Lebanese Laughter

I just returned from a fantastic mission/literacy trip to San Jose, Costa Rica.  Our mission was to teach K-8 math and English and to help rebuild St. Elena primary school.  What resulted was so much more!  Parker Palmer notes that good teachers possess a capacity for connectedness.  I agree, and I saw this “connectedness” in our students and my colleagues on this trip.  From the moment we found out we were going to Costa Rica until the tearful minutes when we departed, we were all connected to a cause greater than our own:  we wanted to connect with these kids from Nicauragua, Honduras and Costa Rica.  We packed computers, books, pencils, notebooks, and trinkets into 50 pound duffel bags as we excitedly chattered about the great things we were going to do for these kids! 

I now realize that the kids of St. Elena did so much for me and my spirit AND my love of teaching.  From the first day that we stepped onto the school grounds, I was moved greatly.  The kids loved us unconditionally from the beginning for one reason:  we cared about them and their little school.  One girl (that I will call Stephanie) followed me around with her word find puzzle well after the lesson was over.  She was so eager to practice her English and interact with an “AmeriCAN!”  She was precious.  One little boy, Derek, kept asking me to write his name with him in English cursive.  He loved the way his name looked on the pink construction paper on his desk.  An older girl, Patricia, begged me to tell her if we too watched “I love Carly” over here in the United States.  Her best friend, Lenea, told me her lifelong dream was to be educated in the beautiful States that were United. 

As I reviewed verb tenses with the fourth grade one day, I was just overcome with emotion as I listened to the kids repeating:  run, ran, run.  or Sing, sang, sung.  Their voices were so sweet and so interested!!!  I also got tearful as I watched my BU students interact with the kids over a quick game of soccer on their playground, an impromptu pick-up basketball game (using a bucket until we put up a brand new goal/post), an I-Spy game, or a “Spanglish” discussion over lunch.  Our students were amazing teachers, and none of them have been formally trained as such YET!  I hope that they will in the future.  They came on the trip with one goal in mind:  to help the kids of St. Elena school, and they left doing that and so much more:  they really connected with the kids on so many levels!  *As we left, I saw the kids hugging our BU students; I saw them tearfully wave goodbye; I heard many tell us that “I will never forget you” and “I love you” and so forth. 

That sense of connectedness came in so many forms:  it happened when we taught them a math lesson in our broken Spanglish; it happened when we sat with a group of kids at lunch and talked about life; it happened when we stood in the rain and played soccer with the kids; it happened when they performed a traditional Costa Rican dance for us; it happened when  one little girl corrected my Spanish after I slaughtered a sentence!  As a veteran teacher, I did not expect to be so moved by this experience of teaching in a different country.  Sure, I knew it would be neat, but I had no idea it would shake me to the core.  I was so proud to be a teacher and an American and someone who had the great privilege to travel to Costa Rica and do something worthwhile!

Parker Palmer also notes that good teachers make these connections not by their methodology but in their hearts; this could not be more true than on our mission trip.  Our emotions, hearts, spirits, and sheer will combined to make those great connections with the kids of St. Elena and with each other. 

I learned so much about my colleagues and my BU students (some that I really did not know until the trip).  One funny incident that comes to mind is when our group went on a zip-lining adventure.  I told the entire group that I was certainly not going to do something as stupid as zip-lining.  I was terrified of heights and so forth.  Well, I was shamed into participating anyway!  However, what happened during that adventure could easily be a metaphor for most of our Costa Rican experience:  teamwork and determination.  As I got ready to sail through the air on a wire from tree to tree, my students cheered for me (as they did for each other!)  Like in a Ropes Course, I gained strength from the various members of my “team,” as they shouted “You can do it, Dr. C!”  I did it and came away with a great sense of accomplishment.

Back to teaching:  it took each one of us to make our Costa Rica trip successful.  We needed Parker for his humor/upbeat attitude; we needed Candace for her determination; we needed Adrienne for her great Spanish speaking skills; we needed Lane for his incredible photojournalism record of our trip; we needed Gaspar for his physical tenacity as he poured bag after bag of concrete; and so on and so on.  We needed each other as we delved into the unknown together.  And we did it!

