Tom Kim

The first keynote of the conference was a panel discussion Friday night. It was held at the Franklin Insitute and moderated by Frederic Bertley.

There were seven panel speakers, whose bios you can read on the EduCon 2.1 wiki — with the exception of Diane whats-her-name (a legislator), who each gave a spiel on what they thought school ought to be about and then answered questions as a group from the audience.

Kendall Croilus, the business consultant, began by saying that the corporate world would like lifelong learners, specifically those who had:

• Creativity: the ability to innovate
• Collaboration, especially the ability to appreciate — and not just tolerate — cultural diversity, whether that diversity is expressed in race, class, geography, silos of expertise, or personality
• Courage, or confidence — especially in embracing change and challenging the status quo

I noted to myself that none of these things are explicitly in my curriculum objectives, although they are all things I value and wish I could teach better.

Jeff Han, the engineer, added two more C’s:

• Communication: the ability to articulate concepts and teach others
• Calibration, or being able to discern what is do-able, interesting, or valuable to pursue

Jeff was the least revolutionary person on the panel. He liked school growing up.

Joel Arquillos, the afterschool nonprofit dude, stressed another C:

• Community — both within the classroom itself and reaching out and inviting in the surrounding community at-large

Dr. Stephen Squyres, the scientist, stressed the potential for school to open students’ eyes to what was possible (the old “broaden horizons” bit) and allow people to understand how things really work. For the latter, he gave the example of the true nature of science being dynamic, incremental, self-adjusting, and mundane. He mentioned in passing that such understanding is necessary for an informed citizenry (the old “enlightened democracy” bit).

Dr. Molefi Asante, the academic, gave the most open/vague answer of all: that school is meant to provoke inquiry. His point was that the purpose of school may shift with the context of the age. He may have also been suggesting (it wasn’t entirely clear) that school should be guided by the interests of its students.

Diane whats-her-name (will the wiki just get updated and put up her name already?), the legislator, said that school ought to be “the great equalizer,” that it should level the playing field to allow for a true meritocracy.

I left Prakash Nair, the architect, for last because I found him to be the most radical, passionate, and specific advocate for reform. He suggested that the school of the future ought to serve the following functions (and that these functions should be evident in everything from its building architecture to its curriculum):

1. Social anchor: or the hub of community life, open 24/7, available not only to kids but to adults
2. Technology showcase: a place the purchases, tests, and introduces cutting-edge technology so that the innovation and change from such tools would disseminate throughout the community
3. Idea generator: a place to invent, create, and engage in blue-sky thinking
4. Idea harvester: a place to prototype, test, and develop those very ideas into reality
5. Player in the community’s economic network: and then a place to make those ideas marketable and valuable and available to the larger community
6. Builder of social capital: a place to become socialized into the shared culture of the larger community

I’ve always thought that the idea of the community school was a good one, but I wonder if Mr. Nair realizes that his idea for a school sounds like an Apple sweatshop. (I did dig the article he referenced, 30 Strategies for Education Innovation {pdf}).

Now you might realize by now that I was largely unimpressed with the discussion of the evening. It was a lot of the same warmed-over moaning that everyone’s heard for decades now. It was not surprising, then, that most of the Q&A discussion afterwards was filled with managerial bromides like “be true to your mission,” “think outside the box,” and “just do it” along with the occasional educational bromide thrown in for good measure: “it takes a village,” “educators are saints.”

When I thought about why I was so bothered, I gradually realized what I thought needed to be acknowledged: that school has been required to become the Swiss-Army knife of institutional influence for American minors — that it has been made to be the surrogate parent, church, and workplace for most people under 18.

As adults take on 40- to 80-hour workweeks away from their kids, as apprenticeships to trades vanish, as pews shrink and empty (or turn into spectator stadiums), as neighbors shutter themselves up into their homes and let local economies languish, as social clubs and civic organizations become passé, as libraries and museums lose their funding, more and more gets shoveled onto the plate of schools. We’re to handle the whole hierarchy of Maslow’s needs. Food? Safety? Shelter? Discipline? Socialization? Work? Values? Counsel? Community? Mentorship? Inspiration? Preparation for life as an employee, citizen, well-rounded human being?

