Battling 'Just Tell Me What to Do'.

I was caught completely off guard this week during pre-enrollment by a student comment: "Why can't we just have Junior English? Just tell me what to take. I'm not going to like it anyway." 

The student hit me, hard. At first, I didn't understand how he could say such a thing, and my initial reaction was frustration. We had made a fairly major shift within the ELA department, eliminating on-level Junior and Senior English from the curriculum and replacing them with high interest and high relevance semester class offerings.  We had spent a great deal of time crafting the change, drawing on ideas from the past and dreaming big for the future, focusing and refocusing our purpose, and drawing on student input to help develop the curriculum. It wa a team effort, and the administration and BOE had been extremely supportive, asking the important questions and expressive the appropriate concerns which revolved around one principle: What is best for our kids? We had polled students about what courses they felt they would gain the most from, and we had drawn from research students had done regarding what should be done to improve education. Our semester courses now include Passion Pursuits, a research and writing class that allows students to research a passion they hold and then use that research to do something bigger. That had been a part of our Senior English curriculum for some time, and we did not want to lose it; in fact we want to expand it. That semester is required during the junior or senior year. We now offer War Literature, Pop Culture Literature, Media Criticism and Review, Gothic Lit and Fantasy Fiction, Creative Writing, Heroes and Mythology, and Technical Writing and Lifelong Reading. Dual credit classes are now a part of the course offerings. Our seniors are a little upset with us because they wish we had made the change earlier. Graduates have emailed or tweeted us about how much they wish they could have been a part of this change. 

And here is a student complaining that he wishes he didn't have to choose what was interesting to him and could just be told what to do. 

I lamented the comment and my frustration in the hallway. Hallway collaboration is a key part of my personal development as a teacher. Our hallway is populated with amazing people with incredible minds, and I try to tap into that wealth as much as possible. Later, one of those teachers Voxed me about the conversation we had. We do that a lot, and our collective minds usually lead to something positive.

Many of our kids, much like many of our teachers, have been trained to do what they are told. Student voice and student choice require them to take ownership of their learning. It is not that they do not care or do not want to be active in their learning; some of them just do not know how to do that because they have never been given that power.  We encourage our gifted students to "enrich their learning", but the majority of our students have been driven to, basically, just get as many answers right as possible. Pass the test and do what will earn the points to get a passing grade. That is what they have learned to do. And the truly bothers me. Here is an opportunity for  each student to decide how he or she wants to improve as a writer, a reader as a learner, to select what is most interesting and relevant to him. And he was complaining. 

After thinking about it and discussing it, I came to realize that he was not really complaining about the choices and options: he was complaining about how he had been taught to approach his education for 11 years. School was something that had been done to him.  Now the rules were changing, and it was making him uncomfortable. As we have tried more and more to involve our students in owning their learning in our individual classrooms through PBL, inquiry, and more, we have seen it before. When we have tried to guide students to initiate, extend, enrich, and demonstrate their learning, some students immediately want to be told what to do. The freedom and uncertainty can be scary. "How much do I have to do to pass/get an A?" is a common query, especially from honors students. The grade has always been the goal, the prize, and we have ingrained that into their thinking. It has been our fault, and it is our responsibility to shift the thinking back to learning, back to thinking. We need to recapture the excitement we see in our elementary kids. Some students are hungry for that, and they are feasting in our classrooms and in our building. As they do, they ask less and less often about grades, and they take more and more risks in their learning. Others are less comfortable, not because they are being obstinate or do not want to learn, but because they honestly understand their learning, their education, in such a way that makes owning their learning somehow wrong, or at least unexpected. As with every lesson, we have to demonstrate how this is relevant, how it will benefit not just all of our students, but each student as an individual. 

In other words, I need to be a teacher. I need to facilitate each kids' learning, even if it is learning about owning his own learning. If I can do that, then we all learn more. And we all win.

I Have a Right to Be Frustrated.

I have a fairly strong memory, especially for conversation and events. Sometimes, that is a true blessing. Sometimes, it can drive me nuts. Sometimes, it can do both.

One Sunday afternoon during football coaches' meetings one recent fall, we discussed how poorly a group was playing. It may have been offensive linemen taking the wrong steps, defensive backs not making reads, or linebackers continually going under blocks. That does not really matter. What matters is that they just kept doing "it" wrong. They did not seem to get it. Darn kids!

