Mr. Kemp, Could You Stop Talking.

It’s easy to tell the stories. I like telling the stories. And, over my years of teaching, reading and living, I seemingly have a story for every lesson I wish to impart on my students. Not to mention, I think I’m a pretty crackerjack storyteller.

I understand description and nuance. I can even use different voices, if needed to maintain pretend engagement.

But, that’s not my job anymore.

It’s time to realize that I need to shut up.

Given the tools and the opportunity, students need to be released from the clutches of my soul-sucking storytelling ways. They need to dive in and learn their own stories.

Agree to Disagree, than Agree to Keep Discussing

It is too easy to shut off when you don’t hear what you want. It is easy as a teacher to walk away, shut your door and go on with what you are doing.

Too easy.

At the opening ceremonies of a Fire Chiefs conference I attended yesterday, the opening speaker, the Fire Chief of Kitchener said, “To continue the progress that is needed, we must come together and have discussions and debates. Sometimes we will agree. Sometimes we will agree to disagree, but we must always agree to keep discussing.”

This struck a chord.

Too often there is disagreement and then silence. We can lose semesters easily in poorly designed and implemented professional dialogue strategies where the only people who suffer from our lack of discussion are our students. Silence is not leadership.

We need to disconnect the idea for education from our personal investment and be willing to undertake disagreement. If someone disagrees, it is not a personal affront.

No one theory, idea or reasoning is right. I get that. It is the integration of ideas in the discussion that often determines a great course of action. However, too many voices in the education discussion are silent.

For some, it is by choice. We need to encourage these quiet innovators to open their door to the world and encourage their participation. For some, it is by habit. We need to encourage these experienced educators to join the conversation. For some, it is because they have been silenced before. We need to encourage these professionals that our students and education need their voice.

These “difficult discussions” are essential to our mitigating of the rough waters of the education revolution.

In all my blog entires, I encourage you to disagree with me. Challenge my thinking. We will all come out better on the other side. Let’s agree to keep discussing.

Counting to Mastery

While sitting having lunch with some progressive, insightful educators, the ideas around assessment were being bandied around. The struggle between the quantitative and qualitative, the balance between formative and summative assessment, and how to find a balance of assessment that most benefits students.

This idea came to my head: A student’s final mark should never be lower than their mid-term mark.

I said it, knowing it may sound crazy, explaining that I hadn’t fully thought it through. However, here was my logic:

A student’s quantitative evaluation, according to Growing Success in Ontario, should be based on “observations, conversations and student product.” (39) Nowhere in Growing Success does it explain the necessity to calculate a student’s numeric mark. In fact, if you read through the document enough, there is considerable evidence to suggest that teachers should be considering what students do as demonstrations of their learning.

And this brings it back to my idea.

As the year progresses, a student can not un-demonstrate their skills. They can not un-demonstrate their knowledge. This is where it gets tricky. I believe that Growing Success wants us to look at the curriculum as stated and evaluate where each students’ skills are at that moment, thus “most recent, most consistent”. What that means is a student’s numeric mid-term mark, should be looking at that student’s demonstrations against all the skills necessary for that credit.

The idea that a student’s final mark should never be lower than their mid-term mark is contingent on the idea that the teacher is determining that mid-term mark against the entire curriculum, not just an isolated part of it.  I know the English curriculum and I would suggest that this idea works. Students at mid-term surely have demonstrated the various elements of reading, writing, oral communication and media studies. A more content driven curriculum, does not fit into this notion.

The one hitch: Growing Success still implies that a student’s final evaluation be determined from 70% of their term work and 30% from a summative. Therefore, at most, a student’s mark should only drop by 30%. However, Growing Success also states, “Determining a report card grade will involve teachers’ professional judgement and interpretation of evidence and should reflect the student’s most consistent level of achievement, with special consideration given to more recent evidence,” (39) which implies that summative evidence may be taken with more consideration.

I leave it to you. My question, considering the ideas, as outlined in Growing Success, is my idea accurate. Or is it the random nonsense of a radical?

Is a mid-term mark, the first instance of our counting to mastery and therefore an indication that a student has successfully demonstrated a specific level of the skills? 

Should a student’s final mark ever be lower than their mid-term mark?

Please comment, question, challenge, and be part of this conversation. I’m wrestling with this notion and would love to hear your thoughts.

