The Point Is - That's One of the Points

When three astronauts died during the plugs-out test of the Apollo 1 capsule, an investigation was held to determine the cause.  If you look this up today, you will find the official cause stated as an arc from a frayed wire.  When I teach my 8th-graders about this event, I ask them, "If the wire in the outlet next to you arced right now, would it kill you?"  This answer is, of course not.  The kid closest to the spark would scream, and we would smell burning wire, and that would likely be it.  While the spark from the wire initiated the Apollo 1 fire, there were many complicating factors that resulted in the death of the astronauts.  There was 100% oxygen in the spacecraft under 19 psi of pressure.  There was far more velcro (highly flammable in high oxygen) in the cabin than regulations called for, and they couldn't escape because the manual hatch could not be pushed outward once the fire had dropped the air pressure inside the ship.  It was a complex interaction of causes that made this simple wire arc into a fatal event.

We like for life to be simple.  You see it after every tragic event.  What was the cause?  Who was the one at fault?  We see it in disease analysis, blaming vaccines for autism and deodorant for cancer and aluminum pans for Alzheimer's disease.  Obviously, all of these maladies are more complicated than that as we have been studying them for years without knowing their cause.  We like to simplify things because we fool ourselves into believing they will be easy to fix.  Fire the right person or remove the offending ingredient, and you have solved the problem.  We know, however, that life is more interesting than that.  Almost everything in life results from a complicated mix of cascading causes and effects.

Spend a minute on educational Twitter or sitting in a faculty meeting, and you will observe the same phenomenon.  You will hear people say, "Well, the point is . . ." about a lot of things as though things have only one point.  You can trade in a lot of your goals by pretending there is only one point in education.  If you believe the point is that your students get into college, then you will be fine with writing off the last semester of your class to senioritis because you forget that your curriculum has intrinsic value and that the skills students learn in your class are worth more than college entrance.  If you believe the point is job training, you will be fine with tracking kids from a young age and not care if they miss out on something that could have enriched their lives outside of their future career.  Those who don't want to deduct points for late work will say, "The point is that they learn the material, not when they learn it."  

Maybe, I'm just old or maybe it is because I teach the Apollo 1 fire, but I sit in these meetings thinking, "No, that's not THE point.  It's only one of the points."  Every school bag, cup, coaster, and note pad I have says "Equipping Students for Life" on it, and I take that motto seriously.  Teaching students that due dates don't matter is not properly equipping them because they will not be able to call the electric company and say, "I don't know why you charged me a late fee.  The point is that I paid it, not when I paid it."  When I make choices about projects, I know life would be easier for everyone if they did the project alone.  Group projects, by their nature, ensure that no one person learns all of the material or engages all of the skills.  If, however, I am going to equip students for life, I have to give them the opportunity to navigate the messy world of collaboration because they will most surely be doing it in the business world.  If the point is simply learning the material, the most efficient way to learn the most material would be reading the book and testing them on it, but we all know that isn't how school should work because it isn't the only point.  We want them to be inspired by the material, so we ask them to interact with it, play with it, reflect on it, and synthesize it.  

We all, in practice, do school differently than we would if THE point was just that they learn the material.  So, stop saying out loud (or typing into Twitter) that the point is simply learning the material.  You know that life is more complicated than that.  You know that you want so much more for your students than that.  If you want to make a point, acknowledge the complexity and be willing to recognize the effect of any change you make.  It may be a good consequence.  It may not.  You may decide the benefit is worth the cost.  You may conclude the opposite.  What you should not do is sacrifice your common sense for the sake of simplicity.  If this work were simple, anyone could do it.  The next time you are tempted to say, "The point is," ask yourself if it is truly the only point.  Chances are, the answer is no.

It Gets Better (Because That's How The Brain Works)

 Last week, I had a strange conversation on Twitter.  A teacher had said that she was worried about starting back to school soon because they would be in a hybrid situation where half the kids would be at school and half at home.  While the numbers were different, her situation sounded similar to mine, so I said, "I've been doing this for 8 weeks.  It's really hard at first, but you find your rhythm, and it gets much easier as you go."  Anywhere but Twitter, this would be considered an encouraging statement from an empathetic person, but Twitter's weird, so I got replies telling me that they were sick of false positivity and tired of being expected to keep a smile while pulling rabbits out of hats.  One said I didn't understand how hard it was to be an elementary school teacher.  I held back from saying, "Sure, physics is super easy to teach online" and instead replied that each context had its own challenges, but that it would get easier with practice.  This led to the most disturbing reply.

"Respectfully disagree.  This will not get easier."

I don't know where this conversation is now because I have a personal rule to mute online conversations after having replied twice.  (Trust me when I tell that is a rule that will keep you sane.  You don't owe your time to strangers, and they are going to make massive assumptions about you when they don't know anything about you.)

First, let's address the idea of false positivity.  I've never been accused of being excessively positive at all.  I'm not a glass half empty person exactly, but I am for sure not a glass half full person.  In fact, I've often used science to say the glass is completely full because air is also matter or used calculus limits to say that it is half empty if you are drinking out of it but half full if you are putting water in it.  This person who has never met me not only thinks I am too positive, but that an obvious statement like, "this will get easier as you do it" is false positivity.

