Collaboration begins with "we": A response to @NMHS_Principal (#edchat #TLILHRIC)

John Krouskoff, the Director of Instructional Technology for my district, won the Pioneer Award for 2013. Eric Sheniger (@NMHS_principal) delivered the morning keynote. I attended the conference (#TLILHRIC) to both support John and to hear Mr. Sheniger speak (I have followed him on Twitter for a while).

Mr. Sheniger's presentation was about harnessing the power of social media in a school/district. I was impressed by Mr. Sheniger's attitude and accomplishments - much of what he said rang true with my own recent thoughts about changing the educational paradigm.

His most salient point? Social media is about communication, conversation, and collaboration. He made many references to the fact that he would not be able to do what he does without the help of others, most especially his PLN.

Near the end of his presentation, though, he used an example that rubbed me the wrong way. In fact, I was, and am, offended. He was discussing attitudes against using social media in the classroom, and mentioned the common complaint from teachers: if they are allowed to use their phones they will spend the period texting. This is not a new complaint to forward-thinking tech-educators.

But... he finished the example with: "you know why that kid is texting? Because he's bored. Why is he bored? Your lesson plan stinks!"

I was stunned. Of course, the Twitterverse picked it up, and he got the expected RTs with cries of "Amen!" amended.

I reacted with my own tweet, and this started a back and forth between Mr. Sheniger and myself. Being in the minority (the room was made up of admins and tech directors), I had to share my displeasure. And 140 characters was not enough space to do so.

What if the lens were shifted?

You know why that kid is bored? Because...

• your principal never leaves her office and has no sense of how her school is being run. That stinks!
• the PD that teachers needed to implement CCSS was washed away in creating pre-assessments for APPR. That stinks!
• there is no clear vision coming out of central office and each teacher fends for himself. That stinks!
• there is no curriculum map available. That stinks!
• the governor creates any number of unfunded mandates that limit the district's and the community's decision making power. That stinks!
• parents enable their children and reward them for not doing the right thing. That stinks!
• politicians who have a twenty-year memory of what school used to be like are lured by the sweet sound of publisher's coins filing their coffers. That stinks!
• public education is turning into a test-taking machine, and only the correct, bubbled answer is of short-term interest. That stinks!
• students are "hard-wired" to react and respond to the constant and consistent buzz in their pockets. That stinks!
• teachers and administrators both are being asked to do a hell of a lot more with a hell of a lot less. That stinks!

Shall I go on?

My response to Mr. Sheniger is this: the system is broken. We all acknowledge that. And some of us are racking our brains for solutions. But it is a system comprised of all of us. We all own a piece of the successes and the failures of this system we are a part of.

Why was that kid texting? Maybe he was bored. Maybe the lesson was not engaging. Maybe his mom was texting about a pick-up time. Maybe he smoked pot two periods ago behind the school. Maybe he just doesn't care.

Or...

Maybe he was actively engaged in the lesson, texting a friend about the link being displayed on the projector. Maybe he started a backchannel on Twitter to discuss an inspired tangent from the lesson. Maybe he wasn't texting...maybe he was doing something we educators haven't figured out yet.

Mr. Sheniger: I truly do not believe you intended any disrespect. Perhaps I am over-reacting to your tone. Please hear me: I respect your intentions. I share your passion. I, too, want to influence change for the better. But don't tread on the teachers - we are but one piece of this very complex dance.

#Frameworks for Learning and Teaching

This is a request for material and ideas.

What I have come to find in my 10th year of teaching is that, although I am continually reflecting and revising my practice, I feel I have lost sight of the connecting threads. I feel lost in a maze of activity, but without the guiding structure of a solid, logical, educationally sound framework.

One problem I have is obvious: my district has not provided me with these tools (hence, this post).

A second is more clear to my #PLN: I have found the most valuable PD on and through Twitter.

In the absence of an "official" dogma to follow, I am turning to my PLN for help: what frameworks do you use? What frameworks codify "good teaching" and "good practice"? What are the best practices out there?

Perhaps an example will help: my District uses Danielson's framework for classroom observations. I was observed last week for the second time in six years (the observation went well). In this time, I have never been provided with PD on HOW I would be observed, nor was I provided with information about WHY Danielson's ideas are sound.

While preparing for the observation, I spent a lot of time reading through Danielson's words, and I came to realize two things: it is incredibly overwhelming to try to digest that in a one-week period and, it made sense. It actually fits together and provides a common ground to discuss teaching.

Now, I am not claiming it is the best method, but it is the one we have decided to use, it is the one our APPR will utilize next year, and it is one book I will study this summer.

What else? I plan to study engageny.org this summer to figure out this common core implementation (again, no PD from the district). What else is out there that I should be aware of?