Put It On Paper

In the next few weeks I have my Teacher Performance Appraisal. I will have it determined, in a single visit to my classroom, whether I meet the satisfactory requirements to be a teacher in Ontario.

Simply put, I’m not worried. Sorta.

You see, as part of the process, I have to show the paperwork of my teaching. Unit plans, lesson plans, assessment rubrics and accounting formulas. Now to say that this isn’t my strength would be an honest assessment of my abilities as a teacher.

But it is also the limitation of any one-shot assessment model, be it standardized test or performance task or examination. The definition of success must be limited. It must be limited because the time is limited. The space is limited. The assessment is limited. But more importantly, the learning from this performance appraisal is limited. What valuable feedback will I get from a one-shot deal? The operative word being valuable.

The thing is, I don’t think good teaching is a unit plan. Sure, a good teacher has a sense of direction, but that doesn’t always look like a unit plan. I don’t think good teaching is a lesson plan. Sure, a good teacher needs to know what they are doing today, but they have to just as easily have to leave it behind if the people in the room require that.

How do I put a student-centred learning model on paper? How do I provide the things that my VP will be looking for, when they don’t fit so easily in a box? How do I demonstrate the relationship of me being a learner as critical to my assessment plan?

How do I put what I do on paper?

It’s Easy on Days Like These

The other day was one of those days.

You know, one of those days where I marvel that I get paid for this gig.

My students wowed me with their engagement. From an on-fire class debate about political power, economic power and our inability to sometimes know the difference, to another class “bringing it” in a major way on their spoken word poems, rants and raps. I was left beaming.

And the thing is, I can take very little of the credit.

The success of the class wasn’t because I had worded the learning goal most precisely or scaffolded the learning in just such a way. The success of the class was precipitated by students making other students better.  They inquired, challenged, cajoled and supported each other. Exactly what learning should look like. The thing is, I have no doubt the teacher matters, but the teacher matters less when students are giving time, space and opportunity to learn.

I did my job flawlessly, on that day, as I got out of the way. I was able, by fluke most likely, to know when to shut up. I just observed, provided minimal feedback, and stopped acting like I needed to “manage” the classroom.  This doesn’t happen often, especially the shutting up part.

Is the flood of “classroom management” techniques inciting us into a winless cycle? Is good teaching the small, unnoticeable details that build confidence and not the noticed lesson plans and scaffolds?

When talking about student success, how do we move teachers away from the conversation about themselves?

I Know So Little

“Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance.” — Confucius

I just finished reading “Damned Nations” by Dr. Samantha Nutt. This book is all about the various social justice issues that are taking place and how we have, so far, not dealt with some of the overriding problems that allow war, terrorism, poverty and illiteracy to breed and grow.  Needless to say, what I thought might have been helping “change the world” may in fact be contributing.  Nutt is one of the co-founders of War Child. This book opened my eyes and is now, on my list, of books I will recommend over and over.

This book reminded me of my incredible ignorance. I try to be world-wise, yet I am foolish to think that reading is enough.

I am plagued with this ever-present question of whether I am “smart” enough to be a teacher.

If I recognize the limitations of my own knowledge, am I equipped to help students discover their own ignorance? Because isn’t this what we ultimately are searching for? A student who understands they don’t know everything becomes a self-guided inquirer, or a self-directed learner. That’s my goal.

To improve teacher practice, do we need a teacher-wide admittance of our knowledge limitations? Will this help re-frame the classroom away from the teacher as “beacon of knowledge”?

I do want to acknowledge that I recognize the difference between information and knowledge. The difference is an important element in our media saturated world.

I know so little, yet my ignorance is an important factor in my teaching. Should it be for all?

Losing, Whilst Finding, My Voice

I love to talk about education. It’s my passion. It’s what I do. I love to explore the complexities of the art and the machine of the science of learning. Then I love to tear them apart and try as hard as I might, to figure what worked and why it worked with a specific kid or a specific class.

But that’s my problem. I talk too much. I write my blog and express my opinions and too often, I’m met with acrimony from my

colleagues. Not for the ideas, but for my willingness and want of expressing them. Sometimes the acrimony is blatant, “Here he goes again.” or “He’s just being a shit disturber.” But more often, it’s passive aggressive, it’s implied dissent, you know, the eye roll or the “Well…” shoulder shrug.

