DIY Notebooks and My 2016 Take on PBL--Individual Study

Sometime right before winter break in my second year of teaching high school English, I got this idea for a do-it-yourself notebook. You see, I have this specific something instilled in me that's part environmentally-friendly, part OCD, where I don't like things to be wasted. I've been saving paper that's only been used on one side since high school (and, boy, did I get teased because of it!), and I've amassed quite a stack of it. I encouraged the third-graders I taught to draw and color on the blank sides, but the practice never quite caught on with teenagers. I'd been taking notes and doing daily writing on them, but the stack was growing ever taller, regardless.

It was around this time I started thinking that I should just carry some of this scrap paper around with me. Like a notebook.

But... more like a 3-ring binder because, as much as I like having the pages in a notebook securely attached, I enjoy the flexibility of being able to reorganize, add, and remove pages as necessary.

But... full-sized sheets are so large and cumbersome. I'd definitely need to cut them in half to be a good size.

But... one thing that's awesome about 8.5x11 pieces of paper is that.. well, they're a standard size. So when you put them in the hole punch, one of my favorite toys, all the holes are in the same place. There's not a standard hole punch for 8.5x5.5 papers.

Wait! What an excellent critical thinking opportunity with real world application! I offered my students some extra credit and gave them 20 minutes to come up with the best solution.

I finally settled for one offered by two of my juniors--If you align the papers at the bottom of the hole punch, like usual, the holes are awkwardly positioned. Same for if you align them at the top of the hole punch. It's not so awkward if you turn the hole punch to the right side, flip the pages to the back so that the used side is showing up, align at the top, and then punch! It took some getting used to, but it totally works! I was so happy to offer that opportunity to my students, and even more so to let them see me use a design they helped come up with on a daily basis.

A few months later, I decided that size wasn't right for my needs. I needed an even smaller size, a quarter size, to fit inside my purse. That was a bit of a struggle to design, as well! Eventually we decided that this one wouldn't work if aligned at the top or bottom; we just needed to center it between two of the holes. The pages weren't exactly the same size, which is what I was afraid of, because I cut several pages at the same time in an inexact method, but it really didn't matter. All that mattered, after all, was that the holes were a standard distance from each other. Neat!

Alright, switching topics, just a little. I knew I wasn't coming back to work the following year about half way through third quarter. That being said, I really wanted to go out with a bang. I wanted to give my students something they would really learn from and remember, something important.

At that time, I had a sophomore who was teaching herself Russian in her spare time, which I was immensely proud of. It reminded me of teaching myself Japanese when I was younger, and that spurred an idea I had been considering after reading Summerhill School.

It had a basis of Project Based Learning, and that's how I sold it to administration, but in reality, I just wanted my students to realize that they live in the digital age. Literally ANYTHING they want to learn is at their fingertips. Mostly, I wanted them to have more control over their learning, to have more ownership of their own learning.

Thus, it manifested like this: Individual Study. Once again, I threw the entire curriculum out the window for the final month of school, telling my students that we were going to be doing something more important--focusing on whatever they wanted to learn. I stressed how important it was to follow your passions, not let anything come between you and what you want to learn, and turn hobbies and interests into viable options for study and bettering yourself. I reminded them that this is what it means to be a 21st century learner.

But being a public school teacher, I still had to enter grades into the computer, unfortunately, so.. Remember those journals I had the students help me on? We made more, and they became logbooks.

This is what I told students I was grading on:

This hastily-hand-written-and-then-photo-copied sheet became "conference sheets," and students were to keep them to use as a reference every day. We discussed the entire sheet at length together, but also during conferences. I'll go through each bullet here like I did then.

1. Logbook
I. Participation - Are you filling out your log book every day?
II. Legibility and neatness/organization - Can someone else pick up your logbook and understand what you're doing without context?
III. Completion - Does each entry have everything it needs? Include the following:
i. Date
ii. Pre-planning with signature of approval
iii. Reflection - What do we mean by that? Here are some examples:
a. Self-exploration / meta-cognition - Thinking about your thinking. What are you learning about yourself during this time?
b. In depth explanation of process and findings - What path did your thinking take? What problems did you come across, and how did you solve them? What were the answers?
c. Analysis of findings - What do you make of what you found? What can you generalize or apply to other areas? What does it all mean?

