Leveraging Learning

If you work in a school or have children, you hear this sentence a lot. You've probably even heard it today. Within the past hour, even. My advisory is composed of 8th graders. We have been together since they were in 5th grade. I hear this sentence all the time. This fall, they applied to high schools. It was vulnerable work. My challenge to them:  "How can  you make your awesomesness visible on paper?" Their commentary: "This isn't fair!" Later when acceptances came out, I had a range of feelings - relief that some many of them had options, confusion over which schools wanted which kids (turns out they don't always look that awesome on paper) and determination to get this more right the next time I ushered kids through the process. Their response - "It's not fair." They were right, of course. Admissions is only sort of fair and as much as we the adults try to equalize things, we will never get it entirely right. There will always ...

In a few weeks I have to lead a session on self-care for teachers for the Philadelphia Learning Collaborative. I find this hilarious because I take pretty bad care of myself. My gums are receding, I almost never pack a healthy lunch and I don't get enough sleep. Ever. Self-care is trendy and many people mistake it for spa days or expensive vacations. Who can afford that? And who has the time? Not teachers, that's certain. I've been thinking a lot about how to make this time useful for participants. After all, they will be learning about self-care from a heretic. It's not that I don't believe in self-care. It's just that I am bad at it. If the goal of self-care is to keep one on an even keel and help a person see that matters and what does not, it seems like there are some prongs that can make this work easier. Managing our feelings, managing our work and managing our fun seem to be important factors in maintaining balance and equanimity. Managing Feeli...

"How do you get the kids to not want a worksheet?" It's a fair question. I used to think that it would be just a Year One problem, but the problem has lingered. Each year, I have the hope that kids will gleefully ditch traditional learning and wholeheartedly embrace a more conceptual, more open ended way of doing math. And every year, I find that I'm still fighting the pull of traditional learning in math. In the past few days, I've been pondering these questions. How do you get them to ditch worksheets? And this afternoon a colleague stopped by asking simply, How do we get them to try? These questions are separate, yet related. The textbook and the worksheet are compelling in their comfort - they are straightforward and, even if the math is hard, they are easy for our brains to figure out. Doing something different is difficult - not just for students, but also for the teachers who craft learning experiences. While there are abundant tasks and learnin...

This week, some ugliness stopped by. As a positive person who strives to see the good in the world, I am always a little surprised when ugliness is directed at others. Perhaps this is naivete on my part. I say and do mean stuff - all people say and do mean stuff. Humans are, after all, flawed. A few things were difficult about this week's flavor of ugliness, which made it feel even uglier. First, my kids were hurt - both of them individually and on behalf of a person we love. And they both felt powerless to rectify. It also was unexpected. I had assumed that relations with this party were in a better place. There was an element of betrayal - or at least a sense of loyalties that, to me, seemed off. And there was a revelation that the party in question just really doesn't like me at all. Certainly, others have a right to express their opinions and feelings, but when does that right cross over into an attack? I am not certain that I have an answer - outside of "it depend...

I dropped my youngest off at college a little more than three weeks ago. The running family joke was that I should avoid this event at all costs to spare myself and others the embarrassing blubbering and sobbing that would no doubt ensue. I, apparently, have a reputation for crying. I am proud to say that I held things together pretty well. It wasn't until I got into the car, after a long walk around campus and the city with both of my boys and I saw Charlie walking his confident walk up the hill and off to new adventures that I started to cry. Sob, really. I was glad that I had packed some extra hankies for myself. But my tears really weren't what you'd think. While I knew that I would miss him keenly over the next few weeks (or months or years) and that his absence would be felt in ways I could not imagine, I was not crying tears of sadness. The world deserves to know my boy - his kindness, his gift of song, his humor, his brilliance, his compassion, his sense of fa...

An often heard comment among teachers is "A room full of kids is no problem, but I get so nervous talking to a room full of adults." We feel this way every Back to School Night, whenever we have to facilitate a faculty meeting and most especially when we are teaching other adults. It's scary. We feel vulnerable, out of our element and certain that what we have to say is meaningless. I went to bed on Sunday feeling all of these things in preparation for my role in facilitating learning at Summer Teaching Institute. My units aren't all that awesome, my students are kinda messy and I sometimes - especially on a Friday - wing it. What could I possibly share with new teachers? Monday morning on my train ride in, I set a little goal: Get over this nonsense by Friday. And never again say out loud "I'm not good at teaching adults." Over the centuries of education in America, teachers have been sent and have internalized a very clear message - Do the im...

I had an amazing and exhausting spring. Finishing year three at SLAMS, attending all of the end of the school year celebrations, concerts, shows and dances, watching both of my children graduate from high school on the same day, and remembering to thank all the people who made this amazingness possible was a steep hill to climb. In the midst of the mayhem of remembering deadlines, finishing grades, shopping for graduation finery, and connecting the many people who needed thanks or farewells, I made some costly mistakes. I lost my new bifocals at the mall because I was trying to wear both sunglasses and reading glasses at the same time. I parked in a no parking zone on the last day of school because I was too tired read the sign. I sustained the few garden injuries in my haste to tidy up the yard for a party we were having to celebrate the graduates. I forgot to pay my life insurance bill. My computer broke on the last day of school (and is still at the laptop hospital, so I'm usi...