Flying Off a Cliff

My friends, we have been pushed off a cliff into our current digital teaching, haven't we? Not by anyone being unkind, of course. This pandemic and its timeline were not anticipated by educators. But here we are, at our respective homes, in our respective bunny slippers, worrying about our respective students, trying to figure out our respective tech problems. 

But as we have pretty much settled in, I know that most of us have seen some silver linings in digital teaching. 

Other than our bunny slippers and our lack of commutes. 

I have seen some of you SOAR with your digital teaching -- not like the guy falling off the cliff, but like the superhero flying  off the mountain that you all are (even when you don’t feel like it) 

There are things I know you all have discovered that you love in digital teaching. 

• Maybe it’s DBQ Online
• Maybe it’s having kids use the chat to collaborate
• Maybe it’s stepping down the kids’ workloads
• Maybe it’s virtual field trips
• Maybe it’s Canva for student projects
• Maybe it’s letting go of “right there” questions. 
• Maybe it’s Flipgrid for engaged student responses
• Maybe it’s leaning into the social and emotional side of teaching
• Maybe it’s Safari Montage for safe Youtube viewing
• Maybe it’s some cool resource you’ve discovered you can’t live without. 
• Maybe it’s something else entirely! 

Whatever it is, do me two favors. (please)

First, tell me what is your favorite thing about digital teaching (bunny-slippers-wise AND ALSO teaching-wise). Send me email, chat me, or whatever. I’m not going anywhere, either. 

Second, make a digital note for yourself. And start thinking about how you can use that thing you like from the NOW, from digital teaching when you go back in the physical classroom in the fall. How can you use Flipgrid or digital chats or Canva or whatever? 

Let’s start thinking now about the things we are learning to love about digital teaching -- the ways we are all GROWING as teachers from digital teaching -- and how we don’t pack those great teaching moments away with our bunny slippers when August comes around. Let’s bring our great digital teaching “finds” to school with us and keep those things rolling, just like we’ll keep the hand sanitizer rolling. 

Although I don’t think I will pack my bunny slippers away completely. I am in LOVE with my bunny slippers. 

I know some weeks you think you’re drowning. Some weeks your kids think they’re drowning. 

You’re not drowning and you can make yourself “drown less” (if that’s a thing). 

Remember you are only supposed to be giving 2-3 activities per week that are 20-30 minutes long, right? This is not brick-and-morter-school. Life and school are drastically different. This is hard. We aren’t supposed to be stressing out the students which in turn stresses out the parents which stresses out the administrators which stresses out the teachers! The solution to a lot of the stress (but certainly not all of it) is to give kids (and ourselves) less work.

Slow down. You don’t have an exam. Your kids won’t die if they don’t cover a benchmark as thoroughly as they usually do. Make it fun. Keep it fun, so they keep learning for the next month. 

And then, tell me and make a note for yourself about what worked well and what you can take back to your classroom. 

Hang in there, team. It’s almost May!  And this summer, we can all... hang around our houses some more? 

Anyway, email me and let me know what’s working for you about digital teaching! Like you miss your students, I miss my colleagues! Have a great week! 

-Tracy

They don't care about education

Sometimes, the universe converges so we hear the same phrase over and over again. I heard some version of this phrase at DWT, in classrooms, in meetings, overheard in hallways. 

It was teachers, expressing frustration about their students. Saying some version of “they don’t value (or care about) education”. Sometimes it was about the kids’ parents or families. 

And I totally get being frustrated with your students! I wish I could name all the kids who refused to do anything in my class. It sure looks like lack of caring, lack of value on education! But here’s four that stick out in my mind.

• Corey, who literally didn’t put pencil to paper all semester. He had an 8% in my class. 
• Yasmin, who showed up to school so rarely, I had to look up her name when she finally did. 
• Jeremy, who just wanted to goof off and crack jokes all period. He really didn’t take class seriously and was a distraction to the rest of the class. 
• Brianna, who argued with anything and everything I said (or anyone else, really). She didn’t like the assignments or how I gave them or how I graded them -- so she wouldn’t do them. 

So frustrating! 

I keep thinking back about them and about the phrase I kept hearing this week, about kids who “don’t care about their education”. 

Did I say that about Corey? About Yasmin? About Jeremy? About Brianna? I hope I didn’t. But maybe I did?

Did I actually think about the fact that their brains were in development and not fully “done” yet? That their impulse control and their problem solving skills were not fully formed and imperfect because of biology? Did I think that maybe I didn’t have a full picture of what’s going on in their lives? That while my housing and relationships are stable, maybe theirs are not?

Did I actually presume to make judgments about their inner values based on their adolescent behaviors?

Oh dear god. I hope not.