Now, I may be a little melodramatic about it, but I think there lies a major difficulty in the road ahead in education.

When teachers start to find our pedagogical voice, it is often tuned out by other teachers. Not by administrators or by parents, but by teachers.

I believe the road ahead requires a radical shift that must start with teachers finding their voices.

But as I find my voice, online in the edu-blogosphere or in the Twitterverse, I’m losing my voice in my school. I’m becoming more  gun-shy when and with whom I get into it with. I don’t want to be the voice in the wind, yet, the more one says about change, that’s what happens.

So, how do I find balance?

If we want to see the education system we want, we must reclaim our voices and ensure the power of those voices around us are heard.

This post is cross-posted on voicEd.ca, a collective of voices who have an interest in collaborating on conversations, discussion and even debates about the future of education and schooling in Canada.

If You Do As Your Told, You’ll Survive.

We’ve got a generation of students who believe this.  We’ve got a generation of teachers who figured it out and found success through it.

It worked for me.

You know, learn the rules of the game. Then play by them.  And the rules were simple, learn what the teacher wants and do it.

Do as your told, you’ll survive.

Now as a teacher, I’m constantly running up against students who believe this credo. The problem all along is that school shouldn’t be about survival. It should be about learning, but somewhere along the way, we lost sight of that.

Another teacher I know calls it “nanny-state education”. Where a student waits to be told exactly what to do and expects to be walked through it.

The real problem is that teachers have been trained in the same system and so we wait.

We wait for a top-down pedagogical inititative and policy that we can make fun of and employ half-heartedly.  And so nothing ever changes, or it changes slowly, excruciatingly slowly.

The real shift in education will only come when teachers stop looking to survive by only doing as their told.

Working Together – A Confession

It was a simple tweet. One that flew by in the whirl of the day. Just a little nugget that Simon Sinek, author of Start with Why (a book I strongly recommend reading), threw into the depths of Twitter.  He’s thrown nuggets before, often I read them, think, then keep swimming in the big ocean of ideas.

But this one weighed me down. Heavy.

Then it came up in conversations, with my students.

Then with my colleagues.

Then with my wife.

I knew there was something there. Simon Sinek had thrown this nugget at my head and it hit me.

I’m a poor collaborator. As I preach the theories of the education revolution. I try to imbibe them. I work on building the theories into my practical ethic.

This is one place I stumble.

Sure, I talk about it. I prosthelytize, I speak the good word. But when it comes to truly collaborating. I fall short.

One of the goals I set for myself this year, was to share more of what I’m doing in the classroom. And yet, I haven’t. I also have blogged less.

I can’t count how many times in a day, I tell students to work together, work in groups, ask a partner for help, etc. and then dig into my hole and wrestle in my own head.

There are a few exceptions, a few times where I explore the big ideas with other teachers, but rarely do I get into the details.  I rarely start with the problem and then with a group devise an action plan. When it comes to collaboration, I’m pretty isolating.  I’m pretty “in my own head”.

Today, it changes. Today I start trying to work together, not just in the same office.

Disconnection and Isolation

March Break is over. Packed up and checked off. For some it meant a week in sunny places or for others a chance to spend days with their family.

For me, it was 10 days of disconnection and isolation.  I spent the break holed up at a cottage, with no internet, no television, a sketchy phone connection, alone.

It was the first time in a while where I was completely on my own.

It allowed me time and space to ruminate and reflect on the year that has been, but more importantly, it allowed me to develop/hone/enhance my thinking of what is to come.

It allowed me to organized myself, put myself in the proper boxes and ensure I’m ready.

It allowed me time to read, read read and write, write, write.

And so, I feel refreshed, re-centered, and ready to dive in to the murky world of connection and immersion.

But, when do our students disconnect and go into isolation? Is this only something we can appreciate as we grow older? Is the need for constant connection and immersion specifically teenaged?

My disconnection surely has me missing some Facebook status updates, lots of Twitter content, but generally, it is loads of information that is not essential to my self-concept. This is not the case for teenagers. Should we help them develop the ability to disconnect and to be comfortable in isolation?

We are incredibly social creatures, yet many of our deepest, most profound thinking is done solo. So, how do we foster this ability in our students?

I was disconnected and isolated for the past week and it has served me. When do our students get served this luxury?