Do one thing everyday that scares you.
Several weeks ago, before Spring Break, several teachers in the English department with me got together to brainstorm how we should structure this coming 2 single week remediation blocks of time our school was putting in place starting April 15th. We had a lot of options combined with a lot of restrictions. Make it fun! But don't let kids get out of hand! Make it educational! But don't let kids be bored or fall asleep! Relate it to state standards and the testing format and the individual student needs in your room and the school climate as a whole and whatever you do don't - don't - ask for help funding any of it. Typical edu-babble stuff. But the heads that came together settled on a pretty good plan: take the AP Language students in my classes, for whom the end-of-course reading test was a breeze and ask them to help work in a one-on-one fashion with some of the kids in other 11th grade English classes, for whom the reading test was a literal barrier to graduating high school. Create the best and most powerful form of teaching and learning known to man: the personal kind.
I have to admit that I worked for a good week on how I would approach my kids to ask for their help. I didn't want to deceive them into thinking this would be easy or every minute would be barrel-of-monkeys fun but at the same time I thought this was an opportunity in the most up-close-and-personal way anyone could ask for that we could bridge the single biggest divide at school. Once I realized that my kids would benefit from this too, the appeal wrote itself.
It was melodramatic in places but never dishonest. "What if that hour a day," I remember saying, "is the longest period of time in their entire day that someone listens to them in a positive way and helps them?" That might be over-the-top but no one who works in a public school in this country could refute its essential truth. See, in the end, I hoped to dispel the stereotypes that tend to get built up in schools on both sides of the divide. I wanted to tear down the sense that some of my students labor under ("Well, they're all just lazy over there") as well as misconceptions other students have about them ("Well, they're in AP classes because they're just plain smart"). This goal would be combined with the more academic one: helping students who otherwise might not pass this standardized test to actually pass it.
And that was my greatest appeal. To my kids: "You hate this standardized test and you have every right to. But you are not the ones it is out to get. So what if you foiled not just this test but the suits and ties in Richmond who made this test and sit so smugly in their offices thinking no average level English kid could pass this test? What if through your effort and your attention and your work you helped that student whom the test knows can't pass it... to not just pass it but blow it out of the water?"
It worked. I had double-digit signups in all my classes. Then I got nervous. What if it didn't go well? What if personalities clashed? What if a series of infinitesimal things added up to a gigantic failure?
worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubblegum
So this week we started. Monday I spent 5 minutes with my kids fielding some questions and generally going over how things would work. It was all very structured: icebreaker activities, a little bit of reading comprehension but nothing deadly dull. The first half was the getting-to-know-you bit and it went... well. Actually, better than that. It was like kids from different sides of the country or even other countries were meeting for the first time and finding... they had a lot in common. There were some great conversation starters.
One question went like this: Which administrator really gets on your nerves? Two students from different classes would pair up and something like this emerged:
"Hey I'm Kylie."
"I'm Jaron."
"So, what answer did you give to this one?"
"I said Mr. Brown."
"Oh, really, like, why?"
" 'Cause he always up in everyone's business when he don't need to be, you know?"
"You mean like dress code?"
"Yeah."
"He busted a friend of mine last week for that. So stupid."
"Yeah, one time he told me..."
And there they went. Two students who normally wouldn't even look at each other in the hallway much less smile or converse found pretty neat common ground. Those kinds of conversations typically morphed into ones about classes and subjects and friends and family and home and...
It was working; it was really really working.
Tuesday was the next test. Would these somewhat forced friendships stand up over more than a single hour? Would the kids want to work together again? Tuesday was a bit more academic with tiny bits of test prep thrown in. Average level kids read a passage, got some help with pronunciation and vocabulary, then together with my AP kids banged away at some main idea and tone questions. There was prodding and questioning in the right places: "Why do you think he phrased it that way?" "What point is she making?"
I rewarded the kids who got top scores with candy (always a winner with teens) and dangled the reward before those who came close. Another chance; another little passage and this time, you can do it! 90% or bust kids! All of that went really well. I don't know that we changed comprehension levels or reading skills or anything so grand. But the average level kids spent an hour working on skills without the fear that an adult was watching of grading or judging. It was just two kids with a common goal. (That goal being candy; I mean, let's not kid ourselves here.)
As the period closed down, I let them stop about 5 minutes early. "Take a break," I said. "Chat it up; bell will ring soon. Enjoy your candy."
Then, as I was passing a pair of students, I overheard them talking, probably picking up the fragment of a conversation from earlier.
"So, you were saying..." one of my kids prompted.
"Yeah, like she was all screaming at me and I wasn't gonna take that so I walked out 'cause don't no body scream at me."
"Where did you go?"
"Naw, it was late and I didn't want to go like all the way to my aunt's house so I slept in the back seat of the car while my mom cooled down."
"Just like hung out there?"
"Sorta. I mean, her boyfriend showed up so I didn't go back in the house until like 2 in the morning but whatever. Ain't like she never thrown me out of the house before."
