Innagication

I’m not dead.  I have just been a bit busy.

This week is CAS week at our school. CAS is a component of the IB.  It stands for Creativity, Action, and Service. All week the students did not have regular classes and, instead participated in one of various offered activities. My son, James, went on a different hike around Hong Kong each day.  My daughter, Abigail, is making a movie.  Other students planned a Great Race around Hong Kong, based on The Amazing Race television show, and others went sailing.

I supervised a group of students that I organized back in October. A rock band.  Have you seen School of Rock….yeah, like that (but I don’t play with them).

Five kids, most of which had taken lessons on their instrument (even the vocalist) but never played in a group.  One girl came along to the interest meeting and stepped up to learn bass guitar…she had never played any guitar or bass before, she just wanted to be a part of it and we didn’t have a bass player.

They practiced, with my supervision and guidance, for an hour after school once a week while school was in session to prepare for their first gig: a 20 minute set at a school assembly. It was good. I was proud of them

In January a new term of Cocurricular Activies (CCAs) started. The last two hours of school on Wednesdays are spent doing CCAs. Some kids go swimming, some do cooking, some play “non-traditional sports” (like laser tag). Since Jamuary, we rock.  They have played twice more for their peers since starting the CCA.

This week they were joined by another student who, due to schedule conflicts, had not yet worked with them.  He, too, has individual experience but has never played in a band.  All day Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday the six of them met in my math-classroom-turned-jam-space polishing old songs and developing new ones. Today, Thursday, they played an hour-long set for an entire elementary school. It was awesome. I am very, very proud of them.

[This is cross posted to the blog for the MYP workshop in which I am currently enrolled]

My teaching has always been guided by a set of principles.  When I first started, the guiding principles were

• All kids can learn
• Math doesn’t suck, I know it but kids need to be convinced
• School should not be the experience that I hated

These principles aligned very well with those that guided my principal… which is probably why I got the job.  I was new and had some growing to do.  That growth was, thankfully guided by my principal. My department heads had a hand, no doubt, but they took their lead from our principal.  My lessons were very different than traditional math lessons, students did as much, if not more, talking than I did…and most of my lessons ended frantically because the students and I had lost track of time.  Not that this wasn’t effective…I had some pretty tout-able results.

When I changed schools, I had a new principal….who was very…different from my previous principal… but she was the boss, so I had to adjust my teaching to make sure she was happy.  For that period of time I was guided by these same basic principles, but they were joined by

• the teacher in the room is there for a reason
• the math classroom model has worked well for decades

My lessons, for the most part, ended on time for that year.

After that principal left, I worked for another principal, who was, yet again, different from my previous principal.  He, like me, did not particularly enjoy his math lessons growing up and so the last principle added to my list was, thankfully, removed.  Other than that, I was guided by his perspective of someone who did not particularly enjoy math as a subject, but saw, and often testified about the profound importance of it across the school and in life afterward.  My mind was opened to the idea of cross-curricular work and I adopted a more holistic view of curriculum planning and delivery.  I partnered with colleagues in other departments and attempted some trans-disciplinary units….with some success.  So, to my list I added

• who students are and become (including how they see the world) is more important than my content area’s concepts and skills.

Now I work for another principal… who has her own principles.  So far, I don’t see my list changing too much.  We are in the process of becoming an MYP authorized school, so my principal is very aware of the IBMYP guiding principles and how they impact my teaching.  I think that my inherent principles align nicely with the IBMYP guiding principles… which pleases my principal, I think.  It isn’t a coincidence that the most recently added to my list was developed while at an IB World School, as it is the most MYP-esque.

In the end, as teachers, we are responsible to ourselves, yes, but to our principals, especially.  It is their school…. they have the ultimate responsibility to make the learning environment follow their vision.  As Chris Lehmann has pointed out on his blog, Practical Theory, “the values [held by] an administrator will be reflected in the values teachers manifest when they work with the kids.”

Recently, I received a link to the article, What Teachers Really Want to Tell Parents. At first, I like (I’m certain) plenty of other teachers, felt myself saying, “Yeah, that’s right!”
…but then…
I thought about the times that my students’ perspective of situations in my classroom was different than mine.
I thought about the likelihood that those perspectives were more accurate at least some of the time.
I thought about the fact that reality, for anyone, is merely their perception of reality.
I thought about my own children.

And then…
I wondered if the author of the article has any children of his own.
I wondered if he has ever had to be the unwelcome advocate for his kids or someone else’s.

