I made the mistake of joining the committee regarding the Acceptable Use policy of the district.
"We need kids to know about Pencil Predators."
"Oh, I heard about that. They send notes to kids and then lure them in."
"Nice, what else?" our leader scribbles away at her tablet.
"Teach kids not to tear the goddam paper," a man says.
"Please, these are Victorian times," a woman says.
"This is a the U.S.A. I'll use whatever goddam language I choose. Just add the part about tearing paper."
"What if the goal isn't acceptable?" I ask.
They stare at me blankly.
"Yeah, what if it's about being ethical instead?"
"Okay, well anymore ideas?" the woman says.
"I'm not done. Why are we even here?" I ask.
"To craft an Acceptable Use policy."
"Yes, but numbers are used to marginalize people and we don't have an Acceptable Use policy for math. And kids get hurt in P.E. Where's the policy for that? Then, there's language art. If we're really serious about the art of language and the power words possess, why don't we have an Acceptable Use policy for that? Come to think of it, people have been abusing science to justify Social Darwinism and history is often used to justify injustice. So, why don't we create Acceptable Use policies for those subjects?"
The leader misses my point and says, "I think that's a brilliant idea. I'll bring that back to my supervisor. We should have Acceptable Use policies for all subjects."
Or we could teach students to be ethical critical thinkers.
5 Reasons for Leaving the Pencil Conference
In the past, I've learned some neat things in the PIE Conference, including how to fold oragami, the wonders of colored pencils and how to use notebooking (yet another chance to turn a noun into a verb) for student learning. This year, however, I left a day early. I boarded the train and headed back to my wife and daughter and realized that I will grow more as a teacher spending a day with a two year old than with a crowded lecture hall full of experts.
Here are my reasons:
1. Many presenters I've met are unapproachable. Yes, they give nice speeches, but I've been disappointed that some of the ones who claim to love all the social media tools are quick to shy away from using those tools for honest discussion and debate. "Hey, you should use a pen pal network. But don't try and send me messages. I'm much too important than that."
2. Many presenters are arrogant. I can't listen to you if you are automatically the expert. I can't listen to you if you won't ask questions. I can't listen to you if you are unable to share some of your difficulties. If you believe that your job is to change me as a teacher, I'll kindly ask you to eff off and I'll listen to someone else. News flash: just because you got yourself an Edison Projector and fancy new phonograph doesn't mean you are now the Pope of Paper.
3. Many presenters fail to grasp complexity, paradox and mystery. It has to be about "their" way and in doing so they engage in tribalism and provocation for the purpose of sounding different. It's like hanging out in a stuffy art house. Don't talk about why we need to move past the one-room school house unless you are able to recognize that the one-room school house had a few redeeming qualities (multi-age classrooms, for example)
4. Many presenters speak like addicts. Yes, paper is flat and smooth and ultra-portable. But save the addictive language for the opium dens. If I want to feel coked-up, I'll stop by the drug store for a soda.
5. Many of the New School folks won't admit that there are some great ideas from the past - whether the idea is ten or two thousand years old. That bothers me. Innovation for the sake of innovation is novelty and ultimately it will eventually lose their luster. Remember those Chester B. Arthur sideburns? Yep, your phonograph might just be headed that way.
This by no means makes up all of the Pencil Education community. I've found great people in plogs and on the pen pal networks. However, I've also ran into my fair share of prima donnas that convince me that the conference circuit can all too quickly become a cute, glossy version of show and tell. I don't mind show and tell, either. But I need to to show me reality and tell me more than simply what I need to do to "fix" my teaching career.
Here are my reasons:
1. Many presenters I've met are unapproachable. Yes, they give nice speeches, but I've been disappointed that some of the ones who claim to love all the social media tools are quick to shy away from using those tools for honest discussion and debate. "Hey, you should use a pen pal network. But don't try and send me messages. I'm much too important than that."
2. Many presenters are arrogant. I can't listen to you if you are automatically the expert. I can't listen to you if you won't ask questions. I can't listen to you if you are unable to share some of your difficulties. If you believe that your job is to change me as a teacher, I'll kindly ask you to eff off and I'll listen to someone else. News flash: just because you got yourself an Edison Projector and fancy new phonograph doesn't mean you are now the Pope of Paper.