2. Presentation of findings
I. Communication of ideas - Can you explain what you did in a way that everyone else understands and learns from, too?
II. Advocating for self - Are you enthusiastic about what you're learning? If someone is critical of you, do you stick up for yourself and what you're doing?

3. Weekly conferences

As you can see, the logbooks were the backbone of the project. It was a difficult line for me to address because I wanted to demonstrate to other teachers, parents, and administrators that this plan could work. I wanted them to be a physical representation of students learning on their own with minimal guidance, but to do that, I had to set a secure infrastructure. I wanted to leave enough room for the students to explore and be able to come up with their own, innovative ideas, and I knew that involves being able to fail. It's so much to learn in just a month. I knew it wasn't reasonable, so I built myself a safety net. I started a spreadsheet of what I noticed the students doing each day.

The truth is, I hated keeping this. I felt like I was judging my students on something they shouldn't be judged on. Isn't that all grading in a nutshell? Yet this felt worse, somehow.. Like I was giving them false freedom. Like I was keeping secrets from them. It felt like judgement, but it never entered into how I graded. It's just what I had to do to ascertain that I was still doing my job as a public school teacher, and I still hated it all the while.

It did, however, free me from keeping unnecessarily close tabs on the logbooks. Once they were created, I let the students conduct their business in whatever way they wanted and only asked them about their process during conferences. Thus, they knew what the expectations were and could choose to act on them or not, hence the pages being kept for reference and being revisited during conferences. They knew that the expectation was they kept their entries dated, for example, and could decide how much not doing that counted off of their own grade.

Here's an example of what one looked like. Again, the sophomore teaching herself Russian. (She chose to use the backs of scrap paper, as I did in my own journals. Other students used lined paper.)

The presentations were a little difficult to get started, my students all being hesitant to talk about themselves and having been instilled with a fear of the word "Presentation." My Juniors, however, were extremely grateful to realize that they didn't have to be formal presentations and arranged themselves into a big circle on the floor on presentation days. They went around the circle describing what they were learning and answering questions from the others. It was informal and pleasant, and it went so well that the biggest struggle we had was the time limit because of the bell system.

My favorite part of the entire project were the weekly conferences. I met with each student in their own space, joining them on the floor or in the desks, and let them flow through the Conference Sheet at their own pace, expounding on whatever they felt most important. I got to hear their genuine voices during these times, how they thought and what interested them. I asked them questions about their work and process, and then asked them what they would grade themselves, which was an incredibly interesting undertaking. Some students were hypercritical of themselves while others weren't as much, but, regardless, I always asked them how they would improve during the following week. It was an honest, authentic conversation, and one in which I felt like I was doing my best work as a teacher. This speaking quietly with students in a relaxed environment, listening as they explain what interests them and how they can and are growing as humans, while the other students work and play conversate and live around us.. This is what teaching is about for me. <3

I know this was a unique experience for my students, and I hope that they got something out of it. My biggest hope is that they will remember these four weeks at some later time in their lives and that it sparks some sort of renewed flame in pursuing passions. Teaching is sewing seeds of inspiration that won't grow into anything noticeable for years. I have faith that in 10 or 15 years, this one month will make a difference in the lives of some of my students.

And as for now.. I may have found another transformation for those logbooks in a new project of my own... more on that later!

Universal Basic Income and Its Potential in the World of Education

Today's adventure begins with a foray into the world of economics, with short stops along the way into politics and humanitarianism. We'll get back to education before the end, I promise, so bear with me, even if you can't see where I'm going with all of this. It will make sense in the end.

Five Thirty Eight, a data-driven news blog, recently posted an article on Universal Basic Income, an idea than every citizen be given a no-strings-attached living stipend. It's a philosophy that I've heard in passing before and agreed with, despite my lack of knowledge on the subject. The article is a little lengthy, but well worth the read. For the purposes of THIS article, I'm going to assume you've read the Five Thirty Eight one, so go ahead. I'll be here when you get back.

