Tempus Fugit

It has been a bit of a roller coaster at my school, so I haven’t had much time or heart for blogging.  Time for writing has flown away in the wind as our little ship weathered a storm.  Yet in spite of the clouds, the people who most embody our mission, like our dear Latin teacher, remind the rest of us why we are here through their evident joy in our work. 

This summer, my humanities partner, our Latin teacher, and I met to try to more closely integrate what we teach.  One example of this integration relates to the concepts of rhetoric.  This year as students learn ancient rhetorical device in Latin, they will study Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech and JFK’s First Inaugural Address and examine how those old Greek and Roman concepts are reflected in modern examples.  One of the best practices in gifted education is to integrate complexity, or big ideas, as an umbrella for our teaching, and that is what we are attempting to do, working together toward accomplishment of our mission to provide for the educational needs of gifted kids. 

Just how important is the concept of a well-articulated mission to a school, a faith community, other non-profit organization, or even a political candidate?  Most folks believe that mission should inform and clarify decision making and behavior (like curriculum planning), answer questions, and help resolve conflicts   It should make life simpler.  It is the core, the heart of an organization, that same ideal I referenced when writing about Simon Sinek.  If the folks who work for an organization believe in the mission, then the work is easy and a source of joy.  If they don’t, then perhaps they will feel disconnected, and the organization will struggle.  The clear mission of our school is the reason I have stayed teaching so long.  While I may not have had time to write during this storm, the people with whom I work most closely helped me never stop thinking about the kids and the reason we all choose to be here.  We are lucky to be in a place where the motivation is so clear.

Four Freedoms Wisdom

My seventh and eighth grade students are now studying the years leading up to World War II, and in connection with this topic, they learned about people who were inspired by Franklin Roosevelt's 1941 State of the Union Address, commonly known as the “Four Freedoms” speech, to create works of art.  After study of these artists, students had to create their own works of art, reflecting on the Four Freedoms today.  While it wasn't the original intent, the assignment gave me insight into their lives.  I learned more about what they worry about, and what is important to them.  Repeatedly, student work demonstrated their concerns about freedom of Internet expression, conflict in the Middle East, and the oppression of women in fundamentalist religious communities.  They reflected on their worries about poverty, the ability of people to marry freely those they love without respect to gender, the availability of health care, interest in dissidents such as Chinese artist, Ai Weiwei, and the fear of most young people since 1945, nuclear war.  Their honesty, depth of concern, and maturity made me sad that they are so aware at such a young age, while at the same time it also made me hopeful about the future.  How lucky I am to be a teacher, to experience the wisdom of youth.  Here is what some students wrote about their work: 

DK:  [The Social Armor:  three suits of armor made with clay of differing malleabilities]

“The third and final set is flexibly baked-solid enough to protect, but soft enough to allow movement and individuality.  This represents the Four Freedoms in countries like the United States, where all four are valued equally, the “to” freedoms preserving flexibility, while the “from” freedoms provide stability.  Naturally, I cannot provide an accurate account of what others would believe about this set as I am a child of a nation adhering to its standards.  Granted, the United States is not perfect, even in this armor.  Some places it is brittle where it needs to be soft, some places it is flexible where it needs to be solid.  But overall, I think the ability to alter between ideologies when it comes to policy is better than being stuck in a single way, with a single answer to all questions.”

AP:  [Four Plexiglass Collage Boxes, shown above] “I chose to make the box for freedom of speech first because I thought it would take the most time.  The freedom of speech box was hard because I have never experienced a time when I wasn’t allowed to say what I wanted to say.  My parents, teachers, and friends have always encouraged me to say what is on my mind.  The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect Internet Protocol Act (PIPA) have been the only conflicts with freedom of speech that I recall.  The absence of freedom of speech has not yet affected me, and I hope that it never will.”

NI:  [In my video artwork, I] involve the audience in connecting the problems FDR faced back in 1941 with those we face today, such as the stock market crash and foreclosures.  Seventy years later, President Obama is faced with similar problems.  It sometimes seems that we are in a parallel world.  Later in the video, I involve the audience with thinking about the importance of the freedoms that we have, and for which we are still fighting—freedoms that FDR urged everyone around the world to have.  However, in the same year as that speech, the US entered into WWII, which ended many economic problems.  We cannot go down that same path, and we have to express ourselves and speak out to make sure our leaders solve problems diplomatically and peacefully, and avoid entering into any wars.  If we were to follow that same path now as FDR had to follow back in 1941, we could find ourselves in World War III, which might be the last war.”