Did I really know what was going on in their lives? Did I know that Corey had executive function struggles, especially with the“task initiation” part of executive function?  Did I know that Yasmin’s mom was really sick and that Yasmin was skipping school to watch her little sister? Did I know that Jeremy lived with his mom but his dad had come back after being gone for a while and Jeremy was acting out because he didn’t know how he felt about Dad being back? Did I know that Brianna was acting tough and arguing with everyone because she was battling a bully? A bully that was making her feel awful about herself so she was making everyone around her feel awful too?

All that was happening to hormone-uneven, social beings with issues. They’re not fully formed human brains. They're still developing. They don’t make good decisions because the parts of the brain involved in decision-making aren’t fully developed until they’re 25 or so. These kids are nowhere near 25! So of course they're going to make bad choices. It’s part of growing up, not a sign of poor values.

It’s like asking an elementary school kid to dunk a basket on a regulation height hoop. Of course they can’t. They’re not done growing! They're not there yet, even if they’re trying. 

Same with asking a 15 year old to consistently make good decisions. They can’t. They’re not done growing. They're not there yet, even if they’re trying. 

That doesn't mean we don't ask kids to make good choices and we don’t expect them to and we don't teach them how to and we don’t reinforce HOW TO make good choices. Of course we do! 

It means we don’t assume that poor choices on the kids’ part equate to poor values. 

Poor choices equate to mistakes. Period.

I made poor choices when I was their age. You did too. 

A kid who skips school might value education just fine. She might just value not getting beat up by a bully that day even more. If I were in her shoes I might value the same priorities. 

A kid who doesn’t do any work might value education but not know how to start. It might be like how I avoid cleaning out my closet because it’s such a big task and I don’t know where to start. It’s called “task initiation” and it’s a real area of executive function. It’s not a problem with his values. It's a problem with his brain development. He might just need some accommodations. Sometimes, I don’t know where to start either. But I have developed strategies. He might not have those yet.  

A kid going through something emotional will act out. So will I. I was a lousy teacher the year I got divorced, all those years ago. Because while I prioritized my job, my emotions got in the way and distracted me. And I even had a fully developed brain at the time! 

(Remember being a teen and going through a break up and not knowing how to handle it because your brain wasn’t done growing and you didn't have experience to draw from? Ugh! That was so awful and heartbreaking!!) 

So I hope I didn’t make judgments about my kids ... but I probably did, because none of us are perfect. I’ve been caught up in negative thinking, too. So I hope you don’t make the mistakes I did. I hope you don’t take the behavior of poor choices and emotions and partially-formed brains and called those “values” or “caring”. 

Instead, I hope you DO the caring. Remember that these are children. They don’t have your experience or your perspective or your stability or your fully-formed brain. 

I hope you give them the love and support and caring  in your class that will HELP THEIR BRAINS DEVELOP FURTHER AND BETTER. Honestly, not to simplify, but feeling safe and loved and supported is like a cast on a broken bone. It supports the brokenness and lets it heal and grow what and where it needs to safely without being further damaged. 

Getting on their case regularly, yelling at them, or writing them up for not working -- it’s like bumping that broken bone. It doesn't let it heal. 

Kids who struggle have hormones and emotional turmoil. They have social media drama that we didn't have. They have family problems we don’t know about. They have romance confusion we have forgotten about. They have executive functioning struggles and learning disabilities many of us don’t know as much about.  

But 94% of them want to go to college. Most of them care about their education. But that other stuff gets in the way, just like my couch (or my last bout of being sick) gets in the way of my valuing my health and exercise. :) 

How can you help them develop their brains and become stronger students? How can you work to see the caring behind all the crap they have to deal with? How can you bring that out of them in a positive way? I love to hear the amazing things you’re doing? Email me newmantr@pcsb.org

Thank U, Next

I realize that I am too old to listen to Ariana Grande but I do anyway. I refuse to be the kind of person who stopped listening to new music when grunge died.

If you are too old to listen to Ariana Grande, too, you might have missed the song, “Thank U, Next” where she sings to all of her exes and tells them what she learned from them and how ready she was/is to move on from them.

At this point in the school year, you may be ready to say “Thank U, Next” to this year’s group of kids. Some years, I remember feeling that way in February.

“Thanks, kids. Is it time for next year yet? Or at least, is it time for summer yet? When will these children be GONE?!?!?!”

What I really want to focus on, is the ability to learn from anyone who crosses your path -- including the students.

I know THEY are supposed to learn from YOU. But I think you can learn a lot from them, too.

The best way to do that is through an end-of-the-year survey.

Sure, your students have been annoying and ... REALLY annoying ... and some of them have been dishonest or unpleasant or bewildering or even outright nasty.

But you will be surprised at how many of them will be honest and helpful on a survey like this. Sometimes even the toughest kids might open up on this sort of thing.

You can survey them on paper. You can survey them digitally. You can survey them pre-printed (does anyone have any copies left?!) You can survey them on index cards, or with QR codes or on their phones or on plain old notebook paper or in OneDrive or Google Docs or on scantron.

