Right Message, Wrong Reasons - Not Reconvening InSchool Learning in June

 Right Message, Wrong Reasons - Not Reconvening InSchool Learning in June

         

              I am sure the decision was not an easy one.  For several weeks beforehand, the press was filled with articles about the need to see students back in school before the end of the school year. All that the politicians were watching for was the case count to go down and some appearance of the fact that there would be NO uptick in Covid cases if students went back to school. There was pressure from the teachers’ unions to keep schools closed until all the teachers had had their second shots. There was pressure from the parents to ensure no schools opened until it was safe for the students to be there all day and then come home. There were all the calls about the mental health of the students and the obvious decline in learning due to being at home and online.  To say that the issue was contentious was obviously stating the obvious,

              However, as all of these events were playing out on my devices and on the television, I was thinking what a crazy way to bring an end to the educational response to Covid 19.  I do not say that the cost to parents and students was not overwhelming. I do not argue against the problems teachers would have with having to be back in school full time.  But what bothers me was the fact that I never ever read anyone talking about the timing of the move.

             I am sitting here, in my air-conditioned office at the end of an extremely hot and humid day and there have been more than a few of them already these past two weeks.  I find myself reflecting on the times I was in a classroom on days like this in this very month when absolutely nothing was going right.  In order to understand where I am coming from, those of you reading this have to realize that the vast majority of schools in Ontario and other provinces lack any real kind of air conditioning equipment. Schools were built with the assumption that during the heat of the summer, they would be empty.  They have great furnaces and plenty of windows, but even on days like today, with all the windows open, if there is no breeze, the classrooms can become as hot as Hades.  How do you think teachers or students responded in the past to conditions like this?  They slacked off.  Students knew that heat waves meant summer was upon them, which meant cookouts, and backyard pools, and family trips, and fun riding on bicycles with their friends.  It meant freedom.  For teachers, it meant learning had ceased.  Students have limits to their ability to concentrate on anything academic when their minds are on other things and teachers are not miracle workers.  

            Pandemic or no pandemic, come the heatwaves of June, students are done.  We take our students outdoors and read or draw or sing songs or make up skits and try to find links to the curriculum constantly. We show movies in the classroom and struggle to keep students behaving and in their seats.  It might have been a long time since I was in a classroom, but I know that we have not been retrofitting all our schools with heat exchanges and air conditioners.  Planning has to take this into account, no matter how hard we wish we didn’t have to consider such mundane things.  Imagine how much harder it would be to start trying to get kids back into school for a week or two or three now and deal with the issues of heat and poor learning and lack of discipline and so forth. It is far better to aim to start in September, right off the bat, with specific plans designed to help create the kind of classroom culture where effective learning will take place. It is imperative that boards make sure they have at least one or two people per school who will spend their time hunting down former students who ought to be in school and working with the families to get every child back in school.

           Make no mistake about it.  It would be great to have kids in school now, for sure, but to what end. It would be better to start a week or two earlier, before Labour Day, to make sure all schools are fully staffed and ready to proceed with the hard task ahead of rebuilding student classrooms and school populations and ensuring young minds are ready, willing, and able to begin anew.  In September, we all of us are programmed to take hot days into account and students know they are there to learn and so they do not expect to enjoy any dog days.  Teachers are primed and ready to go.  It is part of our routines as classroom teachers. September means back to the bell and the classroom environment.  We will begin in September as we normally would.  How much better a start could we possibly ask for?  

Interleaving

 

INTEREAVING

 

              I saw this word in a posting I read today about something happening in classrooms and I immediately realized that it is a new way of referring to Integration.  When I was a classroom teacher, I automatically taught by integrating subjects.  We don’t learn history or geography as we are growing up and away from school. We learn about the world and its changes over time.  It is only when we are in school that it becomes first Social Studies and then History and Geography.  When we are studying music and learning how to read music we are confronted with terms like quarter and half notes but of course that has nothing to do with mathematics, right?  When I taught design in my art classrooms, I never thought to refer to patterning which is a strand on the mathematics curriculum.  We don’t think about subjects, we think about topics, or concepts whether they be from one area of a school curriculum or another.

              To help understand where I am going with this, think about browsing on the Internet. From the earliest days of the World Wide Web, students or most adults would sit in front of a computer screen and start in one location or web site and then perhaps click on another hot link which would take them somewhere else entirely, but it was the way their minds were working.  I might start reading about penguins living at the tip of South America but then I’d hit a link about Chile because all of a sudden something came to mind that I was interested in and so I’d click to find out and then I might read about the political situation while reading about Chile and find I was curious whether or not it was the same in Peru because I met someone who came from there.  Our minds follow our interests and our curiosities and if we are forced to NOT do that, some of us would lose interest because our minds are stuck somewhere else.  So, integration or InterLeaving follows the nature way in which we think which would mean it follows the way we learn, because we remember that which is of interest to us.  

              I always tried to integrate my teaching.  If I was teaching about flight, it was not enough to teach about the early experiments of the Wright Brothers, but to read about Daedalus and his attempt at flying and what the Greeks thought about attempting to fly and then to teach about birds and how come birds are able to fly and then about perhaps the principals of flight and then some history and the experiments and so forth.  By doing that, students are kept on their toes.  They are not just making notes, not just conducting experiments, not just reading books, not just watching videos, not just sitting in their desks.  AS I write this, you can perhaps see where the leaving part of InterLeaving comes from.  It is important to teach not according to subjects but according to themes.  That is how our minds work.

