Real Teacher Education

After a long day of PD yesterday, I've been thinking about how we see ourselves as educators. Been thinking about what our own education means and how we continue to develop as teachers. Been thinking about real teacher education.

Our PD session ended in a faculty discussion where we debated what the role of lecturing is in the high school classroom. On one side, we had folks who said that kids need to "learn to become engaged in a lecture" because that's the primary form of classroom communication they'd see in college. On the other side were the folks who argued that outside of the college classroom, there wasn't a job on Earth where the primary form of communication is lecturing and therefore we should dispel with it in our classrooms in favor of 'real world' education.

This of course, is a classic argument that's been going on since at least Mr. Dewey's days.

And I think it misses the boat.

Because the argument is structured in such a way to propagate the false dichotomy between 'levels' of learning and experience. I'd argue that rather than gear your instructional strategy towards expectations in educational leveling -- i.e. teaching with different strategies to second graders than to college freshmen based on the 'ideas' of what the expectations of teaching and motivation are -- what we really should be doing is understanding who our students are in a meaningful and compassionate way and, without any preconceptions about what's going to 'work', we should be formulating approaches democratically with the input -- and veto power -- of our students.

The students deserve the veto. It's their education, after all. And if the teaching method you are using isn't working for them -- be it lecture or open learning or project-based or what-have-you -- then they have a right and obligation to petition you to understand what would work for them and you have a professional obligation to try out new strategies.

Hard? Yes.

Professional and necessary? Even more so.

I'm tired of teachers acting like their 'tried-and-true' method is the only way. I was tired of it as a student and I'm tired of it as a teacher. It's arrogant and it stinks of the fear of losing the comfort of the 'normal'.

Nothing about your students is 'normal'.

I realize that I can be a bit militant in the pages of this blog. And I fully realize that I've got an ego and personal arrogance that occasionally makes me look like a jackass. So I'm gonna say right here right now: Don't base your teaching approaches on the arguments that you hear on this blog. Rather, base your teaching approaches on the conversations you have with your students. Find out who they are. Ask them how they learn. Challenge yourself to figure out how to teach them. Each of them.

Because in the end, this isn't about lecturing vs. not lecturing. It's not about preparing kids to be able to handle college. It's not about the authority of one form of instruction over another.

It's about engaging minds and empowering individuals.

That's it. That's the whole point of education.

And you ain't gonna engage the mind of a student by arguing the finer points of pedagogy with your colleagues. You're only going to engage the minds of your students by learning from them how their minds work. You've got to talk to them. You've got to know them. And you have to trust one another.

Real teacher education happens when you leave your ego behind and jump into the learning process as not a 'teacher' or a 'facilitator' but as a fellow human being who has compassion for human beings and who recognizes the real importance of education as the armor of empowerment. Because the 'real world' is an endlessly relative term; and what we really want is not to produce students capable of dealing with one kind of 'real world', but capable of adapting, showing compassion, and helping to empower others in whatever world in which they may find themselves.

Go Paperless

Steve Katz posted a nice summary of where this Paperless Earth Day idea came from on his blog.

Check it out; tell Steve "THANKS!" for instigating this whole thing; and then be sure to join over 650 teachers from around the world in pledging to go paperless for the 40th Earth Day this April 22, 2010.

Remembrance of Things Past: What is the new iPad ad suggesting about Apple's intended audience for the new device?

What is the new iPad ad suggesting about Apple's intended audience for the new device?



First of all, despite the edgy-guitar pop hooks that give the soundtrack to this ad that iPod flavor, the visuals are completely... well... milquetoast. We're in a house decorated by Pottery Barn with a couple of indeterminable age who favor bluejeans and skiing.

The couple are 'readers'... you know, they read 'books' and 'newspapers'; no Boing Boing or Daily Dish in this house, kids. Chatroulette is right out.

Second, they love the travel. They read the 'Escape' section of the Times and have friends who send them pics of trips to Switzerland. We might assume that these folks have made it through the Great Recession alright and are looking for an opportunity to drop some buckage on a hotel with a hot tub and a view.

When it comes to scheduling events, it looks like they have plenty of free time on Wednesdays; perhaps they'll sneak in a few hours to read the Ted Kennedy bio. On second thought, maybe Wednesdays are best spent looking at pictures of the kids and the dog. (Note, ironically, that the interior in this commercial is obviously not the interior of any domicile containing multiple children and a dog.)

Next shot: look! They write emails that look exactly like 'real' letters!