My real issue in this conversation, however, is the assertion that this will not get easier.  This person is an educator who doesn't seem to understand learning.  All new things are difficult and get easier with practice.  He should have seen this every day in his work.  He should be teaching this to his students when they are having difficulty with what they are learning.  I do not understand how anyone spends their life in a classroom could ever say, "this will not get easier."

In case you don't want to go back and read all of my Learning and the Brain posts from last November, here's a quick tutorial.

1.  You walk around the world in mental balance until you encounter a new skill.  
2.  You experience mental disequilibrium (we call it confusion) as the new skill isn't yet incoporated into your long term memory.
3.  As you start practicing the new skill, it occupies a lot of space in your working memory, requiring a lot of energy and your full attention.
4.  You continue practicing, see how to chunk parts of the skill, after which it takes up less space in your working memory.
5.  After enough practice, the skill is transferred to long term memory.  From then on, you know how to do it, and it takes less energy to do it than it did in the beginning.  You return to mental equilibrium with the new skill on board.  This means you have learned. 

When we returned to school in August, it did feel nearly impossible.  Every day was exhausting, and I slept hard every night.  Remembering how to share my screen with the kids at home in a way that the kids in front of me could also see required multiple steps in a specific sequence.  Now, I can do it in a second, but during the first days of school, I had to say the steps out loud each time I did them.  Remembering to end class a minute early to give kids a chance to wipe down their desks with wipes but not so early that they would congregate by the door was difficult, especially because for some reason, despite its being set by satellite, my computer clock is three minutes slow, but I bought a new watch and set it to the school bell, so it's easier now.  In the beginning, I was emailing each of my at-home students daily to see if they had questions, but I soon learned that they were better at communicating with me than I thought (better than those in the room, actually) and that this was not needed.  I now send them a week at a glance page at the beginning of the week to let them know if there are any supplies they will need besides regular school supplies.  That's easier for me and for them.  Lunch duty is easier than it was because my partner and I have our routine figured out.  Students are more familiar with routines, so I don't have to remind them quite as much.  This Friday was the end of first quarter, and it is much less draining than it was nine weeks ago.  

I left out one part of this teacher's reply.  He ended with, "Teachers and students deserve better."  To that, I say, "Well, duh."  Sadly, we are in the middle of a pandemic and not able to live in the ideal world this man wants.  So now, I'm going to do the Twitter thing and assume something about him even though I know nothing about him.  He's a man who believes there is only perfect or garbage with nothing in between.  That's not the world with or without a pandemic.  We teach our students in an imperfect world and prepare them for one as well, but there are things we can do to make it just a little better.  Sometimes, the breakdown of garbage is just the fertilizer a flower needs to grow.

This isn't negativity.  It's isn't positivity (genuine or false).  It's real, and it's our calling. 

Counting Your School Blessings

My twitter account exists as a professional learning tool.  I follow Scientific American, CERN, Fermilab, and some other things that keep me up with current science.  I follow Buzz Aldrin and NASA.  This year, I have made the effort to follow other educators, thinking I would find some interesting ideas.  What I have found are people who are reaching out for encouragement.  This year, I have spent more time talking education with educators outside of my school than ever before, and so many are feeling alone in their schools. 

Since I had a year like that in my career, I have reached out to a few.  They are generally idealists who adore their students and want to do what is best for them.  They feel their hands are tied by systems of testing over-emphasis, unsupportive administrators, or schools in which student compliance is valued above learning.

What I have also found on Twitter is a group of teachers and administrators who seem to be made of encouragement.  If you need some online boosting in your job, try following Fixing Education (@WhyTeaching),  Dave Stuart, Jr. (@davestuartjr), and Bethany Hill #JoyfulLeaders (@bethhill2829). 

These are all great, but the account that drips with enthusiasm, love, empathy, and encouragement is that of Danny Steele (@SteeleThoughts).  Just to give you an idea, here's a screenshot from a few days ago.

On December 19, @SteeleThouts tweeted this:  "Do our students know we love our job?  I hope so."  Some of the replies he got to this tweet were amazing teachers showing how they communicate their enthusiasm to their kids, even a principal dressed up as a Christmas tree.  Other replies were heartbreaking, like this one from @JeffcoEducation - "Danny, my son comes home and tells me about his teacher sitting in the corner, reading her book..... he asks: “if she doesn’t want to be here.... why should I want to be here?”.

The one that stuck with me was from @EthanAdshade.

Aside from how sad it is that a person in his position (his organization pairs experts and educators so that students will be exposed to people in higher education) has not observed many positive school cultures, he reminded me to be grateful that I am in a supportive and encouraging school environment.  Here are a few things that spring to mind.

- I laugh with my students every day.

- I laugh with my colleagues every day.

- My administrators pray for/with me.

- I am trusted and respected by my administration (a fact that a teacher who came from a different school reminded me of on Friday)

- My administration asks for my input on important decisions.

- My administration creates space for us to encourage each other.

- My administration and colleagues help me solve problems.

- My colleagues share ideas and resources.

There's more, but I would like to say based on Ethan's reply, "I consider myself blessed because I do love my job."