Defending Mr. Hand

Ok, most of us went to school in an era when most teachers taught like Mr. Hand. Who's Mr. Hand, you ask? He's Spicoli's nemesis of course. 

Mr. Hand was a bit of a hard ass, but at the end of the year he went to Spicoli's house to make sure he was ok, and that he had learned some U.S. History (good news; he was and he had). But for our purposes, we care about Mr. Hand and the way he taught. Mr. Hand was a lecturer. Now, I'm a big enough history nerd to be bothered by the order of what he talks about in the movie, but that's a far nerdier post for a far nerdier blog, if such a thing exists. Today, I want to talk about the lecture; and why it's fall from grace in educational circles is not fair, to students or to those loyal followers of Mr. Hand: the lecturers.

You see, starting in the 1980s, educational theorists began to recognize that the traditional model of school wasn't as effective as it had once been. There are any number of reasons for this, but that's (yet again) another topic for another day. These theorists began talking about students' multiple intelligences. They began to point out that not all students were gifted in learning in the traditional models. Many students were better when they were creating things, or moving, or working in groups.

These theorists wanted teachers to cater to these multiple intelligences. I could enter into a "I wish this wasn't true" rant, but that is reality teachers live in. That being said, as this new model of teaching came online, lecturers, such as Mr. Hand and myself, were villanized. We were the problem. Lecture was boring.

Students could never be expected to learn if the teacher was boring.

Bad lecture is bad. You've suffered through it, I've suffered through it. The lecturer is monotone, the material uninteresting, and the notes are hard to read. Perhaps the lecturer is reading his slides. Perhaps he's unprepared.

But bad lecture, despite what you've heard, isn't the only kind of bad teaching. In fact, all styles of teaching can be bad. But students don't complain about other types of bad teaching because in those situations students have the freedom to do things that are of interest to them. For an example we can look at group work. Many educational theorists love group work. They think that it's best if students pick their own projects, and then work in groups to complete them. I agree, these projects are great, but only when students are working hard on them. Too often groups dissolve into weekend recap groups. I think that's just as bad as a boring lecture, but students won't complain about it as often, because they weren't really forced to modify their behavior, unlike being in  a lecture situation.

On the other hand, good lecture is the way we as a society tend to deliver the most important information we have. Think about it. When you attend a religious service, it features a lecture. When the leader of the free world has something important to say to the nation, he doesn't divide us into groups to discuss why we are dropping bombs on Libya. He lectures. Lectures are the entire basis of the TED talks. Even smart people recognize the power of lecture.

So what makes a lecture good?

Well I think that there a five simple steps that teachers can take to make lecture good.

1. Be funny. You don't need to be a stand-up comedian, but you need to get at least some mercy laughs. People like to be funny, and so they pay attention to other people that are funny. Then, if you have a subject which is impossible to be funny about like the Holocaust, you have already built a rapport with your students so that they pay attention.

2. Be knowledgeable. No one wants to watch you stumble through a subject you're uncomfortable with. A good lecture actually ends up being a lot more like a discussion than a lecture, with a free exchange of questions and ideas, and that's not going to happen if you don't know what you're talking about.

3. Answer questions. Listen, people will need clarification, they will want to explore tangents. In most cases I find that you should let them. Learning should be a natural process, and by answering questions as they arise, you'll help to shape that learning.

4. If you have visuals, make them good. Don't read slides to your audience. Don't have images that are simply too small. Use the visuals to act as anchor points in your lecture.

5. Be willing to learn from your mistakes. Nobody is perfect, but ignorance is making a mistake and not learning from it.

I think these 5 steps are easy to take, and I think that most teachers could do them. I don't want lecture to dominate every class in every school, but personally, I'm tired of having lecture demonized, because I know just how good it can be.

That's all for now, so I'll sign off in the famous manner of Mr. Hand:

Aloha!

In addition to which, GET OFF OF MY LAWN!

This week I'm on Spring Break, and that means I have lots of time on my hands to look for the end of the Internet. This morning, while dutifully poring through pages and pages of "news", I came across a facebook conversation between two of my "friends". They were engaged in an Internet argument over this article.

Ok, for those of you who don't generally click on the links here at the BlazeBlog, you can just skip to the picture of the chimpanzee at the end of the post, because my entire purpose today is to attack the basic thesis of this article.

I'm going to assume that by this point you're either done reading that article or you're not going to read any of this, and you've already scrolled to the bottom. Good? Good.