3. Many presenters fail to grasp complexity, paradox and mystery. It has to be about "their" way and in doing so they engage in tribalism and provocation for the purpose of sounding different. It's like hanging out in a stuffy art house. Don't talk about why we need to move past the one-room school house unless you are able to recognize that the one-room school house had a few redeeming qualities (multi-age classrooms, for example)
4. Many presenters speak like addicts. Yes, paper is flat and smooth and ultra-portable. But save the addictive language for the opium dens. If I want to feel coked-up, I'll stop by the drug store for a soda.
5. Many of the New School folks won't admit that there are some great ideas from the past - whether the idea is ten or two thousand years old. That bothers me. Innovation for the sake of innovation is novelty and ultimately it will eventually lose their luster. Remember those Chester B. Arthur sideburns? Yep, your phonograph might just be headed that way.
This by no means makes up all of the Pencil Education community. I've found great people in plogs and on the pen pal networks. However, I've also ran into my fair share of prima donnas that convince me that the conference circuit can all too quickly become a cute, glossy version of show and tell. I don't mind show and tell, either. But I need to to show me reality and tell me more than simply what I need to do to "fix" my teaching career.
Avoid Social Networking
The district office HR representative explains to us at the staff meeting, "From now on, teachers must avoid any site that allows for social networking with students."
"I can't believe this," Ms. Jackson says. "I . . . I've volunteered in my church's youth group for years. It seems that the best way to model appropriate adult behavior is to interact with kids and be a positive role model."
"No can do, Action Jackson! Churches can have creeps. Do we want you to seem like a creep?"
"What about the grocery store? I run into students at the grocery store all the time. It can be a real network of social interaction."
"Nope. You can be on the site, but you can't greet students. Just avoid eye contact and pretend that they don't exist."
"I coach baseball."
"Is it the school's team?"
"No."
"Then, you'll need to resign immediately."
"I'm a family friend of one of my students. Her whole family has been over for dinner."
"That might be misconstrued as a date. Just tell her family that you cannot be friends with them until their daughter is in college."
"But she's in the fourth grade!"
"Well, they'll have to take a rain check, then. Any more questions?"
"Can it be an anti-social networking site? I mean, can I go to a riot where my students might be attending? To me, that's pretty anti-social," I add.
"Good point. We might need to revisit that. Let's go to the Board with this. Perhaps we'll simply pass a rule that you cannot interact with a student at all outside of school."
"I can't believe this," Ms. Jackson says. "I . . . I've volunteered in my church's youth group for years. It seems that the best way to model appropriate adult behavior is to interact with kids and be a positive role model."
"No can do, Action Jackson! Churches can have creeps. Do we want you to seem like a creep?"
"What about the grocery store? I run into students at the grocery store all the time. It can be a real network of social interaction."
"Nope. You can be on the site, but you can't greet students. Just avoid eye contact and pretend that they don't exist."
"I coach baseball."
"Is it the school's team?"
"No."
"Then, you'll need to resign immediately."
"I'm a family friend of one of my students. Her whole family has been over for dinner."
"That might be misconstrued as a date. Just tell her family that you cannot be friends with them until their daughter is in college."
"But she's in the fourth grade!"
"Well, they'll have to take a rain check, then. Any more questions?"
"Can it be an anti-social networking site? I mean, can I go to a riot where my students might be attending? To me, that's pretty anti-social," I add.
"Good point. We might need to revisit that. Let's go to the Board with this. Perhaps we'll simply pass a rule that you cannot interact with a student at all outside of school."
Image
"Mr. Johnson, are pictures more real than reality if we just forget reality after it happens anyway?"
"What do you think?"
"I think a picture is more real, since it doesn't change."
"What about memory?"
"Your imagination gets in the way of reality."
Imagination. Imaginary. Root word: Image.
Graven images.
"What do you think?"
"I think a picture is more real, since it doesn't change."
"What about memory?"
"Your imagination gets in the way of reality."
Imagination. Imaginary. Root word: Image.
Imago.
Make believe. Make belief.
We are living in a world just beginning to shift from a print to an image culture. We create imagery. No, we capture imagery, letting imagination believe it is less important or less real or less true than the snapshot flash of a camera.