Oh, and let’s not forget an education. There was hardly any mention of the ever-enormous amount of content we’re expected to cram in as we do all this. Not crap. Stuff anyone arguing in a bar should know (but likely doesn’t).

My point is this: modern society has been twisting and turning in ways profound to the development of kids into adults. The go-to guy for adjusting to all these changes is always the school. Not many people seem to question this. Educators are taking on the increasingly solitary duty of countering the default impulses of a first-world existence: conformity, distraction, cowardice, materialism, ignorance. As other institutions fall to the wayside or abandon their post, we’re the ones who have to hump their bags.

No doubt the educational system needs reform, but it’s not the only piece of the puzzle, and if you have a panel of really smart people from all walks of life, maybe you should ask them to think about that before they tell us what schools should do. That is a much more interesting discussion to me.

Educon 2.1 started, for me, on Friday with an extensive tour of Science Leadership Academy, a magnet school in Center City that has a partnership with the Franklin Institute. I’d have to say this tour through SLA was the highlight of the conference; it was the most inspirational, demonstrative, and challenging aspect of the entire weekend.

So this is going to be a long post with four sections of observations:

• the respect I saw for students
• the commitment I saw in the faculty
• the results I saw in the classroom
• and the support of the technology infrastructure

Read the rest of this entry »

This past weekend my school gave me the Friday off to spend some time at EduCon 2.1, a small grassroots- Web 2.0- initiated conference dedicated to the future of school especially as it integrates technology. I kicked myself last year for not attending, especially since it’s held at Science Leadership Academy right here in good ole Philadelphia.

I plan within the next week to post my notes, experiences, observations at EduCon this year, but I’m slow so please bear with me. As I post new entries, I’ll update my links here on this page, so this page will serve as a reference for what I’ve written for this conference. (Or you can just subscribe to my feed :)).

Here are my planned posts:

• Tour of SLA
• Panel Discussion: What is the Purpose of School
• Session 1: The Best Educational Ideas in the World
• Breakout Lunch with Jeff Han
• Session 2: The On Button
• Session 3: Using Social Media to Define the New Humanities Classroom
• Panel Discussion: Making Change
• Session 4: Where Does It Live
• Session 5: Rethinking At-Risk Education
• Session 6: Writing the World

You may also check out the wiki dedicated to the conference. Most of the events and sessions were taped, streamed, and uploaded onto Mogulus, but those videos will only be hosted for half a year or so.

For more you can also try this Google search.

I don’t like giving small group work, but I do it because I think it’s important — and I think it’s energizing for students who have social strengths.

But asking kids with varying degrees of social aptitude and executive functionality to get together and accomplish something with relatively little supervision is a little crazy. Even when I assign a more structured collaboration — such as a jigsaw assignment where each student is responsible for an individual part which he or she then shares with a larger group — the quality of contributions varies so widely that it sometimes breeds outspoken frustration and resentment.

I find that the cliché about rock bands holds true for student small groups — that it’s nearly impossible to have a working democracy. Instead, the best groups have the leadership contained in one or two individuals who dictate the direction of the project to the other members of the group.

It makes me wonder if I shouldn’t exploit this model in project assignments. Say, for example, that the main grade for the project falls on one individual. But he or she gets to pick two people to work with — and then also gets assigned another person or two to round out the group. The majority of the group understands that they have largely a supporting role; let’s say the leader gets a say in grading their contribution.

I should say that in reflecting with some of my students today, they generally observed that a group of four is a little too unwieldy, and that they preferred it when the groups were only 2-3 people in size.

My 8th graders are currently at work on writing book reviews for the novels they read before winter break. In trying to teach how to evaluate a book (again), I am confronted (again) with, well, how one goes about evaluating a book.

I wrote in my last post about a basic comprehension of a book based on facts of character, plot, and setting. At this level, one is just composing a schematic of the story, inventorying the various components.

I asked my 8th graders to evaluate this level on the value of the writing. Are the characters cliché? Where does the plot flag? Is the author prone to florid descriptions and purple prose?

I labeled another level of consideration one of meaning.

The focus at this level, of course, is theme. I’ve had lots of past difficulty explaining the notion of theme to students. I’ve described it in the past as the “life lesson” of the story, but uncomfortably so, since it suggests that all stories are didactic in nature. This year, I lifted from John Truby the notion that the theme is the “moral vision” of the author as revealed in the text. I talk about how an author can have a fairly superficial purpose in writing a book, but that the text can still be representative of the author’s way of thinking and belie his or her worldview, his or her values.

