teacher autonomy

Using Mindful Structure, Stories and Enrichment to Build Both Culture and Community (and maybe improve attendance?) in School

~ dmaxmj ~ Leave a comment

My name was used as a verb recently.

The person that did it told me so. She even described the context in which she used my name when I asked. Maybe she was going to tell me anyway but I was so excited I jumped in and asked to hear the whole story. I mean to think: my name as a verb!

Like a force of nature almost.

Like some dynamic that might influence the world or instigate some movement or something!

Okay, I’m getting carried away. But wow. My name as a verb! 

I guess it came out sorta like this:

“I don’t mean to ‘Dan McConnell’ this, but…”

Of course, thinking back I realize I could have been the in absentia butt of some joke. Like when someone says Boy you really Shleprocked that! But in this case, I asked for an explanation because I sensed that it was a good thing. This person and I are pretty tight philosophically and ideologically, though there is a disparity in the intensity of our deliveries.

Turns out it was pretty good. I was proud to have had my name dropped in this situation.

So in just a moment here, I’m going to give my impression, like an impressionist would, of the conversation in which my name became definition worthy. But understand it’s before 5 AM right now. The sun isn’t up. My coffee has slid from out-of-the-pot hot to piss warm and I need to think it out before I write it out, which isn’t usually my way. So you aren’t going to see this happen but it really is about to: I’m going to “freshen up” as real men say.

Hey, you’re still here and my coffee is once again hot! Win-win I say. But back to that conversation where my name became a verb (because in a bit I’ll take another break to crack today’s WORDLE).

It was a conversation where one side represented an insistence that there be more lockstep alignment and assimilation, where everyone was doing the same thing, was on the same agenda, same page, and everyone knew exactly what everyone else was doing and when and how… Essentially “you will be assimilated”, join the Borg collective or the consortium, or whatever you want to call it. 

An important aside here is that in my mind, teamwork is vital, and I am not opposed to a shared agenda. In fact, if all involved in the endeavor to educate were empowered to share the agenda to actually do what’s best for learners, especially our youngest learners, I am 100% on board. But when predetermined structures imposed from outside and above demand humans be viewed and valued first by the statistically normed assessment data they produce, and diminish the value of learners and professionals who know better, you’re not doing teamwork. You’re doing surrender and compliance.

That “mindful structure” in the title gets turned into a functional structure. It’s how you set up efficiency and cost-effectiveness first and tweak for obedience and performance, not how you grow minds and culture, and community. It’s the way you train dogs and tune engines, not the way you should raise or educate young people.

And here I’m getting ahead of myself again, goin and gettin’ all preachy.

When it’s about children, learning, and people in general that happens. So here’s my description of how this man became a verb. I may lean into the drama, sure. I know I think through my feelings filter a lot when I should feel through my thinking filter instead. But my god it makes life worth living.

My name was used to put words to the thinking that children and people be treated more like the varied, beautiful individuals that they are and that maybe that is the truer path in the human endeavor to educate. 

Use my name as that sorta verb every day of the week.

Now, here’s the thing. Education isn’t simply a “human endeavor”, as in some theoretical warm-and-fuzzy concept, or one that can be allowed to be discussed in broad conceptual word-strokes.

Education does need to have a purpose, and it needs to serve a purpose. In order to meet these purposes it needs to have structure and a plan. Using Mindful Structure, Stories and Enrichment as the path, with the plan being to empower learners to engage with culture and build community, we could start making education actually feel like the human endeavor it is supposed to be.

Okay, I’m chopping here. There’s a bunch more typed below but I have edits to make, coffee to warm, lunch to pack (NYS Math test day 2…ugh). What comes next is me describing the structure I have used and like to set up. For my own daughters, for my students, and for the zone I operate in. Pretty simple, really. Simple rules, close observation and facilitation, and plenty of out-of-the-box opportunities…

I really hate them boxes. I work with roundy pegs. Okay stop, WORDLE time.

Snow Day Magic (as well as other powerful and essential magic)

~ dmaxmj ~ Leave a comment

Note: There will be multiple references to magic, and many places where this text seems to turn around and bite itself in the ass and be self-contradictory. Don’t let any of it throw you off, just read it to enjoy it and when you come out the other side you will probably be okay.

I’m starting this at around 10 AM on Tuesday, February 28th, 2023. Normally at this time, I would be wrapping up an activity with two students who qualify for extra support services to reinforce their skills in the area of mathematics. Instead, I am home in my pajama bottoms and a favorite St. Lawrence University t-shirt, with my tootsies wrapped in thick wintry socks that are like soft little blankets for my feet. My belly has a few “sea waffles” (little waffles shaped like sea horses, crabs, and dolphins) in it. Only real maple syrup will do for those, and I finished off the pot of coffee by adding a little cream and some cocoa mix to it.

