Specialized and Effective or Divided and Conquered?

If experience is the teacher of life, then what is a teacher's role within lives of students? Is it to create experience, lay the groundwork for students' readiness to reap understanding from experience or perhaps to generate interest in students to actively engage in experiences for the rest of their lives? The role is probably a combination of these, perhaps with some other duties thrown in to round out the service.
Though sometimes the classroom lends itself more to providing a concentration of distractions, it is still the only venue (for most of us public school folks)in which we will interact with most students. The experience, therefore, must occur there, and if there are opportunities that emerge or that we create outside the classroom for students to engage with experience, that is a tremendous bonus, but not automatically available. Many students have much more on their plates besides school. For some, school is an ill-timed annoyance, and I am not just talking about students who don't like school. I am talking about students who are bright, thoughtful, curious individuals with caring hearts who are inclined toward learning, yet have other demands on their time and energy.
What can we do for them? When will they get to focus on their formal education? In many cases, they may never have that opportunity-- their rivers of life are consistently booby-trapped with rapids that demand solitary concentration just to survive the progress assigned by the current. I have not yet met the person who is able to carefully take and analyze water samples while fighting class 5 whitewater. Do we, then, hold them to the standards designed around expectations of floaters riding calm water? To do so would seem unfair and inappropriate, yet, those expectations are designed to prepare students for the present and future that exists in the world around us. Will not every student encounter some variant of this same world?
It is a conundrum that I have been dealing with lately, as students have chosen to share things in their lives with me; things that clearly prevent their full engagement in school, and in some cases, prevent their attendance. They feel a need to explain to someone, someone who might care, someone who may have formed the wrong opinion of them because of the missing back story. The suggestions I have received from others regarding how to handle these confidential disclosures include passing the confidential knowledge along to counselors (which is appropriate or even the law in some cases) and asking students to come in to talk during my planning period. These seem like correct, protocol-compatible approaches, but many times little is accomplished. Sometimes, the concern goes to a counselor, and I never hear back, yet the problem continues in obvious barrier to learning, at which point, I have partially tied hands to address the situation to avoid treading on ground officially, if not legally reserved for other types of trained professionals. It seems like a bureaucratic dissolution of students' lives, addressing their very real, very affective circumstances through a system of contacts, components of which do not necessarily integrate very well with one another.
My thinking is that such a system needs to be closely woven, not a system of deferred responsibility. We teachers are experts on youth, if from a different practical approach than counselors or parents or even administrators. Considering this, I think our input should be involved in helping students balance forces in their lives, rather than used only as initial observation and raw data for potential external follow up. We see what works with all types of students in the classroom, which is but a component of students' daily lives. I think that should count for something. Until I find a way to blend (blur?) the boundaries between professionals working with the same students, I will follow my prescription, written on the 504s and IEPs. In the meantime, I will work with students and still search for what works, and I'll keep sharing that with others, whether they are interested or not.

with trees and rock now synchrony i sing

i spent three days this week at High Trails, an outdoor experiential learning program for sixth grade students, located at the Colorado Outdoor Education Center near Florissant, Colorado. i and nine other pre-service teachers from Colorado State University took the opportunity to head into the high country and help teach these energetic kids about the world around them. the overarching curricular approach is to show kids the interconnectedness of all things. this is not done with any heavy religious, philosophical or spiritual bent, though components of all three find their way into each student's personal experience. kids learn about history, geology, geography, ecology, conservation, food chain and what knowledge of these have meant in daily life to thousands of years of inhabitants. they do this through direct experience, that involves tangible places like an original homestead, a working ranch established in the 1850s, fossil beds and thousands of acres of varying ecosystems. by the end of their four days, sixth-graders start making statements on their own, often to their friends that let me know they were putting it together. a couple hours after sundown, one ordinarily quiet boy said to me after finishing his campfire burger and looking toward the sky, "that's probably the most beautiful thing i have ever seen. can you imagine what other lifeforms there are out there?"

i couldn't even answer him.

while these kids were making huge connections in their understanding of the world around them, i made a few of my own. having spent countless hours exploring the outdoors alone, i have come to feel much more at home in the woods and mountains and rivers than in my home town. living in fort collins, CO has afforded me the opportunity to escape into these places occasionally, but working two jobs, going to grad school full-time and coaching high school soccer part time keeps me from spending as much time "at home" in the hills as i would like. it has seemed for a while that teaching high school english may not be compatible with the kind of living that fits me best. while this thought has bothered me for nearly two years, i have tried to create a more consolidated life, where my professional and personal lives coexist and compliment one another. for the most part, they have been separate and at odds with one another, which has raised serious concerns for me about the professional path i have chosen.
this week, however, placed the two in perfect synchrony. there are differences between this type of teaching and the type that i have been preparing for that i always knew existed, but could never use as a point of parallel comparison, because the experiences were too far removed from one another. i have seen how my kind of living, and my "home" can be combined with top-notch educational practice, and it is not as i previously thought.
i realize this post is vaporous at best and only drives past its topics at high speed, but the experience i had this week was just that: experience. and there is no substitute for experience.

