It's Okay to Laugh Here

by John T. Spencer

I have a student who wrote a creative masterpiece as an alternate ending to a story about a woman in the Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. In the end, she is caught and faces life in prison because she accidentally wears a pair of white socks (they were forbidden). As they take her away, she cries out, "Cursed white socks! They let me down again. But I would rather die than be loyal to the Yankees."

I chose to affirm it by laughing and writing a note reading, "nice satirical look at the situation." Yes, I want him to take injustice seriously. Other teachers would have lectured the student on the need to "take the assignment seriously."  However, I know that humor can be a powerful force on demonstrating the absurdity of those who are in power. By mentioning the ridiculous rule about white socks, he not only makes a baseball reference but also shows that the Taliban is entirely illogical.  As a result, he begins writing deep satire about standardized tests, immigration, war and balanced budgets.

It starts an entire unit called Satire for Social Change.

“I think I’m thinking more about issues in the world by writing satire,” he explains.

“Why’s that?” I ask.

“It’s like Jon Stewart, right. He is able to take the world more seriously be laughing at the insanity of other journalists,” he responds.

“I think people miss out on how much goes into writing satire,” I tell him. “Stewart and Colbert are often more honest with their audiences than mainstream media.”

“Humor gives us the opportunity to say what no one is saying,” he adds.

I think there are a few more academic benefits to humor that are often unnoticed:

• Humor provides a chance to be creative. When a child can truly create something humorous, synthesis is occurring. Look back at the baseball joke. It proves that he knows a Taliban rule, the ridiculous nature of it, the future history of what happens and the notion of Yankee being a term applied to the United States. 
• Humor is a skill students will use in life. I can't think of a profession (perhaps a mortician, though I can see a place for dark humor there, too) where humor is not an asset.
• Humor is a deeply human endeavor. I need students to feel safe and humor adds a safe, human aspect to an often intense level of thinking I ask of my students. It's not so much "comic relief" (because humor is not in any way a relief from thinking) as it is a reminder of the human side.
• Humor is a relational skill. If I want to have holistic learners, I need my students to see the value in relationships. Humor is a necessary part of relating to one another.
• Humor requires deep thought. I can argue that teachers are not overpaid. Or, I could write a satirical piece as a teacher who works 9-3, visits Bali, has a polo-playing zebra and owns a yacht (as The Nerdy Teacher did).
• Humor helps us with empathy. A class that uses humor learns about crossing lines, hurting others and apologizing for careless language. Students learn to anticipate how others will feel rather than blindly hacking away with arguments.
• Humor allows us to be vulnerable. To me, that’s critical. There is a risk in every joke. The silence can be deafening. It’s risky.

I use humor often in the classroom. Oddly enough, it wasn't until I was able to laugh that students took me seriously. When I pretended prototypical "mean teacher," students despised me. However, when I lightened up, used some self-deprecating humor and introduced a little irony, I earned the respect of students. I opened the door for deeper humor on a regular basis. Students need humor if the classroom community is ever going to be creative, empathetic, thought-provoking and fully human.

I recognize that we need to teach students about respect in their humor.  I try and push kids away from sexual innuendo, "yo mama" jokes and pooping references and toward a deeper sense of irony.  However, I've also recognized that humor I might not appreciate (physical humor, puns) can play a critical role in the class growing closer.

Case in point: Many of my students, being English Language Learners, struggle with idioms. I realized that one afternoon when I made a kid cry after writing a positive note about how he goes the extra mile. “I already run enough in PE. Why me?”

So, early on in the year, I teach my students about the difference between literal and figurative language using a comic strip from The Oatmeal. From there, students begin brainstorming idioms and illustrating figurative versus literal. Here are a few samples:

“Dude, would you quit dropping to the ground?”
“I’m falling for him.”

“I’m still struggling to see why you are asking for a heart transplant?”
“I told him I would literally give him my heart.”

“Would you stop that?”
“Your sign says it up there. It’s KFC. I have every right to lick your fingers.”

“Well folks, it looks like the games over. The Packers had a literally explosive offense today and that seems to be the real issue.”

The humor in this exercise helped bond our class together. We grew closer as a community from the shared laughter. Yet, it also forced students to be creative and to think at a higher level. Humor is difficult to pull off. It’s why I had students write their own satire after watching clips from The Onion News Network. They ranged from silly (a riot at Macy’s after school announced it was a Free Dress Day and everyone showed up to get their free dresses) to cutting (a satirical piece about the standardized test that gets people to Heaven).

