what was missing from my presentation

The crowd is standing room only as I begin.  I'm Icarus soaring up toward the sun.  I'm powerful.  I'm respected.  No spit wads or hunks of paper.  No airplanes.  Just me, backed up with my PowerSlides set up with the Edison Projector.

I offer a give and take, asking critical thinking questions.  I see a few college students taking studious notes.  Who knows? They could be using their tablets for the pen pal networks, but I assume these are learning devices and perceive the nodding of the heads to be agreement rather than falling asleep.  

I offer a few bits of humor.  It's an easy crowd.  People expect safe, campy, cornball humor and so my sardonic, cynical musings seem, if nothing else, like a novelty.  The laugher jars me, because I was always the serious kid who sat silently in class.  I was always a little too grown up for my age and now I'm comfortable in my own age.  

I explain the relationship between social context (the dawn of a Progressive era, urbanization, the rise of industrialization), current educational theory (and its practice) and technology.  I mention, as a historical example, the Guttenberg Press meeting the rise of nationalism and the early educational theorist Erasmus.  I lock my hands together to show the Triple Convergence and how it is a catalyst for change.  

After talking about a New Pedagogy (which I cleverly refer to as Learning 4.0 just to prove that it is two steps ahead of being 2.0 and all the while feeling, in my gut that I'm still teaching at the Beta level), I offer the question, "as we move forward, what will we do to retain the voice from the past? How will we avoid the pitfalls of perennialism?" 

I explain my seven steps and show examples of student work.  

*     *     *

Paul the Pre-industrial Poet attends for moral support. I assume that supporting one's morals means boosting one's ego.  Wrong.  Paul pulls me aside and asks, "Do you really want to know what I thought?"

"Yup.  Let me know."  

"The slides were great.  The points were well spoken.  You wowed the crowd with a folksy style meeting just the right high vocabulary to prove your points.  The information was solid, too.  I think it got people thinking. But there was one thing missing."  

"What's that?" 

"Humility." 

"I'm not sure what you're talking about."  

"Look, seven steps.  These folks have had seven steps and four keys all day long.  Multiply seven and four and you have a perfect number and that's the problem.  It's all perfect.  But people are tired, real tired, and all the keys and steps are making them feel like janitors in a stadium and they're jumping on all these steps trying to hold onto the heavy key chain and watching the players strut around on the field. What are they supposed to do with all this?"

"So, what would you have done differently?" 

"Okay, you know how you say pencils are not the magic bullet? You just presented them as the magic bullet.  You showed the best student examples and told the most enlightening stories.  You advertised yourself and although the crowd felt entertained, where do they go from there? Fantasy land?  Tell some stories of failure.  Tell a story of a snapped pencil or a paper airplane.  Show a time when a student failed to get it and ask the crowd for advice. They might not be pencil geeks, but they are experts in some area." 

  

Paul is right.  So if I'm Icarus, I'm crashing toward the ground.  I'll be greeted with adoration from those who attended the workshop.  We might talk theoretical nonsense and I might move closer to the sun.  Or maybe I can stop pretending that I'm cutting edge and admit that the edge has cut me up pretty badly in the process.

Maybe I'll just be what I am - a guy who is lost in a quickly changing industrial world, a little scared and lonely and confused by the fact that I cannot see the stars a little too squeezed in by the sardine can compression of it all.  Maybe I'll tell a few stories of failure and engage in a conversation about being relevant without selling out.

the pencil planning committee

I don't believe in committees.  Like bureaucracy, the term is too difficult to spell and too cumbersome to endure.  Committees often turn to mindless group think, chatty ego boosting and a lack of innovation out of a desire to mitigate liability.  Besides, they always hand us binders (seriously, do I need another binder?) and agendas and we sit at a table so I can't get away with drawing pictures (the way I would at an in-service).  As the pencil representative, it's my responsibility to attend.

The conversation appears innocuous and civil.  Each member of the Pencil Planning Committee (PP Committee for short) shares input on pencil integration.  Think of this as a secret password phase.  I can say anything that I have heard at a conference and people nod their head in approval.  For example, I might say, "We need to focus less on pencil skills and more on thinking with pencils."  Then, I can make a joke out of word play and say, "I didn't mean to call you morons."  People chuckle and I'm in the club.

A few other options are:

• Teachers need to learn how to use pencils.  It's not an option. 
• We need to go beyond pencils and think of what a true twentieth century pedagogy should mean
• Let's keep in mind that there needs to be a connection between theory and practice. Let's make sure the pencils don't drive the instruction. 
• We need to convince people that pencils are not scary.  Yes, they can poke an eye out, but that's why we have something called classroom management. 
• Let's get pencils into the hands of students.  Why do teachers get all the good ones?  

