Can vs. Should

This is America.  In spite of the assertions of some extreme right and left people, that means we are free to do a lot of things (I guess those people want to be free to do anything, but that's not how society works).  But just because we can do some things doesn't mean we should.  There should be something inside you that prevents you from doing and/or saying certain things.  That inhibiting factor might be religious regulations, ethnic culture, or how your parents raised you.  But if there is nothing in your heart that makes you pause and ask "Should I do this?" rather than "Can I do it?" it is not a sign that you were more free, just less ethical.

I'll give you an example.  In 2020, during the time of the public's reaction to the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer, most of the protests were peaceful, but there were some that wrongly turned to violent riots involving property damage and danger to human life.  There is much to be discussed and analyzed in the response of many during this time, but what I found disheartening was that some of the people I love responded with glee that they could turn their attention to the riots, distracting themselves from the need to respond to the racism that sparked it all.  A friend of mine posted a meme with a very famous photograph of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor with the caption, "Democrats would call this a mostly peaceful day in Hawaii." I responded that I thought it was wrong to use this photo as a joke. Her first response was to explain it to me as though I didn't get it and then to tell me she had free speech as an American.  The first amendment does protect her from legal backlash, but it shouldn't prevent her from personal reflection.  There should have been something inside of her that said, "Maybe it isn't a great idea to use a powerful photograph from a horrific event in which American servicemen died to mock people."  Just because you can doesn't mean you should.  Another friend shared clearly doctored photographs to mock people with whom he disagreed.  When people pointed out that the photos were obviously not real, he responded in angry ways that he was allowed to post whatever he wanted (true) and it was funny, so they should get over it.  So, in his mind, spreading lies is fine as long he gets to mock someone he hates. I've had the same disheartening feelings this week as I've watched fellow Christians gleefully mock Joe Biden's age after his dismal debate performance.  Christian friends, remind yourself that one of the fruits of the Spirit is self control.  We could be having a serious discussion about the merits of these two men and the policies each would have and the impact those policies would have on the world, but instead, we've chosen a less humane route simply because it is more entertaining. Can you do it?  Obviously yes.  Should you?  Obviously no.

Examples of this concept abound.  I am generally a capitalist because I do believe that market competition usually leads to better products (not always, things are more complicated than that).  I also know that we are people with sin natures and anyone, left completely unchecked, will have temptations to do wrong.   A lot of people will justify immoral practices if they are not explicitly against the rules.  Therefore, some reasonable regulations are necessary.  In a great example of self restraint, author Vern Poythress applies his morals over socially acceptable rules.  He could make a lot more money than he does, but he has decided to forgo copyright on his own work by making it freely available online. He believes knowledge should be free to all.  Something in him compels him to choose, not just what he could do, but what he believes is the right thing to do.

There's no way to write this post without quoting one of the greatest characters ever put on screen.  Dr. Ian Malcolm, the chaos theorist portrayed by Jeff Goldblum in Jurrasic Park, warned park creator John Hammond about the end results of recreating extinct predators, saying, "your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should.”  We're seeing this all over as technology advances at an unprecedented rate.  We worship  convenience on the altar of entertainment, so we have loaded app after app on our phones without pausing to reflect on whether they are good for us.  When we finally recognize the negative impact, the devices are already too ingrained in society to undo it.  In a move even George Orwell didn't predict, we have voluntarily brought devices into our homes that listen to us at all times.  Should we?  We never bother to ask ourselves.  It's more convenient, so we don't care.  

We are doing the same thing with the rapid expansion of AI.  Science fiction writers have spent decades warning us about the potential impact of allowing machines to learn and think for themselves.  Rather than heed those warnings, we are saying, "I can do something a little faster than before?  Yep. Let's move forward with it as quickly as possible."  I'm not just talking about students using it to cheat (which they absolutely will - some of the AI apps are marketing themselves as "never get caught.").  I'm not just talking about adults using it to get out of the hard work of thinking for themselves (Be careful.  AI flat out makes things up that don't exist, and you won't know if you aren't prepared to do the work to find out.). I'm talking about art forgery, deep fake videos, and inaccurate patient care.  These things are already happening.  AI is going to make us all a little less human, and it is going to make some of us a lot less human.  One day, we will look around and wonder how we got here.  But every time I say this, the response is, "Well, it's not going anywhere, so we have to accept reality."  Do we?  Can't we take some control over our own lives?  It doesn't have to be this way, but we care more about convenience than reflection.  I'm not saying we should not progress technologically; I'm saying it is worth slowing down to ask some questions before we proceed without limits.  Sadly, I don't see that happening.