So the basic thesis of the article is that it's not so bad that half of twenty-somethings are still supported in some way (housing, food money, tuition) by their parents when they're twenty-four. In fact, the hook of the article, and what I read to be the thesis, is that these "late bloomers" may be better off having leeched lived on their parents' dime. The article goes so far as to note, and I quote (because it is too ridiculous to ignore), "most are weaned from such support by their early thirties". Hang on, there's a blood vessel in my forehead that's about to burst.......

Ok, I went for a walk to bring my blood pressure back down. The life expectancy in this nation is in the mid 70's. If you don't move out of your parents house until you're thirty, you will have spent 45% of your life being supported by your parents. Assume that you work until you can draw social security at 65, and then you retire. That means you will spend 5 more years working than you did draining your parents.

A week ago, the BlazeBlog talked about how the Internet was infantizing our entire society. It seemed natural to blame the place that society demonstrates so many adolescent behaviors for those behaviors. However, this new knowledge (which I found on the Internet), suggests that parents, unwilling to see their children suffer, are at least partly to blame for the regression of society to a nation full of 13 year old boys. 

Think about it; parents don't have to accept these grown children (and their families) back into their household. Nevertheless, many parents do take their grown children back into their homes. Parents should assess the situation, and I believe in many cases, say "No".

I don't think it's uncommon for recent college graduates to spend a little time back at home after graduation. You should graduate at 22. You should be gone by 24, which is when, according to this story, 50% of children are still getting help from mom and dad! 

THAT IS UNACCEPTABLE 

I understand that in all of these cases, there are what seem to be perfectly acceptable reasons to live at home. Tragedy strikes. The economy is in the crapper. Nevertheless, I find it hard to accept. I just can't fathom how these people can get help from mom and dad and still have Internet, data plans on their phones, children of their own. 

Many of these children, it is implied, are pursuing higher degrees. I have found that the majority of people who pursue higher degrees do so because they don't know what they want to do with their lives. Is this because their parents, now supporting them, never forced them to make hard decisions, and now they are paralyzed by indecision? I don't know, but I think that it's a decent thesis. 

This is a societal problem. We have the means to protect our children from any sort of pain, and want to do so. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, this is admirable. Just because it's admirable doesn't make it the right thing to do. Your children need to, on occasion, suffer. They need to live in a crummy apartment, to have to figure out how to make tough financial decisions. By bailing them out, parents allow their children to both have and eat their cake. The problem comes when those children aren't eating their own cake, they're eating their parents' cakes.

No one thinks that being sore from going to the gym is bad. We can recognize that soreness as a sign of growth. We know that being sore is good, it means that we're improving. Somehow, parents need to recognize that their children need to experience that same kind of pain, perhaps fiscally instead of physically.

Now, these numbers and this article probably have massive problems. There are probably problems with the way the data is being presented. There are almost certainly problems with the sample size. Still, that half of the 24 year olds in this study were still receiving aid from their parents is crazy to me.

The worst part is that I might count. I was married at 25, and my parents presented us with a very gracious wedding gift. Would the study count that as "support"? I hope not. I lived at home for 4 weeks before I got my first teaching job, would that have counted?

You know what, I take it back. That's not the worst part. The worst part is the title of the story. "Gen Y not slackers, just slow starters." No, please, headline writer, go ahead and title this something that the story doesn't prove! After all, the story is about children not working hard and not being forced to struggle, why should you work hard?

And now, the promised chimpanzee picture:

 Your author, hard at work

Teachers should encourage growth

So, I've been banging my fingers randomly against my keyboard since August, and you've been faithfully clicking on links since they started appearing on facebook pages. Today, I am going to do something new. I'm not going to talk about my experiences in education. Instead, I'm going to take a request.

Now I know that this might seem impossible, since this blog is obviously not "live", and therefore taking requests might seem impossible. However, through some back channels, I recieved a story out of an elementary school, and the author wanted to know what the BlazeBlog thought about the situation. So, here I am, responding to a request!

I think that the easiest way to do this (but I don't know, since I've never done this before), is to quickly summarize the situation, and then follow up with my thoughts on said situation. If this format doesn't work for you, please feel free to propose an alternative in the comments section.

The Summary

There is a program out in the wide world of educational assesment called "Accelerated Reader". This program is intended to be used as a tool to encourage students to read outside of class. However, in this school, the AR program is used as a part of the students' reading grade. In this case, a student had read Harry Potter 1 at home, and wanted to use it to complete his AR testing, since he hadn't been reading any other books at home. His teacher wrote home, concerned that if he took the test now, and didn't do well, that might hurt him in the future, because you can't ever re-take an AR test for credit. She also has concerns about the student reading content that he "isn't ready for" yet in the book, since the student in question is a second grader.

