Spite Homework

It is Wednesday morning in my first hour English class. Students were assigned "All Summer in a Day" by Ray Bradbury to read last night, so we could discuss craft elements today. I assign a quick "Somebody Wanted But So" summary to check comprehension (and, to be honest, to make sure they read), and was astounded to see 2/3 of my class start reading the story instead of writing summaries. Not just the three usual suspects, but several others as well. Let's be clear: they were not reviewing to find a minute detail. They simply had not read a short, relatively accessible text.

In my reflective teacher mind, I could go to the place where I remembered that they had not had enough time in class on Tuesday to be hooked into the story. Later that day, I would learn that they had two tests Wednesday, and many students were overwhelmed.

But in that moment, I am angry.

I give a soapbox speech. In my mind, it's so good. It's worthy of a Lifetime movie. But I'm sure it is more a rambling, annoying, rant they all tune out about halfway through. The gist of it is that I am not going to waste 1/3 of the students' time for the 2/3 of students who haven't bothered to do the work. It most certainly includes a line about how hard I work to provide quality instruction for them and how none of it will work if they can't be bothered to read four pages.

After the "character lecture," I give a short academic lecture on literary craft terms I want them to look for in the story and assign them a written post on Schoology for which they have very little scaffolding, sneaking in some more guilt-inducing language about how those that have actually done the reading would have a much smaller amount of homework to complete. They have about 7 minutes to work before the class period is over, certainly not enough time for me to answer questions for those who might be confused.

As the day goes on, I feel sort of terrible about assigning spite homework. It was a punitive move rather than an pedagogical one. As I learn about their tests, I feel worse. I imagine the worst-case scenario that none of my students will complete the assignment and it would just create more follow-through problems for me later. I may even (gasp!) have to admit that I was wrong.

But lo and behold, this morning before 1st hour, every single one of my 19 students has their work--difficult, unscaffolded--complete for class. (Note: I do not Google any of their answers to check their ideas for plagiarism; some good feelings just deserve to be felt.) The work is not perfect, but it is complete. It gives us a starting point to have an excellent discussion. We use the clumsy sentences as a starting point to talk about deeper ideas, and students look at peers' clumsy sentences and know they are not alone. We learn together.

My egotistical takeaway: I've still got it. My speech mattered! Most students care when teachers they know care are disappointed in them.

My non-egotistical takeaway: I am thinking about expectations. I know this was a perfect guilt-induced storm, and I will not abuse the power that my words apparently had on this particular day. But I so often don't send this type of work home because I fear that students will struggle. I want to make sure I am there to support them in this type of analytical thinking when they are doing it early in the instructional process. However, the fear of another Lifetime lecture coupled with a sort-of-achievable task made them all try. They all brought something to the table, no matter how imperfect or tentative. And this is exactly what I want them to do every single day. I don't know where the tipping point is in terms of asking kids to reach beyond what they think they can, but I do know that it might be a little further of a stretch than I usually ask them to do.

So, the questions are these: how do we work to build classroom communities where this type of stretch work is valued every day? How do we build confidence in students so they know their crazy stabs at ideas probably contain kernels of greatness? How do we give enough class time to do some of the work together and assign quality thinking work so the ideas of our discipline seep into the other corners of their lives?

ICTE SPEAK Session: Radical Routines

For years, I’ve been interested in the big picture of teacher mental health and what it takes to remain passionate throughout a career. This session is not about maintaining passion; this session is about maintaining sanity so you have space in your brain for passion.

There’s a Nancie Atwell story in In the Middle about Don Graves complimenting her organization. As the story goes, organization is not the notable quality she would have selected (and of course, she has so many more) because it seems so darn boring. But for many of us, it’s impossible to do the hard work if our space is a mess, or if we can’t remember if we sent the copies out, or if the new week arrives and we forgot to plan for it.

Several years ago, I started using FLYLady’s routines to keep my house in check, and it more or less works. It can be a little cheesy, but it's a lot helpful. Things are still a disaster at certain times of the week or day, but I overall feel pretty ready for company most of the time. FLYLady’s systems are all about automating your life routines so you don’t have to think about much. FLYLady’s systems are also all about baby steps and starting slow, which isn’t really conducive to a 10 minute session. So, take what you can, add one new routine a week, and see if it helps you keep your head above water. I know that it helps me.

First of all, FLYLady advocates for an important baby step of “shining your sink” each day. In the home, it’s your kitchen sink, a tangible reminder that you’ve at least got something under control. My “sink” at school is my teacher desk. Every day, I make sure it’s mostly clean and organized and a space I can actually use to do work. Once you have this under control, you can begin to work in other routines that will help you get through the day.

FLYLady’s system involves different routines at different parts of the day and also different tasks assigned to different days of the week. I’ve done the same. See my editable task list here.

