Actually, that’s not true. #

Her “problem” is that she has several really good and interesting areas where she might turn her attention and skills as a teacher researcher, but all of them are appealing to her.  She talked through three ideas that sounded fairly fleshed out and interesting, and two or three more that might workout, but are less developed.  I wanted her to tackle all of them.  And I think she did, too.  But she was stuck because, really, she could ultimately only spend the time and energy on one of them. #

I think she mostly needed to say that out loud, and to have me reinforce it.  I look forward to the one she picks. #

It came up in the conversation that she’d noticed that I was stuck lately in my own writing and exploration, as you might have noticed, too, Dear Reader.  It’s been rather quiet here on the blog, and all the other spaces where I’m writing in public lately.  It’s been rather quiet in the spaces where I write for just me, too. #

This fall’s been a busy one, and I’ve had a pretty full plate.  But that’s not really why I’ve been quiet.  See, I’ve been stuck, too. #

Maybe I’ve been distracted by all stuff I’ve been doing to see what it is that was worth doing, or maybe it’s that I’m just tired.  Or maybe it’s just that time of year for me, a time of quiet. #

Or maybe, on my worst days perhaps certainly, I’m losing my way.  Maybe I’m losing hope.  But I try to work through that.  Being without hope, in the long term, isn’t a productive place to be. #

I gave that teacher a little suggestion as we ended our conversation yesterday, and I’m thinking I might take my own advice.  She was having trouble getting started because she didn’t know what project to choose.  I’m stuck because I don’t know where I want to go next, either.  What I suggested to her was that perhaps she might start writing her way through her topics and questions, and that, along the way, she might discover what it was that was worth her doing and seeing through.  I know that’s helped me in the past, and, in fact, is pretty much why I write in spaces like this. #

She responded that she might not know who’d want to read about that, or if what she’d be writing about would be obvious to everyone else¹. #

That pushed me to one more suggestion.  I’m certainly interested in what she’s up to, and I’d like to hear from her when she thinks she’s something to say.  So, I told her, write to me.  Just do it in public.  She’s going to try. #

And that helped.  Both her and me.   I think. #

I forgot for a while.  One of the ways that I’ve always gotten myself unstuck is to try to write with one person in mind.  Writing for one person is better than writing for a universe of people.  Writing for one person might make sense.²
So I’m writing today for just one or two people that might be interested in this update.  And I’m going to try to come to the blog for a while with one or two people in mind and see where that gets me. #

Because, for so many reasons,  I can’t stay stuck for long.  Just can’t.  So maybe this will help. #

It’s certainly worth a try. #

1. In her case, as in most cases, that’s certainly not true. She has things to say that no one else can.  I bet you do, too.
2. When I wrote music, something I wish I were doing more of, and have been thinking about starting again lately, I found that the best songs I had within me were written in the second person. Maybe there’s something to that here, or at least right now.  Or maybe this is a self-indulgent post.  For the moment, to get unstuck, I’m quite content whichever it happens to be.

#

I think it’s a good overview of the work that we’re up to here.  We would love to know about intersections with your work. #

#

I shared this with them, a distillation of some of the descriptive and prescriptive ideas I’ve written about blogs and blogging and bloggers.  I tried to emphasize that good blogging, is a simple set of skills: reading, writing and thinking, although not necessarily in that order.  Good blogging is a continuation of the tradition of good writers and folks from pre-digital times, too.  Good blogging is paying attention and asking good questions. Thomas Paine’s name came up. #

Good blogging, too, is hard to do well.  It’s play dressed up to look like work.¹ #

My comments were nested in some of my thinking over at P2PU about the Common Core standards and what they have to say about reading and writing.  I dropped the s-bomb a few times.  Not because I wanted to, but because David Coleman, one of the architects of the standards, who’s now out on the road teaching folks what the CCSS are about, did in a talk a while back.  The larger talk he gave was about how the CCSS shifts the focus from some areas of literacy² to others, namely more emphasis on informational text and close reading and writing. #

I don’t mind that shift.  And I think some others have over exaggerated it.  But what I do mind very much is when he says this: #

