Teacher in a Strange Land

Online Grading: Treat--or Trick?

My estimable teacher-blogger colleague, Ms. Bluebird, is sputtering about  the parent-accessible online grading system in her district. She bemoans the fact that parents aren't tracking their children's assignments and grades, even though it's now become totally convenient to (as the kiddies say) creep on their progeny. Evidently, this is an issue of deep concern to lots of teachers, as Ms. B's first 13 commenters enthusiastically jump on the "parents just don't care" bandwagon.

Ms. Bluebird totally rocks--but on this issue, I disagree. When it comes to online gradebooks, I believe what's happening here is a misguided faith in the magic of technology to solve problems (even things we didn't realize were problems beforehand). If parents weren't allowed to peek into teachers' gradebooks twenty years ago, what makes us think they're interested now? And furthermore--is it even a good idea to nurture grade-stalking in parents?

Points to consider:

•  Expecting parents to track their children's grades--and do something about low grades or missing assignments--shifts responsibility for learning and monitoring the grade to parents. And guess what? It's the student's job to do that, not Mommy's.

• When parents are suddenly hawking their gradebooks, teachers feel compelled to put lots of numbers in the book, proving that they're organized and soldiering away, assigning lots of homework and giving lots of grades. My principal sent us a memo suggesting that we add at least one new grade per week, it being worrisome when parents see that several days have gone by with no grading.

• Some of those grades represent formative assessment: constructive feedback to students in the process of learning to master a concept or skill. Formative assessment is supposed to be non-punitive--information that helps a student improve. If curriculum is appropriate--in the sweet spot where it challenges, but builds on prior learning--then formative assessment will show lots of room for growth. Try explaining that to one panicked parent at a time

• Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted. (Einstein said that, not me.) An online gradebook converts all assessment data to numbers. Because it's...digital. Sometimes, kids need coaching or commentary, not a comparative percentage. Sometimes, it's OK to paint a pumpkin, just to see how it turns out. You don't have to grade everything, to make it real or valuable.
  

I find my district's online grading program so inflexible as to be nearly useless. I collected lots of valid assessment data on my students that could not be represented in the gradebook program (the program routinely converted a memorized D-flat major scale into 60%). I never checked on my son's grades, either, although it would have been extremely easy to do so--and, trust me, I am a caring parent, with a deep commitment to his education. I got his report card, and I went to parent-teacher conferences. And that--really--was enough.

Image: Snelly23 @ Flickr Creative Commons

Fast Track, Slow Ride, Grow Up

At the last high school graduation I attended as faculty member, I sat on the stage, robed and hooded, with the rest of the teachers who served as honor guard for the class. Normally, commencement was held in the football stadium, but a downpour forced us into the auditorium where all graduates and attendees were up close and personal, not to mention damp and uncomfortable.

From my vantage point, I could reach out and touch graduates as they crossed the stage--and see right up the gowns of the young men sitting, splay-legged, in the front row. In spite of the class advisors' admonitions--and, probably, their mothers'--many of the boys were wearing shorts and flip-flops and didn't appear to be duly impressed with the ceremonial aspects of the occasion. I was surprised at how many of them were bearded, or sporting cool-dude facial hair; physically, these were full-grown men.

I started thinking about my district's four-option school entry program: students could enter school via "developmental" kindergarten and/or regular kindergarten, and those who "needed a little more time" could do a year in junior first grade, before moving on to regular first grade. Parents tailored two- or three-year combination plans to get their kids to second grade, and the large majority of those taking three years were boys. Because of the desire to give their sons a leg up, back then, many of the young men sitting in front of me were a hormonal nineteen years old. They'd been driving for four years, and could easily have been carrying an M-16 in Iraq. In an earlier century, they would have struck out on their own long before, as farmers, wayfarers or fathers.

Today, of course, the conventional wisdom is that their economic goose is cooked unless they seek further education. This week's cover story in Newsweek--"Why College Should Take Only Three Years" (by Lamar Alexander), and a follow-up roundtable with higher ed luminaries discussing "What is College For, Anyway?" don't manage to make an airtight case for the three-year plan. But both pieces shed light on the big questions that we ought be asking about a college education:

• Are high school seniors poorly educated and thus unready for college--or are they merely bored with the low challenge of high school?

• What does anyone need to know and be able to do to make a success in a modern economy? Seriously. Is there a formula for job readiness in non-technical fields?

• Which comes first: a broad, internalized knowledge base, or the skills to analyze and evaluate the surfeit of information and data available to everyone?

• Does technology make it easier and faster to learn--or more challenging to develop focus?