As we left the school on the last day, we cried and hugged the kids and hugged each other.  Sappy?  Maybe somewhat to you as you read this.  However to us, it was very real.  We made connections.  We actually touched these kids, and they definitely touched us.

Perhaps more than ever, I was so proud to be “maestra” or teacher.

Well, I will admit that I had to reread and seek Gardner’s help on WHAT to read for this assignment.  I think all in all, I agree mostly with what Seymour Papert has to say.  I believe the crux of his argument lies in this passage:  “The vicious circle would be broken when people with good ideas, different ideas, exciting ideas will no longer be faced with a dilemma where they have to either sell their ideas to a conservative bureaucracy or shelve them.” 

Rightfully so, Papert believes that computers CAN help individuals “implement new educational ideas.”  I agree.  I love when he says we need computers as “object[s]-to-think-with” and how he adds that with such computer integration, hopefully “all the pieces will come together and it will catch!”  Yep, that would be nice. 

I think Papert’s big deal is that throwing a bunch of computers in a school lab where they catch dust and some use without changing the curriculum is just stupid.  And I see it daily.  I really believe that teachers are so programmed to think they must dispense knowledge and fill little pails that they would be terrified to let kids “loose” with a machine, a computer.  That is the type of mindset that has to change.  He is right:  “in short, before the computer could change School, School changed the computer.”

I feel for all the teachers “mainly visionary ones” that have the “desire for something different from school.”  I like to think I am one of those; I was certainly one of those in public high schools for nine years.  I hear my student teachers as t hey plan for their futures in education; they are visionaries.  I hope that they can work in schools that have been reformed.  If not, I know the majority of them will just quit. 

When Papert mentioned Piaget’s 7Steps of Development, my interest was piqued.  I think Papert was saying that we must–for true assimilation–go through all the stages, not just wrestle within ONE stage.  Papert puts it aptly:  “I see School as a system [key word] in which major components have developed harmonious and mutually supportive—mutually matched forms.” 

 I think he says that you must “tweak” all the components of the system in order to have true change; otherwise, when you tweak only ONE part, “when you let go it is pulled back by all the other components,” and so essentially, nothing is changed in regards to the Whole.

After I looked up Parabola and understood its shape/meaning and reread what Papert said about kids and math and computers, I liked what he said: kids with computational fluency—growing up with computers—will succeed in math or whatever because it –ie. math will become to them ” more concrete, more intuitive, and far more motivating” than normal, often rote learning.

*I know that is certainly the case with my 6year old niece, who can navigate the WEb with the best of them!  6 years old.  Think about it:  you have kids who have been on computers since childhood coming to public schools with their laptops, Ipods, Iphones, etc in tow, and we say “put away all electronic devices” or “stow them away.”  We are going to have to work with technology —to some extent—or we will continue to lose kids’ interests. 

“Transfer” is something you do-another great comment by Papert. 

I will end with his need for a “guiding designer.”  This is so true of education today.  We need a master planner.  I love what he said about the inherent problem:  “attempts to change the medium and leave the content OR change the content and keep the medium.”  So very true.

His answer might come in his “bricolage–wc I believe means layering with diversity.  I like that idea.

He is so right; we need a lot more work on this “Trojan horse” strategy before we are going to instigate change to the system we call School.

For right now, we have lots of “camels,” don’t you agree?

Okay, so Steven Strogatz had me at “Let’s start at Pre-school!”  That is where I feel that I belong sometimes when it comes to math.  Honestly, I wasn’t thrilled about reading about math.  However, I was pleasantly surprised with the blog and with the fact that I sort of understood some things in it!  After all, he said he wrote this to “give adults a better feeling of what math is all about.”  I believe he did just that (although at times I was drifting….Now when I played the video, I came alive.  I am Humphrey!  Ha.  I thought the idea of the oral repetition of “fish, fish, fish” was fun and informative.   I liked following Humphrey’s “creative process” as Strogatz puts it.  The part that lost me was that numbers are “concepts” and that they are “part heaven and part earth”–I would have gone with part heaven and part, yep, HELL!  I liked the bent on creativity. 

I feel like the strongest part of Strogatz argument is the end:  “our freedom lies in the questions we ask–and in how we pursue them–but not in the answers awaiting us.”  Now that can carry over into any of our disciplines.  Precisely his point?  Maybe?  Neat article.