              Finally, one only has to think about the sciences that are now so important to our confrontation with the future. We talk about AstroPhysics, BioTechnology, 

BioChemistry, GeoPolitics and so forth.   Each of those began as separate fields of study, but we have come to see that, we cannot really understand one field without thinking about how it relates to other fields.  Interleaving is the way our world works and so too the way our classrooms should work. 

Culturally Responsive Teaching

 CULTURALLY RESPONSIVE TEACHING

 

            One of the unintended consequences of our world evolving into a global community is the necessity to teach students wherever they are about the rest of the world and how cultures differ.  Naturally, because we live in world connected by so many different ways to communicate, we also have students in our classrooms quite often from all over the world.  One can go to even the most far-off places on the planet and meet kids and adults speaking different languages, eating, or wanting to eat different foods and wanting to pick up news from home in a multiplicity of languages.  But cafes, restaurants, tourist spots, schools, bring people together and that cultural diffusion filters into our classrooms.  If we want to make each and every student feel as if they belong so that we as teachers can make a difference in their lives for good, then we need to figure out ways to make our teaching culturally responsive.  What exactly does that mean though.

           Well, first of all, I think it means not painting all of our students with one brush.  For example, since so many students eat at school and share tables as well as conversation, from a very young age, we see children looking at what everyone puts in their mouths.  Gone are the days when every kid had a peanut butter sandwich, some cookies, and an apple perhaps.  There will be any number of different foodstuffs and we should encourage discussions both in and out of class about what the different foods are and where they come from.  Perhaps it would be fun to have a bring your lunch to school day for everyone and encourage children to share what they would normally be eating if they were still where their families were from and what some of the events around lunch time might be. The object of the lessons would be to encourage everyone to share and come to see that although their lunch stuffs might be different, they are still eating for nourishment and pleasure.

             Another way could be to have opportunities for children to share what memories they have from their home countries.  Some of those memories might be harder or more embarrassing to share and this is where cultural sensitivity would come in on the part of the teacher.  He or she has to know what life was like for their students BEFORE they joined their class and ensure that they feel as comfortable as is possible.  Some students might have come from war-torn countries, Others perhaps left their extended family behind.  But we owe it to our students, wherever they have come from and whatever the circumstances of their current lives, to make them feel accepted and welcomed not just by us but by our students as well.

             This list could go on and on, but I will focus on reading materials briefly here since I have addressed this before.  In order for children to want to read and to learn from their reading choices, we should try and find books to include in our libraries, in the classroom and in the school, that share a point of view different from our own. I have made l it my business to read some of the most current literature written by authors telling stories of poverty in India or escape from Syria or dealing with death in a new home in America. There are so many books written by authors who are non-white, African or Asian, who have something important to teach us about life from their points of view.  We can encourage our students, young and old, to read widely about life in distant places and see how although dress and foods and shelter might be different, kids are kids and growing up presents the exact same challenges regardless of where we are.  

          Being culturally responsive means attempting to see the world through the eyes of someone not from the same background as ourselves.  The beauty of that exercise is not only that we learn about different worlds and different cultures and so forth, but it makes us more tolerant because we are becoming broader minded.  That’s the most we can hope for if we wish to continue to enjoy life in a democracy where every person counts and is entitled to be treated fairly and justly.

Whether to Teach Cursive Writing or Keyboarding

 

 

 

Whether to Teach Cursive Writing or Keyboarding

           

           I noticed a headline today in one of the newsletters I get on various educational topics that referred to this long-standing debate that exists not only within our profession, but also amongst the wider parent community.  There are many who believe that schools should still be teaching children how to write using cursive script and with a pen.  Obviously, the alternative, which has much currency in the community is to teach typing instead.  From the very beginning of the digital revolution in elementary schools, there was this raging debate about students and their writing or not writing.

            When we look at the adult population, which I do when I go shopping, I see just as many people who have hand-written grocery lists as those who have handheld devices with lists that they are referencing.  I haven’t really noticed the difference between the two groups in ages, but I am going to guess that the younger the shopper, the more likely they are to have a list on a hand-held device.  That would make sense because that is how they engage with the world.  When they finish school, they do everything on their devices.  I don’t think any reader of this current blog entry would question whether or not this is true. I am an elderly educator now and I do as much as I can on my devices, but I still keep notes and lists on pieces of paper.  It is an old, ingrained habit.

            In order to think about what position to take today on this argument, I think we need to think about what role cursive writing plays in our daily lives. When you think about it, there aren’t many ways that anyone, even the elderly like me, sit down and write out in long-hand a letter or a speech or anything like that.  Everything we do, we do it on a tablet or a computer or a smart phone. When we engage with paper, it is to print out or make notes about something.  I write my lists, but I could just as easily print them out. This brings me to what I think we should be doing in the classroom.

           I believe we need to teach proper printing skills to encourage young people to put away their devices and engage with paper and a desk.  Once they have learned to print properly, then we can move to typing skills.  Typing skills are not easy to teach at a young age and most teachers are not able to teach others how to type. I learned that in Grade 10 and I’m forever grateful.  But most don’t know how and so students learn how to seek and punch from a very young age.  I don’t think it matters much about typing because you never hear someone young complain that they wish they could type, and you never see anyone NOT use their devices because they can’t type.  