• Is there a one-size-fits-all plan, a general agreement about how much coursework represents a bachelor's degree? And does the new standard for being well-educated now automatically include a second degree, beyond the B.A.--upping the educational ante once again?

No consensus reached. In fact, the various experts did not agree on the primary purpose of pursuing a college degree--is it building workplace skills, developing an educated citizenry in a democracy, or simply the credential needed to the lock the bearer into a higher socioeconomic stratum?

Here's an image from Robert Zemsky, education reformer and professor at the University of Pennsylvania: College is like a supermarket where we let students freely choose courses. When they get to the cash register, we tell them they don't have the right things in their shopping carts, so they must continue shopping, for five or more less-than-fruitful years. Might it be an intellectually productive thing, this academic mucking about? Or is it a nationally embarrassing inefficiency, a waste of time and money?

I'm not sure. At some point, young people need to grow up, spend time working, traveling, living independently, making their own choices. Going to college or trade school should be motivated by a desire to learn something, however, be it plumbing or Shakespearean sonnets. And--you can't put off adulthood and real life forever.

Image: Uhuru1701, Flickr Creative Commons

Artsy Smartsy

First, read this--Claus von Zastrow's brilliant, poignantly hilarious treatise on why public schools and teachers just can't win, posted last week on the Public School Insights blog. It encompasses the entire range of criticisms--building yurts with tongue depressors!--and skillfully illustrates the "painted into a corner" nature of being a public school advocate these days. No matter what you believe, no matter how thoughtful your research-based educational practice, someone disagrees. Probably viciously.

Conflict over the role of the arts in intellectual development and public schooling is one of the oldest of these squabbles. As a music teacher, I was pink-slipped six times in 30 years and shifted to a new position 17 times; I've spent a professional lifetime defending the necessity of the arts in school curriculum, from every angle. As human beings, we were created and designed to make representations--in sound, drama, movement and image--of the things that matter most to civilization. 

People who believe that children do not need well-designed experiences with the arts to be fully educated are wrong. The evidence comes from the fact that children naturally create art, music, dance and dramatic play all by themselves, with no education whatsoever--and that all aspects of human communication, from political to religious to commercial, revolve around artistic expression. Developing aesthetic discretion is a useful skill for children, not to mention a lifelong pleasure.

Yesterday, in the Washington Post, David C. Levy, former director of the Corcoran Gallery and founder of the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music, takes on the challenge of flaws and gaps in K-12 arts education in America. The piece starts strong--but then Levy jumps on the knee-jerk Teacher Blame Bandwagon, claiming that  art education is suffering because school art teachers are lousy artists--"many of them can barely draw." He attempts to soften this indictment by mentioning that art schools are guilty, too: they require a "smorgasbord of classes in unrelated media," making rigorous training and serious specialization impossible. Then, he asserts that the situation is vastly better for prospective musicians (who have a range of "elite musical ensembles" with a "demanding meritocracy" to sharpen their skills).

Really?

Levy's irritating and erroneous assumptions about arts education pile up; he claims that schools don't stress artistic skill development, preferring to let kids just "express themselves"--and that most children begin playing musical instruments early enough to have ten years of instruction with a competent professional before pursuing a music degree. Perhaps in some major cities--but not in my neck of the woods. Levy may well know a great deal about the professional art and music world, but he's clueless about the vagaries of K-12 scheduling, hiring and programming and regional support for the arts--not to mention the nature of teaching large groups of children, where a jack-of-all-trades artistic sensibility comes in handy, as does a bagful of tricks for keeping "media" on the table, rather than in the hair or on the clothes.

The vast majority of kids learn to understand the making of art, and to sing, dance and play an instrument, in a classroom. While there is certainly variance in the quality of teaching, most arts teachers want nothing more than to develop skills and excellence in their students, to ignite a musical or artistic passion that burns well past graduation.  Only three or four in 100 students will pursue a career in the arts, but all of them need to learn some basic skills, as an entry point to enriched taste and enjoyment. College-bound high school students in traditional public schools have no room in their schedules to take a variety of arts courses--even if their school offered them.  Elementary schoolkids who get a 45 -minute art class once a week are lucky, indeed. The picture, as Levy notes, may be gloomy--but let's not point fingers at teachers.

It's not only wrong-headed--it's counterproductive.

