Comedy, Class Clowns, & Creativity

At the top of the blog is a simple question: Why teach? There are as many answers to that question as there are educators. I couldn't give a simple answer to that question in any case. Reasons vary from day to day, and often there are a collage of reasons that make teaching something other than a job and career. Certainly, there are many professional, talented people who do exemplary work teaching, and approach it as a job, career, craft. There are certainly aspects of that for me as well. We all need a paycheck of some kind. I see teachers as "knowledge artists." What painters paint, educators weave in an abstract cloud of perception and mind.

To come down from that cloud, I would like to land squarely on a few examples of the classroom interaction. Interactions that are unpredictable and ultimately back-slap funny humor. The creativity and thought processes behind some of these examples are somewhat mysterious. It is that spontaneity and mystery that can prove so addictive. It is material for future comedians. I suppose some semiotitian or psychologist could analyze the material in-depth and provide some deep insight into what often happens in the classroom setting. Luckily, I just get to enjoy the creativity. Every parent is well aware of the "kids say the darndest things" moments. When you can look at a child as a person with profound insight and admire their thinking. The "Where did that come from?" kind of admiration.

I have never, for example, had a classroom full of students that didn't produce a class clown. It is almost a Newtonian scientific law that, "For every class, regardless of size, there will be one class clown." If we look back at the history of many of our greatest comedians and actors, they were that class clown. That little pain in the rear is often so annoying, yet so creative, that it is often tough to be both teacher and audience. It takes great talent to maintain effective learning while nourishing the anarchic creativity in many students. It doesn't take much nostalgic reflection to remember our class clown. And the fact is, they really were funny.

At any rate, here are a few examples of that annoying creativity that effectively says, "I haven't paid attention and have no idea what the answer is, but let me entertain you instead."

Question: Who was the French leader during the Kennedy administration:
A: Omelet de fromage.

Question: Who was the Vietnamese leader in power in the North during the early 1960s?
A: Moo Shoo Pork.

Question: After the second world war, there were a large number of births in the US. This is called:
A: Unprotected Sex.

Question: After the second world war, returning soldiers were given the opportunity for government supported education. The law that allowed this to take place was:
A: The No Soldier Left Behind Act.

Question: In the 1950s there was a large migration of population to which region of the United States?
A: Europe.

Question: The last WWII conference between the allies was called:
A: The International Meeting of the Minds.

Question: What do you eat for Thanksgiving? A: (Tofurkey. Made from Tofu for vegetarians.)
Question: How do they get the bones in it?

The humor can be contagious, and often, makes the day.

Parental Two Step

As a line of parents and students grows outside the classroom, it becomes increasingly difficult to spend the time with parents that each deserves. Parent teacher conferences often end up more like a meet and greet, and, I'm sure for parents it feels like an assembly line, going from one teacher to another.

This year, again because of our construction, we are meeting with parents in our rooms, instead of in a large common space like our media center. Room conferences make parents travel all over the building, and certainly waste more time just finding teachers than the common room approach. But for now, it is no preference, just what we have to do.

Every teacher has a different style of conferencing, unless a school has developed a specific model, such as student led, etc. Most have the grade book strategically placed between them and the parents/student. That certainly isn't wrong, most parents are concerned about the grade and their student's performance in the class. Personally, however, I have rarely brought my gradebook to a conference. Especially, now that I use an online gradebook that is internet accessible by parents and students at any time.

The gradebook, I have found, is a crutch for getting to the point (the grade) and moving on. Like a physician's office appointment, 5 minutes in, measure, diagnose, prescribe, and out we go. I've never been comfortable with that. Having that grade book in between makes the grade the focus of education. And I have never been able to swallow that.

Usually, I talk more to the student and have a student-centered conversation. Letting the student explain their grade. If they have no idea, well, that says something too doesn't it. Also, I think it is important to talk about all the grades and classes in context. If there is a D in chemistry, but all other grades are ok (including mine), I see it as part of my responsibility to coach the student to spend more time in chemistry. I also like to have an informal conversation with the parents. Get to know them a little. It is amazing what we often discover about family situations that shed light on the student as a person, as well as the struggles they are coping with. At least I can offer some moral support to parents for that too.

This conference, I was criticized a couple of times for not having the grade book and every grade to the nearest tenth percent ready to present and defend. I can do that if necessary. But in a five minute awkward dance with parents, it hardly seems like the most important issue in their child's development and education in the broadest sense. I'm stuck in the perspective of school as a liberal, enlightenment education and not an assembly line of skills and performance grades.

I could be wrong.

AP (Advanced Mediocrity)

Attending conferences as professional development can vary from snozzer to invigorating. Usually they are somewhere in between, and a teacher just has to glean as much as possible from the experience, information and materials. The one-day AP (Advanced Placement) Seminar last weekend was just such a mixed bag. What was most interesting, however, was returning to school this week and talking with the AP coordinator and AP English colleagues.