I'd love to find out "big picture" resources (like Danielson and Common Core) and "small" picture resources that pertain to HS English (like Kelly Gallagher's Write Like This or Carol Jago's With Rigor For All)

Please leave a comment below or send a tweet to @acelini. Let's keep this conversation alive and well and share what we know.

Thanks.

Big Data...Big Concerns.

Lindsey Own (@LindseyOwn) posted an interesting read titled "How Big Corporate Marketing Analytics Can Disrupt Education - Crazy, Right?" - totally worth checking out. Here is my comment on her post, cross-posted here for reference.

This is one of those crossroads moments for me as an educator and tech enthusiast - I see so much potential in how tech can be applied to actually increase student and teacher learning and, I believe, change how we learn (in terms of both how we learn and how we structure learning). And then my department tells me today that in two years, the infamous and almost existent PARCCs will be administered in NYS to 9th, 10th, AND 11th grade ELA. That, and they will be given in two sittings: a three-day and a two-day (not full days, but double the length-wish of the current Regents exam). I hear this, and I have to ask myself if this a best practice to collect this data. I say no, there has to be a better way, a way we can use tech to give standardized formative assessments often, with real and lasting feedback for both student and teacher. shift the funding away from the pockets of the test-maker and use it to provide the test-taker (i.e. the students) with a viable way to create their learning. The politicians are sorely misled here.

I love the concept of using "big data"in my practice, and I hope that the right people get their voices heard soon.

On a related tangent, I found out about this tool at the Harvard Future of Learning session in 2011, but haven't followed up on it yet. Has anyone had experience with Disco tests (https://discotest.lectica.org/index_discotest.html)? I remember being blown away by the idea of using multiple, small, frequent standardized tests that provided real time data.

Cultural Reference of the Week: #SheRatchet

My students have been throwing this term around class lately: "ratchet." Being an English teacher and naturally curious, I asked my students for the context of the term. As they say, ask and ye shall receive.

I went from this (half serious):

To this:

With an additional this, thrown in for flavor:

(I, of course, found much more context with this)

I find it very interesting how the "slang" spreads and shifts its context. I teach in an relatively-affluent suburban area, one in which you are not likely to see that sort of behavior/attitude in the local drug store. Yet it appears in the school.

I completely understand how adolescents adopt pop culture references and adapt them to their own living (witness my own experience twenty years back with Grunge - double flannels for life!). What I still don't understand, though, is the adoption of the "gangsta" mentality in suburbia.

I'm no historian, but I assume that the roots of the hip-hip would came from a group of musicians that were experiencing a really tough life. That idea, of course, got bastardized once it became popular. Now, it seems, my students live such an "easy life" that they feel the need to toughen up by "living" a "ghetto" life (I can assure you, there is no ghetto in Clarkstown). The phrases "fake tough" and "phony brave" come to mind (from Full Metal Jacket).

I've seen the baggy pants, the abundance of tattoos, and the rise of "girl fights" happen at my school, and I need to ask - where do they go from here. Is the "ghetto phase" something to be expected these days? Do we idealize a "lifestyle" that emphasizes easy money, easy girls, and easy solutions (bang)? Is this some insane bastardization of the American Dream?

Or is this yet another iteration of the vapidity that seems to be oozing out of high schools today? What do we teach that is lasting? That is enduring? That is meaningful?

To come full-circle: the ratchet conversation continued into my extra help session, where a student working on the literary magazine (and certainly NOT the person who would use the word ratchet), told me that it's just a derivation of the word "wretched."

I'm not sure if she's right, but it is a bit scary that one of the kids' go-to phrases is, simply stated, wretched. Is that some subliminal expression of their psyche?

(P.S. A: I realize they don't use it that way and B: totally reading into it. But hey, that's what I do.)

My comments on #NYSED 's survey on the new #APPR

I received am email from NYSED asking for feedback on the new APPR process. Most of the questions were standard fare, but the last one was open-ended commentary. I took the opportunity to rant/vent, and had the presence of mind to copy my comment before I hit submit.

Here it is, for your viewing pleasure:
The new APPR makes sense in theory. In theory, we should all be collecting data about our practice and our students, and using that data to improve our teaching and their learning. However, in practice, making a change this massive, and without any organization from the state, will create an organizational nightmare. For instance: the talk regarding the pre-assessment for the SLOs is to give an incredibly difficult exam on content the students have not learned yet (with the expectation that they will do poorly on it). Then, after you spend the year teaching that content, they should shine and show outstanding growth. Jobs saved! 

This is a ridiculous predicament you (NYSED) have put us (teachers) in. Why should anyone take the pre-assessment seriously, knowing the the objective is failure. The students are aware of this as well - what will their motivation be? And how does that bode for the start of a school year: let me set the tone for the year of failure. Not education. Not improvement. But pre-planned and intentional failure. From a socio-emotional perspective, that is suicide. 