In one of my district's financial crises, a high school art teacher who taught jewelry, pottery and graphic design was shifted to an elementary art job (13 weeks apiece in three K-4 schools). As Fine Arts Department chair, I was sent to make sure he was "doing a good job," since he was vocally disappointed when jewelry-making and graphic design courses were dropped from the school curriculum. I watched him teach perspective to first graders, their first art lesson with the new teacher. He used words like "foreground" and "horizon," explaining as he went along. They drew houses. Amazing, realistic houses. They were incredibly excited, and couldn't wait to show their drawings to their parents.

I was beyond impressed, but he was nonchalant.

"Just basic art," he said. ”Anybody can teach perspective."

Image: Flickr Creative Commons, Jansen Mann

Best Concert Ever

In his marvelous 1977 book, On Teaching, Herb Kohl suggests that teachers should read the books their students love, and listen seriously to the music that engages the young people they teach.

Teachers, Kohl says, cannot expect students to eagerly embrace the literature and arts their teachers deem classic, beautiful or essential for an educated person, unless teachers return the favor and seriously honor their students' tastes and preferences.

You might argue that Kohl wrote those words before Lady Gaga was even born--and was younger himself in the post-Woodstock era when On Teaching was written. But he has a point. Our aesthetic values and ideals begin forming when we are children, shaped by the arts that surround us. The goal is broad experience, learning to draw knowledge and pleasure from a wide range of artistic sources. If nothing else, listening to the music our students love can be seen as a useful exercise in anthropology.

My late mother-in-law--may she rest in peace--was convinced that my husband was at Woodstock in 1969, and concealed this fact from his parents for decades. It's not true--he was actually in Ann Arbor, safely grinding away at another boring summer job. But in her mind, he was just the kind of rebellious hippie youth who would hitchhike across the country to listen to all that racket. 

Craig Wilson, in USA Today, makes the case that the music at Woodstock was glorified racket, pretty much--the half-a-million-strong experience, the mud and the enthusiasm being the classic and essential parts. Only a handful of the musical performances at Woodstock were truly memorable and lots of musicians turned in marginal work, possibly because rain-induced electrocution was a distinct possibility at any moment.

Wilson goes on to say that few would call Woodstock the best concert ever--and that what makes a live performance unforgettable is probably a combination of arbitrary circumstances, judgment and brilliance, an alignment of the listener's personal stars. In the past 40 years, I have been to literally thousands of concerts. One of my life regrets is not keeping a list of all the concerts I've seen (although a list of all the concerts I've played would certainly be longer and--perhaps surprisingly--less interesting to me). And maybe a meticulously kept list would spoil the spontaneity of a response to this question:

Best concert ever?

For me, as a formally trained musician, the answer would necessarily be divided into two distinct captions--art music and popular music. I've seen most of the major symphony orchestras in the U.S., and a number of Famous Classical Musicians live. For dazzling talent, I would choose Cecilia Bartoli, at Hill Auditorium. For pure listening pleasure, nothing came close to seeing the Empire Brass at the Wharton Center. For artistic excellence and heart-in-the-throat richness of sound, my favorite "classical" ensemble is the Cleveland Symphony (although hearing them in Severance Hall may have something to do with it).

On the popular music side, I offer a top five: Richard Thompson at the Michigan Theatre in Ann Arbor, an evening chock-full of irony and artistry. For pure fun, the Subdudes at the Ark in Ann Arbor. Randy Newman, solo at the piano, at the Royal Oak Theatre (we were in the front row, I was nine months pregnant, and I remember hoping fervently that all the research about what babies could hear in the womb was true). First runner-up: a tribute concert for Lowell George, at the L.A. Forum, back in 1979. Nearly all my favorite musicians were on the program, which went on for hours. When I got in line for popcorn, Laraine Newman was ahead of me. I have kept the T-shirt for 30 years, even though it's size x-small.

My all-time favorite concert has to be seeing Stevie Wonder at Cobo Hall in Detroit, back in the 70s. Stevie Wonder is always exciting and fresh, but he was home that night, musically and emotionally. Our seats weren't that great, but I was caught up in the feeling of being part of Stevie's family and his generous passion. Signed, sealed, delivered: best concert ever.

Image: NYC_Comet, Flickr Creative Commons

Used Teabags and Other Fertilizer

On the day after Labor Day, the Tea Party Express rolled into town, more than an hour after their scheduled, synchronized and programmed arrival time, to hold a totally spontaneous, grass-roots rally on the front lawn of my church. Although several of my friends called and asked me to make an

appearance, I'd already made a considered decision not to attend for two reasons: #1, I was afraid that whoever does the people-counting for unrehearsed, impromptu media-ready events like this would somehow include me in the numbers of Tea Party supporters, unless I carried a sign saying "I believe health care is a human right" (a decidedly dangerous move). Other items I might display--a button saying "Who are these morons?" or my bible, which I keep handy in the choir room at said church--could inadvertently cause the counters to think I was associated with the Tea Partiers. Reason #2 was even more compelling: it was raining like crazy.