AO:  [Video]  “Many people in the Arab world have seen their speech suppressed as they fight oppressive regimes.  Just last week, three Western journalists were killed trying to expose government brutality in Syria.  It may seem that in the United States, we all have freedom of religion, but after 9/11, many Muslims were targeted for hate crimes and discrimination.  Once again, we are facing an economic crisis and a lot of Americans are struggling to pay their bills. Sadly, after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, we are nowhere near being free of fear.  It seems like we have made a dent in the wall that blocks us from having all four freedoms, but we are not there yet.”

I hope my students are learning from their study of history, figuring out  how to lead through understanding of the freedoms they value.  They fill me with optimism for our future, and I am ever grateful to them all.  

One Less Hero

Living in the Boston area and teaching middle school means that professional sports are often the student-preferred subject of the day in my classroom.  We have had a pretty good run of late; our home town team, the Patriots, is on the way to the Super Bowl this Sunday, and last year, the black and gold of the Bruins dominated the fourteen and under fashion scene as the team brought home the Stanley Cup. 

My observation is that kids still look up to sports heroes; the faces of middle school boys often take on a fierce intensity when talking about their favorites.  Brady and Gronkowski are the men of the hour, and in the spring, it was goalie Tim Thomas of the Boston Bruins. 

So for me as a teacher of civics in the Boston area, last week was tough.  Kids look up to Thomas, yet he refused to travel with the team to Washington to be honored by the President of the United States.  Well, that is his prerogative, I guess, but sometimes when kids are watching us, we have to just suck it up and do the right thing even though it might cost us a little personal energy.  It was not a political event or endorsement of the President, but rather just a chance to be recognized by our Head of State and the leader of our country.  Thomas’s refusal made me feel sad because so many kids admire him, and he does set an example.

In my classroom, we talk a lot about politics, both historical and current.  One of my rules is that students are free to express their own political views; however, they may never speak disrespectfully about our elected leaders or their spouses.  My philosophy is that in discussing civics, we must be civil. 

We have great kids at Sage, yet I sometimes feel that we are fighting a battle against the negative influences that surround them.  Loss of manners and civility, and disrespectful behavior toward the institutions that we should protect, like the Presidency as a symbol of our representative democracy, abound.  While this was even true when I was a child with respect to soldiers coming home from Vietnam, this lack of civility seems more pervasive today.  The symbols of our democracy mean much more than the person holding the flag, the man who holds the office of the Presidency, or the individual man or woman in uniform.  How can we teach our children to revere and honor these symbols of our country when the adults, especially those adults kids think of as heroes, cannot set aside political differences to be recognized by our President in a non-political setting?  How do ordinary teachers combat this powerful, yet negative, example in trying to instill a sense of pride and respect for our institutions?   

My mom has been Kennedy woman since 1960, and whenever we talked about politics before Ted Kennedy’s death, she always took pride in the fine example of Senator Kennedy’s celebrated friendship with Orrin Hatch.  She held it up as a model for public servants and for my sisters and me to find common ground with people with whom we might not agree.  As Senator Hatch wrote upon the death of Senator Kennedy:

 

“I hope that America’s ideological opposites in Congress, on the airwaves, in cyberspace, and in the public square will learn that being faithful to a political party or a philosophical view does not preclude civility, or even friendships, with those on the other side.”

Too bad Tim Thomas didn’t listen to Orrin Hatch.

Bad Days

“If you are a person of an inner path,

            then you

are a person of peace, so make peace with

yourself and your surroundings.”

                                                       Ezzeddin Nasafi*

We all have bad days at work, even the lucky people who love their jobs, like me.  One of the hard things about being a teacher is that to be really good, you have to make yourself vulnerable.  This means that we commit heart and soul to the work and are open to a particular tenderness when we feel we have lost the confidence of a student, a colleague, or a parent, even when our work has been the best it could be.  I have known many teachers who truly suffer when this happens: sleepless nights, lack of appetite, even tears.  Anguish is not an exaggeration.  Sadly, some folks take advantage of this vulnerability in teachers, yet people still stay in the profession because the rewards outweigh those bad days.

