It Should Keep Getting Better

Projects - Love them or hate them, but you will have them.  This is especially true in science.  There are some concepts that simply must be learned by doing, not to mention all the non-academic learning that comes from projects (which I should write a post on in the future because it is so important).  Because projects matter so much, it is important that we use reflective professional judgment to decide how students can best use their time rather than throwing every good idea we have at them, overwhelming them with work.

When deciding on whether to do a new project, tweak an old one, or keep it exactly as it was this year, there are some questions you need to ask yourself.
1.  What is the academic objective?
2.  What is the "other" objective?  (This could be social, behavioral, or even spiritual)
3.  What are they learning from this project that they cannot learn by doing it some other way?
4.  If retooling a previous project, what can I do to reduce confusion or increase efficiency?  What did someone do last year that I can incorporate this year?

After asking those questions, you may reach one of three conclusions about your project.

1. It should be dropped altogether as it has become a Grecian Urn.  If you don't have time or inclination to read the excellent Cult of Pedagogy post about Grecian Urn projects, here's the summary.  A Grecian Urn is any activity whose time and effort are disproportionate to the learning outcomes.  Something might be fun, but if it is taking days of class time, it should also be rather meaningful.  If it is not, drop it or give it to kids as an optional at home (extra credit if you believe in that sort of thing) activity.  If it is that fun, they'll want to.  If they don't, it probably wasn't as fun as you thought.

2.  The project should stay exactly as it is.  I'm going to suggest that this particular conclusion is rare.  It is difficult for me to believe your project is perfect exactly as is and that making changes could only do damage to the result.  Some projects are classic traditions that everyone should do (e.g physics egg drop project) because it unites us as learners across generations, but that doesn't mean those projects shouldn't change with technology or renewed priorities.  Before you settle into this conclusion, give it some serious thought.

3.  Tweak the project.  I submit to you that this is going to be the answer about 75% of the time.  If you are a creative and interesting teacher who cares enough about your skills to be reading education blogs, you probably had a good idea.  The process of reflection should allow you to identify what was really good about that idea and what needs to be changed.  This may happen only a couple of times, or it may happen every year of your time teaching a course. 

An example will likely help, so let me tell you about a project in my physics class that used to be called "The Electricity Project."  Warning: It plays out over multipl years, so it is long.

I have a healthy respect (that sometimes rises to the level of fear) for electricity.  It's one of the few things in my home I won't tackle on my own.  I don't know what caused this in me, but I don't want to pass it on to my students; so fifteen years ago, I started assigning a project in which they simply had to do some electrical circuit building (series, parallel, and combination circuits were my only requirements).  Many of them built a model of a house and lit each room.  Some built models of car lots or airports and lit each car or plane in series but the runway or lot lights in parallel.  These were all fine and accomplished the instructional objective "recognize the three types of circuits" and my personal behavioral objective "don't be afraid of 9V batteries."  This was fine for a time, and the kids enjoyed it.  They were also nice to have at student showcase nights.

Seven years ago, two students asked if they could do something that was electrical but didn't fit the project instructions.  If you teach high school, you know why I heard this with a skeptical ear at first.  Then, they proposed their idea.  They wanted to build an electric guitar from scratch.  "Umm, that's the coolest thing I've heard.  Yes, of course, you can do that."  I changed the rubric, not just for that year but for the future.  Instead of "build a model with circuits," the requirement became "build a functioning electrical device."  It still fulfilled the objectives the previous version had, but you wouldn't believe the difference in creative projects I got.  I had students who built games that would allow a bell to ring or light to come on when you got a correct answer.  I had some fun electrical versions of tic-tac-toe.  A student attempted to build a theremin.  I even got a Jacob's Ladder and a tiny rail gun that fired paper clips one year and a Tesla coil that had to be operated outside the next.  Because they were so interactive, we had a day of electrical fun, setting them out all over the room and inviting people to come and play with them. 

