You Should Sponsor the School Store (and Other Cockamamy Ideas)

"How come we don't have a school store, Mr. Baker?"
A senior came into class this morning, frustrated that she needed a notebook or something, yet legitimately had not been able to get it.

"Well..."
This was it - my chance to shut her down and focus on performing rotations on 2-dimensional shapes in the coordinate plane, or to grab this and run with it.
"That's a good question. I don't know. You should propose it to Dr. Hopper." I believe our building principal has a soft-spot for student-led initiatives, so I knew that a passionate plea, supported by a thoughtful written proposal had a shot.

"Hey, everyone," I got the class's attention. "Elle is proposing that we start up a school store, and we're looking for people to help with the proposal. Who's in?" A couple hands shot up, but they didn't know what they were actually volunteering for, so we settled on just one other student.

I spent the next couple minutes sharing our principal's contact info and outlining/facilitating aspects she would need to consider for their proposal. We got it to a "this baby is yours now; run with it" place, and resumed class, but I fully intend to return to this proposal if/whenever it comes up again.

"Tell Dr. Hopper, I will sponsor you," I told the school-store team. (Which sounds crazy for a father of 3 that's already on 3 committees and mentoring a first-year teacher). But I meant it. And not because I think they won't follow through.

We ache and plea for chances to inject "relevant" work into our math classes, and time to develop "real-world" problems to include in our unit instructional plans, but how often do we ignore the opportunities right in front of us because they might fail?

What would your students come up with?

Maybe the school store isn't going to be your students' idea, but I think this list applies to most ideas your students might need help getting off the ground. When you agree to come alongside a student-led initiative and mentor the process you're sowing a bountiful harvest of "teachable moments" and "relevance." Even if the school store idea doesn't go any further than writing the proposal, look what I'll already have the opportunity to model for my students:

• Professional, formal writing
• Organizational planning
• Digital media creation
• Collaboration
• Budgeting
• Problem solving (and anticipating new problems)
• Figuring out what math fits into a given scenario and how it can support our case or help in another step of our plan
• Revision/Draft process of writing

I have a motto for myself this year, and I made a sign that is taped outside my door: "I am an ally." A friend asked me last week what it meant, what was I fighting against. I told her, "I'm fighting for kids who need someone to care for them. Kids who need someone to listen. Kids who need an advocate. Kids who need someone to stand with them. I think its going to mean different things to different kids. I don't even have to agree with them all the time (USA and USSR in World War II, anyone?)."

I have no idea where this ally gig is going to lead the rest of this year, and no one else has even asked me about the sign, but if for no one else, I know, for MYSELF, that I committing to supporting cockamamy ideas as much as I have capacity for.

Your Students Will Never Be Perfect and It's Not Your Fault

"I'm doing everything I can - everything i know to do, and the kids are still driving me crazy!"
"I cant believe she would do something like that. She's always been one of my good kids!"
"Didn't they learn how to _______ properly in ____ grade?"

What you believe about the nature of your students is important because it sets the stage for your expectations of their current and future behavior. I tend to experience this the most in my classroom when comparing upper-level courses like AP Stats to lower courses like Algebra or Geometry. Your students may be more or less mature and more or less nice than others, what ultimately, do you allow yourself to be surprised when they don't meet your expectations, or is it something you expect from all of your students to sometimes happen?

If you're a Christian, this is a case where your beliefs should rule your teaching more than just being "nicest," "most honest," or "showing love." You must remember that your classroom is composed of students with a sin nature that cannot help but follow their heart's desire for selfishness.

[1] And you were dead in the trespasses and sins [2] in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—[3] among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. (Ephesians 2:1-3 ESV)

You can have the best behavior management strategies, relationships with kids, tightly scheduled transitions, and you'll still have students that resist you and try to cause trouble. Its not a matter of you (or the students) trying harder, its a matter of students being changed by the grace of God in Jesus. 

WHAT'S MY RESPONSE?

