I re-did my #standardizethat talk at MACUL this year. (Original version) Enjoy!

Last spring as it became apparent that Grand Rapids Whitewater’s plans to return the Grand River to a more natural state (removing and lowering dams to restore the rapids) for ecological and recreational reasons were going to come to fruition we decided that our students HAD to get involved. A colleague and myself went to some open meetings last summer to make connections and find a way for our students to participate but failed. We sought out contacts all year and were unsuccessful. So we decided to just do it anyway. The Water Project was a sophomore project combining American Studies, Chemistry, and Geometry where students would work in one whole class group to redesign downtown Grand Rapids around the proposed changes in the Grand River. Yes, this project had ONE group of 80+ students working together. We made a big announcement to launch it and then students explored three options to pursue: design team, ecology team, or public relations team. Ecology looked at the effects of the changes on the river considering both endangered and invasive species. Design was in charge of redesigning the riverfront which was broken into sectors. Public relations had to research the issues and create a survey for public opinion. The final product was to be a 3D model of downtown GR. Sectors The task required the three teams to be in constant communication with each other. The third day of the project we went downtown and walked the whole stretch of the river dividing the class onto both sides. Students took pictures and documented their assigned sections. It also helped them dream what could be there instead. The PR team surveyed people that they met. When we got back to school the PR team reported that they had only surveyed 16 people because it was early morning and there were not that many people out. They asked if they could post it on Facebook and promote it there. We said sure. This is when the project took off. Students took over. Kenzie put it on Facebook and contacted all of the local media. Some of the media posted it. By the next day we had over 300 responses on our survey. Later we had over 700! Next students created their own Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram accounts for the project. We now had a social media branch of the PR team. They targeted news and local people involved in the Whitewater project. There was a buzz among the students as they started making connections and getting attention toward their project. Student leaders emerged and met to discuss issues. A favorite moment was during a meeting of self-selected leadership team when Ben said, "Wait, we really don’t need facilitators for this. We can handle this ourselves." Students had truly taken over and "owned" the project. I think it is important to point out here that the reason that these things happened is that the teachers did not over plan the project. We had a big picture idea and some structures in place, but we also allowed flexibility and as the students came up with ideas that branched off from it we just told them to go for it. Meanwhile the final product had grown to include the 3D model, a website, posters showing details of proposed changes, and an overlaid map of all of the changes in Google Earth. All of these additions came from students as they took over the project. The icing on the cake was presentation day (which also was the students’ idea; we hadn’t planned one because we had no audience). Guests included one of the two founders of Grand Rapids Whitewater, people from the Grand Rapids museum, DEQ, and others actually involved in the River Project with the city. All of these contacts came from the social media campaign by the students. Where we had failed to make connections, students made it happen! I have never seen students more motivated! This is the power of a truly authentic audience. Students will respond to work that is real and for a real purpose. Students learned and demonstrated so many of our SWLO’s (school wide learning outcomes)-collaboration, communication, public speaking, research and information, critical and creative thinking, and agency. Kenzie summed it up, "I feel like when I do projects like this grades don’t matter." Here is an album of pictures showing the progress of the project.  