Four years ago, our school started really pressing in on the idea of Challenge Based Learning.  What would kids do if we took the constraints off and gave them a real-world kind of problem?  Knowing that the addition of another project would be burdensome to all involved, I brainstormed with our technology coach about how I might adjust an already existing project to become challenge based.  I decided on the electricity project.  Given how many people around the world have limited access to electricity, that seemed an ideal problem to solve with their knowledge of physics.  Also, at that time, our IT director was a former missionary to Haiti, where he had his own challenges with keeping electricity consistent in his home.  "Out with electrical device building . . . In with electrical problem solving," I thought.  I don't have time to tell you about the epic failure we had in the first year of this project, and I've already written about it, so read that here.

The next year, as I reflected on the project, I decided that clearer instruction was needed.  Perhaps I had taken the challenge based learning tenant that the teacher shouldn't have an end in mind a little too seriously.  I assigned groups and adjusted directions but had essentially the same project (check here for those adjustments).  Things were better but still not what I was hoping for (I've blogged about this a lot, apparently - see here for that year's result).  I wanted some real ideas, not just windmills.  The next year, we began our year with brainstorming groups in teacher meetings.  If you had an idea but needed input, you presented it to other teachers (mostly outside your own area).  Two teachers said, "It sounds like your idea is a little too hypothetical.  What if you gave them a real place?"  When we began brainstorming sessions last year, I was astounded by the difference that made.  Suddenly, I heard them taking weather into account because "you can't have solar panels in a place with sandstorms all year."  They were discussions about how difficult it would be to find diesel fuel in their particular part of the world or whether it was even windy there.  The fact that they were researching the resources of the area brought this project so much closer to what I envisioned.

Then, the biggest change happened quietly and almost accidentally.  The group that was assigned to Yemen came to me and said that the biggest problem with their lack of electricity was that they had so little clean water.  "Can we build a solar-powered water pump?"  As with the electric guitar, I didn't want to say no to a good idea just because it didn't fit what I had in mind.  Of course they could build a solar-powered water pump.  Aside from the atrocious spelling in their video, this was the best project of all the groups and the one people talked about the most.  They were compelling and knowledgeable and, most of all, invested in their solution.  This challenged me to change this project once again.

I consulted with our current tech coach about broadening the project.  Instead of focusing on electricity, I would assign the area.  Then, they had to decide what was the most critical challenge before them that could be addressed by physics/engineering.  Not knowing what they would decide, I wasn't sure building something was practical, so he suggested grant-style presentations with PSA videos.  Yes, this was coming together.  Of the 8 groups, six said lack of access to potable water was the biggest need in their area, one said flooding led to disease and water problems, and one said sanitation was an issue (because they had garbage and raw sewage in their streets).  In the six groups that addressed water access, there were six different solutions.  This showed me that they did, in fact, research what made the most sense for that country.  I was so proud of their results, and we got great feedback from those who attended the forum.  This was finally the challenge based learning project I wanted it to be.

You may have noticed that the objectives had changed.  No one built anything that had to do with circuits.  I accomplished that objective in one day of handing out 9V batteries, wire, and Christmas tree light bulbs with the instructions to "play and tell me what you learned" after a day of teaching about the different circuits.  That was a memorable day as one group pretty much tased themselves for twenty minutes by linking 32 batteries together and touching wires, showing that they weren't afraid of it.  This project is so much more meaningful that I can't imagine going back to building a simple model to show you can make circuits.  They can learn that another way.  This project now gives them things they couldn't have learned in another way.

If you teach for several years, your project should be getting better.  You may not have one that changes as much as this one did, but don't be afraid if you do.  Share the progression with the students.  They need to see that we continue learning.  They need to know that you have deep thought about the reasons for what you assign them.  They need to know that we haven't arrived at perfect ideas yet but that we are always reaching for them.  If you want them to keep getting better, you should be too.

A Laughing Community

GRACE Christian School is a loving community that spiritually and academically equips, challenges, and inspires students to impact their world for Christ.  That's my school's mission statement.

I've recently come to the realization that of all the evidence that we are a loving community (praying for each other, taking care of each other's needs, making food for each other), the most obvious is the sound of laughter throughout our building.

Students make me laugh every day.  They are witty and often sarcastic (an art I respect when done well).  I have an 8th grader who tells me every time it rains for some reason I don't understand, but it amuses me.  I have a student who I attempt to make laugh, and it is very satisfying on the rare occasions that I am successful.