Interesting stuff, right? To learn more, check out the thorough Wikipedia article, Basic Income Earth Network's website, including their YouTube video playlist, and Techdirt's podcast episode with Albert Wegman.

The proposal has been touted as something that everyone can get behind, from socialists to libertarians, Martin Luther King Jr. to Milton Friedman. It supposes that once everyone has their basic needs met, they can participate more fully in society, and that if they aren't struggling to survive, they can focus on more important things. That is, if one isn't forced to work a meaningless job because "it pays the bills," they can, instead, focus on making their lives better, a la, Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.

I can hear the collective gasp in response as I type this. There are a number of reasons why today's American society, if not the entire world, would balk at the suggestion. The one that I've heard most frequently when I've brought it up in the past (and one I'll discuss to day, as the others have well articulated responses in the links listed above) goes, "If no one had to work, they wouldn't. They would just sit at home, and nothing would get done! Productivity would go out the window!" I'm here to posit that that just isn't true. 

As Rutger Bregman puts it in his TEDx Talk, "If I asked each one of you in this room, 'Would you stop working? And I'll give you, you know, about 1,000 euros a month,' about 99% of you would say, 'Of course not. I've got dreams. I've got ambitions. I'm not going to sit on the couch, no.'"

Andrew Flowers of Five Thirty Eight backs this theory up, as well. He writes, of the Negative Tax Income pilots in the US, 

"Unsurprisingly, work effort did decline. Some NIT recipients cut back their hours, but the declines were modest: no more than 5 to 7 percent among primary earners, and a bit more for secondary earners.
But participants quitting altogether didn’t happen ... 'Some of the experimenters said that they were unable to find even a single instance of labor-market withdrawal,' wrote Widerquist in his 2005 paper summarizing the studies."

And I concur. Perhaps it comes from my belief in humanity. Yes, perhaps some individuals, Bregman's 1% of the audience, might choose to stay at home and relax unproductively with their stipend, but I choose to believe that the majority of humanity would do something with their lives, even if they didn't "have to." I believe that the natural curiosity and instincts inside each of us would push us to pursue our passions. I know I would still be working in education, regardless of pay, and my husband has said that he would still be in software development. Humans want to do things and feel productive. They want to feel like they're making a difference.

(I might also remind the reader that we don't know the stories of those individuals that would choose not to work. Maybe they've been working harder than the rest of us and actually "deserve" the respite. Maybe they're suffering from an unseen mental illness and would use that time as healing. Their lives are not ours to judge.)

Flowers conveys an idea of venture capitalist and author Albert Wegner's, "[He] wants less time spent on tasks that could be automated and more time spent on issues he thinks are insufficiently addressed: fighting climate change, exploring space, preventing the next global pandemic." Or, you know, bringing about the cessation of war. These are the real issues of our age, the serious problems that need to be settled, the ones we currently don't have time or funding for. I believe that humanity can solve these issues, and moreover, that we want to, we have a drive to. I believe that, given the opportunity, there would be an insurgence of people rushing to solve the world's most pressing issues. Right now, without the agency to do so, we've just become apathetic.

One concern of mine is that, as we have seen in the past, further half-hearted studies will ruin the name of Universal Basic Income. The most likely, in my opinion, is that a short-term study will determine that this proposal doesn't work--that the majority of people don't pursue their dreams, that they do buy alcohol and junk food and "waste" their time at home on the couch. The short-term studies will "prove" what everyone has been thinking all along.

Only a serious, long-term study will demonstrate the true strengths of humanity, their resilience and curiosity and passion, because here's another belief of mine: Humanity has a certain structure at this time. We have a schedule and a time table and someone telling us menacingly, "Do this or else." Without those things, we WILL take some time to explore our new-found freedoms. We WILL excitedly go to the store to pick up some "free" junk food and go home to relax on the couch and watch some shows. So if that's all the time the study allows for, yes, that's what it will find. However, if the studies give us more time and patiently sit back to watch what happens, after a while we will sit up and say, "I'm bored. I don't want to watch TV anymore. I want to do something fun!" And THAT'S when the good part will begin. THAT'S when we'll start to explore what we can REALLY do with ourselves.