Parents have the responsibility, and therefore the right, to be a bit bothersome when they feel it is what is best for their kids. Parents are, sometimes, the only people looking out for their kids. In my opinion, that includes all of the behaviors the author whines (yes, whines) about.

Teachers, as the article’s author notes, are professionals. They are not infallible. They, we, should be kept in check. Otherwise, bad practice and poor outcomes come calling.
As professionals, we should expertly interact with parents, diffusing volatile situations by relating in ways that everyone can understand in the best interest of students. And then, maintaining our professionalism, we should smile, thank the parents for the insights they offered and not discuss the matter with other parties. Or write articles for CNN about it.

It is a shame that teachers are “run off” by parents. The solution is not to tell off the parents or vent about it in the staffroom or quit the profession. The issue is to seek guidance, support and mentoring. Maybe teachers need some customer service training. I know my decade spent as a service industry manager has probably helped me. Maybe teachers need more training in designing classroom environments that are less susceptible to parent concern.

I wonder if this kind of stuff could get into the reform discussions going on these days…

I just completed the Nova Scotia marathon (my first marathon). It started out pretty well and I was pleased with my 5K, 10K, and half-marathon times. Sometime around 15 miles (24K) my right knee started to give me quite a bit of pain. In the end, I finished about 25 minutes later than I think I should have because I had to walk so much. I am happy I finished and mean no disrespect to others that have finished in about the same amount of time, I just think I could have done better.

Reflection upon the run yielded a few parallels with education.

First off the one that resounded most loudly is that every body part has to deliver on race day. It didn’t matter that my heart rate was staying low, my legs (muscularly, speaking) and feet felt good, nothing was chaffing and my breathing was slow and steady. My knee “stopped” delivering. No matter how much I willed other parts of my body to compensate, I couldn’t hold a jog for a kilometer without immense pain. It reminds me of limiting resources that I learned about in a university course called Operations Research. Basically, if memory serves, it doesn’t matter how much of “everything else” you have to get a job done, you can only get as much done as your limiting resource(s) will allow. In education we talk about the “partnership” that exists between parent, student and school. Today’s experience made me realize that each piece has to deliver all year long, year after year. Parents, teachers, students, admin, school board, maintenance teams, bus drivers, TA/EA’s – all the parts – have to deliver at top capacity throughout the entire “race” or, unfortunately, we’ll end the year feeling like we could have done better. How many educators hit the beginning of May with one thought on their minds: summer? The expression, “it is a marathon, not a sprint,” should not be used to excuse apathy throughout the year, but instead invoked to inspire us all to push though the end each year and finish strong.

Another thought that occurred to me is a bit of a cliche. Well, two actually, but it is nice to be reminded. One, plan (plan, plan, plan) ahead and two, expect the unexpected. I have done a good handful of road races of varying distances including half-marathons as well as a ton of training runs. I learned from these runs and used that learning to do all I could to set myself up for a successful marathon. I foresaw chaffing, GI discomfort, weather variation and, of course, cardiovascular and leg endurance. I planned and prepared for all of these. My knees have never given me any trouble, so I didn’t worry too much about them. Murphy’s law, right? Talking to my wife, who happens to be my personal trainer, nutrition coach (check out her blog) and favorite running partner (sorry to those of you that I run with, but it’s true), I probably could have done more weight training, which could have prevented some (if not all) of the pain. I didn’t expect to be running on an angle for, what felt like, a majority of the run. I should have.

Lastly, company (that is, other people around you) counts for something (I think I have blogged about this before, or maybe just drafted about it). The last 5K I met up with a guy who was having trouble as well. He had passed me about 3K back and I had watched him alternate between jogging and walking until I caught back up to him. His knee was bothering him too, which I suspected because I happen to hear him ask about the possibility of switching to the half-marathon event citing his knee as a cause for doubt. We encouraged each other and finished together, extending the amount we could sustain a jog bit-by-bit such that we were able to jog the last kilometer-and-a-half (maybe a bit more). Colleagues in education are important in the same way: we all need encouragement and partnership sometimes. Thanks, Dennis, I couldn’t have finished strong without you. I don’t plan on running another marathon without a partner and I hope to always have someone to at least bounce ideas off of at work.

Today is the first day of another year of my life. Yes, for those who didn’t know, yesterday was my birthday. The way I figure, I have another shot at new year’s resolutions. One of them being to reflect upon and reevaluate goals more regularly…by blogging (?). I have, once again, taken too long of a break from thinking about ‘innovation, imagination, education and their compilation’. That is, I haven’t blogged in awhile. The truth is, I haven’t wanted to publish very many of my thoughts lately. They haven’t been very good (in my opinion and its my blog), and I like to put out ‘good’ stuff. I have been feeling a bit negative lately and I hope to start this new year with a bit more of a positive outlook. To do that, I think I need to reevaluate some goals because, as the post title suggests, I feel like I have let myself down a bit.

