened both in my physical realities and my ideological outlooks. In the past 2 months I have moved from Vallivue High School, to North Star Charter School, To Idaho Arts Charter School (long story), back to North Star, and will, tomorrow morning, finally be settling in to my placement at Centennial High School for the remander of the year.

To briefly summarize my rather unfortunate and uncomfortable ending at Vallivue (as I could likely rant on for hours on the subject), my lead teacher and I finally concluded (each individually, and to our own superiors) that our working relationship was not ideal (to say the very least), and that it was probably better for all parties involved to move onward and upward. Admittedly, I was a bit surprised by the abruptness of my parting and even more saddened by the missing opportunity to say goodbye to the students I had come to care for so deeply, but I am convinced that the hand of fate was to be found in the way events unfolded.

Before things went south at Vallivue, I had been looking into North Star Charter School as a potential intermediary home before my second semester theatre placement. This turned out to be one of the best possible decisions I could have ever made. When the ashes settled after the brief and confusing firestorm at VHS, I was placed with Shirley Rau (and I do not use a pseudonym here as I have absolutely nothing but good things to say about the marvelous woman), and could not have felt more at home or happy! Our working relationship had everything that I felt the lack of at my previous placement. We worked collaboratively and creatively together, balancing the workload and pushing each other's ideas to places where neither of us could have gotten alone. It was challenging, it was fun, it was supportive, it ambitious, and I finally felt like the lessons I was teaching had the freedom and the structure that the lessons I want to teach everyday would have (I know that last statement sounds contradictory, but I swear it is the truth)!

We taught Moby Dick to our juniors (more on this later), The Great Gatsby to our Sophomores, and A Midsummer Night's Dream to our freshmen. We did gallery walks (Roaring 20s for the sophs), directors production notebooks (MSND for the freshmen), and had some amazingly insightful and creative interpretations/responses from our Juniors about an incredibly difficult text (one of our students I am convinced is going to make a name for herself by her musical interpretations of the text). I finally got to use some of my video talents in my lessons (cutting up scenes of different adaptations of MSND to emphasize differing interpretations of a text), and pushed the limits of my own reading/interpreting skills with each of these rich, complicated texts. To put it in shorter terms, I grew by catapults and vaults (as leaps and bounds does not do justice to the amount of growth I feel I experienced in this brief month and a half period).

As I am somewhat limited in time today, I will try to reflect more on this change in future blogs, but I do want to say that my experiences have given me first hand proof that learning has A LOT to do with environment. Whether you be a student teacher or just a regular student, if you find yourself in a place where you feel you are being judged at every step and you are not getting the support that you need to find your own voice as well as how to blend your voice without losing its own distinct tone and character, you are never going to allow yourself to be put in a postilion where you open yourself to the questioning of your own most basic assumptions and beliefs, and without this, no real learning is ever actually accomplished. Thanks to Shirley Rau and the extremely friendly, welcoming faculty/staff at North Star I was lucky enough to see what this environment looks and feels like. I will be forever indebted to them for this gift!

2009-10-12T13:07:00.000-07:00

Wednesday October 7, 2009

Stage 1 – Desired Results
Established Goals:
2.1.3 Clarify an understanding of text by creating notes
3.1.1 Generate ideas using a variety of strategies
3.1.2 Generate a main idea or thesis appropriate to a type of writing

Understandings:
Students will understand that…
• Communities use rites of passage to initiate members
• Ceremonies/rituals are very important symbols to communities
• The values and beliefs of a community are passed on from generation to generation through these rites/ceremonies.
• All communities have some rite of passage.

Essential Questions:
What are rites of passage?
Who participates in rites of passage?
What place do rites have in communities?

Students will know…
Vocab: Rite, passage,

Students will be able to…
• Summarize and organize pertinent information from text.
• Identify, discuss and defend different rites of passage in their lives.
• Restate a concept in their own thesis statement

Stage 2 – Assessment Evidence

Performance Tasks:
• Group Dual entry diary
• Group competition

Other Evidence:
• Group participation
• Exit ticket (Thesis sentence)

Stage 3 – Learning Plan

Learning Activities:
1. GW compile Diary for Chapter 5
2. TW introduce background info for “Rites of passage”
3. GW read rites document in pairs then WW read as a class.
4. GW list different rites of passages in the communities they belong to
5. TW give journal prompt

LESSON REFLECTION

1. What worked best in the lesson?
I think the best thing about this lesson was the way that the lesson lead them to a full understanding of rites of passage. It was designed to go from a basic grasp on the idea (the reading), then to have them list some examples from their own experiences, followed by some unique/interesting examples from across the world, ending up with an application of their new understanding to the novel we are reading. I am very proud of the progression of the lesson and feel that it worked rather well in all three of the classes.

2. What would you do differently?
If I were to teaqch this lesson again, I would re-think the setup of the competition. When I wrote the lesson, I had originally assumed that the students would really only be able to come up with about 6 or 7 rites of passage per group and that the actual competition wouldn’t last more than about 10 minutes (groups alternated writing one of their examples at a time on the board until only one group was left with idea to write on board), but if I would not have found a way to end it, it probably could have gone on a good portion of the period. I had to result to a sudden death round to get the competition to end and felt that it was a bit rushed and somewhat unfair of a way to end the activity. I can’t say I really know yet how to end it more effectively/fairly, but I would certainly put a lot of thought into it and figure something out so I didn’t end up with the angry students that I did with this approach.

3. How did you determine what instructional models to use?
Well, the layout of my classroom and the theme (community) of this unit have lead me to look for ways to do cooperative learning in any way I can, so I would say this was the determining factor in my lesson planning.

4. Did you accomplish the objectives of the lesson?
I do believe that I accomplished the goal of the lesson because it was to get them to understand what a rite of passage was and then get them to see its significance in the novel we are reading. In each of thee classes I did a quick survey of the students to see who already knew what a rite of passage was, and only one student out of all three classes went into this lesson with a firm grasp on the concept, at the end, I can safely say that 99% of the students understand and can list a number of examples both experiential and written to show their comprehension. The journal that they wrote at the end of class is a testament to their understanding of the lesson.

5. How were you able to actively engage the students?
I engaged the students by having cooperative activities, competition, and multiple medias throughout the lesson. By making the students read the rites of passage handout to each other, they had to be actively engaged. The competition always excites kids and get them a little more into a lesson. And when expanding their schema near the end of the lesson, I had them watch a very interesting, somewhat graphic example of rites of passage around the world and I felt that this drew the kids in and reinforced some of the concepts that we had been discussing throughout the lesson.

6. How was the lesson pacing?
This is one of the main aspects of the lesson that needs to be reexamined. This is primarily because I had underestimated the amount of time the competition was going to take and this did not leave quite as much time as I would have hoped for at the end of the lesson for the students to do a thorough journal entry. As it turned out, the kids only really had about 10 minutes to do their entry (and factoring in that most students are pretty much useless the last 2 or 3 minutes of class there was even less than 10).

7. How was classroom management?
The fact that I had things for the kids to do from the second they stepped into the classroom till the second they left, there was not really any classroom management issues, also I’d like to think that the material was of interest to them so they were into the lesson and participated fully. There were some slight issues with my bigger/louder class with volume levels during the competition, but this is an issue I struggle with daily in this period, and that I figured would only be exacerbated by the class wide competition. But the noise was (as far as I could tell) on task noise and did not really take away from the learning environment, and I feel that if harnessed this kind of energy can really feed the education/student motivation.