Mom complains, student takes test, doesn't do all that well.

My take

Ok, let's tackle AR first. I did some exceptionally cursory research (read: googled "Accelerated Reader Criticism") and found that the program has had decent results, especially among older readers, when used as an extrinsic motivational tool. Our own Dr. Johncock has written extensively about motivation, and in fact created his NBR and STFU systems in response to what he felt were foolish attempts to incentivize behaviors which should be second nature to students. I'm not going to delve into that too much, but I think the major problem here is the pressure created by using AR as a part of the reading grade.

If AR were just an ancillary program, designed to encourage reading outside of class, then I don't think any of this conflict would have happened. You see, the only reason that Mom pressures teacher into letting student take the test is that he needs to get a reading score. Also, as the student progesses, he'll have to continue taking the test, so the teacher is concerned that taking the test now will stop him from being able to take the test later, so she's worried that his later reading score will also be hurt by taking this test now. The test being a part of the school's reading grade is really the root of this problem.

This is indicative of a larger problem in American education. We love to implement programs that authors say will change student learning and achievement or behavior. However, many times school districts fail to use the programs the way they were intended, which leads to situations like we see in today's BlazeBlog. 

However, there's a secondary problem: the teacher's concern about the material in the book for a second grader. This is a problem for me as a teacher. I firmly believe that the role of teachers, among many other things, is to push students' comfort zones in regard to content. One of the great, untestable values of public school is the constant exposure to ideas and views that are different and uncomfortable for students. I don't think this is important just to make students uncomfortable, but because that discomfort is often a sign that growth is taking place.

I can't speak for this teacher. I don't know why she thought the content of the book was inappropriate. I suspect that she either believes this herself or has in the past been badgered by people who believe that. Either way, I think she's doing a disservice to her students. Parents have every right to teach their kids familial beliefs at home, but they should expect a good school to expose their children to different believes. The school shouldn't pass judgement on which of those beliefs are correct, however, and that's what this feels like to me.

Well, that's that, then. I feel a little uncomfortable, since I think I just sided with a parent, and I once wrote a 3500 word diatribe about parents. Who am I, and what have I done with the author of the BlazeBlog?    

Spring Break Haiku

So, in the spirit of the BlazeBlog's "Sno-kus", I offer to you some Spring Break Haiku

I'm not home today
Sipping a frozen "Dad-pop"
Relaxed on a beach

Honey do list? Yes.
Sleeping until eight or nine.
Time to write haiku

Grading papers?No.
Time for me. This is how the
Other two thirds live.

That's all for today, I'm off to run errands. Perhaps I'll check back tomorrow with a tale of woe, from the other side of the desk.

How to fix the respect problem

As state budget crises have become the dominant domestic news story, teachers and teacher pay have once again moved into the forefront of the public discussion in this country. As a public educator, I am torn; I want the nation to have this discussion and I'm terrified by the way the discussion will go.

But the one thing we can count on is that everyone will talk about how much they respect the work that teachers do. However, there will almost certainly be a disconnect between those words of respect and the actions the talking heads want us as a society to take.

Many people have talked about the problems of respect for teachers. In fact, I think I have in a previous post. (Well, to be fair, I didn't talk about it in the way I thought I did. Still, I think this is in the vein of "respect") What will fix the problem? More money? This article lays out the case for paying teachers better in a much more researched and logical way than I could. I think that more money would, as Kristof argues, attract better people to teaching. It would also allow teachers to consume products that our consumption society equates with success, which, it could be argued, would lead to more respect. 

But I've got another idea.

What about uniforms? No, not Twisted Sister or the Road Warriors (although I do think that "Teacher of the Year" should win a championship belt). I don't need teachers to wear Smokey Bear hats like Marine Drill Instructors or aviator sunglasses like power-crazed local cops. But I do think that we could come up with something for teachers to wear that would signify their status as public servants.

You think I'm crazy. You know that the unions will never stand for it (not that silly things like unions stand in the way of "the public will" anymore). You think that teachers won't subordinate their personal freedom of expression to dress in a uniform. You point out that we often can't even force kids into uniforms at public schools. I know that all of those points are true; but this is my blog, so indulge me.

Think about the discounts you see at restaurants: police, fire, military. These are all professions that make similar money to teachers. What are the key differences between the people that politicians like to call "our finest" and me?

1. They risk their lives in a more direct way than teachers. (this is not a small difference, but the vast majority of their day is not life threatening)
2. They wear uniforms.