The best advice I ever received for coping with those inevitable downs came from one of the wisest educators I know, my boss for many years and the person who first gave me the book with the Nasafi poem.  Kate always reminded me to look for the best, to find the solution that would work most optimally for the student, the person for whom we really work.  I think that in doing so, we satisfy our core beliefs and motivations, the reason many of us are teachers in the first place.  We love teaching and education. 

Bad days are always going to be a part of life, in teaching, any other profession, and in our personal lives.  We can try to find peace by acknowledging and accepting this inevitability.  We can quiet turmoil by sometimes letting go of our own egos to allow others help us with the work, or at other times by just lifting our chins, putting on a smile, and stepping forward to strive toward the best solutions.  Luckily for teachers, to see that light in a child’s eyes on another day can make that bad day, just a memory.

* Nasafi, Ezzeddin. "Oh, my friend."  Intractor, Sam M. and Scribner, Megan, Eds.  Leading from Within: Poetry That Sustains the Courage to Lead 135. 

Outside the Box Part 2: My Colleagues

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In The Courage to Teach, Parker Palmer, wrote, “If we want to grow in our practice, we have two primary places to go: to the inner ground from which good teaching comes and to the community of fellow teachers from whom we can learn more about ourselves and our craft”  (Palmer 141).  Every teacher remembers his or her own time as a student, and we hope gives credit to those folks, the first people outside the box of our own classrooms to inspire our best work.  Those honored teachers are Part 1 of the experiences we bring to that effort.  Part 2 comes later, for if we are lucky, we also have the opportunity to observe our colleagues, and recently before our winter break, I had just that chance. 

On this particular day, our kindergarten class was studying the short o vowel sound, the sound we hear in box, fox, outside, or socks.  After an exciting lesson together on the rug, (imagine a teacher who can make vowels exciting!) some students completed a practice exercise compiling a small book, and in this book, they read about and drew many strange animals and objects, each inside a box.  As I watched those students hard at work, one drawing a big gorilla to put into a box, I realized that I was doing exactly the opposite, stepping outside my classroom box. 

Palmer says that, “[w]hen we walk into our workplace, the classroom, we close the door on our colleagues.  When we emerge, we rarely talk about what happened or what needs to happen next, for we have no shared experience to talk about.  Then, instead of calling this the isolationism it is and trying to overcome it, we claim it as a virtue called “academic freedom”: my classroom is my castle, and the sovereigns of other fiefdoms are not welcome here” (142).  Whether or not I agree with the latter part of his reflection is a subject for another day, but it is true that the nature of our profession is such that we usually have few opportunities to see our fellow teachers at work. 

My pre-holiday observations were a part of our faculty development/evaluation at Sage.  While the process is still quite new for us, the classroom visit portion basically goes like this: each teacher is assigned an intense observation team every three years, and team members are to observe that teacher at least twice during the year.  My work life has been a little crazy lately, so I didn’t schedule my recent observation times until the last minute.  Yet instead of resistance about visiting their “castles,” both of my colleagues, a kindergarten teacher and a 4^th/5^th grade math teacher, were most gracious, warmly welcoming me to watch them at work.  In doing so, they not only moved toward melting their own isolation, they also gave me an opportunity to share my experience and dissolve my own seclusion.

If I had to choose one word to describe both of my colleagues that day it would be joyful.  Of course, teachers are always a little nervous having someone observe, but it was clear that after a few minutes, the kids fully absorbed all their attention, and I was forgotten.  The enthusiasm of these teachers and the conversations and writing that followed my visits energized my return to my own students.  The same has been true for every observation I have completed over the last two and a half years.  While ostensibly the process is intended to help the teacher being observed, I benefitted as much or maybe even more. 