And then, just when I thought I had the market for this device pegged as upper middle class Boomers: they go and throw in that snowboarding article. How edgy! Why, we must actually be looking into the secret life of a Gen Xer with typical 1960's fetishes -- Kennedy, The Doors -- and definitely not folks who'd prefer receiving a letter on 'paper'.

Or are we?

One of the things that's most striking about this ad is the way it blurs together stereotypical Boomer and Gen X interests and tendencies into a composite whole. Notably absent from the video are any of the ways people will actually most often use this device (3rd party apps, 3rd party apps, 3rd party apps) [and I should add 'making stuff', though as of now, there appears to be no simple way ala the typical Macbook avenues to 'make stuff']; instead we're presented with Apple-lite for folks interested in the technology thing, but who have real lives planning ski trips and giving harbor to nostalgia dressed up as hipness.

I'm struck by the images of media that I caught the first time I watched the ad: Star Trek, Steven King, Jim Morrison. There is nothing remotely 21st century about this. The device might be as "magical" as all get-out; but the ad campaign -- and we can assume the intended market's world view -- is entirely based in nostalgia -- and I'd argue -- a certain big-company-fed cynicism towards new media and what's actually happening NOW on the Web.

Crowdsourcing Questions in the Social Studies Classroom

Click here and enter into a wonderful classroom project. @vtdeacon is putting this together as a "Crowdsourcing Questions" project.

Personally, I'm so excited about this sort of thing.

We've had such a good time the last few weeks in my 9th grade West Civ class running our syllabus as a crowdsourced document -- and we'd love you to stop on by after you leave a question or two on @vt's wiki.

Collaboration. It's a beautiful thing.

The Social Alma Mater

Over the past week and a half, I've had several great conversations with former students... especially recent grads. By-and-large these students and I have kept up our friendships via social media.

@schickbob and I were talking about this today and came to the conclusion that -- in a way -- the future of education is bound up in the ways that we relate to our alumni via the social connections of the Net. Because the future of education isn't about the classroom; it's about the world. And your alumni are the bridge between the two.

With that in mind... if any old alums happen to be reading this, do get in touch. We need you now more than ever.

Nearly 600 Teachers Have Taken the Paperless Earth Day Pledge

Click here to see the current list (organized alphabetically by school name).

And click here to pledge.

From the Archives

Especially for new readers, here's a list of the eleven most read articles on TeachPaperless (as of, well, today).

Sort of a miniature 'TeachPaperless Reader'.

Enjoy.

1. Response to Questions About Education and Obsolescence

It's not really a matter of whether teachers will become obsolete; it's a matter of whether the institutions that currently support learning will become obsolete.

And they will.

2. On Paper, Candles, and Rituals

There are times when we need to feel that pencil sketch across the pad.

3. 21 Things That Will Become Obsolete in Education by 2020

The 21st century is customizable. In ten years, the teacher who hasn't yet figured out how to use tech to personalize learning will be the teacher out of a job. Differentiation won't make you 'distinguished'; it'll just be a natural part of your work.

4. What are we preparing them for?

I'm obliged to recognize that I'm of a generation caught in the transition between two ages.

5. Go Paperless for Earth Day!

Source reduction is the best form of conservation.

6. Why Teachers Should Blog

I blog and what I blog -- and how that message is received by others -- tells me what I think.

And it tells me how I think. To blog is to teach yourself what you think.

7. Thinking About 'Technique' and 'Innovation'

Clairvoyance.

8. Thoughts on History and the "Important Questions"

Many of us in education -- myself included -- tend to be pragmatists; we work with what we've got, and for the most part theory and history are often a diversion rather than a primary function within our practice. We talk about practice and policy in the story of "now" and we work scrappily to make things happen in the "now". And that's fine. But it leaves me personally feeling that the work of education all too often is forced to exist within the confines of politics and finances rather than in the sphere of the re-enchantment of the spirit where it belongs.

9. Tech Engaged by Default?

And the more I think about it, the more I think that the majority of folks left on the fence about the role of tech in the 21st century are going to simply fall into the 'user' catagory by default as society changes around them.

10. Using Authentic Gaming to Engage Kids in Authentic Learning

Gaming itself is a form of 'text'. And, especially in terms of fantasy MMOGs, games are complex narratives. Well, if you've got a kid who won't read a book, but who maintains a high-level character on a complicated MMOG, the problem likely isn't that the kid isn't able to understand complex narratives.

There's something deeper going on.