Add in an INCREASE in tests, which equates to a DECREASE in available teaching time, and Gov Cuomo's tax cap, where will teachers have the time to teach. When will administrators, who are already strapped for time today, have time to administer? How will districts afford more unfunded state mandates? By cutting teaching staff? Because that will improve education, right? Larger classes, more preps, less time. Sounds like a party. 

In theory, this all makes (some) sense. In reality, it will destroy education for a good long while. Has anyone at NYSED considered what the fallout will be? What will teaching and, more importantly, learning look like once the proverbial dust has settled?

A (first) day in the life...

My second son, Nathaniel (or Nathan or Nate) just turned one - day, that is. Waking up this morning (?) in the hospital reminded me of a few things that seem to get lost in the daily fast life.

- Don't forget the simple things. They are beautiful and awesome too.

- Patience is an important part of life.

- Slow down, appreciate THIS moment, as it will be gone shortly.

- Just love, and be loved in return. (I know - total Moulin Rouge paraphrase).

To close, another song lyric. This one comes from my older son's playlist.:

"All that I need
Is a song in my heart,
Food in my belly,
And love in my family."

I love you, family.

Trendy: #CuttingForBieber. Wait...what?

So. I currently teach a senior level semester class called Struggles of Humanity, and we currently focus on dystopian fiction. The semester just began a few weeks back and, after some intro material ("Harrison Bergeron"), I am ready to jump into the first main novel, Huxley's Brave New World (that has such people in it).

I began yesterday with the foreword to Neil postman's book, Amusing Ourselves To Death. In it, he mentions " man's infinite appetite for distractions." As hoped, the students made the leap to today's ultimate distractions, social media. Then the bell rang.

Today I begin with a word web: " social media is..." The students in period 4 came up with the following web:

The discussion began slowly, but started top heat up when I asked how many followers Justin Bieber has on Twitter (side note - it just made my night the Bieber is not in my autocorrect). A change washes over the class. Cell phone are out. Tweets are being read. Someone shouts out "34.3 million."

Now the discussion shifted to the value of JB's tweets (we were clearly on the entertainment value on social media). There was one about slapping the drummer from the black keys. Great tweet JB. Thanks.

Then one student shifted the discussion again. Picking up on the trends aspect of social media, he mentioned #CuttingForBieber Here's a sample:

MIKE KLEFF (@KOOLAIDKLEFF) tweeted at 4:01 PM on Mon, Jan 07, 2013:
No hope left for the youth “@Kellydu851: IT HURTS BUT I DO IT FOR MY JUSTIN :(((
#CuttingForBieber #CutForBieber http://t.co/InaaCPcP”
(https://twitter.com/KOOLAIDKLEFF/status/288389896966660096)

I guess I've been living under my PLN rock, but this trend from a  month ago gave me pause. Evidently, JB admitted to smoking pot and his legions decided to cut themselves to make him stop.

A number of students hadn't heard of it, so, naturally, they looked it up. I'm not sure what image they found, but it started with giggles (muscular, " cut" men in skimpy clothes), to awkward gaps, to one girl retching.

And we encounter a teachable moment.

I stopped the discussion to ask them to really examine what happened here: obsessed fans took their disappointment on a celebrity's actions out on their own bodies. And then published it. And then received validation as it tended. And then inspired the " copycats" to express their disdain. And the Twitter cycle continues.

I went further. I posited that the extreme, hyperbolic connection we potentially have to anyone in the world has backfired; the increase in possible connection has resulted in an impossible disconnect. So much so that children have gone numb from the lack of human (read: face-to-face) connection, and must resort to the entirely visceral act of slicing their bodies open to feel again.

This may not be new thought to all of you (I am a child of the nineties... Grunge for life), but the class feel truly silent. They felt it. Until one of the jocks just said "shit." Which brought the class back to laughter. He followed up, in all sincerity, with " that was too heavy. I needed to get back to normal."

I feel that they felt it. I am happy they did.

But will they be able to connect #CuttingForBieber with the social inadequacies of Huxley's World State? Will they be able to see that, with constant access to pleasure, the pain goes away, but when the pain leaves, you are left numb. Unfeeling.

Can they see how horrifying a thought that is?

==== UPDATE ====

As an update (I know... How can you update an unpublished post?), I did some research and discovered that this was a hoax. Looks like the teachable moment gets extended tomorrow... here's my question for the class: just because the tweeter could do this, should he? What does this say about the power of social media and the lack of human connection (empathy is one of my themes of the class)? How can someone take a serious medical condition and satirize it

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