I snatched a quick glance at my kid and her face, her expression will be forever imprinted on my brain. I will never forget because it spoke volumes. It said:
My God. It's you. I know all about you but only because I've read about you or heard about you from my teacher's. I'm a doctor's kid and I've never not been allowed in my own house at night. But you're here in front of me and not in the words on a page or in a newspaper article. I'm not trying to visualize you or imagine anything about you because you are here in front of me telling me this story and I can't believe my god you exist here in this school in the classroom right next to mine and somehow I never knew and you're here. It's you.
My student didn't say any of that out loud. The bell rang a few moments later and the other girl smiled and hurried out. Another bell to another class to another teacher. Nothing this kid hadn't dealt with before.
Except someone sat and listened to her in the most positive and re-affirming way for possibly the longest period of time anyone would that entire day.
Tuesday, April 16, 2013
Wednesday, April 3, 2013
The Rational and the Subversive
Still plugging through Zen. Ran into page 150 earlier today and two adjacent paragraphs hit me with completely opposite effects. The first:
The real University, he said, has no specific location. It owns no property, pays no salaries and receives no material dues. The real University is a state of mind. It is that great heritage of rational thought that has been brought down to us through the centuries and which does not exist at any specific location. It's a state of mind which is regenerated throughout the centuries by a body of people who traditionally carry the title of professor, but even that title is not part of he real University. The real University is nothing less than the continuing body of reason itself.
Most of this sits well with me as it echoes Thoreau in my head. Tear down the structures, the things of this world that tend to represent thought and intelligence and wonder and yet still I have my mind and in my mind I have the images and feelings associated with those things. Similarly, tear down the institutions responsible for instilling learning within us, deny them accreditation, do what you will and the process of learning and thinking and growing will still take place. In this way, great education is not contained within walls anywhere, a sentiment the great thinkers of our race would agree with (Socrates, Twain, Whitman, Hemingway). It also suggests the idea that teaching is something pretty innate as it contains the sum total of the desire to help another. In this way it is an expression of ego but also of altruism.
The next part thus:
In addition to this state of mind, "reason," there's a legal entity which is unfortunately called by the same name but which is quite another thing. This is a nonprofit corporation, a branch of the state with a specific address... But this second university, the legal corporation, cannot teach, does not generate new knowledge or evaluate ideas. It is not the real University at all.
This discredits learning in a way that contradicts what I see in the first graph. The narrator/author seems to want to separate the experience of school from learning. Ok, he has precedent there. Twain: "I never let schooling interfere with my education." But the difference, I think, is the belief that learning CAN happen anywhere. It is not confined to the classroom ("I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately") but neither is it, by definition, mutually exclusive of the classroom. To defend the first and refute the second is illogical. University structures may suffer flaws, as all organizations do, but until our culture produces enough roaming Socrates to meet with the masses under the tree of knowledge, then we need organization. Question the method this learning tradition operates on, sure; but do not demolish its foundation or you remove the argument for learning altogether.
The real University, he said, has no specific location. It owns no property, pays no salaries and receives no material dues. The real University is a state of mind. It is that great heritage of rational thought that has been brought down to us through the centuries and which does not exist at any specific location. It's a state of mind which is regenerated throughout the centuries by a body of people who traditionally carry the title of professor, but even that title is not part of he real University. The real University is nothing less than the continuing body of reason itself.
Most of this sits well with me as it echoes Thoreau in my head. Tear down the structures, the things of this world that tend to represent thought and intelligence and wonder and yet still I have my mind and in my mind I have the images and feelings associated with those things. Similarly, tear down the institutions responsible for instilling learning within us, deny them accreditation, do what you will and the process of learning and thinking and growing will still take place. In this way, great education is not contained within walls anywhere, a sentiment the great thinkers of our race would agree with (Socrates, Twain, Whitman, Hemingway). It also suggests the idea that teaching is something pretty innate as it contains the sum total of the desire to help another. In this way it is an expression of ego but also of altruism.
The next part thus:
In addition to this state of mind, "reason," there's a legal entity which is unfortunately called by the same name but which is quite another thing. This is a nonprofit corporation, a branch of the state with a specific address... But this second university, the legal corporation, cannot teach, does not generate new knowledge or evaluate ideas. It is not the real University at all.
This discredits learning in a way that contradicts what I see in the first graph. The narrator/author seems to want to separate the experience of school from learning. Ok, he has precedent there. Twain: "I never let schooling interfere with my education." But the difference, I think, is the belief that learning CAN happen anywhere. It is not confined to the classroom ("I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately") but neither is it, by definition, mutually exclusive of the classroom. To defend the first and refute the second is illogical. University structures may suffer flaws, as all organizations do, but until our culture produces enough roaming Socrates to meet with the masses under the tree of knowledge, then we need organization. Question the method this learning tradition operates on, sure; but do not demolish its foundation or you remove the argument for learning altogether.
Tuesday, April 2, 2013
The Kantian Side of Sparkplugs
Suppose a child is born devoid of all senses; he has no sight, no hearing, no touch, no smell, no taste--nothing. There's no way whatsoever for him to receive any sensations from the outside world. And suppose this child is fed intravenously and otherwise attended to and kept alive for eighteen years in this state of existence. The question is then asked: Does this eighteen-year-old person have a thought in his head? If so, where does it come from?