         So, what is really needed is an educational campaign aimed at the older folks among us who think that because they learned how to write, their children and grandchildren should be able to do that as well.  But there are just some skills that no longer should be taught in school. They have run their usefulness out.  

Attributes Outweigh Skills

 

Attributes Outweigh Skills

 

             The first time I was forced to confront this concept was when I began teaching for Niagara University which was now almost 15 years ago.  One of my friends and colleagues at Niagara had been advocating for the use of this concept in conjunction with the assessment of teaching skills as a measure of future success in the classroom.  He argued, and it didn’t take me long to come to agree with his position, that the successful teacher needed to have the dispositions required to be a good teacher.  If you look at the graphic above, it shouldn’t be too hard to understand just what was being referred to.  

             When I became used to my position at Niagara and had become less of a novice in the program, I found it very easy to argue the case to my students that it was one thing to know how to write a good lesson plan and how to assess students using tests or rubrics, but the difference between a successful classroom teacher and the opposite was the attitude towards students and teaching that one brought to one’s assignment, regardless of the class to be taught.  We would talk about what it meant to be born to teach and they soon realized that what that really meant was having the affects, the dispositions towards the other, towards the student, towards the task that made it possible to reach out to a student and have that hand accepted willingly and happily.  

           Over the years, it seems to me, the argument to be made for affect coming before skills has only gotten stronger. When you think about why some students are thriving online today given the need to do all their learning online, those who are the most highly motivated to be successful   are those who are taking the steps necessary to figure out the process of being online.  The teachers who seem to be doing the best are those who like teaching to begin with and will do anything that makes it easier for them to reach their students and help them learn.  If you want to help your students, you will find a way.  The old adage that where there is a will, there is a way more than applies here.  

           In conjunction with this conversation though, it is crucial to talk about grit.  This was not something we talked about a generation ago, but it is certainly more than necessary to identify it in the students and teachers of today.  To explain why, let me point out that when our kids were small I used to say that I had a weed and an orchid for children.  My orchid needed a hot house, a very narrow spectrum of conditions in which she was able to thrive, but our weed did just fine wherever he was, whomever he was with and whatever he was asked to do.  Our orchid though had grit.  She didn’t come by it honestly or naturally, but she acquired it because of the challenges she had as a teenager. She learned how to pick herself up by her bootstraps and move forward.  

             This to me is the most important of all the dispositions, whether we are talking about teachers or students. Teachers need to have it so that, no matter what happens today, tomorrow, they will be back eager to succeed and do better than the day before. I students need to have it so that they cn learn from their mistakes and move on.   Today, more than ever, we need to know how important it is to regroup and try again. I used to tell my students about the little engine tha could.  For all of us, it is worth remembering that if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.         

 Making Thinking Visible

 

             Recently, there has been an uptick in the number of professional articles that refer to thinking skills and how to encourage them in the classroom.  It is well known that thinking and pondering about topics and subjects leads to the individual student reaching for connections which in turn contributes to deep learning.  Deep learning is what happens when new connections are made to concepts already existent in the functioning brain.  For example, let’s say we ask a group of students to create bridges using popsicle sticks. This is a challenge that often presents itself in classrooms.  So, you provide the class with the popsicle sticks and the glue guns and the spaces to work and then you set them to work.  Sometimes, you can precede this activity with some pictures of bridges in various places and class discussions about how they are constructed and what they think makes the bridges strong.  This would create an activity for students to THINK about what they are seeing. We have to draw attention to what we want them to think about, but then, in classroom discussions, students will build on each other’s thoughts and contribute ideas. 

             Just talking about why bridges are strong or weak is not sufficient to enable students to remember the reasons or to create new learning pathways to support their ideas.  You have to write things down for them because some students will not remember and others won’t grasp the concepts at all. But this is all normal and natural. So then you can encourage a student to make lists for the students and allow them to specify how to write the concepts down.  By enlisting student scribes, you are enabling more students to engage with the thought process. Right there is an example of how we are making thinking visible.  You cannot rush this activity nor should you because you want the thinking to become abstract.  When students begin to create images in their heads of what you are talking about, you are contributing to deep learning. 

          The next step is to enable the students to experiment with their ideas.  They have begun to think about what makes for bridge strength and what factors might be necessary to consider when functioning as an engineer and planning a building.  Lest you are reading this and thinking that this is above and beyond any class, consider that there are all kinds of bridges and all kinds of designs and just enumerating all the factors that limit how and what to build is cultivating engagement with the students and thinking about the challenge.  All kids like to build things and they are not afraid to take risks and that is precisely what you want. You want them to experiment.  So from here, I would suggest that you turn to the actual building of the bridges with popsicle sticks.  You work with the students to enumerate how to consider a structure successful either using a rubric or a checklist, but they are evolving a mental determination of just what the challenge entails.  Then you let them go to work.  You encourage group work because, you tell them, no one works on their own anymore.  They will understand that these things are done in groups but you talk about why that is so.  You want them to understand that when we work in teams, we put ideas together and we become better because we all have individual ideas. 