Do people know the two most popular forms of writing in the American high school today? Texting someone said; I don’t think that’s for credit though yet. But I would say that as someone said it is personal writing. It is either the exposition of a personal opinion or it is the presentation of a personal matter. The only problem, forgive me for saying this so bluntly, the only problem with those two forms of writing is as you grow up in this world you realize people really don’t give a shit about what you feel or what you think. What they instead care about is can you make an argument with evidence, is there something verifiable behind what you’re saying or what you think or feel that you can demonstrate to me. It is rare in a working environment that someone says, “Johnson, I need a market analysis by Friday but before that I need a compelling account of your childhood.”³ #

Read like a detective and write like a conscientious investigative reporter. #

Sounds great, and there’s only one problem. #

Suppose the students whom you want to blog and write and bleed their passions on a digital page somewhere as a way of learning to read and write and think just don’t care? #

Suppose they’re indifferent about learning?   Or at least appear to be.  What do we do about that?  And what did we do to make that happen? #

1. Sometimes, with footnotes.  Footnotes look much too workish to be fun, right?
2. Read: the personal.
3. Link to the video – about 8:30 on the time code.  The unofficial transcript I’m quoting from is here.  The off the cuff reference to not giving a shit, surprisingly, isn’t in the “official transcript.”
4. One concern I do have about the CCSS is the same that I do about education policy in general right now; who decides “what counts?”
5. Which I think is the right model to aim for.

#

Direct Link to Audio #

#

And I get the opportunity, from time to time, to see these smart folks in action. This year, on the first day of school, MIchelle and Kyle and I took a lap around the district and happened to wander by Kevin’s classroom a few minutes into his year. #

And, boy, was he in the zone.  Already.  Inside a few minutes. #

He was  introducing reading notebooks to his students when we happened by.  We were approaching the classroom, no appointment, just saying hi, when we heard him say this: #

We are going to have thoughts as we read, and it’ll be good for us to write those down so we don’t forget them. #

Of course, the more I think about that one sentence, the more I think it sums up so much of what I think school should be – people exploring thoughtfulness. Thoughtfully. #

And I am grateful for folks like Kevin, who works with 4th graders, because I know that they are well served because he is there exploring their thinking with them. #

If your school year’s just getting going, I sure hope that you are reading something interesting, and asking your students to, and that you’re all pausing from time to time to write something that you’re thinking about down. #

And if you’re not – why aren’t you? #

#

I couldn’t be more excited to be facilitating a course we’re calling “Common Core & Writing: Deeper Learning for All.”  I pitched the course as “a course on writing to learn for non-English teachers” and that’s almost exactly what I’ll be teaching¹.  Better yet – some of my friends from the National Writing Project will be helping me to develop the course. #

The six week course, which will begin mid-October, is going to begin with a deep look at the Common Core State Standards, and particularly the section of the standards that addresses the role of writing across the curriculum.² Then,’ we’ll tackle writing in the classroom from two distinct lenses: #

1.  Writing to Learn – the habits and bits of writing that you do to make sense of whatever it is that you’re learning and exploring. #

2. Writing for the Disciplines – the writing that’s specific to content areas other than language arts.  How do historians write for each other?  Scientists?  Mathematicians?  And why does that matter? How can we help our students to write in these ways? #

As a final project, participants in the course will use this protocol from the NWP to help them develop some writing assignments for their own classrooms that should result in some thoughtful writing for and with students.   We should all get some good ideas. #

As I’m developing the collection of resources, I know that NWP’s Digital Is will be an important text for the group.  And I’m also reminded of Peter Elbow and Donald Murray and their essential contributions to writing as process and writing as something that teachers just, you know, do. #

But I could use your help. #

Here’s a Google Doc where I’m beginning to draft a collection of readings and resources for the folks³ who I hope will take this course. #

I’d sure be grateful if you’d offer your favorites and help keep me honest by pointing participants to actual examples of the two areas I outlined above. #

And of course, this entire experience is, for me, first draft thinking.  I’d be open to your ideas, suggestions, and feedback as I’m working to construct an experience that’s ultimately useful to teachers and results in increased use of writing in their practice. #

Thanks in advance.  And perhaps I’ll see you in class?  Sign up opens soon. #

1. Er.  Facilitating.  Teaching.  Guiding.  Whatever.  The participants and I will experience it together.  And we’ll all take turns.
2. Yes, technically, this is a rather large section.  Pretty much the entire language arts section.  But we’ll hone in on the specifics of writing for the disciplines other than language arts.
3. Remember – a targeted audience of non-language arts teachers.