Years ago, well decades ago, I was perusing the bookcases in the E.C. Glass library when I came across a book that looked mildly interesting: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M Pirsig. I read the jacket cover, picked it up with the intent to check it out but never did. Why? Who knows. Did I see some Shakespeare or John Donne? That sounds like the 17 year old me. So imagine my surprise when, again perusing the stacks of the high school where I became myself, I again found this book. This time, I thought, I take it up. Here and now with all this reading and learning behind me surely the book will resonate.
The excerpt from above is from one of the sections the narrator describes as a Chautauqua, which a quick Google search indicates is a kind of "adult education movement" in the United States some time ago. A scan of its history suggests it was a kind of pseudo-intellectual movement for somewhat non-intellectuals in the country to espouse whatever was on their minds. I'm instantly on my guard: there's way too much anti-intellectualism in this country as it is, if you ask me. "I'm not smart and I'm proud of it" seems to be the new American motto. "Science is for sissies" and so forth.
So the story, such as it is, divides itself between these metaphysical/spiritual ramblings and a loose narrative about a motorcycle ride across the northern states of the country, from Michigan to Montana. The narrator, his son, and a couple of friends. He's aloof in a "I'm thinking about big things" kind of way. And some of the big things are interesting: Kant and the history of empiricism. But for the most part the narrative seems to be a gimmick to hold his dis-separate thoughts together. As such this reminds me of another philosophy book I read a couple of year ago, Sophie's Choice. My response to this book is much my response to that one.
Meh.
I like spilling words as much as the next person but there's something about philosophy books couched in literary traditions that don't sit well with me. Here's an intriguing narrative, the author seems to hold out there. And while you're on this cycle with me let me expostulate what beauty is and the empirical rationale for finding both truth and beauty in the world.
Sigh. Can I get off at the next town?
My 17 year old self was probably wise to take a detour with Shakespeare, whose philosophy is second to his art, as it should be. Hamlet provides us a more complex and powerful world view than any pop-philosophy book ever has. There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreampt of in your philosophy, Horatio.
Some of this analysis is not just though. I have to admit to being turned off on page 128; I've never found my way back to the author or narrator after he said: "From that agony [read: ancient man] of bare existence to modern life can be soberly described only as upward progress." Not sure that giant factories that pollute our rivers and deforest our planet, weapons that can annihilate us several times over, and technology that pulls us away from sunlight and fresh air can be described by any rational human being as "progress".
I suspect 50 more pages and I'll be returning to my Thoreau and Whitman as replenishment for my soul.
Years ago, well decades ago, I was perusing the bookcases in the E.C. Glass library when I came across a book that looked mildly interesting: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M Pirsig. I read the jacket cover, picked it up with the intent to check it out but never did. Why? Who knows. Did I see some Shakespeare or John Donne? That sounds like the 17 year old me. So imagine my surprise when, again perusing the stacks of the high school where I became myself, I again found this book. This time, I thought, I take it up. Here and now with all this reading and learning behind me surely the book will resonate.
The excerpt from above is from one of the sections the narrator describes as a Chautauqua, which a quick Google search indicates is a kind of "adult education movement" in the United States some time ago. A scan of its history suggests it was a kind of pseudo-intellectual movement for somewhat non-intellectuals in the country to espouse whatever was on their minds. I'm instantly on my guard: there's way too much anti-intellectualism in this country as it is, if you ask me. "I'm not smart and I'm proud of it" seems to be the new American motto. "Science is for sissies" and so forth.
So the story, such as it is, divides itself between these metaphysical/spiritual ramblings and a loose narrative about a motorcycle ride across the northern states of the country, from Michigan to Montana. The narrator, his son, and a couple of friends. He's aloof in a "I'm thinking about big things" kind of way. And some of the big things are interesting: Kant and the history of empiricism. But for the most part the narrative seems to be a gimmick to hold his dis-separate thoughts together. As such this reminds me of another philosophy book I read a couple of year ago, Sophie's Choice. My response to this book is much my response to that one.
Meh.
I like spilling words as much as the next person but there's something about philosophy books couched in literary traditions that don't sit well with me. Here's an intriguing narrative, the author seems to hold out there. And while you're on this cycle with me let me expostulate what beauty is and the empirical rationale for finding both truth and beauty in the world.
Sigh. Can I get off at the next town?
My 17 year old self was probably wise to take a detour with Shakespeare, whose philosophy is second to his art, as it should be. Hamlet provides us a more complex and powerful world view than any pop-philosophy book ever has. There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreampt of in your philosophy, Horatio.
Some of this analysis is not just though. I have to admit to being turned off on page 128; I've never found my way back to the author or narrator after he said: "From that agony [read: ancient man] of bare existence to modern life can be soberly described only as upward progress." Not sure that giant factories that pollute our rivers and deforest our planet, weapons that can annihilate us several times over, and technology that pulls us away from sunlight and fresh air can be described by any rational human being as "progress".
I suspect 50 more pages and I'll be returning to my Thoreau and Whitman as replenishment for my soul.
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