Fighting Inertia in Teaching 21st Century Skills

In President Obama's first speech to the nation, he stated categorically that the United States' educational system is in crucial need of reform. He's not the first politician to say that. He's not even the first President to say that, but for the first time in my adult life, I didn't roll my eyes as I heard it. The reason is that he didn't say "our teachers aren't teaching" and pummel us with "higher accountablility" like every other politician does. He said we will be restructuring the way things are taught from the ground up.It's too early to really tell yet, but I get the distinct impression that he gets it. He really gets it. The world has changed so radically that new teaching methods and criteria are needed in education. The problem is that this is going to be an uphill battle on par with getting universal health care.

A big part of the problem is that for all the talk about 21st Century skills, by and large policy makers just don’t understand them themselves. The federal government wants higher standards to make the United States competitive, but in order to facilitate improvement, they require non-stop standardized testing that flies completely in the face of that goal. Politicians want results, and high test scores are closest thing to a tangible trophy they can get their hands on. Parents and community members often share this perspective as well.

In addition, we are fighting inertia. Countless times I’ve heard variations of “we’ve always done it this way, so that’s the way we should always do it” come from teachers who have been teaching for fifteen years or more. I’ve even heard “why mess with what’s working?” when the evidence has shown that what’s being done is NOT working. What they really mean is it appears to be working for the students who are highly self-motivated. The remainder is left in the dust, and that remainder is growing too rapidly to discount.

Certainly there are teachers who simply don’t want to make the effort to alter lesson plans that are so old they were printed on a mimeograph machine, but I believe a good number are simply frightened of appearing ignorant in front of peers and students. When you’ve been considered the local expert in your field for years, it’s very difficult to admit you don’t know how to do something. I think the most crucial thing we can do to truly initiate change is to get society in general and educational policy makers in specific to realize that education does not end with a bubble filled in on a standardized test.

One of my favorite sections from Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s poem “Ulysses” says it beautifully:

I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough
Gleams that untravelled world, whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.

You can never get to the horizon, no matter how far you travel or how fast you go. The margins of knowledge are also likewise out of reach, and it is the exploration and journey of education that are crucial. That is what needs to be reinforced.

The web gives hesitant students a forum

Years ago, author Neil Gaiman introduced me to a French term that's stuck with me ever since—"L'espirit de l'escalier," meaning "the spirit of the stairway" or "stairway wit." It's the notion that we often come up with the best comeback or reply to an argument or discussion long after we've left. In other words, when we're heading down the stairs after everything is said and done. Who hasn't experienced this? Heck, they made an entire episode out of it on Seinfeld.

I remember feeling that way quite often in high school. There'd be a class discussion, and I contribute far less that I could have because I would be slow to form my thoughts into a coherent answer, while the class know-it-all would have her hand up in the air before the teacher finished his question. If often felt like I was on Family Feud, and my reflexes weren't good enough to hit the buzzer first. If I felt that way, I'm certain that many others who might take several minutes or even hours to formulate a solid answer did as well.

Actually, make that "do as well." This happens in today's classrooms too. Many, many times a "class" discussion is still really three or four eager beavers and the teacher with a captive audience of twelve to eighteen others. It might as well be a panel discussion most of the time. Last year I decided to try it a different way.

In previous years, my senior English would read a poem out loud in class, then I would fish for student commentary on the meaning, the symbolism, the purpose and the like. What I added was an online discussion board. I visit discussion boards daily in my downtime, and thought it would be a great way to extend the lessons beyond the classroom. I created a board on the small Moodle site I'd set up for myself and a few other teachers. I then broke it into smaller forums, one for each period of time we would look at, and I would initiate a thread about each of the works we would cover.

I made it mandatory that the students had to post commentary about each of the works, and that that they reply to at least five other students. All comments had to be school appropriate and on task to receive credit. As I was teaching English, I made correct grammar and mechanics a part of the grade- no txt-spk. The initial post had to be done prior to the in-class lecture/discussion about the work in order for credit to be earned.