#

Teams of students will work directly with IBM employees at the IBM facility, along with SVVSD educators and high school volunteers on important and relevant issues to building a Smarter Planet: transportation systems, water, cities/buildings, food, and energy. Each group will be facilitated by a SVVSD teacher, an IBM employee, and multiple SVVSD high school students who participate in the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) or IB (International Baccalaureate Diploma) programs. At the end of the two week camp, project exhibitions will be shared with community audiences to culminate the experience. #

Below is a video describing the inquiry cycle that the Camp Innovation team, a group masterfully facilitated by Paige Gordon, worked to build into every aspect of the students’ experience.  As I was wandering and shooting pictures and exploring student creations and how they camp has transformed a wing of office space at IBM into a design and fab lab, I saw the cycle in action, on the walls, and in the work of the students.  I’m looking forward to seeing the students’ final projects, which will be shared in a community event at the end of the week.  Thankfully, the entire experience has been well-documented by our district communications team, specifically Matt Wiggins¹, and you can get a feel for the camp and the events as those videos emerge ((You can catch them as they hit the Web if you’d like.) #

#

One more thing – as I was exploring the students at work, other district administrators who were visiting were remarking that it was essential that we get ideas like “So what?” and “How are you going to personally get involved?” into our “regular, during the school year” classrooms. #

And that’s a fine thing to remark on.  I look forward to their, and our, continued efforts to mix design and tinkering and inquiry into the daily culture of our classrooms. #

Here are more of the photos I took during my short visit.  Take particular notice of the “Prototyping Lab,” a large space full of supplies.  I’ll have more to say on the lab in a future post.
#

1. The original version of this post had Matt’s last name incorrect.  My apologies.

#

And the response to that’s been pretty positive.  We said when we started that we’d be offering email for secondary students only.  And then the elementary teachers started asking for mail for younger students.  Eagerly.  And we’re thinking about it and talking about how to make that work. #

But I have to remind folks during the training that, even though the younger students are in the universal directory, and have access to Google Docs and other tools and services, they can’t yet access their email².  So if you send a younger student an email, they won’t get it for several years. #

It was when I said this out loud today, not the first time I’ve said it, but the first time I was struck by what that might mean, that I realized that there might be a feature in there. #

Suppose that when these students do get to access their email boxes, they’ve a few important notes written by people who care for them waiting during their email orientation.  We could, if we wanted to, use the dormant email accounts of younger students in our district as a sort of time capsule for sending good stuff their way ahead of time. #

I see plenty of reasons why the messages might never be read, or get lost among the clutter of notifications and odds and ends and whatnot that will also be waiting for those students when their mail’s turned on.  But wouldn’t it be neat to send care packages to the future versions of our students today?  Quick notes and longer messages of moments where they chose well, or were worthy of a moment’s pause.  An occasional picture or two or a piece of work that really, really stood out, perhaps? #

It’s likely wishful thinking³ , but I suspect the sending of the messages, received or not, would be a useful and productive pause for each of us.  A time to honor the students our children are, and the people they may well be.  It couldn’t hurt to take a moment to write down a few words to a child. #

And I like the idea that sometime in the future, a student in the middle of a moment of doubt would stumble upon a note from a time when they did something well, or worth doing, or worth sharing.  I like that perhaps they might get a chance to remember. #

I say yes.  That’s worth doing.  Let’s make our digital spaces just as warm and inviting and kind as our physical ones.  ((And let’s make sure our physical spaces are warm and inviting and kind, too.)) Of course, our students who’ll have email access today, well, I suspect they wouldn’t mind a kind note or two, either. #