I did a PBL workshop with a local district last week and I have been thinking about the speed of the spread of PBL in schools. I think there is a strong grassroots movement toward student-centered learning, but everything from politicians and the powers that be is toward a controlled focus on student achievement (test prep). I realized a big weaknesses of the PBL paradigm is that the curriculum is unstructured. Note I did not say that the process is unstructured, which is a misunderstanding that many have. But what students actually study or do is personalized to that group of students in that time and space. So groups like New Tech Network and Buck Institute do a great job selling training and tools for PBL, but you don’t see PBL textbooks or curriculum for sale because that is not how PBL works. So PBL doesn’t really work for Pearson or other major education publications. They can’t sell thousands of PBL textbooks or "units." It doesn’t package nicely as test prep. I am sure that New Tech and Buck generate money but nothing in the scale of the major publishers of textbooks or standardized tests. So the publishing giant’s paid lobbyists are not trying to get our politicians to move toward student-centered learning because it is not beneficial toward building their market. On a personal note when I lead a workshop, my fee is much less than a keynote speaker. I am not getting "edu famous" and I don’t say that many catchy phrases that are tweetable. But unlike most keynotes that excite and encourage for an hour and wear off in a few days (how much can you remember from any keynote even your favorite one? If anything I bet is good stories that they told) when I finish a workshop I feel great knowing that I leave teachers with a framework and a set of tools to permanently shift their teaching from teacher to student centered learning. The intrinsic rewards of spreading PBL to shift pedagogy are very fulfilling. If only PBL didn’t focus so much on local, authentic, student centered learning and could support an easy way to make lots of money off from students and school systems.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/smailtronic/2154548379/in/photostream/ Benjamin Riley wrote a post criticizing personalized learning. Dan Meyers agreed. I would like to offer a response. First Benjamin criticizes two "definitions." I will consider them in opposite order since I agree with his second argument as he presents it. The second definition he calls personalization of "pace" where students control how fast or slow they learn. I too oppose this if it means students sitting in front of an adaptive computer program and learning at their own speed. I also think that using the same mandated, sterile, and boring curriculum but letting students progress at their own speed will not work. So looked at in isolation, I agree with Benjamin that personalization of pace is not helpful and probably only "works" with students who are self-motivated, high achievers. I also agree with Benjamin that technology is not some kind of magical solution that will motivate kids. Where I disagree with Benjamin in his argument is his first point of personalization by "path." My overall critique of this argument is that he seems to make some assumptions that I think are untrue of a good, personalized learning environment. First, the learner is on her pace and path in isolation. I have watched students work in my colleague’s chemistry class where they often are allowed to design their own experiments to test what ever they want. Students form groups of their choice based on the experiments that they are interested in. They work together constantly. They also share with other groups their work and results. Through the public sharing students are exposed to other areas that may not be their "passion" and also see how multiple perspectives fit together to form the bigger principles of a discipline. I have often been asked to come down and watch their results. They are definitely excited and engaged in their learning. Second Benjamin implies that the teacher is not involved or has no influence. He uses the following quote as his main "evidence" against path personalization: There is a large body of research which shows that not all learners prefer nor profit from controlling the tasks and that forcing such control on them can be counterproductive…The reason for this is that learners do not have or do not know how to utilize appropriate strategies when they are left to themselves to manage their learning environment (i.e., they do not have the capacity to appraise both the demands of the task and their own learning needs in relation to that task in order to select appropriate instruction). In other words, learners often misregulate their learning, exerting control in a misguided or counterproductive fashion and not achieving the desired result. (Paul A. Kirschner & Jeroen J.G. van Merriënboer (2013) Do Learners Really Know Best? Urban Legends in Education, Educational Psychologist, 48:3, 169-183.) This quote is accurate in regards to many of my students. They struggle to stay focused, manage time, and many lack research skills. But this is not an argument against "path." This quote assumes a situation in which kids flounder on their own with no guidance from adults. It is a strawman argument. Teachers should be experts learning along side students. They should be asking questions and yes "pushing" the learner both forward and challenging their assumptions. Personaliztion does not happen in a vacuum but the learner is engaging with the teacher, classmates, and outside experts. The same chemistry teacher, at times puts limits on what science concepts that they need to test. A social studies teacher (like myself) comes along side students researching their personal interests and uses his background knowledge to tie the specific content into the "larger" history context. Specifically, in regards to the quote, teachers need to teach management skills to students (unless we assume they are all going to work in a factory where they are told what to do).  Students not having these skills is NOT an argument against students controlling their learning path. Our job is to teach students these strategies. We also have to detox students from teacher-controlled classes where they have no voice and choice. Students need to be gradually released into personalized learning and given scaffolding to support them especially in areas of literacy, research, and organization. Just  because students don’t "prefer" it does not mean they shouldn’t be pushed to learn how to learn on their own. I consider teaching these skills to be one of the most important parts of my job. We have been "doing school" the structured, teacher-controlled way for over a century and it works for a subset of students. Although I would argue against even that statement because grades and test scores does not equal thinking citizens who can think and learn on their own. But a large group has been left out this entire time and it includes the children of color and poverty that Benjamin is worried about falling behind. Finally whenever research is used to "argue" I wonder what they are measuring? Test scores? I am not interested.