Again, he had me at “Let’s Start at Pre-School!”

Well, as I sat in a classroom at University High school last week, I realized that the problem of reading and sustained reading is such a widespread one.  My student teacher, Amy, was giving teaching a valiant effort that day as she went over yet another TAKS prep packet with the students.  She put them in groups with a strong reader in charge of about 5 other of his peers; the idea was that she would read aloud and then this group leader would read aloud and so forth. Elsewhere in the room this idea was being replicated as the main teacher, Mrs. WEbb, and a helper, Mrs. Smith, were leading their own groups, and so on.  As Amy read aloud, the students looked around the room, checked their cellphones (which they are NOT supposed to have out anyway), daydreamed, and basically tuned right out.  Amy pressed on for another minute or so and then stopped to ask them a reading comprehension question.  And then it hit me:  although she was reading aloud to them where they could clearly hear her and follow along word for word, they were not doing so.  Why?  They simply could not sit there and focus enough to read these simple paragraphs.  She asked them, “So what is the topic sent of this paragraph?  A, B, C, or D?”   They just stared at her.  They had not read a word, and even if they did, they didn’t retain any meaning.  So she had to refocus them, get them to highlight certain words in the sentence, and then try again.  It was like pulling teeth!  It was painstaking!  And to top it off, this was a Pre-AP class.  These were the smart students!  Finally, one or two of them got the right answer, and we all audibly sighed a breath of relief!  I was so depressed.  Yeah, the subject material was boring; it really was.  Almost all TAKS prep packets are just that:  boring and dry.  Who would want to read them?  Yet, this is what Amy would have to do for the next 6 periods and maybe the next 26 years of her career if nothing changes!!  Does this system of “teaching reading” work?  Uh, no!  And it won’t work until we meet the kids halfway.  First, we have to find relevant subject matter to put in front of them.  Second, we have to find better methods of teaching reading comp; out with the packets and in with young adult literature excerpts or magazine excerpts that are interesting!  Afterall, in that 50 minute class that I just described to you, I was terribly bored and agitated.  Of course the kids are bored too, I thought. Of course, they don’t care about the topic sentence in a boring article on plankton! [I could get in my car and leave; they could not, even though many wanted to.]

This experience and so many like it have prompted me to do something about this problem.  I try to  tell my student teachers that they must shake things up and get rid of packets (if possible) and start over.  I tell them to get kids to read a paragraph and talk about it with her, put it in their own words, associate the idea(s) with something going on in their lives—something relevant to them.   We talk about reading in blocks of time, at least 30 minutes or so at home.  We talk about how in our crazy world full of interruptions, it is really rare that students sit and read for 30 minutes straight.  They will tell you so themselves.  I invite them to enter this reading zone and see what happens.  After the time is up, I tell them to jot down a few main ideas regarding what they just read.  Do something else for about 10-15 minutes and then resume reading–yep for another 30 minute  block.  This “sustained” reading exercise prepares them both physically and mentally for the task at hand AND on the TAKS test:  comprehension. 

Let’s face it:  what we’re doing now is not working; let’s try another route. 

*My student teacher did just that.  Earlier this week, rather than pulling out those old TAKS prep packets, she got out a novel, The Battle of Jericho, by Sharon Draper, and just started reading to the class.  She was shocked that most of the kids were entranced.  No one had read anything to them in years just for “reading sake.”  No one was saying, “underline this, star this, or highlight this.”  Amy simply read out loud for 30 minutes.  Then she stopped and wrote a few sentences on the board.  The students asked her questions about the characters and the plot and wanted to know what was going to happen next!  She used their questions as a starting point for discussion and simply let them talk.  Guess what happened after about 5 minutes?  They begged her to read some more.  Yes, she had to wake up a few students who still wanted to sleep, but the majority were tuned in!  She ended the class period by telling them to jot a few ideas/questions down in their journals, saying they would discuss them all tomorrow.  “But what about the multiple choice stuff we usually do after reading a passage,” they asked her.   “Don’t we have to discuss all those topic sentences and main ideas,” they implored. 

Amy just smiled and said, “Oh, you just did.” 

Now that makes me smile.  I hope to research more about the effects of sustained reading.  I am really intrigued by it as you can see.

