One
For better or worse, the baseline for my classroom is presence and civility. It’s the starting point and the non-negotiable. I’m always looking for stuff about this.

Sunday’s paper, back page of the book review, on civility. It’s three academic works but Ryerson’s reflections are sound.

Two
In PD yesterday, some genius principal presented us with Barack Obama’s concluding speech and asked us to think about how we might use it in the classroom. In my small group, we came up with the idea of shifting some of the words to reflect what we want for our advisory.

President Obama’s words:

It falls to each of us to be those those anxious, jealous guardians of our democracy; to embrace the joyous task we’ve been given to continually try to improve this great nation of ours. Because for all our outward differences, we, in fact, all share the same proud title, the most important office in a democracy: Citizen. Citizen.

So, you see, that’s what our democracy demands. It needs you. Not just when there’s an election, not just when your own narrow interest is at stake, but over the full span of a lifetime. If you’re tired of arguing with strangers on the Internet, try talking with one of them in real life. If something needs fixing, then lace up your shoes and do some organizing. If you’re disappointed by your elected officials, grab a clipboard, get some signatures, and run for office yourself. Show up. Dive in. Stay at it.

“… you see, that’s what our democracy demands. It needs you.”
Sometimes you’ll win. Sometimes you’ll lose. Presuming a reservoir of goodness in other people, that can be a risk, and there will be times when the process will disappoint you. But for those of us fortunate enough to have been a part of this work, and to see it up close, let me tell you, it can energize and inspire. And more often than not, your faith in America — and in Americans — will be confirmed. (Applause.)

What if we replace democracy with the Workshop School? What if we replace democracy with advisory? How is it the same? How is it different?

Our late circle today was to think about two sets of resolutions: two or three for yourself in terms of the work and two or three for the larger group with the caveat that it has to be something you think we can all agree to. Now they are humans so at least a third decided to write their own resolutions around personal stuff.

We didn’t share the personal ones but we did spend fifteen minutes as a group coming to consensus on what might work for the whole group: committing to one microphone. We’ll come back to this idea tomorrow and try and figure out what it means. One thing I did have to get involved with was when a student claimed that this was a problem all students have; I had to underscore that this is not an everyone problem, that almost all of them manage “one mic” very well.

It led to a human group problem: if everyone offers a side comment once every five minutes then you’ll have side conversations going pretty much continuously.

My two work resolutions:
1. Grade thirty minutes each night.
2. Meet with each student one-on-one once a week. I started this yesterday.

Prompts
Improvisation
Create and make spontaneously; made do with what you have; going all MacGyver on it. (Note: none of them know who MacGyver is)

When is improvisation a good thing, a healthy thing, a worthwhile thing? Try and come up with at least three scenarios and explain why it helps? (Example: when there’s six seconds left on the shot clock, you don’t run a new play)

When is improvisation unproductive? When might it become a crutch or even an excuse?

MB: It can be not productive when you’re not getting anywhere or you’re not accomplishing anything. It might become an excuse because you think you’re doing something but you’re actually not.
EG: When you do it for no reason.
KM: When you are the president of the United States of America.
MH: When it’s the main or first way of going about things; it should come naturally out of fluid, good work.
HG: When you’re using it not to complete the work.
SH: One unproductive way is doing at the last minute and putting almost anything in it to get it done.

We ended the conversation by talking about why I would bring this up in terms of the CSpan video.

Example:

We have definitely reached the point of the CSpan project where it’s just hard work. The kids are slowly synthesizing their research, they’re slowly composing a script, and they’re trying to begin thinking in concrete ways about what will be in on the screen of their videos. This is the not fun, grind of the project work.

One of my jobs, along with coaching and cheerleading, is to identify false leads, places where students are falling into unproductive traps. Tomorrow I’m going to talk about improvisation — many kids want to try and improvise their way through the film-making process — but today I want to start at the end and work backwards. And I wanted to build on my own feeling approaching the week before the holiday break: I’m feeling like a curmudgeon. I’m not the only one, either.

So the goal was to try and channel some of that bitterness to think about how a curmudgeon, a hater, an avowed critic, might respond to their film when it’s complete. In developing strategies to respond to a curmudgeon, I’m hoping they (unintentionally?) come up with ways of improving their film.

I asked student to write about both the content of their film and the technical aspects. Some of their strategies were genius and offered good starting points for others who were stuck. And, as with most things, a road map was provided even if they don’t choose to follow it.

Example

Listening to students present their possible projects for third quarter.

This is the question I keep asking myself:

How do I limit their projects without limiting their dreams?

How do you create your own structure? Can you think of a time when you structured your own work/project with great success?