           So after giving them lots of time to play around and experiment, you lt them talk about why some of them were successful, somewhat, and some were not. Not every group will be successful, but that is what you want, because you want them to be able to debrief, to talk about what they did right and what they did wrong and why some of them are more successful than others.  Hopefully, you will allow just as much time afterwards to talk about the results as you did to talk about the planning. Obviously, everything has gone from abstract to real but while they are now dealing with real bridge building and the problems that arose, they are deepening their knowledge.  They will be thinking about what they accomplished and why and analyzing what went right and what went wrong. This is also deep thinking.  

           This is what it means to use problem-based learning to help students acquire knowledge, skills and affect but it is also a very real and fun way for students to actually visualize their thinking.  You can use this same strategy over and over again and the kids will remember the challenges that you present to them while they are acquiring knew knowledge, skills and affect.  The only way this works is if you do it over and over again.  It becomes part of their learning repertoire that way.  

Teacher Shortages Leading to Change

Teacher Shortages Leading to Change

 

             Everywhere you turn and everything you read is pointing to a crisis in not one but two professions as a result of the pandemic.  This past week, every doctor and every nurse interviewed on the course of the pandemic has indicated an increased level of frustration with the public and how it is refusing to acknowledge the severity of the situation caused by the variants of the virus.  While hospitals are overwhelmed everywhere, teachers are complaining about the workload placed upon them as a result of having to pivot back and forth between in-school and at home learning.  Everyone is tired, no more so than the women in the medical and teaching professions because they are the ones bearing the brunt of having to be at home with their kids and teaching or straddling the two things.  The reality is that, when this is all over, hospitals and doctors will return to a more normal pace of life and the burdens of medical care will diminish, at the same time as some of the professionals will quit, due to burn out.  While the burdens will diminish and retirements will occur at the same time in those fields, work will increase when schools return to full function because there will be deficits to catch up on in students at every turn and on every level. There will however be huge gaps in the workforce to meet the needs of the schools.

             Thanks to my doctoral studies, I did a bit of reading on the unforeseen consequences of technological change.  What was and still is apparent is that every change forces more changes and often in ways one was unable to predict before.  This is also going to be true of schools.  And I think that the changes that will come are those that needed to change anyways.  

             Take for example online learning.  It has become apparent that online learning can, in some instances and cases, admirably fill in for in-class instruction, but there is still a lot to be learned about when it works and when it doesn’t.  Sadly, however, as several editorials have indicated already, politicians looking for ways to cut costs are already seeing online learning as a money saver.  It was suggested two decades ago that online learning would lead to cuts in the numbers of teachers required to support and educational system.  But what will take much longer to learn from will be how teaching has to change to meet the moment.  For example, online learning works if there is an increase in the contacts individually between teacher and student.  You can’t just put 30 or 40 students in front of a teacher online and expect good things to happen.  You can put 20 kids into a class with one teacher who reaches out and gets to know all his or her students deeply and intimately, in terms of their learning needs.  This our current teachers are not prepared for. So, here there will be years of instability while professionals learn how to make on-line and in-class learning work successfully.  

             There are also lessons to be learned about ages and stages of students and how to mix in-class and on-line learning depending upon the child’s needs.  Older students will need to learn how to be more self-directed and younger students will have to be introduced to online learning slowly and gradually.  This will mean changes to how we prepare teachers for their careers in education and how we prepare administrators for the physical changes that will accompany the changes in how we bring schools and teachers together. Change is coming but it will not be easy and society will need to be patient. Inevitably the changes will be good once they are fully. Implemented, but until then……..there will be lots of bumps on the road.    

  

Puppetry In My Art Program

Puppetry In My Art Program

             One of the headlines that came across my desk this week was one referring to a special new program in the state of Vermont aimed at helping young people to deal with anxieties through the use of puppets.  When I read the headline, it reminded me once again of how often I had ideas throughout my career that were way ahead of their time.  I look back at times like this and wonder why, if I had the insight to know a good idea when I saw it or read of it, I didn’t have enough brains to use it to advance my own career.  I never thought of these things originally as being ahead of their time, but rather just good ideas that I should implement in my classroom program.

             Back in the day, I taught art on Rotary for Grades 4 to 8.  I had no art room of my own and so I had to figure out how to maximize the use of space in my classroom.  I came up with the idea of doing units using different kinds of media which I used with all the grades. So, all the grades used the same tools, just to accomplish different projects.  I had a pottery unit, a painting unit, a chalk pastel unit, a construction paper unit, and so forth.  So, one year, I decided that I wanted to do puppets with all the grades.  When I chose to do something, I had to come up with different tasks that were in keeping with the skill levels of the specific grades. Pottery was no different.

             So, I determined that the youngest students would make sock puppets, and another grade would make stick puppets and I wanted the senior grades to make marionettes.  I had this brilliant idea that the Grade Eights would write puppet plays in their regular classroom program and I would help them in Art to make the actual stage and puppets.  I went to the classroom teacher who was also, at that time, chasing an advancement in her career, ironically.  I laid my plan out at her feet and she pooh-poohed it from the beginning. In her mind, puppets were too childish for Grade 8’s.  So, we did something else, and I was madder than hell. 

             I could not believe that someone would actually think puppets and plays were too childish for Grade 7 or Grade 8 students.  The two classes were combined at this point because the two teachers were team teaching.  I thought the idea was golden and I got turned down flat.  Now I see this headline about the use of puppets as a way for children to hide behind something to help give voice to their issues.  It still makes perfect sense to me.  This was the same woman who ended up being my principal much later and castigated me for making changes in a program because of something parents had wanted, and I tried to accommodate.  