We just have to be given the chance. And, as Flowers demonstrated in his article, there aren't any sufficient studies to yet prove one way or the other.

Alright, still with me? Now it's time to turn this train around and head back to the world of education. This is where it gets difficult for me because I'm about to discuss an issue that I am entirely too attached to. I feel vulnerable letting people see it because I don't want anyone to hurt it. But my opinion is a fortress, and I know that letting it out will either strengthen it or knock it down, and what do I want with a fortress that's too weak to withstand a little criticism, anyway? Thus, I welcome the criticism because I want the best ideas for my students. If this is not one, so be it. If it is, let's strengthen it and make it the best that it can be.

While I was exploring the world of Montessori, the philosophy that stood out stronger than the rest was, "Follow the child." Perhaps we might all have different takes on what precisely this means, but to me, it means, "The child is best suited to learn whatever he is most curious about," and, "The natural curiosity of a child is his key to education." Dictating what a child must learn and when will only serve to frustrate him, make him rebellious, and turn him against the idea of learning all together.

And I've taken this idea almost to an extreme, it seems to some people I know. When I explain this to others, the most common response I hear is, "But children will never learn if we don't make them."

Aha. Sound familiar? Thus, I return to my previous point: Yes, they will. 99% of the children in the room, if given enough time and started at the right age, have the natural curiosity and instinct to pursue their passions and make something with their time. And that means learning along the way, REAL learning. Not memorizing multiplication tables or the order of the presidents, because that information can be "automated," or in this instance, easily referenced. What learning would they do instead? I'm guessing the same learning that adults would be doing: "fighting climate change, exploring space, preventing the next global pandemic." Or, you know, bringing about the cessation of war.

But again, we can't expect this to happen in one or two years, especially, as I'm learning currently and will discuss in a later post, not starting with high schoolers. If I were to tell my high school students, "You don't have to go to school. Go learn anything you want on your own," the majority of them would excitedly go to the store, buy some junk food, and then go home to sit on the couch and watch TV. Only after they've had their fill of that would they say, "I'm bored. Eh, okay, let's see what else there is to do." But I'm assuming that many of them would be too far down the wrong path and struggle to get back to the right one. I think that's because they've been shoved into the current model so long, it's the only thing they know. 

But if we started with four- and five-year-olds, it would be a different story. If we asked them, "What do you want to learn about?" each would be bursting with their own answer. If we begin with the excitement of the young child, allow them to pursue their passion, patiently sitting back to watch what happens, I believe he will retain that passion throughout his life and eventually turn it into the solutions to humanity's real issues.

An Initial Look into Exploring Emotional Intelligence with Teenagers

A teacher friend posted a link to this PBS Frontline clip about the teenage brain earlier this week, and I can't stop thinking about it. The most important point, in my opinion, was how, when shown images of adult faces expressing emotion, teenagers saw anger and shock where the adults saw fear. Further exploration of the interview with researcher Deborah Yurgelun-Todd finds that about half of the teenagers studied, slightly more boys than girls, incorrectly identified emotions that a full 100 percent of adults were able to identify.

What does this mean? I kept asking myself all morning. Is this usable information?

I definitely feel like I'd been presented with this information before, perhaps in college in my teacher training courses, or perhaps in my own high school psychology classes when I was a teenager. Whenever it was, the information must not have been pertinent to me at the time, and so I didn't retain it (a point I'm finding more and more interesting as time goes along--personal pertinence in regards to information retention). But here it is again, and, faced with teaching teenagers for the first time, it is pertinent to me now. So what can I do with it?

My natural response is to say, "These students need more emotional intelligence practice," and then, almost as a reflex, I reply, "But is that even a possibility? Can I teach emotional intelligence to teenagers without coming across as condescending or patronizing? Even if I attempt to do so respectfully, what if they misinterpret my intentions? Oh, the irony!"

And then I remember that I went to a SECD (social, emotional, and character development) presentation specifically geared towards secondary English teachers during the recent professional development workshops I attended. So yes, not only is it possible, but it's certainly recommended.