i think perhaps one of the major ingredients missing from my teaching preparation and my life recently has been trust. i have been unable to trust much of what i am being taught. i have been unable to trust what experts say is important. i have been unable to trust my teaching abilities. i have been unable to trust that i am understanding myself. all this has added up to an inability to trust in the future.

i have regained some trust, both in myself and in the future, and i realize for now that is all i need.

expect more

it's been a long time since i first got down, but i still keep making these funky sounds. -- too short

much has changed since last post. in the world, in the universe, in me. but you all know more about what's been going on in the world than i do. i've been expected more and more to do and be certain things. i have been expected to be a certain kind of student, a certain kind of employee, a certain kind of friend, a certain kind of person. my relationships with those holding those expectations span the spectrum from most intimate partner to unacquainted reluctant crosser of misguided paths. the importance of these relationships have not held in proportion with my responses. in other words, i have spent a lot of energy trying to live up to expectations from people i do not even know and sacrificing attention to expectations of those about whom i care the most. this has left me with emptiness and a feeling that i have run past the housefire with a bucket of water so i may dump it in the river. this is the second layer of my cake.

the first layer is less complicated and lacks the fancy frosting roses that adorned the second layer. it has come to my attention that i used to live a certain way and that way made me happy, buoyant, creative and energetic. i was constantly in motion in one way or the other, and i used my momentum to help get others moving. this could have been helping someone pick up their groceries after the soaked bag lets loose in the middle of the parking lot or it could have been reaffirming someone's sense of self-worth after he or she found reason to doubt it. maybe it was just getting someone to finger paint on hands and knees at four in the morning. i didn't need these types of help very often, because i would get it on my own, often through these same actions. my momentum allowed me to clear obstacles as they arose with minimal delay or effort. yes, i know i promised this layer is less complicated. you'll see.
now, somehow somewhere sometime i started reeling this part of me back. it began to seem more important to live up to an expectation to: find a steady secure job, get my work done on time, follow the rules, take advantage of every networking opportunity, etc. the expectations i had for myself to keep moving keep exploring help others where i can and always BE what i believe in were moved to the back burner, which was not even lit.
so it comes down to this: i have tried the approach of living up to the expectations placed on me by those who do not know me. because they do not know me, their expectations are groundless and thereby have nothing to do with me. my own expectations, however, are grounded in twenty-six years of a fairly close relationship with myself, and are easily changed when obsolete, erroneous or simply too stagnant for my life as i need it to be.

so i am going to keep moving without the extra fat and bulk of that second layer, so i can move freely again and finally get somewhere. hopefully, this will become others' understanding of me, which i know one or two people never stopped expecting.
expect more

age or ability?

i was talking with a colleague and confidant about grade-level systems, and we began thinking about what makes more sense for students: age-level or ability-level placement? i immediately thought of other learning processes such as martial arts, music, sports, visual arts and almost everything else that is typically taught outside our K-12 classrooms, and i realized each of these operates on an ability-based placement system. black belts are not just the old fogies and many middle school music students are much more accomplished than some college student trying to become that guy-at-the-party-who-plays-guitar. so why are students in our schools placed in grade levels based on their ages, forcing teacher to teach myriad levels within a single group of students?

i think socialization is one reason. students should be able to socialize with peers at or near the same age, especially during adolescent years. we have all heard about 13-year-olds who go to college and turn into socially inept savants who live frustrated, incomplete lives, having never developed certain parts of their socio-psychological selves through social interaction. also, exceptionally advanced students often learn so quickly, that even higher level courses are too slow for them. they actually need accelerated courses to be challenged. but is it elitist to offer accelerated options for those who are exceptionally able learners? it is if we ignore the needs of other students. but we don't think that has to happen.

let's consider what most kids need:
social interaction with peers: ah, but 'peers' can be defined by age, intellect, specific aptitude and interests, not just the other kids on the block.
academic challenge: bored kids are usually bored because their learning, lightning fast at birth, has continuously slowed to a mind-numbing belly crawl. think back, you know what i am talking about.
life challenge: this is a little fuzzy, but kids need to learn how to deal with struggles they will face throughout their lives. we offer safe environments to explore academic learning in schools, so we can cerainly help ensure kids begin learning life lessons individually while they still have support networks like parents, guardians, teachers and other guides available. out in the world, sometimes there's no one but you and your problems. if that's the first time you've dealt with these types of problems, you might be in trouble.

we need to figure out how to balance these things without excluding or severely limiting any of them. keeping students with kids the same age no matter what leaves some kids bored and artificially limited and others struggling to keep up, often learning more about how to limp through an upcoming high-stakes test than any actual knowledge or skills. learning must be connected to the rest of the world, so there is no reason different age-levels and different academic levels need to remain bounded from one another. we adults work with and learn from one another, even though we are all different ages and levels of ability and experience. why not prepare students to do this more naturally by encouraging it while they are still in school?

