Kids Are Listening (When You Think They Aren't)

One of our alumni came by this week, and we were sharing stories of crazy college professors.  This was after school, and there were only adults around, so we were giggling at these stories as adults, looking back on our common experiences with unusual people.  But, it made me remember being a little afraid of my college years in the years before I got there because I had overheard similar conversations by adults.  My dad had told me about professors who would do things like write with one hand while erasing with their left.  I remember thinking, "I'm a good student, but I'm not that good.  How am I going to do this?"  Of course, when I arrived at college, I found that most professors are mostly normal and teach in mostly normal ways.  But those are boring stories, so you only share things about the strange ones.

On a similar note, when I was a kid, I was a little afraid of growing up.  It seemed like every adult I knew hated their job.  At least, they talked about it like they did.  When I was a teenager, I did a little survey as my fellow choir members arrived at church.  I asked each of them about their job.  I got a wide range of sighs and groans until Ron Butler came in.  When I asked him about his job, he grinned and talked about living with "spizerinctum," a word he made up for how energized he felt by his work.  It was greatly encouraging to hear an adult talk with such joy about the work he was doing, and it was clear that he loved it because he believed it mattered.  

It can be easy to think that kids are not paying attention when adults talk to each other.  After all, they give every impression that they are not listening, and it is frustrating when they seem not to have heard something we explicitly told them.  But they are picking up more than you think they are.  When you call a politician evil (not just wrong, but demonic) while watching the news, they absorb that; and since they don't have the experience to judge whether something is sarcasm or hyperbole, they come to school and share your speculations as gospel truth.  When you skewer the pastor during Sunday lunch, they hear you and learn to disrespect all spiritual authority (and you want to be careful because you are one of the spiritual authorities they are learning to disrespect).  Divorced parents often talk negatively about their ex to other adults while their children are in the room.  You think they aren't listening, but they come to my classroom the next day talking about it.  When I worked in daycare, there was a three-year-old in the building who had a colorful vocabulary, using words his parents had used at home.  His parents were a bit embarrassed by the fact their toddler told us something was BS (except he used the whole word) in his high-pitched baby voice.  He had heard them and didn't know that there were words many choose not to use in public.  It is not possible to tell when they are listening and when they are not.

Not all of the examples of this happening are bad.  I am currently on track to pay my house off ten years early because of a conversation I overheard between two other adults.  One man advised another to always pay whatever extra amount he could afford on his house in order to pay down the principal and save on interest.  I wasn't part of the conversation, but I happened to be in the room and thought that sounded like a wise practice.  As far as I know, the man in that conversation does not know that I have benefitted from his advice to someone else.  I have had casual conversations with juniors about their AP class choices that younger students nearby take as advice three years later.  I only know this because their parents say to me, "She remembered your advice about . . . "  When I say, "I don't remember talking to her about that," they tell me about a conversation I don't remember that I had with someone else (My Lord, the power we wield as teachers should be taken seriously).

I've rambled a bit, but here's my point.  Be aware and be careful.  They hear most of what you say, you don't know what context they are putting around your words in their minds.  They take more in than you think, and they repeat it to others.  It can affect their decisions and may mean they carry worries you aren't aware of.  Don't assume that kids can't hear you, even when they have earbuds in their ears.  Don't say, "Oh, he's never paying attention" because he often is.  If you don't want it to be part of his brain, don't say it.

Pull Back the Curtain - The Magic of Teaching

First, a confession - I love stage magicians.  I grew up in the days when David Copperfield made the Statue of Liberty disappear and was in high school when he went over Niagra Falls.  I am rooting for Eric Chen to make it far in this season of America's Got Talent.  I loved Harry Anderson but am not a fan of David Blaine.