Come to our teacher's lounge during lunch or the hallway after school or even to our faculty meetings, and you will hear a lot of laughter.  As we share stories of the day or make our own silly observations, we amuse each other a lot.  Some of our teachers prank each other; others have Nerf gun battles across the hall.  Our Head of School is hysterical, and our principles share in the fun as well.  They even give us "paper plate awards" at the end of the year based on some funny story that has happened during the year.  Brainstorming those is the best department chair meeting of the year.

Teaching is an intense job that takes a lot of energy.  It is important that you enjoy your students and your co-workers.  It is also important for your students to see you enjoying your job.  When I was in middle school, I was concerned that adulthood meant hating your job because so many adults I knew did.  When our students see that we enjoy our jobs, they feel more secure about the future.  They also see teachers as human beings, which can only aid in classroom management.  It also gives them a reason to think of teaching as a career option for themselves.

These are all important outcomes; so if your school isn't as fun as mine, find a few friends that you can enjoy and spend more time with them in a place where students can see you.  You need a laughing community; so if you don't have one, make one.  If you do have one, recognize what a blessing that is.  Thank God, and thank each other.

It Takes Too Much Work to Be Out

For the last couple of weeks, I've been fighting a cold.  Nothing major, just a little sore throat and coughing.  On the second morning, a friend of mine asked me why I had come to school.   I answered that I would have to feel a lot worse to do all the work it takes to be out.

There may be other jobs like this, but if there are, I don't know them.  In other jobs that I have had in offices, if I were sick, I would have called in sick.  The day of my return, I would have had a lot of catching up to do, but the work just sat there while I was gone.  When my parents and I go on a vacation together, my dad checks in with ongoing projects at the office, but he doesn't have to prepare before he leaves so that someone else can do that work while he is gone.

Teaching is weird in this way.  I would actually have to do more work to prepare to be out than I would to just keep working.
Step one: Obtain a substitute.  We have a computer system that will call subs, but I would have to get into the program and think really hard to complete the instructions.  If I am sick, this thought process is actually kind of a pain.
Step two:  Figure out what the kids can do instead of what you were going to do with them.  With the exception of test days or video days, if they are going to do the same thing with a sub that they were going to do with me, then I didn't need to go to college for a science education degree.  (And, if they are going to take a test or watch a video, I can come in sick and do that.)  Therefore, I need something that isn't just busy work and does allow them to get some of what they would have gotten from me, but can be done without me.  Have I mentioned that I am sick in this scenario?  That's a lot of thinking for a sick person.
Step three:  Write up what you have decided in step 2 in a form that can be understood by someone who has no idea where anything is in your classroom.  Everything you unconsciously do and locate is completely unknown to the sub.  The sub plans have to have far more detail then your lesson plans ever would.  If there is something special or tricky about a particular student or class, you need to let the sub know that too, so that knowledge you just have as a regular part of your day has to be raised into your consciousness and put on paper tactfully for someone else to read.  Keep in mind, I'm sick while this is happening.
Step four:  Get this information to the school.  Some things can be e-mailed.  You can ask a friend to print out your plan and get it to the sub.  Some things cannot.  If the students are doing an activity that requires a resource, you may have to go in and physically set it up so that it is all in one place and clearly labeled.  That means putting on clothes because you can't really show up in pajamas even if it is just to set up an activity.  The last thing I want to do when I am sick is put on clothes.  It's right up there with driving a car, which I guess I would have to do too.

I haven't even mentioned that when I return to school, I would have to read through the sub's feedback, follow up with discipline if needed, record attendance from when I was out, and grade what the kids did.  If all I have is a minor cold that could use a day of rest, I'll wait for the weekend and rest then.  It is way too much work to be out.

My Weirdness - Part 5 - DIY

This is the last of the posts on my weirdness and was kind of the one that prompted the series.  Here's the story.