i suspect that there are enough variations among students regarding different kinds of aptitudes and abilities that all forms of developmentally important interaction can be met through an approach that limits arbitrary and artificial barriers between students. i realize this is a complex process and deals with very complex inter- and intrapersonal activities. i don't believe that attempting to simplify the students into least-common-denominator categories is the best way to address this complexity. i realize this post contradicts itself in some places, but the argument does have multiple valid perspectives so i have decided not to edit them out. i hope this transparency will allow better discussion of this topic.

timelapse invite

greetings, all. i have set up a wiki site for the simple creation of a collaborative story called timelapse about a person like me and like all of you. in fact, it IS me and all of you. the story takes place over the course of 24 hours, though what happens within that time is up to all of us. use of time travel, of course, is encouraged. you can find loose instructions at the top of the page. please feel free to write as little, as much and as often as you wish, but remember that we are trying to incorporate the dreams and ideas of many different people into one constructed person. this project will end at 5 pm on Monday, April 23rd. the page will be locked at that time, allowing no further edits or additions. a new project will follow. enjoy.

warning: graphic discussion

are graphic novels lower on the food chain than verbal prose? than poetry? are pictures, combined with words or standing alone less effective, less valuable than words alone? advertisers would say no. the art world would say no. the american national standards institute (ANSI) would say no. so why do haughty-graphic-novel-bashing-commenters writing for pseudo-affected audiences feel their opinions are fact?

what if we transported ourselves back in time to live amongst the inca? should we wag our fingers at them for not figuring out how to construct a language that was based on binary relationships rather than ternary systems of meaning-making, as is used to construct aymara, one of their chief languages? it seems a embarrassingly post-elitist to denounce the communication system of a society that existed six centuries ago, yet successfully practiced mortarless stone construction, brain surgery, sustainable high altitude agriculture and operated with a government that included separate chains of command, creating checks and balances on authority. in many ways, this society in south america was far more advanced than the majority of the world. yet, they communicated in a very different way than their contemporaries, a way that many believe is better for the obvious purpose: communicating. many critics of prose cannot wrap their brains around the delicate, smashing facets of poetry. many poets cannot see the dynamic living magic in writing for the stage.

the graphic novel is another form of writing, implementing multiple ways of learning and information presentation/uptake that are more complex and require significantly more planning than prose. the process of creating a graphic novel involves ways of thinking and composing that many of us who dwell beneath the surface of the overpopulated algae-choked verbal lagoon cannot even imagine, let alone practice with any level of understanding or success.

but i love words. notice the simplistic symbolic binary construction of that which you've just read. words are great. let's not denounce their brothers and sisters, though.

teachers who hate learning

yes, folks, this is a rant. put up your filter guard now, if that's how read.
i have been involved with several conversations recently aimed at increasing student engagement and active, personalized learning. these are important topics, and i think these are core goals for creating classrooms that invite and encourage learning, rather than assume and vacantly proscribe the same. the problem, however, has little to do with human nature, inherent student apathy or any of the other excuses we educators like to keep ready in our hip pockets to deploy in post failure self coddling . i'll return to this in a moment. be ready.
the buzz phrase of the day has of late been "buy-in." we need to increase student buy-in to create a culture of engagement within the classroom. yes. herein lies the floor slab of our problem: this converstation is one i regularly have with in-service and pre-service teachers who, in graduate classes, consciously aim at the minimum requirements to complete the class with a decent grade. many have completely disengaged from activities designed to provide insight into those activities that our students do all the time by their own volition, activities that offer incredible learning possibilities if we teachers understood how and why students do these things. e.g.: electronic social networking, video gaming, independent media creation (video, music, comics, visual art, writing, etc.) in most cases, i actually hear words such as, "i think that would be a lot of work. i just wanna get this done." the ugly head of the western-results-above-all monster reareth. and you wondered how "Git-R-Done" became our national mantra.
these discussions about student buy-in take place between teachers who are students, and who are unwilling or cannot even figure out how to "buy in" for themselves. i am afraid, within the educultural context of these graduate school classrooms, the student by-in discussion has become little more than pathetically doomed cul-de-sac smalltalk.
back to OUR students' buy-in: we are learning that modelling is one of the most effective methods of teaching. here's a new cliche'd maxim, because i am making it one: do not as i say if it is not as i do. as a group, our students are very observant. they pick up on everything we do, whether we pick up on it or not. we cannot embody poor learning teachnique and expect our students to develop good learning technique.
we are attempting to create a classroom culture that differs from that of the outside world. how can we change the way students learn if we are unwilling to change the way WE learn? students are apathetic because we have not shown them why our activities are important to them (sometimes the activities we design are not actually important, and students identify that as well). students only do enough to get the grade because, for over a century the grade has been the understood goal of formal education procedure. actual learning has been cast as the third-string benchwarmer/waterboy and is only brought into the game when we have either given up hope of winning or discarded the possibility of loss. most students play school with a tighter score, though, and consequently look off-field to see poor ol' learning sitting dejected on the sideline in gleaming white spotless disappointment.
and we are the coaches who keep it this way.
why not give true learning a little field time and strengthen the weakest link?