Inconsistent Thoughts

Have you noticed how inconsistent people's beliefs are?  Maybe it is the result of people living pragmatically rather than out of religious conviction.  Perhaps it happened when we started treating political power as the ultimate end, so whatever means it took to get there became acceptable.  Maybe we just don't think enough about whether our opinions are consistent with our other opinions (most people don't reflect as much as they should).  I don't know if it was like this before since I didn't live before, but it bugs me.  Here are a few examples I have noticed in the past few years. 

Botox v. Vaccine - During the pandemic, all the armchair epidemiologists came out of the woodwork.  People looked at graphs they were not qualified to interpret and called it "doing their own research."  They insisted that people who followed recommendations were ignorant while they were informed.  When the vaccine came out, they insisted that it was putting "poison" in their bodies.  Meanwhile, many of those same people had been injecting actual poison in the form of botulinum toxin into their facial muscles for years.  Botox for the sake of vanity was fine; vaccines for the sake of protecting immunocompromised people were not.  They'll try to tell you these situations are different; but, in reality, it is just inconsistent thinking.

Pro-Life, Baby on Board v. Death Penalty - I've been pro-life for as long as I can remember, but I have to confess I was always weirded out by "Baby on Board" signs in cars when they were ubiquitous in the 80s and 90s.  I always wondered if there was an age at which I could drive recklessly without the worry of endangering the 14-year-old on board or the middle-aged adult in the car.  The new version of this is a yard sign that says, "Drive like your children live here."  I don't have children, so I guess it is fine if I just plow through the neighborhood at 90mph.  What really confuses me, though, is that the same people who protest abortion and caution you about driving are the quickest to advocate the execution of criminals or "turning Aghganistan into a parking lot."  Again, I don't know what age you have to be before the "human life is sacred" people (of which I am one) start thinking it is okay for the government to take lives.  I'm conflicted about the death penalty because of people like Timothy McVeigh, but I'm about an inch away from believing it should be abolished completely.  It should, at the very least, be used as little as possible.  But I don't understand the inconsistency of pro-life people celebrating the destruction of a human who bears the Imago Dei.

Gender Isn't Real v. Gender Reveal - If there is anything more annoying than gender reveals, I don't know what it is.  For no reason other than social media posts, we decided we couldn't just answer the question, "Do you know what you're having?" anymore.  Instead, we had to come up with a dramatic way to announce it to hundreds of people at once.  Yet, we live in a time when some are trying to convince us that gender doesn't exist.  Even weirder, these are often the same people.  People who believe gender is literally not a thing will still make their first question, "So, is it a boy or a girl?"  I always wonder if any parent says, "I don't know.  I guess we'll find out in a few years."  These are weirdly inconsistent positions.

Eliminating Grades v. What's In It For Me? If you aren't in education, you may not know how many weirdos on Twitter want to eliminate grades.  I'm sure they mean well; they want students to learn for the sake of learning without extrinsic motivation being necessary.  Yet, they teach students who regularly compete for prizes.  These same teachers tweet a lot about their own pay, so apparently they need some extrinsic motivation in their lives.  The other day, I saw an ad for an app called Healthy Wager.  Apparently, weight loss, feeling better, and living longer are not enough internal motivations to eat well and exercise, so this app incentivizes users with money.  We can have a real discussion about the over-emphasis on grades, but if you are going to talk about eliminating them completely, I'm going to ask you to be honest about your own motivations.

Teachers Have an Agenda v. Arming them - At the beginning of the pandemic, there was a lot of love for teachers.  Parents were having to deal with their kids during the day for the first time since they were toddlers, and they didn't like it.  When they imagined multiplying it by 30, they decided teachers were saints.  It didn't last long, though, and the whiplash was strong.  As teachers and students returned to school buildings, it became popular to accuse us of having an agenda.  Teachers have been accused of everything from teaching white supremacy through math to recruiting kids to be trans.  Laws have been passed to prevent teachers from having normal conversations with students, choosing books, and deciding our own grading policies.  Parents' organizations have demanded to see lesson plans in July (not curriculum mind you - lesson plans).  We are no longer the angels we were in the spring of 2020; we are untrustworthy agents of the state.  But pay attention next time there is a mass shooting in a school.  The same people who don't trust me to do the job for which I am trained, certified, and experienced will immediately advocate that I be armed, something for which I am not remotely prepared or inclined to do.