Among my favorites are Penn and Teller.  I enjoy them, and not only because Penn Gillette is incredibly smart and Teller's facial expressions remind me of Red Skelton.  (He does talk, by the way.  I heard him interviewed on NPR.)  I love that they are willing to reveal a bit about how their tricks work.  They don't violate magician rules because they don't tell you everything, but they reveal just enough to keep you intrigued and raise your respect for the craft.  On Fool Us, other magicians perform for them in the hopes of doing something Penn and Teller won't know.  In order to tell them whether or not they were fooled, Penn speaks in allusions and code, just enough so the contestant will know that they got it (and they are super supportive of these young magicians whether they have fooled them or not).  As a viewer, I don't understand much of what they are saying, but it is fun seeing them recognize each other's skills.

I think it is important to sometimes take a Penn and Teller approach to teaching.  When appropriate, we should tell students why we write questions the way that we do or what certain techniques are doing for their brains.  When you are using priming, it helps them to know how that makes the rest of what you are going to do that day stick better.  When asking them to put words in categories, they are likely to think it is busy work if you don't reveal that their brains love to categorize in order to compare and contrast.  My 8th-grade students sometimes think any question that makes them think is a "trick" question, but when I show them Bloom's taxonomy, there are less likely to believe i am doing something to them rather than for them.

You can't tell them everything because some things only work if they aren't conscious of the effect.  However, sharing a little of our craft will let students know that we make choices out of professional judgment, not by accident.  They will appreciate good teaching when they see it again and will find out things about their own brain that they can apply to other learning.  Unlike a magician, whose goal is to entertain, our goal is life-long learning.  We have to pull back the curtain enough that they can teach themselves when we aren't around.

Don't Stop Paying Attention

It's January, which means returning from Christmas to my favorite chapter.  The unit I teach on manned space exploration is not only my favorite, but it is usually their favorite as well.

One of the best resources I have in teaching this chapter is the excellent HBO Mini-Series, From the Earth to the Moon.  While there isn't time to show all 12 episodes, I have carefully selected three that enhance the flow of the unit.  The first episode, "Can We Do This?" sets the stage by taking the viewer all the way from Yuri Gagarin to the introduction of the Apollo 1 astronauts.  The second one that I show them is "Mare Tranquilatis," the episode when Armstrong and Aldrin actually land, usually prompting my students to feel sorry for Michael Collins more than anything.  The third is episode 10, "Galileo Was Right."  Someday, I will write a post entirely about that episode because it is my absolute favorite.  For right now, I want to address something in "Mare Tranquilatis."

Shortly after landing on the moon, Buzz Aldrin tells Neil Armstrong that there is something he would like to do and has cleared with Deke (the head of the astronaut corps).  He reaches into a velcro pocket and pulls out a small chalice and communion wafer and a handwritten card with two scriptures written on it.  Given that the Apollo 8 astronauts had been sued by famed atheist activist, Madalyn Murray O'Hair, Buzz gave a rather vague statement over the public radio broadcast, saying, “I would like to request a few moments of silence … and to invite each person listening in, wherever and whomever they may be, to pause for a moment and contemplate the events of the past few hours, and to give thanks in his or her own way.”

Neil Armstrong then respectfully looked on while Aldrin quietly read John 15:5, "I am the vine.  You are the branches.  He who abides in me and I in him will bear much fruit,  for you can do nothing without me."  (By the way, the members of his church, Webster Presbyterian in Texas, home church of many astronauts, gathered at the same time to join him in communion.)

I have seen this video over 60 times, but this year, something struck me in this scene that I had never noticed before.  The passage ends, "Without me, you can do nothing."  For the first time, it hit me how profound this statement was in the context of what they had just done.  These two had just landed the lunar module, a feat that some had previously believed to be impossible.  Yet, moments later, Buzz reminded himself and his commander that this event was only possible by the grace of God.

When you teach for many years, it can be hard to imagine that you haven't heard everything.  The moment you think that, a student asks a question you've never been asked.  It can be tempting to think you know your subject so well that you won't need to alter it.  I don't know about every subject, but I can assure that isn't true in science.  It's always changing.  It's hard to imagine that you could notice something new in a video you have watched over five dozen times, but you can.  Teachers, don't check out when showing a video.  They are filled with teachable moments.  Don't stop learning from the world around you and the way your students interact with it.  In short, don't stop paying attention.