But we also create images; spinning truth and reality to improve the image we try and maintain with the vain hope of masking our mortality.
Graven images.
I spent an hour retouching a photograph I'll use in my pen pal network.
It might capture reality, but I feel less real than I did an hour before when I broke bread with my wife and daughter. (Okay, I had to break the bread into really tiny pieces for her, but it was still breaking bread) When I share the sense of confusion in sketching out a pencil-based image of myself, my wife reminds me that it is human.
"Tom, we hide. We stay out in the open. We hide again. Social context, language, clothing - these are all a part of the natural desire to create that element of self that we experience so deeply."
"It just seems like we lost something human in the process."
"No, our technology, our tools, our language, culture . . . those are what make us human. The need to develop an image is the root of imagination. It's what makes us who we are. It's pictographs on cave walls and hierogliphics on pyramids and stained glass on cathedral walls. The tools might change, but the sense in which we create an image or capture an image and then call it reality . . . that is a part of what makes us human."
My daughter paints a monster. It's real, or at least it is real to her. I retouch a photograph. My wife quilts a blanket. True, we might be moving toward an "image culture." However, let's not kid ourselves. We have always been image-based. It's just that the tools change in how we express imagination. Yet, whether we conjure up a new vision or try and rethink our public memory, it is always an act of imagination.
Imagination. Image. Imago.
"Imago Dei," she reminds me as I slowly slide the air shudder and watch the silhouettes fade into darkness. Even now, as I embrace her beneath our comforter, I am experience at once the empirical reality of her warmth and conjuring up images of that moment she walked down the aisle. Even when we are laid bare, in our most vulnerable moments, we are still bound by our images.
Tech Masks
"Sorry I'm late. Some idiot in a horseless carriage cut me off and spooked my horse a bit," I tell Paul the Preindustrial Poet when we meet for coffee.
"I know what you mean. I was cut off by a mustang this morning. You know the type that a guy gets in his mid-life crisis. I was walking down the street and he just cut me off."
"I guess I'm just in a bad mood. Some anonymous guy wrote told me that I'm going to Hell."
"On your plog?"
"Yup."
"It seems like people use technology to hide. It's like it becomes a mask. Whether it's cutting you off in a horseless carriage or being vindictive in a plog or bumping their phonograph loud enough that the whole neighborhood hears. They wouldn't cut you off in person or shout at you in a room or shout a song so loud that the whole city hears. It's like the technology becomes a way to hide."
"Is it really masking anything?'
"What do you mean?"
"I understand that it's unpleasant. I get that. And I understand that people use technology to hide. Or they forget the human side behind it. But cutting people off, making mean comments and the like - isn't that simply a part of the human condition?"
"I know what you mean. I was cut off by a mustang this morning. You know the type that a guy gets in his mid-life crisis. I was walking down the street and he just cut me off."
"I guess I'm just in a bad mood. Some anonymous guy wrote told me that I'm going to Hell."
"On your plog?"
"Yup."
"It seems like people use technology to hide. It's like it becomes a mask. Whether it's cutting you off in a horseless carriage or being vindictive in a plog or bumping their phonograph loud enough that the whole neighborhood hears. They wouldn't cut you off in person or shout at you in a room or shout a song so loud that the whole city hears. It's like the technology becomes a way to hide."
"Is it really masking anything?'
"What do you mean?"
"I understand that it's unpleasant. I get that. And I understand that people use technology to hide. Or they forget the human side behind it. But cutting people off, making mean comments and the like - isn't that simply a part of the human condition?"
When a Child Hates Pencils
I have a student who walked into class the first day and began biting on the pencil nervously and eventually he simply snapped it in half, leaving shards of our beautiful crisp medium on the floor.
At this point, I am supposed to send him to the office, send a telegram to his mother and begin the "step process" to eventually isolate him entirely from learning. Except, the school system is precisely the cause of his problem. I know it sounds bizarre, but the boy hates pencils. Not pencils, really, but writing and his hatred of writing has little to do with a hatred of language or expression or anything that naturally flows into writing.
See, Josiah has spent the last three years giving almost no effort in writing and in response, he has received huge block letters with the words FAIL. It's not that he had the chance to write anything substantial anyway. In an effort to create a 20th Century factory-style education, his teacher used isolated-skill worksheets (the name says it right there - they aren't "think sheets") and he grew weary of being bribed with colorful stamps and peppy praise.
