Blue Monday Bright Spot

We all tend to focus on problems rather than strengths.  Very few of us spend time analyzing what we are doing well, so we can do more of it.  Instead we stare at our faults, our warts, our bad habits and weaknesses and try to fix them.  But Chip and Dan Heath in their book, Switch: How to Change When Change is Hard, note that especially in times of change (and surely there is no dispute that we are in the midst of profound change) there are problems everywhere, so focusing on them becomes a recipe for inaction.  Instead, we need to use our power of analysis to figure out what’s going well with an eye to doing more of it in the future.

We have a lot of Bright Spots in our schools, even on the most depressing day of the year, even when our plans come apart (for a million reasons) and our failures and disappointments loom large in our eyes.  As Senior Alternative teacher Ray Andrews said, the question about what’s going well was “a reminder that there have indeed been bright spots. For example, I have two students who are likely to achieve early graduation (Dogwoods, of course).”  According to extensive research, “An individual’s educational attainment is one of the most important determinants of their life chances in terms of employment, income, health status, housing and many other amenities,” so the opportunities opened to two students whose risks for dropping out were very high is a sun-glasses-on-it’s-so-bright  spot.  (See Cost of Dropping Out.)  Next: let’s ask the
students what worked and why they beat the odds.  And then – let’s do more of it!

Watch Dan Heath share how to find a bright spot.

7 Ways to Learn and Use Technology Even When You Have Very Little Technology or Technology Knowledge

A collaboratively created list.

Project Success Gathering

1.  Curate the Web
Organize your links for students using some of the online tools that make it easy for you and easy for kids.
Jog the Web
Live Binders (Steve Anderson’s binders are a great resources for educators wanted to use technology)
Symbaloo
Delicious
Diigo
Sqworl
The best thing about these tools is that our links, bundles, “jogs,” and binders can be shared.  Working alone, curating the web is overwhelming – working together, we can each do less better!

2.  Create a Container
Where will you put your collections so they are easy to access?  Wikis are a very easy to create, easy to use, and easy to maintain space – and the best part – designed for collaboration.  Try either pbworks or wikispaces. What makes Wikipedia viable is that it is built and maintained by hundreds of thousands of people.  On our own, a wiki just adds one more thing; when we work together with our colleagues, we can each contribute our strengths and get help where - and when - we need it most.

3.  Keep Deep and Meaningful Learning in Mind
Technology only amplifies the work we do.  Just as we wouldn't tell students to “write a story” and expect quality results, we can’t tell students to “create a PowerPoint” without explicit instructions.  It isn’t enough to show students merely how to add and delete images, for example; more important, they need instruction, for a start, on what makes a good image and how we credit images.  (And let’s put our lessons and the resources for them on a wiki to share, so each of us doesn’t have to reinvent!)

4.  “I Can” Attitude
So often we begin with “I can’t.”  There is a lot we CAN do.  And one of the hardest things to know that we can do:  we can make mistakes, flounder, look like a novice (because we are) and learn out loud with our students.

5.  Support Each Other
We really, really need to find ways to work together, to team teach, to touch bases regularly, to remind each other to take baby steps (and cheer each one!), and to accept - embrace - that learning will be mucky and slow.

6.  Get Students to Teach
Teaching is still the best way to learn deeply.  Students are both familiar with technology and comfortable in that environment: let them teach each other (peer teaching, buddy teaching, partner learning) – and best of all, let them teach us.

7.  Waste Time!  
Leave time for “timewasting.”  Explore. Play. Discover. Tinker. Laugh.  And best of all, waste time together.    

Saying Yes and No to Technology

For me the question – should we have technology in schools? – is an unconditional yes.  We have, at our fingertips, the capacity to personalize, differentiate, support in “just-in-time” ways; to collect, organize and share the information we need exactly when we need it; to spark and sustain curiosity by bringing into the classroom the capacity to follow any question to the greatest depths known to man.

People ask continually – But what about slow, deep, contemplative thought?  What about exercise and just “going outside” to play?  What about community and teamwork?

