Innagication

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…

Sorry about the long post title.

I just read that a UK school has enlisted Indian maths tutors online on BBC News. This could totally integrate with my previous idea of focusing on single classroom, big idea project based learning. When some heavy lifting needs to be done and there isn’t an embedded subject specialist with which to team-teach, something like this could be used to give the kids the differentiated, one-on-one learning experience they need.

Love it!

David Warlick recently blogged about the idea of an Art Integrationist, which was interesting to me but, like him, I was more excited about one of the take-beyonds (“which are different from take-aways, because they are ideas that I heard, that the presenter didn’t actually say” – I’m definitely using that in the future). He bounced around the idea of a math integrationist, science integrationist, literacy integrationist, etcetera. That got me thinking, if all of what we consider core subject teacher positions became integrationist positions, where would the students spend the bulk of their time?  What would the specialist teachers be integrating into?  So then I postulated, maybe secondary students should be in a generalist homeroom, like most of their primary counterparts. This is essentially where it all started isn’t it?  So that idea led me to consider the fact that something must have led educators (and/or policy makers) to change it to the way it is now…

So way back when, just after the one-room school house era, kids had one teacher for every subjuect, right up until they went off to post-secondary education, right?  We kept this model for k-5 education, but switched to the single subject specialist for 6-12.  Why?  I mean, I have nothing against it – but something must have motivated someone to make the switch, right?

Fast forward to the turn of the millennium and the big push (well, one of them) is cross-curriculuar links.  The IB MYP has the Areas of Interaction, the IB DP has Theory of Knowledge.  Everyone seems to think that holistic education is the way to go (I agree, by the way).  So, did we have it right to begin with?  Should all of our same-age students sit in the same classroom and work on real-world, authentic, meaningful projects and specialist-integrationists rotate in to team-teach the heavy lifting?  Put that radical idea with CEO’s writing standards and managers from outside the education industry being trained as principals and you have a pretty radical school – that just may be AWESOME!

If I got my facts twisted or you have related, similar or opposing ideas, I’m ready for a conversation.

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?