from blogdailyherald.com Andrew Miller wrote about his four PBL pet peeves. I thought I would share mine: Shifting to PBL and student-centered learning means that I give up all structure in my class and it turns into a "free for all." Of course teachers don’t actually say it like that. Instead I hear things like "how do I make sure that students learn all of the standards" or "in PBL teachers are ‘guides by the side’ so they don’t ever ‘teach’" or "how do I make sure that students are always ‘on task’" or "what if students choose not to learn about math (or whatever the subject is)." Teachers in traditional settings are comfortable with control and order. They have standards to teach and a textbook to use. Many even have district mandated curriculum and pacing guides. All teachers have different comfort levels in the classroom as far as noise, order, and structure. For those teachers who are "type A" personalities, at first glance PBL is scary because it sounds like the teacher is losing control and students are taking over. While we do want students to take ownership of their learning, PBL is a framework for it to happen. By definition, a framework is a structure. PBL can be very structured (and I recommend a high degree of structure when first implementing and introducing it to students) or it can be looser to fit the style of any teacher. Examples of the structures included in PBL include the entry event, driving question, and authentic audience. These are created by the teacher and frame where the project is headed. The teacher can decide which assessments will be formative and summative. The teacher also provides workshops when necessary and appropriate and can do them whole class or in small groups for differentiation. The teacher can also introduce other elements of inquiry into any project to bring up important ideas that students might "miss" on their own. Critical friends is an important structure for both teachers and students to provide feedback on their work. When I first started using the PBL framework, I went very free and unstructured. My students were new to PBL and couldn’t handle it. They needed support. They came to me begging for it so I gave some structure to them that I gradually removed the rest of the year. Through this I learned that we need to ease kids into PBL and over time they will take more and more ownership and eventually tell you, "we got this, we don’t need facilitators to do this." In a nutshell, PBL is a structure for student centered inquiry, the opposite of a "free for all."  

I took my daughter to class today. It was the first one of what I expected to be a "hands on" class. But she had to sit and listen for a half hour before she did anything. It was an archery class, and before the instructor was going to give over a dozen, upper elementary students weapons in close corridors, he was going to make sure that they understood all of the safety rules. Archery is supposed to be fun, shooting at targets, instead she had to sit and listen to some direct instruction. There is a time and place for direct instruction and in this case it was a matter of safety. She did get to shoot later and next time she will get to shoot more. I am not a fan of direct instruction. I rarely use it in my class, preferring to give information out to small groups in conversations or lead guided discussions. That said I created a "wheel" diagram to show the cycle and relationships of the multitude of causes and consequences of the Great Depression. I taught a twenty minute lesson as I drew it on the board and had students copy it. At the end of the year when I asked students to share their favorite things from the year some of the students brought that up and said that it was really helpful. You see, the thing is, as much as I believe in student inquiry and learning along side students, I do have more knowledge and understanding than them on most social studies topics. When it comes to difficult concepts such as economics that they have not had a class in yet, they need some help that I can give them. A good lecture can help frame the big picture for further student inquiry and help clarify complex topics. There is space in the PBL framework for direct instruction when appropriate. The key is to realize that it should be used sparingly and lead to student inquiry afterwards. Otherwise it would be like going to an archery class and never getting to pick up the bow.

I enjoyed Washington DC with my family a few weeks ago and have seen most of the famous monuments. We spend time in class looking at the DC monuments during our 9/11 project so I already had certain ideas in mind, but I wanted to see for myself. We went out our first night to see them in the dark. WWII Memorial at night The biggest, showiest monuments are right across from the capital and the National Mall: Lincoln Memorial, Washington Monument, and WWII Memorial. They are the pride of our country, centrally located and spanning two miles. These ones are huge and majestic representing the importance of these presidents. The WWII is also "showy" with its central location, fountains, pillars, and lights. Signs ask you not to wade in the pool to respect the WWII vets who are called the "greatest generation." Vietnam Memorial at night On the other hand the Vietnam Wall was dark and hidden and could barely be seen at night. If you didn’t know better one could walk right past it without even realizing it. It is not centrally located. It is in the ground and looks like a "scar" in the hill. The Vietnam War was a national embarrassment and the vets are stereotyped as homeless and alcoholics. Yet the wall itself has all of the names of those that died that can be touched. It is personal. Korean War Memorial The Korean War Memorial is my favorite war memorial. It has amazing statues of soldiers walking. It too has a wall, but instead of names it has soldiers pictures engraved into it. It is powerful, yet beautiful in simple ways. It definitely looks sweet at night. The Korean War has been forgotten by many as a minor conflict of small significance. So we want everyone to see and admire the WWII Memorial. It is a celebratory place of victory over the evil of Nazism and the hated Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. But the Vietnam Memorial has a total different feel. It is somber and does not generate a sense of pride. This is how America tells the story of these wars. Is it accurate, fair, or helpful? Are WWII vets better than Korean War or Vietnam Vets? Did the U.S. have more selfish motives in all of their conflicts? Should we be proud of war? How can we separate honoring soldiers from glorifying war? I respect all veterans but wonder if we are doing them a disservice by how we remember both them and their deeds? Side Note: I also find it odd that there are not large memorials for the Civil and Revolutionary Wars or the veterans of them.  I am going to do a series about my reactions to a family trip to Washington D.C. These are kind of social studies posts, but they are really about how America portrays herself. So I think they are really about what it means to think critically about citizenship and our "American image and values.

