Suspending Judgment

It was a panel of students, at our before-school meeting, that drove home the point: students want classrooms that are under control. The students - boys, girls, Hispanic, African-American, white, older, younger - were unanimous: get kids out of our classroom who keep us from learning.

Immediately after the student panel, we looked at school data showing the numbers of students who failed English I (100) and Algebra I (90), and the number of students suspended from school long-term (104). Of those 104 students, 39 were suspended for the rest of the year; the remaining 65 returned to school. These suspension numbers do not include students suspended for short periods of time.

The first, obvious although I believe incorrect, conclusion to draw from the data is that if we do not suspend students then they will be more likely to pass their classes. An alternative conclusion, drawing on the stories recounted by the student panel, is that too many disruptive students are placed back in classrooms where they prevent other students from learning.

Certainly, any of us who have taught these classes know that one or two students can take down an entire class. Sure, we can see on tv teacher-heroes who turn belligerent teen-agers into self-disciplined agents of learning. And, in fact, each of us who has taught these classes can tell our own story of the student we reached who turned his or her life around. Those are the stories that keep us teaching.

Still, the reality is that the best of teachers work hard to control the classroom, and that when a disruptive student is placed back into the room without an agreement of behavior-change, it is virtually impossible to teach successfully.

We seem to have many advocates for reducing suspensions and keeping kids in school. Those advocates are important. But, we seem to have few advocates for children who are quietly trying to go about their education only to see their learning obstructed by other students.

I do not believe in throwing children out on the streets. No teacher believes that. I do believe, however, that a school, and school system, needs alternatives to traditional classrooms for children who disrupt learning for others.

It is not only the suspended students who fail. It is also the students who are prevented from learning who go down with them. That is a tragedy.

Counting What Counts

When we test the minimum expectations (e.g. Alg I and English I), then we organize our schools around those minimal standards. To raise the expectations for our schools, we need to be accountable for higher standards - students taking advanced coursework; students performing in the arts; students active physically; students prepared for citizenship.
See "Counting What Counts," my column in the Herald-Sun, for a critique of our current approach to school assessment.

Smart Phones, Dumb Schools?

It is a conundrum: we want students to use technology, and yet we ban cell phones.

Indeed, we will bring an antique cart of laptops to a classroom, wait 15 minutes for them to boot, while students sit with instant-internet access phones in their backpacks.

Well, truth be told, the phones are not in their bags. The students have the phones in their laps, sending texts to each other, while waiting for the laptops to boot.

The problem is that students pay more attention to their phones than to their teachers (that would be me). The myth is that in the old days they were locked into everything I said.

I suspect we would be better off by welcoming students' phones, and then teaching the students appropriate use. While they are multi-tasking, maybe we can show them why multi-tasking is a bad idea. Impossible, actually, according to brain researchers. (Watch a video on multi-tasking).

P.S. Open question (meaning, I don't know the answer): Schools are required by federal law to restrict access to certain types of internet access - does this apply to a student's own phone or computer, used on school grounds?

Double-faulting to Test Anxiety

I had been practicing my serve for 30 minutes (my partner was a no-show) when a guy asked "Do you want to play some?"

It only took two ripped top-spin forehands to see that he was better than me. I told myself "It's a learning experience." It was indeed an education, but not so much about tennis. Double-faults into the bottom of the net; shanked forehands; back-hands sailing to the back fence.

Maybe it was the different court surface. Maybe it was the poor lighting. Maybe. More likely, though, it was me tensing up when confronted by a better player.

I told myself to relax. I played worse. "Just watch the ball," I said, then pulled my head up. "Have fun" was followed by kicking my racket.

Test anxiety. I am a reasonably good tennis player, but that other guy sure didn't see evidence. I failed the test.

How many of my students know more math than they demonstrate on a test? I suspect they are not much helped by my exhortations to "relax," or "just do your best."

Our state forces students to re-take classes if they fail an End-of-Course exam, even if the teacher knows the child knows the material. Our system requires a final exam to count for 25% of a grade. We say the student has to "demonstrate mastery," then often define such mastery using a bubble-sheet.

If I believe my tennis skills should be measured by more than one match, then surely we should use a variety of means to assess our students. We need to move away from "passing the test" and towards "doing the work."

Flipping the Classroom?

Lots of buzz these days about "flipping the classroom" by using internet sites and video to do straight-forward presentations (e.g. factoring a quadratic) at home, and then using class time to extend and explore (e.g. "creating" a quadratic function to match the roots and vertex of a graph). See a lengthy interview in Wired magazine with Salman Khan, creator of Khan Academy.

This makes a lot of sense for my calculus classroom. How does it work, though, for an Algebra I class in which the students lack computers and internet access? The article profiles a classroom in Los Altos, in the Silicon Valley, and shows a student sitting at a computer in his kitchen. That is a far cry from the homes of many of our students.

Is Time on our Side?

Time slows down in an emergency. Why?

David Eagleman, profiled in The New Yorker (April 25), thinks our sense of time slows down when we process lots of sensory data. For instance, I accidentally step over a ledge - my brain throws all senses into gear searching for a way not to fall.

When we are engaged in learning, clock time "flies by" because our own time has slowed down, relatively. Brain studies have shown that we need to be re-engaged every 10-15 minutes.

Clearly, I need to find a way to organize my own classroom around a greater variety of tasks and axtivities.

View the original article in The New Yorker

Renku Pedagogy

My daughter sent me an article by a Japanese biologist, Tatsuo Motokawa: "Sushi Science and Hamburger Science." The article contrasts western thought patterns from Japanese thought patterns as they play out in science (logical conclusions vs. specific observations, theory vs. essence) and religion.

Within the article, the author summarizes the Japanese poetic genre of renku:

Let me talk about the poetry of Japan. I believe the genius of the Japanese is found in a type of poetry called renku. You may have heard about haiku; it is a very short poem with only 17 syllables. Renku is a string of haikus. Several poets, usually three, meet together; one of them makes the first line with 17 syllables, then the second person makes the second line with 14 syllables. These two lines complete one poem. The third person makes the third line, with 17 syllables which is the first part of the second poem, and the next person, usually the first person, makes the fourth line with 14 syllables, finishing the second poem. The poets keep on producing lines in turn, and with the thirty-sixth or the hundredth line, one renku is completed.

I would make a case for education as renku. Each teacher contributes his or her two lines. These can be beautiful in themselves - we each do our best as teachers - within a goal of moving the student towards the complete poem - the renku.

These "teachers" are not just in classrooms. Contributions to the renku come from parents, coaches, directors, pastors, neighbors, peers. And all of us are working on our own renku throughout our lives.

Still, I think the renku can serve as a nice model of humility for us as teachers. Together, we educate.
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Note 1: An example of a renku (also written as 'renga') from "The Essential Haiku" edited by Robert Hass (in this example, the author disregards the customary syllable count)
    Initial haiku:
A great city stood here -
now the roads lead to the past,
there are flowers blooming.
    Second poet adds:
They are gone in a second,
the dreams of spring.

Note 2: From my own "High School Haiku"
Secant line’s limit,
the sound of one mind thinking,
becoming tangent.

The Pedagogical Pulpit

Reflections on teaching, learning, and education in Durham and America.