So thanks to Julie, Rick, Gina, Shauna, Manisha, and Gary, the teachers I have been privileged to observe since we started this process at Sage.   Along with those folks who inspired me as a young girl, they have reminded me of what is best in the classroom, even though they teach completely different age levels and subjects from my own.  The content doesn’t really matter; rather, it is the teaching.  In sharing their experiences, they have made me a better teacher.

Mixing Up Emotions

In his classic summary regarding evaluation of curriculum for gifted students at the secondary level, Harry Passow wrote that the goal of curriculum development and selection should be to enable students to “acquire the knowledge, skills, insights, attitudes, and motivations which will enable them to . . . deal competently with themselves, their fellow men, and the world about them as human beings, citizens, parents, and participants in the ‘good life,’” and “[t]o provide the self-understanding, inner consistency, and ethical standards to see their own uniqueness in terms of responsibility to society.”  In keeping with this philosophy, Sage middle school students study one of the most troubling chapters in United States history, the American eugenics movement, the false science of Social Darwinism.  Unfortunately, many people feel squeamish even talking about gifted education because they associate it with ideas about Social Darwinism, and as noted below, there is a connection.  Yet that is also why it is important for our kids to learn about this difficult and painful history; it is one more way to help them understand their responsibilities to society.  

Using some of the cast of characters in the early gifted education movement as a hook, middle school students at Sage learn that Julian Stanley, founder of the Center for Talented Youth, characterized Francis Galton as the grandfather of the gifted education movement (Davis and Rimm 2004, 6).  However, it was Galton who applied the word “eugenics” to the effort to “improve the race” (Facing History and Ourselves 2002).  Naturally, students feel conflicting emotions when discussing Francis Galton.  They are, thankfully, repulsed by the very concept of eugenics.  However, our students have also been labeled gifted and have certainly benefited from their targeted education.  The dissonance students may encounter when they think about Galton presents the educator with opportunity to move toward Passow’s goals in processing these feelings with students.  Students become invested in their study of the American eugenics movement because they have a connection to the history.  It also presents the occasion to remind students that human beings are complicated; we have positive and negative personality traits, behaviors, and for some, legacies. 

At Sage we make many of our curriculum decisions so as to focus on what it means to be humane, decent, wise people, a philosophy in keeping with our mission and core values and a best practice in gifted education.  In addressing the need for affective education and character development as components of sound programming for the gifted, James Delisle wrote, “[i]f educators and parents are to benefit the children in their care most fully, an emphasis on this emotional aspect of learning and on the interdependence we all share is a prerequisite to self-appreciation, personal growth, and the development of empathy and character” (Delisle, 2001)*. 

Delisle also posits that, “world and national history are vehicles to traveling the route to self-discovery” (Delisle, 2001). Study of the American eugenics movement can help meet Passow’s goal to guide students toward self-understanding and to challenge them to develop the ethical standards needed to become responsible members of society, our primary goal at Sage.

*Delisle, J. (2002). “Affective education and character development: Understanding self and serving others through instructional adaptations.” In F. Karnes & S. Bean (Eds.), Methods and Materials for Teaching the Gifted (pp.471-494). Waco, TX: Prufrock Press.

The Heart of Success

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“We think we are teaching what we know. 

We hope that we are teaching what we believe.

But really, all we can ever teach is who we are.”

Rabbi Benay Lappe

My own children are grown and recently out of the house, so my geeky husband and I frequently listen to a TED Talk after dinner.   Recently we listened to Simon Sinek on "How Great Leaders Inspire Action."  Sinek asks why people like Dr. King, the Wright Brothers, or organizations like Apple, are successful and answers his question by explaining human motivation using three concentric circles: the inner circle titled, “why” the center circle, “how,” and the outer circle, “what.”  Sinek observes that inspiring leaders think and communicate from the inside or interior belief systems, versus from the rational mind, the area that explains what is or should be done.  Dr. King didn’t tell people what to do; rather, he told them what he believed.  As Sinek says, “people don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.”  If people understand this, they too will be motivated and follow.  The graphic makes perfect sense for if a person works from the heart, the core, or the center, labor feels more like a vocation than a chore, and others can sense this difference.