Copyright by New Tech student Adrian Harris This one goes out to all of my friends that teach in Michigan (although if anyone wants to "copy" and use in another state feel free and please let me know). We are bringing back the election project this fall. It will be called #MyParty14 and will focus on Michigan students designing their own political parties while studying the Gubernatorial election. After picking the issues that they are passionate about, students will create their own political party, party platform, and make a 30 second commercial. Participating schools will host "primaries" to determine their school winner. School winners will compete in a state-wide election hosted by the New Tech Network and #michED. More details will be forthcoming, but for right now reserve time in your class calendar for this project in October. There will be many resources and optional activities associated with project for you to choose the depth that you want to go. We also encourage schools to collaborate with each other through things like an online debate. Watch the #MyParty14 hashtag for details.

How to fight the negativity in education? Do something! Trebuchets made at Chinese exchange student camp I used to have to work every summer just to pay my bills. I now have enough years in education to make a living wage (not to mention that my wife has an excellent job). So even though I am not "working" this summer I feel like it has been my busiest summer ever. Why? Because I keep getting involved in sweet projects. So far I have… Planning our school conference NovaNow PBL workshops with districts Chinese exchange student camp Adding math to my teaching schedule next year Having another student teacher Getting more involved with #miched including Presenting at EdCon for MASSP and Launching the #MyParty14 election project three other major projects that are in "top secret" brainstorming stages but should launch this year. Today I went to the first meeting of Groundswell, a local collaboration with Grand Valley State University and schools working on watershed projects. We are teaming up with them to take our water project further next year. So basically I am involved in so many formal and informal amazing projects that I can’t be negative about anything in education. I am excited about each partnership, program, people that I am working with, and most of all the student impact that I am super pumped right now. So my advice if you are feeling discouraged? Find ONE (not a dozen like me) project that you can passionately be apart of with your students this year. There are so many opportunities out there if you spend a bit of effort looking. The extra work will be worth it when you see your students complete meaningful work. AND as you do that good work share it broadly. Let your administrators, parents, community member, and local media know. Showcase your student work proudly! That is how we change the negative conversations about public education in this country. Jumps off soapbox…