Recently, I have been surrounded by non-readers; whether these students are in my BU Amerian lit classes or whether they are high school students in my interns’ classes, the predicament is the same.  These people do NOT read and do not want to read, now or ever!  My American lit students (called my Eng 2304 students from here on out) make no bones about it;  when asked if they read the assignment, they simply look at me and say unabashedly, “No!”  They do not care that they will fail my daily reading quizzes; they do not care that the material will obviously be on my upcoming exam; they do not seemingly care that they are only cheating themselves.  So I shut my textbook yesterday and simply looked at them and said, “What DO you do with your time?”  Many offered the stock answers of texting, surfing the web, talking on the phone with friends, working out at the SLIC, working a part-time job, etc.  Maybe one of the thirty students said that she “studied” alot.  When I sat there with a perplexed look on my face, they just laughed.  Why, Dr. C, are you so concerned?  We read when we have to; we read right before the exam; we read on-line news sources.  What’s the big deal?  I tell you what the big deal is.  These kids are so used to reading in “sound bytes” that they don’t get the importance of real, sustained reading.  Think about it:  when was the last time someone asked them to read for long periods of time?  Junior High, maybe?  I worry because students don’t read, and many cannot read and comprehend at all!  Seriously (and putting documented reading problems aside) I am seeing more and more students who come to me after class and say, “Miss, can you read this to me?  or can you explain this to me?  Can you re-read this story with me?  I want to help them, but how can I possibly re-read the entire narrative of Mary Rowlandson or Frederick Douglass with them?  I cannot.  Sure they then resort to Cliff notes or Spark notes, but they really can’t even read those notes well either.  They would rather watch the movie!!!  

This makes me think about our secondary school classrooms so much.  With entire months devoted to TAKS testing and TAKS preparation, our teachers are unable to help the kids with the basics like reading and writing.  And we are now seeing the results of this drill and kill teaching.  I find it so unsettling and sad. 

Perhaps what happened today in class sums it up best:  a junior student came to me and said, “listen, I didn’t read the whole short story, but I glanced at the beginning and overheard some of my friends talking about the ending;  I should be alright, huh?”  Yeah, I thought.  You will be just fine.  A glance should do you!

My mom grew up in Arsoun, Lebanon, outside Beirut.  Born in 1932 and educated at boarding schools whenever her parents had the money, she always desired more education.  She never dreamed she would have a chance at a university education.  Fast forward to December 2000 in Waco, TX—mom got her associates degree from McClennan Community College at the young age of 68.  Why was it possible?  Sheer determination and will. 

Brenda Gourley speaks of the British Open University in terms of possibility for all to be educated.  As I listened to her speak, I thought about my mom.  Mother’s will steeled her toward education; her very nature pushed her on toward her goal.  Gourley notes that in today’s world, we will have to bring the university TO people because they may not seek it; they may not have the means or the fortitude to seek education.  I agree for the most part.   Her very title, “Dancing with History” entices me as an educator.  Our daily “dance” in the classroom must change to fit these “extreme” times as Gourley so aptly puts it.  Her bottom line is social justice is the result of education for all.  I agree mostly.  She says that we must reach more people; well, yes, but how?  This open university is great in the abstract.  But how do we do it now and here?  Just tonight my interns asked me the same question, “Does this count for a grade?  What about my almighty grade?”  Now getting back to the “open”ness of the university, how “open” do we go?  All can be admitted or registered; all can be served; no criteria; new ways of teaching   . . . Yeah Yeah Yeah.  Haven’t we tried this before?  Remember the schools that tried the “no grades” / “no problem” avenue before?  They all failed.  Our society–the same one that she says we must save—begs for structure in schools; then the very same people that cry for structure rant and rave when that “structure” doesn’t serve them or their children in the way they want.  So how does the “open” university work after years and years of structure in secondary schools?  Really, how does it work?  Gourley asks if “risk takers” are fairly rewarded for what they do?  NO.  We educators who take risks are considered “weird”  and “out there!”    I had to chuckle when she said, “the responsibility of teaching must be shared!”  Really?  Duh!  What a novel idea!  WE know that.  But face it.  Academics don’t like to share!   Yes, yes, the ideas of study centers and tutorials and the like sound great; don’t most universities have to offer these services though?  What’s so amazing about this? Obviously all universities will have to invest in more training for all teachers in technology as she said several times. 