It’s all part of the spell. Snow Day Magic. So special it deserves to be capitalized like that and for more reasons than I can probably get to here. But I am going to try.  Also, I might try to get to other types of very important magic, as well as explain why none of it is actual magic, before telling why we should all be casting more spells.

Let’s start at the beginning

It isn’t really “the beginning”, in terms of magic, but if we’re talking Snow Day Magic I would be remiss if I didn’t touch on 2014 for a moment. My three daughters always enjoyed a snow day, other than me blazing into their room as soon as I got the news to pounce on their bed, bounce them awake, scaring the bajeepers 1 out of them with the good news before hastily running out and into the next room for a repeat performance-daring them to try and get back to sleep. 

Clearly, as a teacher, I like snow days too. I have come to learn that there are rituals one should observe if calling in a snow day is the goal. Now, I don’t remember any of these rituals from my own childhood, but kids these days have a list of “to-dos” for when the weather looks as if it might lean in that direction. Give Mother Nature a little nudge, you know. The rituals I am most familiar with are listed below2.

  • Wearing your pj’s inside out
  • Putting a cotton ball under your pillow
  • Placing a pencil in the freezer
  • Flushing an ice cube down the toilet
  • Doing the Snow Day Dance™

I can get into the actual scientific principles that are involved in the cause-effect dynamic between these rituals and the results but you first have to understand that it’s not an actual science and the causal relationship probably can’t be validated. 

But boy is the pretending fun, and isn’t that what magic is all about?

So here I am, or there I was as it were in 2014, wanting to gift my girls (and me) with a surprise day off. I didn’t just wear my pajamas inside out. I wore them inside out and backward. I didn’t just sleep with a cotton ball under my pillow, I did so with four-one for each of my three girls and one for me. Same with how many pencils went in the freezer and how many ice cubes down the toilet. Last but not least: the dance. In the past, I had just “winged it”-making up some on-the-spot wiggly stuff. This time it was carefully choreographed and included a chant of sorts. Arm motions, ninety-degree twist, step, kick…A little regrettable in terms of things you might see a grown man do, but good magic can be good while being ugly too. That might be why I have always been a fan of Penn and Teller.

In the end, the results spoke for themselves. I felt obligated to let people know of my involvement in the weather event that resulted, both out of a sense of responsibility and as a warning intended to inform anyone else’s future efforts involving Snow Day Magic. 

Fast forward to Monday, February 27th, 2023

Holy cow, what happened to me? I went and got old and two of my daughters are off to college, living life and all…Damn. If I Could Save Time in a Bottle, you know. (*sniff*). Apparently, my youngest daughter has internalized what was learned in 2014 because as I type this, I, my pajamas, and my driveway bear witness to the very real but nonexistent magic this family is capable of.

So here is what happened:

Last night we pulled into the driveway after having to cut Drama Club rehearsal a little short because our school, as others around us had, was shutting down after-school activities to send folks home to safety. Apparently, bad weather and dangerous driving conditions were on their way. Pulling into our driveway, and putting the car in PARK, I say to my littlest angel, Ella:

“You know, we might just have to work up some Snow Day Magic.”

And yes, I even speak it capitalized like that. Seems like it can’t possibly be true, and it isn’t, but that’s really how I do it.

Ella says, “You know you better not say something like that because if it doesn’t…” 

I don’t remember the exact words but it was a translation of don’t go getting my hopes up because she sorta believes. 

You see, “believing” is a thing that runs in my veins as it did my people before and my children today. “It’s a gift,” one might say3, and it’s one that keeps on giving despite the protests of family members, children, students, colleagues, strangers on the street… We believe in magic, in a sense. The rituals and the other weird stuff that happens around me bear some indirect power that outright silliness has for influencing impressive and amazing outcomes. It brings an audience in and inspires them to participate and believe, and the feeling of satisfaction and sometimes wonder inspires further participation…

When I first showed her the news of a two-hour delay this morning, her respect for the power was probably reinforced. When I returned a short while later with news of the full cancellation it was certainly cemented. She came downstairs about five minutes later, looked me in the eyes, and said “I think this calls for waffles.” The next hour was filled with me blasting my Dad-music, singing along with Elton John, Cat Stevens, and Billy Joel while my youngest and I consulted each other on mixing, measuring, and eating…

It was magic.

Non-believers sometimes find it unbearable. Which makes it all more fun.

Santa used to call my house to talk to my daughters back when my dead hippie friend and poker buddy Coop was still alive. I’ll always swear it was Santa and not Coop, but he could coincidentally do a really good gruff and not quite entirely appropriate Santa impersonation. To this day “Santa” (a different one that is busy typing right now) leaves notes for my family congratulating the girls on what amazing human beings they are, apologizing for the mess the reindeer left, the beer swiped from the fridge, thanking us for whatever snacks get left out and disparaging the behavior of the man of the house.