On the right hand side of my task list, you can see my different downtimes in the day: before school, my study hall, and my prep period (which runs into after school time for me—it may not for you, so you may want to add an additional area for “after school”). These are the tasks I start with at each of my non-student time during the day, and if I have additional time left-over, I begin on my task list for that day of the week (found on the left hand side of the page). Now, let me be clear—not everything happens perfectly every single day, but I do generally adhere to these rules, and I don’t leave the building until I’ve either completed everything on my list or moved it to the following day’s task list.

Since I’ve implemented this system of routines, I find my room and space to be clearer and my daily work time to be more efficient. First of all, I don’t feel like I have to do EVERYTHING ALL THE TIME. I have the week scheduled so that Mondays and Tuesdays are heavy on planning and the end of the week is a little heavier on grading and catch-up. Of course I can change the week to fit my students’ needs that week, but this gives me a base document to modify so nothing gets lost in the shuffle.

If I were just starting out, I’d start with “shining your sink.” For most of us, I think that would be our teacher’s desk. If you don’t have a teacher’s desk, pick a different “surface” in your room that you’d like to look like it’s under control.

Once you’ve mastered that surface consistently, work on your daily routines. How do you need to start your day so that you feel centered? Add these items to your after school routine. Where do things organizationally fall apart during your day, and at what point in the day could you stop to regroup?

Once your daily routines are helping you function, then you can add in your weekly routines to help the week flow more smoothly. When designing your weekly routines, think both about when things need to get done AND you’re in the best position mentally to do them. I think this is a little like litter-training a rabbit. While rabbits will learn to use a litter box, the easiest way to do it is to observe where the rabbit tends to do his/her business, and place the litter box in that area. Make sure you’re not putting your litter box all the way across the cage. For example, I found that I originally had WAY too much on my Friday afternoon task list. I was just too tired to get through as much as I thought I could. Experiment. See what works.

Remember, FLYLady advocates for baby steps. If you feel guilty or bad about yourself at any time, you’re probably trying to add too much. Go back to “shining your sink,” remind yourself it’s a process, and try again with a set of routines the following week. This is not about perfection. It’s about automating some of your life so that you have thinking space to do the work that matters most: designing quality instruction for kids.

See my customizable weekly task list here. Make a copy and edit away to start working on your routines!

Breaking my Silence on Ferguson

I have been quietly thinking and researching and stewing the past two days about the tragic events in Ferguson, Missouri. And I have remained silent to my friends and family on Facebook while I process. Maybe I don’t want to say anything on social media because I don’t feel qualified to respond. Maybe I don’t want to say anything on social media because I don’t want to engage with the polarized language I feel saturated in. Maybe I don’t want to say anything because I am still processing.

Perhaps that processing time is a luxury afforded to me by my privilege.

And maybe that doesn’t have anything to do with it. I don’t feel compelled to engage on social media about many “political” ideals that matter to me. My social media being my “friendly  place” seems like my prerogative.

But maybe that’s selfish and short-sided. Because the truth is that the entire world is a friendlier place to me, a white woman, than it is to my black friends and students and colleagues and neighbors and fellow humans of the world. White privilege is a fact in this country. A fact.  While I cannot convince someone who does not believe this of its truth, I will not be silent about it.

My heart is heavy this week with the tragedy of Ferguson. My heart is heavy because a family lost a son, and I cannot imagine this pain. My heart is heavy because black lives matter, and too many have been lost in tragic death sentences that were unsanctioned and unwarranted. My heart is heavy because I know good law enforcement officers who long to keep peace in communities and make the world safer, and they do the best they can every single day. My heart is heavy because I, too, am a public servant in a field that “lacks accountability,” which people think they can do better than me simply because they’ve lived it on the other side of the desk. My heart is heavy because again, what I see on social media shows me that people coming together on an issue that matters so much is further away than ever. My heart is heavy because folks are making broad generalizations about many based on the actions of a few.

My students wrote conclusions for their argument papers on social issues today. I urged them to acknowledge the “gray” in their conclusions. I told them something like this: “If you are pretending like your issue is 100% black and white, then you are being irresponsible. The way to acknowledge the importance of your issue is to acknowledge that it is difficult to discuss and difficult to understand.”

And I brought up Ferguson in my classroom because it’s been on the fringes of our conversation for two days, and I didn’t want to be silent to my students anymore.

“You can say something like, ‘I get that being a law enforcement officer and making split-second decisions is difficult’ and follow it with ‘And I also get that black young men are 21 times more likely to be killed by a police officer than white young men. We have a problem with racism in our society.’ These two ideas are not mutually exclusive, so don’t feel like you have to pretend that they are. Admitting that you’re unsure, that there are multiple perspectives that are difficult to sort out--that doesn’t weaken your argument; it strengthens it. Because you’re showing that this is an issue worth discussing, worth seeking to understand. Don’t ever think that looking at the whole issue and trying to understand it demonstrates weakness.”