I teach chemistry, and we were discussing why hydrogen sulfide smells like death.  I love teaching them about floor drains and how pouring water into the trap blocks the gases so that they won't smell that awful smell (talk about some real world science).  Then, I told them about the time I was replacing the toilet at my house and thought I was going to die before I got it bolted down and filled with water because my head was down there next to the open pipe.  Each of my classes responded with, "Wait, you were doing this yourself?"  "Yes," I responded, "replacing a toilet isn't hard, so why would I pay someone to do what I can do myself?"  I've had this conversation with a dozen classes, so their surprise isn't new to me.  I always follow up with, "I don't pay anyone to do something I can do myself."

What happened next, however, was new.  One of my students really thought I shouldn't have done that, so I explained that if there is something I cannot do (complicated electrical work, masonry) or is too dangerous for me to take on (gas delivery to the water heater), I will hire someone.  I simply won't hire someone to do something that I CAN do myself.  He said, "So, you don't have people clean?"  This is when I understood that this boy and I live on two different planets.  I said to him, "You know that's not normal, right?  Most people don't have that."  He got embarrassed and asked to use the restroom.  It wasn't my intent to embarrass him, but I have never had anyone assume that I should have cleaning people.

I grew up in a house where my dad could fix almost anything and believed in making us help.  I have watched him repair washing machines and dryers, furnaces and garbage disposals.  I was shoved into cabinets to pull wires from one end of the kitchen to another.  I was taught how to mud sheetrock properly and how to install a ceiling fan.  I carried landscaping timbers and 2x4's from the truck to the back of the house more times than I can count.  The few times we did hire professionals, it was for really obvious reasons.  We hired roofers because you don't just get hurt if you fall off the house and because doing it wrong results in very expensive repairs.  We hired people to put on siding because we weren't going to buy the equipment required for doing that right.

A few summers ago, I had a leaky bathtub faucet.  I called my dad, and he suggested a few things.  I went to youtube and found out that Home Depot has a channel there.  I was able to repair the leak and replace my fixtures for about twenty dollars.  If I had to bring in a professional for that small job, the price would have been four to five times that much.  The first time I needed to replace a water heater, my parents and I pulled out the old one, put in the new one and reconnected it.  I can't do everything, but I can use basic tools and learn from instructions.  I'm too scared to repair things on my car, but I'm not afraid of most things in my house.  I do have a healthy respect for electricity, so I would never tackle that alone.  When I had to replace the capacitor in my air conditioning, I called my mom over to stand near me.  She asked me what I thought she would be able to do, and I told her I would like 911 to be called as soon as possible if I did electrocute myself into unconsciousness.

You are more capable than you think, and instructions are now just a few clicks away.  Hire people when you actually need to, but you will be very happy with yourself and save a lot of money by learning to do some things yourself.

Stop Blaming Millennials for Being What You Made Them

Baby Boomers and Generation X'ers have been bemoaning the current generation for a while now.  The common complaints are that Millennials are:
- Lazy
- Entitled and Ungrateful
- Narcissistic
- Disrespectful to Authority
- Never Paying Attention

Disclosure Statement:  I was born in 1976, which makes me a full member of Generation X.  Since I have taught high school for the past 17 years, I have taught the youngest of Generation X as well as all of the Millennial range.

Here's the deal.  Generation X was lazy when compared to Baby Boomers who were massively lazy compared to those who survived the Great Depression.  Generation X was far less grateful for our Sony Walkmen than we would have the Millennials believe we were, and I am betting that Baby Boomers weren't as grateful for their 8-tracks as their parents would have liked either.  Disrespect for authority has been getting progressively worse throughout American history.  There are some great things about the Millennial generation, but that is for next week's post.

The two labels I believe are uniquely accurate are the low attention span and the narcissism.

Before we jump on our kids for these attributes, let's take an honest look at the cause.  With the exception of Mr. Rogers Neighborhood, every children's show since the beginning of Sesame Street has been fast moving, loud, and colorful.  No image stays on the screen for longer than twelve seconds.  The child's developing brain becomes neurologically wired to seek new stimulation every twelve seconds.  Who makes children's programming.  Hint: It's not children.  Who lets a Millennial sit with a screen for ten hours a day, making their attention span short.  Hint: The kid isn't tall enough to get at the screen for himself.

