Remembering

by Noah Geisel

Today marks the 10 year anniversary of one of the most important moments in our nation’s history. It also marks the 10 year anniversary of my first day of teaching.

To turn on the television during the last week has been to be confronted with the networks’ attempts to help us figure out what 9/11 meant and what it continues to mean. I heard a story on Colorado Public Radio this week about a history teacher’s recollection of that day, companioned with his former student’s version. The former student was so inspired that ten years later he is a teaching candidate, enrolled in his former teacher’s methods class. Touching and inspiring stuff.

9/11 was my generation’s Kennedy assassination: we all remember where we were, what we were doing, what we were thinking and how we coped. All of us who were in the classroom that day dealt with something for which we were not prepared.

I had first period planning and spent the hour before the first class of my career starring bewildered at the television while my coffee got cold. I tried to get more information on the internet but every news site had crashed from the traffic of a world full of people trying to do the same. I checked my email and saw a message from administration explaining that something had happened in New York City (We still didn’t know what...) and to please not alarm the students, several of whom had relatives who worked in or near the World Trade Center. I marched upstairs to my 9th grade World Literature class, guarding this enormous secret, and began my life as a teacher by posing my first essential question: What is art?


With each anniversary, I think back and try to reflect on what happened that day. For me, the confusion and sadness of the attacks are inseparable from the fulfillment and inspiration I felt as I began teaching. While I cried every night as the details emerged and we learned that what had happened was no accident, I spent my days elated by the new experiences I found in education.

In the Jewish faith, we celebrate a new experience by saying a prayer called the Shehekianu. It is our way of commemorating doing something for the first time. It is in this tradition that I memorialize September 11th each year. I seize onto all of the firsts, remembering them and being grateful for them. The first day of school. The first eager student to raise her hand, ask a follow-up question or show self-advocacy. The first activity that seems to engage the whole class. The first student to walk in after the bell or to use profanity. The first phone call to a parent.


Whether it lifts your spirit or frustrates your soul, it is valuable at this time to honor and celebrate the firsts and to appreciate them for the meaning they provide us.

Please leave a note in the comments. What firsts do you celebrate each new year?

The Email I Never Thought I'd Send

by Mary Beth Hertz

First of all, thanks to Shelly for inviting me to join the conversation here on his blog. It know it will prove to be a powerful experience. 

As the title of this blog is TeachPaperless, I figured I'd start things off with a post about my effort to cut down on the use of worksheets and paper at my school.

You might think that this would include things like document cameras, Google Docs, e-readers and iPods/iPads, but my first step involves getting my staff to use...wait for it....an overhead projector.

My school has desktops from 2002, no wireless, no laptops, only one projector between two buildings and no library. While we are paving a path toward a technology-infused school, I know that if my teachers aren't using a simple overhead projector, putting any other technology in their classroom will not change the way they teach.

I sent this email to my staff:

Happy Tuesday everyone!

I have noticed recently that many of you have overhead projectors, but not everyone is using them.  This is a great piece of technology that can create some fun and engaging lessons and activities for your students.

If you are not using the projector because the bulb is broken, please let me know and we can get you a new one.  If you are not using it because you don't have any transparencies, let me know. I have a box of transparency paper that can be fed into a copier like regular paper.

If you are not sure how to incorporate an overhead projector into your lessons, here are some ideas:

1) use a blank transparency to have students complete math problems in front of the class. The larger screen will ensure that each student can see his/her process
2) project a piece of writing and have the students come up and add editing marks/make changes
3) project a piece of writing and have the students grade it according to the PSSA Writing rubric
4) teaching time? Use a transparency of a blank clock and have students come up and add hands to show what time it is
5) teaching money? Use inexpensive transparency coins
http://www.shopbecker.com/ProductDetails.aspx?ItemNumber=LER4281
6) Teaching addition, subtraction? Use manipulatives on a blank transparency and have students show how to add two numbers, subtract, etc....
7) create a graphic organizer as a class using a blank Venn Diagram, etc...  Keep the transparency so you can pull it up whenever the students need it
8) Create a cloze activity and have students come up and write in the missing words
9) Instead of a worksheet, do an activity together as a class
10) If you have info/vocab you need the kids to have, project it while they are working

Let me know if you have any questions, and let me know if you need help making transparencies or would like to borrow an overhead.

Before I clicked 'send,' I sighed. I never thought I'd ever send an email like that.

