it's not the pencils that make it interesting

Gertrude the Cognitive Achievement New Data-driven Year-round Learning Acquisition Nuanced Development Specialist (or CANDY LAND Specialist for short)  calls us in for an emergency meeting.  "Emergency" is a misnomer.  No carnage.  No dangling limbs.  Just a meeting to go over motivational strategies on our high-stakes testing week.

"The issue isn't with the test.  Kids are checked-out.  They're bored.  We haven't given them any incentive to learn.  I read a magazine article by a guy who has never actually taught in a classroom about how schools are paying kids to do school work," a teacher suggests.

"I like that idea," another teacher adds.

"Let it mirror the factory," Gertrude points out.

I step in, "We could be motivating all the time.  I mean, we could make class meaningful.  We don't need to bribe them or threaten them through extortion.  We could start with autonomy and meaning and make sure things are challenging. "

Mrs. Jackson adds, "Tom has a point.  His kids seem to be really into their learning."

"They have pencils," Gertrude says.  "Every kid would be excited if they had a shiny new pencil and some fancy iParchment.  Let's just get a set of notebooks for everyone.  We won't even need desktops for everyone, right?  Well, we don't have the money.  So, we need some cheap solutions."

And that's the issue.  Cheap solutions.  Chincy answers. Flimsy bandages on open wounds.

I answer, "It's not about pencils.  It's about why we learn.  A student rewarded to do work will learn two things: that learning is about work completion and that learning demands a reward.  To me, that's a really dangerous lesson. We need to rethink motivation."

"Loving learning is great, but it won't mean higher scores, Tom."

"Maybe it will.  If they love learning, the test will seem easy.  They'll pass it regardless."

"Look, I'm a curriculum specialist.  It's what I specialize in.  I know about curriculum and I know about motivation. Where is your data to back it up?"

"I'm a teacher.  I'm not a specialist.  I don't specialize in anything.  I don't know everything about data and assessment.  But I know kids and I have a hunch that they aren't learning because they are bored."

"I'm glad you have hunches, but our jobs are on the line with Caravan to the Top.  Hunches and puppies and dandelions are all cute, but we have a test to pass. So, can we move on to motivational strategies?" she asks the group.

*     *     *

Here's the deal: My students enjoy my class, but I'm often surprised by this.  I don't go into it asking myself, "How can I make this fun?"  We don't use pencils for Hang Man (the uber-conservative Temperance Movement folks would complain of supporting violence) or Tic Tac Toe.  We use them for writing and communicating and solving problems.

I do, however, ask myself, "What matters?  What is important?  Why are students learning this?"  and on a good day, I bring them into that dialog.  Pencils are a part of it, but they are a small part of it.  Ultimately, it is the deeper drive for meaning that makes "pencil integration" such a strong motivating force.

steam punk or sell-out

The district office administrator called me into his office.  "Mr. Johnson, I've been reading your plog."

I sat there silently.

"There's some good stuff in there.  You're a forward thinker.  The question is what we should do with you. How can we use you best?"  I don't want to be used.  For all the talk of human resources, I'm more human than I am resource.

"I think the classroom is working well out well for me."

"Look, I read your entry about Pencil Class.  I almost left an anonymous comment on the margin. Instead, I thought I would talk to you about it.  What if you could be in charge of the pencil classes? I think you have ideas."

"I do.  I would like to shift the class into a publishing class.  Let kids go through the writing process and participate in creating literary magazines and social issues magazines.  Let them have an elective where they use the pencils for something more relevant than penmanship."

"We'll have a formal interview and all, but is this something that would interest you?  You could have more of an impact."

"I'm afraid I'll lose perspective. I'll forget what the classroom is like."

"So, you teach in the morning.  No more waiting all day to urinating.  No more cramming in a twenty minute lunch.  Think about it.  Then you hop on your horse and visit a different classroom each afternoon.  You'll be a resource for the teachers."  Again, there's that term.  I don't want to be a resource. I don't want to be used.

"That's something to consider."

"We have a great grant from Carnegie.  We need someone forward thinking.  Someone progressive who will lead us into the twentieth century.  I think you are our man."

"I once protested at one of Carnegie's factories and I'm nervous about robber barons who try and buy influence.  I'm nervous that their voice will win out and that we'll move toward job skills instead of learning to live well.  I'm worried about the factory model of education.  You say progressive, but moving forward doesn't always mean moving up."

"Couldn't you offer that perspective?  Couldn't you be the one to steer the program that direction?"

Honestly, with Caravan to the Top and all of the reforms of the McKinley administration, it seems that teachers are losing autonomy.  We're no longer public servants, but rather cogs in an edufactory.  So, I'm leaning toward taking this position. And yet, it bothers me.  I'm wondering if this means selling out.

a Trojan Horse?

It's no secret that William McKinley wants to "civilize and Christianize" the Phillipinnes.  I have a hunch that it has to do with stategic military positions and imperialism, but then again I'm a bit of a cynic.  In my own class, I have a decent number of immigrants who supposedly pose a threat to our nation if they do not experience quick assimilation.  While we have no official language in our country, it is absolutely essential to people that my students learn English and abandon their own language.

So what does all of that have in common?  Social engineering.