(Come on, now. Obviously I have enough faith in my students and their comprehension skills, regardless of human development and psychology. Sure, there will always be hiccups in teaching, but my philosophy is to respect my students enough to teach them items of importance and to trust that if they will retain it if they truly benefit from it--and if I introduce it properly! Must remember. Don't get confused again.)

I didn't type up my notes from the presentation, so I'll just relay some of them now.

The first point I made in regards to SECD is stressing the importance of creating a safe environment where one feels free to share their honest opinions. This is a given, but it's important enough to have a reminder. How does one create such an environment, though? I had this question during the seminar and here's what I came up with: start slow. Use the same style of discussion (Socratic circle, debate, etc.) that you will use throughout the year, but start with easier topics that students are already aware they have opposing opinions on, such as "Do cats or dogs make better pets?" or "Is ice cream or cake a better dessert?" Develop the skills of the discussion style first, and talk to the students about how to respectfully handle speaking with someone that has a different opinion than you. And when someone forgets and makes a disrespectful comment? First let them know that what they said was disrespectful, since they might not know or they might have fallen into an old habit of speaking that way. Help them find a better way to say what they meant, and do so gently. Getting indignant or shaming them would be counter-productive here, as it would model inappropriate behavior. After an initial testing period of getting comfortable sharing their opinions, it should encourage students to share deeper, more honest feelings. (This is definitely an area I want to explore at greater length soon.)

I also noted the importance of role playing, which is another activity I imagine I'll have to ease my students into. One way to do so is with a writing activity called R.A.F.T., which stands for Role, Audience, Format, and Topic. The topics, and/or any of the other criteria, may be chosen by the teacher, but it's an easy way to start students off thinking from another person's point of view. For instance, in the seminar, I was in a group given the assignment, supposing we were in a unit on To Kill a Mockingbird, of writing a newspaper editorial about the trial from Boo Radley's point of view. Once students are in the mindset of thinking from a literary character's point of view, it may be easier to see things from a peer's point of view.

Interestingly, non-assessed standards for SECD already exist. Like most standards, they are very dry and somewhat wordy. I had thought to post the high school specific standards here, but I lost the motivation to do so when I opened the pdf. Last year, I tried to share standards with the third graders by having them pick through pdfs. It was not our most successful lesson. Maybe high school students would be more capable of doing it? It certainly wouldn't be a fun lesson, considering how exhausted I got just by opening the file, but maybe we could use it for some sort of technical reading activity. I'll have to gauge my students when I meet them to see if I would actually want to attempt that. Maybe only the seniors? We'll see.

At any rate, I think I've been able to skim the surface on this topic. At least I know that this is something I want to play with further and that it's worth my time. Is there anything on my Pledge about SECD? If not, I need to put it on soon.

Pledge to Guide Today's Students--Draft 3

Pledge to Guide Today's Students
I pledge to guide my students in learning about the world they live in.

Respecting and honoring others
-Developing communication skills
-Learning about cultures and societies across the world

Respecting one's self
-Developing a healthy self-concept, eating well, and exercising

Respecting the Earth and the environment
-Using resources wisely and dealing with waste properly

Living in the age of technology and information
-How to research effectively
-Respect and honesty while using the internet
-Critical thinking skills when learning from any media

Seeing the big picture of life
-Coming to understand the universe and how we fit into it
-Developing knowledge of the Earth and all of its inhabitants

Updated wording slightly. It's difficult to decide if I need every bullet to begin with a verb or not!

It's also difficult to decide if I need to fully describe each main point using the bullets, or if the main point stands for itself.

Still trying to figure out if I want to add the whole multitasking thing or not.

Added communication skills under "Respecting and Honoring others"! This has become a big thing for me recently. Perhaps it's from working with little ones, but I've decided that communication skills is one of the most beneficial things I can teach children. Included in that is a growing vocabulary that students can use to articulate themselves, but I'm not sure if I need to include that or not.

Added effective research under technology. How could I have missed putting that there? Another thing I've been thinking about recently.