I teach students to look for theme in the bird’s-eye view of the plot. What is the delta value? How has the situation (especially for the protagonist) changed at the end of the novel compared to the beginning of the novel? Is that change tragic or comic (or both)?

Often the most clarifying moment for the theme is the climax. I try to disabuse my students of thinking of the climax as the most exciting or dramatic moment of the story. I define the climax, instead, as the ultimate point of decision for the protagonist — the last character-defining point where the hero chooses one fate over others. The nature of this decision often provides the best clue as to the theme of the novel.

The subplots of the novel also often clarify or suggest further themes. Sometimes they even suggest subtexts.

Subtext. I also have had a hard time defining that term to my satisfaction. Still do. I’ve used the phrases “hidden themes” or “secret meanings,” but I never feel like students really come away with a strong sense of the term. Is it just a theme that’s hard to figure out? No, not really. Subtext suggests something that is below face value, something slyly outside of the straight mechanics of the story. It has a conspiratorial sense to it.

Subtext is more sensed than discovered; it’s something you have a hunch about rather than dig around for. I have, however, used an examination of motifs as a way to point to possible subtexts. It’s akin to the “deja vu” test in The Matrix.

The notion of subtext also bleeds into the last level of examination I’ve found: context. I don’t often talk much about books on this level with my middle school students. I tend to emphasize more New Criticism close reading skills, which are hard enough to get a handle on. I guess I’m also afraid to tempt students of the thinking that the secret to cracking the code of a book is by looking elsewhere to others.

Shame really, since one often doesn’t really appreciate a work’s significance unless you know it’s place in a larger conversation. Moreover, you often can’t get a sense of true critical literacy without tackling a text at this level. With my 8th grade book reviews, I suggest they look at three possible contexts within which to place the book: literary (genre), historical, and personal.

Within the literary context, you take a look at what other texts are like this text. You try to figure out how this book holds a unique place within a category of work. What are the book’s literary influences, and how it has influenced others in turn?

Within the historical context, you try to address the cultural outlook of the world at the time the book was published — and/or the book’s consideration of a specific historical moment within its story. It’s often helpful within this context to consider the dynamics of power between characters to get at, for example, a feminist reading of the novel.

The personal context considers a more psychological reading of the novel. How does an examination of the author’s life and worldview illuminate either the text’s intentionality or, perhaps, an against-the-grain reading?

The problem

Perhaps the best way to understand and appreciate a book is by reading it over and over several times, each time with a different focus or depth of analysis. This is, of course, the approach advocated by Mortimer Adler and Charles van Doren.

It’s also an approach problematic for the typical middle school English teacher, since it not only strains the patience of his pre-teen wards but also the strictures of the curricular schedule.

[Although, I’m thinking now, this way can be demonstrated with a narrative poem or one-act play.]

What we often exhort instead is that students actively read, that they highlight what seems important, make shorthand notes in the margins, and generally keep themselves involved as they read. The hope is that by forcing students to think about what they’re reading as read, they don’t just find themselves swept away by the narrative but end up keeping track of what is happening in the story.

The problem, however, is precisely that students don’t find themselves swept away by the narrative. Intense active reading deflates the enjoyment of reading itself and distracts from the kind of escapist immersion that I think is critical to actually understanding the sense of a story. The practice, moreover, already assumes that one is a fairly sophisticated reader — that one can intuit emerging themes and assess the relative significance of passages as they occur and avoid digressive or vestigial narrative stratagems.

Merely encouraging active reading, in other words, does little to demystify a complex story. Normal active reading doesn’t disentangle the various layers of comprehension and analysis.

With this in mind, I sought this year to explicitly teach a reading routine that was dead simple to follow, wasn’t overly onerous to the natural flow of reading, and clarified a very basic level of reading comprehension that can be expected of all my students, regardless of how good a reader they already were.

The routine

I taught the following routine explicitly. I explained it. I demonstrated it on the SMART Board. I followed up to make sure students were doing it right.

I asked my students to focus on only three basic areas of attention. For my 7th graders, it was character, plot, and setting. For my 8th graders, it was character, plot, and motifs.