So why do I want to share this experience? I think that with all of the talk of integrating technology and using less paper in the classroom, we need to remember that there is a huge digital divide that affects these kinds of changes.  While we have plans to bring in more technology, we have to work with what we have for now.  We are not alone.  There are schools all over the country and all over Philadelphia, I'm sure, who face the same challenges. School looks to my students the same way it looked to me when I was their age over 15 years ago. (and we had overhead projectors!) Many of my teachers borrow the projector to use once a week or so, but that does not change what they are doing every day all day in their classrooms.  It also does not change the fact that, for my students, school is like an entirely different world than the world they leave when they enter the school doors.

Another thing this email brings to light is that a tool is a tool, it's how you use it that counts. Many of the activities listed above would also be found on a list of recommended activities for an Interactive Whiteboard, which costs thousands of dollars more. Putting tech in the classroom will not necessarily change what teachers are doing in their classrooms.  Teachers who are expected to teach test prep will not find the time to create podcasts or allow students to explore ideas as a class or on their own, even if the classroom is fitted with a projector and laptop.  They will use it the same way they would use an overhead projector.

Still, I hope that my teachers do begin using their overhead projectors....and then crave more. I pray that we are able to purchase LCD projectors for each classroom. I dream that my teachers will be able to open up their classrooms to the world and that worksheets will become a thing of the past.

For now, we'll work with what we've got.

Stop Teaching

A reader comments:

I'm of the opinion that technology is hurting education more than enabling it. Yes, access to the collected knowledge of mankind is a good resource, but students still need a guide and interpretor of that knowledge, a guide, a teacher! I am trying to envision my students asking me about how an fission occurs, and I say go look it up. What I am there for then? Could I be replaced by a sign that says, "Turn on computer and don't bother anyone."? 

Thank you for writing. Your comment really got me thinking.

After all: yes, what are you/we there for?

I tend to think that yes, if you or I could be replaced by a computer, we should be. After all, if all you are doing as a teacher is explaining 'how-to', I am sure that there are videos on You Tube that do a much better job. But I suspect that you are actually doing a lot more than that.

You are a teacher. Which means that you spend a little time each day teaching someone how to do something. But you probably spend a lot more time discussing why things happen. Because you are a discusser. And you probably spend a lot of time discussing what it all means. Because you are a philosopher. And you probably spend a lot of time helping frustrated students. Because you are a saint.

Students don't need guides. Kids need folks who can facilitate their being able to explore. Kids are natural explorers. And if you really want to ruin an explorers day, put 'em in a tour group led by a professional guide. Where's the adventure in that? Where's the sense of personal accomplishment? Teachers shouldn't be guides; they should be travel agents. Teachers should set up the trip, but ultimately each student has to take the trip on his or her own.

Kids don't need an interpretor. They don't need someone to interpret knowledge for them. What kids need is an interlocutor. They need some one to argue with. They need someone who can help them figure out how to interpret life's problems on their own. They don't need a translation; they need a conversation.

I've stopped teaching. That is, if teaching implies the hierarchical management and distribution of content for the purpose of assessing whether the content was understood. Instead, I've become a travel agent. I assess success by whether or not a student learned something about the world and about themselves out there on their trip. When they come back from their journey, I'm an interlocutor. I listen to what they have to say. I let them talk to me and I hit them up with some questions and I let them talk some more because I want them to understand what (and how) they think.

I respectfully submit that technology is not hurting education. More often than not, 'teaching' is hurting education.

What Blacksmiths Can Teach Us About Teaching

Spent the weekend pounding on things with hammers.

For 16 hours -- my swollen fingers and aching back are both happy it took place spread across two days -- I attended blacksmith classes at the Carroll County Farm Museum's Academy of Traditional Arts.

Led by master blacksmith Bill Clemens, (whose license-plate reads 'Blxsmith'), my classmates and I -- eight guys, mostly sporting beards -- learned the basics of metallurgy, coal firing, hammer-and-anvil technique, and forge welding.

And when I say 'learned', I mean 'LEARNED'.

There were no PowerPoints. No lectures. There were no required textbooks and there weren't any tests.

Just learning.

Blacksmith Bill would demo a technique slowly, and then once again at full speed. And then it was our turn. We went off to our forges and banged stuff out.