Apparently, he’s the only naughty one out of them all. 

Jack Steam swipes messages on the bathroom mirror that reveal themselves when someone showers. Jack Frost does the same to cold-weather windows. I know both Jacks well. We go way back. The messages are sometimes a little wrong. Thankfully when the girls were little there were a couple of responsible parents to help debrief children exposed to such stuff. 

Well, there was one responsible parent, at least.

Magic. All of it. The best kind of magic, too.

So sitting in the driveway with a hopeful daughter, what is a naughty dad to do? 

Refer to that earlier list of rituals, except this time it was Ella hitting them hard! Sure, my pj’s ended up inside out and backward. Of course, I did the Snow Day Dance™. But it was Ella that put three pencils in the freezer, and she flushed five ice cubes down the toilet. 

Again, let’s let the results speak for themselves.

You don’t have to believe in the magic, simply observe how it works. Because magic isn’t real and doesn’t really work magically. But in the same way that Penn and Teller know exactly what the #%$& they are doing (and know that magic isn’t really real and have spent much of their careers revealing so), they know how to make the end product seem powerful and magic. You can make great things happen when you believe you can make great things happen.

Now know that this Dad is also a teacher. 

What if teachers were empowered to draw learners into a more exciting, engaging, and nurturing education instead of being compelled to force-feed children grit and rigor on a mind-numbing and unnatural daily schedule in order to pick apart and analyze what comes out the other side after endless scat-hunts? 

What if schools were a preparation for life and engagement with real-world people, places, and opportunities?

What if educators could provide a truly “least restrictive environment”, as opposed to factories that measured, labeled, and used a cohort-to-standardize approach on little human beings? 

I have had discussions where I suggest a more developmentally appropriate and humane approach to early education and sometimes these discussions end with “That’s fine for your girls, Dan, you could just sit them in a corner and they would learn,” or “Well, that’s (the factory model) what we’re told we have to do so we have no choice.”

Both things are true. You could sit my girls in a corner and they would still learn. We are being told we have to do that other thing.

Actually, I believe that only one of them is truly true. 

My response: It wasn’t ever magic. Magic isn’t real. It’s called first engaging and then preparing independent lifelong learners. When you see the results you can’t deny that the results might seem magical, especially in this day and age where children seem less and less willing and capable of achieving outcomes realized by the highest achievers. But outcomes aren’t an accident, results speak for themselves, and shouldn’t real educators be empowered to work their magic with children who need that sort of “magic” the most?

I am not special, my ideas aren’t new or unusual, and many teachers I speak to agree, but fall back on the helplessness of weak-willed soldiers made to feel that they must comply with less-than-magical approaches. Has the time come for people who know better to demand the freedom to bring better?

Footnotes

  1. Shit
  2. These are to be used cautiously. “With great power comes great responsibility,” and all. Engage with magic of this sort at your own risk.
  3. Or a curse, others might say.

Time to Fight

~ dmaxmj ~ Leave a comment

Why should educators, as professionals, be expected to willingly participate in the destruction of society-in the end making their jobs as educators even more difficult? The demands of so-called “education reform” that ignore childhood-development norms lead to practices that further that destruction.

To begin with, it’s not good pedagogy, and regardless of how much “grit and rigor” and “raised bars” rhetoric you infuse it with, it does more harm than good. No matter how many new-fangled games and technological gadgets are inserted into the daily school routine, there is no making up for the losses we suffer when our strategies move away from the foundational practices that were once the norm, and we need to vigorously fight back as a profession to insist on the respect we deserve for the value we have always brought and still bring.

A little preachy maybe, but to give a simple example of where we can be led or pushed astray:

Have you caught yourself wondering why student handwriting looks so terrible these days?

Maybe it’s because finger-paintin’ and clay-squeezin’ are now things of a distant kindergarten past. Students spend less time developing the hand strength, muscle-memory and fine-motor coordination that once led to good, legible handwriting. But Common Core, and “college and career-ready” demands mean that efforts in instruction and accountability target skills that demonstrate proficiency on standardized tests rather than some antiquated concept of handwriting and its importance.

Thinking gets delivered digitally these days anyways, and figuring that the loss of hand strength and dexterity would make it hard to hold a book and turn pages-let alone grip a pencil: we need to inject more software, screens and keyboards into the classroom  to redesign that ancient paradigm of kids writing with pencils and reading actual books and whatnot.

See how technology can fill the gaps where humanity once was?