It is very important that teachers should realize the importance of habit, and psychology helps us greatly at this point. We speak, it is true, of good habits and of bad habits; but, when people use the word ‘habit,’ in the majority of instances it is a bad habit which they have in mind. They talk of the smoking-habit and the swearing-habit and the drinking-habit, but not of the abstention-habit or the moderation-habit or the courage-habit. But the fact is that our virtues are habits as much as our vices. All our life, so far as it has definite form, is but a mass of habits,—practical, emotional, and intellectual,—systematically organized for our weal or woe, and bearing us irresistibly toward our destiny, whatever the latter may be.

What is the relationship between habits and structure? How do they “make” each other?

Student quotes:
SH: If you mix good habits with structure, you get a good process.
VG: Habits make a system and a system is a structure. Structure forces you to develop habits .
HG: What you’re used to doing will shape the things you do and the way your work flows and the steps you take.
LM: What you do on a daily basis creates a relationship with you and habit.
AM: Habits can create structure; if you have a habit of doing the same thing every day then you have structured your day around that habit.

Yesterday’s circle:
This leads to a fourth maxim. Don’t preach too much to your pupils or abound in good talk in the abstract. Lie in wait rather for the practical opportunities, be prompt to seize those as they pass, and thus at one operation get your pupils both to think, to feel, and to do. The strokes of behavior are what give the new set to the character, and work the good habits into its organic tissue. Preaching and talking too soon become an ineffectual bore.

Highpoint of my year: Being called an ineffectual bore ten minutes after doing this activity.

Thank you Gerry Weiss. I hope you’re well.

In re: my comments yesterday about how much teachers talk:

This leads to a fourth maxim. Don’t preach too much to your pupils or abound in good talk in the abstract. Lie in wait rather for the practical opportunities, be prompt to seize those as they pass, and thus at one operation get your pupils both to think, to feel, and to do. The strokes of behavior are what give the new set to the character, and work the good habits into its organic tissue. Preaching and talking too soon become an ineffectual bore.

The edition I had in college:
James, William. The Principles of Psychology. New York: Dover Publications, 1950.

Good conversation facilitated by AM after a brief writing piece.

One, discussions of structure lead to conversations about time management. Many, many students pointed out that structuring the time doesn’t matter if people aren’t engaged or aren’t using their time wisely. There’s a second issue, too, about how the teacher (or even the project) might require a certain structure that can be undermined when folks are playing around.

I’ve been trying to not talk during circle — at least two students keep a timer and they’re vigilant about keeping me quiet — so one of the complaints that came up was that I talk too much. I think an adult can talk for thirty seconds out of four four hours and they’ll still face that complaint, but every teacher should regularly be told they talk too much. In a great, great moment, one student declared that if people would listen while Clapper was giving instructions, he wouldn’t have to talk so much.

The other good distinction and this is a direct quote:

“it’s not unnecessary work, it’s untimely work.”

Oftentimes I’ll look at the course of a project and come up with an activity to address a gap I see developing. For example, part of a research brief for the CSpan project was two original graphs. Some students understood and did it. Others needed additional support. I cooked an activity to help.

Which is exactly what AM was talking about: some kids saw it as untimely (I just want to work!), not unnecessary. (My job, then, is to develop projects where they see each portion of the work as necessary.)

Maybe it was because I was grading so much this weekend but I wanted to come in and talk about structure in circle this week.

I wanted to talk about a number of areas. One, and Riggan says this better than I do: part of our work is figuring out the least amount of structure students need in order to succeed. Like finding a perfect text, you’re trying to figure out the perfect “stretch” for a reader. There’s also the question of creativity — if I give too much of a template I get the same damn paper from everyone — and the question of how much engagement students are bringing to the process,i.e., are they working to try and figure out what the work demands? Or are they relying on me to provide it for them?

Structure is also about safety: when you don’t know what to do, you start to feel like not doing it, or berating the whole process. How do I give enough structure so that kids can move forward safely and take some risks?

Lots to this. I tried to begin safely by asking how structure helps in the following areas:

sports
music
social settings
school

TC, because she’s awesome, went right to school as she facilitated.

SH: School gives us an “order of operations because it keeps us consistent and what we’re supposed to do and what we need to do.”

(Insert some photos tomorrow)

I added social settings because we went to Manchester by the Sea this weekend and I was reminded how New Englanders manage emotion through ritual. Everyone hugs, everyone shakes hands afterwards, everyone goes to the thing afterwards and everyone is equally awkward.

Tomorrow: What would happen without structure? How does structure keep you safe as a student? Why do some people hate, hate, hate structure? How do you learn to think about structures you dislike but need?