Choose This Good or That Good

In the West Wing Episode "Ten Word Answers," President Bartlett talks about the complexity of his job by saying, "Every once in a while, there’s a day with an absolute right and an absolute wrong. But those days almost always include body counts. Other than that, there aren’t very many un-nuanced moments in leading a country that’s way too big for ten words. " It's a great moment in the show and turns the debate in his favor.  It has stuck with me because education is also a very nuanced profession with few choices that are definitely right or wrong.  I'm not saying there aren't any, but in spite of all the arguments taking place on Edu-Twitter, they are few and far between.  

We have been conditioned to believe that every time we make a choice, one is right and is wrong.  We think we are choosing between good and bad.  Sometimes we choose between good and better.  Sometimes we choose between bad and worse.  Sometimes we choose between this good and that good.

Most of the time, we are making choices based on a lot of nuances, from things as important as our educational philosophy to things as mundane as calendar restrictions.  Dozens of considerations, from available resources, budget, academic values, technological proficiency of both teacher and students, age level of students, district testing restrictions, and even the layout of your building can play a role in how you teach a particular topic.  One of my team members has taught her course differently every year, not because she was wrong the first year, but because she felt the needs of her students were different the following year.  As I have written about before, my Global Solutions project looks nothing like the electricity it started out being.  It wasn't wrong the first year, but as my goals and objectives changed, the project changed with it.  When making decisions, the questions to ask yourself are about your goals and values.  Within that, figure out the best way to fit things into your context without worrying that you are making a wrong choice.  Realize you are choosing between this good or that good.

In my physics class, we learn to calculate sliding friction.  There are different approaches to this, from purely conceptual to purely mathematical, and a wide variety in between.  I could purchase equipment to measure force and acceleration, collect data, and have students write formal lab reports in which they draw graphs, calculate coefficients of friction, and analyze the difference between their result and the accepted number.  That has strong academic value and is a perfectly good way to teach calculating friction, but it is not what I do.  

I put out a Jenga game for each pair of students.  As they play, I say things to them about how friction is affecting each move.  I tell them about an interview I heard with Jenga's creator in which she talked about the difficulties of making it; the blocks cannot be identical or there will be too much friction, restricting the movement of pieces; but if they are too different, they won't make a stack.  After they play, we talk about the cause of friction and think of as many examples of everyday things that require friction as we can.  You cannot walk, drive, type on a computer, swallow food, turn a doorknob, swipe a touch screen, or write in any way without friction.  It is after I have gotten through to them just how important friction is that I show them how to do the math.  

Is the way I do it right while the other way is wrong?  No.  Those are both correct ways to approach teaching friction.  Why have I made the choice I have?  It is because I value students seeing scientific concepts in daily life.  I want them to think about friction the next time they play Jenga.  I want it to strike them occasionally as they write with a pencil that what is happening is friction pulling graphite layers off the surface.  I've never been one to view education a job training but as a way of being more connected to the world, so I always take that approach if I can.  I spend little money on equipment from science supply companies.  I buy most of what we use from the grocery store because that is in line with my desire for them to see science as an everyday feature of their lives.  This would, of course, be different if I were teaching a college course to engineers because my value then would necessarily be on their ability to design and build an efficient product.  In middle and high school, I choose the good seeing it everywhere.  In an AP class, I might choose the good of lab reporting.  If I taught engineers, I would probably choose the good of career preparation.  None of these are choices between right and wrong; they are choices between different types of good.

When you make a choice in your class, don't fear making a choice that is wrong or bad.  Figure out what good you are aiming for, and make choices that fit that good.    

Recognizing our Needs

I recently engaged in the futile exercise of trying to have a rational debate with someone on Twitter.  (I know, folly, right?)  The topic, if you can believe it, was the need for faculty meetings.  Perhaps, it is because my colleagues are fabulous people who I enjoy spending time with.  It could be because I'm single and want to be with people.  Maybe, I'm just weird.  Whatever the cause, I think faculty meetings are important and valuable uses of time.  While I don't believe in meetings just for the sake of meetings or the time-suck that is announcing things that could have been handled in email form, I totally believe in the value of a group discussion among people who teach different things.  There is wisdom that comes from differing perspectives.  The person I was arguing with online could only see that they could be "doing something else with that time."