One of the first things I found that surprised me was that students generally went above and beyond the minimal requirements. Posts needed to be at least 75 words in length, and many went upwards of 100. They only needed five replies to others, but it was most common to see them reply to ten, or even twenty other posts. More than a few told me it was more fun to write to a message board that sit with pencil and paper.
In addition to getting more verbiage out of them, the quality was up. Kids I honestly thought weren't paying attention were shooting off some extremely well-thought out and eloquent thoughts on works as complex as Macbeth and abstract as the metaphysical poetry of John Donne. Sometimes they were actually more on target than the posts of the kids who would have had their hand permanently raised in the classroom.
But the thing I think surprised me the most was that when we did have that physical classroom discussion, the number of students who volunteered to participate doubled and tripled. Apparently, the cyber-discussions acted as prep for the physical ones.
It wasn't a fluke in my classroom either. As CFF coach I've suggested this approach to a couple of other teachers. Two that stand out are the Senior Honors English class and a health class. The Honors class was essentially a clone of my own experience, while the health class used the boards as a way to have students chime in on current events in the health field. Both teachers reported the same sort of results I did, particularly in that the quiet kids have more to say than one might otherwise think, and they are willing to share it.
If you meet them in their preferred medium.

Great New Video About Education

This is actually a commercial for an online university, but what it says about education holds true at ALL levels.

The future ain't what it used to be

Let's see, at this very moment I have on my person a four gig thumb drive, a one gig thumb drive, a laser pointer (all conveniently hung from a lanyard around my neck to drive home my geekitude to all who see me), and a Blackberry in my pocket that goes off every five minutes when I get new email (how the heck did I get on the Crocs mailing list anyways?). I'm practically in constant contact with my son who's away at college. When the phone isn't beeping for email, it's playing a song telling me he's texting (the theme from Dr. Horrible if you must know).

I have a portable, external hard drive (160 gigs) hooked to my laptop. I have every CD I own ripped and downloaded to it, along with all my school files, personal files and assorted junk-of-my-life. I don't read the newspaper anymore; I get almost all my news online from both large news organizations and small. I subscribe to a number of blogs which I read via the Google sidebar on my screen. Throughout the day, I shoot little messages to my Twitter account via my computer or my Blackberry.

As I'm typing away in my office, I'm often halted by a Skype message, either text or video, from one of my teachers who needs a quick question answered that doesn't require me running down to his room. On rare occasions, I get Skyped from a CFF coach from a different district, the intermediary unit, or even my daughter who teaches down in Annapolis.

When I go home, I seldom turn on the television anymore, at least not right away. I check my personal emails, post a couple of messages on my favorite discussion board, and do a little moderation on the various websites I maintain for people. Sometimes my wife Dolores and I will watch a Netflix movie via their instant service. I can choose a movie online through their website and it's beamed directly to my TV. More and more, I find myself texting or working on something on my computer while I'm watching a movie or TV. Oddly, I don't find myself missing what's going on on-screen (unless it's one of the interminably long segments of Heroes that's in Japanese with subtitles).

All of this makes me one of the rarities among people of my age- I would be considered a digital native. Most folks my age (I'm a pirate who looked at forty a couple of years ago) would fall into the category of digital immigrants according to Marc Prensky, who coined both terms to describe why so many adults just don't get the younger generation's lack of enthusiasm for traditional teaching methodology and are thus called lazy and inattentive. Because of my familiarity and comfort with technology, I was asked to step away from the classroom for a year or two and become my school's Classrooms For the Future coach. My new position is to help teachers in the building incorporate new technological methods of instruction to meet the needs of students in the 21st century.

Thus far this has been a real eye-opener fore me. Despite my background, until very recently I taught the same way I was taught way back in the day when Carter Country was a hit TV show. I had my classes arranged in tidy little rows, and I lectured and gave notes most of the time. I will grant you I am an absolutely fascinating lecturer, but even so, over the last few years I've noticed that lessons that once had the kids leaning forward in their seats to capture my every word are now falling on more and more deaf ears.

I haven't lost my fire as far as I know, but students today don't want to be talked to non-stop for forty minutes at a time six times a day. They are also digital natives, many, perhaps even most, more so than me. If I can't sit still and focus on simply one task anymore, why would expect that they can? Students today need to be engaged.

So I've rededicated my blogging for the foreseeable future towards the idea of education in the 21st century and how I can become a better teacher as well as help inform others who have a stake in not just education, but the future of our country. As I heard another CFF coach say recently, if we are teaching the kids for the world today, we're already twenty years behind.