You can't control what is available, but you can control what you adopt in your own life.  I resisted owning a cell phone until I was 47 and a half years old.  I wouldn't have one now if I hadn't been changing jobs.  I am, however, limiting my use of it.  I refuse to install social media apps or games onto it because I've seen what that does to people.  I use it for my job, and I text and make calls, but I will not make it a source of entertainment or use it to pay for things.  Your line and mine don't have to be the same, but you should take some times to figure out what your values are rather than using everything just because you can.

Measurable Growth

Yesterday, I had an "off day" in my indoor cycling class.  It happens occasionally.  I just can't get my legs to go as fast as the instructor is cuing or push through a level that it could do earlier in the week.  Last Wednesday, I had a similar problem in my weightlifting class.  A weight that I have been putting on my back for several months using a clean and press simply refused to be lifted.  Even when I dropped down a bit, I tapped my forehead with the bar on my first attempt to pull it up and had to sit out a few reps during the set.  There are a lot of reasons for this.  Sometimes, I haven't eaten enough before going to class.  Other times I've been getting a cold that hasn't yet exhibited symptoms.  There have been times where I just haven't recovered from the previous day's class, and my legs, arms, shoulders, or core don't have more to give.  It can be discouraging if you are only comparing today to yesterday or this week to last week.  But, yesterday when I looked at my "off day" performance, I realized that a year ago, this would have been a very good day.  I was averaging just over a mile in four minutes.  That's lower than my current level of normal, but a year ago, it was my goal time for a mile, and four months before that, I hadn't even started cycling yet.  That weight I couldn't lift over my head last Wednesday was over 20 pounds heavier than what I was doing the same moves with a year ago.  In other words, I have made progress; and I know that because I have measurements.  

Recently, Adam Boxer posted this question on Twitter.  There were fifty replies directly to him and dozens more in conversations with the repliers, and it led to some interesting discussions.  My answer was that there wasn't enough information to tell, but that was largely because I don't understand the British system and how the curriculum is tested.  I would imagine a student or parent would look at this list and say they have regressed, but that is also a misrepresentation of the question.  After a few days of discussion, Adam gave his answer.  Each score showed that they had learned some of the content on that exam, almost none of which they had known before.  Therefore, the student had, in fact made progress.  I would also pose that (again, I don't know their system, so I could be wrong) the material probably increases in complexity and difficulty level as the year goes on, so having achieved competency on 40% of that content may be equal to or even better than knowing 80% of the material presented earlier in the year (more comparable to my "off day"after having progressed to a higher level).  

My point is this.  Growth is measurable.  Whether it is how much weight I can lift on an average day or the height of a plant, reading fluency, or how much a student has learned about math, there are ways to track it and observe progress.  It is not, however, always easy to measure.  In a different thread discussion on Twitter, a number of people replied to Greg Ashman's assertion about explicit and instruction and things that are measurable with some version of "really important parts of education are not measurable." I understand their point. Teachers teach a lot more than academic content, things like kindness, respect, teamwork, etc.  I would posit that a researcher running an experiment would be able to find a way to measure those things (How many times did a child smile at a classmate?  How often were kind words spoken?), and they would have people posted who jobs were to count those things.  But, the average teacher obviously cannot do that.  We have to base it more on general observations and "vibe," but that doesn't make growth in those areas immeasurable.  Growth can always be seen.

Grades are a piece of data, and I am not one of the people who think they should be abolished (I'm all for modifications to the way they are assigned, but one of the things pandemic lockdowns taught us was that students would not keep learning for intrinsic reasons if we got rid of them, as had been previously asserted).  I do think it is valuable to keep them in perspective.  Grades are A PIECE of data, but they are just one piece.  There are many formative assessments, checks for understanding, discussions with students about their learning, written work, and projects/labs which we put together in our understanding of student growth.  Teachers don't have time to consolidate those in a formal way, but over time, we grow our professional judgment to the point where we are able to develop a reasonable idea of growth from all of those inputs.  Grades matter; they just aren't the only things that matter.