1. Expect that students will let you down. 

I like this quote from a sermon on Ephesians 2 from 20th century English preacher Martyn Lloyd-Jones:

Believing as we do this biblical doctrine of man in sin, we should never be surprised at what happens in the world. Are you surprised at all the murders, the thefts, the violence, the robbery, all the lying and the hatred, all the carnality, the sexuality? Does it surprise you as you look at your newspapers? It should not do so if you are a Christian. You should expect it. Man in sin of necessity behaves like that. He cannot help himself; he lives, he walks in trespasses and sins. He does it individually; he does it in groups. - excerpt from "The Christian Message to the World", God's Way of Reconciliation

2. Maintain high expectations for discipline and behavior.

You might be the only person in their lives that expects as much. 

3. Structure opportunities for students to make up for mistakes they've made.

If your students don't feel like they can recover your trust or favor after a bad day, you're more likely to lose them behaviorally AND academically.

4. Forgive, forgive, forgive. (And apologize when it's your turn).

That isn't to say that actions should not have consequces - quite the contrary, but consequences should be related to the day's behavior, not the accumulation of 2 weeks, and you have to be willing to set it aside the next day. 

This is probably the hardest one, but also, probably the most important. 

5. Always be prepare to retrain and review procedures and expectations.

This is not only good for students to be reminded of what you expect from them and they should expect of each other, but it will probably also help you reflect on areas you may have been lax recently.

Those little darlings that walked in quiet, straight lines in elementary school are still down there. Somewhere. :)

6. Pray for your students. (And receive prayer for yourself)

As I started with - the only thing we can hope to truly change our students and our classrooms is the regeneration of our spirits through Jesus. 

I think the best answer to the question, "Mr. Baker, how do you PUT UP with these kids," is, "Prayer."

The further you become like Jesus, the easier loving your students and caring for them will be, but also always be aware of your own potential to let them down with an angry remark or harsh response.

7. Love them.

All the time. Not when they do something good. Not when they're finally on time for consecutive days. Not when they finally do their homework. All the time.

#MOEDCHAT Blog Challenge #1 - I love being an educator because...

...of all the different experiences I have as a part of my job!

We try on different jobs and authentic experiences in attempts to prepare our students for the same. One trick to engaging your students is to pour yourself into your content to find your own passion for it. Like the method actor smoking a pack a day to play a lung cancer patient, diving into the same inquiry you desire for your students will enable you to know where you can look forward to pulling out particular students' interests in tour lesson for the day.

I spent 5 hours at the Ameren Corporation's headquarters on Tuesday shadowing different engineers and accountants, soaking up anything I could about the nature of their job and stealing (j/k, totally respectfully asking if I could have or take pictures of) whatever artifacts I could. It was a VIP treatment a randomly selected Ameren customer could probably not enjoy, but because of a STEM project based learning program I'm a part of right now, they opened their doors to us.

I've spent the last two days working with two of my co-teachers attempting to communicate to them the various ways I saw statistical graphs and analysis applied and we've worked together attempting to repackage that experience in a meaningful, approachable way for our future 9th graders. My co-workers weren't at Ameren with me, so I spent much of Wednesday showing artifacts and play-acting to bring them into my world. Co-teaching or PLC tip: If you cannot communicate your passion for a project or reason for pedagogical choice, you're going to have a hard time building consensus in the group, which means you won't get anything meaningful done. 

Your students don't expect you to necessarily have the same knowledge base as a best selling author, biomedical research physician, electrical engineer, or civil-rights historian, but they do have a right to fair expectation that you might teach with a similar passion as one. I'm guilty of not making nearly the attempt I could to bring in guest speakers, but having one for every standard is obviously impractical, so your students are relying on you to let them know why "insert-content-here" is worth committing their interest to.

...of the intangible value I place on knowing that being excellent at my job is important for more than increasing trading prices for public shares.

If that actually is your job, please don't feel like I'm getting judgey-mcjudgerson on you for it. That essentially was one of the tasks for one of the men I met at Ameren on Tuesday, and I found his passion for crunching statistical data to squeeze out trends infectious. He actually reminded me a lot of my father-in-law in the way that half of the work he did was not even his job, per we, but it was work he initiated to go the extra mile to add value to what he offered the organization because he had time left over after his regular work. That work he does investigating ways to lower the standard deviation of department expenditures to increas budget efficiency, and tracking customer satisfaction against a sample of Ameren's peers is important to a lot of people, I'm sure, but the exponential value a teacher can add to the world has a greater potential for good that appeals to me. 

