Location, Location, Location

Last week we were on vacation at Lake Erie, visiting many of the same places we have for the last 33 years, including Cedar Point.  Looking at the list of things we did, it occurred to me that we could have done most of them here at home:

have donuts as many mornings as possible
ride roller coasters (we live near Kings Island, so this is possible at home)
go out to eat one meal every day
visit local shops
just relax and do nothing
read
have ice cream as many evenings as possible

The only things we couldn't have done are lake-specific and not available at home:

go to the beach
go to the lighthouse where we got engaged 30 years ago

But it got me thinking. If we can do most of the vacation things here at home, why do we go so far away to do them?  Why does it not feel like vacation if we get donuts every day unless we are at the lake?

I'm thinking it because location plays a large role in our ability to relax and take a mental break.  Don't get me wrong, donuts at home are great.  Every day would be awesome, especially if they were actually good for me. But it wouldn't be as relaxing as eating them on a picnic table next to the Marblehead Lighthouse.

This need for relocation is probably true for our students as well.  Taking a "brain break" in the middle of class is good.  Taking the break in the hallway is probably better.  Taking a break outside is probably even better.  Changing the routine every once in a while is good.  Including a change of location as part of the change of routine is probably even better.

So, as you're beginning to plan your year, you may want to consider occasionally relocating your class as a nice vacation from the norm.  And if your students offer to bring in donuts as part of the vacation, say yes.

From the Beginning

Ask anyone.  The first few days of anything are vital.  Whether it's orientation at a new job, training camp for a team, or the beginning of the school year, a lot is riding on those first few days.

I tend to be very intentional about establishing the culture of my classroom during the first few days of class.  This has evolved over the years, and is currently a mix of discussions, videos, and activities that set the expectations for the year, which are:

1. The primary purpose of the class is for the students to improve their ability to think critically and creatively.  
2. To achieve (1), the class is run through collaborative discussions, not lectures.  
3. To make the discussions run well, the students must
• serve others before themselves; in other words, prepare well enough each night so that they can be helpful to others the next day, and learn the material well enough that they can be helpful to others whenever needed
• don't let their ego get in the way; in other words, when they understand a topic, gently and humbly help others, and when they make a mistake or don't understand, humbly admit it and ask for help
• do the work; regardless of the support they receive in class from me or the other students, no one can learn the material for them
• (As a note, thanks to Brian Kight for the help in clarifying the sub-statements here.) 

Whether or not this is effective for any given class is not immediately evident, as it takes a while for the kids to really buy in.  As a teacher, I wish I could get some more immediate feedback from an outside observer on that first day, but let's be honest, every administrator and other teacher is way to consumed with getting their year started well and doesn't have time for this.  I know I wouldn't.

So, it begs the question:

If the first day and the first few days are so vital, how can we arrange things so that teachers - especially new teachers, but seriously, we all could use the help - can get feedback on their first day routine?  

Any ideas?

Soft Skills

It's common at this point to hear that we should be teaching the "4 Cs" in our classrooms: critical thinking, creativity, communication, and collaboration.  These are sometime referred to as "soft skills", as compared to the "hard skills" that are more content-driven. 

However, many teachers shy away from emphasizing let alone teaching the soft skills, despite their importance.  Why?  Because the soft skills are harder to teach and harder to assess.  It's easy to check to see if a student can factor or find a derivative.  It's easier to tell kids exactly what they need to memorize and then check to make sure they've memorized it.  And I'm sorry, but the contrived word problems in math books don't count as evidence of critical thinking.  Most of the time teachers emphasize particular "types" of word problems, and the kids just memorize the key words and the process involved in solving them.  Critical thinking and creativity play no role in the solution of these problems, collaboration plays no role in memorizing the solution process required by the teacher, and the only communication expected is using proper mathematical notation. 

It's way more difficult to check to see if a student can creatively solve a complex exercise, especially since "creativity" may not strike during the allotted 50 minutes of an in-class assessment.  As anyone who has done any kind of research will tell you, days or weeks can go by without any progress being made.  Does that mean the researcher doesn't know how to think critically or that they aren't creative?  Of course not. It means that patience and perseverance are part of the package.

Patience and perseverance are also required if we expect the students to develop their critical thinking and creativity through collaboration.  As teachers, we need to get comfortable with working with the kids as they struggle through the material, and abandon the idea of delivering the material to them in nice, neat, lesson-sized pieces.  The struggle is less stressful if the kids work together, and in the process they practice the real communication skills they will need in the future.  It may seem like it takes longer, but there is still plenty of time to cover the content if we use it to work on the soft skills.

As teachers, we need to stop doing what's convenient and start doing what's important.  We need to stop focusing exclusively on the content, and start using the content to help the kids develop the soft skills.  In the long run, the soft skills will be more useful to the kids than the vast majority of the content we are required to teach them.  It can happen, and in fact it is happening in lots of classrooms.  The only question is whether or not we are willing to put in the time necessary to creating a classroom environment where all the students comfortably embrace the patience and perseverance needed to develop these soft skills. 

Thinking Long-Term

So, a question:

What skills that students learn in your class do you hope they will still find useful five years after they have graduated from high school?

Let's be honest.  It won't be factoring, or solving a system of equations, or calculating a derivative by hand.  It won't be finding the symbolism in a novel or remembering the exact date of a battle from the Revolutionary War. 