8. How were you able to account for individual differences?
I tried to teach for different learning styles with elements for visual learners and elements for verbal and kinesthetic learners in the lesson. I also tried to account for cultural differences by using multiple different cultural rites in my examples, and encouraging students from other cultures (primarily Hispanic cultures) to think of specific examples that they had to contribute to their groups lists.

9. How where your discussion skills?
I felt a little uncomfortable with the discussion about the reading at the start of class because, I will be the first to admit it, the reading that I gave them was a little dense and had some harder concepts/vocab in it. This was also tricky because one of the best ways to really help the kids understand the idea of rites of passage is to provide examples for them, but I did not want to spoil the competition that we were about to have or give them too many ideas right off the bat, I wanted them to make the connections on their own, so I ended up focusing a lot of vocabulary and the few examples given in the reading itself. I would not say that this was one of the best discussions we’ve ever had in the class, but it wasn’t supposed to be holistic by any means, it was just supposed to provide a a basic schema for the kids to start building on.

10. How well did you monitor group work?
This was one of the things I am starting to do particularly well. As I have been doing quite a bit of cooperative lessons recently, I am starting to get a good grasp on the group dynamics and who is participating/on task and who is not, as well as steps that should be taken to reengage/refocus certain students/groups.

11. Transitions?
This was a very connected lesson, so I don’t think there was any transition that did not make sense and did not go smoothly. While this has been something that I do feel I have struggled with in past lessons, I don’t think it was a problem at all here.

12. Were your materials appropriate for the lesson objectives?
I feel that my materials were extremely appropriate for this lesson. I had them read, I had them watch, I had them write on the board and in their journals. I figure if you have a little bit of everything you are probably on the right track.

13. Were you objectives in the zone of proximal development?
As I was assuming that most of the students did not have any understanding of the topic of this lesson I was starting at the bottom zone of proximal development and step-by-step asking them to identify and apply their understanding as it grew. I feel that learning occurred and that it was scaffolded in appropriate/effective ways.

14. How did you collaborate with others in the planning of/or teaching of this lesson?
I did not participate with any others in the planning of this lesson. I did receive some helpful advice on small things I could do differently in the competition from my lead teacher, but that was really about all.

15. What did you learn about yourself as a teacher from this experience?
I learned that designing and implementing a good lesson is a lot of fun! I wasn’t too sure about how things would go at the start of the lesson and definitely had butterflies in my stomach before the first period (because I’d never done a lesson like this before), but it went really well and I had a major adrenaline high at the end of the day, and that was really nice and encouraging. I also think I learned that I’m pretty good at thinking on my feet. When I realized that time was not on my side during the lesson, I was able to come up with a solution to my dilemma very quickly and had the confidence to go with my gut instincts, which luckily, proved to be good. Hopefully my gut will continue to provide good advice in the future.

Week 2 Lessons + Reflections

2009-09-28T14:43:00.001-07:00

LESSON #1
Stage 1 – Desired Results
Established Goals:
3.2.2 Sequence ideas in a cohesive, meaningful order.
3.3.4 Use a variety of sentence structures to improve sentence fluency and enhance style.
3.3.5 Use literary models to refine writing style.

Understandings:
Students will understand that…
• Sentences can be combined to limit redundant information and strengthen ideas.
• Characterization is revealed through actions, thoughts and words of the character.
• Prepositional phrases help an a writer show a scene rather than just tell it.

Essential Questions:
• What makes a complex sentence?
• Why do we combine simple sentences?
• How/why do authors characterize?
• What effect does a participle phrase have on a sentence?

Students will know…
• Participle phrases (-ing phrases)
• Characterization
• Simple sentences vs. complex sentences

Students will be able to…
• Combine simple sentences for effect.
• Identify and compose a participle phrase.
• Define characterization and identify writing.

Stage 2 – Assessment Evidence

Performance Tasks:
• Journal entry
• Exit ticket (participle phrases)

Other Evidence:
• Group participation

Stage 3 – Learning Plan

Learning Activities:
1. WW do a warm up activity (sentenced combining)
2. TW hand back POWs from last week.
3. TW display a couple good examples and WW discuss what makes them good.
4. WW discuss telling vs. showing and the –ing phrases (participle phrases)
5. TW give new prompt for POW

This was a really hard lesson for me for a number of reasons, the primary one being that teaching lessons on grammar actually terrifies me. I LOVE reading, and I love talking about books and writing, but when it actually comes down to knowing how and why things have a particular effect in writing, I have recently realized I still have much learning to do myself. I have been reading a couple different books on grammar and mechanics on top of my already excessive pile of to do reading, and feel as though I have already learned quite a bit, but each part of grammar depends so much on every other part that I find it hard to really feel comfortable and knowledgeable in a lesson when you you only feel like you have a slight grasp on the material yourself. It's like I'm a tightrope walker treading on this really thin line of wire, but if anyone comes in and tries to take me on a slightly different course I will just end up plummeting into an oblivion (again probably a bit dramatic, but not too far from the truth).

The lesson went surprising well compared to my expectations, but I still felt as though my transitions weren't as fluid and transparent as I would have liked, nor do I feel I was as clear with my expectations of the students as I should have/could have been. For this lesson to really work well, I was banking a lot on the students to provide crucial linking material or comments that showed a purpose and connection to the unit goals, but this was a really risky venture, and I really only feel that one of the three was able to make those connections and see the purpose in it all.

Also, thanks to some crucial feedback from observing teachers, I think I need to really work on getting the kids to be the primary "narrators" of our classroom discussions, as opposed to me being a lecturer. I think that I was just so concerned about getting the lesson right and getting not wandering into a situation that I didn't know the answer to, that I kind of lost touch with them at points and may not have made that important, personal connection to the content that was necessary for them to really comprehend it all.

Lesson #2
Stage 1 – Desired Results
Established Goals:
2.1.2 Apply reading strategies to self monitor for comprehension
2.3.1 Read and respond to literature from a variety of genres.

Understandings:
Students will understand that…
• There are a variety of techniques to help readers self-monitor for comprehension.
• Writers often introduce major themes through smaller details and motifs

Essential Questions:
• Why/how should a reader monitor themselves for comprehension during reading?
• How do we identify themes in a reading?

Students will know…
• Vocab: motif, allusion, theme
• A useful strategy for monitoring reading comprehension and developing ideas about a text.
Students will be able to…
• Identify developing motifs/themes
• Define root words based on context
• Describe the use and function of dual entry diaries.

Stage 2 – Assessment Evidence

Performance Tasks:
• Journal entry
• Group notes
Other Evidence:
• Group participation

Stage 3 – Learning Plan

Learning Activities:
1. SW do journal entry
2. TW model note taking/note making with Chapter 3
3. GW divide in two and write their own Notes on Chapter 4

This was another tough one, but for an entirely different reason than the last. On this day I was introducing a during reading exercise that I wanted to have the students using throughout the rest of the novel we are reading (The Giver), the dual-entry diary. The way that I wanted to go about this was that I was going to model it for them with chapter 4, then have them do it in groups with chapter 5, then, finally turning them loose to do it on their own the next day. But, I had to ensure that they were all engaged and paying attention to what I was doing while I was modeling it, which is kind of difficult because reading out loud, writing on the SMARTboard, and ensuring the class is paying attention at all times is a rather difficult task.

Luckily the book is somewhat interesting, and most of the kids seemed to pay attention and even add to my dual entry diary, but I do know that there was probably a lot I missed due to lack of processing space in my brain. Of course, with the addition of the journal entry, I was not able to give them the time to do Chapter 5 as a group, so this had to be extended into two different lessons. Should have stuck with my rule of 2 (only really capable of doing two things per period).