For my part, I use the phrase, "Kids are pencil natives.  They come to class knowing penmanship.  Do we really need a pencil class?"

All of the above comments are valuable.  Indeed, they create a shared sense of values within the group. I have used every one of them at some point.  The word "used" is key here.  On a subterranean level, each of us jockeys for power and uses language as our weaponry.  For all the smiles and nodding (I'm beginning to feel like a bobble head) we are competing for a voice in how our district will use its resources.

As the conversation moves into practical elements, we begin to lose sight on everything we just shared.  The dialog quickly shifts to better teacher pencils.  

"Let's get colored pencils for the teachers.  If they fall in love with the quality pencils they will be more comfortable and eventually move into integration."  

"Ooh, I like that.  And what about making the shift to using only iParchment."  

"Our district could pilot iTablets so that all teachers could have a portable notebook that they can touch."  

I step in at this point.   "All paper is touchable.  Yes, some of them come with carbon paper that we can trace with our fingers, but is that really crucial to better learning? Besides, we just talked about a shift away from skills and away from teacher-centered integration and now we are focussed on colored pencils?  Are these just gestures we are using or do we really believe in a twentieth century education?"  

I tell the group that we need to have pencils in the hands of students, that professional development must be horizontal and that teachers with pencil experience should create a proposal for using piloting 1:1 pencils to student ratios and then mentor the next teachers.  I rattle off ideas and offer quick comebacks to anyone who challenges me.  

Paul the Pre-industrial Poet attends the meeting and remains quiet through the entire thing until it is over. 

"Can you believe what just happened?" he asks. 

"Yeah, the teachers started out really selfish, huh?  We talk about the social and political barriers that get in the way of pencil integration, but what about the human barrier of pride?  What if the biggest issues involve things like ego and selfishness?"  

"I agree," he adds.  

"So, I was able to steer it in the right direction."  

"I agree with your thoughts on ego and selfishness.  But I'm wondering if you might be searching for specks and ignoring planks.  Your school will be piloting the new initiative and you will be the one being recognized in the process.  Your classroom will have a set of pencils next year. Is it possible that this is about you?"  

He's right.  For all my talk of collaboration and wise decision-making, I tend to define those on my terms.  Collaboration is great so long as one agrees with me.  Wisdom is necessary as long as the decisions are in my hands.  What happened there was not honest dialog, but merely deceptive power-grabbing and I was the one who bullied my way to the top.

Mr. Johnson, will you be my friend?

I overheard a conversation a few days back (yes, I eavesdrop on my students) about the pen pal networks.

"I only have twenty followers," a kid says.  

"It's okay.  Jesus only had twelve."  

"That's not true.  Jesus had thousands of followers.  He just had his top eight.  Except it was his top twelve." 

"True.  So, maybe you're not Jesus.  But I'm your friend and though I won't follow you around, I'll always pick you for short stop even on your worst day."  

*    *    *

I receive a request from the insecure short stop asking if I'd be his friend.  I ignore the request.  Okay, that's not entirely true. I think about my own childhood and shudder.  I can't imagine walking to kids' homes and seeing a list of the top eight and realizing that I don't make the cut.  It would be like relational tryouts and I wouldn't have made the junior varsity popularity team.  I can't imagine what it would be like, in the formative years, when I was experimenting with how to interact with others, to have this massive public network of social relationships advertising to the world that I was a loser.

Still, it's not as if I can follow the kid or friend him.  For what it's worth, I'd like to keep "friend" a noun rather than a verb.  Can't a friend be the last refuge of permanence in an industrial world of change?  We've already lost place and we're quickly losing thing. Let's keep person.

It's just that he and I can't be friends.  I can't invite him with me to the pub.  I'm his teacher. He's my student. We aren't going to share stories about work or talk politics (and our shared anger at the McKinley administration for failing to deliver either hope or change in their Caravan to the Top initiative)  

A few days go by and then he stops me in class.  "Why did you ignore my friend request?"  he asks, calling me out on my act of passive-aggression.  

"I'm sorry.  You're my student and I just don't think we can be friends.  Some day, when you're older, send me a friend request again, okay?"  

He walks away, head hung low.  He'll understand, right? 