I remember what Coach Warner said as we broke up the meeting to prepare as offensive and defensive staffs for the next week. "If they are not doing it right, then that is our fault. They're kids. We're coaches. It's our job to coach them up."

Today, I was incredibly frustrated with one of my classes. They just are not getting it. They are not responding to what we are doing in class the way I want them to react. Don't get me wrong: some of them are rocking it. They are rolling with what we are doing, they are learning the process, and they are learn from the process. But the others? They are not. They will not write for this project. When they do, they are not taking what we have learned and applying it. They keep asking the same questions, and they keep making the same mistakes. And I am getting frustrated!

And I deserve to feel frustrated. I truly do. I have that right. I should be frustrated. WITH MYSELF.

All I wanted to do was grind my teeth and wallow in self-pity. But no. For whatever reason, our coaches' meeting discussion popped into my mind tonight. "It's our job to coach them up." Well, shoot. If they are not getting it, that is my fault.

Here is the amazing thing. As soon as I thought about it, ideas started to turn over in my mind. Within five minutes, instead of a clinched jaw and simmering frustration, I had ideas of what I can do as we move forward. Some are ideas I have been holding on to, some are great ones that I have stolen, and one might actually be new, or new to me anyway. All of them are positive and can move us in the right direction. They can help us all learn.

And that, my friends, is win.

Hey, Coach! Let's go to EdCamp!

Monday, USD 313 Buhler will host EdCamp313. I was fortunate to be a part of the planning for the event, and I am truly excited for what is to come. I attended my first EdCamps last summer. I was a part of nEdCamp, in Hesston, Kansas which takes the EdCamp idea and focuses it on literacy and reading, and enjoyed EdCampICT in Andover, Kansas. (By the way, nErdCamp just opened registration for June 2017. If you live in Kansas or will be in the Midwest, you really need to check it out. It has had a massive effect on my classroom and mindset).

EdCamp is a national program that tabs itself as an "unconference". In essence, instead of teachers sitting in a room listening to a presenter speak for 45 minutes to an hour and then, maybe, taking questions for a few minutes, educators identify topics that they want to learn more about or collaborate on, and then do just that. The educators lead the discussion, and teachers share their expertise or questions. It is organic, it is collaborative, and it is rewarding.

We had a great group of educators who helped plan for the event. The response from the district and the area has been amazing. Despite this, as we near EdCamp313, many teachers are anxious. The concept is a little different from traditional Professional Development, so that is understandable. However, as the concept becomes clearer, the ideas are beginning to flow. Some are ideas that relate to some of those "forgotten groups" on PD days. In the traditional model, those ideas that popped to mind on Saturday before the Monday PD might have been met with the following response:  "That is a great idea. I wish we had thought of that before we set the schedule. We will make a note of it for next time." Yesterday, as those new ideas started to flow, the response was "Sweet! I can see that being a great session!" Put yourself in your students' shoes. If a student came up in class and said he had a unique view on Poe's use of color in "The Masque of Red Death", and I replied, "Hold on to that thought. I will talk about it with my classes next year. I already have my plans written for this unit," I would lose that student for the day, and probably for the year.

I consider myself a blessed teacher, for many reasons. One blessing I have is that I not only work with students in the upstairs south hallway at BHS, but also in the weightroom, on the track, and on the football field. I have amazing colleagues in every one of my classrooms. Coaches, honestly, have been doing EdCamps for a long time. When coaches go to coaching clinics, they will listen to terrific speakers, and usually take notes and ask questions. However, the real growth occurs in the hotel lobbies, at the restaurant, and in the rooms after the sessions officially end. Napkins, table clothes, and mirrors become learning tools and dry erase markers scribble secrets and innovations that change the outcomes of games the next season or drive workout in the off-season. Coaches will listen to a "big-timer" speak, and two hours later, that same coach is sitting in a hotel room listening to his audience members point out flaws or tweak his ideas to be even better. A group of six or seven coaches will meet up by accident in the lobby and "skip the next session" because they are hashing out how to adjust to no-back set motion because one of them beat a common opponent the year before.