Pencils were not used for learning, but for working.
Then, we he began acting up, teachers sent him to another classroom as part of the Shame-based Oppositional Behavior Process (or SOB Process), where he had to copy words out of the dictionary or write "I will not be a class fuck-up" repeatedly.
Want real education reform? Buy pencils, yes. Purchase some crisp new paper as well. However, nothing will change in student learning until we get over a system of bribes and extortion.
Our principal encouraged me to keep Josiah away from pencils until he was "mature" (as if a pencil was something one has to mature into) and has "proven that he can earn the privilege of using them again." I ignored his advice and handed Josiah a new pencil the second day of school. I told him he could draw, write poetry, tell a story, whatever.
"Will I get a stamp?"
"No. I don't do stamps."
"A letter?"
"No letters here either."
"Then why should I do this?"
"I write because I have something to say. I draw because I want to create. I can't control it. There's something in me that propels me to draw."
"Will you read it?"
"Yep. I'll even write comments and on some parts I'll ask you to do an assignment I choose. I'll make some corrections. I'm still your teacher. But my goal is feedback, not judgement."
He tears a page out of the journal, writes a poem about wanting to fly and then creates an origami flying dragon with the poetry written on the wings. It's beautiful and quirky and it didn't happen because of letters or stamps or peppy praise.
At this point, I am supposed to send him to the office, send a telegram to his mother and begin the "step process" to eventually isolate him entirely from learning. Except, the school system is precisely the cause of his problem. I know it sounds bizarre, but the boy hates pencils. Not pencils, really, but writing and his hatred of writing has little to do with a hatred of language or expression or anything that naturally flows into writing.
See, Josiah has spent the last three years giving almost no effort in writing and in response, he has received huge block letters with the words FAIL. It's not that he had the chance to write anything substantial anyway. In an effort to create a 20th Century factory-style education, his teacher used isolated-skill worksheets (the name says it right there - they aren't "think sheets") and he grew weary of being bribed with colorful stamps and peppy praise.
Pencils were not used for learning, but for working.
Then, we he began acting up, teachers sent him to another classroom as part of the Shame-based Oppositional Behavior Process (or SOB Process), where he had to copy words out of the dictionary or write "I will not be a class fuck-up" repeatedly.
Want real education reform? Buy pencils, yes. Purchase some crisp new paper as well. However, nothing will change in student learning until we get over a system of bribes and extortion.
Our principal encouraged me to keep Josiah away from pencils until he was "mature" (as if a pencil was something one has to mature into) and has "proven that he can earn the privilege of using them again." I ignored his advice and handed Josiah a new pencil the second day of school. I told him he could draw, write poetry, tell a story, whatever.
"Will I get a stamp?"
"No. I don't do stamps."
"A letter?"
"No letters here either."
"Then why should I do this?"
"I write because I have something to say. I draw because I want to create. I can't control it. There's something in me that propels me to draw."
"Will you read it?"
"Yep. I'll even write comments and on some parts I'll ask you to do an assignment I choose. I'll make some corrections. I'm still your teacher. But my goal is feedback, not judgement."
He tears a page out of the journal, writes a poem about wanting to fly and then creates an origami flying dragon with the poetry written on the wings. It's beautiful and quirky and it didn't happen because of letters or stamps or peppy praise.
I Banned Pencils Today
I see the need for all types of media in my classroom. I have fought the battle to expand our band width so that my students can use phonographs without running into the tuba players. I have fought to avoid the term "pencil bullying" and to use tablets and pen pal networks in class.
Yet, in math today we banned the use of paper and pencil.
I asked students to find the area of a volume of a cylinder that is twenty inches wide and twenty inches tall. I watched students fidget for awhile before realizing that they would have to solve this using a cerebrum rather than a slate or a paper.
No manipulatives. No paper. No slates. No chalk. Just a mind. It took awhile at first, but eventually every child answered it and then shared their process with partners.
Having tools is a part of being human. I never want to deny that. Yet, I also want to recognize that we have the power to abandon our tools and use our highly evolved minds. I ask students to do mental math because I want them to see that their brains are powerful in and of themselves.
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