             I had my comeuppance though, in the end.  I got the senior students to bring in old clothes and they designed their own stuffed people which got placed all over the school.  They used paper to stuff the puppets, and some were in chairs outside, which was another novel idea that the kids always liked.  The local paper came and took pictures of the stuffed people and I had a couple of pictures in the paper.  The principal at the time used to sometimes walk into the bench near his office that had two large stuffed puppets on it and the principal was heard apologizing for bumping into them.  I had a really good laugh over that one.  

             The moral of the story is that one should not be afraid to try new things, especially if you perceive that the kids will actually love the activity.   Every time I did something like that, something novel, the kids loved it.  I often think I was not that great a teacher, but I write these lines and I realize that I was not that great in some areas but really great in others.  I can understand why my students still remember me……because I did memorable things with them.  What more can I ever ask of myself than that I am remembered kindly, even fondly, by my students.

 

 

Games and Gamification in the Classroom

 Games and Gamification in the Classroom

 

                From almost the beginning of my career as a classroom teacher, I used to subscribe to magazines published to cover topics of interest in education.  I was always a pioneer of sorts although I would have never thought of myself that way when I first got into a classroom.  But I was always looking for ways to enrich my teaching practice.  These magazines always featured some really great ideas for teachers and one time, I happened to pick up a magazine with an article featuring the use of games to help teach mathematics.  Back in the day, it would have been like using Monopoly to learn concepts concerning the use of money and practicing arithmetic skills.  Snakes and Ladders could help young children practice their counting skills and checkers could address the need to concentrate and think strategically.  So naturally I tried to keep games on hand and use them.

                From there, it was only a few steps to creating your own game and making it a challenge for art and mathematics.  So, students would think about board games and how to design their own that would feature the same ideas of arithmetic and numeracy.  These were taken out of curriculum ideas for gifted education but if you mixed students in small groups ensuring that there would be gifted students matched with students more challenged in the classroom, there was still much to be gained by devoted classroom time to creating games.  Besides, the small group work enabled one to help students learn how to communicate nicely and properly and work in teams effectively.

                Now of course, board games are sort of passee. There are lots of people who still have them but more frequently, it is using electronic tools and bringing Artificial Intelligence and avatars and all those kinds of things into the classroom. There are lots of parents who are no pleased to see these things in use but they play an important part in helping kids develop a wide range of skills that will only become more important in the years ahead.  The trick is to figure out how to guide students in using the games and not just playing effectively but again, thinking strategically and understanding how the digital world works.  As well, the teacher has to be moving about all the time to enforce proper rules of engagement and so forth.  

                I am sure a lot of people reading this have images of GameBoys and Xboxes and so forth,  but remember that increasingly, work is no longer face to face and knowing how to work with an avatar and manipulate behaviour on screen is a tremendously valuable skill.  The. Day is fast approaching when every classroom will feature artificial intelligence and robotics and the sooner we see these tools as part of the classroom, the sooner we will know that we are helping to educate our students for future success, not just drilling specific, easily assessed skills.  The difference between the past and the future is that in the past we were drilled on skills and that supposedly prepared us for a world of routinized workplaces.  However, in the future the highest paid jobs will go to those who understand how to conceptually move things around virtually and move into new frontiers.  Just think about the difference between operating on a man or woman using an operating theatre and tools manipulated by hand as opposed to operating using a robotic arm and having to be able to manipulate that arm using a computer.  There is where the future lies. 

  

 

 

 

Juggling All Those Roles

Juggling All Those Roles

           When I first began to teach young people interested in being teachers, I became painfully aware of how so many of them were juggling so many different roles as they embarked on their program of studies.  They often had part-time jobs which they had every intention of keeping while going to school. Some of them were parents and had little children they had to attend to. Some of them were caregivers to elderly relatives. Some of them were newlyweds and learning what that meant while also going to school. The sad fact is that they seldom lost any of those older roles when they began to teach.  Those other roles just added to their stress level when they went to school and often times, it meant not doing as well as they ought to have when they were studying to become teachers. 

 

           I remember so well when I was newly enrolled as a member at Brock University’s Physical Education Complex and swimming several times a week or working out, that I would see some of the same people I had taught in the Teacher Education program at the gym by 4:30 working out and enjoying themselves.  They were obviously not staying long at school and yet, when I was a new teacher, I was at school for hours after the day was done preparing for the next day.  Too many kids today just don’t know how to prioritize and have been raised to believe that the most important thing was to be looking after themselves. They are all part of the big ME generation and that just doesn’t go well with teaching.

 

           That ethos is now dripping down into the High Schoolers who have to work on line because their schools are closed thanks to the pandemic. They have to study online and then they also have to try and make some spare cash and they also have to find time to just be kids.  That’s the biggest problem.  Today’s teachers and teachers-in-training have no time to just be young adults and they don’t know how to juggle all the roles thrust upon them.  In the end, what suffers is school which is the same part.

 

           As administrators, we spent more time trying to  help students learn how to adjust to the demands of being professionals and how to balance the various aspects of their lives. This is becoming increasingly difficult. All you have to do is look at how the kids have been behaving during spring break in Florida this year to realize that they really don’t know what it means to be responsible and to shoulder all the different roles they must play. We have a long way to go before we’ll have newly graduated teachers who wil have the sense of responsibility so many of us had when we began. There’s the real problem with schooling today and sadly, until we solve that problem, we’ll never get anywhere.