This blog is supposed to be about education, so here's the connection.  Cognitive dissonance causes anxiety.  We talk a lot about student anxiety, but this fact is never addressed.  Helping them resolve their thoughts can only be good for them.  When students say things that reveal inconsistent thoughts, call them on it.  When they say that everyone should accept themselves just the way they are while also talking about New Year's resolutions, ask them whether they think that is consistent.  When they insist on fairness for themselves and not others, ask them what fairness looks like and guide them to recognize fairness isn't fair if it doesn't include the people they don't like.  Model consistent thinking in front of them, and own it when you have been inconsistent.  They won't recognize it for themselves.  They need us to guide them.

This is Your Brain on Change

"Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change." 
- Mary Shelley in Frankenstein

Change is stressful.  All change.  Even good changes are stressful.  Knowing why the brain reacts to change the way it does won't prevent it from being stressful, but it might help you deal with it.

A few years ago, Dr. Deborah Gilboa said this at a Learning and the Brain conference. - "Your brain has many functions but one job, to keep you alive.  Whatever difficulties you may be going through, you are alive.  Any change, no matter how good, might change that.  So you could be ecstatically happy about a marriage proposal, and your brain will respond with, 'Cool, but could you die, though?' That is why change is stressful."  Your brain prefers to keep things the same as much as possible.

And yet, that's not how life works.  The Greek philosopher Heraclitus is credited with the idea that the only constant in life is change.  You change as you learn; so do others. Friends get married and have children, changing both their lives and yours.  Students graduate, and co-workers leave the company. Bosses change, and inflation happens. You get the idea. 

So, if the reason for the stress is that your brain is trying to maintain your current state of "aliveness," it makes sense to trick your brain into thinking of changes as smaller than they are. No matter how irrational it sounds, in terms of your brain, the bigger the change, the more significant the chance of death.  The reason most New Year's Resolutions fail (aside from them being stupid, as I've discussed before on this blog) is that we set goals requiring huge and immediate change. In the misguided belief that dropping a ball in Times Square will renew us overnight, we suddenly take our calorie intake from Christmas level to third-world level; and our brain freaks out.  The popularity and success of smoking cessation helpers like nicotine gum and patches show that stopping cold turkey is expecting too much change too fast.  

Small changes are more doable because they scare your brain less. A smaller change might carry a smaller risk of death with it, so your brain doesn't cause you to fear it as much.  Adding a nutritious item to each day or removing one serving of junk food won't make your brain think you are experiencing a famine, making you crave every calorie you see.  That change is sustainable, so it will soon stop feeling like change.  If you have decided you spend too much time on social, your brain will accept it more if you go down by 15 minutes every day this week and then 15 minutes again every day next week than it will if you go down by 30 minutes overnight.  The less "change-y" it feels, the less anxious your brain will be.  Unless your bad habit is immediately dangerous, stepping down is better than a sudden stop.

I teach a study skills class, and two weeks ago, we talked about the organization of study materials and environments.  Some of them are natural organizers and others are a hot mess.  I told those who were a hot mess that I wasn't asking them to become like "the color-coded matching folder" people; I was just asking them increase by one level - perhaps one folder for things to hand in tomorrow.  This is a small change that can last the rest of the school semester.  Perhaps, then, you can step it up one more level in the future.

Some things, of course, cannot be done in steps.  If you are moving from one house to another, having a baby, or leaving a job, you cannot really do that in small doses.  In those times, it would be most helpful to remind yourself of the things that are not changing, no matter how small or to focus on the ways in which that change will improve your life (to remind your brain that you aren't likely to die).

Change is inevitable, but you can, as the great Daniel Willingham put it, "Outsmart Your Brain."  So, be realistic in your goal setting, and give your brain time to adjust and remind it that some changes are good.

I Literally Just Told You

I spend a lot of my day repeating myself.  I repeat information.  I repeat student's names to get their attention.  I repeat directions over and over and over and over.  While part of this is an issue of attention and listening (particularly when they are just ignoring their own name), some of the problem is also with the mystery of our memories.  The combination of our working memory and how we encode information creates a challenge for teachers as we try to put things into their long-term memories.  