It's summer, so none of this is helpful yet.  But when the school year begins next year, take in where your kids are.  You are taking in a constant stream of input.  You might be in a class where formal pretests are given, or you might just do some informal surveying of your class's knowledge.  You might even make it into a game that gives you actual information rather than icebreakers that 0.0% of people enjoy playing.  As the year goes on, you might repeat those questions (perhaps on one of those days that has a lot of interruptions where you have a hard time making forward progress).  This will give you a measurable way to track progress in your students.  Be sure to celebrate that growth with them, so when they have "an off day," they can recognize that they have grown to the point where what used to be out of their reach is now their norm.

Adapting When the Plan is Interrupted - Focus on the Goal

Friday, I was psyched about the playlist I was going to use as I subbed for Jay's indoor cycle class.  It was as close as I would be subbing to Juneteenth, so I had constructed the class around Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, Tina Turner, Otis Redding, Della Reese, Jon Batiste, Fantasia Barrino, even Della Reese and Bobby McFerrin.  I always play some music at a low level while people are arriving, but I didn't know until a few minutes before the start of class that I couldn't make the volume go any higher.  (Coincidentally, one of the pieces of feedback I got after last week's observation was that I should make the music louder, and here I was unable to do so.). I tried a few trouble shooting ideas, but none of them worked.  I attempted to change to a portable speaker, but I didn't have the right cord to connect with my iPod (yes, I still use one).  I started class and apologized for how quiet it would be.  One of the directors came in a few minutes later to attempt to fix the system, but she couldn't make it work either.  A person entered with a cord for the portable player.  It did make it louder, but there was some kind of glitch in it that wouldn't allow it to play the vocal track.  I kept going with the class while attempting to make things better with the music.  Thankfully, the members of the class were very patient, and we all got a good workout (but I was bummed that my great playlist wasn't be heard - I'll definitely use it another time).  

Throughout the class, I remembered several of the questions Julie had asked me when she interviewed me for the job. "What experience do you have with adapting to things when they don't go according to plan?  How do you adapt?"  As with most questions, my teaching experience had a lot to inform the answer.  Things interrupt the plan all the time in the classroom.  It turns out that students don't have the prerequisite knowledge they need to understand today's lesson.  The fire alarm goes off while you are in the middle of a critical problem, or worse, mid-lab experiment.  A spider crawls across someone's desk (if you aren't an educator, trust me, this VERY much interferes with whatever plan you have for the day).  My answer to Julie when she asked was that I stayed focused on the goal, not the method for achieving it.  That's definitely what I had to do on Friday, but it was not the first time, and I'm sure it won't be the last.  

Students need to see that the goal is what matters.  It's okay to get a little flummoxed while you figure out how to shift gears when the video won't play or internet is down when you had a great digital activity planned, but you shouldn't spend the whole period on it.  You should ask yourself what the learning goal of that experience was.  Can you accomplish it through direct instruction even if you didn't plan to?  Can you teach tomorrow's lesson today and hope the internet will be back in strength tomorrow?  Can students work on a project today so you have time to try to make the video work for tomorrow?  Moving the learning forward is the main goal, not the ideal order or method you had planned.  

In addition to students seeing that the goal matters, they will see that setbacks don't have to be fatal.  In his new book, Uprise, Kevin Washburn talks about having A and B goals.  The A goal is what you want to achieve if everything goes as planned, but the B goal should be your definition of success if conditions are not ideal.  If you model this for students, they will benefit on something larger than the academic level.  They will see resilience, a characteristic they will very much need "in real life," as they say.  And people do notice.  Young or old, students notice the teacher's response to things.  On Friday, one of the senior gentlemen in the room came up to me afterward and said he liked that I maintained a good attitude and wanted to know when I would be teaching again.  Teenagers will notice too.  

Transitions are Exhausting

Warning:  I'm in a very emotional place as I'm working through some personal stuff, so expect this to be a self-indulgent post with a lot of rambling.

If you are a parent of school-aged kids, you have probably had the experience of your child falling asleep in the car on the way home from school during the first week.  You probably assume it is because they are getting up earlier than they did in the summer, and that is partly true.  But there is another reason.  Learning new things takes a lot of energy.  

I used to notice that I was especially hungry on days when I taught something difficult.  People laughed at me when I said that.  Then, I found data to vindicate me.  While some processes in the body burn fat or protein in addition to carbohydrates, the brain burns only glucose, and when it is especially active, it burns a lot of it).  So a hard exam or learning activity can drop blood sugar, making the learner tired and hungry.