Speaking for myself, the skills we focus on in my classroom are collaboration, communication,  creativity, and critical thinking.  The mathematical content of the course is merely the means through which we develop and practice those skills.  Not that the math isn't important, and not that the kids don't learn the math; it is, and they do.  However, if it takes them a little longer to become proficient with the content, that's fine, because it's an opportunity for them to work on perseverance, which will be far more useful to them in the future.  Rather than giving them all of the information they need to pass the next quiz or the next test, it is worth it to create the scaffold for them to climb as they work their way through the material, because in the process they will learn the mathematics more deeply and work on the more vital skills listed above. 

One of the issues is that so many of us focus on the short-term learning of the content rather than on the long-term learning of the 4 Cs.  Ironically, if we were to focus more on the long-term learning of the 4 Cs, the kids would actually learn the content more deeply and retain it longer. 

The question at hand is this: How do we convince teachers that focusing on the long-term is worth it?

Enjoy the Journey

We can all get better.  All of us.  Better teachers, better spouses, better friends, better parents, better people.

The only thing standing in the way is our willingness to do the work.

The problem is that we get comfortable with who we are and with our accomplishments.  We get comfortable with being good enough.

"I've taught for 20 years, and my students are successful.  Why should I change?  The way I teach is already good enough."
Because you can be a better teacher, and your students deserve it.

"We've been married for 20 years, and we're happy as we are.  Why should I change?  My marriage is already good enough."
Because you can be a better spouse, and your spouse deserves it.

"My kids are grown and they're good people.  Why should I change?  My kids are already good enough."
Because you can be a better parent, and your children deserve it.

"We've been friends for 20 years and it's a great friendship.  Why should I change?  Our friendship is already good enough."
Because you can be a better friend, and your friend deserves it.

Growth stops the second we think we're good enough.  It happens in our students as well.

"I can get a 15% on my final exam and still keep my A.  Why should I study?  What I've already done is good enough."

We need to stop focusing on being good enough, and start focusing of working every day to be our best.  Will we ever get there?  No.  But the destination of "best" is not the goal.  Being constantly engaged in striving to be our best is the goal.  The joy is in the journey.

Drawing the Line

"We have to do it this way to prepare the students for college."

"We have to do it this way to prepare the students for the real world."

Have you ever heard either (or both) of these as justification for some classroom practice, be it instructional or behavioral?  For example:

"We have to take points off if the assignment is late.  The students need to learn that turning things in on time is important in the real world."

Or,

"The students need to learn how to sit through a lecture and take notes, since this is what they'll see in college."

Let's assume the reasoning here is sound, that taking points off of an assignment actually teaches kids responsibility and that students actually learn well from lectures in college. If these are true, then shouldn't we be doing the same things in middle school to prepare the students for high school, which in turn will prepare them for college and the real world?  In which case, shouldn't we be doing the same things in elementary school to prepare the students for middle school, which in turn will prepare them for high school, which in turn will prepare them for college and the real world?  And therefore, shouldn't we be doing the same things in kindergarten to prepare the students for elementary school, which in turn will prepare the students for middle school, which in turn will prepare them for high school, which in turn will prepare them for college and the real world?  In case you don't see the absurdity of the logic yet, you must then agree that we should delivering 50-minute lectures to preschoolers and taking points off of their assignments if they are submitted late, because we need to prepare them for college and the real world.

So where do we draw the line?  When do we say, "OK, this is where research-based classroom practices end and preparation for college and the real world begins."  Here's a thought: Don't abandon best practices in the classroom, ever.  Focus on helping the kids develop the skills they will need regardless of what (or who) shows up next.  Skills like collaboration, creativity, critical thinking, and perseverance.  Skills that will come in handy when the lecturer is unclear or the boss is unpredictable.  Skills that can be acquired in any classroom through any content. 

Oh, and by the way, it's interesting how often those who believe in the importance of turning things in on time are the first people to ask for a deadline extension (or just assume that the deadline doesn't apply to them), and those who believe in the importance of being able to sit through a lecture are the same people who can't last five minutes in a meeting or workshop without displaying the kinds of behavior they would never tolerate if they were in front of the room.

Good Questions

Without a doubt, the most difficult part of running a discussion-based classroom is asking good questions.  Of course, you need to have good questions, regardless of whether you're preparing for a project or daily discussions. And one of the difficulties many of us have is that we never received any training on how to write good questions.  In fact, I have yet to meet a teacher in any discipline who had "how to write good questions" as part of their undergraduate or graduate education program.

We can work on this over the summer, preferably working with others, receiving feedback, learning from and with one another.  You know, living and modeling what we want the kids to do in our classrooms.  This takes a good bit of planning and preparation, and is worth it if you have the time.  In fact, I'd highly recommend it.

However, there is another part of "asking good questions" that often gets overlooked: Asking questions on the fly during the discussions.  Courtesy of our education training or our experience - or both - we ask one, maybe two follow-up questions during our classroom interactions with students, after which we jump to giving them "the answer", often for the sake of time.  For a discussion-based classroom to be successful (or, in my opinion, for any classroom to be successful), we need to give the students more processing time, and we need to train ourselves to encourage this by asking more and better questions during the discussions.  These are difficult to plan for, since how much progress the kids make, and what kind of progress they make, will vary from day to day.  Actually, it will vary from period to period, and from kid to kid.

So, how can we work on this vital skill over the summer?  Here's my suggestion: During every conversation you have, with everyone, try to ask just one additional question of the other person.  Try to make the questions a little deeper, trying to get to  know the other person a little better by pursuing a topic they are interested in, allowing them to naturally expand the conversation.

Then, in the fall, keep this in mind as you have conversations with the kids, both in the hallway and during the content conversations in class, allowing the kids to expand the conversation as much as possible, but interjecting with questions as needed to continue the expansion.

Trust me, it's well worth it, both for the sake of the kids learning the material, and for the sake of building a better relationship with the kids.