EdCamp basically says, quit feeling as if you are "skipping a session"; those meaningful discussions actually should be the sessions themselves. Don't feel bad about it. Do it more often. Think of it as hallway collaboration with your most talented colleagues, but the hallway is much, much larger. Oh, and by the way, while you are at it, get the emails or cell numbers for those guys you sat around the table with, and check out how their teams do next season.  Call them, tweet tweet @ them, or email them with congratulations and questions. Keep picking their brains.

Keep growing.

That is what EdCamp313 will be about tomorrow. Growing, building connections, collaborating, and improving.

And that is exciting.

What Sign Hangs on Your Door?

Christmas break in Kansas always offers something special. Some Christmas breaks have been white, with inches of snow piled up and the roads slushy and sloppy. Other years, break has been windy and cold, but dry. This year, a week after Jack Frost made a bold entry with lows around -10 and blowing snow, Kansas did what Kansas does, and flipped the script entirely. What does that mean? It means that highs in the 50s and sunshine made it really difficult to put off exercising over break. So, I hit the streets to try and combat the effects of my students' amazing generosity with food in the days leading up to break.

As I was walking my route through the streets of Hutchinson, I was faced with a decision as I came to an intersection. I looked right and saw one sign.

I then looked left and saw another sign.


The decision was obvious and easy, and I hung a sharp right. And then I started thinking. Walking on a pleasant Kansas afternoon lends itself to doing that.

I tend to see meaning in things. A metaphor in a line of poetry, a lyric in a song, colors in a setting description in a novel, the clothes a character in a TV show wears, the angle from which a scene is shot in a film. My son and daughter have inherited the habit, and I am happy about that; it causes them to think more deeply about what they read, hear, and see.  Sometimes, I think my school kids think I overdo it a little bit. I am an English teacher, so cut me some slack.

So, I started thinking about those signs. They were positioned so closely, on opposite sides of the same intersection, and yet, they are so different.

Which sign would I want someone to hang outside my classroom door? The choice, for me anyway, was simple. Obviously, I would want "Children at Play" adorning my classroom door, if I had to choose. "No Outlet" is just the opposite of what I would want a kid to think of when he or she walks into my room. That sounds like torture to me. No way to let anything out. No way to get out. A trap, a cage, a dead end. If a student feels that way about a classroom, or about school in general, why in the world would that kid make any effort, or see any purpose in being there?

Let's look a little closer at that "Children at Play" sign. That sign is there for the drivers. It is an announcement to look out, be careful, and pay attention. Kids are being kids. They are playing. Don't mess that up and turn something so perfectly child-like into something scary and tragic because you are in hurry or too preoccupied to notice what is going on in front of you, to see children doing the very thing that children are supposed to do.  The sign is there so the children can play and can feel comfortable enough to let themselves play. It might be tossing a ball, playing roller hockey, jumping a homemade bike ramp, or creating chalk masterpieces at the end of a driveway. It might be playing some new game that doesn't even have rules yet, and just develops as they play it. That's what kids do.

So, if I had to choose, I would want "Children at Play". I know that not everything we do in my classroom is going to be 'fun', but I want kids to feel comfortable in my classroom, comfortable enough to play a little. To skin an intellectual knee now and then because they feel they can take a chance and try something new, or stretch themselves in something they are good at without the fear of being blindsided by some thoughtlessness that barrels through. I would want the sign to remind me to pay attention, to see what is going on in front of me. Maybe to even take part in the game, or help prop up the ramp so they can catch a little more air.

The choice is obvious and easy.

So, as the new semester kicks off, what sign would you want hanging in your classroom?

Reading, Like Winning, Is a Habit

Vince Lombardi once said, "Winning is a habit. Unfortunately, so is losing."

He was right. One could easily plug in other habits, both positive and negative, and the statement would hold true. Take, for example, reading. Earlier this week, during a Senior Exit Interview, I found it hard to restrain my excitement when one of my students uttered the words "Reading is becoming a habit." I cannot think of a better Christmas present from one of my students, although Sydney's coconut dessert bars and Allyson's homemade cookies do come close.