I used to see humor as comic relief. It was that “extra” that some teachers were able to use. I’ve learned that it’s a vital part of classroom leadership. Something magical happens when a group feels safe enough to laugh together.

John T. Spencer is a teacher in Phoenix, AZ who blogs at Education Rethink.  He recently finished two books, Pencil Me In, an allegory for educational technology and Drawn Into Danger, a fictional memoir of a superhero and he's working onSustainable Start, a book for new teachers. You can connect with him on Twitter @johntspencer

Photographs from the SOS March in Washington, DC 2011

by Shelly Blake-Plock

Was in DC yesterday for the SOS March.

Nice mixture of people (and opinions) on the Ellipse. Still getting my head around everything I heard and saw and I promise a post soon. In the meantime, here are some photographs I snapped; thanks to everybody for the kind conversation throughout the day.

On Best Practices

by Shelly Blake-Plock

A lot of talk recently about 'best practices'. Best practices for using the iPad in the classroom. Best practices for social media in schools. Best practices for dealing with kids more interested in Angry Birds than in schoolwork.

Trouble is: There are no 'best practices'.

In fact there is no 'best' anything when it comes to teaching. There is no 'best' in teaching any more than there is a 'best' way to win a football game.

Now, there will be those pundits who claim that one team's Super Bowl victory means less than another's. Pundits make a career of saying what is 'best' for someone else. But we all know that teams win games based on preparation; on the ability to adapt strategy -- often in the middle of a play; on the way their unique culture expresses itself as teamwork. Teams don't win because pundits say what's best.

And student's don't learn because of what the educational equivalent of pundits say is best.

Students learn based on the relationship that exists between themselves and their teacher; they learn because of the preparation, strategies, adaptations, and teamwork involved. And there is no standard way of producing success. That preparation, those strategies, those adaptations, and that teamwork will be different in each class -- or at least should.

Because no two kids are the same. No two teachers are the same. No two schools are the same. We're all working with what we've got. And what we've got -- to slice through all the murk on all sides of the Ed Reform debate -- are relationships.

Great coaches and great athletes know that it is relationships, not 'best practices' that win championships. Love of the game inspires kids. Love of passion and hard work and determination and grit and love of love itself.

No kid wants to grow up to be a pundit.

And no kid is inspired by 'best practices'.

In the end, 'best practices' are just another form of punditry. They inspire nothing but further standardization.

And standardization is the opposite of passion. It's the opposite of joy, motivation, love of being part of the struggle -- the pathos -- of sport and learning alike. Standardization tells you that making a mistake is a bad thing. Standardization suggests there is a clear cut measure. A process that works. No gray.

'Best practices' tell you that there is a 'Way'; and if you just follow that way, you'll find success.

This has never worked. There is no Way in teaching. There are only teachers looking for a way on one hand and those making their own way on the other.

If you really want to inspire learning, you don't need 'best practices', you just need practice best.




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Personalized, passionate learning

By Mike Kaechele

There is a Save Our Schools March in Washington D.C. this week. I can't go but here is my contribution to the discussion.

I Am Not A Great Teacher

by Shelly Blake-Plock

I am not a great teacher. Many of my former students would probably agree. I'm at times flaky. And I can certainly be absent minded. I tend to ask students to do too much work all at once, probably because that's the way I do things.

I'm a terrible test-prepper. When I do give lectures, I tend to go on tangents. Sometimes I mix up names, dates, events; this happens at family BBQs, too.

I keep my gradebook relatively up-to-date, but tend to prefer talking directly to students about what we've been learning/doing rather than just mark up assignments. This works for some students, it doesn't for others. And thus, I often find myself in the position of doing what I'm "supposed to do" as a teacher when I feel and I know from experience that there is a better way to do things.

When I started teaching, I was absolutely terrible at classroom management. A decade in, I realize that my classroom management issues stopped being issues around year 3 when I stopped trying to control everything going on in my classroom. I don't think any of us really realize what classroom management is all about until years into teaching when we've realized that we haven't thought about classroom management in a while.

I try to talk candidly with parents. And I will argue my point. But I'll also listen to yours. As a father of three elementary school kids, I value conversations with their teachers where they are open and honest with me even if I disagree with what they are saying.

Sometimes I've gotten into trouble because I've been too open or outspoken about things. I know there are many folks on the faculty who don't like me. I've let certain grudges go on too long.

But at the same time, I feel like there are people who get an idea in their head about what you represent, and from there on out, there is no changing their opinion.

Happens in my head, too.