That Ameren "continuous improvement analyst" didn't know how to do what he did with stats without an educator mentoring him through his postgraduate studies on his way to a PhD in Statistics. Somebody call Ashton Kutcher, is that a butterfly effect?

There's a question on the Gallup teacher insight survey that asks you to rate your agreement with this statement: "Teaching is the most important of all professions." I tend to get TOO meta on these surveys and overthink them, which means I factor way too many value-adding variables into this question, and I don't really come to a conclusion. Even in the last 10 minutes, I've convinced myself to both ends of that spectrum. I can get value and satisfaction out do ANY job if I do what I do to the glory of God. If your job sucks the life out of you, it probably means you're not contributing any passion to it. So, if any job can fulfill you with intangibles and an opportunity to please God, then teaching wouldn't necessarily be most important. No job would be. At the same time, as I thought about Ashton Kutcher as his Butterfly Effect, I remembered that any valuable learning needs some element of mentors hop or facilitating which means before you go and do any other work for God, a teacher was there to show you how.

...of the toys I get to play with that I generally would probably not have access to.

Many, many classrooms had interactive whiteboards and touchscreens before national news media began finding new ways to color election maps with them in 2010.

The iPad I've been using the past two and a half years was on loan to me from my district with the expectation that I would become an expert and investigate all the ways our students could use them in the future (or even if, perhaps, they were actually a poor choice to us with my students)

...of the things I have learned about for my job that I probably wouldn't know otherwise (and that make me a better friend/citizen/parent/husband)

how to talk to kids when you've let them down

how to talk to kids after they've disappointed YOU

why the way you respond in conflict is important because it doesn't go away (at least until the end of the semester.) :)

letting people know you're willing to listen to their concerns builds trust

sharing your life with people invites them to share with you

you cannot wait for the other person to ask to be forgiven - how you choose to respond should not be contingent upon their "worth" of it.

...of the number of people you can meet and small-talk with in public. 

For better or worse, everyone has an opinion about the teaching profession. And in a sense, it is unique among jobs in that everyone has spent years of their lives in direct observance of the profession, and that there are elements of the profession most of the general public practices. You may not be a "certified teacher," but you've probably tutored a friend or family member in at least one particular skill. That being said, you meet someone in public and reveal your secret identity as a teacher, you automatically have a common experience with someone beyond your burrito. 

During my jury-duty lunch break last week in Clayton at Chipotle, a gentleman on his 60s randomly started up a conversation with me while we were on line, and we ended up sharing the better part of 45 minutes together talking education. Being a teacher is like owning a Honda.

Source

A Letter To Me on My First Day Teaching - Teacher Appreciation Week 2014

Have you seen this video from Edutopia and SoulPancake in honor of Teacher Appreciation Week yet? (Prepare the tissues)

I've written a post about your first year teaching before, but "letter to me on my first day of teaching" seems different, so I did that this afternoon during my prep.

Dear First-Day-of-Teaching-Chuck, 

You did it! Congrats on your first job - I know its been a long road for you since you first started applying to social studies jobs 2 years ago. I know you didn't imagine your first job in a math classroom, but you're gonna love it - trust me. There is a lot of satisfaction in knowing that your efforts (good and bad) play a large factor in crafting how your students remember their high school experience. 

You don't have to have it all figured out today. Or even tomorrow. More important than your content and instructional strategies is your care for students. Your students will rarely be impressed with how smart, rational, or quick-witted you may be. They will remember and respond to how you treat them, how you respond to them, and how quick or slow you are to quit on them.  

They won't respect you for your degree, your content knowledge, or even your skills with technology - they may even resent you for it. The best relationships you have with students will always be driven by how well you show your care. 

I know you've got two lessons to prep for tomorrow, so let me finish with a few tips to carry with you. 