Questioning Credibility: A First Day of School Activity

In seminar yesterday, my classmates and I were fortunate enough to have a Dr. John Williams as a guest speaker. Aside from a wonderful and personally pertinent conversation on ethics (more on why it's pertinent later), Dr. Williams demonstrated how he began the school year when he was a teacher. He began by greeting each student at the door, shaking each of their hands, and looking them in the eyes. He then handed them each a sheet of paper with directions to get into groups and prepare questions to validate his credibility as a teacher. I loved the idea of questioning a teacher's credibility. After all, his plan is to spend a year with you, "teach" you material, and, in general, just be the adult in the room. Don't you, first of all, want to know that he is worthy of those tasks? Because I feel it pertains to my Pledge to Guide Today's Students, I thought I might take this idea and make it more of my own.

I do like the idea of a discussion about credibility on the first day, not only because it will show my students who I am, but also because it will introduce to the students a sort of academic theme we will maintain throughout the year--questioning credibility in all materials we use and aspects of our education. I think I'd like to begin with having the students look up the word credibility, first. The problem with that is that I don't want to have physical dictionaries in my classroom. Could I trust my students to use computers first thing, without even discussing it? Well, of course. Why not? That will set the tone for the year, as well--I respect you enough to trust you with this task, and I believe you are mature enough to handle it.

I could have directions on the board, perhaps something like, "Sit at the desk where your name is. With the people at your table, find the definition of Credibility using the laptop provided [or 'the computer with the same number that's on your table' if I don't have laptops]. With your group, develop 4-5 questions you want to ask ME to determine MY credibility. Order them by importance and then sit quietly while you await further directions." Then, of course, I would come in and answer the questions and lead into a discussion about credibility in general and how it will come in to play in the day-to-day activities of our classroom.

I'm eager for the chance.

Using Images in the Classroom

Rather than work on my senior paper today (lack of motivation is the result of assigning an activity, rather than letting the student have full responsibility over her own education), I discovered Yes! Magazine and spent hours pouring through the website. Although it's aimed towards adults and children older than elementary-age, it fits greatly with my Pledge to Guide Today's Students, discussing topics from peace and justice, the environment, happiness, and activism. There's even a section for teachers that includes lesson plans!

The lesson plans on Y!M follow a specific format. They begin by showing the students an image, usually ambiguous one, such as a unique macro or perspective. Step two is to ask the students to use their observation skills to note what they see and their inference skills to try to figure out what the image is or what is occurring. Third, the teacher asks what questions the students might be thinking about what is happening in the picture. Fourth, she tells the children the title of the image (which usually answers the questions about what the picture is about) and reads some background information about it, which leads into a discussion. Finally, the students are allowed to investigate more through extension activities.

Along similar lines, I've been collecting images online, mostly from National Geographic's Photography site, to use in the classroom. I had planned to use them as journal prompts, asking the children to either write what they think is going on, make up a story to go along with the picture, write what the story makes them think of, or anything else, really. Anything the students want to write would be acceptable.

I like my idea of using the images as journal prompts, but the Y!M method of teaching through images is wonderful as well. It's better in some ways, allowing the students to use observation and inference, as well as grabbing the students' attention, setting the stage for an important lesson, and using real-world situations to teach. However, it doesn't call for the creativity that's involved in writing from the students' own minds or producing an original, inspired work of art.

Both methods are perfect for my classroom, and it will depend on the situation and particular image as to which is more appropriate. I can use the Y!M's method when there's a powerful image I want to use to make a specific point and still use the journal prompt / creative writing method when there's a powerful image that conjures emotions or lends itself to stories. In other words, I can use images for the sake of photo journalism or for the sake of aestheticism.

Edit 08/17/2014: Here's an article from Edutopia that came across my Facebook feed. Someone else commented with this website, which isn't strictly related, but still interesting.

Third Grade Journal Entries on Environmentalism

I taught a unit to the third grade class I'm student teaching with about environmentalism, mostly pertaining to the three R's. Because of how the theme relates to my Pledge, I thought I'd post the responses I received to the final journal entries. I've edited the responses as little as possible just to aid in comprehension. Also note that class is a majority ESOL.

Pledge to Guide Today's Students--draft 2

Pledge to Guide Today's Students
I pledge to guide my students in learning about the world they live in.