11. Yes, Internet Access is a Civil Right

we are presented with the opportunity both to re-train and re-employ citizens and spread access throughout the country by means of a public works program for Internet connectivity and community training in digital literacy.

Using Jing to Assess Online Student Writing

Been experimenting for the last couple days with Jing.

And among several uses I've found for it, by far the most important for me has been as a means of giving in-depth feedback to students on their blogs and in their writings.

I'm not the only teacher who has been frustrated by the limitation -- especially on blogs -- for marking up and commenting on student work. And so I've been looking for an alternative.

I wanted something that was more flexible, more personable, and more similar to a one-to-one conference with a student.

Jing supplies all of that.

Here are two examples of my use of Jing to assist in the assessment of student writing. The students are 9th graders in History class. You'll see that I'm pushing them to think about the sources they use and to think about how they structure an argument.

Example One

Example Two

I know many of you have used Jing for all sorts of purposes and would love it if you would share your most interesting ideas.

In a way, I'm embarrassed that it took me so long to realize that the solution to my problem was sitting there right in front of me for so long. But, such is learning.

500 Teachers Pledge to Go Paperless for Earth Day 2010!

To celebrate the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, over 500 teachers worldwide have pledged to go paperless in their classrooms for the day.

Here's a link to the original call.

Here's the place to pledge.

Here's a spreadsheet of teachers who have pledged.

And here's a handful of posts written by folks taking the paperless challenge:

EdTech Workshop
Web 2.0 for ESL
Just One Teacher
Musings 365
SMS Tigertalk
Getting Comfortable Teaching with Technology
Earthcast 2010

Thanks for all your words and actions.

Teaching with DIY Digital Flashcards

So, I've put together a brief presentation about the digital flashcards I'm using with my West Civ students.

I know that when most people hear the word 'flashcard' they think 'rote memorization'. I think though, that the concept of the flashcard can be turned on its head in the Digital Age.

Check out the presentation and tell me what you think.

A Student Challenge to Go Paperless for Earth Day

Woke up to a pleasant surprise.


Turns out that the Green Team at South Middle School has challenged their entire student body to go paperless for Earth Day!


Would love to hear about other schools taking on the pledge school-wide. As of right now, over 430 teachers from around the world have taken the pledge to go paperless on April 22, 2010, the 40th anniversary of Earth Day. 

You can pledge by clicking here!

What Blogging Can Teach

A week ago or so, my students' West Civ Proj blog went live.

And all I can say is "wow'.

I've been blogging with my kids for three or four years. In fact, my student's personal class blogs double as their notebooks as well. But this is the first time we've gone and published a public class blog.

Going in, the idea was to make a magazine (as evidenced in the blog post linked to above). But, as this week has drawn out, the kids have requested that we put 100% of our energy into the class blog -- as a BLOG.

I can understand their thinking. After all, the blog offers instant (as well as global) response.

So far this week, blog comments have instigated discussions about quality of sources, generation gaps, and responsibility. The kids have learned that they're not always the best spellers, logicians, or copy editors; and they've also learned that there is such a thing as a legitimate audience and that people outside of their classroom actually care about what they think (and how they think).

I'm very proud of the kids over our first week. And I'm interested to see where they go with it. Hope you get the chance to check out what these students -- a group of 14 and 15 year olds with no previous experience with blogging -- are doing with interactive media.

As I see it, the(se) kids are alright.

Update on Teachers Pledging to Go Paperless for Earth Day

From Vietnam to British Columbia. From Serbia to Honduras. Teachers are pledging to go paperless for Earth Day 2010!

At last count, we had about 360 teachers from around the world pledged.

Here is the original call from a week ago. Here is the form through which you can pledge to go paperless. And here is the Doc listing all of the teachers who have pledged.

Thank you to all of the teachers involved so far. Steve and I are thinking of ways that we can all share what we do in our classes on April 22. It would be great to have a site that could serve as documentation of the event worldwide. If you would like to get involved in helping to create that sort of thing, let me know.

More on Post-Screen Futures: What's it Look Like?

@monk51295 read my last post on post-screen futures and asks what such a future would 'look' like. While I don't think of myself as much of a science fiction writer, I can offer some suggestions that -- to me at least -- seem practical.

First of all, the existing built environment would have to be retrofitted. We could start with external surfaces. Take your average city block in the downtown of your average city. The exterior of every building as well as the surface beneath your feet would be touch-interface optional and capable of projection and image grabbing. This sort of thing -- making every surface in a room an access point, for example -- is already in the pipeline. Where it gets really exciting is when it goes outside and computing becomes public as opposed to personal. When computing becomes the graffiti of urban life.