Who Knows Where The Changes Will Stop?

                 

Who Knows Where The Changes Will Stop?

There has been so much written lately about the permanent changes to education that will continue beyond the end of the pandemic.  These writings bring to mind a book I read about the unintended consequences of technological innovation over the ages.  Every invention man has made has met a need and created other needs as a result of those it satisfied.  The printing press enabled the diary of Marco Polo’s trips to China to be published, which in turn stimulated the interest in exploration, which in turn led to the exploration of the world beyond the Mediterranean and the search for a shorter way by sea to China.  Similarly, the use of wireless technology and Zoom to communicate with students online is going to lead to huge changes in education whether online or in a classroom.

 

            I have long ago written about how I have always known that technology would mean inevitably to changes in classroom culture, design, behaviours and so forth.  When we first put computers into elementary classrooms we had to worry about where we would put them so that they had access to wiring for both electricity and connectivity. That meant changing the arrangement of the classroom.  The next thing we had to worry about was where to put new electrical outlets and then how to manage the control of student movement so that everyone had access and without interruptions. Wireless technology meant that desktops plugged in were no longer necessary and movement became more possible.  I remember when we paid for outlets to the On-Ramp to the World Wide Web and now we can be anywhere and anytime to access information. Just think about how different school becomes when you no longer have to manage who goes to the library when and what books to order and so forth.  

 

         Then there is how we are going to communicate with students and when.  Wireless technology means students no longer have to be in front of us.  Now we have to focus on what it means to communicate with students PERIOD.   It is no longer one way…. I tell you what to do and you do it.  I have to negotiate with you and meet your needs.  Students and their parents will no longer be satisfied with teachers who only give orders and don’t work with their kids.  We have to learn how to actually talk to students and engage with them. I have also long advocated for teachers no longer being the sage on the stage but the guide on the side. So that means we have to give up power to our students and enable them to work WITH US to agree on what will be done and how.  

 

            Budgets can change at the school level. We spent so much money on textbooks that were out of date before we even got used to them and now, we don’t need textbooks at all. That means everyone can be on their own page, not on the same page in a textbook.  Just imagine how that changes the dynamics of the classroom.  Wireless allows us to seek for resources online whether we are in a classroom or in the library.  

 

            The whole way in which we organize schools and classrooms will change as a result of not just the pandemic and its aftermath, but how we have come to see technology and the role it plays in our teaching and learning styles.  It was predicted 30 years ago that technology would require us to completely rethink how we did business and now, thanks to the pandemic, that’s exactly what we are doing. 

Just How To Use Virtual Trips To Enrich Your Teaching

              

Just How To Use Virtual Trips To Enrich Your Teaching

              As I begin this post, I find myself wondering if I have any readers at all.  I have, in good faith, tried to address issues that others might find informative but that is an assumption about having an audience.  So, I am going to write this post as if someone is actually reading.  I made a second assumption too often that only a few sentences were enough to make some points for parents who were looking for advice or for teachers who were reading and searching for ideas to implement in the classroom.  Then just recently I remembered that I was told far too long ago that I make assumptions about how much detail is necessary for the average person because I learn so quickly.  So today………in this column so very specific examples about one of my favorite strategies for technology integration.  

 

             Let’s begin with the idea of a virtual trip which is the idea of going to a website and viewing videos or a webcam in place of an actual visit.  When life was much simpler, at least once a year, teachers could arrange to take their students on trips to other places. I remember taking my students to the Royal Ontario Museum to see the special exhibit at the time on Tutankhamun and the life in Ancient Egypt at the time. Junior students always studied Ancient Egypt in those days as a way of learning about ancient history and technological change.  But when we went on buses, there was a considerable cost involved in the charting the buses and arranging for a meal and ensuring a teacher had at least one adult for every ten students.  It was a lot of work, but it was sound educational pedagogy.

 

             But now, one can go onto the website for the Royal Ontario Museum and search through all the education programs and aids they have. You can look at artifacts on display in the museum and listen at the same time to narration concerning what the students are looking at.  Or you can watch a video about the life of bats to go with the Bat exhibit which students always love to visit. Or imagine if you did a search on virtual trips concerning dinosaurs because your students were interested in them or you had to include them as a unit in specific grade and you can across links to videos about dinosaurs which accompanying narration and you could stop and start the videos at any time. All you need in order to accomplish this in a class, any class, is having a cart with an LCD projector that you can hook up a laptop to and maybe speakers attached, and you are away to races by just pulling down an old-fashioned screen or projecting on a white board or even a nice long sheet of fabric or paper.  

 

             Now, instead of reading and doing research and listening to the teacher talking and showing some pictures, you can immerse them in paleolithic times and see the size and the other flora and fauna around living dinosaurs and write down all the questions the students come up with.  Instead of the lesson being teacher directed, the students have the floor and pick up on the details that THEY are interested in.  It is almost like a choose your own adventure, with the students in the lead, which means following their noses for things that impress them or challenge them or raise questions to ponder.  That is when students do their best learning.  It’s called deep learning.  

 

           When I cross paths with former students, they invariably refer back to the fun things we did as a class, but they were always things that they were involved in and with and left deep impressions in their minds.  That is the ultimate compliment. I am only jealous now that I didn’t have access to these things twenty years ago.  How much more fun I would have and how much better my lessons would have been all the time.