In a way, it reminded me of the Aikido classes I took sometime ago. In both cases, technique is modeled by a teacher and then learned and reinforced through actual practice. The sensei doesn't grade your understanding of Aikido by whether or not you can pass a multiple choice test; she assesses your understanding by judging whether or not you have figured out how to roll safely on a mat after having been thrown over the shoulder of a burly classmate. She assesses whether you've learned how to defend yourself from a sword attack by seeing if you keep getting hit by a sword or not.

Likewise, in blacksmithing, you demonstrate your understanding of pig tail scrolls and tab hooks by banging out pig tail scrolls and tab hooks. You learn which part of a two-and-a-half foot rod of mild steel is safe to touch by burning your fingers. You learn how to bring a shaft of glowing hot steel to a point by messing up over and over and over again until you get it right.

And once you do get it right you feel SO GOOD about yourself. And you want to do it again and you want to show everyone what you did and you want to learn more.

I'm going back in a few weeks to take the intermediate class. And then it's on to knife-making. My wife isn't crazy about the fact that I've got burns on six fingers and the slash of a scar above my elbow where a hot shard of steel knicked me, but she was nonetheless supportive of my wanting to build a brick forge in the backyard.

I learned a lot this weekend, and more than anything I learned about what really motivates folks: it's stuff we "can't" do, but nonetheless figure out how to do. And for eight guys who sweat and labored over anvils for a weekend in January, we figured out that you learn by doing and do by learning.

Kids and Networks: The Gaming Angle

Mashable reports that Sony's PS3 is linking up with Facebook.

And why is this of any significance to us teachers?

Because the majority of your students are using one or the other or both.

You might say: "But my kid ain't on PS3". Ok, so switch out to Wii, Xbox, WoW, etc. One way or another, we're talking about huge gaming networks. And as these networks link to social media, we're talking about bigger-than-huge networks.

Networks in which your students are active participants.

Now, you might think I'm taking this towards some 'security' thesis. I can safely say that I'm not. I'm hardly 'afraid' of kids being a part of big networks; in fact, as I've seen throughout the varied VRs, kids who play these games and systems often 'get' the way things work in a network -- and by-and-large, the players on/in the game are most interested in... well... the game and success in the game.

There's relatively little time to waste on one of these things; task determination is a priority.

Alas, back to the question: Why is this of any significance to us teachers?

Because, you see, your students are taking part on a daily and casual basis in networks bigger than any most of you have ever known.

And they understand the idea of a massive network.

And they understand and are comfortable with the concept of a network disconnected from their physical reality.

Just ask a few of your sophomores about Modern Warfare 2. Or ask a few of your 12th graders about Wrath of the Lich King.

They will demonstrate an understanding of interpersonal skills that would make any human resources exec swoon.

What are you, as a teacher, doing to tap into this?

On Changing it Up

Been teaching my son to hear music.

Confirm: I've been teaching my son to 'hear' music. He's eight years old and has been playing trumpet for two years. Loves jazz and has posters of Miles Davis taped to the wall next to his bed.

But early on it was all drone all the time. Long notes played for as long as possible, generally in the bottom range of the trumpet, and repeated over and over and over.

I wonder why this was. After all, he was taking music class and learning songs. But when we'd play together improvising, he was just droning on.

Now, as a guy with a foot in the world of free improvisational music, I really didn't mind this per se; but I did feel like as an eight-year-old he needed to think about trumpet in a different way and get the experience of changing it up.

So I changed my instrument.

Whereas I had been playing mostly guitar and piano, I switched to double bass.

And suddenly his sound started to expand. And he started to bring snippets of melody into our improvisations. And his trumpet got more talkative. And he seemed to 'get it' more.

We often forget that as teachers, we are the ones who set the tone. And the instruments we choose to play -- sometimes out of habit more than pedagogical conviction -- directly effect the way our students both learn and express themselves.

So be willing to change it up. Don't let a tool become a given.

Keep yourself on your toes and you'll start to hear melodies in your students.

Transformation or Irrelevance?

A reader weighs in with a keen observation:

Yes, on first read "nice". But that one sentence should be read in the context of the larger passage that McLeod quotes.

It turns out that the "transformative implications" that Moe and Chubb refer to include offering "new career paths" to teachers (a rather weird extension of freeing them "from their tradition-bound classroom roles"), "sophisticated data systems" (the intent here is most certainly not to Twitter) for making "education" more effective, and lowering the operating costs of schools by employing technology instead of teachers.