During the pandemic, I discovered a love for British game/panel shows on YouTube.  There's one I am not sure will last long, but it has an interesting premise.  It's called "I Literally Just Told You."  All of the questions in the show are being written live and are about the episode you are watching.  For example, they introduce each contestant as you would on any show, and then the first question might be, "How many children does Darren have?" or "What does Lisa do for a living?"  You would think that, knowing the premise of the show, the contestant might pay really good attention during those introductions.  They might, but they certainly don't remember it sixty seconds later when they are asked.  

Our memories are complex and often paradoxical.  We can be singing an 80s song in our heads, flawlessly remembering every lyric from four decades ago, while walking into the bedroom, only to realize that we have no idea why we walked into the bedroom.  Did I need shoes?  Was I going to make the bed?  Is there a book in here that I want to take to school with me?  I have no idea, but I am still singing "Secrets stolen from deep inside, the second hand unwinds . . ." from Cyndi Lauper's early career while I can't remember the thought I had just twenty seconds ago.  Clearly, recency alone is not what our memories need.

If you attend church, can you summarize last week's sermon?  Your minister worked hard on it.  He structured it in such a way that he hoped would help you remember.  Chances are, it was filled with really important things that struck you upon hearing them.  What about last night's news broadcast.  There was an awful lot of important stuff in there; big things are happening in the world.  Yet, the importance of those story details is not enough for your memory to store it.

For a while, researchers thought memory was related to emotion because of the involvement of the amygdala and because we obviously remember emotional moments vividly (weddings, funerals, where you were when you heard of a tragedy).  Yet, most of what we want to remember and want our students to remember is not inherently emotional.  How would I attach emotion to balancing chemical equations or the quadratic formula?  And, even if I could, is it good for kids?  They are already walking around in an emotional soup, and it may not be ethical for me to add to that.

Could it be frequency?  Maybe I remember the song lyrics because I've heard them so many times.  TV commercials certainly rely on that.  Maybe all the repeating I do is valuable after all, even if it drains my energy.  But . . . ask anyone who has been in a play, having read and heard the lines at every rehearsal doesn't help them on "crash and burn day," the first rehearsal where they are required to be off book.  

This example from the great Daniel Willingham's book, Why Don't Students Like School? shows that frequency is also not enough for your memory.  Which drawing of a penny represents the way an actual penny looks?  There are a few I am certain are wrong.  I know Lincoln does not face left.  But is the year on the left or right?  Yikes!  I am far less sure of that.  I think the motto is on the top, but aren't there some coins where it isn't?  If you are interested, the correct one is G, but the point Willingham is making is that seeing a penny thousands of times doesn't mean you remember its details.

So, how does memory work?  I'd encourage you to read Why Don't Students Like School for the best explanation (or watch Daniel Willingham's TikTok videos (you know I saw them on YouTube) in which he talks about study skills.), but I'll summarize it with this sentence.  We remember what we put effort into thinking about.  As he says it, "Memory is the residue of thought."

Asking your students to think about the material means asking questions.  "Family VIIA is the most reactive non-metal family" is much easier to remember if you understand that each member of that family has 7 valence electrons and only needs one more to fulfill its stability requirements.  So, when I ask students this question in a retrieval activity, I should follow up by asking, "Why is that true?"  Why questions automatically require students to put thought into the meaning of the fact.  It is also helpful to put a fact in the context of relationships.  If family VIIA is the most reactive non-metal family for that reason, what would be the most reactive metal family?  Is the reason the same?  Sort of, so now let's think about the difference.  

This takes a lot of time, and you can't do it with everything you teach.  But if there are things that are going to come up again that you want them to remember and use, invest the time.

As for the directions you keep repeating, write them on the board.  Then, just point back to it when they ask you to repeat it again.

A Teacher's Faith

If you are not a religious person, please don't close this post yet.  While I am a person of deep Christian faith and would love to write about it all day long, that is not what this post is about.  The faith I am talking about here is the faith teachers have to possess in order to accomplish our jobs.  We set very long-term goals, and we sometimes don't see the payoff as quickly as we would like.  Sometimes, we don't ever see it because the student has moved out of our lives before the fruit grows from the tree we planted.

At the beginning of each year, it is always easy to think that this year's students are less mature and less skilled than last year's students, but it is rarely true.  The problem is that we are comparing students at the beginning of this year to the students at the end of last year, forgetting what it took to get them there.  We train them in procedures and then have to start over again the next year.  As an 8th-grade teacher, I turn 7th graders into high school students and then give them away, just to start all over again.  (Okay, I know why I am so tired now.)  But here is my point.  It takes faith to look at the kids in front of you and believe that they will become something different by the end of the year.