*     *     *

When I tell Mr. Brown, his answer surprises me.  "I would have accepted his invitation.  I know there is a difference in age and I am concerned with the graying of adulthood and childhood in our country.  Though, to be quite honest, we still have kids working in the factories.  I just think that the last person a kid wants to have reject him is his teacher.  Socially awkward short stop boy looks up to you."

"What about his parents?"  

"I would have become their friends, too.  I would have explained it all to them and talked about his need for a mentor."  

So, I'm left perplexed.  I set up rigid rules for social engagement and they seem to make sense to me.  They are set up to protect myself from rumors.  But in my goal to be safe, I've unintentionally crushed a kid.  

reflections on joining a pen pal network

So, I added myself to the Pen Pal network and I have found the following things to be true:

1. My friends and family mostly send messages about make believe games where they pretend to run a farm or move through a sorority.  Note to self: the only thing lamer than being on a farm is pretending to be a farmer on a pen pal network.  
2. No one told me that people would write personal notes on my wall. What disturbs me, though, is a friend who "tagged" a photo of me. He used some kind of adhesive and now it is permanently on my wall.  Not sure I want a photo of me at the Haymarket Square riot will look good in front of the school board. I never thought in advance the reality that the vapor-self, the ever-evolving imago would be amplified.  I feel a bit like a celebrity.  
3. It's like a staff lounge without the bickering, gossip and complaining about children.  We share ideas, pass notes and actually talk about teaching.  It's like professional development, but without the annoying Edison Projector or the Kodak reps trying to convince me that their cameras will turn my children into geniuses. 
4. There is a pecking order to #3.  For all the talk of democracy and horizontal collaboration, there are gatekeepers who open up the world for new guys like me.  This isn't bad, either.  They are sort of pencil mentors in a way.  Still, it has a darker side when people jockey for Eduplogger votes.  It's a bit of a pissing match, really.  But on that note . . . please vote for me.  
5. Social networks dehumanize and humanize simultaneously.  We play games of pretend.  We craft identities.  We use the plural first person instead of saying "I."  But we also connect and play and interact.  I feel more authentic and more artificial every time I pass along a pen pal note.
6. Stuff is permanent.  I can always say to a person, "that's not what I said," and if I look sincere enough, it works.  But once people resend a note I sent, I'm screwed.  I thought I had sent out a private note to a history teacher, "Garfield was a crappy president anyway.  So, he got shot?  Will anyone remember him in a hundred years?" Now my parents (who were big Garfield fans) think I'm evil.  
7. People like to repeat one another often.  It's a bit like going to a party and hearing Gertrude say, "Josiah said something totally witty.  He said . . . " and then you run into another person that says, "So, Gertrude told me that Josiah said this really funny thing . . ." I'm sure Josiah feels pretty good, but after awhile I'm ready for something new.  

Isn't All Media Social?

Paul the Pre-industrial Poet tells me that I need to get onto a popular Pen Pal Network.  He's an "early adopter," who tends to find technology quickly, explore it rapidly and then decide if he wants to keep it or dump it.

I tell him that he treats technology like an uncouth bacehlor who hasn't discovered the joy of marriage.  He says, "More like speed-dating, but you're right . . . No, I don't like your metaphor at all.  I use technology, but it's because I don't want it to use me.  I don't want to be married to a medium and forget about my real wife. Let's avoid human metaphors.  The more we human the machine, the more we dehumanize ourselves."

"So, why should I join the pen pal network?"

"You need to be part of my PLN. It's how I connect with other educators."

"Can't you just connect over a pint?"

"Does it have to be either/or?"

"I just don't see the big deal in using a pen pal network.  I can't see the value in sending trite little messages to people on my free time."

"So, if something is short, it's trite? What about parables and poetry and proverbs?"  Paul is quite fond of alliteration.

"I just don't see what the big deal is."

"It's a social medium.  You connect with people constantly and share ideas and resources and, on a good day, you share a part of yourself."

"Every medium is social.  I keep hearing this term 'social media,' but a letter is social.  I send postcards all the time.  Last time I checked, that's social.  It just seems to be a ton of hype."

"You might be right, Tom.  But the only thing worse than creating unnecessary hype is the snobbery of avoiding a medium simply because people are excited about it."

part two of "Full of CREP"

For the most part, I abandon the worksheets.  We breeze through them quickly and then I break students up into small groups to discuss the question, "What are the elements of a good career?"  The brainstorm turns out to be incredibly specific with a few groups simply writing down names of careers.  Perhaps I should have modeled it first.