Another concern of mine from the lesson was whether or not I really made clear all the different kinds of entries they could make in their diaries. I had made a dual-entry book mark to hold their place in the book that had a list of different ways they could respond to the writing, but I'm not sure I really took them through item-by-item and had them explain what each meant and how they might utilize it in their own diaries. I do plan on expanding on this idea in the near future and helping them see how useful this technique really help them remember and analyze writing as well giving them things to talk about in their groups or in the class discussions.

Ahead of the Curve Reflection #2

2009-09-28T13:41:00.000-07:00

Reflection – Ahead of the Curve

Chapter #2

Author of Chapter: Anne Davies

Main Point of the Chapter –

In this chapter, author Anne Davies argues for the inclusion of students in the assessment process, which, she posits, helps them grasp material better, and motivates them (through increased ownership and more thorough conceptual grasp on tasks), to consistently do more competent, thoughtful work. In addition to this, she attempts to discredit the historical practice of evaluative assessment in favor of the triangulation of assessment through formative assessment, various forms of feedback, and summative assessment (work selected by students to show their progression), instead of final the final, all encompassing, anxiety ridden tests typical in American classrooms.

Reflection on the message of the chapter:

There are a number of very useful lessons in this chapter. A couple of my favorites would be when she states things like," When teachers emphasize learning and performance, rather than competition and grades, students are more likely to be intrinsically motivated and encouraged to take risks that challenge and expand their learning" (Reeves, 2007), or the idea that"..students do not understand what they are expected to learn and how they can best show they have learned it" (Reeves, 2007). When I reflect back on my own time in school, I realized how frustrating it was when a teacher was not clear enough with their own expectations, and how much I depended on seeing solid examples of work in which I am supposed to be producing. I worry that I may have lost touch with this idea as I sift through all the minute-by-minutes emergencies that compose teaching.

Application in your settings:

I really enjoyed this chapter and plan on reading it a couple more times as I could not go very far at any one time due to the fact that I had to stop and reflect on things every couple sentences or so. I really like the idea of involving the students in the critera building for their assignments and the inclusion of multiple forms of feedback that is only made possible by this previously mention inclusion. In past peer edited assignments, I haven't really felt as though the kids really knew how to help each other correctly, but if they are all a part of the discussion process that defines what a good paper is, and help to build a rubric (or whatever form of assessment guide you choose to construct), they will eel more thoroughly versed in the language and the subject material to provide pertinent, useful feedback to their peers (which is a very empowering feeling indeed!)

I also like the idea of the summative evaluation and really would like to look more into the writing portfolio idea. I was thinking that for each unit, a student would select a couple articles of their writing which show what they are capable of producing (as well as where they have come from), whether it be journals, Paragraphs of the week (a common assignment at Vallivue), or other extraneous writing assignments. After doing this and receiving a grade on each separate unit, they will also look back through their work and submit a portfolio that encompasses their entire year perhaps this one could focus more on where they have come from during the year).

2009-09-20T13:29:00.000-07:00

Here is a link to my RTI article entitled: Response to Intervention: Guidelines for Parents and Practitioners by James B. Hale

Response to Intervention or RTI is a a set of practical guidelines used in the US designed to help educators identify children with academic troubles and guide them through an intervention process that provides the students with the additional supports necessary for academic success. The philosophical foundation of this new model is the belief that if a child receives high quality instruction and educators regularly assess their improvement, all children can succeed in school. RTI includes 3, or sometimes 4 tiers of instruction each of which progressively provides more intensive and more individualistic instruction to the student if they do not respond to the previous tier. The first tier doesn't seem to be too different from regular good teaching. The teacher must provide solid, scientifically based instruction to the entire class while monitoring the possibly troubled student(s) for the progress along typical curricular benchmarks.

If they do not seem to be responding or progressing normally, they will then be moved on to tier 2 which uses the Problem Solving Model (problem identification, problem analysis, intervention development/implementation, intervention evaluation/modification) to identify the particular learning or behavior problem the student is having and then Tailor an intervention program (as well as measurement to judge the success of the program) to the individual. If the child still does not show progress, they will then likely be moved to tier 3.

In tier 3, the child will have been identified with a specific learning disability, given an IEP (individualized education plan) and will likely be moved into a special education classroom to receive specialized services. The intensity of the instruction and the classroom, or one-on-one nature of it depends upon the individual's educational needs.

My initial reaction to the idea of RTI is pretty good. I think that it really does focus a teachers attention on troubled students early on and ensures that no student will ever be totally lost or left out in a higher level class because the limited skills and comprehension that they have in the subject area were never confronted. The bad side of it all is that it just seems like it is another responsibility that falls on the teachers shoulders along with a thousand other things a teacher has to think/worry about daily. To ask teachers to provide individualized education for growing number of students during a time of financial cut backs and growing class sizes is not only a bit ironic, it could seem a bit daunting. I want every child to succeed in my classroom, but the amount of time and energy I will have to put into my lessons and my individualized instruction are not being fairly compensated for the additional responsibilities put on me...

My first explosion

2009-09-16T18:35:00.000-07:00

Ok, explosion may be a bit of an overstatement, but I certainly did have a very strong reaction to a student today that is both very out of character for me, and in retrospect that I regret very much.

To put a little context to the story, this is a student that I knew I would have troubles with from day one, I just hoped that it wouldn't ever lead to an event like today and certainly not this soon. He was that student that walks into a classroom and before doing anything else, makes sure to stop, made eye contact with the teacher, and roll his eyes in contempt before moving on to his seat. Alright, well this may not literally happen, but it might as well. There is a little passage I came across in the book Discipline Survival Kit for the Secondary Teacher that talks about "students that do not hesitate to let us know through a variety of disruptive behaviors that they are not at all interested in either an education, or becoming productive citizens," well, this is that kid.

Anyway, I have for the most part chosen to give him "the eye," use proximity, or verbally prod him into doing his work up to this point, but it has been a struggle every day. Then, today, after catching him completely away from his group earlier on (for which he was supposed to be working on an assignment with), talking to another boy about the best way to kill someone (no joke), I later caught him with his head down on his desk while I was modeling close reading skills for the class and I dont know exactly why, but I just kinda flipped out. I stopped everything and in front of everyone, told him (quite loudly) that he had not participated at all in any of the previous activities, that he had turned in almost no writing assignments and he was now disrespecting me and my classroom by sleeping while I lead a lesson. I told him that either we were going to step out in the hall to talk it out or he would be making a trip to the principles office if he did not sit up and pay attention...

Well, there was a somewhat shocked silence in the room for a moment, (I think that I was almost as shocked as the students were to be honest), and I then asked the boy in question to answer the question that I had asked just asked prior to blowing my top. Of course he answered that he didn't know, or at least made no effort to answer it, and not thinking it best to push it any furtherm, I moved awkwardly on wit the lesson for the last 3 or 4 minutes of class.

Well, after the bell rang and the students had all left, it hit me like a rock, and I just felt like a total ass. I felt like I did something I thought I would never do, which was belittle a student in the front of his/her peers. I immediately realized that I should have taken him out into the hall to talk about my frustration rather than pull the dirty laundry out in public, but of course it was too late to fix this. I had just been so angry at the moment I hadn't really stopped to think about the best way to deal with the situation and ended up doing just about the worst thing I could have.

I have since resolved to apologize for confronting him like that before class tomorrow, but to also communicate to him my feelings of frustration about his lack of respect towards me and my class. I think it will be crucial that I ask him what we can do to fix this situation and also make some sort of attempt to have him tell me a little bit about who he is and where he is coming from. I feel that if he sees that I want to make a connection with him and that I have a legitimate interest in who he is and why he acts the way he does, he may improve his attitude, if only even to the smallest degree, because I think this would be a victory of sorts...