However, for those times when public computing is not desired, we'll turn to our personal connection. But iPhones and the like will have gone the way of laserdiscs as they will have been replaced by glasses and satellite-connected contact lenses that offer the wearer a sensory-based personalized augmented reality experience.

What both the built-environment public computing model and the sensory-based personalized augmented reality model have in common is that they are both aspects of post-sedentary computing. They change the nature of how we react to the environment and they would force us to rethink how time works in our day to day lives. In terms of schools, this would of course eliminate much of what a compartmentalized building is useful for; I see those sorts of antiquities being replaced by communally activated information and learning walls housed within smart environments and as open and physical as possible. Get rid of the desks and chairs and let the technology help get people on their feet. I'm envisioning a sort of interactive and communal digital Greek Stoa where the structure itself -- that is, the architecture and the circulation plan -- is the connection device.

Would love to hear all of your thoughts on this. Let's take time out of the present for just a moment to get all 22nd century for a spell.

Dreaming of a Post-Screen Future

I spend far too much time behind a computer screen.

So I dream of a post-screen future. A future where the major trends in contemporary computing -- social media, the cloud, touch surfaces, interconnected telecommunication and video, and augmented reality -- meet with the built environment.

As computing becomes more cloud based and less 'personal' device intensive, we're going to see a surge in smart buildings and smart environments. Surface-based interaction and AR merging with both interior and exterior interactive supergraphic architecture will ultimately replace the concept of devices themselves, let alone screens.

While you might carry a small device for personal communication and connection to information, that device will only be a key to unlock the computing potential of the built environment itself.

Eventually, the architecture of our built environment will itself become the access point and the built environment, infrastructure, and architecture itself will be the 'device'. The environment of life and digital access will be same thing.

And we'll laugh about how we used to lead sedentary lives beholden to a screen.

What the Kids Think About Toyota

Just thinking about something that came up in class today.

In my Latin III class, we've been talking about the rhetorical device called ekphrasis. That's a somewhat obscure method of using drama or narrative to tell the story of a picture or art work... and sometimes vice-versa.

So, the day before, I'd asked the students to write short stories demonstrating abundant use of ekphrasis. Today we read the stories.

And it wasn't the 'demonstration of abundant use of ekphrasis' that caught my greatest notice.

It was the fact that a third of the students had written short stories that in each of which had at some point slammed Toyota.

Really.

Afterwards we laughed about it and had a candid discussion and the majority of students came to the agreement that Toyotas were deathtraps.

Really.

And they readily shared this opinion of the car company on their blogs, on Facebook, et al.

Which got me thinking: could Toyota wind up being another casualty of the digital age? And not for any reason but that their tarnished reputation is the digitally-shared laughing-stock of the next generation of car buyers?

Teachers Going Paperless for Earth Day

Just an update.

At last count (3:45PM EST), there were 275 teachers from around the world who had pledged to go paperless on Earth Day (April 22). The response to this call is something far greater than anything Steve and I had expected. A big thank you to everyone who has helped out over the last few days with the campaign on FB, Twitter, and in your schools!

Click here to see the pledges so far.

And click here to pledge.

A Postcard that Demonstrates Everything Wrong with American Education

I've taught lots of different courses.

I started out teaching English to Freshmen and then went on to teach American Lit and British Lit to Juniors and Seniors respectively. For years, I've taught Latin from the Beginner course through both of the AP offerings. In the Fine Arts, I've had the pleasure to teach AP Art History as well as my own course in Digital Audio Production. And this year, I've begun the transition into Social Studies teaching with two sections of Freshmen in West Civ.

I like teaching.

But I get the feeling that my idea of what teaching looks like just ain't what the powers that be think teaching must look like.

Take the College Board.

Today in the mail, I got a postcard invitation to sign up for an AP Summer Institute. That's great. I've often found that I learn a lot -- especially from other teachers -- at these sorts of things. I haven't been to an AP institute, but I have taken part in two institutes run under the NEH and I found each to be an invigorating experience.

So, it's not the idea of taking part in that sort of program that makes me feel weird. Rather, it was the picture on the front of the postcard.

Now, this postcard came from Delaware, so I'm going to assume that it was mailed out to every school in the US Mid-Atlantic that offers AP programs. So, if you are in a high school in Delaware, Maryland, Eastern PA, and the surrounding area, there's a good chance there's one floating around your building. You should track it down and check it out.

