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Homework and Charlie Brown

Posted by  on Wednesday, September 22nd 2010     

While browsing online for the Charlie Brown teacher voice as a joke to a friend, I came across this fantastic video about the different ways children approach a book report. I remember book reports being one of the most popular assessments when I was in school. Now, I see my niece struggling with them. She hates them and my sister and her often fight about her finishing them correctly.

Let’s look at the learners…

I really like this video because I think we are familiar with these different types of learners in our classes. Most students aren’t wild about homework. In the video, even the ones who get the homework all respond, “Homework, yuck!!” The video shows four different approaches to the homework:

Lucy

This is how my niece used to approach book reports by filling in as many words as possible. She would often count the words over and over again and try to find ways to sneakily add more. Like Lucy, I think book reports made her hate reading the book and I fear sometimes that some assignments we give and the way we give them make our learners hate learning. My niece loves to read and you’ll find her reading a graphic novel daily. She has also consistently been one of the top scorers in all her standardized tests, especially in reading. I’d attribute this more to her daily reading habits, since we have always received calls about her failure to turn in homework. We are fortunate she goes to a charter school that has allowed us to let her turn it in by the end of the six week period. However, I wonder if she does well in assignments and shows achievement in other ways if she should really have to do all the homework she is assigned?

Schroeder

Does his homework on a computer instead of writing it out like Lucy. He struggles with the report because he either did not read the book or doesn’t remember reading it. He decides to equate it to a book he does remember, Robin Hood. This brings up another point about giving students a choice. Do we give our students enough choices how they will approach a subject and what ways they will explore the subject outside of class?

Charlie Brown

He’s the perfect student that represents Alfie Kohn’s anti-homework arguments. Charlie Brown argues he “should be outside playing, getting sunshine and fresh air.” He also decides to leave it to the last minute.

Linus

Many educators would like their students to approach all assignments like Linus who has the curiosity to go beyond the book and link to his previous learning. He thinks about the book report and does research before even typing a word. However, most students aren’t Linus and even if they do approach assignments like this does this make the assignment valuable for most of the students?

Why do teachers give homework?

Like me, I know many teachers hate the word homework. I use the word “Challenges,” sound familiar from my posts? ;-) All the challenges I give are listed in my various class wikis and are optional. I list several types of homework such as an online quiz, video, writing assignment, field trip, podcast, and so forth. My students can choose which they want to do and if they want to do them. They don’t get graded on the assignments but it helps them improve their English skills so the majority will choose to do the challenges. For my young learners, I have the parents do the challenges with them. I give these “challenges” because I believe my students need opportunities outside the classroom to practice and apply the English they learn, especially since they live in Germany.  I don’t have to do this because my language institute has no grading or homework policy but I have seen my students achieve a lot in a year and I believe the weekly wiki tasks help them.

Shaun Wilden (@shaunwilden), a teacher trainer, recently asked various educators, Why do you set homework? These were their responses in a Wallwisher.

If you enjoyed this post, you may want to check out Alfie Kohn’s thoughts about why teachers shouldn’t give homework.

Challenge:

Add to Shaun’s Wallwisher and reflect on the homework you give this year.

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What are your thoughts about giving homework?

category: Global Issues in Education, Thought-provoking, What Works for English Language Learners
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Educating is About Passion, Let Us be Your Green Dots!

Posted by  on Monday, September 13th 2010     

Recently, Scott Mcleod, blogged a very thought-provoking post, Are We Edubloggers too Harsh on Our Kids’ Teachers?

My initial thoughts….

As a teacher, I remember throughout my career parents who griped at me about something I didn’t do to their standards. It’s part of the job and I believe this will continue to happen throughout my career. Just the other day a great educator tweeted a parent withdrew his son from his class because he used technology. How many of us get the third degree from parents, administrators, and other teachers for using technology in our curriculum? I bet many of us, because not all are on board and they have their presumptions. Dealing with parents is part of our job. The way I take it is that I rather have parents who care so much to be involved in their child’s education than not at all.