I am going to do a series about my reactions to a family trip to Washington D.C. These are kind of social studies posts, but they are really about how America portrays herself. So I think they are really about what it means to think critically about citizenship and our "American image and values. Part 1 Memorializing War. A big part of what Washington D.C. represents is American heroes. From politics to science to human rights we try to remember and honor some of our most important citizens. Just like with the war memorials, I think who we honor and how is revealing of who we are as a country and how we try to portray our values to the world. Most of the largest (therefore the most important right?) memorials are of presidents. Washington, Lincoln, and Jefferson are the big three. What these monuments have in common is their enormous size and visibility from anywhere around the National Mall. The FDR Memorial is large in a more spread out way, but not as ostentatious as the other three. The size and location of the "big three" scream to tourists, "we are the most important Americans ever!" The MLK Jr Memorial is very large also and has the symbolism of him breaking out of a mountain that I really like. But it is not in a central location and can not be seen from the National Mall. It is kind of hidden, just like how we would like to hide the ugliness that necessitated the Civil Rights Movement. I do like that it is across the lake from Jefferson. That seems appropriate as Dr. King helped fulfill Jefferson’s ideals. The other place for heroes in D.C. is the U.S. Capital. Every state gets to send two statues of its heroes to be on display through out. I found these fascinating and much more diverse. States are also allowed to exchange these statues if they want to. There were Native Americans, scientists, and even Southern generals of the Civil War. There is only one statue that was not commissioned by a state, but by Congress: Rosa Parks. The reason is that they did not want her to ever be removed. The irony is that she sits in a spot formerly held by the statue of Robert E. Lee, who was moved to the basement of the Rotunda. Broken pieces of Berlin Wall on the bottom. The other statue that made an impression on me was Ronald Reagan. He is in a place of honor in the main rotunda room. If you look closely you can see actual pieces of the Berlin Wall at the bottom of the statue, perpetuating the myth that Reagan was the reason the wall came down. "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" (wall comes down two years later when Bush is president). A classic example of how we remember "history" how we want to instead of how it actually happened. So I was fascinated by who we remember and how. All of them are so perfect and majestic. But they are also so sterilized. Where is the Malcolm X or John Brown Memorial? Why do I know that these will never be made? I also found this piece which has the great idea of telling the "rest of the story" (H/T to Paul Harvey) of our heroes. I love the idea of subversive memorials that tell the complete picture of the complicated individuals that we call "American heroes." So what messages are we sending to our citizens and the world? Americans are lead by perfect heroes. If you aren’t perfect then you can’t be a hero. We are the founders and source of democracy and freedom. Telling the myth of American exceptionalism is more important than the actual facts of history. I think these values are also reflected in American History textbooks and most classrooms. I think that we can do better.

"We do remember. We remember the things that flatter us…Can a state create the kind of memory that say a mother has of a child? You know, a brother has of a sister? When you love somebody right? But you don’t think that they’re perfect but you would, you know leap in front of a truck for them never the less. Can a state have that kind of patriotism? Can that kind of love of a country actually exist? Or is the only kind of love of country where no, no we’re the best, we’re better than everybody else, and you know we’ve never done anything wrong; and if we did do anything wrong, you know, our everything about [us is] good so clearly our best so we don’t even need to talk about it."     Ta-Nehisi Coates in an interview with Ezra Klein (around the 41 minute mark). Ta-Nehisi Coates articulates what I have been trying to say in my reflections on my trip to D.C. I think Washington D.C. is just like our textbooks in that they both act like it is un-American to question the morals of our country’s actions or to admit that as a country we have done bad things. The truth is that America has done horrific things in the world, but is still a great country. We need to get kids to be able to grasp those two things at the same time. This is definitely a focus in my classroom and hiding the ugly side of America is no way to do it. Kids engage more with American History when they see it as a complex story of multiple viewpoints instead of as a comic book where America is always the superhero that saves the day. This is from a long interview about Coates’ great piece on reparations in the Atlantic (a must read before you watch this interview).  

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/73/Traditional_hat_toss_celebration_at_graduation_from_United_States_Naval_Academy.jpg Alexander Russo published a post "documenting" that the implementation of the Common Core will double the dropout rate from 15% to 30% according to the Carnegie Corporation. The argument is that higher standards will lead to more students failing and falling behind and eventually not graduating. This argument seems pretty simplistic to me and the claims rather exaggerated. Credits are based much more on grading practices of individual teachers than the actual content being studied. Teachers will most likely adjust their expectations of what "mastery" of the standards is and how they grade. I suspect that the amount of students passing and failing classes will remain relatively stable to what it currently is. I would argue that dropout rates are usually based on factors such as boredom, lack of success, lack of purpose in school, and outside of school pressures. So although I don’t believe that the Common Core will have much of a negative effect on graduation rates, I also don’t think that it will have a positive effect either. If we want to improve graduation rates we need to move beyond WHAT is being taught to HOW it is being taught. We need to change pedagogy more than content. A shift to student centered learning with caring adults is the change that this nation needs rather than a top-down set of national standards and the ridiculous testing that comes with them.

The tragic event of the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri have led to protests and rioting against police brutality. It brings to the surface (again) the institutional racism that has always been in our country. I think white privilege causes some to look at Ferguson as an excuse for criminal activity rather than a political protest. A friend of mine tweeted a comment about the looting comparing it to the Boston Tea Party. I made this image. I think this leads to many questions: What are the similarities between the events? What are the differences? What are the issues that each side is upset about? Why did the people in Boston dress up as Native Americans? What stereotypes does that show? What stereotypes do people have about the way the man on the left is dressed? What is institutional racism and how should it be addressed? Why is the image on the right called a "party"? The event on the right has been mythologized and treated as action by heroes. Do you think the event on the left will be? Should the people in either picture be considered heroes or criminals? If you choose to use this in class, I would encourage you to have students generate their own questions before you ask them your own. This will both engage them and if you pay attention to what they ask you will be able to gauge their viewpoint on the events in Ferguson. I also would encourage you to follow this up with research of the multiple perspectives of what is happening there.