So let’s get right on that, okay? If you’ve five minutes this week, jot a note, electronic or otherwise, to a student who’s up to something interesting.  Make their day.  And mean it.((And, if you’d like to write to your future self, there are certainly services that you can use to do that.  Try it out.)) #

1. Google Apps for Education.  We’re excited about it.
2. We have it shut down for them by policy.
3. And perhaps overly optimistic.  I suspect some people who stumble across this post will worry about the fact that they’d be communicating with a student, that the communication might be dangerous because of future litigation.  To those folks, I’d say something like: let’s not let the worst of us eclipse the best of what we might be.  Choose your words carefully, but don’t stop being a good person.  Good and kind and thoughtful people are necessary when there are so many not good folks, or so many folks trying to prey upon our worst fears.  The best way to battle a bully is, of course, to provide a compelling model of better behavior.

#

Engchat 2011 from Ben Grey on Vimeo.¹ #

1. Special thanks to Ben for spending time capturing this work.

#

He said that the pedagogical and philosophical¹ recipe for Youth Voices was something like: #

• James Beane and his work on breaking down the curriculum barriers and asking good questions
• plus Paulo Friere’s thinking on asking learners to look for generative themes
• with a dash of Peter Elbow who reminds us of the power of making things through free writing.

But he said something, off the cuff, that I thought was really important. He mentioned that he’d been in the Youth Voices work for eight years², and that students who started in tenth grade were able, in eleventh and twelfth, to return to the space and pick up where they left off. They didn’t have to learn a new space, and their work from previous years was right there. #

That’s powerful and important and worth unpacking a little bit. Teachers who are using interesting technology with their students find themselves too often in the setup and infrastructure business – and that’s fine sometimes. But not every time or every lesson or every year. #

One of the reasons I went to work for an IT department was because I wanted to help make spaces that had a life beyond one classroom. A student shouldn’t create one blog to suit the needs of every teacher that asks for work to occur in such spaces. Students create short term tools for what should be long term work, and they find themselves create blogs every time they start to do interesting work. The assumption becomes that the work they’re doing in these temporary spaces is throwaway work. When the unit, semester, or year ends, the space dies and the student is asked to create the next one. #

That’s not how it should work. #

What I love about Paul’s work, and the work of other folks who are thinking about the long game of educational spaces where work lives and breathes and mingles with other work, is that they’re building what I call³ longitudinal Web presences. Spaces where the portfolio happens as the collection grows. Places where the stuff a student made yesterday and the stuff a student makes today will be around for a student to add to tomorrow. Places that don’t die every few months or are subject to Teacher A or B’s personal web tool preference. #

When Karl or Michelle or I talk about digital learning ecologies, or Paul talks about Youth Voices, I think that’s what we’re talking about. Teachers shouldn’t have to be in the creation and infrastructure business all the time. Nor should they be helping kids to cram important work into temporary places. #

If you’re a tech director or a CIO, I hope you’re thinking about how to create these spaces. I also hope you’re thinking about how to help students return to them over time and to think through what they’ve made and how it resonates, or doesn’t, as they expand their knowledge and experience. In St. Vrain, we’ve built a few tools that help with this, but we’re nowhere close to figuring it out. #

We do, know, though, and have been charged by our school board, that we are stewards of the work our students produce. That’s an important word – the IT department is responsible for looking after the students’ work. We’ve got to make sure it’s well taken care of and preserved and saved until they leave our care. And that they can take it with them when they go. #

That’s what a portfolio should be. That’s worth making. Thoughtfully.⁴ I continue to be inspired and pushed by the work of folks like Paul who are building places of learning that last on the Web. #

1. My words, not his
2. Eight years. How many writing spaces do you have that last six months. Learning, folks, is a marathon.
3. Probably incorrectly, but playing with words is fun.
4. Sometimes, the curbs matter and the making of the containers are essential, in no small part because the traffic on the road and the stuff in the boxes is precious and worth looking after. The road needs to last for a long, long time.

#