Every summer, I volunteer at a weeklong camp, during which I have no contact with anyone except the camp folk and the photo desk lady at WalMart.  When we return home, we have a dinner with our families.  Stories are shared, the camp video is screened, and acknowledgments for years of service are given.  In recent years, some of the staff have balked at staying for the dinner after having been gone from home all week.  Again, I may be strange; but for me, camp wouldn't end properly without the dinner.  If I just drove straight home from the campground, I wouldn't have any emotional boundary between camp and not-camp.  Our directors are open to condensing the format, but last year, one of them said, "We will have something because you have a psychological need for it."

Analyzing these two events and other events in church and school life, it occurs to me that we are really bad at recognizing our own needs.  We tend to be short-sighted and want-focused.  The guy on Twitter who doesn't like faculty meetings can only see that hour and how many papers he could grade how he could go home an hour earlier if he weren't in a meeting.  He doesn't recognize that these conversations bring him perspectives he wouldn't otherwise have and, therefore lead him to better understand his students and improve his craft.  (To be fair, I know nothing about his school and whether or not their meetings are helpful or not.)

If we, as adults who have lived long enough to have had the experience of not getting what we want and being glad for it later, are bad at recognizing our needs, how much more might our students need help in analyzing their own needs vs. wants and short-term vs. long-term benefits and costs.  As with most things, doing this requires active reflection, a skill that requires training.

We have many opportunities with students to guide their thinking.  Some of it comes up in the material we teach.  Some may be done by modeling our own reflection process.  Some can be done in reflection at the end of a project or through a blog assignment.  Most of our opportunities, however, are unplanned moments.  When a student is frustrated by not getting something they want (the role they wanted in a play, becoming a starter on the basketball team, not getting the grade they were hoping for, etc.), we have the responsibility to help them process beyond the current moment while sympathizing with them in the moment.  If you remember being a teenager, every emotion feels like the whole world hinges on it.  As adults, we know that isn't true.  We can show them that it is okay to feel sad about something and then ask them questions that will help them put it in a larger perspective.  Be aware enough of your surroundings to take advantage of those moments, and your teaching will go beyond curriculum.

Life Moves Pretty Fast - But You Can Make Choices That Slow it Down

Even though we have the same twenty-four hours in each day that people have had since the earth started turning, we speak as though time is moving faster than it used to.  People say they don't have time for things (which is nonsense, you use the time for what you want to do).  People talk about the year going by quickly.  I know when November 1st arrived, I was thinking, "Hey, I just got used to it being September."

I have three theories about why modern time seems to move faster, even though it clearly doesn't.
1.  We are trying to get to so many places in every 24 hour period that we perceive time differently because we aren't stopping between activities.
2.  We are processing the constant stream of incoming data so often that we never reflect on it and incorporate into our being.  This all input all the time brain processing leads to the feeling of speed.
3.  Technological changes are happening at an unprecedented rate, and we feel the need to keep up.

Let me address each of these separately and give you some advice (you can decide if it is worth taking).


1.  You think you need to do everything, and you don't.  You think your kids need to do everything, and they don't.  I get it.  You don't want to miss out on an opportunity for an experience.  If you'll reflect for a moment, you may realize that by trying to take advantage of all the opportunities, you are actually missing out on all of the experiences.  You may be physically at a ballgame, but you are mentally planning your route to a movie or concert that night.  While you are the concert, you are mentally packing for the conference you are about to attend.  While you are the conference, you are thinking about the barbecue this weekend.  You have not experienced the ballgame, the concert, or the conference, and you probably aren't going to experience the barbecue either.  By trying to participate in everything, you experience nothing.  Consider the words of the great 80's philosopher Ferris Bueller, who said, "Life moves pretty fast.  If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."

This fear is amplified all the more when you add the pressure of being a parent and wanting to make sure your kids experience everything.  Listen to someone who has spent the past two decades teaching teenagers.  You aren't giving them more opportunities; you are giving them more stress.  We all know this and do it anyway.  Stop it.  You are creating anxiety for them by being anxious yourself, which then only adds two more appointments to your week because now you both need therapy.   Pick one or two things, and then fully enjoy them.  You CAN make this choice.  You only think you can't.



2.  Put down the phone!  Put down the phone!  Put down the phone!  You can live without being in touch with the screen all the time.  I know this because I do not now, nor have I ever, owned a cell phone.  I'm not dead, so it can be done.  In fact, I would imagine my life is more peaceful as a result.  I'm only distracted by a screen when my laptop is open, and that is only happening in places where having it open makes sense.  I also close it when I am in meetings and feel that I am not listening.  This is possible.  The anxiety you feel by being disconnected from a screen will pass if you give it a few minutes.