Today was the last day of classes for the fall semester at BHS. We have experimented extensively in our hallway this semester, trying or expanding flexible seating in several classroom, diving headlong into student-guided project-based learning, implementing a 10 minute sacred reading time in some classrooms, and, in general, just trying to find new and effective ways to engage and learn with our students. I am blessed to have a team full of brave souls who will kick the side out of the box, explore what possibilities exist, and then either rebuild the box into a boat, rocket, or terrarian or burn the dang thing, whichever makes the most sense for our kids. It makes life in our hallway exciting, for me and for our students, and it is incredibly freeing.

In our senior classes, we have long used project-based learning to extend research and "doing something" with what our students have learned in areas that they are particularly passionate. We are in the midst of this process as the semester ends, as seniors have completed the initial research and have written proposals of what they hope to do with or springboarding off of that learning. Greg Froese and I decided that we needed something other than a traditional final at this point, something that would allow us to engage with the students and entice them to reflect on their second to last semester high school life.

We settled on a form of Senior Exit Interview. While somewhat exhausting over these last few days of the semester, they have been something I wish I had been doing every year.

The one-on-one conversations that I have always found worthwhile are happening with each student. As they prepare to present evidence of growth and learning and answer questions about how they could improve, the anxiety levels rose, but not excessively high. Questions were raised about the need to "dress professionally", resulting in my giving up one of the teacher's most treasured days, Jeans Day, as I agreed to forego that luxury and maintain my professional dress as well. They gathered evidence and wrote a letter of application, stating their current grades and explaining what adjustments were in order, and why.

During these interviews, I asked each senior about our 10 minute time, a  period of sacred reading time we have at least four days a week. In one senior class, we call it Tyna Time, in honor of one young lady who complained about how much she hates to read when we started it. Not a single student, not even Tyna, expressed negative feelings about the time. I learned a great deal about their thoughts about reading as well as what we as a school may have been doing to our kids' love of reading.

"I'm in a lot of activities and sports, and I work. I don't have very much time to read. Reading time gives me a chance to actually read." This statement was from a wrestler, but it was echoed by multiple students. In our conversations, a common thread emerged. At the very time when our students should be reading more, and at higher levels, than any other time in their school careers, they are reading less. Look at our examples of the "best" students in our schools. These individuals are "well-rounded", which means they are involved in activities, they play sports, they hold leadership positions, they take college and AP classes, they work weekends and evenings, they take part in youth groups, and they help out at home. We want them to do those things, and we celebrate those that do. Think about that. Is it any surprise that those kids are giving only the quickest skim of reading assignments and abandoning reading for pleasure completely? Over and over again, students echoes that for them the most positive aspect of our 10-minute Time was just that: 10 minutes of time.

Those 10 minutes allow a seed to grow. It allows the habit of reading to regenerate for many students. "I find myself reading more during the day now." Be still my heart. Oh, and for you fuddy-duddies who complain about the ubiquitous cellphone? "I used to play on my phone a lot in school. Now, I find myself reading instead." She might have a book in her hand as opposed to her phone, or she might be reading an ebook on her phone, but she is reading.

One major component of our reading time has been student choice. Some of my kids read classics like Gulliver's Travels while others sang short story collections off my shelf. Some read graphic novels. A few read technical articles about topics ranging from fish habitats to welding techniques. I honestly do not care, as long as they are reading and reading closely. After listening to my seniors and after having a "So, what are you reading?" sharing day in my on-level sophomore class, I am more comfortable with this. My sophomores were talking about their reading much as they talk about movies, TV shows, or popular music. How cool is that? Some related the books they have reading the first semester to particular movies or TV series. Some admitted that they had started and dropped multiple books because they cannot find something they like. This resulted in peer-suggestions for books that might be appealing. "Oh, you would love..." began more than one conversation. I am not naive enough to think every kid is 100% invested in their reading, but more students are now, and some who are all in are surprising.

Some people may also argue that the open choice aspect allows students to take "the easy way out". Maybe, but one of my final interviews opened my eyes even more as to why we are doing what is right for our kids. One young lady, one of those quiet kids who has magic behind her eyes that she hides if she can, told me why she loves our reading time. "I'm a slow reader," she told me. She said she always felt like she could not keep up with some of the more difficult books classes have read. She went on to say that the nature of our reading time allowed her to pick books that are "too hard" for her to read in class. She is not worried about keeping up or passing a particular reading quiz. Her worries about being behind the other students or getting lost trying to keep up are gone. So she reads more difficult books, rereading as needed, and she actually enjoys them. She reads them more often, and she understands what she is reading. If she doesn't she goes back and rereads parts of the book, or talks to the another student or her mom, whoever recommended the book. Reading, rereading, reading more challenging texts, finding ways to overcome struggles, and talking about the reading.