It’s a great thing to do on one of those weird days when you see one group for three hours and the other for 15 minutes.

But just do it.

What  should I ask on a survey?

It depends on what you want to know and where you want to grow....

Here is a huge pile of questions. DON’T ask them ALL! Choose the 5-10 you most want to know about and ask those. You can gear them more toward your management, your lesson planning, your learning activities or your emotional support.

• Which unit was the most interesting to you this year?  
• Why was this unit the most interesting to you?
• Which way did you learn the most? (then, give options like “reading”, “group work”, “projects”, “graphic organizers”, etc.)
• Why do you think these ways were the best?
• If you could go back and start the year/semester over again, would you do anything differently? Why or why not?
• What was the best part of this class?
• What was the worst part of this class?
• What could I have done to teach you better?
• What did I do that was the most helpful to you?
• What was the most important thing you learned this year?
• What could I have done to improve this class?
• What will you remember most about this class?
• What else do you want to tell me about this class?
• Name something that made it hard for you to learn this year.
• What should your teacher do differently next year?
• Did you feel challenged this year? Why or why not?
• How has your confidence in _________ (subject) improved this year?
• What is one piece of advice that you would share with a student who is entering this class next year?
• Did you feel as though I had high expectations of you?
• Explain a time in class in which you were able to overcome a struggle.
• Finish this sentence: “If Mr./Ms. ______ only knew __________________”

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.

Kids are surprisingly insightful and honest on these things.

I know you are end-of-the-year exhausted, but this is totally worth the 5 minutes it will take to pick your favorite questions from above and put them in the format of your choice.  

Your kids will surprise you.

In a good way.

Have any great survey questions I missed? Email me at newmantr@pcsb.org

Dear Future Self

Dear Future Self,

I wrote some notes to you on my lesson plans from this week but you will have no idea what they mean. They were hurried and cryptic. When you try to teach this lesson next year, you will struggle to remember what you did with this lesson.

Did we read this independently or out loud? What reading strategy did we do? How did it work out? Did you have to change it midway through 2nd period? Did they learn it well? Did you have a good processing activity?

Future Self, I apologize for just tucking this reading in a folder with the a sticky note that has 3 words on it. I realize that you are now having to re-create this lesson and that you can’t tell how well or how much the kids learned the last time you did it.

I apologize for not fixing the typos or unclear directions on this handout. I apologize for not making a note about the awesome lesson fix I discovered during 4th period that took the lesson from “ok” to “awesome”.

Dear Future Self, have fun recreating this lesson and doing it Groundhog Day Style -- making the same mistakes as before.

Sorry ‘bout that!  Good luck!

-Love, Me-From-The-Past

* * * * * *

I don’t know about you all, but I am not always the best supporter of Future Me. Future Me would be a lot happier if I ate healthier, exercised more, saved more money, didn’t procrastinate, cleaned out the fridge more often, and flossed more regularly.

One of the ways I can help out Future Me is to make notes about how lessons went this year, so I have something to go off for next year!

There’s nothing worse than being halfway through a lesson and suddenly remembering that it bombed last year. Now what do we do?

It sure helps to reflect in writing so you can save your Future Self some hassle.

There are several ideas about how to do this.

1. If you type your lesson plans, go back into that document and highlight stuff that went well and strikethrough things that went poorly. Or, type in your thoughts into another column or box so you can see it next year. Then, you have to get in the habit of looking at last year’s lessons when your Future Self writes the new ones.
2. You can keep a document to yourself in each folder (digital or IRL) of a unit and jot down your thoughts as you go through the unit.
3. If you hand-write your lessons, go back and add another piece of paper or a couple sticky notes. Put your handouts and thoughts in the same folder to reference next year.
4. Grab a notebook or calender and keep it by your desk (or better yet, somehow keep it by your door). Then, as you stand at your door between classes, you can multitask and jot down a few thoughts under the date.

Now -- here’s the hard part!

Making sure your Future Self can understand the notes you write!

Make sure you don’t assume that you will remember the context 52 weeks from now. Make that context explicit.  Try some of these ideas:

• Don’t call it ”the  video”. Make sure to note what video you used.and what you had the kids do with it . Copy the actual link and the length of the video.
• Instead of saying “read section and did questions”, tell your Future Self that you read the section out loud and that the kids answered #1-3, 5, and 8 and that Question #8 was your formative assessment for the day.
• If you found a discussion question or a turn and talk prompt particularly great, make sure to write that down!

I know that different teachers write lesson plans differently -- but it might be what we write AFTER we teach the lesson that might be more valuable to us next year.

How do you tell your Future Self about how your lessons went? Do you do it at all? How can you streamline your post-lesson notes to make your Future Self more awesome?

As always, I love to hear! Email me at newmantr@pcsb.org