I should mention that my church just happens to be in the center of town, situated on a lovely historic millpond, not surprising since it was built in 1881 when water was key to transport, power and civilization. People built communities around millponds, joining together to help and support each other, in good times and bad, sickness and health. A former governor and numerous state and local dignitaries lie quietly in the adjoining cemetery behind a wrought iron fence (which fell down, when the totally spontaneous protestors climbed on it, something we don't let the Sunday School kids do because it would be disrespectful). The Spontaneous Tea Party Express was simply looking for a scenic and central location--and nothing could be more white-picket-fence and photo-op perfect than my little church.

Since the bus full of paid organizers was late, the volunteer locals who turned up had to wait for marching orders before beginning their completely spontaneous demonstration. They stood around keeping their birther billboards and guns (unloaded, one hopes) dry. Bored, they proceeded to decorate the front lawn of the church with Obama-as-monkey and Obama-as-Joker signs. As their constitutional scholarship was apparently limited, the church secretary had to remind them of the legal prohibition from putting overtly political signs within ten feet of church property. You know, separation of church and state, one of those annoying and evidently now outmoded concepts.

Later, the Youth Group came to church for their regularly scheduled American Friends Service Committee peace training after school, and were witness to a lot of wet, free-floating hatred. What bothered them most was adults putting vile signage in their tomato garden, the in-town patch that represents the larger, hands-on church project to feed the local hungry and homeless, which has yielded about a ton of fresh produce in 2009.  The bus finally came, and disgorged Teabaggish Headliner Joe the Unlicensed Plumber; Joe gets $10,000 per speech, these days, which means he doesn't have to worry about health insurance any more. Or plumbing, for that matter.

The youth group kids are still trying to process it all, including Joe the P's remarks about Hanoi Jane, which were inscrutable to them. I'm trying to process it, too, in terms of Thoreau, civil disobedience, and just whose country has been taken away, and from whom. I am always for civil liberties--freedom to write, speak, worship, love and grow vegetables. I did plenty of marching and sign-carrying in the 1960s myself, and I'm not sure how much good it did. Trying to equate the bombing of Cambodia with a political initiative to provide health care for all Americans feels a little schizophrenic, however.

Perhaps Buffalo Springfield's semi-immortal words are right. Nobody's right if everybody's wrong.

 

There's something happening here--What it is ain't exactly clear.

There's a man with a gun over there, telling me I got to beware.

There's battle lines being drawn. Nobody's right if everybody's wrong.

What a field-day for the heat--a thousand people in the street,

Singing songs and carrying signs. Mostly say, hooray for our side.

Image: ND_estuary, Flickr Creative Commons

Scoring Political Points: Hillary and Me

In the Internet dark ages—1993—I was invited (coerced, actually) to do a “flyaround” media tour with then-Governor of Michigan, John Engler, to promote a school funding initiative.  It was kind of fun, in a surreal way. We started at dawn in Detroit with a few grumpy reporters, and then flew to a half-dozen cities doing pre-arranged media events with various conscripted audiences serving as backdrop. Two of our stops were at middle schools, where TV cameras captured the governor’s remarks to school assemblies.

Being thoroughly familiar with gymnasiums full of bored 13-year olds, these performances were no big deal to me, but the governor was more than a little anxious about his prepared remarks and how they would go over with preadolescents. I reassured him that any school would prepare students for a gubernatorial visit by threatening kids with serious consequences for any untoward outbursts. He could expect respectful, quiet behavior, but couldn’t count on anything like comprehension, let alone enthusiasm, from the kids.

You may be wondering how I was selected as the governor’s sidekick for this experience. It was done scientifically, in fact: the media consultant for the campaign (Republican stalwart Mike Murphy) held a focus group session, to determine whom Michiganders trusted most on issues of education. Their #1 pick was the State Teacher of the Year. Since the governor’s trust numbers were significantly lower, and I was currently serving as MI Teacher of the Year, I was drafted. The third member of the media team was the president of the Michigan Education Association, a distinguished-looking African American gentleman who was not on speaking terms with the governor. The three of us were an appealing public relations mix, evidently, a diversity dream team—but the atmosphere on that four-seater plane was pretty frosty.