I am not a great teacher. I'm not always prepared. Though I do think I am a pretty good improviser. And I think that is an essential, but over-looked skill. I like the idea that any kid can bring up any point about any subject and within seconds we can be talking about something that could potentially change a life in a way my prepared lesson never could.

I tend to hate most professional development. And yet, I like to design new kinds of PD.

A lot of people confuse me with someone who thinks technology is the answer to all of our problems. Those people are probably people who don't like to read long blog posts.

Fair enough.

I always hated working in groups as a student. But now, I work with groups all the time. In some ways, I couldn't function professionally without my network. That network -- that group ever changing and evolving in thought and substance -- is the circulatory system at the heart of what I think about when I think about education.

I'm not a great teacher. I can't teach you how to be a great teacher. You are probably a better teacher than me. I don't know.

What I do know is that I'm a pretty good learner. I like learning. I'm also a pretty good share-er. I like sharing. When I am learning and sharing, I don't feel like my back is to the wall. I feel comfortable. I feel like my motivations are honest. I feel like I can be myself. And I feel a bit more useful to other folks.

I am far more interested in being a conduit for ideas. A conduit for conversation. A conduit for debate. For real learning. Connecting. Rethinking. Reframing debates. Debates and discussions. The stuff of humanity.

I don't remember off the top of my head what year Napoleon became emperor. I'd have to look it up. I guess that makes me a pretty lousy history teacher.

But I'm willing to not know.

I take a lot of solace in the example of Socrates. Not because I think I'm like Socrates, but because I think deep down Socrates is a lot like all of us. Socrates was a guy who both boastfully and intimately explained that in the end, he really didn't know anything.

And that was enough to change everything.

What Google Plus Could Teach Us About Education Reform

by John T. Spencer

I am not a Google Fanboy.  I promise this.  I am not crazy about any transnational corporation poised to redefine the way we organize information.  However, in using Google Plus, I'm thinking that we could learn a few things in terms of rethinking and redesigning public education:

User Interface: Form
It finally feels like Google has a "look," with the new Google search pages and Gmail user interface.  It's  clean and minimal in an online world filled with slick, shiny icons.  Unlike Facebook (which has become a cluttered Wal-Mart-style mess), Google Plus makes use of a balance between negative and positive space.  The result is both a calm and active ethos, creating a "place" where I want to hang around.

I'd like to see schools pay better attention to this.  In my dream school, we have space, open space, negative space.  We have murals.  We have art.  We have bold colors, but also places where things are calm.  We have windows.  Instead of looking slick and professional, school would look like a place where students want to be.

User Interface: Function
 I like the use of muted icons, as if any color chosen is intentional alongside the bold green, blue and red that gently guide me toward what I'm looking for. The end result is a user interface that is intuitive as much as it is logical.  Google Plus is easy to navigate from within the system and easy to access from outside (adding the plus one button, seeing the red update box next to my name, the share box, etc.)  The result is a system that has a ton of integrated features while still feeling simple.

Schools could learn from this by designing curriculum that allows for fluid integration while still creating a sense of natural boundaries between subjects.  Both in physical and in intellectual space, schools wouldn't have to be free of walls, but rather open to half walls, open doors and open windows.  Schools wouldn't have to be entirely project-based or independent work, but they could be open to a balanced, nuanced approach of integration and specialization.

Language
Language reshapes the way we define reality.  The unspoken metaphors create a semantic environment that both create and reflect our values and norms.  Google chose human metaphors.  Instead of using "video chat," they have "hang outs." Instead of saying "customized search," they use sparks.  Even the emotive, harmonious symbol of a circle (and the common use of spheres and circles to describe relationships) has a much more human sound to it than "lists."

Schools could learn from Google as they push reform.  It has to be real, though.  We can't use "common" and then create "standardized."  Nor can we speak of "learning" and simply mean "achievement."  However, if we begin to move toward more human, organic metaphors, our values, norms and structures will eventually change.

Features

Google Plus offers sparks (a customized way of searching and sharing), circles (a chance to direct your communication to your personalized groups) and easily embedded media within status updates.  Plus offers hangouts, where small groups can interact on video.  And the best part? It's not cluttered full of third party apps trying to spam me into a mafia or a pretend agribusiness or a make-believe coffee shop. In the process, it's both interest-based (sparks) and relationship-based (circles) in a way that feels very human.  