I think we should expect educators and administrators to prepare students for their future successfully. They don’t necessarily have to use web 2.0 tools, but the majority of the curriculum shouldn’t be students completing worksheets, buried in a textbook for hours, or filling out and being prepared for bubble tests. I want my child’s teacher to inspire a passion for continuously learning or to nurture my child’s curiosity. I don’t want my child to hate or be bored with learning. I don’t want my child to be conditioned to think there is only one correct answer to a question, accept rules that have never been explained or else, or to be brainwashed into believing that achievement in life is measured by how well they perform on tests that measure how well you perform lower-level skills and not creativity.

It’s not about the technology….

I’ve seen teachers motivate students to learn without much technology and I applaud them for being passionate and motivating students. What is important is if the child is engaged, problem-solving, and learning how to collaborate with their peers. Yes, I would want the educators who I communicate with on Twitter, Facebook, through this blog, and other online tools to teach my child not because you use technology or know what I mean when I write Glogster, Wikis, Voicethread, Web 2.0, avatar….

I would want you to teach my child, because…

  • you’re passionate about educating and motivating your students
  • you engage in professional development almost daily
  • you love to learn from other educators
  • you love to be inspired and inspire others
  • you collaborate with educators worldwide and get your students to collaborate with their students

I don’t know why we expect parents to stay silent when it comes to their own children, especially if they are also educators. Educators are preparing children to be future CEOs, engineers, politicians, teachers, and more. Being an educator is a serious calling and if we treat it like less then we don’t give it that respect.

Being a green dot….

I’m not advocating that educators in our Personal Learning Networks (PLN) should tell teachers their instructional practices are crap. Instead, I like Kelly Tenkely’s recent post, Be the Green Dot, which was inspired by this incredible post by Seth Godin, How Big is Your Red Zone?. Seth Godin and Kelly illustrate 3 graphs which I have embedded below. These graphs show how teachers not in our PLN react to learning about the innovative practices we are exposed to often by having ongoing professional development from our peers. A majority of educators do not participate in online educator communities so they experience an initial frustration when we share with them resources, links, blog posts, and tools (see the red graph). However, these educators do eventually experience joy (see the blue graph) when they get the hang of it and discover effective ways to engage students. The red zone in the last graph shows the gap between the initial hassle and the joy. This is the critical period when educators are resistant to us sharing with them the innovative practices we are exposed to daily. They believe we are hassling them and often make this very clear in their behavior toward us.

So how do we get these educators to the point where they feel joy about learning about these innovative practices?

Seth Godin writes in his blog:

My contention is that the only reason we ever get through that gap is that someone on the other side (the little green circle) is rooting us on, or telling us stories of how great it is on the other side. The bigger your red zone, the louder your green dot needs to be. Every successful product or passion is either easy to get started on or comes with a built-in motivator to keep you moving until you’re in. This is so easy to overlook, because of course you’re already in…

That green dot is you and me! Our PLN are the green dots that need to be loud with our motivation!

Clipped from: dreamsofeducation.wordpress.com (share this clip)

A final thought….

Yes, we should definitely share with teachers, administrators, and staff resources to help them with their professional development and have them become part of the conversation. We should root them on when they try new things and encourage to persist, eventually, they will learn and they will be better educators for the development. No, we shouldn’t be silent. We are preparing children to someday be in charge of their world! A caring parent’s role is to ensure his/her child is prepared to take the reigns armed with the creativity, imagination, tenacity to search for solutions, and collaborative skills needed.

Challenge:

Let’s be green dots and motivate loudly with passion and share resources with those not in our PLN.

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What are your ideas and resources on motivating educators who do not participate in educator communities (PLNs)?

category: PLNs, Teacher Development Reflections, Thought-provoking
tags: , , , , , , , ,

Children and Cardboard Boxes

Posted by  on Friday, August 20th 2010     

In addition to this blog I have been posting a few times at the Cooperative Catalyst blog, which is a fantastic forum to read various opinions on how we can transform education. The educators have vast experience and pour their hearts out in every post. This post I originally posted on the Cooperative Catalyst blog and wanted to share with you.