I also shot a few TV commercials endorsing the proposal, in a borrowed classroom, which had been tarted up with fake blackboard writing, Palmer-method penmanship borders and—naturally—an apple or two.  I didn’t mind doing any of this—I strongly supported the funding proposal, which represented a shift away from property taxes that left enormous funding gaps between the wealthy suburban districts and the generational poverty of tiny community schools in the northern woods.  But I was repeatedly struck by the calculated manipulation of symbols and people to make political points.

I was supposed to be on tour as decorative moral support, but when the gov’s dry, wonky remarks fell embarrassingly flat with middle schoolers in Saginaw, he turned and asked me--surprise!--to say a few words to the students. When I made them laugh with a comment about how their teachers were strategically placed next to known outlaws, I was suddenly part of the official program. Somewhere between Grand Rapids and Traverse City, the governor decided I looked like Hillary Clinton (a definite stretch, but oh well), and started joking about how even Hillary thought the proposal was a great idea. That inanity and accompanying photo made several local newspapers.

Did the governor have the right to shamelessly use seventh graders as scenery--or make a pitch in a public school, even if that school would benefit greatly from a funding shift? I would say yes. Just as much as Barack Obama had the right to urge kids to take responsibility for their learning, Ronald Reagan had the right to disguise his tax policies as a history lesson, and George W. Bush had the right to read "My Pet Goat" in a photo op arranged by his own personal governor, after a night of Republican fund-raising in Florida. The purpose of schools is not to shield students from politics and media; it's to educate them about those things.

Here's how it works: media is about attention, and politics is about influence.  Neither is about considered and noble principles or genuine communal good. Want to distract attention from an important national speech where someone is constructing a thoughtful policy argument before your eyes? You aren’t going to get it with debate or dialogue. So just go ahead and call the guy a liar—better yet, bawl it out on national TV, knowing that the incident will go viral on YouTube, the notoriety lasting much longer than any pro forma apology you may offer later. Attention guaranteed.  Influence? Remains to be seen.

Too bad that South Carolina Congressman Joe "You lie!" Wilson didn’t hear the principal’s admonitions about appropriate behavior in an assembly. Too bad there wasn’t a teacher sitting next to him, reminding him that the president was an honored guest. When we demand respectful behavior from students but public officials demonstrate appalling rudeness, how can we expect students to take the policy process seriously?

I'd Rather Have a Root Canal

Thanks to guest blogger Christine Gleason, whose story about the what passes for professional learning made the Teacher in a Strange Land laugh out loud. She even provided her own illustration.

By Christine Gleason

2009 Texas Teacher of the Year

The time is upon us where teachers across the nation gather to collectively lose brain mass--the infamous full-day in-service. I check the clock again and adjust myself in world's worst chair.  My eyes roll back in my head.  Time is not relevant in in-service land.  Break time is a non-negotiable “ten minutes because we have a lot to cover.”  Lunch is an eternity away.  I lean forward and rest my chin on my fist.  I roll my eyes. Take away the table in front of me, cluttered with coffee cups, blank paper and randomly placed markers, and my posture is in perfect tandem with Rodin’s “The Thinker.”

If Dante were writing this, the level of hell reserved for in-services would be right between the heretics and the violent (that’s level 6.5 for the Dante lovers).  Inferno would be a cafetorium. Roughly 350 teachers would be helplessly seated on uncomfortable chairs.  The schedule says we're done at 4:00, but we all know that roughly translates to eternity.   

The objective:  Teachers will become familiar with the ELL components of…zzzz.

By hour two, we have covered one slide on the PowerPoint presentation and completed an activity where we went around the room and got three different perspectives from three random teachers on the sentence starter “One obstacle ELL students face when trying to learn English is…”  Deep. 

My back is killing me (remember the sub-par chairs…) and I am sick of sitting. As I move to stand in the back of the cafeteria, I look around to see if others are feeling the same way. I see people shoving all of their markers together to make swords.  I see towers of empty coffee cups and juice boxes.

It is confirmed.  The presenter had lost the majority of the people in the room. I know this because of the plethora of side conversations (which involve laughter--and this guy isn’t funny), the body language of the people who aren’t talking and the pantomimed wrist slashing of a colleague with whom I make eye contact. 

The principal slowly walks over to me.  He's seen me surfing the net on my cell phone and reading an essay.  He asks: do I have the book the presenter gave us?  “Yes,” I say.  “I have two copies." We make a quick list of the times the high school staff had ELL training…the last being when the principal himself trained us.  “Yours was better,”  I admit.   He chuckles a little.  Of course, a monkey could give a better in-service than this guy.    