As for Narcissism, I think even Narcissus would think we have gone to far.  He only looked at himself; he didn't insist that others do so as well.  What has made the Millennials so self focused?  Could it be that they have been told since they were conceived (through headphones attached to the mother's abdomen) that they are the most wonderful, amazing, and unique snowflake God ever dropped on this earth?  Could it be that every time an authority figure has dared to point out a flaw, they were told that they were in the wrong for not understanding the child's uniqueness?  Could it be that we have been video taping, photographing, and posting about their every move and word since they came into the world?  Then we bought them selfie sticks.  Were we thinking it wouldn't make them believe they should take pictures of themselves all the time?



When you paint a picture, you can't blame the picture for having the colors you used.  When you cook a meal, it is useless to blame the taste on the ingredients you chose.  When you tell a child they are perfect every day for years, you can't be upset that they believe you.  If you are a Baby Boomer or a Generation X'er (like me), you will find yourself tempted to complain about the qualities you see in the current generation.  Before you make those complaints out loud, keep this in mind:  WE MADE THEM THIS WAY.

As Dr. Phil says, "You can't change what you don't acknowledge."  The brain can be changed, but it requires intense, focused work.  That can't happen until we acknowledge the source of the problem.  If we don't recognize that our words are part of the problem, we will continue to send mixed messages.  Nothing could ever prevent growth more than that.

Exams Teach More Than You Know

Disclaimer:  I am a middle and high school science teacher, not a neurobiologist.  I am well aware that the learning process in the brain is far more complex than I am portraying.  This is painted with very broad strokes because this is, after all, an educational blog and not a neurology text.

"It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Exam Week" really should be a song because, for middle and high school teachers and students, it can't be Christmas until midterm exams are over.  To see some of my students blogs on the issue, click here.

It happens every year.  A middle school student tells me that exams are unnecessary and don't tell you anything because they can't study for all their subjects at once.  They are always very proud of their amazing argument, backed up with something their mom said about how they shouldn't be under so much pressure at their age.  Much like the "When am I ever going to use this is life?" question, it doesn't actually matter what my answer is.  They came in knowing that they were right and nothing will convince them otherwise.  Since you read this blog, I will assume that you care what the answer is.  Exams are about the pressure.

The initial learning process is a long and complicated brain experience.  It involves categorizing new knowledge into categories you established from prior knowledge, blending the old information with the new to give it meaning, and recording that meaning in a biochemical process in your brain.  Because the brain's real estate is limited, there is competition for what will remain and what gets tossed.  Your brain simply must throw out some things, or you would waste valuable space on remembering what the people in your line at the grocery store last week were wearing.  In the simplest of terms, your brain decides to keep the things you revisit and dump the things you don't.  That's why songs stay in your mind.  That's why review matters.  It has even been theorized that one of the purposes of sleep is to give your brain time to decide what it should forget from that day without taking in new input in the process.

What does this have to do with pressure and exams?

First, you are obviously revisiting information that you learned earlier in the semester.  This tells your brain that it should hold onto this information next time it is sorting out what you should forget.  It tells your brain that this information is more important than the tweet your read yesterday and never looked at again.  Second, the pressure of the exam schedule tells your brain that this matters enough to stress over.  The brain isn't likely to drop those things you are stressed about when it goes through information triage.  It is why you remember the fight you had with your friend long after you forgot the color of the carpet in the conference room.  Emotion (even stress) causes your brain to record more permanently.  The pressure increases the learning.

Another thing that exams teach you is the ability to plan for the long term and short term simultaneously.  This is an important adult life skill.  Your parents prepare for the short term (packing lunches for tomorrow) and the medium term (what groceries to buy for this week) and the long term (how much money to budget for food).  They do it all the time.  They didn't develop the ability to do this the day they turned 21.  It is a skill that is built.  One of the ways you build this skill is to balance studying for exams (a couple of weeks away) with doing the homework that is due tomorrow.  This will keep you from living your life by the "tyranny of the urgent" principle.  Many adults live anxious lives because they are only doing what has to be done RIGHT NOW.  If you have developed the skill of planning ahead, your life will be less stressful.