Of course, teachers are leaders of children.  The same rationale explains what makes great teaching.  Many years ago I attended a summer institute on teaching ethics sponsored by The Curriculum Initiative.  Rabbi Benay Lappe was one of the primary instructors, and at the start of her week with us, she said what all good teachers know, that the best teaching comes from simply maintaining authenticity in the classroom.  Students can usually sniff out a fake in minutes, and they won’t respond with sincere effort.  If you are teaching because you believe in the kids and want to be with them, they will know, and it is this that will inspire achievement.  If you are focused on the outcomes only, those outcomes are likely to be lackluster.

What makes a great teacher is not the lesson itself or gimmicky techniques.  Students are like anyone else, they won’t buy the what, but they will buy in if the teacher wants to be in the classroom and is motivated from the heart. 

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A Pep Talk

 

I guess I didn’t hear the call to duty.  Too busy in the off season profession of many teachers, scraping and painting my house, and I wasn’t able to help solve the debt-ceiling crisis with 40 of my fellow educators.  In case you missed it, on July 27, The Onion reported that an emergency team of 8^th grade civics teachers had to be airdropped into the District of Columbia to help our leaders understand basic principles of governance. 

Eventually, Washington made its last minute deal but not without damaging our credit rating and leaving many citizens disgusted by the partisanism displayed by representatives sworn to serve the whole country.

It was a gloomy summer for national current events, but what does this mean to me as I get ready to go back to school?  Will the events of these past couple of months influence my disposition in the classroom?  My students sometimes think I am corny, but as a teacher of history, English, and civics, I have always felt a responsibility to convey a sense of pride in our system of government, culture, and country, and it's not just an act; I do feel proud.  In spite of imperfections, our foundational documents, like the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Gettysburg Address, or even the more modern Atlantic Charter, are eloquent expressions of what is good about our core beliefs in equality and the potential for all citizens to participate in governance and enjoy economic opportunity.

Yet our government has messed up a lot in the past, and I am worried about the finances of the United States, the inability of our leaders to reach compromise and consensus, and the burden we will leave to the people I care for most: my students and my children.  As teachers, we can’t just be cheerleaders; we have a responsibility to tell the truth about our sometimes-painful history and current state of affairs. 

We can’t sanitize the world for our students, nor should we, but we can present content in a way that creates a sense of hope and optimism.  We can start with Maya Angelou’s premise that,“[h]istory, despite its wrenching pain cannot be unlived, and if faced with courage, need not be lived again.”  We can create lessons that demonstrate the tremendous progress toward recognition of universal human rights the world has made since 1776.  We can draw student attention to the many times in history where leaders did innovate and achieve consensus in the face of great crises.  We can empower kids with the understanding that they have the abilities to be problem solvers and the types of leaders who will see beyond self-interest.

So, as an educator, I will be energized, not gloomy, as I enter a classroom full of middle schoolers this September, in spite of the dismal summer.  I get to be surrounded by hope.

To Teach or Not to Teach?

One month after the 1885 publication of Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the Concord Public Library, home of Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, and the Alcotts, voted to remove Twain’s book from the library for fear that Huck, “rough, coarse, and inelegant,” would be an immoral influence on young readers.  Louisa May Alcott, sharp in her criticism, noted that, “If Mr. Clemens cannot think of something better to tell our pure minded lads and lasses, he had best stop writing for them.”  As one literary historian remarked, “Jo March would not be allowed to play with Huck.” Jehlen, Mary, "Banned in Concord"

While for different reasons, Huckleberry Finn remains as controversial today as it did in the 1800s.  The Concord Library thought Huck was a poor character model; today’s criticism relates primarily to the issue of race and use of one of the most derogatory words in the English language.  While the folks in Concord thought Huck was of poor character, times have changed, and Louisa Alcott seems to have missed the entire point about Huck’s worthiness as an example for others, yet our concerns today make it still questionable as to whether middle school kids should read Huck Finn.