We had one of those inspiring, motivational speakers to launch our new school year. I am not a huge fan of these types of events, but I did agree with his overall emphasis on telling stories to change the public perspective of schools. The idea of this image came to mind so I made a slide. Feel free to share and use. It has Creative Commons license (like everything on this site).

In previous years we have started school with a week of orientation. We did team building activities, had a huge, crazy scavenger hunt, and had students on a high ropes course. Although we felt those were successful approaches to the start of a new year we decided to do something different this year. So we started by continuing the Water Project that we ended with last year. The Water Project was our best project ever because of how much ownership the students took of it. But this was a new class of kids whose only connection to the project was seeing it in the hall. How would we get them to buy in? On the first day of school we brought in two guest speakers from LGROW, a local agency of our city government that works to promote good management practices of the Grand River Watershed. They shared who they were and the needs of their organization. We also did activities to teach students about watersheds and management of them. Students brainstorming poster designs By the third day students were looking at local problems and proposing solutions. At the end of the day they selected one of three "realms" to be a part of: Helping LGROW, working on our local campus, or working more broadly on a watershed where they live (our students come from all across the county and live on many different local watersheds that all feed into the Grand River). Once they were in these groups, they broke down into sub groups of things like making professional posters, promotional videos, and designing a social media campaign for LGROW. Other groups are designing a rain garden and a rooftop garden to grow vegetables for our school. They were calling local businesses for information and networking with the culinary and Ag science programs on our campus. The third realm groups are designing projects around their local watershed and some have already brought in water samples. Student leaders are emerging in all groups. These kids are skilled and passionate about doing these things. One of the really cool things to me is that I had no preconceived ideas of who the leaders would be because I am just trying to learn their names. So I don’t know their academic history, but it feels like all kinds of kids are finding their niche and rising to the challenge. Yesterday one of the members of LGROW came back to school and the students pitched their ideas to him for feedback. He loved them. This project will be unique for us in that students will work on it every other Friday for two hours for the rest of the year. It will be the first time that we try to sustain a project over time. One of the advantages of this is it gives the students time to do real work and develop relationships with the community and businesses that is just impossible in a 3-4 week timeframe. Last year ended with students taking over and owning their learning. This year we are starting off with students taking over and owning their learning. I am very excited to see the real work that my students will do this year. Instilling this culture to start the year is so powerful! I am confident that they are going to surprise me this year. So how do you get students to own their learning? Challenge them with real work for real people for a real purpose. And then quite honestly get out of the way. Teachers are still there to guide, but we must not control the project. One of my strengths is a lack of organization. So I dream big possibilities and give them to students. My lack of planning everything to a T gives the students space to take over and run the project. Sometimes all it takes is less of us so that there can be more of them. What have you done to let students own their learning this year?

Thanks to Brad Wilson for making this video of me for #michED in which I discuss the Water Project, student ownership, and the changes that I think that we should make to education.  

Photo Credit: CarbonNYC via Compfight cc I was contacted by an organization that promotes teacher advocacy. They wanted me to join them as they represent teachers across the country. They are very connected politically and have some some big money behind them. The pitch was that they would amplify my voice by getting more media exposure to my writings and get my message in front of state and national politicians. I immediately loved the idea of this. I am passionate about helping make our education system better. I want to see a decrease in testing and standardization with a shift to personalized learning that is student centered. A grassroots organization that promotes teacher voice in the media and among politicians is definitely a need in the U.S. But of course there was a catch. The "focus" for this year was promoting the Common Core. Ugh. Not a topic that I am a fan of. National curriculum is low on the list of things that I believe will "fix" schools. I really don’t believe "content" is the problem in schools, pedagogy is. But what really rubbed me wrong is that this organization is branding itself as "teacher voice" but only if we support their agenda. This "grassroots" movement looks strangely like top down strategy that needs some teacher pawns at the bottom. When you want to LISTEN to my opinions about how we can change education first, then maybe we can talk. I won’t have anyone putting words in my mouth. I have plenty to say by myself, thank you.