Because I think that the picture on this postcard demonstrates everything wrong with American education.

In the center of the postcard stands a smiling teacher pointing and presumably calling on a student. Behind him  hangs a map and a chalkboard. In front of him is a desk cluttered with ring binders and a book. One of the ring binders is open and it appears that this is the text from which he has been lecturing. His students are seated at desks in rows. Nothing is on their desks: no books, no laptops. Two of the students are raising their hands. The teacher is pointing to one of them.

Everything about this scene -- from the roll-up map, to the blackboard, to the teacher's position in the classroom, to his desk at the front, to the ring binders, to the rows of students, to the orderliness of raising your hand to be called on -- screams of static education.

Static education is the bane of my existence.

Static education is the precise thing that progressive educators -- be they heavy on the tech, light on the tech, post-paper, or pro-paperback -- are fighting against.

And here it is presented in all it's glory on the front of a postcard from the College Board emblazoned with the tagline: Improve your school's AP program!

Hey, College Board, I've got an idea for you: can your art director / marketing person and pay a real progressive educator to take a few candid snapshots for you of what dynamic education actually looks like.

What I'm Planning for Paperless Earth Day

A couple folks have asked what I'm planning to do for Paperless Earth Day. Here's the plan.

Our school sits on a pretty big plot of land. Rolling hills, two ponds, trees. Perfect locale for teaching environmental science, actually. Anyhow, both my West Civ and Latin classes have learned about ancient attitudes concerning nature: from the Homeric fury of the sea to the pastoral visions of Horace and from civilizations' first agriculturalists learning to tame the un-tame-able to Egyptians demanding of their Pharaoh the annual flood of the Nile, the history of civilization is the history of humankind's relationship with nature.

And so, we are planning to take a nature walk. And in preparation for our walk, each of our classes will be designing a 'Nature in History' wiki-scrapbook. The plan is to go out there into the great wilderness that is our campus and find bits of nature on our own grounds that lend themselves to telling the story of humankind's 'Nature Story'. Looking for metaphors in the dirt, as it were.

We'll be taking digital photos of what we find and publishing our findings, thinkings, and conversation on our wikis. It's up to the kids then to do with them what they want; the day's findings might form the basis of future projects, or you might see some of the elements of our investigation on the students' West Civ Proj blog.

Looking forward to hearing what all of you are planning for Paperless Earth Day. Hi-tech or Lo-tech, all ideas are welcome on Steve Katz's Paperless PD wiki. Let us know what's up in your neck of the woods.

Because the History Classroom Just Ain't What It Used To Be

No sooner did I ask you all to check out my students' new West Civ blog than Andrew B. Watt delivers a comment that turns our student editor's argument on its head.

Fantastic.

Imagine being 15-years-old and putting your work out there for criticism and argument. And imagine receiving criticism and argument almost immediately from some source -- some real person -- beyond the walls of your classroom. Imagine having to think about that and deal with it. And having to do all that in a public sphere.

This is what learning looks like in the 21st century.

I was talking to @schickbob about it earlier, and he nailed it: "The learning starts when commenters start disagreeing with them".

That's what it's all about.

Authentic experiences. Real blogging. Authentic learning. In public.

And learning that you've got to back up what you say and that there's more than one angle to every story.

We can't just pat kids on the head for making a blog. If we do that, we're gonna end up just as inauthentic as the teachers who patted us on the head for writing crappy poetry and putting together cookie-cutter science fair tri-folds. Rather, we've got to use blogs and the connection to the world that the Internet provides to engage our students in real ways to live up to the potential of their convictions while likewise having the humility and sense of civility to provide a forum for discourse.

Thanks to all of you who have supported us along the way to initiating this project and thanks to those of you today who commented on the posts. We plan to post often and we've got some surprises in store as well.

Our tagline is: "Because history just ain't what it used to be". But it might as well be: "Because the history classroom just ain't what it used to be".

The West Civ Proj Blog goes Live on WordPress!

My 9th graders are very excited.

Today, our student written-and-edited history blog went live on WordPress. The e-zine component (on issuu.com) should come out on Friday.

I'd really appreciate it if you all would stop by the new blog and give the kids some high-five comments. This is their first endeavor doing anything like this, and I can only imagine how far a little beyond-the-classroom-walls encouragement would go.

We're also looking to collaborate with other classes, please be in touch if you are interested!