At the recommendation of Gary Stager and Chris Lehmann, one of my summer reads is A Schoolmaster of the Great City by Angelo Patri. Truly, there is nothing new under the sun. The book was written by Patri in 1917. It rings true, though, with much of what I worry about in our schools today. Patri faced the same problems and shares many of my passions. That’s both troublesome and reassuring. I’ll be seeking out more of his work. In the meantime, here are some of the lines that jumped out at me as I read today:
The antagonism between the children and teachers was far stronger than I had ever seen it before. The antagonism between the school and the neighborhood was intense. Both came from mutual distrust founded on mutual misunderstanding. The children were afraid of the teachers, and the teachers feared the children. (p. 14)
As each day went by, cautiously I put the problem of school discipline before them and they responded by taking over much of the responsibility for it themselves. (p. 15)
In this restless, uncertain sea of motion, noise, color and goings; of constant goings upstairs and downstairs, one learned to ‘go slow’ and watch and wait for his opportunity. (p. 19)
The rod idea was at work. Books, benches, crowded rooms, sitting still, listening; talking only when called upon to recite, teaching where the teachers did the thinking; these conditions have meant and always will mean an imposed discipline, an imposed routine, whereas real discipline is a personal thing, a part of the understanding soul. To replace discipline of teacher-responsibility by the discipline of child-responsibility is a long, slow process. (p. 27)
It was difficult to get teachers away from subject matter, from machinery, and toward children. How could it be otherwise? (p.30)
I wanted ideas expressed in color, movement, fun and not lines, ideas and not perfect papers, every one alike . . . . I wanted nature that would make the child’s heart warm with sympathy . . .that would make him laugh to feel the snow and the rain and the wind beating on his face. (p. 30)
The feeling for the things that I wanted was rather more definite than the knowledge of how to attain the desired results. (p. 30)(Karl - that quote was just for you. We all get stuck.)
(On teaching robins) ‘Suppose you meet the class under the big oak tree in the morning and look for robins. Watch them until you and the children know as much about them as one can learn by looking . . . . Then talk over what you’ve seen and learned. Let everybody say his say sometime or other. . . . Then when you have all the facts about him select those that are most worthwhile, and present them as the robin story. You’ll find you’ll need very little drill.’ (p. 32)
I felt that we had to win the parents as well as the taechers if the changes we were making, our emphasis on the ‘fads and frills’ of education, were to be accepted in the homes. (p. 33)
Many parents believe that this is education. . . . They fear freedom, they fear to let the child grow by himself. (p. 37)
I wanted opportunity for the masses, the best schools for the crowds, the best teachers for the heaviest load. I thought in terms of service, they in terms of tradition. (p. 41)
Plenty more good stuff within. I’d encourage you to read the book.
I always enjoy a good double meaning in a title, so I’m pleased that this podcast, recorded during my drive home from NECC, is called what it is. I find myself driving at the moment, refreshed and recharged. That’s what I wanted out of the conference. I’m pleased it worked that way, and grateful to lots of folks for all the conversation and push back. It is good to be in community (or communities, or whatever) with smart folks. I wanted to get this podcast up, mostly for my own benefit, before I lost some of that momentum.
I’m off to the beach for a week, hoping to top off my batteries, and will be doing my best to be offline - but I’d welcome your comments here on the podcast as a way of keeping me driving and moving when I return.
Oh - and below is a piece of the conversation that I mentioned in the ‘cast. Thanks to Kevin Honeycutt for recording it and Darren Draper and David Jakes for facilitating the conversation. Not sure if a complete recording exists, but you’ll get the gist of the conversation, one of my favorites.
Goal: Work to build multiple and overlapping communities of learners in our district who have knowledge, expertise and/or interest in the hardware and software and services that our district is supporting. Help those communities to begin to learn from each other and to support each other in their teaching and learning. As best as I can, document and share the learning and stories of the community.
I’m aware of so much potential in our classrooms and schools, and so many new tools that are coming online in the district that can be used to help students and teachers create deep and meaningful opportunities for learning and reflection in our classrooms. These are tools like laptops (three new elementary schools, opening in the fall, will have laptops for every teacher; many more schools are investing in laptops for some teachers to be used with) interactive whiteboards, and/or clickers and document cameras, software like ActivStudio, which we’re trying to standardize on across the district, and services like Moodle, which powers our St. Vrain Virtual Campus.
There are a multitude of projects and programs that already meet and discuss some of these issues - but there’s nowhere to go to see all of those conversations, or for folks who aren’t already connected to those groups to have the opportunity to find ways into the conversations. I also know that, with so many resources out there, we need to do a good job of aggregating all of that stuff somewhere (or somewheres) and then helping people to find that space.
Also, if we can work to build and/or sustain these communities, we can work to develop leadership on instructional issues in our district. Better yet, we can help teachers to teach teachers. That’s a good thing. I believe very strongly that the answers to most of the important questions facing schools and teachers and learning and students aren’t going to come out of school districts - they’re going to come out of classrooms. It’s my job to help get the stories out there and the people connected.
This conference for me has been an intentional immersion in the hopeful ideas of school and learning. I’m avoiding big talk about products and tools, instead seeking out positive pathfinders - the people and ideas and documents that, to me, are pointing learning where it needs to go - into rich and deep discussions of how and why we learn and what’s worth bothering to “cover” versus what’s worth doing.
As it’s the start of a new school year, I’ve been asked to set some goals for myself for the year. There are many, many projects that require my attention, as well as the daily work and questions that keep me busy, but I do want to declare some goals that I hope to return to throughout the year and think about more. I’ll be posting them as independent posts here over the next little while - and I reserve the right to develop the final list later - but these are things that I think are worth doing right now.
Had a delightful and energizing time at the Constructivist Celebration on Sunday, a day of teacher play, experimentation and, in the words of Gary Stager, time spent with folks who have “a commitment to use computers in creative ways for the benefit of children.”
I took my XO along as my note-taking machine for the day, thinking that it was poetically appropriate to do so. Brian C. Smith did the same, and, wouldn’t you know it, there were several other XO’s in the room, too. I ended up doing plenty of OLPC and Sugar evangelism, which was fine by me. I also got to play and explore and create.
But more important than my play were the statements and commitments by Gary Stager and Peter H. Reynolds, the day’s speakers, about the importance of creation and exploration, both for my practice as a teacher, but also, and of far greater value, my growth as a learner. I hear a true committment from both gentlemen that there is great value in creating rich environments for children and that we, as teachers, need to model the creation that we want our students to do.
Our students need to see us struggle and reach and grow and try and explore and learn and fail and stand back up at the end and say, “Wow. What’d I learn here?” That’s probably the best motivation for them to get their hands dirty. And we’ve never any credibility if we ask kids to do something that we won’t do.
I thank everyone involved with the event for a special day of battery recharging play. Special thanks to my friends from IMSA, April-Hope Wareham and Scott Swanson, who brought a whole mess of XO’s and taught me plenty about them.
I’m sure there’ll be plenty of content produced today around EduBloggerCon - this is where I’ll be keeping my notes - please feel free to ask questions and share suggestions. Help me make the most of my day.
The conversation I did last week with Teachers Teaching Teachers is now up as a podcast. Plenty of great information about some interesting summer professional development. You should listen. After some gentle nudges in the chat room, I’ll be talking more about CyberCamp at a NECC Unplugged session at 3:30pm on Tuesday in the NECC Blogger’s Cafe. I’ll make sure there’s a stream and will share the link when I know what it is.
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