"Two sides of the same coin" One side shows 9/11 and the other side shows American acts of aggression. Sometimes old projects can be repeated and sometimes they need a makeover. In the past we did a 12 week study of American foreign policy starting with the Spanish American War (SAW) and ending with Middle Eastern conflict today.  It was too long and students could not see the relevance of the SAW part until the end. So this year we did one project combining SAW and 9/11.  We also read Ender’s Game to tie it all together. We have always struggled to bring relevance to SAW as it is obscure and not given much space in most classes. We believe that it is vital in showing the beginning of American policy of intervention around the world, often by imperialistic means. We had students explore whether the United States was motivated more by Manifest Destiny or Imperialism through out the past 100 years in specific interventions. "Two hand, one gun" Perspective on our relationships with Iraq The final product was a monument as "Speaker for the Dead" (from Ender’s Game) where they had to represent American foreign policy from multiple viewpoints including a non-American view. They also needed to have symbolism reflected in their piece. Students were challenged to look at America as not always "good" or a "hero" but consider the complexity of our actions and realize that we have made both good and poor decisions through out our history. "America’s shadow" The shadow of America is on Palestine but as time passes it shifts to Israel representing a hope for balance in our actions there. Previously students made monuments only based on 9/11 and many of them looked similar. By giving them more options (yeah voice and choice!) we had better variety and deeper analysis from students. We are definitely happy with the results of these "recycled" projects. Sometimes we fail in our first attempt on PBL but often we just need to re-package it in a more student friendly way. Student voice and choice is always important to making this happen. Do you re-use projects? How have you successfully (or unsuccessfully) recycled a project?

In PBL we often talk about the importance of an audience to drive students to produce high quality work. But I think that we need to consider the goals for each project. I believe there is a time and place for a polished, final product and a time for more of a "rough draft," conceptual, final product. We need to consider the learning goals behind each final product rather than judge it by how shiny it is. A case in point was our American foreign policy monument project that we just completed. We spent five weeks on this project building up background knowledge that we will refer back to for the rest of the year. Even though we spent weeks on the project we only gave students one week to design and build their monument. We did have an authentic audience of architects, engineers, and designers come and look at the pieces while students explained them. But the thing is, most of them weren’t pretty. They looked more like craft projects than careful designs. To be clear, I am not criticizing the students here. They did exactly what we wanted them to do. We focused very intently on symbolism and looking at American foreign policy from multiple perspectives including a non-American point of view. We were ok with designs that didn’t look perfect as long as they had some depth in symbolism to them. The picture below is a great example. Hands for Humanity It is not all that impressive visually, but if only you could listen to the students who made it. It was one of my favorite pieces and the students showed a depth of understanding of how America acts in the world. Check out their artist statement: Our monument is inspired by Greek architecture, the WWII fountain, and the 9/11 memorial. Full scale, our monument would consist of marble pedestals, granite benches, bronze inscribed plaques and bronze hands. Our proposed location will be in the Ellipse Circle, in front of the White House, where it can be a reminder to future presidents of both the triumphs and mistakes of their predecessors.  The hands in the fountains represent the US foreign policy, a fist for brutality, an offering hand for kindness, a thief hand for greed, and a hand holding a flag representing the peoples’ nationalism and America’s want to spread a democratic government. The fountain is symbolism for the US having equal parts of both the good and bad things we’ve done. Inscribed on the fountain are various quotes: (Bold emphasis mine). You’re not supposed to be so blind with patriotism that you can’t face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who does it or says it. -Malcolm X Maybe we ought to consider a Golden Rule in foreign policy: Don’t do to other nations what we don’t want happening to us. We endlessly bomb these countries and then we wonder why they get upset with us? -Ron Paul Foreign policy is like human relations, only people know less about each other.   -Joe Biden Many American pundits and foreign policy experts love to depict themselves as crusaders for human rights, but it almost always takes the form of condemning other governments, never their own. -Glenn Greenwald We did not talk about any of these quotes in class. The students went out and found them. These students understood the nuance that we were trying to communicate that America is neither a hero or villain in the world, but a country that sometimes does great things and sometimes makes horrible mistakes. I would argue that this "rough draft" monument is amazing, not because it looks great but because it represents a deep understanding of America’s complex relationships in the world. So rather than focus on the shiny, focus on the purpose that you have for the project.