First, I can think of at least ten ways I could use technology in service of all those goals in a classroom, even the “going outside” part.  Here’s one:  research the effect of nature on the brain – we all need to know why we should do what someone else tells us is “good for us” – and then use a tracking program like metracker.com to do an experiment to see if the classroom community experiences a difference in learning by spending more time outside.

But more important, we can say no.  Right now we’ll use a pen, a book, our physical senses, conversation only, a silent space.  Just because we have technology doesn’t mean that it must be constantly on or used endlessly.

It is similar, I think, to the grave fears over the last decades about television.  Is TV good or bad?  Does TV harm us? TV is a mode of entertainment.  The only thing new is that it is instant and in our homes.  Parents can limit TV for children; we can limit it for ourselves.  And we ought to.  The overuse of media by children is the decision of adults who struggle to say no to their own desire for peace, quiet, ease (or, because we do not yet have effective, affordable child care, they cannot supervise their children. As a society, we have decided that other things are more important.)

If only it weren’t so hard! Previously, we did not have to set internal limits to our entertainment.  They were limited by access – the carnival passing through the village, for example.  Now, entertainment is in our pocket.  We have to learn how to say no.  And this “no” extends, among other newly abundant and easy things: buying what we can’t afford in a credit-easy world, abusing our bodies through excess food and sloth in a world of fast food and remote controls, and destroying our planet when pre-packaged and throw away are everywhere, instant, and so very very easy.

Our children will live in - have always lived in - an instant world – one where they can make a decision to publically shame and humiliate someone they don’t understand; where they can access pornography and violence with a click; where they are continually inundated with requests to purchase the next best thing.  It is also a world where they can instantly connect with the knowledge of the world and our global neighbours, where they can have a say on important issues and become active citizens.

We do not serve them by putting them in technology-free schools.  We serve them by teaching them (I’m not really sure how, but probably through modelling, through strategies, through positive experiences, through actively engaging them in conversations about decision-making and providing a framework of values against which to make those decisions) to find ways to say NO to excesses that harm us and hurt our neighbours and to say YES to the power, at their fingertips, to do good.

I hope they are better at it than we are.  Our future depends upon it.

Yes - From erix!'s photostream
No - From Mr Jaded's photostream

Living Slow

I’ve been living Slow for a few days: slow cooking – cookies, pastries, all the trimmings for Christmas dinner – polishing, cleaning, wrapping presents, festive decorating – and then two perfect days of food and conversation, board games and laughter.

On Christmas Eve, after the dishes were done and the extra guests had left, my daughter and her husband sat with me for a bedtime recap of the day.  I don’t know, Katie said, if I can continue this tradition.  It is all so…much!   Katie is a doctor, her husband the CEO of a social media company; their lives are intense, fast-paced.  Katie is on call for the rest of the holidays; Ben has various meetings scheduled, emerging issues, new challenges.   They live in a beautiful condo downtown Vancouver, but all of us smile at the image of our Christmas clan – and trimmings – shoehorned into the space.

At first I thought, perhaps it doesn’t matter.  Perhaps these traditions are simply the continuation of “women’s work,” a kind of subjugation to kitchen that is no longer appropriate in this new world.  But by morning I had rethought.  Although it no doubt will have to continue differently – and it has to become the work of everyone – I’m pretty sure that this “women’s work” – slow, loving, knitting together of family and friends – is essential to continue.  I say work, because I’m pretty sure that what’s important is that it can’t be instant – a phone call to a caterer, let’s say.  I think what matters – and it matters now more than ever as the pace of living increases – is that it is Slow.  