I am not crazy enough to believe that everyone is going to make the choice I made, but you can make the choice to put it down for an hour.  I watch people scrolling through their phones at movies.  How much more stimulation does your brain need that you have to add to what Marvel or JJ Abrams or Disney is giving you?  I watch people scroll at church, and I'm pretty sure it is interfering with their worship because it is interfering with mine.  I watch people scroll in restaurants, parks, ball games, concerts, and during conversations with loved ones.  I don't know what treasure you think you are going to find at the end of the scroll, but to an unconnected observer, it looks like you believe you can reach the end of the internet if you scroll long enough.

The upshot of all this scrolling is that you are only putting information in.  You are never allowing your brain to deal with the information you got.  There are some neurological problems with this.  You weren't designed for the massive input, never process, never rest the brain, more input cycle.  This disruption of normal brain activity leads to anxiety and exhaustion that we wouldn't feel if we were taking the time to reflect.  Trump is going to do what he is going to do whether you see the live stream of his press conference or not.  Missing out a Kardashian making news is a gift you should give yourself.  It really will be okay if you don't find out the moment a member of the royal family announces their pregnancy.

Instead of putting more input in your brain, put the phone down for an hour.  Breaking addictions is hard work, so maybe you can only handle ten minutes for right now.  Whatever time causes you a little anxiety, start with that.  Use that time to ask yourself some questions about the last thing you read.  Do I agree with what he just did?  Why or why not?  How does the thing I just learned about fit with my worldview, my faith, or my past experiences?  How am I better or worse reading the blog post I just read?  If you just told someone on Facebook that you are praying for them, put the phone down and actually do it.  Allowing your brain this time will decrease the impression you have that time is racing past you.  If you combine number 1 and 2 by putting your phone down while you are at an event, you'll actually experience the event.

3.  It's okay NOT to have the latest model.  I know the rest of this post has revealed me to be a Luddite.  That's fine because I live the life I want to live without the need for more.  It's pretty nice, actually, and you can implement it on a much smaller scale than I do.

Technology used to change pretty slowly.  Consider this.  There was a 50-year gap between the invention of the food storage can and the invention of the can opener.  It seems crazy to me that it took that long to realize the need for a better method than stabbing the can with a knife.  There were 56 years between the invention of the airplane and landing on the moon.  When I point out how incredibly fast that is, my students don't see it.  They can't figure out what was so difficult about JFK's challenge to land on the moon because they had nine whole years.  This is because they now have new products coming out 10-30 times per year.  In January, I stood in the school parking lot taking photos of the Super Blue Blood Moon with a digital camera.  The last time this phenomenon even occurred, photography hadn't yet been invented.  In my 13 years as yearbook teacher, I've gone through four different camera models (and that's progressing at a pretty slow rate because I am me).

As a high school teacher of upper-middle-class kids (many of whom have parents in the tech industry), I have constant exposure to the newest and latest tech.  The first Apple watch I ever saw was on the wrist of a student.  Because I see new products often, I see the rate at which new products are arriving on the market.  It's practically every week that there is a new model of something.  Apple and Samsung upgrade each product about once a year (but they space them out for maximum hype), and no student wants to have the "old" model.  They drop a fortune on new tech.  It's not just phones; there's the need to have the premium package of everything, from the best shoes to the latest watch to the multiple streaming services.  I still have the rabbit ears I used in college sitting on a tv I've had for 13 years, and I have no shortage of things to watch.

I know there is nothing we can do about the pace of technology, but we do have the choice of what to adopt.  It is okay to make the choice to keep your old model of iPad.  You'll spend far less money and have fewer bugs to work out if you stay a couple of generations behind.  Have the perspective to realize how fast that three-year-old model of computer is compared to the one you had before it instead of comparing it to the one that came out yesterday.  Tell yourself what one of my wise students wrote, "Sometimes, when I am impatient with a text not going through fast enough, I tell myself, 'It has to go to space and back.  You can calm down.'"

Time is not moving faster, and you can make these choices.  You can be an adult who makes decisions or allow the world to push you around.   Technology should make your life easier.  Don't let it bully you.

The Death of Expertise: Part 2 - Social Media v. People Who Actually Know

Eight days ago, I was casually scrolling through my Facebook newsfeed when I saw for the first time that Hurricane Irma would be a category 6 hurricane.  I teach science, so I know that there is no such thing as a category 6.  Giving my non-sciencey friend the benefit of the doubt, I assume she did not know this.  However, I looked at the source of the article and did not find that it came from NOAA or NASA or the National Weather Center or any kind of remotely believable source.  This is a smart woman who teaches kids about credibility of sources in research, and she is passing along something from a site with no weather credibility (or arguably no credibility on any topic).  Over the course of the next few days, I saw similar articles posted multiple times on both Facebook and Twitter and had people tell it to me in person.  When I told them there was no such thing as a category 6, they would reply with, "Yeah, but it's going to the be the same conditions as if there were."  This doesn't make sense.  It reminds me of when students ask me what UV light WOULD look like IF we could see it.  It just doesn't exist that way, so no.