Did You Know? updated

I've posted versions of this before, but here's an itteration I hadn't seen before, so I thought it was time to show it again.

Somewhat unnerving if you are at all concerned for the future of this country.

Christmas comes a little early this year

The date for delivery of the CFF grant equipment is fast approaching. According to an email from the company contracted to do the installing for us, the installation dates are scheduled for December 16th and 17th. In mid-November we received the first part of our shipment of equipment from CDW-G. We received one teacher laptop and one student laptop so that we could see exactly what we’d be getting. We’ve also received some of the mounting material as well as much of the wireless equipment.

The laptops are Lenovo R500 ThinkPads, and the primary differences between the student and teacher models are that the teacher models include a built in webcam and microphone and have some administrative software on them that the students won’t need to access. Also, the teachers’ memory was upgraded from the standard one gigabyte of RAM memory to two by the district so thanks go out to John, Sue and the administration for okaying that. These computers are a tad heavier than what many would think of for a laptop today, but that’s because they were built to withstand a bit more punishment than one you might buy for yourself from a retailer.

There is an amazing selection of software that is available that is already installed on the computers. Each computer has Microsoft Office 2007(Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, Publisher, Movie Maker, and more), Adobe Design CS3 (Photoshop, Fireworks, Illustrator, InDesign, Dreamweaver, Flash, Acrobat, and more), Inspiration, ITunes , Google Earth and a number of free, Open Source programs. In addition, there is a collection of tools from Microsoft called Learning Essentials which is designed specifically for using Office products effectively in the classroom. Some of these products were new to me, so I would imagine some will be new to others as well.

The district opted not to get MS Vista as the operating system. These computers still run XP, so the learning curve is very slight. Microsoft Office 2007 may be a shock to those who haven’t ever used it because it is a complete redesign of the product from the 2003 version used here in the district. Personally, I like it better. It has several new features that make it much more efficient and workable, but it definitely takes some getting used to, and some people may be a bit put off by the differences.

Meanwhile, I’ve been flitting to and from various points on the map for training on how to best help teachers actually utilize all this stuff, and I’ve picked up a number of great ideas for all curriculum areas. I’ve also assembled a huge list of websites that can help teachers in the classroom. You can access my bookmarks by going to www.delicious.com/rrlane.

Job Switch

I love being in the classroom. I love standing in front of a classroom full of students and watching their faces as they think about something we're covering in a way they've never thought of before. I also like to think I'm fairly good at my job. I've had numerous students come back to me over the years to thank me for something I taught specifically or for our class in general.
It's these things that have made this weekend a rough one for me. On Friday I was offered a new job, and I've pretty much decided I'm going to take it.
Our school district got a HUGE grant this year from the PA state government called "Classrooms For the Future" (CFF). This grant gives the high school a ton of new technology for educational use in an effort to keep our schools competitive in the global arena. We're getting mobile laptop computer labs, laptops for teachers, overhead computer projectors, and Smart Boards. And in order to make certain that the tech is actually used properly, the grant also pays for a "technology coach"; a teacher whose job is to help the rest of the faculty learn to use the tech efficiently in facilitating learning. I put in my resume for the job early in the month, and Friday my principal came up and said I got it if I want it.
It's a totally lateral move. There's no more pay involve, and I wouldn't be an administrator. They'll get a long term substitute teacher to finish out the school year for me starting in early October. It's technically only a year long position as that's all the grant covers, so at the end of the year I'd go back to the classroom. However, many schools who already have the grant have kept the tech coach on, so there's the possiblity I would be asked to continue in that position next year. Even if the position disappears after the year is up, I don't lose any contract steps or seniority, and I step right back in with no penalties.
I'll miss being in the same classroom all day, especially this year. I really enjoy ALL my classes this year, something I haven't always been able to every year. And I'm not looking forward to announcing to them I'm leaving. But I will still be in the same school and I'll be in and out of the classes across the school, meaning I'll still be seeing and interacting with all of them. One of the best things about the position for me is that while I love teaching, I'm looking forward to NOT spending the hours grading papers.
I figure that even though I don't plan on going anywhere, this is a good resume padder, and quite frankly how many folks are offered the opportunity to try something completely new for a year with no financial risk?
It's going to make for an interesting year.