 

One of the Unintended Consequences of the Pandemic

 One of the Unintended Consequences of the Pandemic

 

             I spent some time this morning on a Zoom call called SongSwap.  It has become a monthly feature presented by the Cantors’ Assembly, a constituent member of the Conservative movement in American Judaism.  I was originally interested in the program because of our own local Israeli Café, by which the members of Congregation B’nai Israel submit favorite Israeli, Yiddish, Ladino, of Jewish songs from anywhere. We had our first event way back at the beginning of the pandemic shutdowns and it has successfully continued monthly since then. We have consistently attracted quite a few participants.  So, when I saw this SongSwap, I was wondering how much alike or different it was from our program.

 

             I was amazed at what it actually ended up being.  Instead of submitting videos or songs or both like ours is, this was live presentations of music written by any number of cantors or rabbis or Jewish educators themselves and they presented their work themselves.  So, really what it is and has been, obviously, is a group of musicians sharing their work, the one with the other, except this was over 125 others, mostly young, mostly American, but I am sure from other places as well.  They were presenting musical variations on prayers that are an essential part of our services.  For example, today, the two hosts were talking about a Lech Dodi challenge, whereby they were inviting 49 variations on the traditional Kabbalat Shabbat prayer.  

 

                What struck me first was how far we have come from the days of Debbie Freedman and Shlomo Carlebach, whose compositions have become part of the standard repertoire in synagogues or all stripes and varieties.  But then I went on to imagine what might have been if they had had a medium to share their compositions more widely. Their prayer melodies have become standard because they spread through the summer camp programs.  Young people, after all, are not married to tradition the way their elders are and so the catchy tunes to familiar prayers soon replaced the staid old cantorial favorites and rightly so.  

 

             But Zoom technology which has rapidly overtaken synchronous video and oral communications online has blossomed and improved so quickly that now it is used to connect communities of like – minded people all over the globe.  That in turn has resulted in multiple new ways not just communicating but creating as well.  No matter what field of endeavour, we are constantly being bombarded by articles expounding on new ways of overcoming formidable barriers to networking.  Doctors using Artificial Intelligence and Zoom to help surgeons-in-training perfect their skills regardless of location. Educators writing about ways to use Zoom for just-in-time professional development on any variety of topics. Teachers using Zoom to connect learners in any two locations to collaborate online in any number of ways.  

 

           It has become de rigeur to advocate for opportunities to collaborate and create with students we teach because that is how they best learn and how we can hope that they will benefit society in the future.  Often, it takes an obstacle to prompt ways to overcome and enhance what has been done for any length of time.  I remember reading a book about the unintended consequences of technology in which the author looked at inventions or creations that were seminal at the time and that have profoundly affected how we saw the world or interacted ever after. Who would have thought that the invention of the cotton gin by Eli Whitney in the United States would lead to the Industrial Revolution in England or the identification of the double helix structure of d. n. a. by Watson and Crick to the medical marvel that are the new vaccines to combat Covid-19?  The unintended consequences of Zoom have led to a flowering of creativity which has further solidified the global community and hopefully to the bringing of mankind closer together, never to rent asunder again.   

Poetry Through My Career

 Poetry Through My Career

 

               I need to begin by declaring that I did not grow up with a fondness for poetry. My earliest memories of studying poetry as in grade school, probably Grade Six, where I remember the poetry of Bliss Carmen and Rudyard Kipling to name just a few. We were required to memorize the poems, and then to be able to write then out perfectly.  I suspect the reason why poetry was not memorable enough was that the teacher himself probably had no patience for poetry. He was, after all, a principal, and had lots of things on his mind. I adored him but he just didn’t do it for poetry with me. 

 

   Then we had poetry of course periodically in High School, because it was a compulsory component. Again, not the greatest of teachers and not the best works of poetry. Essentially, it became again memorizing soliloquies or sonnets by Shakespeare and having to recite them aloud this time.  By this time, though, my bias against poetry and numbness to the words and emotions of poetry were lost to me.  I remember labouring over the important pieces we studied for our Grade 13 English literature exam. This did not change when I took poems as part of our compulsory English course as an undergraduate.  

 

   When I began to teach, all the curriculum documents spoke to the important role of poetry in the language arts program.  I tried to teach to those documents a bit, but without enthusiasm.  I even tried to use music, since one or two of the textbooks were using the poetry of Paul Simon but I didn’t appreciate the poems at all and so I failed dismally.  But I want it to be known that poetry is and always ought to be an important part of the language program and the literacy program because it is important to appreciate the particular approach poets bring to their use of language.  Things like rhyming and rhythm can be easily approached through poetry and there are many who express themselves well that way.  Just think about the impact that young poet had on the crowds gathered at the inauguration of President Joe Biden and the millions who listened on T. V. or online.  

 

  I wish I could go back and start over again.  I think part of the problem is that it is stereotypical of the sexism in education.  The poetic inclination comes from a very different place in us than novels or speeches.  Poetry requires imagination and the ability to paint pictures in our heads as a result of the words we read and then to be imaginative about the messages being relayed.  I think when we become more attuned to the need to cultivate creativity and imagination in our students, when we see an enhanced emphasis on The Arts in general, poetry will be part of that rebirth.  Until then though, we need to force ourselves to become educated enough in poetry so that we can turn our students on to that particular form of the spoken and written word.  We cannot let it die in our educational systems.   