That seems to me to be the key difference. In our society, we have decided that people who wear uniforms are respected. Two days ago I was flying from Denver to the Central Valley of California (which is a nice way to say "Fresno"), and while I was waiting 3 hours for the plane to get fixed several uniformed members of the Army came and went through my gate area. In all of their cases, at least one person thanked them for their service. Had they not been in uniform, they would not have been accorded that graciousness. 

I don't begrudge them the thanks they received. In one case, the Sergeant had been to Iraq for three tours. He deserves the thanks of the citizens who voted for the guy(s) who sent him there. 

So do teachers. They may not be forced overseas, or relocated, but they do spend their lives committed to public service. I think that many people genuinely do appreciate teachers, but they don't know who we are. Because we don't wear a uniform, because we don't have a standard for facial hair, tattoos, or piercings, we're hard to pick out of a crowd. I, for one, would wear a standard teaching uniform if it meant that I could get the same kinds of discounts that military, fire and police often qualify for (and the random thanks of strangers, awkward though it must be).

(At this point, I could go flying off the handle on the undue respect accorded to the other portion of our nation that wears uniforms. Athletes. I'm not going to, though. Another day, another post. I only give it to you a little at a time, like a drug dealer. I'm getting you hooked on the BlazeBlog. And yes, this was an entire parenthetical paragraph! I clearly have no editor.)

I don't know what this teacher's uniform should look like (though there should clearly be a "dress" uniform option for parent teacher conferences, media interviews, and prom). Perhaps Project Runway could use this as a challenge next season. I shudder to think what they would come up with. However, even with that fear,  I don't really care, as long as it looks traditionally "sharp". 

Oh, and don't make me look like the postal service. Those uniforms aren't getting anybody any respect.

Someday we'll all smell like feet

This week is the best week in America. Two great American traditions are combined: The NCAA men's basketball tournament and Spring Break. Today, my history kids seeded a tournament of the most influential Americans while a tournament game played in the background. When I was in high school, we had the same arrangement. There was one key difference: I had to watch whatever game CBS had on, and it was fuzzy, because my teachers were getting the signal over the air, on a coat-hanger wrapped in tinfoil. My students got to glance at a game in glorious HD.

Did I spring for an HD antenna? Does my school have HD service? No and no. We used the Internet to watch the games.

This is a great example of the best and worst parts of the Internet. The Internet was where I found the bracket of American history; a great, topical way to have kids review major historical figures. It also provided a distraction, for me and for the kids. But I think you all are smart enough (and good looking enough to boot!) to already see where that argument is going. I'd like to try to explore a different issue with the Internet. Namely, the way the Internet has turned us into a society of 13 year old boys.

So, let's first gain a basic understanding of the things which are acceptable for 13 year old boys to do that are probably not great for a society writ large to do:

13 year old boys love to do most of the following:

Make fun of each other

Poke girls

Stare at girls

Talk to people who think the same things they think

Hang out with their friends

Not shower

Know everything

Complain about how adults just don't understand

So, what do we do on the Internet?

Well, according to Optnet 37% of the Internet has nakedness. So, I suppose the first way that society is becoming like a world run by 13 year olds is the poking and looking at girls categories.

While I once confiscated a phone during class that a student was using to look at porn, I don't think that this impacts schools all that much. Young people have always been interested in what the other half looks like in their birthday suits; all this has done is change the way they find out.  

We make fun of each other: This article at Slate is an interesting look at how me make fun of people on the Internet. He points out the reality that we all understand, that the people we are mocking for any number of foolish things they've been caught on camera doing are real people. I'm just as, if not more, guilty as anyone. I ran student responses that were patently ridiculous. I think the perceived anonymity of the Internet makes it easier to say things about other humans we would never say in person.

I understand that this argument is hardly a new one. However, I think that this impacts education, which is what this blog is theoretically about. You see, students have become more and more focused on cultivating this ironic sense of humor. They spend much more time trying to be funny than actually learning.

We check up on things constantly - Like impatient children in the back of the car, we're constantly asking, "are we there yet"? We check our status, our email, the comments on our blog.

In school, students and parents now have what amounts to constant access to constantly changing grades. This seems like it would be a great thing for student accountability. However, in reality, this just means that students are more likely to hound teachers to grade late work. In the past, there was a "day of reckoning". Students used to have to act like adults and self-monitor their progress. Their parents, in most cases, were kept in the dark. Students either took care of business or got punished. That's how it works for adults. But now, thanks to grades on the Internet, parents never let their children fail.