Give a child a cardboard box and magic happens.

The ratty, old box becomes an airplane and the child the pilot or a hospital and the child the doctor. The cardboard box takes them on adventures and helps them explore imaginary places in their minds. The cardboard box brings them joy and inspires creativity and imagination. With a few tools, they are inspired to build upon, transform, and reinvent their cardboard boxes.

Then our children are sent to schools….

which replace the former boxes. They are taught that learning happens within walls. They are taught to learn a certain way. They must sit in uncomfortable desks for long periods of time. They must remain silent and do work. They must follow the rules and stay away from the Internet. They must stop playing and daydreaming and listen to their teachers. They must sit for hours and fill out the bubbles of a test and if they don’t do it correctly then they’re forced to repeat the gruesome cycle for another year. This type of education prepares them to work in cubicles. The children who are unfortunate to be born in bad neighborhoods suffer the worst of schooling. Their schools often look like prisons. This type of education prepares them to be in prisons. In general, most of our students are learning to follow the rules, listen to authority, and forget the imagination and creativity they had as children with cardboard boxes.

Many of us have heard Sir Ken Robinson’s message, “Schools kill creativity.” This is the problem, but what is the solution?

We want our children to be creative and create. We shouldn’t want them to think outside the cardboard box; we should want them to transform and revolutionize the box just like they used to do with cardboard boxes. See, we inherently are gifted with the ability to dream. When we are children even in the worst conditions we still come out dreaming and seeing the world as it should be. Our imaginations take us to better worlds and we dream idealistically. We don’t see the barriers of reality placed by others. We don’t just see ratty, old boxes.

This is the problem, but what is the solution? So how do we as educators ensure our schools don’t kill creativity? How do we become catalysts for change?

How do we begin to reverse the damage of schooling?

We need to find ways to convince teachers not on this forum to use technology not because our students use it or will be expected to in their careers. We need to convince teachers to use technology to tear down our classroom walls. Use technology to show students that their voices can travel the world just like ours voices do when we tweet, update a status on Facebook, share a blog post, or collaborate on a ning. We need to convince teachers to use technology to motivate students to continuously research and to show them that their work transcends beyond the class bulletin board.

We need to convince teachers to develop Personal/Passionate Learning Networks (PLNs) so they hear these messages and learn to reflect and evolve their instructional practices.

These aren’t the only solutions, just the beginning.

Yet, how do we inspire teachers to react and act?

How do we go beyond spreading the word through blogs, conferences, and workshops and get teachers to act?

I believe we have educator leaders in our Personal Learning Networks (PLN) who get buy-in. Here are things I have seen them do:

  • They are passionate in their writing and presentations.
  • They show real examples of how these ideas impact students.
  • They commit personal time to ensuring the educators they speak to have the resources to carry out the action. Often this is in a wiki or posted on their blogs.
  • They record their presentations and spread them. We should never be embarrassed to be viral. I don’t see this as self-promotion. We need to be louder and not worry about offending others. In fact, we will offend others, because anyone changing a system does. We want our messages spread. Celebrities and even our youth do not find any shame in putting up their videos on Youtube, etc. That is why they go viral or become trending topics.
  • They research the art of giving presentations. They watch the TED Talks and read books and blogs on this subject.
  • They read books and blogs by revolutionary thinkers.

Does this describe you? Were you a bit embarrassed to think it did? Don’t be! We need educator leaders to be fed up, stand up, and begin spreading a message of change. We need the goal to inspire reaction and action. So now how do we as educator leaders begin to collaborate and add power to this message?

Challenge:

Let’s collaborate to find a way to change the system.

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category: Thought-provoking
tags: , , , ,

Do We See the Beauty in Every Student?

Posted by  on Wednesday, June 9th 2010     

Beauty in Students quote

As many of us prepare for the start of a new year, I can’t help but think of the students who will drop-out, work instead of go to college, be placed in a juvenile detention center, go to jail, fail, attend alternative schools, or be on welfare. Somewhere along the way a parent, teacher, politician, and community failed them.  In most cases, it was all these stakeholders who failed them.