I've spent this week learning - all day, every day, everything I did.  I've started a new job at the YMCA, and learning the computer system is as overwhelming as trying to get a drink of water from an open fire hydrant.  In addition to the energy drain of all this brain work, I have also had the emotional impact of leaving my 25 year teaching career, where I was supremely confident in my abilities, to doing nearly everything wrong for a week because I was doing it for the first time.  I think I have clocked in and out correctly exactly one time.  Once, I even answered the phone with the name of the wrong branch.  Even though everyone has been very kind and understanding (can I keep using "It's my first week" as an excuse for the next five years?), it has been . . . a lot.  At the end of a shift, even if it was only five hours, I was exhausted and hungry.  

There's also changing email addresses, phone numbers, and passwords on literally everything I do online.  I didn't realize how many things my email address was attached to.  The refurbished laptop I bought online has about 400 kernel panics a day, requiring a reboot every time, sometimes four times in one paragraph of writing (although that has helped me get used to my new password, for sure).  I now understand why my middle and high school students wanted to eat all day long.

I knew this transition would be emotionally difficult, but I'm not sure I was prepared for just how difficult.  Do you know the Neil Diamond song, "I Am I Said"?  It's about his move from New York to Los Angeles at the start of his music career.  There's a line in it that resonates with me right now.  It goes, "LA's fine, but it ain't home.  New York's home, but it ain't mine no more."  I am really looking forward to making the Y my home, but it isn't just yet.  GRACE is home, but when I got on GroupMe this morning to report a problem to the Cycle Instructors group and saw that I had been removed from the GRACE groups, it hit me hard that it really means I don't work there anymore.

I wanted to work at the Y because I want to be part of their mission and to help people.  I don't yet have the feeling that I am doing that.  And, of course I don't; it has only been a week.  Even though my role is problem solving, I don't yet know how what problems there are, much less how to solve them.  In my brain, I know that I will have that sense eventually and that this is just my entry into this mission and that every job is necessary for the place to function, but after several weeks of students and colleagues telling me how meaningful my work as a teacher was, I am experiencing emotional whiplash as I understand that I will have to rebuild that in my journey at the Y.  When I broke my iPod this morning on the way out of the house, I sat in the car and cried for a few minutes before ordering a replacement I wasn't expecting to spend money on.

But God is good y'all.  He gives me little reassurances when I need them.  This week, there have been a couple.  On Friday, I was subbing for a cycle class and saw that my boss was on the roster to observe.  That made me pretty nervous because I've only taught five classes.  She's a super positive person that says things like, "You're gonna crush it," but there is never way to not be nervous when you are being evaluated.  As I arrived and changed into my cycle shoes, I noticed that someone had put one of the scripture slips from the bowl on top of the sound system.  I unfolded it and found this.

You probably cannot read it, but it says, "Isaiah 41:10 - So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God.  I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand."  I stuck it in my pocket next to the microphone pack and reminded myself of it throughout the class.

My friend, Kevin Washburn, recently published a book on resilience, called Uprise: Building Resilience in Ourselves and Others.  I bought it because I love Kevin and wanted to support him, but I honestly didn't expect to find things that spoke to me because I already considered myself a fairly resilient person.  I had started it a couple of weeks ago and then had to pause to read a different book because of a study we are doing at church this Monday night.  Today was the first time I had a chance to pick Uprise up again.  And even the pause in reading this was God-ordained.  He wanted to me to read pages 49-51 after this week of training.  On page 49, I found these words - "Mastery, where we can perform a skill without thinking, takes time to develop.  First, we establish accuracy; then we build efficiency.  That's why patience is a critical component of the learning mindset. First attempts require feedback and adjustment before additional tries increase accuracy.  This is true especially when trying something new."  It's not like I didn't know this.  I have even taught about it to others when presenting on retrieval practice and formative assessment.  But somehow, seeing it on a page in black and white made it feel more real.  While neither of these moments have prevented me from feeling all of the feelings I described above, they reminded me of how much difference it makes to trust God and how he designed learning as I move forward.  

This blog is supposed to be about education, so let me give this piece of advice to teachers.  If you want to empathize with your students who are learning and making mistakes, try something new and difficult this summer.  Pick something you are likely to be really bad at in the beginning.  Analyze your own frustration in learning needlepoint or basketball or poetry, whatever pushes you out of your comfort zone.  When school starts back in the fall, you will better understand students, model the learning process for them, and be able to tell them how you overcame obstacles.