And we have not even touched on what "learning" and reflection that comes from all of this reading.

So, I guess in the end, I just want to say that I am encouraged, to say the least. I know this approach to reading is not really new, even in our school, but it seems to always come with some sort of strings attached. Thank you to NerdCamp for reigniting the conversation last summer. Thank you to Sam Neill for her enthusiasm. Thank you Sam, Greg, Amber, Kiley, and John for being the greatest ELA team, and for providing the most amazing hallway collaboration on the planet. Thank you for our supportive administration. Thank you to Janea Gray for not only providing our kids a place they can land in the library, but also for suggestions, support, encouragement, insight, and expertise, not only for our kids, but for us.

And thank you to the young people who walk through my door each day and who stream through our halls. Have a Merry Christmas.

"Love the Way You Lie" and Other Surprising Learning Moments

"Imma tie you to the bed and set this house on fire."

Do I have your attention? Good.

The line above is the closing line of the final verse of "Love the Way You Lie" by Eminem featuring Rihanna. It definitely caught the attention of many of my students when we listened to the song in class a couple of weeks ago. Many of them, when I first hit play on the radio edit version of the tune, belted out the hook along with Rihanna, only to fall increasingly silent as they listened to the verses that followed, growing more aware of just how masterfully the artists crafted their words, and, as a result, how violent the images presented in the lyrics truly were. As one student Tweeted after class: "this song will never be the same."


We had delved into the figurative language, allusions, symbolism, and themes of the song as an extension of our study of the short story "Like the Sun". I love using music and movies in my classroom to try and make our literary studies more relevant for our students. I have known several amazing teachers who share my interest and passion. Sometimes the approach works, and sometimes it is, well, less effective than I hope. Often, I learn more about and from my kids during these lessons than any other time. We examine the video "Crossroads" by Bone-Thugs-N-Harmony as we explore allusion and symbolism. We use "Another Brick in the Wall" as a springboard for a reflective project (I actually found that lesson in an issue of The English Journal during my time at Baker University many moons ago.) Sometimes we examine the ending of Gran Torino during our discussion of tragic heroes and symbolism. Usually, the lessons are initiated by students. Several years ago, while we were studying Romeo and Juliet, a young lady asked if I had every heard Ludo's "Love Me Dead". I had not, so she played it for me. I was just a little confused. She explained that she thought of the song while we read Juliet's speech as she waited for Romeo to visit her, not knowing her new husband had just killed her cousin. She utters these lines:
Give me my Romeo; and, when he shall die, 
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine 
That all the world will be in love with night 
And pay no worship to the garish sun.  (III, ii, 1739-1743)

The discussion with this young lady in my class that followed was insightful. When we speak of love, she explained, we so often speak of destruction, of consumption. "I just love you to death." "I love you so much, I could just eat you up." Here was a young woman in love, if you want to call it that, or in a deep state of infatuation at the least, and she poetically muses about cutting up her lover into tiny pieces and scattering them across the sky to make the stars jealous. That is how much she loves him, supposedly. Ludo croons lines of intense contradiction that somehow fittingly describe such love amazing well. The two pieces have nothing in common, except for everything.

Last year, as we studied the poem "Metaphor" by Eve Marriam, a student suggested looking at th e video Five Finger Death Punch's "I Remember Everything".  We pulled it up on Youtube. The student told me that the poem reminded him of the video because he felt the poem's theme of starting with a new, blank page each day was similar to, and yet starkly different from,  the idea of the video, which he felt expressed the idea that while we all start with a blank page or canvas, every event of our lives, each and every moment, leaves its mark, and the splatterings, sketches, scrawls, blotches, and smears, whether beautiful or gruesome, all become part of the masterpiece that is one's life. That discussion after class became a writing assignment, and an interesting classroom discussion.