At the beginning of October last year, I decided to begin training for a marathon I wasn’t sure was going to happen. There was a half-marathon in Suzhou in April of 2010 and I had heard from some runners that the planning committee wanted to expand to include a full marathon. I ran the Nova Scotia Half Marathon in July 2010 and wanted to take the next step (pun intended). I mentioned to a few people that I was interested in doing this and even found myself a training partner. I followed the training schedule (even through Christmas and New Year’s), but just lost steam, or maybe lost interest. I’m not sure why, but running just wasn’t fun anymore…I didn’t want to do it – at all – not just the 18 mile training runs. This scared me. I fell in love with running when it helped me find a healthy lifestyle and shed close to 100 pounds of excess body weight. The idea that I wasn’t finding the motivation to run terrified me, as the only possible (in my hyper-sensitive-to-my-former-obese-self mind) outcome was a return to my former trouser size. Two weeks ago, after not hearing anything about the marathon I was training for but no longer looking forward to, I confirmed that there is not going to be a marathon event… SO I’M NOT TRAINING FOR IT ANYMORE!!! …and I’m really happy about it. Karen (my wife) and I are going to run the half-marathon (assuming there is not some hang-up when we try to register) together. Maybe I’ll run the Nova Scotia full marathon in the summer.

So why is this on my ‘professional reflection blog’? I think that the tangible reminder that chasing a lofty goal can ruin a good thing totally applies to the ‘work-Mark’ side of me as well. If something is going well, I don’t have to innovate… I can just keep doing it. It shouldn’t be about what’s new, hip and trendy in education. It should be about getting the desired results from teaching and learning experiences. That’s not to say I’ll stop setting lofty goals, I’m just going to try to remember to continuously reevaluate the ‘destination’ and make sure that the journey is as good as it can be.

Recently, I participated in my first run with the Hash House Harriers. If you like, you can read about their history, but basically, the Hashers are a light-hearted running club that get together every so often and do a run and then have drink and a laugh. Admittedly, that is a bit of an oversimplification, but I promise to explain more as I go.

Since that run, I have had these ideas about how some of the principles and practices of Hashing apply to other areas of my life. Most of these ideas have been polished while listening to my feet hit the ground during solo runs.

So, in no particular order, here are some lessons from the Hash:

• The people you’re following don’t always know where they’re going either.
  In hashing, a couple (or more) members of the club go out ahead of time and mark the route of the run. In the tradition of Hashing, these members are called the “hares” for that run. They don’t just mark a series of road signs that say “turn here” and “go straight 200 m”, but instead use symbols, flour and toilet paper to leavea cryptic set of clues where to go. As a new hasher, my eye was not as keen to look for these clues and didn’t feel comfortable to be followed. The funny thing is, others, who had no clue where they were going, were quite comfortable to give the impression that they did… leading us down the wrong path. Often, I realize that those that I am following in life are just as unsure of where they are going. They are not as savvy to the route indicators as their position or status might imply, but they have the confidence to lead. Just like on the hash, I follow with respect, because at least the FRB’s had the guts to lead.
• Even if you have some related experience, new things are new things – don’t expect it to be old hat.
  I run. I run a bunch. I run outdoors a bunch. That being said, the hash was all new. To come in and think that I knew the ropes off-the-bat would have been pretentious and socially counterproductive. So I asked questions, listened intently and observed as much as I could. This is a skill that can always be better developed and practiced.
• Attitude is everything.
  I know, I know – This is an oldie – but it is a goody, too. I could have been bummed out that the run I choose to go on was on a rainy day. I could have been grumpy about the fact that there was a bus accident making the drive to the run much longer than it should have been. I could have hated the fact that I ran a kilometer in soft mud next to a stinky lake. Instead, I chose to be happy that the weather would keep me from over-heating, the long bus ride gave me time to share conversations with new acquaintances, the mud make the workout that much more rewarding and the stinky lake was beautiful. It is always a choice. Being positive feels better that being negative.
• Learn the lingo (vocabulary/symbology)
  Hashers, like most organizations and systems, have their own symbols and vernacular. In education, we have more acronyms than I want to think about – but when working, living, relating with people it is a good idea to speak the same language. If you are a newcomer, don’t expect them to learn yours.

ON-ON!

Recently I have been made aware of “The Hacker Ethic” articulated by Steven Levy in his 1984 book, Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution.