Kelli also suggested that I also make a public apology to the student in the class, but Patti had suggested that this may be a bad idea. I could really see it going either way, I mean I don't want to make it an even bigger deal, but I feel that if I use it as a learning opportunity and to show them that I am human and make errors in judgment as well, but that we need to all work to respect one-another, it could bond us as a class, as a community a little tighter...

If anyone has any thoughts/suggestions, they would be greatly appreciated.

OUTRAGE!!!!!

2009-09-03T18:06:00.000-07:00

No, that title was not a joke! I am sitting here almost foaming at the mouth after finding out that our FEARLESS leader, the principle of Vallivue High school, sent out an email this afternoon banning all teachers from showing Obama's controversial address to students this coming Tuesday!

I thought censorship was done with in America! I thought that the erroneous, ignorant, fear mongering slander that has preceded this speech (as Obama is now being compared to Mao Tse Tung) died off with the whole Bill Ayers fiasco!! Well apparently I was wrong!

Every student should have the RIGHT to hear what THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES has to say to them! I don't care what their parents political beliefs are, if they don't want them to hear it, keep them at home, or have them step out into the hall for a few minutes, but they should not have the right to stop all the other children from hearing what the president has to say. It should be THE CHILD'S choice whether or not they want to listen to the speech or not, and teachers can not force them to if they choose not to hear it. But to tell ALL TEACHERS that they absolutely CAN NOT show the speech at ALL is closer to being related to Chairman Mao than anything that Obama could do over the television! As if Obama is going to somehow brainwash everyone who listens to his words and make us all turn into mindless socialist drones. The idea is not only preposterous, anyone who believes that should be laughed out of any sort of real political discussion!

BUT THIS IS REALLY HAPPENING!!!!! Even though I am just a student teacher I will not stand for this! Something needs to be done! I will not teach in a school that openly bans ideas of any kind, especially when they are the words or ideas of OUR PRESIDENT! RIDICULOUS!!!!!!!!

Observations: day 1

2009-08-31T17:46:00.000-07:00

Alright, so I have to apologize that I never did a second installment of my first week of school blog (kinda turned out like Mel Brooks' History of the World Part I fiasco). I had a lot of things rolling around in my head the first couple days, but I didn't want to say anything I'd regret later (being as this is a some-what public venue) and then I just simply forgot a number of the things that were occupying my mind those first couple days because I hadn't written them all down. So I think you may be waiting a while for the conclusion to that one...

This week is a whole new story however. I am doing something I am really excited about, namely, watching all the teachers in the entire English department in action. Kelli gave me a SIOP observation sheet at the end of last week and told me she wanted me to go take some notes on how all the teachers approached their classes differently. This was both of a benefit to her and to myself as she would be keeping tabs on what the people in her department were up to, and I just got to see what other teacher classroom management and teaching styles were like.

Mrs. Lumis (pseudonym) was the first teacher I sat in on. With nearly 30 years in teaching Mrs. L has probably the most diverse mixture of classes of any of the teachers. Her schedule is split up between Senior English, Junior Speech class and Freshman honors English. My first impression of Mrs. L's classroom? Well, lets just say the images of tigers scattered about her room pretty much sum up her classroom management style. She is loud, direct and very aggressive with the students who step out of line in her class, but there is something very odd in that, even though she can be very harsh, her classroom does not feel oppressive and the students seem to be very happy and productive (for the most part). I was quite amazed at the fact that only a week and a half into school, the policies and procedures of her class are already so well ingrained that she doesn't even tell the students what they have to do when they come in. Every class that I observed came in, retrieved their "of the day" folder (an idea which I 100% plan on stealing), wrote down the quote, responded to it, put their paper back in the folder and waited until they were informed of the next thing to do.

I think I really see how a teacher that uses the inquiry method properly can turn just about any lesson into something that all students can feel a part of. Mrs. L circled around the room and involved each and every kid at some point in the lesson, asking question after question after question, never answering her own questions and always re-asking a question if she felt some students didn't appear to be getting it or if they just weren't paying attention. The way she used her space and instinctually rephrased her question for clarity or to re-direct thinking was something that one could only hope to be able to re-create after years and years of experience! I recall watching the class and seeing a group of students that were getting sidetracked (either because they were talking/joking or they hadn't gotten past the last question) and worrying that she had lost a number of them (which in this kind of context, if you lose them even for a couple minutes, they will miss something major and probably never get caught back up), but she always seemed to realize and focus her attention on the group before they got too lost/sidetracked.

Going back to her "of the days" for a moment, one thing that I really like about Mrs. L's class that I do not like about Kelli's class, is that she has given them a special folder which they put that in every day, and she collects them all at the end of the week for grading, while Kelli just checks them every once and a while from their notebooks. For one, this seems to simplify the grading process much more (in addition to having a very logical/systematic way of assigning points to each entry), but it also gives the kids a sense that they are doing these entries for a reason. In Kelli's class I don't know, and have no way of really checking if the students are really doing anything in their journals, and if we wait too long to check them, there will be entirely too much material to go back and read them all for content, only completion. If you keep them a manageable size (such as five per student. per week), you make it easier on you and more justified in the students mind to do a good job on them.

My second class today was Mr. Stern's Senior Shakespeare class and his Freshmen Englsih class. Talk about a COMPLETE 180! MR. Stern's classroom (and please forgive the irony of this psudonym) is one of the most lax, easy-going classrooms I could possibly imagine. While I would think I would normally have reacted very positivly to this kind of environment, I think I was actually quite put off by it, becasue I think the students walked all over Mr Stern, and took full advantage of his laxity on behavioral issues. On a number of occasions, I saw students swearing, making inappropriate drawings, sleeping, and doing anything except what they were supposed to be doing (this was the Freshmen primarily, athough the seniors were not angels by any means). Mr. S didn't take it all without saying anything, he did get proactive about situations eventually, but it seems like it too longer than it should have, and a lot of class time was missed because it was not nipped in the bud quick enough.

Outside of his classroom management techniques however, I was very enthused by my talk after class with Mr. S! We both have very similar tastes in film, books, and theater. If I can do so without stepping on any toes, I dare say that he is the one teacher that I really see eye-to-eye with in term of the content and the ideas that I want to teach in my classroom.

Well, this blog already ended up a lot longer than I had thought it was going to, and I have way to much left to say to do all the others things I must do tonight, so that will have to do...

Lesson plans, seating charts, copy machines....and a whole lot of zits: My first week in school PART I

2009-08-25T15:29:00.000-07:00

Well, I guess I couldn't think of a better way to start my days back in high school than with a sack lunch, a backpack over-stuffed with books, and a face full of zits. I could only laugh when I woke up that first morning and discovered that my pores had mounted a mutiny while I slept, leaving me looking like a cherry tree mid-harvest. It's times like these that I am thankful for the big furry beard that lays claim to most of the territory on my face. I figured at least this would distinguish me as a teacher and not another pizza-faced student.

I was not able to dwell too long on my mangled mug however, as the anticipation of things to come in the day quickly overcame all other thoughts present in my mind. I recall wondering what the students would be like; if they would be energetic, funny, troublesome, mean, or smart and engaging (similar to how I used to think of teachers prior to attending their first classes).

Our first hour is our prep period (both a blessing and I curse I think as we have extra time to plan but not real down time afterwords) so the agony of not-knowing lasted longer than I would have liked. Kelli (pseudonym) and I talked about the order of events, as soon as the students arrived, and talking through things helped me envision exactly what I needed to do. This eased some of the anxieties I felt (which admittedly weren't too bad). We would both stand at the door and greet the students, and let them pick at random an index card which had their numbered seat on one side, thus giving us a random seating assignment and giving them the paper that they would be using to answer the questions I had written for them to answer.

