The Great Experiment Day 1!

Today was the first day of summer school --nothing new there. I am teaching US History--I've been teaching it off and on for 16 years! Nothing new there. The experiment is all in the delivery. We are engaged in a blended online class. We have two days of face to face class time in a Westtown School classroom. After this we will meet for five additional weeks without ever being in the same room. One student will be traveling to China, another to Canada, a third to central PA, a fourth will be hiking in New England and the others will be scattered through out the mid-Atlantic--ten students and me. We will meet asynchronously and synchronously using a variety of online tools. Every Thursday we will meet using a program called Adobe Connect. Between Thursdays discussions will happen in our forums, wiki's will be constructed, assignments uploaded and quizzes taken all within Moodle.

When I thought about the organization of this class I was stymied by the challenge of covering the full sweep US History from pre-conquest Native Americans through to the election of Barack Obama in just six weeks.   Every online US History course I examined seemed to take this approach and rely heavily on weekly assignments and pacing that resembled the nine month school year course. Fortunately, a wise and forward thinking colleague reminded me to start with the outcomes I wanted and that with a new medium I needed a very different course structure. In his opinion, the problem with online high school classes is they try to replicate a face to face curriculum in a virtual space.

My outcomes for my students include garnering a sense of the sweep and power of US History, to write well and to be able to think creatively about US History and make connections between the past and the present (I suspect we will skip over President Garfield yet again).  I want them to know US geography and the inter-relationship between history and environment. Finely, I want them to see themselves as the next generation in a long line of people actively engaged in making history, involved in the civic life of their country and responsible for their future. We will do a lot of writing--two 5-7 page essays with proper bibliographic citation-- as well as significant and regular writing in our discussion forum and their own current event blogs. The forum will be centered around questions of analysis, synthesis and creative thinking. Our wiki's will be more fact based; geared toward building a foundation in the scaffold of events, issues, and people. There will be a collaborative project of their choosing. The final project will ask them to track a current event issue over the five weeks and write about it in a weekly blog. As they learn more about their topic, they are to engage with others beyond the confines of our class.

The first day went as I expected. It took us a significant amount of time to down load the exact media driver for our school's video streaming program, Safari Montage. Each different student computer has its own particular hurdles and driver needs. Once we had everyone's computer ready to stream videos, we showed them how to search the movie database and then I explained that while we would have a text book as a reference, they were free to read or watch videos to learn about any topic we were covering. One or two history channel buffs were thrilled! We then reviewed a number of online subscription services available to them as another alternative to the textbook. Tomorrow I will review with them how to select the best sites for learning and show them how to use the textbook most effectively.

We spent the last hour drawing free hand maps of North America. Students were to locate major rivers, oceans, lakes, mountain ranges and other geographical features. They also had to locate some major cities and correctly draw in the boundaries for all of Canada's provinces. We will add the US states over the next few weeks. I was interested to watch strategies for locating things to be placed on the map. Some turned quickly to the textbook, others found maps on line and still others googled terms like Hudson River.

Tomorrow, we tackle the US Constitution and how to use Adobe Connect.

President Garfield?? Really??

Brady-Handy photograph of Garfield, taken between 1870 and 1880
Wikipedia.com

It's that time again, time to cram and review for the SAT Subject Tests. I teach at a college prep school; many of the more selective colleges and several state universities require students to submit subject test scores as a part of the college application. Therefore, we/I have to have our students ready for these content focused tests. While running a review session last week, the students took and then we went over a practice test. One of the practice test questions (in the leading test prep book) was about President Garfield. Only one of our bright, eager students even knew we had a President Garfield. What this student knew, was that he was one of four Presidents assassinated. In making choices about what to cover and what to leave out my colleagues and I chose to skip past Garfield, spending time in Reconstruction, the Gilded Age and then jumping to American Imperialism in the late nineteenth century. I have a Ph.D. in History from University of Pennsylvania. I have been teaching US History since 1997! What I know about Garfield is brief--self-made man from Ohio, compromise candidate for the Republican Party in 1880, worked hard to reform the Federal Civil Service. His successor President Arthur actually signed into law legislation establishing the civil service as a merit based system (as opposed to a spoils system). To learn more all I need to do is do a Bing or Google or Wikipedia search.