Looking at the ideas made me immediately think of how they apply to my business: education.
1. Access to computers – and anything which might teach you something about the way the world works – should be unlimited and total. Always yield to the Hands-On imperative!

This is what the one-to-one trend is based on isn’t it?  Chris Lehman at SLA in Philadelphia often talks about how technology should be ubiquitous and invisible: Everyone should have it and use it but not think about it.

2. All information should be free.

Wow, I wish!  Wouldn’t that make teaching so much easier?  This is a big one to me and why I am a big Open Source/GNU fan.  The budgets in education get spread soooo thin that we need to be spending money on people, hardware and facilities, not software and information.

3. Mistrust authority – promote decentralization.

I read this as, “Question what you are being taught kids! If it is true and valuable, it will stand up to your distrust and you will not only learn it, but believe it.  If not, you shouldn’t need to.”

4. Hackers should be judged by their hacking, not bogus criteria such as degrees, age, race, or position.

…Just like students should be judged by what they know and can do with their knowledge, not necessarily by standardized test scores.  Did someone say MYP?

5. You can create art and beauty on a computer.

Just like this blog post.

6. Computers can change your life for the better.

Since computing became part of education through email, digital grade books and other record keeping, word processing, spreadsheet manipulation, etc. It has become a much more efficient institution.  As we move into using computers for content  management and more, we will continue to evolve for the better.  The more we integrate technology, the better.

This has been rolling around in my head for years. I used to go on at length about it in staff rooms right around TAKS testing time when I taught in Texas. I was a service industry manager before I started teaching.  I was successful.  I ran several stores and restaurants very well and used very little math to do so.  Actually, I used quite a bit of math but not a wide variety.  I would make schedules based on projected revenue and order inventory based on current stock and projected foot traffic.  When I became a math teacher, I had to teach students how to solve quadratic equations with imaginary roots, factor polynomials, and find inverse matrices by hand. I would say to my colleagues, “I’m having the hardest time teaching these kids how to  ______, and they are never going to need it!” Recently, four things happened that brought these ideas to the forefront of my mind.

1. I had to document my curriculum.
   Prompted by an MYP evaluation visit from the IBO, my school embarked on a journey to develop and document all of our curriculum. This included documenting the vertical articulation of the math curriculum. As we are an IB World School, the IB Math SL course was our endgame. We took a long, hard look at what we were teaching our 6-10 grade students and, as a team of professionals, outlined a map for all of the concepts. Truth be told, we’re not quite done, but we’re close. We also began formalizing our unit plans, including MYP Area of Interaction and “Big Picture” unit questions. The frustrating part was that we came across a handful (more?) of concepts that were superfluous and/or disjoint from ‘The Real World’. That is, finding or creating learning activities that tied into ‘big ideas’ as well taught the skills necessary to be successful on the IB exams has been a challenge at times.
2. A colleague sent me a link to this blog post.
   In it, the author documents her revelation to only teach math in ways that are compelling to students.  She references using numbers that are related to public service and tied directly to the real world.  I was inspired and frustrated by the post.  Truthfully, my initial reaction was to click the About link, find that she taught grades 4 & 5 and dismiss the whole thing with, “Oh, she teaches elementary.”  After a fashion, I had another think on it and decided that it applied to my grades, too.  But there again was the question, “Can I do it for all of the math or just the really fun stuff (not necessarily factoring a quadratic expression or other mundane skills the kids need)?”
3. I watched this TED talk on starting a movement.
   The talk is great, you should watch it.  In it, Derek Sivers boils down the first phases of a movement: Lone Nut, First Follower, Three’s a Crowd, More-and-More, The Tipping Point-A Movement.  I have given the phases my own labels based on Sivers’ words.  I was inspired; I still am.  I thought about what movements I could start or join early enough to be considered as part of what Sivers calls ‘the in crowd’.  Nothing really came to mind.
4. Chris Lehmann posted this ‘Radical Notion’.
   The notion, as it relates to my revelation, is that non-math teachers should write math standards. After walking through his logic, he says,

   I want to know what math the CEO of NBC uses every day. I want to know what math a state senator uses.

   And I found my movement!

It all comes together to make perfect sense:

1. People who are successful, but not mathematicians, write the standards.
2. Diploma granting entities, such as states, provinces or the IBO rewrite the exams to test for competency relating to the new standards.
3. Professional teachers write the curriculum to support the new standards and connect the math to relevant, non-contrived situations.  Thus, creating compelling problems to solve and developing deep understanding.

I’m with Chris, dancing like a fool (you have to watch the TED talk), who’s with me?