But (you might ask) if the strength, dexterity and coordination to grip a pencil and make it write with one hand isn’t there, how can we realistically expect our little learners being whipped over our raised bars to use both hands, find and hold that home row, and execute the equivalent of tickling the QWERTY ivories to express their thoughts in writing?

Don’t sweat it. We can start formal keyboarding instruction in the primary years. Where to fit it into the school day, or how we can  expect classroom teachers being pounded into HEDI scale slots (who may or may not be typists themselves) to eke out time in the day to teach typing are questions we needn’t bother with. There are plenty of software programs available that can lead students through typing lessons. No teacher required-just give them a laptop, a pair of headphones, and let the hunting and pecking begin!

I’m being a bit snarky here, but my point is that what should be a primarily human endeavor (i.e., helping our youngest learners mature and grow into capable young citizens) is being dehumanized by that thing called “reform” and all the gadgetry (in hardware, software, approaches and assessments) that has ensued.  The demand for data to feed the reform monster has led to participation in and compliance with programs and practices that will efficiently generate that data and this pushes us further from the societal goals that build and strengthen an informed citizenry, and towards serving economic interests that care little about the realities faced in the schools and classrooms of our neediest communities.

We are being driven to place artificial, statistical value on human beings, and it’s no wonder that the consequences include us now having to spend more and more time on social/emotional/psychological issues- to instituting anti-bullying and social media awareness programs, teaching character education in school because outside of school there’s less character to be found. We are scrambling to find ways to insert more humanity wherever and whenever we can.

 I have written in the past about what education reform has looked like, what it apparently means to those who have imposed it upon the children of others and those who serve them, and what it really should mean-what it needs to mean, if we are going to reclaim our educational souls and reverse this societal decay. The demand that more and more data be produced, that this data be statistically normed so that it can take the place of individual children and what we know about their needs, and that we call this “value added” exemplifies where we have been misled.  

I would argue that the more time we spend pouring in this way over spreadsheets and assessment data, the more technology and gadgets we put between us and young learners, the less time we spend looking at and connecting with the actual children right there in front of us. That’s where dedicated teachers demonstrate real value and true values,  when and where value is needed most.

Songs help make kids smart

~ dmaxmj ~ Leave a comment

The power of story

Before I get to the meat, you need to know my three daughters are a little twisted. At fourteen my oldest, who is now nineteen and ready to start her second year of college, said to me:

“Dad, if I tell you a joke that’s pretty bad will you promise not to get mad?”

After I thought something like Pshh, If she only knew… I said “Sure, Honey, lay it on me.”

It went like this:

“How many dead hookers does it take to change a light bulb?”

Holy cow, I thought, and my eyes must have widened a little because she laughed.

“I don’t know, how many?” I said.

Now, see, I am going to make you wait for the punch line. If I’ve offended you already, that’s fine, you can check out. But if you want some ideas on how to use songs to create great thinkers then hang in there and the punch line will just be a bonus. Not because you are secretly twisted or because me and my kids are openly so, but because it is an additional illustration of how our brain works and why, and what you can do to take advantage of that.

The power of song

Like jokes, songs capture our brain-but they put it to work in a deeper and more complex way. Where a joke is a powerful and visceral way to microwave your thinker like a burrito, one that you can’t help but love and grab out of the freezer when the mood for a quick, sinful snack strikes, a good song is a slow cooker that creates a hearty stew. A classic and satisfying thought-meal.

Let’s start with bad, sad country music.

In terms of country music, I think I’ve only ever owned a Johnny Cash album. I am not a huge fan of the genre, especially the new stuff that tries to pretend it’s rock and roll. But there is something about a country song that tells a story. Especially those sappy old ones about some guy’s cheatin’ wife, some kid’s dead mamma… I think it was Red Sovine that had one where a guy drives his truck to a flower shop to send his mother flowers for her birthday (because he isn’t going to go and actually see her on his trip to party it up in Florida). He meets a kid buying flowers for his mamma’s birthday, cuz he hasn’t seen her in a year. Well, you know where the boy is taking those flowers, don’t you?

If you don’t, give it a listen. It’s called Roses for Mamma. It “gets me” every time.

And you know why? Because it told a story that held you soft and gentle, just wouldn’t let you go, and delivered in the end-and I loved that! But I’m the type that could hear a few of Harry Chapin’s songs (after having already heard them a thousand times) and still tear up and get a lump in my throat. I play a few on the guitar and sometimes singing them becomes tough because I fall victim to the story. I think about it, I embrace the characters and their situations, I celebrate their joy with them, and feel their pain… In the minutes it takes for the song to play you might live their lives with them. Chapin’s Dreams Go By is a great example. A song that follows a man from the courtship of his wife in their youth to the visits from their grandchildren, with wistful “what-if’s” at each stage. But it’s a lifetime of powerful love with no regrets, delivered in a few minutes with a rather jaunty tune and a beat. It’s a happy song, really, but I well up with sentimentality because the world suffers from a lack of love like this.