I don't want to get into an argument about whether or not Garfield was a part of US History, or whether or not the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act was a a game changing piece of legislation, the question I want to ask is as follows. What is it we want our students to learn from their US History survey courses? Every state requires high school students to take a US History survey course. Given the shortness of the school year and the increasing body of US History (every year we add another year of events, people, topics) we have to make choices. The SAT Subject Test is one choice, every event, every President, every person of note is of equal importance and of equal likelihood to show up on the test. To make this choice is to commit to moving through the survey text book at a measured pace, constantly committing facts to memory, reviewing them frequently and finishing the year with a head full of facts, a knowledge base a mile wide (or at least 300 years long) and a half inch thick--hopefully some of it will stick past the test date. By using this test in college admissions, colleges are saying, this is what we want our incoming students to have--heads full of facts.

But what can these students do with these facts? If I were a college admissions director I would want an assessment that sought to tease out a young person's sense of what it means to be an engaged citizen. As a baseline, this sort of assessment might begin with geography. Where are the Appalachian Mountains and what do they have to do with the Proclamation of 1763, where is the Grand Coulee Dam and what does it have to do with the Second New Deal, where is the Rio Grande and what was its importance to the Mexican American War? Along with geography, I would want to examine what students know about he evolution of the concepts of liberty and equality from the time of the Puritans and Cavaliers through to the present. How informed are they of the ways in which the Constitution has been interpreted and re-interpreted?  Then I would want to see how much they know of all those times when citizens came together to effect change--all those 19th and 20th century citizen led reform movements including those of reconstruction and the Progressive Era to improve the lives of others or reform the government. For instance, I would want students to compare the Bonus Army with the  Occupy Wall Street Movement. I would want this assessment to measure effective writing and thinking. Then, I would want to know what they could actually do with all of this knowledge. Are they active, critical thinking, citizens or passive receivers of information? That is what I would want to know.

Civic Space: a kinesthetic experience

In both of my history classes we have been examining the expansion of democracy in the 19th and early 20th centuries. In World History we have been asking ourselves whether or not suffrage alone is sufficient to consider a country democratic. Who needs to vote? Who has the vote who doesn't? Is it possible to have universal adult suffrage and not have democracy? We have asked ourselves what else might be required. Some students suggested a written constitution might be a prerequisite, others wanted a legal system that treated everyone the same. Still other students felt guarantees of basic human rights were essential ingredients for a functioning democracy. Interestingly, none of them on came up with the idea of civic space, civic organizations, or civic engagement. Alexis de Tocqueville identified American volunteerism or the tendency to form associations as a defining characteristic of American democracy. My students have grown up with this most basic and necessary ingredient as a part of the air they breath. Every Saturday, these self same students may see this at work when two groups share the public square in West Chester, PA. On one side of the intersection are those carrying flags and signs telling us to  "Support our Troops" or "Thank our military heroes". On the other side of the intersection another group carries flags with the stars arranged in a peace symbol and holding signs telling us that "War is not the answer" or "Support our troops, bring them home".

Occupy Wall Street is back in New York (though you wouldn't know it from the non existent news coverage). Every weekend in the spring groups gather for walks, health festivals, protests and rallies (large and small). This rainy Sunday morning, 17 Westtown students and assorted adults joined several hundred other folks from around Delaware and Chester County to participate in the Walk MS event. With their feet and in the rain these kids engaged in the public discourse around Multiple Sclerosis. They helped to re-create and sustain the civic space so vital to a successful democracy. While not as dramatic as the March on Washington in 1963 or the Bonus Army occupation in 1932, this was civic engagement all the same. These weren't truckers protesting fuel prices or public workers in Wisconsin protesting changes in their pay structure. They were, two girls whose mothers have MS. These two girls wanted to raise awareness of the disease for their peers and take action in a tangible way. Their friends wanted to help. This is how all movements large and small begin. These two girls and their friends now have another experience upon which to build of making change, of being involved. Citizenship is not waiting for good things to be handed down from on high (it never has worked that way-ask Alice Paul) -- waiting versus acting might be the difference between being a subject and being a citizen. These Westtown students have begun to understand through their walking today, that citizenship means action. Whenever we create space for our students to actively engage as opposed to passively receive we insure the health of our democracy.