The #MyParty14 election project was a great success. Our students participated in the political process by creating their own parties around issues that mattered to them. We had a "primary" at our school and the top ten commercials were shown to local congressmen along with a two minute stump speech. My students came in second place in the state wide competition, but I know that we "won" because I watched the students get excited about politics and issues that matter to them. Getting students to realize that they have a voice if they choose to use it was the best part of this project. Here are a couple of news articles about the project: Huffington Post and School News Network. 

Very proud to call Trevor Muir my colleague. Check out his great TEDx talk!

http://kingston-upon-thames.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/TAPPY-LADY.jpg The title comes from this great post by Chris Baker Understanding Without Design. Go read it now as it is a great post! I want to respond to this post that I agree with 100%. The thing is, that although I agree with its philosophy, I don’t often teach like this. I plan out most things in my class from entry event to the culminating product. I already know most resources and workshops that I will do before we even start the project. I do allow plenty of time for research where students discover their own things on a given day and I love it when that happens. So I guess that I am torn between what I believe and what I often practice. Somehow I feel like there must be some kind of nuanced balance between tap dancing and farting on the one hand and planning on the other hand. Left to themselves some students would do amazing things and others would waste time playing games or texting. Sometimes what I believe about education seems utopian. Sometimes I feel like I am a prisoner to state standards that I am supposed to teach. Sometimes I wish I had the guts to teach a whole year without plans or curriculum. I know that students would learn and do some amazing things. I also know that we would "hit" most of the standards anyway. But I also fear that some students would slack and not do much. In the system that we work in there is no room for that kind of failure and I would be blamed for lack of structure. So how do we balance planning with tap dancing?

Placed Based Education (PBE) is the idea of embedding learning in a local, authentic context. It is community centered with students addressing local issues. A great example would be this school in Canada. PBE does not ignore bigger, "world" issues, but rather seeks to have students find entrance into them through their own community and local contexts. I recently went to the Great Lakes Placed Based Conference and it was much more science focused than on any other subject. PBE seems to target science and the environment, but social studies fits it too with a focus on local history. I think the emphasis on science comes from its origins in the environmental movement and it is now expanding to a broader focus. Another key part of this is the idea of uniting science and social studies together instead of siloing the subjects. Our water project is one example of PBE that I have experienced. One thing that I can definitely affirm is that the local connections and purpose to the project made it more "real" to students than any other project that we have done. I brought a couple of students with me to the Great Lakes Placed Based Education Conference and we shared the project with them. Some thoughts and observations about PBE: There are many schools doing incredible things in PBE, but the majority of them are not publicizing their projects. Social media is mostly absent of the PBE concept. I don’t see blogposts, tweets, or chats about it. One theory I have about this is that PBE people are more "outdoor" focused than "tech" focused. Not that these things have to be mutually exclusive, but it seems like they are in practice. PBE is heavy on science, but is expanding into social studies. PBE is not really unique. It is a "flavor" of PBL, just like service learning or passion based learning can be (depending on how it is done). So on the one hand I think PBE deserves more exposure, especially the great projects that schools are doing, but on the other hand I wonder do we really need it as a separate movement from PBL? How many different labels do we need?

I am not actually this old. From Seattle Municipal Archives  I played "varsity" basketball at my small, Christian school. I was a starter in 6th grade, not because I was any good, but because our team was awful and have of us were 6th graders. I loved basketball and it was my life at the time. Thirty years later I don’t remember hardly anything about it except the following two stories. We played other small, Christian schools but most were larger than us. Two schools that we played was all juniors and seniors that were good at basketball. It was literally men against boys. The first one beat us 104-11. Yup, 104-11. Of all of the athletic things that I have participated in my life that is the only score that I can remember. They also called the radio station and had it reported. They ran up the score on a bunch of middle school kids and never let up. We were humiliated. I was humiliated. I hated that school. The other school was probably better than the first and also beat us easily. I don’t remember the final score. What I do remember is them letting me drive into the lane and telling me, "You’re open. Shoot it!" They didn’t block my shot even though they easily could have. They were kind. I respected that school. I know Maya Angelou’s quote has become cliche, but it is still true: At the end of the day people won’t remember what you said or did, they will remember how you made them feel. How will your students remember the year that they spend with you?