How the pedagogy works

One of a teacher’s most powerful tools is story, especially one told well. Fewer students are coming to school having been spoken to in a brain-building, productive way these days, let alone read to or told great stories by an adult role model that loves great stories. Now, even when the book fair comes to school, it’s all flashy covers, books about magic tricks, dinosaurs and Captain Underpants… Yeah, I get the whole “Well you gotta’ get ’em hooked somehow, then you can build on that.” But you know what? By the time they come to school too much time has been wasted already.

Too many burritos and not near enough stew, you feel me?

As a parent or a teacher, if you can feed their young brains great stories at an early age, they will start to become more independent with feeding their own brains. They begin to search out stories, to dig into the story, pull out it’s bits and develop a palate for the flavors: what it is that makes the story funny, sad, surprising, scary… What makes this character the hero, the villain… and later on-what makes this character complicated, and complicated how. These are cognitive skills that, as they develop, allow the listener to become the creator and teller.

It also helps create the type of mentality that leads a father to sing Mary Had a Little Lamb with this slight alteration:

the teacher made her lock it up

lock it up, lock it up

the teacher made her lock it up

and for lunch they had lamb stew

Yeah, this was for  Chloe, the daughter with the hooker joke. It was first  grade, if I remember correctly, but I had sung it to her that way all through her childhood. She came home and reported how her teacher looked at her stunned, and how a few classmates had looked a little puzzled. Of course the teacher had been a colleague for years and knew how it was in my home so there was no counseling recommendation or anything. She told me about it and we had a good laugh. I still think the way I lay out the story is better, and more memorable, but hey-to each his own.

The pedagogy is anchored to the power of the story and the enjoyment found in listening and telling and talking together as meaning is searched for and responses are shared, respected and honored.  And if it is wrapped in music it makes the experience deeper, even more memorable, and therefore more readily available for complex levels of thought.

I can even tell you the moment when my songs-can-be-great-stories world was first rocked. It had to be a country song, of course (it’s a real love/hate relationship). Still not a fan of the music, but this song did it so good I can even explain the stages my brain went through. A definite savory stew moment where my mind bit, tasted, and then went whoa! I was barely a teen, but I never listened to songs the same way again.

How it happened to me

I was probably 13 years old. My stepfather was a huge country fan, so it was playing all the time. George Jones, singing that very well-known He Stopped Loving Her Today came on. Now I had heard it a million times, and the whole story of the George and Tammy (Wynette) drama existed in my periphery, so I knew the song… But maybe this was the first time I had really listened because of…well, you know.

Girls. Once you get interested in them and you think your heart has been broken, you’re more receptive to all that $#!+ . This is how it went on that fateful day-lines of the song, followed by my thoughts.

He Stopped Loving Her Today (George Jones)

He said “I’ll love you till I die” (Hmmm…kinda sappy and sweet, but hey, it’s a country song.)

She told him “You’ll forget in time” (Ouch, buddy! The ol’ “it’s not you, it’s me,”…that’s gotta hurt.)

As the years went slowly by, she still preyed upon his mind (Yeah, okay, you miss her…I get it)

He kept her picture on his wall, went half-crazy now and then
But he still loved her through it all, hoping she’d come back again (now it’s starting to feel a little loser-ish…c’mon guy)

Kept some letters by his bed dated nineteen sixty-two
He had underlined in red every single “I love you” (Uhhhh…now it’s a little weird, dude. You gotta move on.)

I went to see him just today, oh but I didn’t see no tears  (Yes- Finally he’s over it! I wonder what happened.)

All dressed up to go away, first time I’d seen him smile in years (A vacation-great idea! Go somewhere tropical, pick up a cute girl on the beach…You da man!)

He stopped loving her today (‘Bout freakin time!)

They placed a wreath upon his door (Huh?…I’d prank my buddy while he’s away too, but that’s weird- I don’t get the wreath joke.)

And soon they’ll carry him away (“Carry him awaaaaait a minute…)

He stopped loving her today (OHMIGOD…He said I’ll love you “til I die”! He loved her, she left him and he still loved her, and he’s all dressed up in the coffin with that embalmed peaceful grin and there’s a wreath on his door and the pall bearers will carry him away, and, and… He loved her til he died!)

The first time I really listened, I got what my girls call “the feels”. It happens anytime I hear a great song or read/hear a great story.