Empathy and Revolution

Several things intersected for me this past two weeks ago. David Brooks wrote an op-ed on the “Limits of Empathy” NYTimes 9/29/2011, I took my mother to see the “Rembrandt and the Faces of Christ” exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and I worked with several faculty at my school on what our students need from their education in the 21^st century.  The David Brook’s piece was happen stance, I was catching up on the op ed section of the paper over breakfast the morning of my museum trip. Brooks seemed to be tilting at windmills in a way. What educator or even parent would assume that empathy alone is enough to create moral action? Brooks takes issue with what he considers a lopsided embrace of the whole idea of “Walking a mile in another’s shoe” and then points to the myriad research showing how sad people are when they do really horrible things to others. As if to suggest, that empathy –the sense of feeling with someone other—precludes moral judgment. Or even that moral judgment and moral action can and perhaps should operate separate from empathy. John Howard Griffin, certainly had a strong moral code growing out of his Catholic faith but he didn’t have any understanding of how to act in relation to his black neighbors until he assumed a black identity and then wrote about his experiences in the Jim Crow South in his book Black Like Me.  I suspect it was unfair to Brooks to have him in my mind as I went to an exhibit that was all about a search for empathy and a desire by Rembrandt and his students to act and create based upon that newfound empathy.

In this exhibit the process of Rembrandt’s work is what is being depicted, displayed and celebrated. While there are major paintings in the exhibit they are a part of a process not unitary, stand alone works of unique inspiration. The heart of the exhibit is seven paintings –portraits of Christ-- completed by Rembrandt and his students between 1643 and 1655. Each of these paintings is small and each is meant as a study to be used in the studio, not a finished major work of art. Rembrandt wanted to break with the tradition of depicting Christ as a perfect, god in human form who just happened to also have very Roman features. He asked Jewish neighbors to sit for him in his studio as he imagined different moments in Christ’s life—breaking bread with his friends, teaching and preaching, contemplating his death in Gethsemene,  the moments before the horrors of his crucifixion. How would these moments be expressed by a human Christ? In choosing Jewish models, Rembrandt seems to want to assert the otherness—not fair haired, not blue eyed-- of Christ. In choosing his Jewish neighbors, this different looking Christ remains familiar. In choosing human models Rembrandt connects Christ in a much more intimate way with the viewers of the art—his humanness breaks down the divide the divinity in earlier depictions creates. Rembrandt and his students seek to understand Christ’s feelings and translate them through oil paint for the artists’ contemporary audience. In this search for fellow feeling, Rembrandt transforms for all time the way that Jesus is understood.[1]

A second theme in the exhibit is his approach to working with his students. Many of the paintings and sketches in the exhibit are those of his students. Typically, masters had their students create copies, Rembrandt encouraged his students to extend his originals and add their own understanding. This fascinated me as I compared Rembrandt’s work with that of his students. There are numerous sketches of Christ’s appearance on the road to Emmaus. In all of them Rembrandt is exploring all the possible ways for revelation to occur and for the disciples to react. Towards the end of the exhibit is a major painting by one of Rembrandt’s students on this subject. In this painting the light is behind one of the disciples and actually best illuminates the faces of the two servants who are oblivious to what is happening. Jesus has no special glow, no halo. In his hands, he has bread he is in the process of tearing with a very quiet motion, almost absent mindedly. One disciple, with his back mostly to us has his hand to his face as if to say, “This man reminds me of Jesus”. The back lit disciple is more active and his understanding more immediate but still quiet and without alarm.