And that is why I keep reevaluating.  Over the past couple of weeks, my students have been reading Huckleberry Finn.  I have been teaching this novel every three years or so for the past fifteen years, and I struggle every time as to whether or not to keep it in our curriculum for gifted seventh and eighth graders.  Each time I read Huck Finn, I am more astonished by the complexity of the novel and its message.  However, each time I read it with my students, I worry that they may not understand Twain’s satire and commentary regarding slavery, white supremacy, and the heartbreak and lingering lack of self-esteem experienced by children of abusive alcoholics.  The comedy in the novel mixes up our emotions as readers, and on the surface, sometimes seems like the real story.  Yet as Ralph Ellison said, “one of the functions of comedy is to allow us to deal with the unspeakable.  And this Twain did consistently.” The book allows students to see that life in the antebellum south could be complicated and ugly, accomplishing this feat while entertaining the reader.  In order to teach Huck Finn, I have to work hard to challenge my students to look beyond the humor and to note that we are only hearing one side of the story, the presentation of a poor white kid brought up in a racist culture, a boy who struggles with his conscience yet ends up doing what he thinks is the “wrong” thing, but that the reader knows is right, helping Jim to freedom. 

How do I try to do this?  Lots of preparation ahead of time, frank discussion of the n-word, use of Gloria Naylor's essay about her childhood, student essays on reactions to the word, sharing tidbits of the many defenses of the novel, reflections by African American scholars such as Stephen Carter and Toni Morrison, and by reading excerpts to the students of Jocelyn Chadwick-Joshua’s, The Jim Dilemma: Reading Race in Huckleberry Finn.  Much has been written about whether or not to teach Huck Finn.  A responsible teacher will present the conflict to her students in order to allow them to know how awkward and unsettling it is to teach.  With constant reminders of Huck’s particular lens, I encourage students not only to put themselves in his shoes, but also to step outside the character’s narrative in order to see the presentation objectively.

Is it okay to teach the novel to younger students who may not understand these complexities, to teach the novel just for its humor?  Since I constantly ask myself about whether or not to use Huck Finn at all in our curriculum, I asked my 8^th graders this question.  While almost every single student indicated that she or he enjoyed the novel, they collectively thought no, honestly indicating that the use of the n-word upset them, and noting that only study of the novel in depth with reminders of its satire made it possible for them to understand when they would not have otherwise done so.  Some were even so honest as to say they want to read it again when they are older, indicating they will have better comprehension the next time through.  Maybe they said this because they are quite perceptive of my own feelings.

For now, I will keep teaching Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, but I am sure I will struggle again next time with whether or not to do so, even with daily discussion regarding the complexities and controversies surrounding the novel.  I guess feeling unsettled is best.  

Dancing

I recently had the opportunity to spend a few minutes in our third-fourth grade class, where one of our division leaders teaches humanities at The Sage School.  This man is brilliant and could have been as successful at a major university as he is in a room full of 8 and 9 year olds, kids that look at him with obvious love because he so patiently, respectfully, and thoroughly explains the world to them.  Why does he make this life choice in a world that values materialism and titles, a world that often does not respect teachers? 

Our school is full of people like this, a woman teaching math with two PhDs, an Ivy League epidemiologist teaching sixth graders to write, an internationally recognized artist coaxing kids who pretend they only want to do math into amazing expressions of creativity and more; our faculty is just loaded. 

There are many reasons for our choices, but each reason can be traced to a single motivator, the kids and our relationships with them; there are not many professions where the emotional compensation is as abundant or where the immersion with the people you serve is so complete.  Teaching presents constant opportunities for personal growth.  For example, I learn something new from the kids every day.  Maybe it is some interesting fact, or maybe it is just the ability to see a problem or interpretation of literature in a new way.  Teaching is like dancing with a partner where each person has a chance to lead once in awhile; this reciprocity is the heart of a meaningful relationship.  As in any dynamic partnership, sometimes the students can be challenging, and the adults in the community either absorb energy from the kids or are drained by them.  Teachers must be confident even when a third grader may know more than the teacher on a particular subject, conveying to that child a sense of safety in the world, allowing children to be children with the knowledge that adults will responsibly be the adults.  For really smart kids, this is not always the case.  Sometimes the adults in their lives are either so enamored of the child’s abilities that they interact with the child as if he or she were an adult, or the adult is intimidated and hostile to the child because of that child’s intelligence.  At other times, students are not always wiz kids and struggle, requiring a teacher's patience and the willingness to look into a child’s eyes and to convey that no matter what, you love her or him and the sincerity to really do so.  That’s what makes it work, and that is why we are here.