And now here’s how I’ve use it

When Chloe, my first-born (dead hooker joke girl), was itty biddy: singing songs, dancing, telling stories, doing the voices and making stuff up about the stories, talking about characters…all that was common. On top of that, Chloe had a touch of the performer in her. So one of my favorite things to do besides teach her naughty lyrics to kids songs was to teach her the real lyrics to great story songs.  It started with Cher’s Gypsies Tramps and Thieves and Johnny Cash’s A Boy Named Sue. For Cher’s Gypsies, Chloe once asked

“Dad, why did the men ‘lay their money down’?”

My response was “I guess her mom musta been a real good dancer.”

It’s the story a young girl whose life story was molded through being an outcast of society, some unsafe sex with a drifter and the resulting daughter of her own, while at the same time being empowered by her personal and cultural identity. Chloe was very cute doing a Cher voice as a little girl. Way cuter than me doing it that’s for sure. I didn’t explain the sex with a drifter part-just the other stuff.

A Boy Named Sue is just a fun song. There’s a curse word at the end that I taught her, but I also taught it to her with the censorship “booop” near the end after the father-son brawl. With my children I teach them that part of demonstrating maturity in your learning is being judicious sometimes about how when and where to use what you’ve learned . Sue is a  song about a man looking back on the trials and tribulations in his life caused by a father and a name. Chloe was singing it half-sedated as she was wheeled away for heart surgery when she was ten years old.

The ability of a good story-song to draw you in, to keep you listening and help you learn is why I use songs whenever I can with my own children. We are constantly singing together. And because I’m no dummy- I choose songs a little more carefully for use in school. I can’t go warping other peoples’ children.

Other people’s children

First, let’s finish up with one of my own:

Q: How many dead hookers does it take to change a light bulb?

A: Must be more than five, because my basement’s still dark.

Sad songs about a dead guy who never got over his wife leaving, naughty gypsy girls and a cowboy beating up his estranged father in a saloon might not be as bad as dead hooker jokes, but they’re still not classroom ready. There are some much better choices that are great for incorporating into your instruction for essential aspects of literacy. One fine example is Right Field.

Written by Willy Welch, this song was brought to my attention first by Peter, Paul and Mary. After learning that Willy wrote it, and then reaching out to him about plans to teach my class the song and the story, he graciously sent me the sheet music with guitar chords that go with it. As far as I know Willy still performs and if I was near enough I’d get him to my school and my classroom. I am a poor substitute for the pros, but that class of clowns way back when did a pretty good job with it, and I’d bet this year’s class will do a great job.

I believe that because:

It’s a great story. Beyond the character/setting/sequence of events-type stuff, there are some deep thoughts wrapped up in it. The song is a story told from first person point of view about events in the singer/teller’s past. The first verse sets the stage in a couple of ways. It describes weekends during the summers of youth-a glorious time of life indeed.

Saturday summers, when I was a kid
We’d run to the schoolyard and here’s what we did
We’d pick out the captains and we’d choose up the teams
It was always a measure of my self esteem…

It also hints there at a matter most important to kids: self esteem. And this here is an awesome hook for pulling students into this song through the story it tells. Now I am not going to put down the lyrics in their entirety, but to support the self esteem take, the next verse goes:

Cause the fastest, the strongest, played shortstop and first
The last ones they picked were the worst
I never needed to ask, it was sealed,
I just took up my place in right field.

Now if you don’t know why that’s a self-esteem thing, the chorus tells you:

Playing…

Right field, it’s easy, you know.
You can be awkward and you can be slow
That’s why I’m here in right field
Just watching the dandelions grow

The singer is recalling being the kid that was always the last pick. The inept, awkward non-athlete picked last every time…so much so that he just goes way out to the spot where the useless ones on the team go-to watch the dandelions grow. But for the sake of story and reader skill-building, turning point and character change are story elements that are ripe for study in this song.

Because as the song progresses, the singer describes being lost in a daydream of making a fantastic catch on the run, but then “coming to” and praying that the ball never really comes out to him. During this mental break, if I were to have this song played out on stage, actors in full costume would enter on both sides: little cupie angels in baseball caps with bats over their shoulders would twinkle-toe across the stage, hotdog vendors would pirouette, and popcorn salesmen would prance-tossing popcorn like magical pixie dust. If I do it with my class this year, that’s how I want to do it.

But now…turning point!

It becomes clear that the singer has lost track of his game. He’s out in the field, he knows some stuff happened but he’s not sure exactly what…but he realizes that everyone is looking his way and shouting at him.

Then suddenly everyone’s looking at me
My mind has been wandering; what could it be?
They point at the sky and I look up above
And a baseball falls into my glove!

(And then character change!)

Here in right field, it’s important you know.
You gotta know how to catch, you gotta know how to throw,
That’s why I’m here in right field, just watching the dandelions grow!