There are no modifications to the speaker’s delivery as the day progresses.  He continues talking at us. He tells us ELLs need multiple opportunities to hear information.  “Give them visual cues, rephrase stuff and have them repeat it back to you” he says.   So where are my visual cues?  The rephrasing?  Small group instruction?  Alternative activities?  Does this guy ever, ever change the tone of his voice?

I draw one of my colleague’s likenesses on an orange. I take a picture of someone who's fallen asleep.  

How can the powers that be expect a room full of educated adults with different learning styles to sit through six hours of lecture and actually walk away with something? The content of the book is amazing.  It's the delivery.

After lunch, the Assistant Superintendent reprimands us: “We expect the kids to learn when we lecture to them."  Translation: “I know this guy is boring. Don’t make marker swords.” 

I don’t expect my kids to learn in this kind of environment. Six hours of spiel is too much for any human being. The marker-sword fight and the countless juice box pyramids strategically set up to hide people texting on their phones should have given the presenter a clue. 

Teachers should be involved in what teachers want or need to learn. Clearly this is not a revolutionary idea.  If we have to spend money, why not give us the opportunity to become National Board Certified?  What about an in-service on how to set up a Professional Learning Community at our school?  Growth opportunities are absolutely imperative to the success of our teachers, especially those on cruise control.  

And why can’t the staff train the staff?  I went to Space Camp this summer and could teach a whole day on Space to the elementary school.  I’m also a Smithsonian Ambassador.  Plus, I’m engaging, relatively funny, and know how to use hands-on activities. And that’s just me! Think of all the staff members with unique skills...

I’d love to see multiple sessions going on in multiple classrooms so teachers have a choice of where they want to go all day long.  While I’m presenting how to make Water Bottle Rockets as part of the Science and Math curriculum in one room, my principal could be presenting ELL strategies in another.  We are exciting, talented, we know our kids and we are free.

In-service day is over. I've reflected on what I learned--and I’m off to have a chat with my principal.  Hope he feels like joining my PLC. 

Springtime for Hitler

 A  few weeks ago, in a fit of pique, I posted a message at the  Celestial Teacher's Lounge (a.k.a. the Teacher Leaders Network Forum) describing a particularly vociferous and opinionated group of education bloggers and commenters as "____ Nazis." As in--the Soup Nazi, so entertainingly depicted on Seinfeld.

My peace-loving friend and uber-blogger Ken Bernstein gently chided me for careless use of a pretty hard-core epithet, pointing out that such name-calling is not an invitation to thoughtful dialogue. It took me about five chastised-but-bristling minutes to admit that he was right: He who uses the most vile and inflammatory language is not the most influential. Loudest, perhaps--but not the most truthful or accurate.

And since that exchange, the nation has had the opportunity to hear a whole lot of illogical, incoherent blah-blah about Hitler and health care--hunh?--and witness Shepard Fairey's iconic poster of Obama adorned with a toothbrush mustache.

Ha ha. Not.

But is this...wrong? Does it mean that Jon Stewart should never do pointed satire on Hitler-mustache stickers (available for images of all the people you currently dislike)? Was Barney Frank out of bounds, when he compared a discussing the health care bill with the town-hall "Nazi policy" protester to talking with his dining room table? As a person who includes The Producers (the 1968 original, of course) among her favorite movies, should I be embarrassed by my  reaction every time I see Springtime for Hitler: uncontrollable giggles? Is it possible to let satire and post-modern irony dull us to the fact that some things are always immoral?

Is it ever OK to pull out what Jon Meacham calls the Hitler card? And is it also worth considering that one person's evil incarnate is another person's private hero?

A few years ago, my 8th graders went on a kick where everything and everyone they didn't care for at the moment became "gay." He's so gay, her shirt is gay, everyone who plays in the band is gay, the principal is really, really gay. And so on. One day, I called out some hapless kid who used the word in class, leading to one of those moments when the room goes breathlessly silent and everyone's focused on the exchange:

Me: Please don't use the word gay as a pejorative--a nasty label. Not in this classroom.

Kid: Unh. Everyone else says it (defensively).

Me: (silence, meeting his eyes--letting the inanity of that remark hang there)

Kid: Well, they do.

Me: And how do you feel when kids say that being in the band is gay--using that word to mean that you and the other 65 people here in this room are uncool nerds?

Kid: I don't care (even more defensive).

Me: I can only speak for myself, but I care very much about that. And I see this room as a safe space for everyone who wants to take band. If we start calling each other names, we won't care as much about each other. The class won't be as much fun, and the music will suffer.

Kid: But what if someone really is gay?

Me: Then that person needs to know that they're definitely welcome in the band room.