Respecting and honoring others
-Learning about cultures and societies across the world

Respecting yourself
-Self concept, eating well, exercising

Respecting the Earth and the environment
-Using resources and dealing with waste properly

Living in the age of technology and information
-Respect and honesty while using the internet
-Critical thinking skills when learning from any media
-(How to multitask and monotask where appropriate)

Seeing the big picture of life
-The universe and how we fit into it
-The Earth and its inhabitants

I've made just a couple of changes to this draft.

First, the category of "Respecting the Earth and the environment" was the only one that didn't have a subheading. I added "Using resources and dealing with waste properly," which basically speaks for itself--I'll be teaching the three R's. I barely remember reading somewhere a new list of R's more appropriate for the 21st century. I need to do more research on that.

Second, I took another look at the category, "Living in the age of technology and information." I wrote down some notes a week or so ago with the thought of adding it to this category,

Marketing. Kids need to be able to see through marketing schemes. "What are they trying to sell me? How are they doing this? What kind of tactics are they using?"

What is planned obsolescence?

Also, "What is the REAL price of this item? Although the monetary cost is low, what am I paying for? What kinds of practices am I helping support when I buy this? What kinds of work practices? Who gets the money I pay? Do I want to support these companies or stores when I don't know who they are or what they do?"

However, in retrospect, I believe ALL of this is covered in the subheading, "Critical thinking skills when learning from any media." Maybe I should make some bullet points under each subheading? I may do that in a subsequent draft.

Also in my notes, I had written, How to use technology and multitask, but also how to monotask and slow down to enjoy the moment. (((Monotasking Mondays? It sounds nice, but wouldn't a better day for monotasking be Friday, because we are all stressed from the busy week that we need to slow down?)))

I couldn't decide whether this point was important enough to include or not. I finally added it as "How to multitask and monotask where appropriate," in parentheses, considering that I could always exclude it in a subsequent draft.

What Worksheets Are For

A friend handed me a stack of worksheets the other day and asked if I wanted any of them. My immediate reaction was to politely and simply hand them directly back to her and reply, "No, thanks." But then I thought that maybe I should look through them quickly and see if any of them gave me any new ideas. So I had an inward sigh and sat down with the stack.

Among the coloring pages, dot-to-dots, and math board games, I found one choose-the-right-word on needs and wants. Needs and wants is an important topic that's actually taught in public schools today, although I don't think any students or teachers actually internalize any of it. This paper listed scenarios and wanted students to decide if something is a good or service and a need or want. I'll list some from what I remember.

"Sally went to the barbershop. She paid for a __(good, service)__. Getting a haircut is a __(need, want)__."

Easy. She paid for a service; a haircut is a want. Alright, let's move on.

"Sally went to the mall. She paid for a __(good, service)__ at the store. Clothes are a __(need, want)__."

Okay, this one's a little trickier. Clothes are obviously a good, but because Sally had to go to the mall, the clothes she bought there are probably a want, not a need. However, the question just asked about "clothes" in general, which ARE a need. It's a little questionable, but acceptable. Let's check out the last one.

"Sally went to the pizza parlor. She paid for a __(good, service)__. Food is a __(need, want)__."

This one really got me. Because Sally went to a restaurant where food is prepared for her, she paid for both the good of the food and the service of having it prepared. Because it merely talks about "food," the answer should be "need." But again, because it specified that she went to the pizza parlor, pizza is a want, not a need. So although the "correct" answers are a "good" and a "need," you could easily argue either way.

And come to think of it, on the second question, when Sally paid for the clothes at the mall, which were undoubtedly overpriced, she probably paid for the service of having children in third world countries gather the materials and construct the clothes at the American equivalent of one dollar a month and at terrifying working conditions, the shipping of the finished products, the paychecks of CEOs that decided to outsource the company, and the employees of the store who marked up the price of the product by 75%. So, in fact, she paid for their services as well as the good itself.

With all that in mind, I wrote off the worksheet as stupid, cookie-cutter fodder common in most traditional classrooms across the country and handed the stack back to my friend.