The internet has the power to connect us to so much information - if we take the time to find it.  Social media has the power to bring us together with a diverse array of people with perspectives from various cultures, beliefs, and political viewpoints - if we only used it that way.  For the first time in the history of the world, we can find out about scientific research from the researcher - if we go past the first page of a Google search.

Sadly, the invention with the power to bring us in contact with a wider variety of people has actually divided us into tribal groups, reading only the articles posted by those we already agree with.  Sadly, the powerful tools we have at our disposal have not led to greater connection with experts.  We passively consume whatever article our Facebook friends post regardless of source.  Chances are, they didn't actually read the article but passed it on based on the headline.

We had already been primed by 24-hour news not to expect experts in our news broadcasts (see last week's post).  Then, we started trusting the wisdom of the crowd.  (To see how well that worked out, we need only look at the ruined reputations of those men accused by Reddit users who thought they could do police-work in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombing.)  As we started getting more and more of our news from our phones, we stopped caring where the information came from.  A blogger you follow disagrees with your doctor?  Who do you believe?  Someone posts a meme about a chemical you've never heard of.  Clearly, you can conclude that chemical is dangerous and the people who make it are evil without looking it up. Expert, amateur, and nut are all there, in one place, appearing to have equal value.  

When an actual meteorologist replied to my friend's post about the hurricane, people argued with him.  Later that week, Raleigh's most famous meteorologist, Greg Fishel, had to take time out of his broadcast to address this.  I ask, as I did last week, "Do we really have to slow down for these people?" But even after these experts weighed in, people continued to say to me, "Yeah, but it's the same as what it would be if it did exist."  We live in a "Yeah, but" world because we cannot be bothered to find out if we are getting information from people who actually know what they are talking about.

Teachers, there has never been a more important time to teach your students about credibility of sources.  Teach them the appropriate place for Wikipedia.  Don't allow them to use Answers.whatever.answer.com as sources for research.  Teach them how to tell the difference between a credible source and a non-credible one.  Model wisdom for them by not sharing everything you read on the internet.  When you do share, tell them why you find that source trustworthy.

Ask The Bigger Question

You may have noticed that life seems to be moving faster than it used to.  It's not really.  After all, we have the same 24 hours in every day that people always have.  It seems like it is moving faster because we are trying to fit more into those 24 hours and fueling them with caffeine.  Instead of Walter Cronkite, the most trusted man in America, at 6 pm, we get news all day from multiple sources without regard to their credibility.  We want to get so much done that we are actually pursuing whether or not humans can live without sleep.

The relentless speed of input and activity means we rarely slow down long enough to reflect and ask the bigger questions, like how certain events fit into a larger context.  Our brains are processing so much data that we have no time to go through the steps of learning (via Architecture of Learning by Kevin Washburn).  We are constantly at the Experience level, but as our brains strive to reach Comprehension, a new piece of news comes our way.  It is hard for our brains to get to Elaboration and Application.  For that reason, we aren't fully integrating these experiences.  This cannot be good for the human brain, but we aren't even slowing down long enough to ask that question.

As a result of this constant bombardment without intellectual integration, we revert to our most basic of emotions, self-defense.  As an example, an announcement comes over the intercom at school, asking for men to come and help move some chairs.  The women in the building immediately react that this was sexist, even though, given a few moments of thought, we know that the people we work for don't view women as weak or less than men.  Because we don't take the time to reflect, we react out of surface level emotions.  We don't act; we react.  Because we live in 2017, we take our reaction to social media.  Because we live in a community, our reaction cause other people react as well; and we are soon in a Twitter war.  Other people jump on our side or the other side, and it gets out of hand quickly.  We say things we wouldn't if we just slowed down long enough to ask the bigger questions.

YIKES!  This can't be the way God meant for us to live our lives.

The good news is that we can make it better.  It won't be hard, but we will have to do it on purpose.  We have to slow down for a few seconds and ask ourselves a few questions.  This will keep us from reacting emotionally and, in some cases, keep us from reacting at all.