As I should have probably guessed, our first class was NOTHING like I expected it to be. While I thought we would have a bunch or rowdy, loud, unfocused kids, the students all came into the room, took their seats and proceeded to sit in a dead silence. When Kelli took the front of the room I swear she could have been talking to a class full if mannequins and gotten more lively responses.

Having recently watched a lecture by Harry Wong (about the first day of school) for the new teachers seminar, I had to bite my tongue as nearly everything Kelli did contradicted the advice all the new Vallivue teachers had been encouraged to follow. Now while I do understand and appreciate the fact that there are as many effective ways to conduct the first day of school as there are teachers to conduct them, I do not think that our first day fit into that category. The students came in, found their seats and then just waited...Waited for us to take role out loud, waited for us to go through the rules and regulation...and waited for us to give them something they could actually do. I think that Wong was right that as soon as the students know they are in the right class and find their right chair, they should be given something to do, something to write, or some activity to begin while everyone else files in and any pressing issues are delt with by the teacher. Not having anything for them to do I think may have been a major contributor to the cemetary-like silence the students adopted upon entering our room. In the future I think I would have had them start working on the questions ASAP, while music plays or something. I want the students to know right off the bat that my classroom will be an exciting, comfortable place that they come to do/create/listen/watch/question etc. not sit around waiting for orders.

I found myself getting a little worried when Kelli spent a good amount of time discussing the importance of making sure to cut off all fringe on paper torn from notebooks (becasue no assignment would be accepted if it had any visible fringe left on it), and how all students must be in their seats at the beginning/end of class otherwise they would be marked tardy. In my mind these kinds of details are not only trivial, but they set up the expectation that the class is a rule-filled, authority-driven environment. Rather, I feel a first class should be spent giving them the most basic information about procedures in the class, and then filling the students with the potential of the class, of stating the larger purposes of the discipline that merit it's place as a cornerstone of all education! The kids need to see a teachers passion for the subject from day one (in fact this is probably the most crutial day for it to be present), not their passion for rules and regulation, because when they tell their friends about their class at lunchtime or after school, if they say something like "Mr/Mrs. So-n-So is like, totally crazy about books and stuff, which is wierd, but I'm actually kinda excited." Then you're in, you've hooked them! I feel if you even wait untill the second day to do this, you are already too late, the student has already made up their feelings about your class...

....More to come on my first few days. Have too many other things to do right now to write in as much detail as I would like on everything that has happened.

First days at Vallivue

2009-08-18T19:08:00.000-07:00

So, I have no idea how this has happened already, but school starts tomorrow morning! It feels like summer session just got out a couple days ago, but here I am making all my last second preparations and praying to whatever Deity will have me, that everything goes well tomorrow... Depending on when you talk to me during the day I am scared, excited, overwhelmed, happy, and dumbstruck (or a mixture of all of them at the exact same time).

The first couple days of teacher meetings flew by like all those F16's that were playing "catch me if you can" above my house all summer long (just without as much noise and annoyance). We listened to a lot of speeches (some successful and inspiring, some not), had a lot of department meetings, and sat through a half a dozen software meetings (most of which were so confusing it felt like I was back in Don's Tech class ;-). I guess I knew school would come somewhat quickly, but I feel like I am just starting to get an idea of all the things I am going to have to be prepared for, and then, BAM, it's already on top of me!

It has been decided that Kelli (a pseudonym for my lead teacher) will be running things primarily for the first couple weeks (while we set up policies/procedures/class flow etc.) and then I will take over the Sophomore classes for the first real unit. I will be teaching the book "The Giver," which is good, because I find the book interesting and think it has some important themes and leaves the reader with a number of challenging questions that demand further exploration. I almost have too many videos and books and songs to tie into the unit, I have been needing to reel myself in a little bit in my lesson designs.

I have to admit I did have some very real concerns during the first couple days of meetings, but they are starting to subside as Kelli and I get to know each other a little more and we are learning how to communicate with each other. Kelli had had a pretty bad experience with an intern in the last year (I guess he didn't really want to teach and almost refused to write any lesson plans), and had been acting a little closed off with me the first couple days, using me as a glorified student assistant than a student teacher. I found myself doing a lot of manual labor and other menial tasks while she sat in the classroom and got all the lesson plans together without me. Now I understand that there is a lot of menial work to be done in a very little amount of time at the start of each year, but this internship is really my only opportunity to really see how others prepare for the year, and organize everything, and what their primary concerns are going into classes. I feel like even though I was there, I wasn't really a part of the important stuff (and this will leave me back at ground zero next year when I have my own classroom...hopefully that is). The other big problem was that Kelli did not seem to have any interest in what I was bringing to the table. She never asked about any of my ideas, and whenever I decided to just throw it out there, all I ever seemed to get was a "Oooh, I like that," but nothing more.

As I have learned through past failed relationships, the most important thing in any kind of partnership is an honest, open path of communication, but the communication must be non-accusatory and non-confrontational. My knee-jerk reaction to being treated like a student assistant was to go silent and quietly resent the person mistreating me (an old, bad habit of mine), but I soon realized that this would do neither of us any good and that I needed to be honest with her and tell her that I wanted to be a part of this class in a big way; that I had a lot of ideas that I would like to try and integrate into the class, and that I was not afraid to get my hands dirty, or get put in an awkward,uncomfortable place (in other words, put in front of the class before I felt I was ready). That is what this internship should be all about in my opinion. When I told her this, things seemed to easy up a bit, and Kelli ever so slightly seemed to look at me and talk about the year in a different, more encouraging way.

Still a bit apprehensive about how the whole thing is going to work out, but it seems like at the beginning of the year, all teachers are kinda running around in a room that's too dark to see anything. But they all seem to know that they will eventually adjust to the darkness or that at some point, light will creep in from a near-by window, revealing the right path.... I believe that I will see the light here soon, but it sure does suck pretty bad while you are stumbling around, stubbing your toe on everything!

Image and Meaning

2009-08-06T13:32:00.001-07:00

Tom Wujec on 3 ways the brain creates meaning

more about "Image and Meaning", posted with vodpod

Sita Sings the Blues

2009-07-14T14:47:00.001-07:00

heard great things about this movie but I missed it at the flicks. Just stumbled across it on archive.org which if you guys haven't visited, has a lot of great, free resources...

more about "Sita Sings the Blues", posted with vodpod

Final Leadership Response

2009-07-13T22:48:00.000-07:00

Collaboration is undoubtedly one of the most fundamental elements of any successful endeavor. Coming from a filmmaking background, I am more than aware of the fact that no one person can produce something truly important by themselves. Even the most controlling of directors has to rely on, and communicate constantly with the camera department, the actors, the set designers, the costume designers, the producers (those in charge of the money and the time), and numerous other individuals.

All projects really worth working on are collaborations to some degree or another (and filmmaking to a very high degree). A couple famous collaborations jump to mind here: Marty Scorsese and Robert DeNiro (or Thelma Schoonmaker his editor), John Lennon and Paul McCartney, Jimmy Page and Robert Plant, Laurel & Hardy, Rogers & Hammerstein, Penn & Teller, Ben & Jerry, Han Solo & Chewbaca, Hall & Oates, Conan & Rickter, Martha Stewart & Wall Street, Ren & Stimpy, penut butter & jelly, Brtiney & Crazy... the list goes on and on.

Teaching is never done in a vacuum. Every day is a collabortation between teacher and student, teacher and teacher, teacher and team, teacher and administrator, teacher and curriculum, etc. And as long as a teacher does not comprimise themselves or their integrity in the process, great things can happen in the collaborative process.