Not all of the lessons such as this connect with each and every kids. Some are monumental flops. And, I must admit, I have seen my share of eye rolls and heard the "knowing" sighs when I have talked over the years about a lesson amongst some of my teaching peers. I am blessed right now to be a part of an amazingly supportive ELA team. My colleagues ask the right questions, make suggestions, and support not just me, but everyone on the team as we work to get better and stretch as learners and teachers. It has not always been that way. Maybe I have done it too often, and perhaps sometimes I have reached a little. Maybe. I do not mind defending the choices I make in my classroom.

As part of our recent study, the students had an option of responding to a writing prompt regarding whether it is appropriate or inappropriate to examine songs such as "Love the Way You Lie" is an Honors English class. As I graded papers earlier this week, the work of several students stood out in their arguments for why we should continue such lessons. After reading several of them, I decided it was time I let one of my student's voices be heard. I could have chosen several pieces. One young man's essay struck me, so I spoke to him on Friday and asked if he would be willing to let me use his response in my blog. I wanted to use him as a guest author, if you will. The young man is modest, but he said that he was not opposed to the idea. So, with no further ado, I will allow Mr. Paddy Qiu, a student in my Honors Sophomore English class at BHS, to reinforce just why it is ok to hear songs coming from Mr. Kohls's room, or any room in fact, during class, and that maybe, just maybe, something 'educational' is actually occurring.

Paddy Qiu

Mr. Kohls

Honors Sophomore English

September 20, 2016

“Love The Way You Lie” Thematic Analysis

In society, there is a general consensus on certain discussion topics. As we experience constant breakthroughs intellectually, our attitudes on these topics still remain static. This type of orthodox self-censorship has remained prominent in the general public. A commonly taboo subject for discussion is domestic abuse. The general public deems discussion of this topic inappropriate, despite the fact that it’s one of the most prominent issues affecting the world around us. To bring light to the matter, discussion is a must if we want significant change. In the narrative of “Love the Way You Lie” by Eminem, featuring Rihanna, there is a plethora of figurative language and themes often missed as a whole. Through analyses, I found underlying messages hidden within the lyrics. In this paper, I will be touching upon significant themes scattered throughout and further clarifying my perception of them, because change doesn’t begin with a shout, it begins with a whisper.

In the song’s lyrics, it has a comparatively realistic representation of interactions within an abusive relationship because they express not only the physical aspects, but also the psychological ones. For example, evidently after a negative encounter, the male character states that “But your temper's just as bad as mine is, you're the same as me. When it comes to love you're just as blinded” to imply that the female character abuses him equally. In certain abusive relationships, the dominant party attempts to justify their actions by pointing out the behavior of the other, thereby taking attention away from their own. As a result, it makes the other behave compliantly within the relationship. Another example of a more realistic portrayal of abuse within the song is the attitude acquired from it as stated by Rihanna’s verse, “Just gonna stand there and watch me burn. Well that's all right because I like the way it hurts.” It’s a common myth in society that because an individual is in a destructive relationship, that some part of them must enjoy being in them. That’s partly due to the fact that, as stated in the lyric, the abused tend to convince themselves of that attitude. Many factors contribute to their stance of the situation, but a significant correlation is the abuser’s influence on their victim. As stated in the first example, the abuser takes attention away from themselves and brings it to the negative aspects of the abused, thereby persuading them that they’re not a victim. Therefore, the song not only shows the negative implications of physical abuse, but also the effect of mental manipulation.

Another aspect in “Love the Way You Lie” that’s a necessary point of discussion is the deception, not only to each other, but themselves. For example, the male character stated to his partner that “Baby please come back, / it wasn't you, baby it was me. / Maybe our relationship isn't as crazy as it seems.” In the situation of the verse, the abused character is planning on leaving the relationship once again, and he attempts to bring them back by instilling a false sense of security and hope. As a result, the author presents a situation more commonly portrayed within media. Another example of deception in “Love the Way You Lie” is when the author portrayed deception of one’s self. After the previous lyric, Eminem rapped, “Guess that they don't know you cause today, that was yesterday. / Yesterday is over it's a different day. / Sound like broken records playing over.” In this verse, the male character acknowledged that their relationship was going to a cycle like a record; however, he still is attempting to convince himself that the status of it was still preservable. This aspect of a destructive relationship is something that popular culture often miss. In such partnerships, the abuser, as stated in the previous paragraph, attempts to justify their actions. This is another form of this phenomenon. This denial and deception of one’s self, which the authors cover in many verses, plays a major part in justifying abusive actions. Therefore, though romanticized at some points, the song as a whole puts forward another perspective not commonly touch upon.