At lunch, one of my colleagues said "I hear you had the gay talk in second hour today. I'm sick of hearing the word, too--good for you. I hope you don't get any phone calls." I didn't--but I wasn't worried about it. I doubted if any parent could muster much of an argument.

Ken is right. We attach monstrous labels to people with whom we disagree at our own peril, running the risk of weakening our resolve to see and resist evil--and muddying distinctions between right and wrong. Those of us who work with children, whose filters for irony, sarcasm and paradox are not fully developed, should be especially careful.

I visited Dachau concentration camp in 1977, the day before I flew home from a summer spent backpacking in Europe. It was a drizzly, gray day and I had the place nearly to myself--so perhaps that's why it was possible to stand in the empty yard and hear, plain as day, faint but chilling echoes of the shouting and the screams. The word that came to mind, in that terrible place, was sacrifice. A word whose roots mean: to make sacred.

Image: David Farrington, Flickr Creative Commons

Late addition: Just read Leonard Pitts' very powerful piece in the Detroit Free Press, on this very subject. Well worth a read.

Yo! Extremely Bad Idea!

I suppose it was inevitable. When the blurring between reality TV and, you know, actual reality has encompassed things like marriage, parenting and Hugh Hefner, it was only a matter of time until schools offered up their students--and their integrity--for fifteen minutes of fame and $3500 an episode.

Tony Danza--who wasn't even The Boss--appears to be headed for a well-publicized turn as a fake teacher on a reality show based in a public school in Philadelphia. I thought Channel One  was bad--and renting a brand-new school in my hometown as movie set for a stoner flick was abominable. This is much worse.

Philly Mayor Michael Nutter is all for it. His rationale? Students might be allowed to serve as production interns, he says-- and such a reality show will make it easier to recruit teachers.

"Teach' represents a unique opportunity to highlight many of our city's dedicated teachers and administrators, and the talented students they serve.''

Well, gosh. If the show were truly going to highlight the city's best bona fide teachers, I'd be all for it. And I'll believe that having high school students work as gofers on a TV set in their own school is a good idea when I see the rigorous national content standards for movie production. My thinking runs along the lines of Philadelphia Daily News' Ronnie Polaneczky who said the idea was:

"...a way to pimp our kids' education to an unemployed sitcom actor who wants to kick-start his stalled career on the backs of students who'll be distracted by cameras and microphones.''

This is actually something I have experience with; I can offer some first-hand insights into how this will likely play out with Tony and the kids in Philadelphia:

Some years ago, I was asked to be a featured teacher in the Annenberg Foundation's video series on teaching, The Learning Classroom. It was a project with an excellent pedigree--the series advisors were highly respected academics, and the mission was sterling: filming teachers at work, hearing how and why they make teaching decisions, integrating theory and practice. My segment was Feelings Count: Emotions and Learning.

I had several conversations with the producer before they came to film. The plan was for the crew to spend five full days in my classroom. Don't worry, she said. You won't even know we're here. I was the one who insisted on notifying parents, and getting release forms signed--a precaution the producer found ridiculous.

I also spent considerable energy devising lessons that would tap into the emotions of volatile middle schoolers to yield richer learning. My seventh grade band was working on Ashokan Farewell, a lovely tune that Ken Burns used throughout his Civil War series, most notably during the heartbreaking letter from Major Sullivan Ballou of the Union army to his wife, Sarah. One of my students--a young man--read excerpts from the letter, and I shared some thoughts about how music helps people through milestone moments in their lives. Students spoke about music played at a grandparent's funeral--or how they found joy and consolation in particular songs. It was a terrific lesson, a nice blend of rich musical content and relevant emotion.

Unfortunately, none of that lesson--or any other bits of creative, solid teaching--ended up in the final segment. At lunchtime on Day One, the producer (who turned my office into her own personal Disgusting Starbucks) had a little problem. She wanted to know when they were going to see some reality. The kids were so good. So polite. Clearly, this was not the way they behaved every day. "I feel like I'm in Mayberry," she said--and she didn't mean that in a nice way. Where, she asked, was the emotion?

I explained that it took months of hard work to build a functioning community of 65 12-year old musicians, to the point where they could express emotion in class. She didn't buy it. She needed to see some conflict--somebody crying would be ideal. On Day Two, the production crew moved from my classroom to the hallway, hoping to catch a fight or a breakup.  The producer went to the principal, asking for permission to film all the kids. At a quick after-school staff meeting, permission slips for the entire student body were distributed. I shared my apprehension with the rest of the teachers. Some of them were concerned--but others were hoping for a visit from the camera crew. "You're not the only good teacher in the building, you know," one said. "Some of us would love a chance to be on TV, too."