1.  What do I actually know about the situation?
Because of instant video footage, we think we know events.  The truth is, we may only know the 30 seconds shown in the video, which the person took after the inciting incident began.  We may not know what started the problem, but we are quick to judge that 30 seconds as though we were there.  Stop for another 30 seconds and ask yourself what you actually know before you respond.

2.  Do I know the character of the people involved?
My reaction to strangers should be different than my reaction to people I know well.  If I know that a person is not a sexist or a racist, I don't need to react to their tweet as though sexism or racism is clearly implied.  Take 30 seconds to say to yourself (out loud if you need to), "I know they didn't mean to come off that way."  Then, if you are still bothered, take a few minutes to go talk to them instead of about them.

3.  How will my reaction represent me?
This is big.  When we react out of self-defense or anger, we know everything that led up to that emotional moment.  Your Facebook friends do not.  They are not inside your mind, and to them, you may just look like an over-reacting, crazy person.  I assume you would not want to be viewed that way (unless it is the truth about you).  One over-reacting tweet may not ruin your reputation, but a series of them will.  Take 30 seconds to ask yourself, "Do I want this to be what people think of me?"

4.  Does my reaction fit with my worldview?
I am a Christian school teacher, so I spend a lot of my day thinking about worldview.  As we take in new information, it is filtered through our worldview.   That is why two people looking at the same data can interpret it as pro-creationism or pro-evolution.  Both people are reading the same thing different ways.  We think less about this, but our reactions should also be filtered through our worldview.  If I believe in the Biblical Jesus, my reaction should be Biblical.  That doesn't mean it will never be angry (Jesus did drive the money changers out of the Temple with a handmade whip), but I imagine it would be angry less often if I filtered it through a Christlike worldview.  I imagine the source of the anger would be less about me than most reactions we put online.  It's probably going to take more than 30 seconds to process this one, but it is worth the time.

We are all participating in a large scale, high stakes, sociological experiment.  That would be okay if it weren't rewiring our brains and making us reactive creatures.  You can step aside and change the parameters of the experiment.  Put the phone down for a minute.  React later.  There's no value in reacting first; there is only value in acting well.

Just a Story? There's No Such Thing

This weekend, the movie The Shack, based on the book of the same name was released and opened third at the box office.  I believe this book to be heretical and don't expect any more from the movie and have shared a few posts on my social media regarding it.  There are enough of those, so that's not what this post is about.  This post addresses the most common response I have received with regard to these posts.

"It's just a story."
"Come on, it's just a story.  It's not scripture."
"It's just a story.  Lighten up."
"It's not supposed to be the Bible.  It's just a story."

Here's the thing; I'm not sure there is any such thing a just a story.

Stories have a powerful effect on us.  It's why people write them.  Before there was even writing, there was storytelling.  It's why we teach literature to students and read books to children.  It's why there are book quotes in my twitter feed.  It's why I was upset when Atticus Finch let me down in the sequel to To Kill a Mockingbird.  It's why a teenager quotes Harry Potter to me almost daily.  It's why I think about The West Wing when I consider what might be happening inside the white house.  The stories we read become part of our collective consciousness.  They become part of us and our shared beliefs.  They affect our thinking in ways we aren't even conscious of.

I'm not a fan of censorship, so I'm not advocating boycotts or book burnings.  I am, however, a big fan of self-censorship.  I believe we must take care in our own lives about the stories we choose.  This is especially true when a story is about God.  I don't know much about William Young; he may be a perfectly lovely man.  The only thing I know about him for sure is that he is fallen and has, therefore, a fallen imagination.  Do I want his imagination to become part of my theology?  Do I want a woman named Papa to bleed into my thoughts about the Creator?  Even if the effect on my thinking remains small, we aren't talking about a small effect on my thoughts about dogs or space aliens.  We are talking about the way I think about God.  THIS. IS. IMPORTANT.  This isn't something for me to lighten up about.

We live in a world of books, movies, music, and art of various kinds.  There is no way to consume it all, so we make choices.  It is our responsibility as teachers to help our students make wise choices, and we cannot do that if we are modeling passive consumption.  We must use wisdom for ourselves as well.  I'm not suggesting that we insulate ourselves into a bubble that only include art that agrees with our worldview.  The world is a more complex and interesting place than that.  I am suggesting that we don't judge a work of art casually because it is JUST a work of art.  Francis Schaeffer's great work Art and the Bible gives four criteria for judging a work of art faithfully.  Only one of those four is the worldview of the artist and the message the work communicates, but it is one of the four.  Those responding, "It's just a story" are leaving it off the list entirely.