There are other songs that I plan on using this year when they apply to the content we cover, and I’ll be writing more about them, but this is about story and Right Field is a song that kicks off the year in a great way. It’s about kids, how they interact and play, how they feel about themselves and each other, and how easy it is to slip into low self esteem and how easy we can make it to lift everyone’s self esteem- if we remember we’re all playing on the same team.

Use those good songs when you find them. Dig into the stories. Print out the lyrics and sing along. It is a fantastic way to inspire readers.

Teaching is to Serve Stubbornly (Part I)

~ dmaxmj ~ 1 Comment

I guess my real resolution is to be stubborn.

Tomorrow begins a new year. That means goals, plans, hopes…etc. Maybe a “resolution” or two -which I had previously sworn off of. Resolutions, that is. Not because I think I’m so great, but because I think change isn’t isolated to starting or stopping on a particular date, and I don’t like being controlled by artifices like time, space, gravity… So when I want to start something I start, when I want to stop I stop. Maybe it’s a control thing. I don’t want some day on the calendar deciding my self-improvement plan for me. Also, I have a “when I think you’re attempting to shape me, I will resist” sort of thing. That’s one of the reasons I made what I think is my first actual New Year Resolution. It’s sorta about being stubborn.

Why would a guy resolve to be stubborn? Is that even a resolution?

Did I do that right? Is it New Years, New Year’s…I know it’s not New Ears, though my wife would swear I need a new pair. Whatever it is, I have resolved to limit myself to 100 characters or less on how twitty I am in 2018. And I have been a big-ass twit from time to time, believe me. I know many already do. But there are some who seriously, seriously have it coming. And believe me, that won’t stop.

You see, Twitter upped it’s character limit, there’s now some new wheelie thing that ticks down your remaining characters; I’m not even sure what the limit is now, but I do know that in the beginning I enjoyed playing Polonius and that more words means time wasted and wit wanting. I suspect twitter is trying to lure more in and keep more on, but I take the offer of more laziness and less rigor of thought as a challenge. So I’ll yang the yin and go in the opposite direction-less than 120 characters.

Is a stubborn teacher a good thing?

With teaching it’s different. I’m stubborn about teaching because I know why it’s important and what it’s like. I do it, and I communicate quite regularly with others that do it; those around me in my school, in schools nearby, in schools far away…It’s important to communicate, mediate, alleviate, try not to hate…

Whoa. Sorry, that was a flashback.

Anyways, teaching is one of the roles that lies at an intersection where many roles cross. I was a student once. I am a parent-three times over (though some psychic my wife saw before we were married said I had a secret family, they have yet to reveal themselves), and now I’m a teacher. Being dedicated to a profession and a community can be a little restricting if you believe that history and wisdom are bad things (I don’t), and it can mean less understanding of the communities of others, the people in them, their collective history and the wisdom they can share. That’s why I communicate with avarice. I have and will continue to reach out and find out…and I will continue to point out.

There’s a difference between wisdom and shit you think you know.

I think that policy wonks and politicians, university folk, lobbyists, seed investors, non-profit activists, foundation “think-tank” people, community organizers and activists, town council folk…I could go on and on. They are trying to do right, in most cases. They mean well and know their job(s), I hope. But they don’t know teaching. I see a lot of writing and opinion from them on what they think about the results of what others do, what we should do to schools and to kids, but few have done the job to an extent that should get much respect from the people they target. Yes, we need reform in Education Town, but we need it on a lot of those highways that lead to and cross through as well. Driving by on the overpass and tossing a bag of your shit down on my folks and what we do just ain’t gonna fly. What type of reform and why, what do we hope to get as a result, and who best to shape and drive the endeavor are matters for discussion and the discussion has been sadly dominated by those eager to blame and stake a claim.

So I am resolving to use my stubborn for stubbornly sharing with those who seem to not know teaching, and to defend what teachers and schools do as well as what parents and children need.

In that spirit, I am gearing up for the second part of this post. It’s pretty much ready-this sucker was going well over a couple thousand words.

 

 

 

 

Teachers Save Children

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Imagine a war zone.

The medics put themselves into the battle, willing to sacrifice themselves for their cause and trying to protect the innocents who are in harm’s way; treating the ones harmed. Of course there are casualties, and there are wounded.

Poverty is like war.

What it does to people, families, and children especially, is like they have been wounded and are being wounded. The deeper the poverty, the deeper the wounds and the more desperate the people trapped in that war zone. What happens to people, and what desperate people trapped in poverty find themselves needing to do to survive are things educators are made well aware of if they are serving that population. In the poorest of communities, the wounds tend to be deeper, more pervasive, fall on children the heaviest, and get more concentrated in classrooms filled with these young bodies and minds coming into school from those homes and those hoods. Traditional public schools, and public school teachers have open doors and open classrooms to take in those “wounded” from the community, regardless of the condition they arrive in. Without a doubt, bad outcomes are more concentrated in areas more impacted by poverty.