I have included here an exerpt from a journal I wrote about 6 months ago, while doing some student teaching at Mountain View High School. I was working with a Freshman English teacher named Katie Rotchford (also a C of I alum), and teaching the first lesson that I had designed. The lesson involved a layered cake analogy that I had devised as a way of helping students visualize the three significant layers of narrative (The surface layer of the story, the implied meaning of the story, and the author intent). Since the lesson had only been written a couple days previous to the teaching, it had some kinks to be worked out and Katie provided some essential input that made my lesson much stronger than it had originally been.

It was with the short story “The Chaser” that I think I had the biggest victory of this lesson. For the class I had come up with this analogy of a story as a layered cake. My original conception of the analogy had been the first layer (the cake itself) was the plot of the story, the essential structure, the second layer (the filling in between the layers of cake) was our distance for the story, our ability to pick up on irony or other narrative devices because of our distance from the story. The final layer (the frosting) was the meaning or themes presented by the work as a whole. I actually presented this analogy to the classes before the song, but we used it the most during the short story. Now in the first class I simply drew the picture of the cake on the board and explained it to them, but in my haste I didn’t really give the kids the graphic that they needed to really grasp the idea (as I recall all I did was draw a pretty ugly cake with 3 different arrows point to rather obscure parts of an obscurely drown cake with the words layer 1, layer 2, layer 3 on it). During the break Katie told me that she really liked my analogy, but that we probably needed to give them their own copy of it to look at and write on, so she threw together a quick worksheet and we printed out copies for the next class to have for the readings. In doing this she also did something that although I first I was a little upset that she changed my idea, but in retrospect I found brilliant; she simplified the cake to just be three different layers of cake stacked on each other rather than attempting to make rather obscure connections with the difference between the cake, the filling and the frosting (which not only had confused me, but would certainly be difficult for the kids). Along with looking much better and less complicated, this allowed for writing to be done in each “layer” of the cake and gave the kids an assignment that they were responsible for turning in at the end of class, so those kids that would prefer to just sit there and doodle or daydream now had to pay attention while we were discussing the reading (at least a little bit ☺).

This is just one small example of how collaboration has already been of great importance to my teaching. I am sure I will have many more by the time I am through with this internship.

Web 2.0 tools

2009-07-13T12:12:00.001-07:00

useful video.

more about "Web 2.0 tools", posted with vodpod

Web 2.0 Reviews

2009-07-07T12:08:00.000-07:00

Bubl.us A really cool brainstorming application, Bubl.us is a quick and easy tool for having students plan out projects, share ideas with each other/the teacher and print individualized graphic organizers as proof of pre-writing activities.

Voicethread is a site which allows someone to post pictures and videos online for a selected community to view and comment on from any location in multiple different ways (meaning commentators can record actual voice messages in response to images, write text which corresponds, or even draw pictures on top of the pictures to highlight certain characteristics of the image). This site could be used for a number of different purposes, but I find it an ideal way to have students respond to muti-media materials in creative and highly interactive ways.

Flickr, an enormous database for images, flickr can be used in conjunction with voicethread to search for and import images to be commented on by students and teachers alike. I envision that this could be a great tool for inquiry based lessons where the students find their own personally meaningful materials.

Delicious is a quick and easy way to publicly bookmark interesting websites. By linking this in with my edublog, I can find interesting articles I would like my students to read and respond to and leave the link on my home page.

Diigo will be used in conjunction with delicious in that once students have the link, they can make the page their own. I mean this in the sense that they can leave extra notes on the web page, or highlight (literally) certain segments of text to point out parts of interest or other noteworthy characteristics about the bookmarked page. I can see this being one of the more useful and fun applications to use in class if the students are introduced to it in a thourough way and scaffolded through the first few projects, there is no limit to the kind of interesting projects students could do with it. I have in mind projects where the conventions of certain genres of writing can be identified and explained in a practical visual way.

youtube, not much explaining necessary here. I think this is a tool that all our students should be versed in by an early age, not only for the personal uses they may be able to get out of it, but to have a public venue from which their work can be viewed which gives their projects more excitement and value.

Wetpaint, one of Don's favs, this site allows for the building of a private online learning community in which members can post and share information as well as congregate and communicate quickly and easily. This would be an ideal "home" site for a classroom which will have daily/weekly/monthly class calendars as well as links to all the other sites/applications used in the classroom.

edublog
A blogging site designed for teachers and students, this application provides more security options and more administrative control than typical blogging sites. If I am teaching in a class where students have daily access to their own laptops (which I will in the coming year), Edublogs would be a wonderful organization tool and a very cost effective way of having students do daily writes or keep up with journals from school or home. By not using actual physical paper, not only will the school be saving money, the students will not have the "I lost my notebook" excuse, and teachers will be able to keep dated, referenceable copies of the documents written for class.

Wikipedia, probably the most obvious of the sites that should be used, I think this revolutionary site is important because students will most likely be coming back to this again, and again, and again throughout their school career. If the democratic benefits and faults of this site are to be understood, I think students need to get their hands dirty, create their own pages, criticize others and see how information is added to/gathered from this source and how it can be either useful or erroneous. It is essential that the students can discern between these two...

Wordle is kind of a cool site that creates word clouds based upon text that you import into the application. Not a whole lot to it as far as I can see, but may be helpful in continually adding onto in order to to give students a more visual picture of the themes/topics covered in a class.

Leadership Response

2009-07-07T08:45:00.000-07:00

How will you continue to develop your own personal leadership skills during the first 5 years of your work as an educator?

Although it is against my nature to try and gaze too far into the future (10 minutes is about as far as I care to go at any particular time), or make predictions about the kind of person I will be in the future, I will look into my crystal ball here, and attempt to give some semblance to the kind of teacher-leader I see forming within....

I envision that in the future, I will be leading by example. In the book Teaching Learning and Assessment Together, Arthur Ellis describe a reflective classroom as one in which, "the teacher models the excitement of intellectual and emotional discovery. This condition," he goes on to write, "implies two things. first, the teacher must be an enthusiastic learner. Secondly, the teacher must be a relational person. (46)" So in other words, a teacher must first find in themselves a legitimate passion for their content (or learning in general), then, find ways to convey and cultivate this passion in others, or make it a shared passion, one that others can picture and envision themselves as a part of. I see this as one of the most important characteristics of a good leader. Just picture Steve Jobs doing his annual keynote speech at the Macworld expo (which on a sad side-note he will not be doing this year). The man leads with his own personal enthusiasm and his interest/involvement in the products his company sells. His vision is your vision, his ideas, your ideas, his goals, everybody's goals. This is what I see myself doing ( just without all the cool ultra-high tech gadgetry).

I see my self as a creative force within the educational community of the school. Inside and outside the classroom I will take an open mind and a pragmatic eye for finding positive, constructive solutions to social and curricular problems. I want my lesson plans and my methods for establishing strong bonds with my students to be unique and effective. I want to involve technology in new and interesting ways that will equip students with the knowledge/skills/tools they will use in the future. I want to build strong inter-disciplinary ties with colleges in order to create conceptually larger and more meaningful projects for the students. In my school, I would hope that other teachers would enjoy observing my class or looking at my lesson plans and being inspired or getting ideas that they would like to use in their own teaching (of course I have every intention of doing this in their classes as well). It is only when ideas are shared and power is passed on that a school really forms an authentic identity and creates a palpable, infecting energy that moves from teacher to teacher, teacher to student, student to parent, parent to administrator, and administrator back to teacher.