It was a long week. The worst moment occurred on Friday. One of my 8th graders had been out of school for several weeks, undergoing treatment for testicular cancer. He came back for a quick visit, and was surrounded by friends, trying to figure out what to say to another teenage boy who has a life-threatening illness. As I hugged him, I heard the cameras whirring. They followed him into the band room and filmed his interactions with friends attempting to be cool, and his own struggle to describe his illness without telling them where his cancer was, or what procedures he had undergone.

I would never have interrupted these painful but essential conversations--but I sure as hell did not want them exploited. I told the producer later that we had no release form, so they would have to scrap the film they were salivating over. We did not part on good terms. While I do appear in the video series, none of the things that were important to me were captured or highlighted.

One can only wonder what the producers of a reality show will find compelling. And whose education will be compromised.

Image: ianmc_p @ Flickr Creative Commons

Trust Never Sleeps

 At 10:38 this morning, I got an e-message from a mildly progressive group that sends me regular (requested) e-mails on political and economic issues. The subject line: Reality Check on Health Care Lies. At 11:01 a.m. this morning I got a message from one of the women in my virtual book group. Subject line: Information on the Obama Death Plan.

Now--I like the women in this book group. I share lots of personal information with them--my feelings on literary themes, love and life. I respect them. And I can only assume that the woman who sent the "death plan" forward (which--to make matters worse--came from her shady-pants congressman) has strong feelings on retaining her health care. I respect those too.  

While I was staring at the flat-out falsehoods and phony bogeymen on my screen, and wondering how much money Big Pharma and Big Insurance are ponying up to preserve their dominance in perpetuity, another book club member took a deep breath and hit "reply to all." Hey, she said. This is too important! We have to get health care right--and we're not going to do it unless a little civility and rationality can be injected into the discussion.

By 12:01, Book Club Member #2 had been both warmly supported and excoriated (sample: You obviously live in the Twilight Zone, you freak), and the hostilities had enlarged to include a rundown of the negative impact of Equal Rights Amendment  on school sports (yeah--I know--it never actually passed--but when you're on a roll, why stop for the facts...). 

So--whom do you trust?

For me, that's the critical question on all of the issues alive and bubbling in the Home of the Brave. I have little faith in political parties--either of them, at the moment--although individual political figures do inspire me to trust. As do some education thinkers, non-profits, writers, scholars, friends.

At 12:47, I got a link to this blog, wherein the Eduflack wonders what happened to raging dissent in education policy world. He dismisses certain parties who are speaking now  as chronic whiners (including dissatisfied Chicago Public Schools parent groups)--and suggests that people had better start pushing back against favored policy initiatives or they "will have little ground to stand on if they want to play 'I told you so' a year or two from now."

None of this--attack now or lose your right to attack later?--strikes me as productive talk, the kind of dialogue that might lead us to making better decisions about education.

At 1:05 p.m., while eating my lunch, I noticed that Heather Wolpert-Gawron had posted a new blog. Heather is a person whose viewpoints I do trust--not just because she's a teacher (there are lots of untrustworthy teachers)--but because she's smart and knows whereof she speaks, when it comes to schools and kids. A quick clip from Heather's musings (prodded by an article in which Arne Duncan says it's likely that the swine flu will impact school attendance and wouldn't it be great if teachers would use this health crisis to inject innovative technology into their instruction):

But once again, schools are being put to the task of solving a problem that the other elements have a hand in creating and solving. After all, families with no healthcare and no childcare options continuously send their sick children to school. And the government has never devoted enough funds to develop deep-seated educational technology in our schools. Yet here we are, a la NCLB, with a missive and no guidance or enough resources.

The funny part about Arne Duncan's message? He trusts that teachers will try to do the right thing for kids, come the great swine flu epidemic.

 It's 4:30, and I'm weary of reading angry e-mail. I'm wondering whether a country where rugged individualism is celebrated above other values--where "get them before they get you" is our modus operandi--can ever elevate mutual benefits to the community over "me and mine first." Another funny thing: trust in schools absolutely raises student achievement.  You know where they did the critical research? Chicago.

“In schools characterized by high relational trust, educators were more likely to experiment with new practices and work together with parents and colleagues to advance improvements. As a result, these schools were also more likely to demonstrate marked gains in student learning. In contrast, schools with weak trust relations saw virtually no improvement in their reading or mathematics scores."                   Anthony Bryk & Barbara Schneider

Image: seenyaRita, Flickr Creative Commons