It has long been my contention that band teachers have the most faith of all people.  What comes out of instruments at the beginning of the school year is NOT music.  It is a cacophony that would make any other teacher crazy, but a band teacher hears potential because he's been here before and he has the skills to turn that discordant melee of noise into recognizable songs.  And they do - every year.  Other arts teachers have similar faith needs.  I've attended a number of play rehearsals over the years, and the most interesting one is the day they are required to be "off-book" for the first time.  Students affectionately and accurately refer to this as "crash and burn day."  As a brain enthusiast, I can explain why this is the most important rehearsal day of the year because it is the first time they are engaged in active retrieval practice. As a member of the future audience, I cringe every time I see it.  The theater teacher does not.  Just like the band teacher, she's been here before so she does not fear that the final production will be like this.  She has faith that continued practice will turn this stuttering, struggling mess into a play that will entertain ticket buyers.  

I could go on.  Early elementary teachers who listen while students sound words out know that someday they will read with great fluidity and acquire knowledge from what they read.  Math teachers whose students struggle with the concept of the number line know that, at some point, these students will internalize algebraic thinking enough to believe they aren't using it.  I would love for my PE teachers of the past to know what I am doing at the Y today because it doesn't seem possible that they would have imagined me attempting to lift heavier weights, but maybe they did have that kind of faith.

Teachers, it can be difficult for us not to see the results of our work right away, so here is my encouragement to you.  Build your faith by reflecting on the times you have seen results.  Build your faith by remembering the impact your own teachers had on you, and know that you are doing the same work.  Build your faith by keeping thank you emails or drawings from students in a box that you can return to when your faith is weak.  Even if you are not a Christian, you can take heart from this verse.  

 And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone . . ." - Galatians 6:9-10a

Letting Go

I saw this online on Tuesday.  It hit different because this week was spirit week, which traditionally has been one of my busiest and craziest weeks of the school year.  This year, it feel remarkably normal.*

Let me back up for those of you who are not regular readers of this blog.  For 18 years, I was the yearbook advisor at my school.  Even in normal weeks, my afternoons were filled with games, events, play rehearsals, and band performances.  My weekends very often involved editing photos and uploading them for tagging.  Spirit Week, as you can imagine, was all of this on steroids.  Our school is on two campuses, so each day meant running from my classroom to the elementary campus for pictures.  The parade, pep rally, game, and court on Friday led to a Saturday filled with editing and uploading before heading to the dance where I took about 400 pictures in three hours.  Sunday was about dealing with those, and I was teaching again on Monday (I hadn't stopped teaching during spirit week).  Please don't read any of this as a complaint.  I did it for 18 years because I loved doing it.  But, loving it doesn't keep it from being a lot to deal with.  

In April of 2022, I approached my principal about giving up the yearbook and spent last year handing it off to someone else.  While some have worried that I would have mixed feelings or a sense of great loss, I haven't.  I figured out what I was getting from the yearbook that I didn't want to lose and created a role for myself that would provide that.  Mostly, I have been enjoying going to a volleyball game when I want to rather than when I had to, planning to see a play without having already seen two rehearsals, and attending fitness classes at the local YMCA (by the way, we are in our annual fundraising time, and I'd love for you to support the work they do for the community because it is amazing).  

As I did my lesson planning for this week, I was happy to see that I could keep doing whatever I need to in order to move forward in the curriculum.  Each day, I enjoyed seeing students in their costumes without needing to chase them down the hall with a camera.  I was able to participate in the parade, waving at the camera as I walked by.  I participated in the teacher lip-sync battle at the pep rally, something I hadn't been able to do in years.  I went to the game and didn't watch it because I was able to stand in the alumni tent talking to former students.  I chaperoned the dance last night with empty hands and left when the first shift ended, getting home at a perfectly reasonable time. 

Again, please don't hear any of this as a hatred of the last 18 years, simply as a comparison to show that I let go of this at exactly the right time.  I loved doing it, and, because the timing was right, I am able to love not doing it without having negative feelings about it.

When it is time to let something go, I encourage you to put thought into why you were doing it in the first place and then figure out how to keep the positive aspects of that thing in your life in a different way.  The time invested is worth the emotional payoff.  

*There is no such thing as a normal school week.