When I see a defeated student walk into my room I wonder at what age someone made them feel like they could not succeed. At what age did an adult call them stupid, an idiot, or declare that child could not accomplish a dream? At what age did these children have their dreams shattered? At what age did this child embrace failure and wear it like a security blanket?

Seeing the Ugly

I would love to believe all educators enter our field full of compassion for every student. I would love to believe each teacher, administrator, librarian, and counselor entered the profession full of passion. My experience paints a dark reality. I have worked in several low-income schools, alternative schools, homeless shelters, and juvenile detention centers in a major US city. I volunteered to teach reading at the middle school that had the 2nd lowest reading average in Texas. I ran creative writing programs for several at risk schools in my city. I remember the first time walking into one of the 6th grade classrooms. The teacher was cursing at her students and yelling that they were too stupid to do anything. She was upset by the fact that none of them were making a higher grade than a 74 in her class. Only the ones who were passing could attend my monthly creative writing workshop. I was disgusted by this teacher. I wish I could tell you that was the last time I had this feeling of disgust. It wasn’t. I remember then taking her students to a separate class and teaching them some poetic forms. I encouraged the students to do free writing. One student wrote about the peer pressure of having a baby with her boyfriend. She was 12 years-old. Another student was sad for his brother who was in jail for shooting an entire family at a convenience store. Another student wrote about his drug addicted mom. Each piece of writing was tragic and made me recall what I struggled with as a 12 year-old. I remember thinking how fortunate I was to have been able to just be 12. None of these students had this experience and the reality is that many of them were the ones who dropped out of high school, went to jail, got pregnant as teenagers, joined gangs or went on welfare.

Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it. ~ Confucius

How many students walk into a class and are labeled as trouble or bad? How many times have you heard teachers say something like, “Oh I hope he’s not in my class!”? How many of us see a kid with piercings, bad hygiene, or questionable style and form our opinions? Perhaps, I’m preaching to the choir and the sad reality is that the teachers who don’t care will not be the ones reading this post or any like this one. However, I think we need to find a way to stop this. We all need to dig deeper, especially with the troubled ones. They obviously act out for a reason.

The Reality

The problem is that there are too many students who feel more comfortable with failure. Just look at these statistics from 2007 (most recent statistics available):

Consider the drop-out rate in your country. How many thousands or millions of students drop-out each year, are unemployed, or on welfare? With the current worldwide economic crisis can we really choose to ignore the impacts of our failing education systems?

Yet, that is what politicians in governments around the world do as well as the communities that place them in office. I have studied the rates for the US and in decades we improve the statistics by less than 10 %. In some countries, the statistics do not improve. Unfortunately, these millions of students who are embracing failure are the same ones that an adult could not see the beauty, only the ugly. I have seen schools with high drop-out rates and illiteracy rates. The majority of their student population consist of students who people write off and never see in them beauty or hope.

And maddest of all: to see life as it is, and not as it should be~ Man of La Mancha

I know there is no simple solution, but we have to aim to improve the system. We have to find a way to stop failing millions of students every year. With social media we have a voice and a forum. Millions are online and daily we see the impact of how news goes viral. We can use this to our advantage. We can organize and form grassroots movements. Each of us can step into our institutions and convince at least a few to join our Personal/ Passionate Learning Networks (PLNs). We can get them to join the conversation and question the way they teach and see students. Our PLN can pass on the passion. We need to be mad. We need see education as it should be and stop thinking we cannot change the system. Yes, we are blamed, rarely listened to, and inundated with a tireless amount of work. There is every excuse not to step up, act, and change the system. That is why we need to be mad, angry, disgusted, and raise our fists at the current education system.

Challenge:

Be disgusted and begin to find a way to change the system.

Do you know of any ways we can collectively collaborate and change the current education system? What are your suggestions or projects?

Image adapted from a Flickr image by Pink Sherbert Photography/ CC Attribution 2.0


category: Thought-provoking
tags: , , , ,

How Do We Nurture Passion?