A big shout-out to The Dalian Maple Leaf School!

I did a whirlwind 24 hour fly-in-to-fly-out-of Dalian in the Liaoning province to facilitate a workshop on the TI-84+ calculator.  It was an amazing 4 hours in which I learned from the participants and truly hope that they learned from me.  I think I first started to get the vibe that it was going well when I offered a break for a second time and was told, “No, we’re good; you can keep going.”  I was having so much fun that I never took a break, though I encouraged those that needed or want to to come and go as they so desired.  There were some that not only never left, but came and chatted with me at the end (which, I think caused some stress to the workshop organizer, who was trying to get me to start moving toward the airport – oops).  I have often heard that teachers can be the worst students.  This particular group of teachers make that extremely hard to believe.  They were engaged, fueling the discussion with their ideas and questions and awesomely collaborative, helping each other here-and-there.

It all really supported something I already knew: It is easy to get excited about personal technology.  It is not only fun to play with and explore and discover, but the fact that it is personal means that it is up to the learner how to go about doing so.

The personal graphing calculator (AKA graphic display calculator or GDC) in math was the original kid on the one-to-one block.  It has all of those cool benefits mentioned above about personal technology in general, not to mention it is tactile, tapping another part of the brain.  I know one has to touch a laptop as well, but the GDC is held in the hands – its different.  If you are a math teacher and just use it for routine calculations and graphing, your students are missing out.  TI has loads of learning activities on their activities exchange that exploit their calculators as a tool to explore.

I’m reminded that laptop/web-based tools are not the be-all-end-all when it comes to using technology in the classroom and just because your school isn’t a one-to-one laptop school doesn’t mean that you can’t embrace technology and integrate in to your teaching-and-learning.  It has a way of capturing an audience and encouraging the mind to do so very much.

On birthdays and Christmas growing up, it didn’t take me long to figure out the coolest of the features of new toys…we can incite the same ‘gotta figure it out’ emotion when we use any technology in the classroom – not just math and not just laptops and calculators.

Awhile back, I read an article by Steve Reinhart in an NCTM journal, “Never Say Anything an Kid Can Say.” In it, Reihart states, “When I was in front of the class demonstrating and explaining, I was learning a great deal, but many of my students were not! Eventually, I concluded that if my students were to ever really learn mathematics, they would have to do the explaining, and I the listening. . . .”  It is a great article, definitely worth a read, even if you are not a math teacher. In the years since, I have tried to incorporate Reinhart’s ideas in my teaching practices and, at risk of sounding arrogant, have been relatively successful.  Thanks to Kathleen Hart-Abel for making me read it.

I now teach at an international school in China where my students and I do not share a mother-tongue. When we go home and speak to our families, we aren’t all speaking the same language.  Taking me out of the mix, the students don’t all share a mother-tongue either, as they hail from Korea, Taiwan, Germany, Switzerland and France (these are in addition to those from countries that either speak the Queen’s English, American English, or something in between).

Among the classes I teach is MYP Math 4 (Grade 9 integrated math).  Two of the MYP grading criteria are communication and reflection.  This particular year, I have some VERY bright budding mathematicians.  However, as many us do, they struggle with communicating their ideas and reflecting about their work.  Much of this has to do with the fact that they are expected to communicate and reflect in English (the designated language of instruction at our school). Yesterday in class we had this great moment that came from my belief in Reinhart’s ideas.  One of my students who solved a particularly difficult problem volunteered to share her solution with the class.  I have found that chocolate is quite the volunteer motivator.  She copied her work from her notebook on to the board and stood, as is practice in our class, waiting for questions.  And they came!  All of a sudden, we hit a wall.  She couldn’t explain in English. She obviously understood and her solution was beautifully laid out, but she couldn’t explain.  I was sitting there in the class wrestling with the decision to stand up and take over, let her pass the task to a classmate, or make her tough it out.  As is often the case, the solution found me: another student asked me, “Can I ask in [my language]?”  At first I was confused, because the student explaining wasn’t from the other’s home country, but after it was revealed that the explaining student was fluent in two non-English languages, I went for it.

Wow, it was great!  She explained it in both of her non-English languages and there was this “Ah-Ha! moment” throughout the class.  Then the kids that still were confused got an explanation from yet another (bilingual) student who was among the most confused at the beginning of the whole ordeal.  In the end, the “Never Say Anything…” principle held strong.  Just because the kids may not be explaining to me (as none of this occurred in English or Spanish, my two languages of comprehension), they are still getting the experiences of reflection and communication necessary to cement the concepts in their brains.