The best part of Gourley’s speech comes near the end with “Some people don’t even dream they can get and education.”  Yes, she is right.  My own mom didn’t.  However, I don’t know that the “open univ” is the panacea that Gourley dreams it to be.  Mom got her degree because she gutted it out, put four kids through college, ran a family business for 30 years, and THEN did something for herself.  She was one of those “people with no family history of ed.”  Aside from mom, will people really be drawn to the open university if they have no educational background, no technology background, etc.?    I wonder.  It sounds great from afar; does it work?

In closing, I love that this open univ is in 14 countries, 5 languages, and has reached hundreds of thousands of people.  But what is the point here?  I thought it was education is the prerequisite to social justice. 

Help.  I realize scholarship in this high tech world is changing, and that I must change too.  But an open university as the answer?  I just don’t know.

Par for the course . . .I got into a verbal volly recently with my Ph.D. friends over whether or not the Twilight series is REAL literature or not.  As an advocate for relevancy and meeting our students where THEY are, I totally dig the Twilight series.  I find Stephanie Meyer’s novels to be compelling, well-written, and age appropriate.  I therefore endorse her works AND young adult lit as a whole.  My good friend, an English prof, whole-heartedly disagrees.  And she admits, she hasn’t read them!  OKAY!!!!   She wants kids to read the great classics only.  WHY?

I believe (as I have ranted before) that if an author living among us today can write material so in demand by our young people–yes the same ones who are entranced by the tv, internet, cell phones, youtube, etc.—that they literally line up and wrap around Barnes and Noble twice and three times awaiting the unwrapping of a BOOK, that she is doing something right!  I have seen kids skip meals to finish a chapter in these books.  I have seen high school kids “sneaking” their copy of Twilight into English class so that they can steal a peek in between activities!  I love it!  They aren’t on their cells; they are diving into a book!  I chuckled!  And oh guess what?  Most movie theaters are selling out of tickets for New Moon in oh about 10 minutes!

When are we going to realize that the canon [traditional, accepted literature] is important, yet it is NOT the answer to all our public school ills.  If we don’t change as teachers, we will lose these high school kids.  I can say this:  I taught high school English for nine years.  AND if we don’t change the curriculum to reflect these societal changes, we will lose the kids indeed.

I recommend that we wed the old with the new—that we pair the canon with new, hip, young adult lit titles that engage our kids.  Why not?  What do we have to lose?  It can’t get much worse!!  We teachers, whether on the high school or collegiate level, face apathetic readers every day.  Why not shake it up and try something new?  I think it’s because WE are fearful that we might have to change.  Well, guess what?  We do.  The good news is “we can!”

My students often ask me HOW Morrison’s novels can be taught on the secondary level.  I tell them that Beloved, Bluest Eye, Tar Baby, and even Paradise are often on high school reading lists.  They are appalled.  Aren’t these novels too volatile, too shocking, too harsh for high school kids?  No.  It all depends on how the teacher sets the mood/atmosphere of the class.  If he/she creates a safe environmnet in which students can speak and read and discuss, then these novels and others often “banned” are just fine.  I believe novels should of course be age appropriate, but i do not like censorship in general.  Morrison just noted that it makes her mad that those that censor words act like “it is bad to know something!”  I agree.  My students say that learning about the evils of slavery is too much!  Stop, they cry.  Well, the author of Beloved would say, is it so bad to learn/know something new?  I think not!

Once again I introduced Toni Morrison’s Nobel winning novel, Beloved to my class.  And once again, I received “shock and horror” at the “nerve” of Morrison to write “such awful stuff,” according to one young lady this morning.  How dare she!  How dare she write such raw, authentic, harrowing details about slavery?  Another coed said, “I don’t want to know this; I don’t need to know these sick details of whippings and deprivation!”  I beg to differ.  I really do!

I am all about the power of the “story,” and so it is uncanny that I am about to go teach my Methods class tonight on writing and just read Bob’s blog.  He directed me to “Waves” by Sam Baker, and I found his lyrics to tell a sad story.  I loved it.  I often play music and ask the students to react to it.  How wonderful that Bob had me do the same thing and in perfect timing for my evening class that starts in oh, about 15 minutes.  Perfect way