Another way I would like to influence the educational climate is by founding some organizations (either student, or less formal grouping of some kind) that pushes learning outside the four walls of the classroom. What I have in mind is primarily a film club and a essay/short story group of sorts that gives students that are interested an opportunity to discover readings and films they would not have known about otherwise. These groups do two things. First, ideally, they will ignite in the students the desire to continue searching for works of art that speak to them, works that, no matter when they may have been created, succeed in conveying a deeply human truths of some kind. It also gives them the much needed extra practice of critical consumption (obviously not the literal kind of consumption). As citizen of a consumer culture, they will be assaulted by advertising, images, rhetoric, etc. and they need to develop a keen eye for B.S. (as they will be exposed to a lot of it). Second, running this kind of group forces me to constantly be on the look out for more important, interesting works of writing and/or film myself. By keeping me immersed in new materials, I continue to lead by example and I find new ideas/images/perspectives that will keep my own passion burning.

In the battle for the hearts and minds of our youth, I plan on being out in the front lines. While there are many alternative life-views for the kids to adopt (many of them leading to the creation of a self-centered, voluntarily ignorant mindset), a teacher that wants to make a difference has to show their mentees the other options available. Tolstoy once wrote, "Hypocrisy in anything whatever may deceive the cleverest and most penetrating man, but the least wide-awake of children recognizes it, and is revolted by it, however ingeniously it may be disguised." If there is one thing I know will kill your chances of making a genuine connection with your students, it is to say one thing but do the opposite. If you are not backing up what you are "preaching" in class, those that are supposed to be learning from you wont take seriously the the things you are asking them to do/believe, they will simply discount you as another disingenuous or uninteresting creature in a long line of those already encountered. It is one of the rather inconvenient points of being a leader, but living up to your own standards is a must if one hopes to make an actual impression.

Still Run

2009-07-02T10:34:00.001-07:00

Awesome Video

more about "Shilo - Still Run | Fubiz™", posted with vodpod

An irregular daily routine

2009-06-30T08:50:00.000-07:00

Select a routine/procedure you plan to utilize. Name the routine. Describe the routine (what does it look like, sound like, etc.). How will you train students to perform the routine?

Well, I don't really like to picture my class as a routine kind of place (as high school students are usually a bit past the state of mind where they need a predictable structure to their days in order for it to be comprehensible), so it's kind of hard to identify anything that will really occur daily. I would really like to think that my class will offer the students something new and different every time they walk through the door. By keeping the kids guessing, and keeping them excited about the possibilities of the class, you have the best chances of keeping them consistently engaged and involved in your class (in my opinion at least), so I would like to stray from the routine-based class structure as much as possible.

There is however one part of it that will be somewhat consistent, and that will be the daily warm-up write, or "bellringer" as it were. This is important as I think it will help kids get their brains off and running for the day as well as brainstorm a lot of ides that may end up being useful in their writing, but also because ithelps them find their narrative voices. From my own personal experience, the best thing a student can do to develop their writing skills is write, write, write...all the time. It may be annoying, you may not know what you're talking about at all times, but the simple act of putting words down on paper is a powerful and a formative experience.

To push the idea of writing as often as possible, I would also like to have the students keep a journal that will be turned in bi-weekly/monthly (haven't really decided how often yet) to ensure that they are not only writingat school, but at home too. The journals will be a mix of reading journal, reflections on class activities or just a place for students to vent their thoughts and frustrations every once and a whiole. The grading will not be on content, just on completion.

Going back to the bellringers for a moment, even though it will be somewhat routine, the kinds of things they will be wrinting about, and the genre/format they will be writing them in, will not be. I think it is important that kids are familiar with the conventions of multiple writing styles/purposes and explore the possibilities and limitations of each accordingly. I want to have them respond to quotes, pictures, movie clips, sound clips, op/eds, student writings, websites, past lessons, metacognition, dreams, paintings, fieldtrips, guest speakers, events, etc. The possibilities are endless! By mixing it up early and often, you are keeping the kids light on their toes, even in the more routine proceedures, and asking them to think critically, and independently....

Women!!!! I tell you....

2009-06-30T08:12:00.000-07:00

Frustrated! Frustrated! Frustrated! Sorry, I had every intention of getting to school this morning and blogging for the leadership prompt, but I got about my 300th guilt trip about not giving Sadie enough attention, and it really just pissed me off to be honest, and now I can't think about anything else, so I figured I'd just vent first and then maybe I'd be able to move past it...

I am a busy guy right now. Granted I am a busy guy a lot, I often take on a little more responsibility than a sane person would, but I get a sense of pride from this and feel that a person can only really grow when they are put in uncomfortable positions (in the theory of evolution, there has to be a certain amount of stress on a population before it will make any steps forward). So this has been my M.O. for as long as I can remember. But since I really started dating seriously, it has always been a problem for my girlfriends. Why do girls need daily re-affirmation that you care about them? Don't misinterpret my last question, because I understand that someone needs to feel that you need/want them, but in my eyes, I show her in a thousand different ways each day that I care deeply about her, and it never seems to be enough! In a guys eyes (well at least in my eyes), unless something big goes down or you notice a significant change in my behavior towards you, I still feel the same way. Nothing is going to change in a 24 hour period, guys aren't that fickle of creatures.I have come to realize however, that women, and Im sorry if this is a broad generalization (no pun intended), need verbal confirmation as well as an endless showering of attention and affection in order to be content! Well Im sorry, but sometimes I just can't devote every thought towards them! I got crap to do! Now, when I'm at school I feel guilty that I'm not giving her the attention that she needs, but when I'm with her, I feel guilty for not doing the work that I know needs to be done for school!!! It's a vicious cycle and I don't know how to get out of it!!!

Is it just the women that I date that have this insatiable insecurity, or does this happen to everyone (Alex, Don, I'm looking in your direction here)??? Isn't there a happy medium somewhere between professional and personal? What the heck can I do to make this work in both areas of my life?

...Any advice/input would be greatly appreciated.

Yours truely,
Confounded in Caldwell

Brainstorming research questions...

2009-06-27T10:36:00.000-07:00

Here are some questions I am thinking about trying to tackle in my study. There are more here than I will realistically be able to do probably, but I wanted to get them out of my head and on paper. I would appreciate feedback from you guys. Do these seem interesting and/or feasible??

Research questions:

1. How is narrative currently used in secondary classrooms?
* Genres/themes, end (or purpose), style of discourse (interactive [students participate], directional [students do not participate/teacher does not participate], number of stories told by teacher vs. number by students, larger narratives (class-long narrative) vs. small/short narratives

2. How do teachers/administrators view the role of narrative in their curriculum?

3. Do teachers use narrative consciously or unconsciously in their lessons?

4. Is narrative used differently or more frequently in particular content areas?

5. How do students respond to a classroom centered around narrative inquiry? Do they feel they grasp content material more firmly than when using traditional methods (text books, Powerpoints, etc)

6. Does reflection on the conscious/unconscious use of narrative in the classroom improve the practice of teaching (or at least how teachers view their own teaching practice)?

7. What are the mediums of storytelling in secondary classrooms? How are technology and narrative related in the classroom?

Mission and Vision

2009-06-23T09:13:00.000-07:00

Mission Statement:
To continually create a stimulating community of learning in which curiosity, cooperation, respect, responsibility, and humor are employed to propel all individuals towards the goals of self-actualization, cultural appreciation, and global participation.

Vision Statement:
To Assist:
Self-discovery
Voice identification
Development of multiple literacies

To Inspire:
Communication
Future exploration
Empathy and understanding

To Create:
Works of art/literature
Lasting relationships
Memorable and meaningful experiences

More reflections on leadership...