I asked students to begin their reading by reminding themselves what the current situation of the story was.

As they read, students primarily notes whenever a character does something significant. They may choose to note that by simply highlight that character’s name or, additionally, making a note in the margin as to what major action or revelation was tied in to that character.

I ask my 7th graders to also highlight mentions or descriptions of setting. (The 7th grade has a curricular theme of place and geography).

I ask my 8th graders, on the other hand, to highlight mentions of motifs. I outline which motifs to look out for ahead of time. (I tie motifs to subtext, and the 8th grade has a curricular theme of personal values).

[The 9th grade teacher mentioned that they do something similar with themes, where they assign an icon to each pre-ordained theme and then draw those icons in the margins when those themes become evident in the story.]

Finally, at the end of the night’s reading (about 20 pages == 1-2 chapters), students are to write in their books (or in post-its stuck in their books) what has fundamentally changed in the story over the course of those 20 pages, summarized in a bulleted list of 3-5 major events.

That’s it. The reading routine doesn’t work by itself, however. It needs classroom follow-up.

The follow-up

I used to just follow up the nightly reading assignments with intermittent pop quizzes. The quizzes were short (about 5 questions), easy (multiple-choice), and tested the recall of major facts from the previous night’s reading (no trick questions). The idea was: if you did the reading, you should know the answers to these questions. If you didn’t know, then, in all probability, you didn’t do the reading.

The reading quizzes were a fine source of accountability for about 80% of my students, but I realized this year that a few of my students regularly failed these quizzes even if they did read — even if they did my version of active reading.

So new strategy. Every day I pick a random student, check their book to see if they did the routine, then give them a quick oral quiz. I give them a 5-point assessment based on their apparent recall and understanding of the reading — taking into account, however, their personal strength as a reader. It’s more subjective but seems, paradoxically, more fair.

I then work with the class as a whole in assembling a cumulative set of master notes about the books. I’m a visual learner so I try to organize this information as visually as possible through heavy use of the SMART Board.

We start with a basic table of major plot events, which takes on more columns as students notice what the major conflict is and what sub-plots also emerge. Eventually these plots and sub-plots get mapped out onto a graph of overlapping narrative arcs.

We also create an ever-expanding web of characters to show how characters relate to one another and group themselves into various roles.

My 7th graders further create a map of the settings of the book as we go along.

I then lead my class to scan through the previous night’s reading and highlight together major quotes, discussing as we go along what may make these passages particularly resonant, what meanings seem to be developing.

At the end I have the fodder for half of my unit test: characters, plot, setting/motifs, and quotes. All of which I am confident I covered thoroughly and fairly in class.

After we finish the book, I have more ponderous discussions with my classes about the themes and issues these stories seem to address.

Addendum

I’ve thought about posting these class notes onto the class web site. I’m not sure if that’s a good idea. I do want students to go through the motions (I call it guided practice) of copying down the notes themselves. It’s also a hassle to take that extra few steps to export and upload those notes onto the web site. For now, I’m going to let it go.

One of the necessary chores for any returning teacher from summer vacation is the class cleanup.

Here’s what I did last year.

I’m a pack rat and pile-organizer so the first step I took this year was emptying everything and spreading it out so I can take a look at what I had. The biggest culprit was the closet, which has become my default catchall.

Among many sighs, I allocated lots to the trash bin, some to less conspicuous pile-up spots, and the rest to their proper place. Here’s the closet after:

Much better. I cleaned up my bookshelves a bit:

I moved the largely unused iMac from the corner of the room to its current place under the bookshelves. I was also unhappy with how cluttered the back wall looked. Last year I used it to post up student visuals from creative projects, but it kind of looked like a mess. So this year, I just opted for a cleaner layout of graphics semi-relevant to the curricular themes of the year:

The front of the classroom looks pretty much the same, though:

I did more work on the window side of my room. Here you can see that I set up some display racks for my collection of 8th grade memoirs (the racks were discarded by another teacher):

Underneath the windows I set up some space for my VHS videos and magazines (for collage projects).

The most visually arresting change was the graphic I put up on the windows. To echo the memoirs project in the 8th grade, I blew up a free stock photo, printed it out on overhead transparencies, and pieced them together with tape right onto the windows: