Think differently Archives - Page 5 of 11

At Seventeen

I learned the truth at seventeen
that love was meant for beauty queens
And high school girls with clear skinned smiles
Who married young and then retired — Janis Ian at seventeen

The words of Janis Ian sting. They conjure images of bullied, ignored, thoughtful, and lonely kids. Seventeen is a hard age to learn those truths expressed in her hit song from 1975.

When I hear this song or when it becomes an earworm for days on end, I cannot help but think of my own time in middle and high school. Or undergrad. Graduate school. So on. Present day. Sometimes.

That is not to say that I was friendless or lonely. I place a mental pushpin every time in my life when truth is revealed. Signposts. Bread crumbs. Regardless of what or when, it always seems too early and too often that we learn a hard truth. In education, that is–as an educator, the pins drop like needles on songs. One after another whether you like them or not. Heavy rotation. Top of the pops. Hits. We take a lot of hits.

awkward teens — awkward teenagers lol
by ~JonathanTheSmex

Remember those veteran teachers scorning our eager, go-get-em attitudes with warnings? Their threats seemed so far-fetched. Trite. “Someday, you’ll be just like me.” We laughed them off. We worked hard. We came in early. We stayed late. We graded and prepped during late nights, weekends, and holidays. Grading parties. Thank God for TiVo. “I’m always a teacher so I always do teacher work,” we say. We learn a truth. Get a peek behind the curtain. See that all those appreciations we enjoyed were more fair-weather than once thought. We thought that we were on top of our game and have our legs cut out from under us. We are seventeen again.

Remember those who win the game, they lose the love they sought to gain

A decision is made. We will continue to do it for the kids. Of course we will. The kids. The only convolution is that we are not as resilient as we were at seventeen. Those wounds heal more slowly. Calluses thicken. Eyes look to the floor. We begin to have regrets. Begin to feel all those eyes that gaze.

Critical Demagogy, or, Stabbing the Eye of the Beholder

obtaining position and/or power through the manipulation of prejudice, emotion, and fear

When given the opportunity to speak, I often discuss topics connected to the theme of a particular context–assessment, teacher quality, and the like. Regardless of the primary focus of a discussion I like infuse information and exploration from my own research interests–Expertise, (nonexistence of) talent, skill acquisition, tacit knowledge and perceptions. Not so strangely enough, the discussion of perception is one that tends to permeate all aspects of many discussions. The pre-cognitive decisions that are made in any context have major sway over our actions and reactions to stimuli. What may be equally disconcerting is our inability to intervene despite any ‘awareness’ we may have regarding these prejudices.

That is to say, a person acts and reacts a certain way based on their prejudices–once made aware, their actions and reactions are still based on their prejudices.

scan — this is your brain on everything
Creative Commons image by Patrick Denker http://flic.kr/p/7ALY4″

It is a strange thing to be aware. One might even think that awareness provides some measure of control. In terms of perception, consider where beauty lies and how beauty lies.

I am reminded of my favorite scene from The Fly (1989) in which Geena Davis’s character tells Brundle, “…you’re getting worse!” to which he replies “I’m getting…better!”

Unfortunately, the profession of teaching has the potential to become a demagoguery. In some cases, perhaps you have experienced it, it already has become such. A teacher may become popular, well-liked, and possibly even considered a master teacher despite having little influence on actual learning in the classroom.

A challenge, acknowledged or not, that has been ever-present in education is that those who hold the gradebook are sometimes only judged by the gradebook. It is possible that students walk out of classes with inflated grades having learned little. Of all the stakeholders in the school setting, the ones who are not fooled by this are the students. The master teacher has no clothes and the students are unlikely to ring the alarm for obvious reasons.

Whether fooled, bullied, or simply convinced, what is most critical in our current pedagogical mess is that we unveil the charlatans who have risen in ranks due to this Critical Demagogy.

KNOWLEDGE is POWER. There. I said it.

KNOWLEDGE get a bad rap. In this information age, the assumption is that knowledge is readily accessible, reliable, and palatable. It is crucial that we embrace the fact that accessible knowledge and usable knowledge are not the same. Not even close. I am not big on analogies, but the difference between having access to knowledge and knowing something is like the difference between having access to water and having plumbing. Big difference.

We must separate opportunity from action. Availability is an opportunity to know. Action is required for knowledge to be usable. And guess what? It takes effort.

When we were in grade school, the people in charge required us to memorize and regurgitate. Remember that? They could require it of us. They could judge us based on our efforts and the quality of our outputs. We did not like having to give attention to things that did not interest us, devoting strategic resources to the remembering of basic knowledge. We could have just looked it up. In the end, what did we learn? Recognizing that the taskmaster is in some role of power does not mean that the tasks are meaningless and serve no purpose.

A lot, actually. And we need to admit that. We learned more than just the information.
We learned methods of getting information into our minds permanently (we can debate the quality and permanence of memory another time). Our brains participated in necessary operations to prepare itself for future (more important and potentially relevant) activity. Sometimes (all the time), we ought to stop and consider the unknown influence of learning activities as we critique the explicitly applicable practice that is being logged in the process. We ought to get over the popular practice of power examination in learning situations and just do the work. Sometimes.

Attention — Do I have your attention?

Strategies — What is your strategy for traversing the chasm to memory?

Retrieval — What is your method to activate retrieval structures?

Here is our 21st Century problem: We do not know things anymore.

If you have been in a room with someone who really owns their knowledge, there is something wonderful that happens. They have an ability to develop their thinking around that information in deep and meaningful ways. This is because the information is not taking up real estate in their present memory where lots of free and open abstracting likes to happen but in their permanent memory. How many times have you listened to someone who really KNEW their stuff and found yourself saying–I’ve really got to get X content down so I can really Y my tail off like that person?

Imagine you are having a party with several guests and for dinner you have chosen to have each person make their own pizza. You, as host, will provide every sort of sauce and topping and your guests need to bring the dough that they intend to use. Each guest arrives and sits around the dinner table with their own little crust ready to load their crusts with all kinds of veggies, cheeses, sauces, and the like. And then I show up.

Oh, I did not really read the invitation. Was I supposed to bring a crust? I thought we were going to make crust. I can do it really quick…do you have…? The next thing you know, my 12-15 inch space on your table is not being occupied by a crust but by the ingredients for that crust. It is not quite what you had in mind is it? I have everything I need to make the crust but it is taking up space, disrupting the activity, and my participation–regardless of the gracious kindness of the host–has been altered. I likely missed much of the intent because I showed up without.

Let us decide to know. Something. Well. Now.

RESIST!

In the waning hours of my 40th birthday I am compelled to add a few words. I am not in search of congratulations or affections. It is a milestone that each will likely visit in their lives and I found myself–probably like many do–considering what I should do to commemorate my “accomplishment” of breathing for 14,600 consecutive days.

Lordy, Lordy, Look Who’s Forty

Tattoos–Diets–Exercising of Inalienable rights

How will I mark this occasion? What will change when I wake tomorrow? What will be different? And…why do I write about this?

The final question is my concern and it is framed in educational practice.
Folks, if I have ever had a mantra this may be it. Please do not turn everyday occurrences and typical occasions into reasons for myth, mystique, and superstition. There is no need to spend a day celebrating bad habits because they will change tomorrow–we do not require Fat Tuesday before we execute a cease and desist on poor practice.

Every day, every course, every class is an opportunity to change our practice. It is an opportunity to adapt and to create. There is no event that need be burdened with the decision to master content or to better prepare for the type of course our students deserve.

I would like to think that a change that I make tomorrow will not shock or amaze. I hope that no person says “it’s about time” in regard to something I may adapt next week. Growth tomorrow, I hope, will not be seen as THE DAY I changed but as another change that happened as they often do.

I write this as an encouragement, confession, and challenge. I have not arrived. We have not arrived. The best change we can make is the next one. Let us make them together and encourage one another to be critical of our practice, hopeful of our influence, creative in our approaches, and gracious in our interactions. There is so much to learn.