The foggy mists of uncertainty dissipate. Discussion makes painfully clear, once again, how NCLB ("No Child Left Behind") and the Colorado testing (CSAP) are driving public schools (because private schools are not required to comply) into mediocrity. Mediocrity?! How can a testing program set up to raise standards and hold public schools accountable for improving instruction (not education) for all students drive mediocrity?

Our AP program is a good example of the "accountability" forces at work. AP students are generally the more advanced students, usually reading, writing, and performing at grade level or above. Even though AP has been growing at a phenomenal rate, the system therefore regards these students as already successful, and resources are taken from such programs to be used for students needing more help to meet arbitrary testing requirements that are defined as "proficient."

[Colorado, for example, considers students who are "partially proficient" on the CSAP exams as not proficient. But, for federal purposes of meeting Adequate Yearly Progress, "partially proficient" is considered "proficient." Figure that one out.]

These forces drain more challenging programs of teacher positions, money, materials, and most importantly of commitment. And these same forces also drive lower performing students into irrelevance (at least for now) since no matter what the schools do with a student in 9th grade achieving at the 3rd grade level, they will not be testing as proficient any time soon, if ever. Thus, once again, draining remedial and special education programs of teacher positions, money, materials, and most importantly of commitment.

So, it is quite unexceptional to see that the focus becomes the middle students whose scores can be most improved faster and with fewer resources. It's the logic of the system. It's the simple logic of mediocrity. Without change, it is guaranteeing a broken public school system privatized and parted out to the lowest bidders. And, still, with the logic of low bidding, the mediocrity will not change.

Voluntary Apart-heid

Integration, mixing it up, seems to be an idea that has become somewhat passé. A recent book by Jonathan Kozol, The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid, takes a look at the intractable fact of school segregation. We see it daily as well, as students make often unconscious decisions about whom to be with, and whom to shun. Mix it Up, a program of the Southern Poverty Law Center's Teaching Tolerance program, intends on bringing such voluntary segregation into plain view to provoke discussion, as well as action. That action for today, Nov. 15, is for students and staff to consciously choose to be with individuals and groups that they rarely would otherwise. The saddest aspect of this is that some view this as threatening, some kind of liberal multiculturalism. But what we have is conservative apartheid. If it is liberal multiculturalism to reach beyond the fears that divide us, so be it.

Our student leadership class surveyed our students this year to self assess the unseen walls that exist among us. Here are the results.

Total Students Surveyed: 300

Which best describes your school?

Welcoming 33%
Quick to put people in categories 67%

Which settings have you noticed people grouping themselves and others by categories?

After school clubs 52%
Assemblies 38%
Bus 53%
Cafeteria 47%
Classroom 40%
Recreational activities 76%
Other 21%

Which of the following categories create group boundaries at our school?

Appearance/style 88%
Academic achievement 22%
Athletic achievement 46%
Ethnicity 91%
Family income 31%
Gender 7%
Hobbies 48%
Home neighborhood 17%
Language 89%
Musical interest 20%
Political beliefs 3%
Race 92%
Religion 7%
Sexual orientation 78%
Other 12%

At our school, how easy is it to make friends with people in different groups?

Very easy 13%
Kind of easy 20%
Kind of hard 29%
Very hard 38%

This venom certainly has no simple antidote. Surrender to the confortable norm is no answer.

Easy Reader

In an attempt to confront the difficulties mentioned in the previous "Unliterate" post, and after discussion with several colleagues, I decided to try something novel and have students read in class, with a short assessment (quiz) at the end of the period. What we would have done in class, was now homework.

After struggling for several minutes to get the students started, the room quieted eerily and students read and took notes. I wanted them to see how much they could read and learn in 55 minutes. (Most students do not read at all at home, missing a good deal of the class.) I figured that after a week of reading, students would be ready to do just about anything, including reading for homework, to get back to a more normal class structure. To my dismay, about 80% of the students found this a positive experience. Even most who didn't like it admitted that they learned a lot. (Imagine that!)

Here is an excerpt from a representative reflection on the experience.

After doing several days reading and taking notes, I realized that I do learn a lot more than I usually would on my own time at home. Giving us a quiz at the end of class makes me motivated to get the reading done. Also, when I take notes while I am reading, the information seems to sink in more and I can look back on it anytime.

We were provided with a nice, quiet environment that is easier to concentrate, rather than all of the distractions that I usually have at home. It is very useful to read from the book during class. Not only does it teach me what is written in there, but I also learn how to be a faster reader. I learned to find the important things that are in the text, rather than reading it word for word and writing down too much information. With our given time limit, I learned all of the text! I think we should definitely continue with this in class!

Of course, there are many motivations for wanting to read in class. But 80%! I never would have guessed. I suppose I learned at least two things from this experience. First, these students really are used to being held by the hand and forced to do their responsibility. It is very comfortable for them to be "required". Second, that many student avoid the reading due to a lack of comprehension and retention skills. The second issue is fairly easy to address, but the first, bringing students to the point of self-directed learning and finding it comfortable really is rocket science.

Stay tuned.