This continuous exploration, reinterpretation and flat out invention are at the heart of good education. This was our process the last two weeks in my World History class. Students had begun with building basic information on the ways in which human geographers study and understand human interactions with their environment. We asked questions such as “What is Asia?” and "Why were the Thule Inuit successful in settling Greenland while the Scandinavians were not?” We extended our study of the past with readings on famine, hunger and population in the 21^st century. Our resident Earth Literacy teacher joined us to push students to consider their own definitions of success in civilizational terms and whether or not agricultural choices have any meaning for us today. These were wide ranging discussions requiring students to examine their own assumptions about human geography and the choices humans make. They weren’t being asked to act upon their ideas, to make hard moral choices but rather to consider the choices made by others –to limit family size, to have another child in the face of horrible poverty, to bring cattle into an environment never intended for them, to choose agriculture, to interpret history as progress, to devote Muslim scholarship to creating a garden of North Africa.  While there were wrong answers to some of the questions my students asked of each other, there were few single right ones. This first grappling with ambiguity, with dichotomous and opposed “right answers” was unsettling. I suppose Rembrandt’s students and patrons found his new depictions of Christ troubling. (Certainly, one of Rembrandt’s students was censured for breaking with the iconic portrayal of Christ for a portrait not unlike that of several of Rembrandt’s).

Later in the year my students will translate their thought experiments, their analysis and even their empathy seeking into action. Having a better understanding of the forms of expression and thought and having had practice taking those forms and extending them, my students  will make moral choices, but these choices will be shaped by a better understanding of the assumptions and premises upon which their decisions and actions stand. Just as John Howard Griffin knew how to act upon his values because of his experience of empathy, so too will my students.

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[1] All of the above is a very brief summary or what I learned from the exhibit and the many explanations the exhibit provided for the works on display.

Director of Teaching and Learning -- Week One

What do you call a new position that when you describe it to your mother appears overwhelming, daunting, impossible, and uncontainable.  And yet, the challenge is exciting, the goals in line with my own vision of education and adult professional learning, my colleagues are ready for the direction this new position signifies, all of the elements are creatively related, and the opportunity is a good fit for me even as it will bring into high relief my own shortcomings?

Today I wrote a short description for a go to guide we are writing to help faculty navigate technology questions. My piece of this guide is just one part of a larger whole including our two Ed Tech Coordinators, our Director of Technology and our Director of Library Services. I am waiting to see what the others write and how they add too and edit what I have written. I expect there will be overlap between us, but our hope is to provide a structure that will enable the high fliers, adventurers, and early adopters; support the folks who are experimenting and following where others have gone before; and shorten the tail--that is get the  ostriches heads out of the sand.

Even as I work on this structure piece, I am very conscious of wanting to chart a course that will create opportunities for organic exploration and personal growth. Teachers can no longer wait for someone else to come along and tell them... do this. I am quite clear that this year we will not have in-service days filled with a single speaker talking at us. Indeed, I am hoping to offer a variation of the un-conference for our winter in-service. What a great concept, folks come together in the morning, generate a list of topics they want to explore or learn about, self divide and work together to answer their questions and/or learn new tools. The working assumption here is that professional teachers will act professionally when given the opportunity to shape their own learning.

Finally, a good practice I will need to remember to do when necessary--apologize quickly.  In rolling out last week’s opening of school meeting schedule, I forgot to communicate with one group in a targeted manner about who should facilitate the discussion. I need to make amends. This oversight was also an aha moment. Other groups meeting at the same time with similar tasks already had folks who assumed they were the facilitators. When I reached out to them to facilitate, they assured me they had already prepared for the meeting! So after I apologize I will need to work with this group to develop their own sense of ownership and realization that at any moment each of them could/should be ready to facilitate.

PS send me your descriptors for the question I posed at the beginning!