We think people care what we think - The Internet has made it so very easy to publish your thoughts, and to let people read those thoughts. This means we learn to overvalue our own beliefs. We think that our thoughts are important. I'm just as guilty of this as anybody, obviously, since I'm writing a blog and hoping you're reading it. This is just like middle schoolers writing crappy poetry and songs. They think people care what they feel like. Now all of us feel that way.

This has always infected high schools. There have always been high school students who thought that the world wanted to know what they thought. But now, since adults continue to  believe that beyond adolescence, students feel even bolder about sharing their emotions. It's not a bad thing, but it can take away from the educational mission.

We insulate ourselves with people who think like us - The Internet has allowed adults in society to do what middle schoolers notoriously do. We have become very cliquish. This hurts society as a whole because we live in a democracy, and in a democracy people must understand other peoples' points of view. The more we insulate ourselves, selecting news sources that meet our predetermined attitudes, the less open we are to others. The less open we are to others, the harder it is to reach compromise, and the less the country is successful in moving forward.

Parents increasingly want schools to teach their specific beliefs as facts. All other facts must be subordinate to their beliefs. As a social studies teacher, I am accosted by parents who want to know how I dare to talk about issues which they don't agree with. I feel that the more society segments itself into these self-selected groups, the less parents will be willing to have their children exposed to new ideas, which may be in opposition to their beliefs at home.

Parents have access to never let their children grow up - I think that this is the biggest problem with the Internet and education. The more grades are available online, the more email allows for quick, easy, confrontational conversations with educators, the more students lack the maturity to self-advocate; the more education will backslide. You see, the more parents intercede, the less students are allowed to succeed, because they are protected from failure.

There is resistance to this stagnation, to this over-protection. Audrey Monke, of Gold Arrow Camp, has written about the movement here .

The good news is that the Internet hasn't caused society as a whole to shower less. Except for that portion of Internet users who use the Internet to mostly play World of Warcraft. They shower even less than 13 year olds.

The STARS system of behaviour support

Friends, please allow me to apologize for my lengthy absence from our internet meeting place, the BlazeBlog. I have been on a semester-long sabbatical from my educational think-tank, Edu-tastic, working on a new way to revolutionize education in America.

I know that many of you are familiar with my attempts to return American education to the roots that made it great, so few years ago. I believe, as I have stated in places such as this publication, that students must be held accountable; both in behaviour and in academic endeavours. In fact, I have gone so far as to introduce the Octagon Of Punishment. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the OOP, I encourage you to peruse the linked post. It is a simple system, that when combined with the STFU method of student discipline, I genuinely believe will revolutionize education.

However, some prominent educational philosophers, as well as scientists from the Federal Government's Air and Space exploration program, private sector workers and public school teachers, have approached me, and have accurately pointed out that there is room in education for positive reactions to students. They argue, rightfully, that no matter how much I wish it wasn't so, students live in a society which rewards them for everything. This culture is what the OOP rebels against, but we must also recognize the reality of the situation. Therefore, in an attempt to counteract other programs, such as Positive Behaviour Support; which I feel is often an excuse to stop disciplining students, and instead reward them with trinkets, I have created a new system to help the progressive educator balance the need for rewarding good behaviour with the stated goal of moderating the effects of the "constant rewards for mere acceptability" society.

The cadre of professional educators and members of the business community with whom I developed this program spent long hours of discussion on the merits of our system. We evaluated, asked for feedback from other teachers, and revised our plan. It is with this knowledge of the hard work and time that went into the development of this program that I am proud to reveal to you, for the first time ever, the Student-Teacher Appropriate Reward System (STARS) of student rewards:

I will undoubtedly write more on the implementation of the STARS system in a later post for this publication; for now, I'm going to make several important points about the STARS system.

1. Please note that the system does not provide you with specific rewards. Instead, it attempts to categorize the different types of rewards. We have divided these rewards into two categories, Tangible and Philosophical. We believe that students should receive rewards on both sides of the star, culminating at the top where they are treated as adults, which is both a tangible and philosophical reward. 

2. Also, note that the star is not intended to be shared with students. It's shape, borrowed from centuries of Masonic tradition, should remind teachers that the STARS system must remain secret from students. Use it as a guide for how you reward students. If you publish it for student consumption, you move all rewards into the "transactional" category, because students will stop acting intrinsically, and begin to act to receive certain rewards, which is the problem the system attempts to alleviate.

3. As I mentioned, the STARS system is still in a beta phase, which means I will be happy to hear your suggestions in the comment section of this webpage.

Thank you for your continued support, and I look forward to sharing the specifics of the STARS system with you.

I remain,
Yours,
Richard Johncock, pHd.