Link here.

Early morning talk with my son about school. They had been given a choice in school about where they might set and stage a play, in this case, an adapted version of Antigone. I didn’t think much of his choice (more on that later), mostly because it seemed to be one emerging from social concerns, not any real understanding of the text.

Amidst childhood and parenting defensiveness, several things came up:

“I get good grades, so of course I understand. Leave me alone.”
Damn, son. Not you too. Trying to explain that grades don’t matter as much as achieving a deeper understanding is difficult. You can’t really say that you don’t care about grades (I do and he should too) but how do you explain that good grades without meaningful engagement do you no good. Most students in most schools would take an “A” with no real understanding as opposed to a “B” they truly earned after much struggle. That being said, my proudest moments in high school, college, and even graduate school didn’t correspond with the grades I earned.

“I wanted to do my own thing, not what the teacher said.”
I’ve been thinking about this lately, too. Any teacher knows the problem with giving an example, where you provide one approach and promptly receive 28 versions of your idea. But I also remember and feel the ways in which humans want to do creative thinking in their own way, in their own time, and in their own space. No novelist gathers a group of twenty people into a crowded institutional setting in order to write. I remember the feeling of once I get out of here (classroom, then school), I can get actually get something done. With most adolescents, but really human beings, the social stuff will trump all.

“Why do I have to know why I’m doing something?”
The fact that he asked the question warmed my heart even though it was accompanied by the adolescent death stare.

ONE
Clapper, you know what would have been so much better…If we could have designed our deliverables first.

The door to backwards project planning opens!

TWO: A detailed shopping list of parts

THREE: Student organized laptop cart

If only we could keep it like this…

Much of my time is taken up with playing with language with teenagers. When is it okay to use a particular word? Are there words you can never use? How do we talk to each other in respectful ways?

There’s formal language that’s necessary in many situations. Yet there’s also the joy of a well-running shop or kitchen or newspaper where the language is undoubtedly and some would say necessarily salty but never disrespectful.

I tried this game yesterday based on something a friend used to say to me. I called it “that’s the third dumbest conversation I’ve heard today.” Our inimitable board chair describes the origins of much of our work as “that’s the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard…let’s do it.”

Here’s how it ran: a student would pitch their current project idea. Two students would explain why that was the dumbest idea they’d ever heard. Then three students had to defend the original idea from the criticisms.

I have done this more formally and if I taught like a champion I’d probably have a version trademarked with attached worksheets. But the rough language helped develop the projects. It also gave students a chance to be teenagers, to be less formal, while still moving the work along. It offered us a chance to laugh together without laughing at each other. And it provided another way for kids to improve their pitch skills.

For example, the first iteration led to the following criticisms:
*that’s the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard: you need to be in college or have particular skills to do that.
*that’s the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard because you’re too young to do that.
*that’s the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard because that’s not a real world project.

(All critiques that any inventor or writer or creative human has faced at one point or another)

Started today asking students to write down one way they know when they are focused. Then we wrote down 2-3 things that disrupt our focus.

Processed briefly, then turned to this article.

We then talked through the ideas that emerged from the conversation. Several quotes that got traction:

* monotasking is “something that needs to be practiced.”

* “Almost any experience is improved by paying full attention to it,” Ms. McGonigal said. “Attention is one way your brain decides, ‘Is this interesting? Is this worthwhile? Is this fun?’ ”

* Monotasking can also be as simple as having a conversation. “Practice how you listen to people,” Ms. McGonigal said. “Put down anything that’s in your hands and turn all of your attentional channels to the person who is talking. You should be looking at them, listening to them, and your body should be turned to them. If you want to see a benefit from monotasking, if you want to have any kind of social rapport or influence on someone, that’s the place to start. That’s where you’ll see the biggest payoff.”