But today I thought back to it and all of the comments I had. Wouldn't it be great if my students thought these thoughts as well? Wouldn't it be cool if I could use this silly worksheet to ignite these thoughts?

And then I thought, couldn't I use these silly worksheets to explain the molds that other teachers and other people in the world will try to fit them into? I could tell them, "This is what they will give you. And you know the right answers. That is, you know what answers they will be grading for. And you can try to talk to them about it, like we did together, but chances are, they won't listen. So you just have to put the answer you know that they want. And if you don't know, just guess. You may have guessed what they want correctly, and you may have guessed incorrectly, but it doesn't matter. Take your C and go sit back down because there's nothing more you can do with that kind of person. They just want to grade for what they think is correct and give you a score and label you and fit you into a category. And it doesn't matter. What matters is that you know that there's more to knowledge than that."

So that's what worksheets will be for in my classroom--preparing my students for the terrible teachers they will have in the future. Steeling their hearts for it and instilling more confidence into them. I look forward to the wonderful conversations about worksheets I will have with my students.

Pledge to Guide Today's Students--draft 1

About a year ago, I realized that the content of the curriculum taught in America's schools today has been the nearly identical since the creation of the American education system. It's been quite some time since the 17th century, and the world is a very different place. I've tried the political/activist route of provoking change, and there is a lot of talk about education reform in the news these days, but still, little seems to be getting accomplished. One place I know I can evoke change is in my own (future) classroom. Students need to learn about the world as it is today, not as it was when the lessons we teach were created, and I will be the one to teach them.

As a soon-to-be teacher, I began writing a pledge to myself and to my future students a year ago. It's still in its draft stages and probably will be until my first day with my own classroom. However, while reading the news today, I came across an article that struck a chord with part of my pledge. I decided that I should put my pledge, work-in-progress it may be, out for others to see.

Teachers often complain that there is not enough time in the school day to teach everything they want as thoroughly as they want. I know some may scoff at my pledge and claim that I won't find the time to fit more lessons into an already overflowing schedule, but I am passionate about my pledge. I KNOW my students need be taught these things and that they probably won't get it from anywhere else. I WILL find a way.

Pledge to Guide Today's Students
I pledge to guide my students in learning about the world they live in.

Respecting and honoring others
-Learning about cultures and societies across the world

Respecting yourself
-Self concept, eating well, exercising

Respecting the Earth and the environment

Living in the age of technology and information
-Respect and honesty while using the internet
-Critical thinking skills when learning from any media

Seeing the big picture of life
-The universe and how we fit into it
-The Earth and its inhabitants


Respecting and honoring others is the most traditional part of my pledge. The Golden Rule has been taught since the beginning of recorded history, and it will continue into my classroom. Having respect for others is a discipline every human needs to have. Where the differences begin is in the honoring. I hope to teach my students that students in every country are the same, that every human has the same needs, and that at the same time, we share different cultures and histories that are equally as beautiful. This includes sharing stories and photographs (from the internet) of people from all around the world.

Respecting yourself is a trait that many teachers think they are teaching but very rarely have an actual discussion about it. I will teach my students, through conversation, about what it means to take care of their bodies and spirits and how to grow strong and healthy.

Respecting the Earth and environment is where my pledge really starts to deviate from a traditional classroom's curriculum. Obviously, this will include discussions of recycling, but also lessons on geology.

Living in the age of technology and information may be the most pertinent subject for today's generation of students. It's so important to me that I teach my students how to use media and the internet correctly because students today are getting bombarded with examples of how to use it the wrong way. There is a great resource I discovered today on this topic.

Critical thinking skills was my most recent addition to the pledge, and the wording doesn't quite fit yet. What I wanted to get across was that I want to teach my students to question, "Do I think this sounds true? Where can I learn more from another source?" and "Is this a reliable source?" I want them to know what credibility means and how it's determined.

The big picture of life component came from my dabble into Montessori. Cosmic education is a big part of the Montessori style of teaching, some teachers basing every lesson on part of it. As a public educator, I may face great difficulty teaching about the universe, especially in my beginning years. I plan to teach as much as I can without going into anything controversial, hopefully saying just enough to spark the curiosity the leads to further investigation in my students' free time.