School could function as a flexible community while still allowing students to engage with the outside world (plus one approach).  Students could engage in community with concentric circles while personalizing their learning according to their own interests (sparks). Students could meet based upon shared social status (age-based, ability levels) while also letting them share in interest-based formats (multi-age classes based upon interests). We could recover recess (hangouts) and we wouldn't have to depend upon third-party apps invading our curriculum and forcing us to interrupt real learning with incessant testing updates.  We could learn from Google in some of the smaller features, too.  Maybe wait a little longer in student response time and in discipline.

Flexibility
Google Plus allows users to interact in a way that resembles both Facebook and Twitter.  Thus, it's easy to embed media, but it's not cluttered with media updates.  I can choose to follow you, but you can choose to limit your updates to specific circles.  In addition, while social media often defines relevance for the users, Google Plus lets the users define relevance for themselves. Instead of being differentiated, it's truly personalized.  Instead of offering choice, it offers freedom.  I can sort by medium, by interest or by social communities.
 
Schools need to shift from differentiation to customization/personalization.  They need to allow students to define relevance and meaning, to sift through multiple media choices, to organize information according to the meaning they create rather than the teacher-driven transmission of conceptual systems.  Schools could also learn to create fewer options and provide more freedom, relying on the power of freedom and simplicity to generate creativity and authenticity.

Bottom Line
Google learned from the failures of Wave and Buzz as well as the structural problems with Twitter and Facebook.  The response was a certain humility that education reformers could learn from. They worked toward creating a social network that feels more social than networked.  In designing an online community, they seemed to ask, "How can we humanize this?" rather than "How can we get people to follow this format?"

John T. Spencer is a teacher in Phoenix, AZ who blogs at Education Rethink.  He recently finished two books, Pencil Me In, an allegory for educational technology and Drawn Into Danger, a fictional memoir of a superhero and he's working on Sustainable Start, a book for new teachers. You can connect with him on Twitter @johntspencer

5 Issues: Education and the Network

by Shelly Blake-Plock

Been having a lot of facetime recently with folks out there in the education world and have noticed a few misconceptions that keep popping up regarding the conversation we've been having about social tech integration and networked classrooms. So I thought I'd write this brief post concerning some of the issues folks have had.

1. Networked education will not improve test scores. This is a 100% true statement. Networked education will not improve test scores. Personally, I have no interest in improving test scores because I hold them to be by-and-large a poor reflection of the actual learning, growth, and understanding of our students; that's just me. Other teachers feel differently. And that's fine. I like debate. But as for networked education, improving test scores is not the objective... therefore, do not expect results. You are going to have to redefine what "assessment" means if it's real networked learning you are trying to gauge.

2. Technology will not fix education. This is a 100% true statement. All along, we've been stressing the fact that technology -- and the digital age broadly speaking -- is the context, not the goal. Having computers in your room will not make your kids understand Shakespeare better. But denying the connection in your room will limit your students' capacity to use the connections and resources of the web to better learn, grow, and understand in a personalized and context-savvy way. Eventually, there will be two types of students: connected and not-connected. Connected students will have the power of broad personal and professional learning communities at their fingertips. Not-connected students won't. You are the teacher: decide what kind of student you think is going to have the skills and understanding to make it in a connected world.

3. Smart kids don't need networked learning, because they'll pick it all up along the way. This notion demonstrates a complete misunderstanding of what networked education is. It's not about the "end result"; it's about the process. Networked learning isn't a goal; it's a way of being. It's not analogous to getting the "A" or the "5" on the AP exam; it's about learning to be a thinker, citizen, and engaged person within a connected global network. And that's a life-long ongoing process that doesn't end just because you got into your top choice college. It's not another accolade to pick up at the podium.

4. Wealthy schools will always be the best schools. I get to visit many schools and have walked the halls of some of the most august. And I have seen in some of these schools only what I would consider at best a complete lack of recognition of the reality of what is happening in the broader culture, and at worst a complete mis-reading of what the digital paradigm means for the future of our society. There are many, many so-called "top tier" schools that you could not pay me to send my own children to. In the connected age, the quality of a school will ultimately have less to do with the size of the endowment than with the capacity of the program to produce engaged and creative thinkers who can handle a variety of complexities and types of connection. The future doesn't care about your reputation.

5. Inner-city schools have bigger issues than whether or not their students are using Twitter. While schools of all types face a multitude of challenges, this statement betrays a deep lack of understanding of what social networks represent. I can't help but hear such a statement and not glean the anxiety that social networks might prove to represent the greatest challenge to present and status quo hierarchical systems of authority in education, business, government, and beyond. I could imagine no greater issue facing any school district than whether or not their students are connected and engaged in an empowering and culture-redefining network.