I doubt that this blog, that consistently presents the case for the use of digital technologies within a truly humanist educational perspective, really sees those issues as representative of the desired transformation.

I dare say that teachers have both 'careers' and 'vocations' and that the two are not necessarily the same. That doesn't mean I agree or disagree with the authors, but certainly in light of the 'transformative shift', there are all sorts of 'transformative implications'.

And I do think that this means the careers of teachers are before long going to take a very different shape and offer very different possibilities for the act of teaching itself (not to mention the even more important act of learning). But, as the reader surely knows, such has been the case throughout the history of teaching and intellectual transmission from the Stoa to the University.

One last thought: I do think that teachers and schools in general would be wise to learn something from the example of what has happened over the past ten years in the music industry. Or face a similar irrelevance.

What WoW Can Teach Us Teachers

Something happened over the weekend that really impressed me.

The ‘thing’ was Blizzard Entertainment’s announcement of the next World of Warcraft expansion. On the surface, this might seem like nothing more than a video game promotion. But, when your ‘video game’ consists of an online world inhabited by more real human citizens than New York City, we as folks working with tech on a daily basis should take notice as to what they are up to.

And what they are up to is something phenomenal.

Whereas previous expansions of the adventure game have offered users new quests and new areas to explore, this expansion does one of the most radical things ever attempted in a virtual reality MMOG.

It destroys the world.

Literally. The expansion, called Cataclysm, actually destroys and re-creates the entire multi-continent virtual world that WoW players have come to know over the past few years.

In effect, what the folks at Blizzard Entertainment are banking on is that serious gamers want change.

And what could signal a greater change than actually turning the entire virtual environment on its ear?

Now, in my thinking, there is something to be learned here. For thirty+ years, we’ve treated schools like boardgames. And every few years, we’d announce that the game was changing, but we kept using the same board and the same pieces. We changed the rules, but forced the players to use the same old dice.

Now, we have the opportunity -- as in what Blizzard is doing with WoW -- to dramatically change the environment itself. We can keep the knowledge we've gained through our experiences, but apply it and let it manifest in new ways over a changing and changed world. And we can let that changing and changed world to inform us. To inspire us. And to push us off onto new adventures.

Because our kids are dying to take on new adventures. After all, they live in a world where they expect upheaval and change; they don't understand why so many of us are so afraid of it. Change -- whether in school or in an MMOG -- is a challenge; it's not in and of itself a good thing or a bad thing. In a way, change is worth only what you put into it.

And by destroying the very virtual world so many gamers have come to expect, Blizzard is really putting everything they've got into change.

So here’s the challenge to teachers: be like Blizzard. ‘Destroy’ the world you’ve created for yourself. All of those things you’ve spent years working out -- from seating arrangements to the way you assign homework -- take all those things, crack ‘em like eggs, and see what’s inside.

Try something new at least once a day. Don't let the kids predict you. Mix it up. It's not going to confuse your students (for long...); it's going to intrigue and inspire them.

Don’t be afraid of the cataclysm, embrace it.

Practically Impossible

Thinking a lot lately about the parallels among and intersections between the arts and education.

As an artist who teaches, this is one of those things that comes up often in conversations with colleagues in both fields. Some of those conversations are pretty funny... like the one where a new high school art teacher was asking me if I thought she should remove her nude self-portraits from her website.

But some of those intersections can be quite gentle and inspiring as well: like the time a very great, but very troubled artist friend of mine living in a far off place made a short video for one of my students -- considering a career in the arts -- telling her quite honestly and powerfully about what it takes to make it in art school and in the art world on your own terms.

It is humbling to be one of the lucky few whose life and work bridges art and education. And so, as I'm just finishing up a new website where for the first time I am trying to bring into full view both aspects of my life, I of course thought to myself that one of the things that would make the site most meaningful to me would be a forum where artists and teachers could share ideas, observations, and stories both humorous and telling of the difficulties of each vocation -- and the links between them.

The new site is called Practically Impossible (it's still in beta form... not that it won't always look like it's in beta form given my challenges with graphic design) and it'll serve sort of as the nerve-center for all of my work in the arts, organization, and education.

TeachPaperless will continue being a daily blog -- you don't have to worry (or do have to worry) about that. But the Practically Impossible forum I see as both a meeting place and a place to post responses to life's most vexing questions as well as a place to take many of the great questions and conversations that pop up here via reader comments as well as in the Friday Chats and continue them in a forum accessible to everybody.