I then present career philosophies

• Vocational: based upon one's identity, beliefs and values.  It's the notion that who you are guides what you do (a sense of calling to it)
• Hedonist: find a job that is enjoyable, fun or pleasurable.  
• Economic: a job is based upon money.  The higher the pay, the better the job.  
• Recognition: the best job is one where a person will receive honor, recognition, fame or accolades. 
• Humanitarian: here the idea is to make a difference in the lives of others

Students engage in a debate about the merits of each and the question of whether someone can truly pursue multiple career philosophies and find contentment.  Afterward, as they break into small groups again to do a pros and cons chart, a student pulls me aside.

"If there are all these reasons for having a career and our school wants to get us job-ready in the future, why are we only following the economic philosophy?  Why don't we make a difference as a school?  Why don't we talk about identity and values and beliefs?"

"Some people don't think that's important.  They see it as fluff.  Shouldn't we pursue the core knowledge?"

He responds, "It seems like answering the question of why we work a job would be at the core of all of our knowledge."

As the students work on an individual assignment describing their own career philosophy, I hear shouting from Mr. Brown's classroom.

"Faster, I say!  It's not about quality!  It's numbers! It's data! We need to win this race! It's a race to the top, I tell you! And our company will not have any losers being left behind!"

"But Mr. Brown, the work is looking sloppy and everything we do looks identical!"

"Welcome to the edu-factory," he responds.

Students are in an assembly line filling out one line a piece on each of their worksheets.  On the sideline are students who want a piece of the grade as well.  "You sir, do you want to work in this edu-factory?  I'll pay you a C for the work.  Right now you're failing.  Take a C!"

The child simply nods.

"Alright, everybody, your grade is now a C! We only have so many points to spread around.  But we can now hire two new workers."

A child volunteers to work for a D and Mr. Brown fires another worker who refuses a C.  Finally, two more workers begin to whisper to one another.  "We quit.  We'll fail this unit if we need to."

This leads to a chain reaction as the students begin to go on strike.  As my students discuss career philosophies, his students talk about unions and free markets, wages and fairness and eventually meander into why one would work a job.

Neither of us taught the same lesson.  I might steal his idea next year and I know he plans to use my career philosophies tomorrow.  We share.  That's the idea of "common" knowledge and "common" standards.  It's horizontal.  Our paper and pencil "integration" is natural and fluid and based upon our own expertise.

Give us a program and we'll be programmed.  Give us worksheets and our work will be full of sheet.  The results will be uniform, but we'll miss the chance to be innovative.  Give us a chance to develop our own lessons and give us the freedom to share what has worked and we'll grow together.  The best professional development happens over a pint, not in a crowded library.

full of CREP

A day after the worksheet debacle, Mr. Brown comes into my room.  "Can you believe we have to take time out of social studies to teach Career Readiness Exploration Program?"

"I'm sure the districts spent barrels of money on it, what with all the worksheets and workbooks and . . ."

"You nailed it.  They're worksheets and workbooks, but nothing is a thinkbook anymore.  It's about productivity and results and not the cognitive process anymore.  Might as well turn them into machines."  

"I'm upset with the conflict of interest.  Am I really supposed to believe that a program developed by Carnegie can be trusted?  Can I really separate out Carnegie the corrupt robber baron from Carnegie the educational reformer?  Yes, it's fine that he wants to give back, but that feels a bit like robbing a house and then returning a few pairs of slacks and some silverware."  

"They want me to teach CREP, well this is CREP, this is total CREP, this is a pile of stinky CREP," and he says it with just the right Scottish accent that it makes me smile, if not laugh.

"Are you really that upset about it?"

"See, Techno-Tommy, I'm worried about this.  I really am.  Students need social studies, because our community needs civic-minded people.  We need people who can explore the world with a critical eye. We need students to know the narratives of the past to make sense of the present.  It's not a fluff subject just because it doesn't help create better factory workers."

"What scares me is that teachers seem to love this program simply because it uses technology.  So, for a day they'll have access to a camera and through the entire unit, they'll have paper and pencil.  They're using novelty to sell us CREP."  I try a Scottish accent on the CREP part, but I end up sounding mildly drunk instead.

My friend Paul the Preindustrial Poet thinks the best way to prepare someone for the workforce is to prepare someone for life.  I'm thinking he and Mr. Brown both have a point here.  We're educating sixth graders.  Do they really need job preparation right now?  Is this really the time to have them develop a Career Readiness Plan?  

"So, Mr. Brown, what is your plan? Are you just going to play ignorant and claim you never had training on it?" 

"No, I have another idea.  They'll fill out the worksheets alright. You'll see."