Within the song “Love the Way You Lie” by Eminem, there were many underlying messages hidden within the lyrics. The song itself presented a completely new perspective on not just physical aspects of destructive relationships, but also the psychological ones. It also conveyed the point that deception, in most cases, can occur within the abuser, usually to justify their actions. The discussion of this topic in particular, is taboo in most communities. Having dialogue about this subject is a step outside of the social norm, and it brings about reform that will have a significant impact on our future. Change doesn’t begin with a shout, it begins a whisper, and I hope that this allowed you to not be afraid to speak about it.

Get Out of the Way and Let them Learn

A while back, I wrote a blog post titled "Get Out of the Way and Just Listen". It focused on how sometimes, I just need to step back and listen to my kids. My son and daughter teach me on a daily basis, and listening to my schools kids is the most rewarding part of my teaching. Some of you may be saying, "Well, duh. Of course we listen to our kids." Think about it though: how often do we truly listen to them, as opposed to listening for what we want to hear? Did they deliver the "right' answer? Are they asking the same question as was asked yesterday? Are they on task? All important in the listening process, but is it truly LISTENING to what they have to say, actually grasping the nuggets that fall from those fertile minds. Nuggets that might sometimes look like petrified horse dung, but once rolled around a discussion start to gleam and shine. Or not. You never know.

This week, Greg Froese and I are trying something new.  He suggested it and prompted it. He is my partner is asking "Why not?" quite often. This one is a stretch even for both of us. It is scary. We want to listen to our seniors, not just as they answer a predetermined prompt or discuss an open-ended discussion question. We want to listen to what they have in their heads and hearts stemming from our Heroes Unit. So, we stepped back. This is what the assignment looks like on Google Classroom:

I can guess that some of you are critical. Where are the clear expectations of what is to be completed by the deadline? Well, show us what you learned. What rubric will be used to grade these products? Honestly, I do not know, mainly because I do not know what the products actually will be. And that is ok. It is a little scary, but it is ok. What if a student needs accommodations? Is that clearly written into the plan? Actually, yes, it is. The entire process is just that.

In the spirit of disclosure, we did do some discussion, review, and brainstorming before turning the kids loose. There was a bit of guidance. But then it was "Ready? Go!"

Some stared at me in fear. Some stared at me in confusion. Some stared at me in disbelief. And then they were off.  Some slowly, cautiously, as if they were waiting for me to say, "Just kidding. Here's the test!" Some awkwardly, confused by this odd freedom, but somehow feeling it was, maybe, a good thing. Some, well, some didn't actually go. They just stared. They wanted to be told what it was they were supposed to know so they could reproduce it, and they wanted to know the form that such a reproduction should take so they could get it 'right'. They needed to feel their way forward a little.

By the end of first hour, every kid was moving. At least a little. Here is the kicker. They were moving toward the same goal, in every possible direction. One student did not want me to know what she is going to do. It is going to "amazing" and it will be even better if I don't know. I also know for a fact that she dived headlong into her idea and was still swimming in it at the end of second hour. I may need to apologize to her math teacher. I will never, however, apologize for her reaction. Kids were asking about ideas, wondering if pulling in thoughts they had had about movies or books that related to our study but were "not part of the lesson" could be included in their products. Could a creative writing idea be used, or a new comic book hero idea?

I am darn near giddy at this point.

Part of my excitement is fueled by my honors sophomores, who did an independent research activity this week to learn about Edgar Allan Poe. They needed to present the twelve details they learned about his life, lives, and literature in some engaging way. They had to cite their sources and write (PIs). Other than that, they were wide open in their approach. Two students asked me if they could possibly extend the deadline. Why? Well, they write and create music, and had begun writing a piece and wanted to produce a music video that presents their research. By all means, go above and beyond.

I am not sure exactly what will become of this week's approach. I know that for at least a few kids, the freedom is, well, freeing. They are excited, and they are stretching themselves. And I am getting out of the way.

I'll let you know how it goes.