2009-06-16T14:11:00.000-07:00

Something Robin (pink shirt) said today really made me think about my motivations for being a leader. She said something along the lines that she found her main drive to lead stemming from her reactions against the bad examples set by others in positions of leadership. She did not find herself in the position of principal because she wanted to be in the spot with the most control, she simply found herself there because she was always looking for ways to do things better. I think I am very much the same in this respect. Every time I sit in on a lecture, listen to a coach's speech at halftime, or hold a light working on the set of a film, I can't help but make my own little mental notes on just about every little thing the "leader" does. I sit there and think how I might have achieved a better result by taking a different approach or saying things differently.

There are probably a lot of good things about this kind mindset, but possibly equally as many bad. I know I have to watch that I do not become too judgmental about the decisions or strategies of others because there are a thousand different ways to arrive at any goal. I also have to make sure that I do not get stuck in the ego maniacal mindset of "I always know better," because if you are patient and wait until the results are in, you may be surprised at how effective some seemingly idiotic methods are...

I do think that I am at my most creative state when I watch others at work though. It's kind of like the fact that most people are much more creative when there are a certain number of restrictions/limitations placed on them than when when they have too many options (As Damien Rice puts it in The Professor: "too many options may kill a man"). Once an idea is thrown out there, I am really good about building on top of it, or taking it in new interesting directions. I feel that I would be an effective team teacher because of this and because I find that I work well collaboratively (as long as the lines of communication are open). As I said in my last blog on leadership, I am also open to my own ideas be added on to by someone who sees things that I may have overlooked or under-stressed, and it is this submission of pride that will lead to a truly collaborative, creative, effective lesson/strategy.

On a total side note---
Random Idea for a getting to know you exercise: "Write about something you have been successful in." Students will then describe something they do/have done well. The purpose of this little exercise being: 1) to help the teacher get to know more about the students; and 2) help them identify a narrative pattern in the students' memories that the teacher can then try to help the students recreate again to have future success in the classroom.

A Portal to Media Literacy

2009-06-16T10:42:00.001-07:00

The future of education

more about "A Portal to Media Literacy", posted with vodpod

Take me to your leaderer!!!

2009-06-15T12:23:00.000-07:00

"One of the hardest tasks of leadership is understanding that you are not what you are, but what you're perceived to be by others."
-Edward Flom

If one frequently reads biographies on famous historical figures, or watches a lot of cheesy inspirational television shows on A&E, one might commonly hear the phrase, "he/she was a natural born leader." This phrase will then be followed by a pictures of a young boy or girl whose beaming smile shows an adolescent blessed with an unusually large helping of good looks, charm, charisma, lucidity, direction, motivation, or articulateness. Well, if you examine this picture a little closer, standing somewhere in the background, you will probably see a smaller, semi-chubby, rather goofy looking child, with a big brown tooth, and something resmbling milk shooting out his nose because he's laughing too hard at someone's joke. Well, this child was probably me.

For as far back as I can remember, I was not really comfortable in the leader's position. I was always best friends with the cool kid in class that made all the decisions. I don't think I have ever been someone who gleans all of their personality and energy off of the more dominant individual, I had my own distinct, unique character, I just didn't care for all the unnecessary responsibility and attention at that age. I always felt like I had the ability to lead (I saw myself as a smart, moderately good looking, funny kid), but for some reason I always felt like I needed to be a little older, I needed to grow into myself a little more before I could take up that position. It may have also had something to do with the fact that (and this may be somewhat of a broad generalization) children tend to pick their leaders by looks as opposed to personality (when was the last time you saw the chubby, crooked nosed kid in the center of the group on the playground?) and I would not have been their first pick, that much is for sure.

Even at an early age, I think I grasped the idea that to be a leader, you had to be in the possession of an extra amount of something (be it looks, skills, brains etc.) that gave you a position of authority/credibility and you had to use this authority to create a certain perception of yourself that others would be willing to follow. But even more importantly, you had to know where you were going. The term leading implies moving in a particular direction, and whilst I have never really had a problem producing enthusiasm and passion for any number of topics/activities, I was never very good at deciding which topic/activity to focus on in the first place. Going back to the idea of responsibility here, to be a leader, you must be able/willing to take the risk of possibly choosing the wrong direction, of wasting other people's time and energy, of looking like an idiot when bad decisions are made, or people are hurt/angered in the process. This is what always terrified me about be at the head of the pack.

Things started to change for me when I began taking theater classes in junior high school. At the end of my second year, I wrote a play that the class read and elected to produce for our final project. Because I wrote it, I was also chosen to direct it. Now, had I realized the risks I was taking on by accepting this position, I might have declined the responsibility, but I didn't see it like this, all I wanted was to try to make this funny play come to life in the way that I had envisioned it while writing. By focusing on this aspect of the project instead of the success or failure of my leadership skills, I did my job with genuine interest and energy, and did a pretty darn good job (if I do say so myself)! I was not your typical kind of director, because it was not my way or the highway, I found that by having a general idea of what I wanted, but an openness to creativity and impromptu additions by the cast, I ended up with a lot more engaging, entertaining product than I could have ever written by myself. I took this style into high school where I began taking video production classes and college where I studied film and continued directing all the projects I worked on in this way.

Now obviously, teaching and film are different in a lot of ways, but there is a lot more similarities than one would first imagine. I think it is essential that on a film or in a class, everybody involved (students and teacher[s] alike) need to see their time together as working towards some final creative product/goal. They need to know that what they are doing is worthwhile, and fun to boot (most of the time at least). They need to feel that they have some sort of input or effect on the endeavor and that their presence is valued by their peers and leader(s) alike. As a director/teacher/leader, it is your duty to make sure they see and feel all of this.

On a film or in a classroom, it is also your responsibility to be the peacekeeper and rule enforcer. There are always going to be conflicting personalities in any group setting, and it is the leader's job to ensure that the voices and the temperaments of the group, stay productive, and focused on the task at hand. This is of course easier said than done, but going back to what I think made my first directing experience successful, if the activities are filled with purpose and a clear picture of a final destination/goal is established, the progress made will be incalculable!

Every day I try to become something/someone worthy of the respect and attention of others.
Every day I try to ensure that I do not treat anyone unfairly or without due respect/consideration. Every day I try to become less like the child that was so terrified of responsibility and more like that person so filled with a sense of purpose that he is not even aware of the risk of failure. Every day I try to ensure that I do not drink a lot of milk before someone tells me a really funny joke....

Only time will tell if I am successful.

In the beginning...

2009-06-11T10:55:00.000-07:00

Well, here we go. My very first blog. I can't say I'm the most skilled or dedicated journalist ever to have graced the literary world with his/her presence (as I have in the past decade started and stopped more than a dozen different diaries/journals to no avail), but perhaps this time will be different; perhaps having an audience (and more importantly, an audience with a grade book in front of them) will help me stay somewhat regular in my entries...

A little about me... At 26 years old, to use a tired old cliche, I am a jack of all trades and a master of none. Student, athlete, workaholic, boyfriend, son, cinephile, reader, traveler, filmmaker, actor, writer, welder, scuba diver, race car driver, founder of "We Love Mcgyver" (ok so the last two are lies, but they rhymed). I am someone who loves a good laugh, a good story, a good workout, and on occasion, a good beer.

This blog is designed to give all those who are interested a little peak into the Neverlandish area that is my mind (some have also compared it to the Bermuda Triangle). It is a chaotic, confusing place to be for the most part, but can have some surprisingly entertaining/enlightening little nooks in it.

So Just sit back and relax. Put your feet up if you like. Your flight crew will be around to attend to your every need...after they finish up at the airport pub that is :-)