Collaboration Makes Everything So Much Easier and Better

              

Collaboration Makes Everything So Much Easier and Better

             When I first started to teach, I remember the feeling of being plunked into a classroom by myself and left to my own devices. I struggled a great deal and so a number of consultants came in to give me advice but then left.  The only way I could get them back was to make an appointment and have them come when I was free from teaching, which really, back then, was of no help to me.  When I had a student who gave me trouble, I went to the principal and he told the student that his recalcitrant behaviour would be punished by Jesus Christ in the next life, which obviously was of no use to anyone.  

 

              When I began to read prodigiously for my doctoral research, I read a book by Roland Bath, an American school principal, originally, who taught at Harvard and wrote several books about school improvement.  In his book, Improving Schools from Within, he likened classroom teachers at that time to kindergarten students who did not play together but rather in parallel to each other.  He suggested that the vast majority of elementary teachers went into their rooms, closed their classroom doors and avoided any professional conversations with anyone else in the school for fear admitting a mistake or a fear or a weakness would damage their professional image.

 

             Little has changed since those days except there have been many steps made to encouraging teachers in schools to collaborate with each other. I subscribe to several group list serves that publish ideas, questions, references and so on for other teachers to derive benefit from.  Technology has only made these attempts at collaboration easier. I remember when I taught a graduate class in research methods trying to use WhatsApp as a way for students in the class to share ideas, suggestions and so forth.  It did not go over very well because there was no culture supporting the use of the technology for communication.

 

                Collaboration both in real time and online synchronously is a very powerful tool that has yet to find its moment in time, I think.  There are so many teachers today struggling to conquer teaching online skills and yet they have been taught to assume it is them against the world, so to speak, when it comes to teaching.  I realize that there is so little time for teachers to spend in collaboration with other professionals when they have to teach their students and most often deal with their families too. But somehow or another, we must find a way to enable collaboration.  

 

             When I was a consultant, I got it into my head to create a situation where I would visit a specific number of schools who were all trying to make webpages with their students and I would be their collaborator available by phone or email or personal visit to help them over the various hurdles and teach them the skills they needed, just in time, so that they could practice and implement new skills as we went along.  It was very successful, and I used it that principle for my doctoral research with, again, much success.  Yet, in the trade list serves I subscribe to, I found a reference to collaborations between pre-service teachers and in-service teachers to help in the acquisition of tech skills.  Our culture makes it a fetish for people to succeed on their own and yet there is so little that we endeavour to do as individuals that is not made easier by asking for help.  To be capable and independent are great virtues but to be sort of incapable in one area and be able to reach out for help is equally important.  So much that ails our world today would be made so much better through collaboration and mutual support.  Let’s encourage everyone to learn once in a while, to ask for help. Try it.  You might actually like the experience and the feeling of support and skill development at the same time.

It's Not Impossible to Catch Up

 

It's Not Impossible to Catch Up

Popular culture has had a fascination for the concept of feral children for much of the last century. The idea began with Tarzan and Mogli, two literary characters in Victorian English literature who were raised in the jungle by animals.  The tradition has continued uninterrupted right into the 21 Century.  The idea that someone ferreted away from normal human discourse can mature into a fully-functioning adult has always fascinated the young as well as the old.  Emma Donoghue’s book THE ROOM contained the idea that a woman could be constrained by a sexual predator and sire children who could still function properly upon their release into the world.

 

Today, there is much consternation about the whole generation of young children missing out on what has come to be considered a normal childhood because of the Covid-19 pandemic and the repeated shutdowns of businesses and schools.  There is widespread condemnation of what this pandemic has done to the fully functioning business of educator and the decrying of the loss of over 20 million children in the U. S. who seemingly have dropped off the school rolls.  It is indisputable that the last full year now has caused considerable disruption and that the fears of loss of educational opportunity might actually cause irreparable harm if nothing is done to reverse the loss of school time.

 

However, I began this post today with a reference to feral children for a reason.  Whether in reality or in fiction, there has been the acknowledgement that children who have slipped far behind their peers in the acquisition of the usual pieces of knowledge and the usual performance of academic skills need not be irretrievably lost.  With proper planning and the application of resources to the problem, it is not impossible for kids who are behind to catch up.  

 

We are reading increasingly of the return to school of jurisdiction after jurisdiction with or without testing, with or without vaccinations, with or without schools being physically ready to prevent both students and their teachers from infection.  What I wish to argue herein is that the next five normal school months can be devoted to rebuilding the school rolls and seeking out and getting back into school desks and seats those who have been able to disappear from class.  That can be one of the primary goals of the second half of this school year, while doing the utmost to reintegrate everyone into a school routine.

 

In the background though, at the school staff level and the administration centrally, plans can be put into place to fast track the learning for a year or two, keeping to the regular school day but using all the tools available to individualize instruction, recruit tutors for those who need additional help and providing for supports for those who need it.  If there is a concerted effort to strive to double the leaning goals for a year or two, with the supports behind those efforts, the students will make up their ground.  Educators like myself know that when students are motivated and then supported, there is no limit to what is possible.  And in closing, I refuse to believe that there won’t be an army of well-meaning individuals ready to help tutor those students to get them back on track.