Sunflowers

Every spring my youngest daughter and I plant sunflower seeds in the garden by our deck. Sarah loves that these tiny seeds will grow into 12-14 foot plants with bright yellow petals and hundreds of new seeds for next year. Normally, sunflowers track the sun. If planted in an unobstructed field the yellow flowers will point towards the east in the morning and by late afternoon they will face west.  Our sunflowers are planted on the side of our house that faces west. They get no morning light. They face the house in a generally southern direction. Even as the sun comes over the house and heads west through the afternoon, our sunflowers refuse to turn. And yet they grow and thrive and I get to look right at the flowers, covered with bumble bees from the kitchen window while I do the dishes. Sarah says the sunflowers are confused and think the bright light reflecting off our house and deck is the sun. I would say, the seed planters have set the sunflower up to point in the wrong direction.

I have been thinking about our sunflowers as I do the dishes and contemplate structures that will support the direction and vision we have for Westtown School. One of my projects this summer has been to develop structures that will continue the process of preK-12 curricular cohesion and integration—work we have been involved in for a decade.  I have been talking with peers at other independent schools about their structures and processes for curricular review, program innovation and implementation, and faculty development and evaluation. Each school has different structures and like us many are in the process of making adjustments or complete over halls of existing systems. There are intriguing and impressive elements in each school’s effort to insure their program makes sense as children progress through the grades and that the program supports the school’s mission.

Each school began with questions to answer and in some cases problems to address. I have come to believe we have three questions. One of the questions we want to answer grows out of our current curricular review process. Faculty engage with the process and finish the year long review asking for a regular means of supporting ongoing cross divisional discussions. Faculty members within the review process have gotten to know and appreciate their colleagues in other divisions. Valuable conversations were begun and promising directions for program were identified. Ten years ago teachers in different divisions would not have said that meeting across divisions was of any value. Indeed, one of the goals of the program area curricular review process was that faculty would come to know and learn from colleagues in other divisions.

Another question has to do with the vision we have articulated for our students to be engaged in collaborative learning and ethical leadership in a connected world: Quaker Education at Westtown School. This vision—the actualization of our school’s mission—requires a highly motivated faculty actively engaged with each other across divisions and across disciplines. How do we break down program area silos and enable creative collaboration among faculty and students?

The third question has to do with professional development. How do we empower faculty to innovate, to experiment, to learn, even to fail from time to time in order to realize our vision within their classes and interactions with our students? 

As I think about these questions, our answers will not come from replicating the system of one of our peer schools. Indeed, we need to start with our three questions, turn them into statements and design backwards from there. Our own school culture and context will require its own system, something different from what we have now. To get there we will have to be willing to ask additional and divergent questions (what ifs and why nots) and be willing to explore unsettling answers to those questions. In the end we want our systems to point us in the direction we have chosen for ourselves.

How did I do?

Last year I set two goals for myself: close my computer when students or colleagues came into my office to speak with me and to regularly visit classes across the school.

Of the first goal I give myself an above average assessment. I did almost always shut my laptop. I noticed rather quickly that I still got everything done, my email still was answered  and I was more or less prepared for each class. More importantly, I realized that I was remembering the conversations! This helped me as well as I didn't have to re-ask questions as frequently. Also, I would like to think that when someone was looking for help, advice, an answer or just someone to explore an idea with what they received from me and my undivided attention was better...it certainly felt better from my end. This shutting my laptop has become almost second nature -- not quite as automatic as buckling my safety belt but almost.

Visiting classes has been harder to make habitual. The first goal occasionally got in the way of the second goal. Shutting my laptop invited longer conversations. I allowed meetings to be scheduled in the times I had set aside to visit classes. I also allowed peer diffidence over having a colleague drop in for 10-15 minutes of their class to observe slow me down. But what I learned about our PreK-12 from the visits I did make was invaluable in my own growth as a teacher and in my greater understanding of our entire program and the way students' experience their education.

This year I will have "visiting classes" as my number one goal and enter periods for visiting into my calendar so that no one schedules over the top of these times. This will put me in more classes. Once I am in them, my next goal will be to share with them what I see, hear, learn and think.