In the poorest of communities, the wounds tend to be deeper, more pervasive, fall on children the heaviest…

It’s seems as if everyone actually in the battle, serving students, is aware, while the armchair education “experts” preaching reform from the outside have no clue-or worse, pretend to have no clue. What definitely doesn’t help is when these experts deny the impact of the poverty while wasting their clout and energy trying to undermine the public servants actually in the battle.

Now I’m not trying to shame anyone at all, just instigate a better conversation. Airlifting some selected and non-critically wounded to a safe zone removed from the front lines, administering first-aid and distributing water bottles in the cool shade of evacuation tents is also a part of caring for the wounded. And a hearty slap on the back, a big jerky Trump handshake and a merit badge for supporting positive outcomes for those who got to ride your helicopters and get some R&R because you are due. But it would lean into arrogance to scoff at the survival statistics of the medics on that front line who are treating critically wounded as bullets fly and shells explode nearby-the same way it is arrogance to smugly use “poverty is not an excuse” as a bullshit accusation/catchphrase and use graduation rates and test scores when promoting schools that draw out a selective sampling from poverty; shameful to puff your chest and strut, comparing those stats removed from the front line and under the shady tent-the same way it is shameful to stroke one school’s reputation with stats generated from a manufactured enrollment compared to an open-doors, traditional school.

…it would lean into arrogance to scoff at the survival statistics of the medics on that front line who are treating critically wounded as bullets fly and shells explode nearby…

Maybe replacing draft-dodging from the real war(s) with brave, honest and transparent choices is where the NAACP was coming from with their moratorium on charters.

No fear: the helicopters and tents are needed and there are edupreneurs willing to invest. Serving in that capacity is a choice for those seeking the merit badge-just remember that choice doesn’t exist for the front-line medics.

Those real soldiers will battle on.

A Coleman Blank? UPDATE

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I am doing some research and am reading David Coleman’s 2011 talk to NYSED regarding the common core standards.
This is the nysed.gov link to the full transcript I am using. When I get to the part where he says
But it also involved quite wonderfully several other teachers of every stripe from every organizational background who are involved in developing these standards and also of course the NEA and other groups. But if there’s one voice that is loud and clear here, it is the voice of teachers. And let me tell you what we learned as we listened to those voices. (p.4-5)
 
It is followed by a large blank area before going on to the next section, with no mention of what David learned as he listened to actual educators. Did he not learn anything, or was it like the “listening tours” that happen from time to time-where people were talking but it didn’t really impact the process?
If he did learn something, I would like to know what it was. If there is a better link, or more information, please share it with me.

—

Thank you,
Dan McConnell
I contacted NYSED, and heard back pretty quickly Took me some time but it’s been busy. Daughter graduated, parties, family visits and whatnot. Still confusing, though. Read and see what I mean. 
Me (June 18th):
I am doing some research and am reading David Coleman’s 2011 talk regarding the common core standards.
This is the nysed.gov link to the full transcript I am using
When I get to the part where he says
But it also involved quite wonderfully several other teachers of every stripe from every organizational background who are involved in developing these standards and also of 5 course the NEA and other groups. But if there’s one voice that is loud and clear here, it is the voice of teachers. And let me tell you what we learned as we listened to those voices. (p.4-5)
 
It is followed by a large blank area before going on to the next section, with no mention of what David learned as he listened to actual educators. Did he not learn anything, or was it like the “listening tours” that happen from time to time-where people were talking but it didn’t really impact the process?
If he did learn something, I would like to know what it was. If there is a better link, or more information, please share it with me.
NYSED (June 19th):

Hi Dan, this transcript is complete, although the way it is formatted is a little misleading. If you listen to the video (available athttp://usny.nysed.gov/rttt/resources/bringing-the-common-core-to-life.html) , at 13:19 he ends with “…what we learned as we listened to those voices.” The next thing he says starts with the text on page 5. However, whoever created the transcripts added the extra space and added the section headings which makes it seem like there was a break in what was spoken even though there wasn’t. So the text of the transcript is complete and it is not missing anything in this section.

 

If you have any other questions about this, please let me know.

 

Thanks,

Ron

 

I haven’t listened to the video, not this part anyway. I’ve seen the “world doesn’t give a shit” part a dozen times, but not this part. Ron’s word is good enough for now, because why would he lie and then give me the link? My issue, then, is the total disconnect from A) Saying “…let me tell you what we learned from listening to those voices.” to then going on some more about your own ideas and understandings. Very little teacher voice or input seems to come out of what Coleman expresses. In going back to the transcript to see if giving anyone else any credit for informing his thinking comes out…I’m still coming up empty.