Posted by  on Saturday, May 22nd 2010     

Earlier this week, I shared this video of sixth grader, Greyson Chance, singing a cover of Lady Gaga’s song, Paparazzi during his school’s festival.

Feel the Passion…

This video astonished me for many reasons. One reason is the passion that this sixth grade boy shows. He clearly loves playing the piano and singing this song. He has an emotional connection that demonstrates how much this song impacted him. This passion was so strong it translated to this video having over 19 million hits, even though, this is not the highest quality of video. His passion was so strong it overcame his insecurities about playing in front of an audience of his peers.

How many students do you know would exhibit so much pure emotion and passion in front of their peers?

We also have to imagine how much more powerful the experience was if we had been present. Some of the emotion is lost through the video. We do not get to observe his face, which is why at the end of this post I included another Youtube video clip of his performance on the Ellen Show. In this performance, you can watch his face as he sings the song.

Notice the Transformation in the Audiences’ Reactions…

Watch the video a second time and just pay attention to the rest of Greyson’s peers and their reactions. At the beginning, you’ll see girls giggling and chatting. Perhaps, they are making a guess of who Greyson is singing about. You’ll see another girl obviously bored out of her mind with her hand on her chin. You’ll see others who are a bit uncomfortable. These are real reactions from adolescent girls and probably how we would have reacted at that age. I’m a little disappointed not to be able to observe the reactions of adolescent males. At the end of the performance you can observe how Greyson’s passionate performance impacts all the audience. The girls stop giggling and chatting and the bored girl wears an interested expression.

What Does a Passionate Educator Do?

These observations have raised some questions for me. How was this student so inspired to be great? Who gave him that support that made him believe in himself to take this bold step? Was this his parents, teachers, friends, or a mentor? Greyson accomplished a feat many of us have yet to figure out. How do we get our passion to transform our audiences? How do we get the child who is bored to be interested within 5 minutes? How do we get the students gossiping and laughing to reflect on what we are teaching within 5 minutes? How do we get millions of people worldwide to support our passion?

I believe some of us have tapped into this. There are the Seth Godin’s, Daniel Pink’s, Sir Ken Robinson’s, Alfie Kohn’s, Alan November’s, and Chris Lehmann’s of the world who have found the formula. How about us? We read the books, attend the webinars, and watch the live conferences. Now, it is time to begin translating our passion to our students. We have to try and help them find their passion but we know students have to first see our passion. How can we translate passion when we teach our subjects as if we were bored? I have seen so many teachers stand in front of students, lecture in a monotone voice, and give the most uninteresting materials to accompany their lessons.

Passionate educators take the time to create a lesson that demonstrates their passion. If you’re going to lecture, then make sure every lecture is like you’re giving a TED Talk. If you’re giving homework, then make sure it is something you’d be so interested in doing, you would forgo your time with family and friends. If you’re going to give assignments, make sure they are the ones that would spark passion for your subject. This includes higher thinking skills, such as research, problem solving, and critical thinking. If you’re bored creating the assessment, then the students will be bored taking the assessment. I know when I have developed a great assessment, because I am excited about giving it to my students. However, I have never been excited about having students take a multiple choice test.

We also have to help our students find what they are passionate about and help them connect the learning in our classes to that passion. If a student wants to be a famous musician, then show them the math involved if you’re a math teacher. If your student wants to be a famous singer, then help them discover the figurative language that will help them express their emotion. In some way our subjects connect with students’ passions or we wouldn’t have to teach the subject. In some way, our subject connects to the world the students live in. Let’s find a way to bring passion into our classes everyday and help students tap into their own. Imagine if most of our students were like Greyson Chance at pursuing their dreams!

You may also want to check out these posts on assessment and passion:

Challenge:

Find ways to keep yourself passionate.

If you enjoyed this post, you may want to subscribe for FREE to receive regular updates!

What is preventing you from being passionate about your teaching? How do we help our students discover what they are passionate about?


category: Thought-provoking
tags: , , , , , , , , ,
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