Now, I need to post this quickly before my computer reboots again.

GRACE - A 21 Year Story

As of yesterday, I am no longer a science teacher.  I type that with tears in my eyes, even though I know that I am following the Lord's lead into another mission and another ministry.  For 25 years, I have loved showing teenagers the wonders of the universe and how the world was designed to function.  For 21 of those years, I have been able to explicitly talk about how that connects to our spiritual lives and strengthens our relationship with God.  That was possible because I worked at GRACE Christian School.

On Wednesday, GRACE held a farewell reception for me, and I was able to speak about my story there.  Before I develop a YMCA story and a Professional Development story, I want to share my GRACE story with this blog one more time.  Here's my speech from the reception.

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When I left Wake County and started looking for private school jobs, I was sure that there would be a part of myself I'd have to leave in the car every day - the part of me that watched movies and television and listened to secular music.  That had been my experience as a student in a very strict Christian school (one where I got in trouble in the third grade for singing Rockin' Robin in the parking lot).  Teachers who engaged in pop culture certainly didn't tell us about it, and I thought I surely wouldn't be able to.  While I expected that would be difficult, the other alternative was not teaching, which was an unacceptable thought, so I was prepared to do it.

If you are wondering how the world has changed in 21 years, let me tell you about applying to GRACE.  I didn't find the job opening on the school website because there wasn't one or on LinkedIn or Monster or any of the other job sites that didn't exist yet.  I opened the Yellow Pages and sent my resumé to every private school in the area.  I didn't even know GRACE existed.  It was just one of the schools in the phone book.

When GRACE called me, I struggled with what to wear to my interview and how much of my real self to share, but as I sat in Kathie and Teresa's tiny shared office on Edwards Mill Road, I found myself thinking, "Wow! These are remarkably normal people for Christian school administrators."  I think one of them was even wearing pants.  When she offered me the job, Teresa told me she thought I would be a good fit.

When I arrived for teacher orientation, I found a most interesting, complex, and eclectic group of people who loved the Lord and wanted to educate kids.  I was a good fit, not in spite of my quirks, but because of them. I didn't have to leave any part of myself outside the building.  My weirdness wasn't just tolerated.  It was embraced, celebrated, and used.  Unlike public school, where the system is too large to be moved by the ideas of an individual, at GRACE, my input was valued and sought out, even though I was only 27 at the time and had little experience.  It wasn't long before I knew that I was home.

Thank you all for the role each of you has played in forming the teacher and person I am today.  Some of you have challenged me to think differently about the world.  Some of you have shared your children with me.  Some of you have listened to me when I thought I knew what I was talking about.  Some have given me advice when I definitely didn't know what I was talking about.  All of you have made me a better teacher.  

Kathie Thompson, thank you hiring me, giving me the yearbook, and camp.  And thank you for not being terribly upset with me when I broke the building - twice.  Mandy Gill, thank you for creating a space where I was encouraged to try new things and for helping me clean up the mess when some of those things didn't work.  Eric Bradley, thank you for coming here at just the right time and leading us through the most difficult experiences a school can face.  Thank you for sending me to Learning and the Brain six years ago.  Julia Taylor, thank you for creating opportunities for me to share what I had learned and giving me a taste of what it is like to teach teachers.  Daniel Servi and Blake Hickman, you may have to tell each other that I love you now that I won't be here to tell you as frequently.  Thank you for giving me time and space to speak in chapel because I now cannot imagine telling the kids about this in any other way.

We have lived a lot of life together in these 21 years, and I couldn't be more grateful.  You all have laughed with me and cried with me and prayed with me and hugged me and covered my class when a migraine had me puking in a trash can in the hall.  What I found here was a home, and that is what makes leaving so difficult. It feels like leaving home.

When I first started telling people how I felt God was leading, I was nervous because I didn't know how people might react.  But every conversation followed the same pattern:  First, surprise - because obviously, no one expected it, including me.  Immediately followed by "Yeah, I can see God doing that."  Having that kind of affirmation and support meant more to me than I can ever put into words.

I still plan to be around.  I hope to sub a bit, especially in the beginning, and I think I'll have chances to come by for lunch.  I will still attend plays and come to the governor's mansion to see the choir sing at Christmas. You aren't getting rid of me that easily because this is still a home I want to return to.  Thank you all for . . . everything.