As I began writing this, I had a strange memory of an episode of Boy Meets World.  I know that's weird, but stick with me.  Mr. Feeny had made a very difficult exam schedule (because, in TV world, the history teacher is apparently able to make the exam schedule).   Anyway, the students revolted against this unfair schedule.  They vandalized his house, etc.  In the scene below, Corey goes to talk to him about the vandalism and to request that he make things easier.  As always, Mr. Feeny's wisdom came through, so I will end with it.

Work Worth Doing

Teddy Roosevelt, the 26th President of the United States, was known for doing hard work to overcome great obstacles.  He was born rather sickly, battling asthma by adopting a "strenuous lifestyle."  He attended Harvard, wrote books, served as the Secretary of the Navy, fought in the War in Cuba, became governor of New York, and became President in the Wake of the assassination of President McKinley.  He busted monopolies, established the National Parks system, built the Panama Canal, and won the Nobel Peace Prize.  This was an accomplished man who knew the value of hard work.

In a campaign speech to the farmers of upstate New York, another group of people who knew the value of hard work, Roosevelt said, "Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing."  He believed that work was the thing that gave life meaning.  It was how you rebounded from the difficulties of life; it was good for the spirit.  When his wife died, he threw himself into his work.  In that same speech to the farmers of New York, he said, "There is no room in our healthy American life for the mere idler."

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.  

I don't know if the work I do would be deemed working hard by President Roosevelt.  After all, I am not working a plow or building a building.  I do like to think, however, that he would consider it work worth doing.  Teaching is not simply the delivery of information from 8 to 3 as many believe.  It is teaching students to think, to evaluate, to analyze, and to create new work.  It is showing them good citizenship, good relationships with other teachers, and good submission to authority (even with rules you don't like).  It is putting your own character up as a model every minute of every day.  A former principal used to say that we should be so sure of the steps we take that we have no problem with the idea that our students will put their feet in the same steps.  Imagine that is your job every day, and you know why teachers need summer.

Adam and Eve were put into the Garden of Eden to work.  That was before the fall.  After the fall, work became difficult; but they didn't sit around doing nothing before the fall.  Work is an important part of human nature when it is productive.  When it is not productive, it is punitive.  Tedious work (like digging a hole one day just to fill it the next) has been used as a form of torture for centuries.  The psychology of the human mind is such that we must believe work is worth doing in order to work hard at it.  That's why you hear kids complain about "busy work" and why you get a lot more out of them if you tell them why they are doing it.  I am sitting here writing this on a teacher work day.  I have graded, worked on curriculum, uploaded photos to Jostens, dealt with e-mails, and written this blog.  I am not drained and exhausted because I feel this is valuable work - work worth doing.  When my students come in next Monday, I will be ready to do more work.  Am I tired at the end of the day?  You bet.  But it is a very different kind of tired than that experienced by those who view their job as drudgery.  

Social psychologist Matt Wallaert set out to explore why so many are unemployed when jobs are available.  He found that many are not finding jobs that live up to their own expectations of what they thought they would make after college.  Not realizing the value of paying their dues and comparing themselves only to their expectations, they simply opt out of the job market because it makes them feel as if they haven't really lost anything - read this article to make sense of that line.  They are also being diagnosed with depression at massive rates because they are not getting the feeling of meaning that comes from doing work worth doing.  

It has been over 100 years since President Roosevelt commended those farmers for their work, and I fear that the world they built has made us soft, made us fear difficult work, and made us believe that life owes us comfort for no other reason than that fact that we were born.  The students I teach are wonderful, but it is difficult to battle this cultural idea that we might be rich and famous without doing anything.  Commercials tell us what we deserve (money for a car accident, phone plans, tires, and contact lenses).   What have we done to earn those things?  Being alive.  If I believe pop culture, the simple act of being born has apparently endowed me with the right to stuff, to happiness, and to not ever feeling shamed or offended.  This isn't the way God made us.God made us to work.  Work, like all things, was distorted by the fall.  Work became more difficult with less result.  Work became tedious.  Work did not stop being important.  It has continued to be part of the human experience.  To quote Leslie Knope at the end of the series finale of Parks and Recreation, "Go find your team, and get to work."