1. Be quick to listen and slow to speak.Students sometimes just need to be heard, and our colleagues are always good for a fresh perspective to a problem you may have. The only teachers or student-teachers I've seen completely flounder or burnout are the ones without the humility and wisdom to know you never have it all figured out. 

2. Show your care first, then your students (might) care about what you have to say.I've see a few, but its been rare that I've bonded with students with the math. What I've seen much more often has been students who will persevere because we've bonded over something else. If the learning spark never ignites, however, don't beat yourself up. Ultimately, its up to the kid.

3. You can't be friends with your students, but you can love them (and you'll understand that more the older you get).They're still kind of close to your age right now, but by the time you're in your early 30s, they'll have more in common with your own children than they do you. Just as you would with your own, never tire of second chances, and be careful to burn any bridges you'll have to repair tomorrow. The best you can do as their "friend" is to be "cool" - a passing achievement indeed, but if you love them enough to let them hurt you, or even disappoint, then you can win them.
Good luck, Chuck. Whenever you have tough days (and they will come), always remember that your heavenly Father knows and gives you everything you need, and He will come through at school as well.

Always,
Chuck

1 Simple Question for Evaluating Lessons

Is it cool enough to put online?

Would there be any value on sharing this with others online?
Would people outside of your classroom want to see it? (Do the people inside the classroom really want to see it?
If you posted all of your students' work, would they all look relatively similar?
Is it cool enough to put online?
Would you want to blog about it?
Would someone want to showcase it on your school or district's webpage?

Positive answers to these questions represent varying degrees of relevance and rigor in instructional design, but they are all questions I ask myself when evaluating lessons, assessments, or applications of technology.

Does the work your students do in your classroom have any last relevance beyond the end of the unit? Beyond this week? Beyond tomorrow?

I'm sure I'm not alone in feeling that my own interest in teaching is pretty closely related to the creativity I'm putting into students' learning activities and products. You know the feeling - you come back from a conference on a buzz because you saw the coolest demonstration of the Pythagorean Theorem, or a self-assessment tool, and all you want to do it share it with others, talk about it, and try it out.

That sharing, the excitement - we don't have to try and desperately cling to it as we survive on fumes from conference to conference. Yes, the infusion of new ideas helps to get your started, but I'd argue that high you feel from the experience is in the sharing. In talking with others about it.

Why must that feeling be confined to someone else's work? I think its a relatively attainable goal to wrap up our week in reflection with this simple question: "Did I do anything cool enough to put online?"

And there are even several activities you could reasonably answer that question with -

• You put together a concise, clear, engaging tutorial for flipping your classroom.
• You (and/or your students) used a web 2.0 tool as a forum for class responses to a prompt or a container for shared information.
• Your students create presentations or videos and share them with social media
• You enhanced a lesson you usually feel is rather dry with a video, photo, or song to grab students' attention
• Your students explored a problem relevant to their lives. This one isn't even necessarily technology related. Our senior lit comp classes do an EXTENSIVE project that one teacher started several years ago that is essentially a semester-long, super in-depth career exploration. They write papers and create presentations, but a lot of the work I've observed secondhand doesn't necessarily depend on tech-rich environments. The point being, its a COOL project.
• Your students created something
• You created something
• You used technology to enhance or improve a common task

Your answer to the 1-question lesson evaluation is in many ways reflective of where you are in your professional development, with a scale of answers being appropriate.

In the Web 2.0 class I just finished teaching after school once a week for teachers in my district, I had a group of eager learners that always came back with tech celebrations from the week before, but in varying skill levels of implementation. "Cool" for one might be "normal" for someone else. Just as an example, here are two applications of Padlet that they came up with: a space to get a discussion going, and a student-controlled medium for class art critics and portfolio.

As an excuse to show a super adorable video I rediscovered as I went to make the one at the top of this post, here's "something cool" I made after my first son was born in 2011. To link it back to your classroom (even math), why couldn't your students use Animoto to put together a review product linking unit vocab to processes and applications? #ideafornextunit :)


Landon Jude