Awareness of the Moment

In the penultimate episode of The Office, Andy Bernard says,

"I wish there was a way to know you are in the good old days while you are still in them."  

I love that line.  It makes me cry every time I watch it.  (Disclaimer:  I'm kind of a sap, so everyone's last line on that show makes me cry.)  Nostalgia has long been one of my favorite feelings because I think it is really the gratitude we feel when we recognize the patterns of God's providence in our lives, so I totally love this sentiment from Andy.

Here's the thing; if you pay attention, you can know.  You just have to be careful to pay attention to the moment you are in.  I learned this life lesson from my sixth-grade teacher, Tom Dorrin.  Neither one of us knew it at the time.

The Teacher Who Changed My Personality
Until sixth grade, I was a crybaby and a touch-me-not.  We didn't have the word "triggered" then, but if we had, mine was a hair trigger.  Today, I might be called a snowflake.  I cried at the drop of a hat even if I had to drop the hat.  Say the wrong thing to me or look at me sideways, and I was that kid who would run crying to the teacher or my mom.  Once, when I was in college, I was babysitting a child who was like that, and I called my mom to apologize and thank her for letting me live to adulthood.

Here's where Mr. Dorrin enters the story.  At this time, sixth grade was still considered elementary school, so I had one teacher all day.  For this particular teacher, affection was shown by teasing.  If he liked you, he picked on you.  He loved me.  He had taught my brother and liked our family, so he teased me a lot.  He teased me so much that another child's mom reprimanded him for it at the conference for her child (I found this out much later and wished I could have told her to mind her own child's business).  You may be thinking, like this mom did, that it was horrible for him to pick on me, especially given how sensitive I was to being teased.  If you are thinking this, you are wrong.  This was the best thing that could have happened at this time in my life.  He taught me not to take everything so seriously, particularly myself.  He taught me that only people who love you will take the time to tease you; other people will ignore you.  I'm not sure I would have developed the appropriate personality for teaching middle school if it hadn't been for this man.

I didn't recognize that this massive change was being made in my life until I was in the eighth grade and had a chance to reflect on how I was different.  The problem was that he had left our school at the end of my seventh-grade year.  He left to work for IBM, which we used to say stood for "I've Been Moved."  There wasn't social media or even an internet yet, so tracking people down wasn't an easy thing to do.  "He'll never know," I thought.  "He's made this big difference in my life, and I can't tell him."

The Promise I Made to Myself
I was incredibly bothered that he would never know how important he had been in my life.  That's when I made myself a promise.  I would not let that happen again.  I would keep my eyes open for the impact people had on me so that I could recognize it sooner than I had with Mr. Dorrin.  I would be aware of their contribution to my life and let them know it as soon as possible.

If you have ever gotten a card or letter from me, thanking you for what you have done in my life, this is why.  As a department chair, I write notes to my people, thanking them for the work they put into a great class.  This is why.  My colleagues know that I consider our "Shout Out Meeting" at the end of the year sacrosanct.  This is why.  I cannot let the year end without you knowing the impact you are having on the people around you, especially me.  This lost opportunity raised my attention level, seeking out awareness of being in "the good old days" while I am still in them.

An Even Better Feeling
While I was preparing to introduce and thank another former teacher with my colleagues on Wednesday (read that story here), I knew that this was an opportunity most people don't get in their lives.  I rehearsed it a lot because I wanted it to be exactly right.  As I stood on the stage, I realized that I was having a feeling that is even better than nostalgia.    I didn't have to wait until the experience was over and look back on it to realize it was special.  I could take in every aspect of the moment and appreciate it because I was aware of how special it was as I was doing it.  I had so many feelings that it was like my heart wasn't big enough to hold them all.  I don't know the name for the feeling, so I'm going to call it "instant nostalgia."  This is my new favorite feeling, and all it takes is the discipline to pay attention.