Man vs. the machine is now man is the machine turning man into the machine.  It has a real zombie quality to it. For all the talk of life-long learning, my school is designed to be a factory-meets-prison.  Some say it is a necessary evil.  If one considers evil to be necessary, then there is probably a flaw in one's world view.  Still, we have large numbers and we "have to" move them through the curriculum effeciently and so with the desire for effeciency and measurable results, the school shifts into an unspoken factory metaphor.

I mention all of this, because I am up for a grant.  My class might be receiving phonographs, a telegraph (to be used school-wide) and cameras for photographs.  Very twentieth century.  Life on the graph.  On the grid.  In the box.  On the assembly line.

It's sponsored by the robber baron Andrew Carnegie, who wants to impose his idea of education on our school.  Last time I checked, schools were social institutions belonging to the public.  The goal is to help raise critical thinkers for a thriving democracy. Carnegie's goal is increasing market share.  Don't confuse free markets with free thinkers.

My uncle died in one of Carnegie's factories.  No amount of free libraries will bring him back.

If Carnegie essentially buys my classroom, does that mean I have sold my students' minds to the highest bidder?  Is that simply a more refined form of child prostitution? Moreover, is this the beginning of education moving toward privatization?  Will corporations create a monopoly on our schools the way they have monopolized steel and petroleum?  Will we some day have large corporations creating the materials, the curriculum, the assessments and eventually the standards of what we teach? They could easily manufacture an edu-crisis and then create the snake-oil solutions every time.

So, I wrestle with this gift.  Is it simply a Trojan Horse?  Is it Pandora's box?  Is it Prometheus stealing fire from the gods only to let us lose our insides?  Is it the same "gift" of our military presence in the Phillipines?  Just another area to colonize and gain market share?

I could leave it there and it would be a great political rant.  Except it has me thinking of my own classroom.  Technology (even pencils) are never neutral.  They have layers of social and cultural meaning.  Each tool becomes not simply a means of creating, but a means of socialization and potentially indoctrinating.  If I have students follow a format, a program of binders, for example, I have imposed my own layer of social engineering and if I'm not careful, I can end up like McKinley and Carnegie.

decorating your class

Gertrude the Slate-Enhanced Learning Integrationist Coordinating Specialist asks if she can see the room where I will pilot a three-week unit using a one-to-one pencil to student ratio.

"What is this?" she asks.

"It's a poem."

"I know what a poem is.  I mean, what is this?"

"It's by Whitman."

"Take it down."

"Seriously? Is it because he was gay?  Because we're still using peanut butter even though George Washington Carver was gay, too."

"It's not that at all.  The issue is this: your classroom is a learning environment."

"Exactly, that's why I put up some photographs and poems and . . . "

She cuts me off, "Don't forget word walls.  Where are your word walls?"

"They're back in my old classroom.  I thought kids could keep track of vocabulary in their portable notebooks so that they could access the words at home."

"Everyone must have word walls.  And where are your anti-bullying posters?"

"I put up one of them.  It's just that they were so cheesy that I thought most of the posters would actually make kids want to start bullying."

"Where are the charts about academic achievement.  How will we Caravan to the Top without graphs?"

"I actually thought kids could graph out their own scores on paper and pencil."

"Where is your periodic table of elements?"

"Is that really necessary in the sixth grade? We're not in chemistry. Besides, they're still finding new elements.  They just discovered krypton."

"Just because you have pencils doesn't mean you don't have to play by the rules."  The term "play" is exactly it. I spend an entire week after school and cancel my community service club so that I can make charts and graphs and word walls.  But I have fun with it.  Our word wall includes the words "hypocrisy" and "asinine" and I have a graph up demonstrating how seldom students bother to read graphs when they are posted on the wall. At one point, I create a comical lazy cat named Gertude imploring students to work hard.

When I'm done, the principal walks in and says, "Oh, Techno-Tommy, the Fire Marshall was in.  Didn't you read the staff handbook?  You're supposed to have only half of your walls covered and you have three quarters.  Very dangerous stuff, I tell you. You'll need to take down some of these charts."

He glances around and smiles at the word wall. "As long as I'm in here, where are your posters that explain each of the Six Ways To Be a Good Writer? You know what? Why don't you just have the kids write down the Six Ways in their notebooks instead?"

"Yeah, so they can access it at home?"

"Exactly.  See, Tom, I can figure out this pencil and binder and paper world. I'm not as much of an old fogey as you might think."

will we fall behind?

Mr. Brown pulls me aside to share his thoughts on the new proposal, "Could I see you, Tom? I want to talk about your one pencil for every student ratio."

"Pretty exciting, huh?" I say, stroking the wax on my handlebar mustache.

"Well, that's the issue. I just don't see it as being the best option for our students. After all, this is about the kids. My concerns aren't in any way related to my comfort level. Trust me," he adds.

"What do you mean?"

"It's academic. I just don't think we need to spend class time teaching pencil skills."

"Neither do I. That's why we'll embed the paper and pencil into the curriculum."

"Yes, but they've been using slates and chalk. They'll be ages behind."

"Okay, but they'll catch up quickly."

"Perhaps, but the high-stakes exams are taken with a slate and chalk. How will they ever reach William McKinley's Caravan to the Top using paper and pencil?"

"But paper and pencil is what they'll use in life."

"Yes, but the United Kingdom is expanding across the world and we cannot compete in an imperialist global economy if our students lag behind because we are focusing our time on paper and pencils."