Things I did this week that I didn’t even know about five years ago

• Put together a Christmas Connections Listserv “cool links” email by adding content saved to my Delicious social bookmarking site .
• Posted information about a new book in our DRC collection on our Facebook page.
• Developed a Twitter workshop, including an online poll for choosing our discussion question.  
• Helped a school team set up iPads. 
• Helped a teacher set up a web camera to use as a document camera in her classroom.
• Approved a post to a collaborative Posterous blog that I administer.
• Posted a picture of a classroom strategy on a Pinterest bulletin board. 
• Added an information flyer to our wiki.
• Uploaded a video to youtube and then shared how to embed it on a classroom wiki.
• Took videos of a student showcase of learning that I will edit (soon).

And then wrote about it here.

The question is - is it helpful for kids and teachers?  Or am I just creating more binders to gather digital dust and files that disappear into digital cabinets and “toys” that distract us for a while and then are shelved, too, never to be seen again?

More Gorgeousness

When you walk into Leslie’s classroom, you know that the classroom is set up for gorgeous learning! She shared some of the small things that make a big difference, that allow the teacher to focus on the children because everything is organized, and enable the children to be independent in a caring space alive with learning sparks.

In grade one, of course, lots and lots of reading is paramount.  Leslie’s home reading program  has children able to quickly and independently choose “just right books” and take them home in their book bag each week.

They can also take home a “theme bag” of books every two weeks on topics that excite them.

And they also have their reading workshop books (the groups and bins organized and ready for the parent volunteers).

The bell rang before I’d even finished dashing around the classroom trying to soak up everything!  The students clearly knew the routine, taking off boots and coats, putting books in place, checking the agenda (I love the visual dayplan!) and sitting at their desks with their Bee Books open.

In a room full of favourite things, the BEE book, I think, is my favourite:  Bring Everything Everyday.  Students take the BEE book home nightly and return it each morning.  In it is their sharing book, a zippered bag for forms and money,  planner sheets, newsletters and a word work pouch.   While the students listened to the announcements, Leslie checked their planners and then, announcements done, students put the BEE books in a bin and sat at the carpet.  Another favourite thing:  using male Velcro, she wrote each child’s name so they know where they should sit at the carpet.

After a few minutes of welcome and questions with thumbs up/thumbs down answering about their Halloween evening (they were amazingly quiet and respectful despite a no doubt sugary and late evening), they organized into reading groups.  One of the groups was an independent group and they quickly (and very happily) recited all the things they could do for their workshop – reading on their own, reading together - what they could read (so many options!) -  where they could read – at the carpet and on the soft couch! Two girls immediately began reading a classroom poem from a chart stand – complete with actions.  

Another meeting to attend and a reluctant goodbye.  Of course, no one noticed me leave.  Everyone was so thoroughly engaged and the quiet hum of reading and thinking and learning played back to me like music all day.  Another gorgeous teaching and learning environment in our neighbourhood.

Gorgeous Teaching in our Neighbourhood

I slipped into the classroom uninvited, a little uncertain that it was all right.  Tricia paused in the mid-lesson to welcome me generously, wholeheartedly, and to introduce me to her students and then continued, completely and deeply attentive once again to the small children clustered around her on the carpet.  They, too, forgot about me as soon as her soft voice began to tell them about the exciting work they were about to begin.  The instructions (so clear, so inviting, so interactive) for creating a picture of themselves buried in leaves like the book they’d just read were followed by students moving (in an orderly fashion – they knew the routine) to the demonstration table to watch the painting.  Once again the instructions were clear and modeled step by step.  My favourite part was when she made a mistake, covering one of her sentence strips with paint.  “Don’t worry,” one the children said, “everyone makes mistakes.”  The small heads nodded heartily, encouragingly.  It was so obvious that the classroom lived this message.

When she finished the demonstration, she said, “I know I don’t have to tell you about gorgeous printing.”  Heads shook vigorously in unison, their bodies starting to vibrate with excitement to get started on their own.  “And I don’t have to tell you about gorgeous cutting.”  More vigorous head-shaking.
She released them then to go do their own no doubt gorgeous work. I left reluctantly to attend a meeting, but all I could think was how very very mad it is to go anywhere or read anything about teacher and learning when we have, right in our own neighbourhood, so many gorgeous examples at our fingertips!