I don’t know if these are the right things to say because I’m not sure there are right things to say. But because there are so few “gray” voices in my news feed right now, I wanted to say something. Because if silence indicates that I don’t care about this issue--and the deeper underlying issues it exemplifies, that would be woefully incorrect.

Day 20: Curating Student Work

Day 20: How do you curate student work--or help them do it themselves?

Curating student work is something I've experimented with--rather poorly--the whole time I've been a teacher. I keep experimenting because I truly believe in looking at work as a way for students to be mindful of their growth.

I've mostly used manilla file folders, asking students to keep their major writing pieces, which they flip through a few times a year, and then I send home with them in June, begging them to at least take them home and shove under their beds rather than trashing it on the way out of the building. (No, I do not believe this is the most powerful form of student reflection.)

And reflection is the big piece of the puzzle. Sure, collecting can be powerful when students can compare what they are capable of in May versus what they could do in October. But they have to have the TIME and a GUIDE to help them see the nuances in their writing. Very few students will do this by accident on their own.

This year, since we are 1:1 with Google Chromebooks, I thought I might try helping the kids create Google Sites, with different pages for their different types of writing. This would be an organized place where they could gather their pieces, use the "comment" at the bottom of the page to reflect ever so often, and maybe even look at again next year to remember that they actually did learn something in ninth grade.

Any tips and pointers from folks who have used this method before?

Day 18: I am an Air Traffic Controller.

Day 18: Create a metaphor/simile/analogy that describes your teaching philosophy.

I am an air traffic controller.

This makes me laugh because in eighth grade I thought I wanted to be an air traffic controller, which is pretty much the WORST possible fit for me as a person.

And yet.

Air traffic controllers are trying to guide places that are far from them, over which they have no real control. They offer guidance; pilots must choose to accept it. Likewise, we can guide, nudge, cajole, beg, punish our students in an effort to take them on the path of our choice; however, the path is theirs and if they are going to authentically learn anything, they must engage independently.

Air traffic controllers are making constant on-the-spot decisions. While my on-the-spot decisions are not a matter of life or death, each one has a consequence that I cannot predict. A choice may have no effect on a larger outcome, or it may be the tiny thing that gets a kid back on track. Or off track. Hopefully it doesn't cause a plane crash.

Air traffic controllers are managing flying objects. This is the hopeful part of my metaphor. Students really are true, pure potential. When we can bottle it up and allow ourselves to breathe it in, they are as amazing as planes soaring in the sky. We spend our days in vicarious flight.

Day 16: Superpower

Day 16: If you could have one superpower in the classroom, what would it be and how would it help?

There's a serious answer here, and a silly one.

My serious answer: I would love to stop the clock and let learning be when we are really in the flow, instead of marching to the dead beat of a bell all day long. Sometimes I need 85 minutes for a lesson so the students have time to practice, internalize, play. I would love to be able to stop the clock.

My silly answer: I would love to know when I'm really boring and no one is actually paying attention. Sometimes I know this because it's obvious. But there are other times when there are several student nodding along with me, and I delude myself into thinking that everyone is really engaged when I'm sure everyone is thinking about how I really should have worn a different cardigan or what lunch awaits or whether Jean is going to say yes to the ninth grade dance. And I love the instability and unpredictability of the ninth grade mind. But it would be awesome to just know for sure when every student in my room wishes I would just shut my mouth.

Day 15: Strengths

Day 15: Name three strengths you have as an educator.

1. I am committed. I believe deeply in the ability of education to make a difference in a student's life, and I take the opportunity I am given to be that difference very seriously. This manifests itself in me working to connect with both easy and challenging students, being willing to be the adult in the room and give every kid a fresh start every single day, and searching for the right way to help a student grasp something that is difficult. My heart is in this work because I believe that I have a moral obligation to give the best I can every day.

2. I am calm. While I am passionate about beautiful language and standing up for what is right, I am able to remain calm in the chaos of the classroom. This is true both for days that are difficult when it comes to management and moments with individual students that I'm not sure how to handle. Yoga has changed me for the better here. I am comfortable with waiting, finding my breath, pausing until I know what to say or do.

3. I work backwards. I feel really fortunate that I had a great Methods professor in my undergraduate work that helped me understand aligning goals to assessments and beginning with the end in mind. I believe that my ability to consider a big-picture goal and identify the baby steps it will take to get there helps my course feel organized and flowing toward something.

Of course, there are improvements to be made, always. But I'm not going to deal with those today. I'm just going to note what I think I do well. We should all do this more often.