End of the block Tuesday: When you graduate, what is earned and what is given?
TJC: Celebrations are given; education/the knowledge to get to the next step is earned.
MH: Hugs and cheers are given; how people look at you is earned.
HG: Chance is given; education and skills are earned.
NN: The physical diploma is given; a diploma is earned.
We began this perfect Monday by writing about what the ideal senior year would be like. A few students had detailed plans and ways of constructing the year so that they could meet those goals. Many students seem to understand what our place is about and the kinds of opportunities they can make for themselves. For a significant number, their plan reflects the projects they’ve done and the projects they want to do (glowing feeling of success).
But there’s residual senior year stuff that came up, some areas I am concerned with:
*When students are writing about grades or honor roll. Why aren’t they talking about quality work? About craftsmanship? (How do I change this or how do I use it?)
*When students have leftover “phasers-set-to-adult-leave-me-alone” phrases: “get into college”.
*When students have focused on the trappings of senior year as opposed to the work: “overnight trips” or “proms”.
Yet organizing is what the left must cultivate to make its activism more durable and effective, to sustain and advance our causes when the galvanizing intensity of occupations or street protests subsides. It is what the left needs in order to roll back the conservative resurgence and cut down the plutocracy it enabled. That means founding political organizations, hashing out long-term strategies, cultivating leaders (of the accountable, not charismatic, variety), and figuring out how to support them financially. No doubt the thriving of activism in recent decades is a good thing, and activism is something we want more of. The problem, rather, is that the organizing that made earlier movements successful has failed to grow apace.
Dear tenth grade,
Here’s what you need to know about designing your own project:
* Pick a project that you have some type of connection with because if not it would just be the same as teacher giving you a project.
* Be careful who you choose as partners. Don’t choose off of friendship, choose off of will the work get done? Trust me, had to learn the hard way.
* When it comes down to managing your time, make sure you set small and detailed deliverables. Give yourself real time to complete the work you need to do. (JG)
*Here’s what you need to know about project design; it’s nothing to play with. You have to make sure that you stay motivated to make it to the end of your project. (JH)
*When you start designing your own projects then you will have to figure out your own schedule. But whether or not you stick to it is your problem. (NN)
*It’s not that simple as just wanting to build something and it will be over. You actually have to do tons of annoying research before you even think about designs. It can be fun if you make it and not be negative about it…When doing a big project, it’s good to not overwhelm yourself with too many deliverables all in one week. (TC)
* Always have a plan. Be realistic. Have an idea about how your project is changing the world. Don’t just make up any old deliverable; make sure it’s helping you get to your final deliverable. (TJC)
*Designing your own project is a little hard but once you know how to take it step by step then everything is cool. (DL)
*The process takes longer than you think. A teacher can turn a simple project into something super complicated. If you get a good idea, stick with it. Don’t branch off too much or you may lose your original idea. And it’s better to work on your own. (QG)
* Plan your work (KB)
* Don’t waste time on the project, get right to work at home and at school. If the project is boring, find something that would help you do the work. ()
* You have Clapper or whoever the teacher is. Use them. (JW)
* To design your own project, it has to be something you care about. If doesn’t matter what it is as long as you are happy doing it. You have a greater chance of not giving up and staying on track. (CR)
Here are three more:
I can’t always remember where we get the language we use. For some years we’ve been using the term deliverables instead of evaluaions, assessments or projects, but I always assumed it came from the business world. Looking at the amazing High Tech High site today, I see that they use the term deliverables, so maybe we got it from them.
Then I had to poke a little bit more. The OED (one great reason to continue to teach at University level is to have access to the databases there) reveals a 1948 entry in the Journal of Marketing that exemplifies this definition:
Chiefly in pl. Something which may be delivered or provided; spec. a tangible result of a development process.
I wanted to know when this became common in business world and when it made the transition to education circles. I searched Phi Delta Kappan and there were only five results. The first hit where they talked about deliverables in this way seems to imply that this term had been around for awhile:
“Finally, there’s more documentation now: accountables, measurables, deliverables, performance charts, and imperatives, all in the strange language of the new pedagogy.”
Brezicki, Colin. “The Pilot Light: Teaching for Life.” Phi Delta Kappan 92, no. 6 (March 1, 2011).
I did the same full-text search in Educational Leadership and got two results, one from 2001 where this language was used in a survey of how exploratory time could be used:
“Deliverables. This idea comes from a teacher I know, Brenda Kraber. If a teacher has 28 students working on different projects, he or she might have difficulty keeping track of student progress. Deliverables have specific due dates. For example, the teacher and Angela can agree that her research notes on chimpanzees are due on October 18, which means they need to be delivered to the teacher by that date.”
Wolk, Steven. “The Benefits of Exploratory Time.” Educational Leadership 59, no. 2 (October 2011): 56–59.
Regardless of where the word came from, we spent some time today talking about the hard part of designing deliverables for projects. I wanted to begin by seeing how well they’ve internalized this process and what we have to worry about for next year.
Questions about being realistic, the evolving nature of deliverables, how to sequence them, and the necessity of research emerged…
I say it my ed classes, I say it to student teachers, I say to myself: if I can’t answer why we have to do something in a convincing, thoughtful way that shows that I have a solid rationale then we shouldn’t be doing it in class. I also think that you have to return to this conversation over and over again. Over and over.
With so many independent projects, I have a pretty basic requirement for each week: 50 pages of reading and 500 words of prose. Sometimes the students find the readings, sometimes I do; they can design their own deliverables, build on my recommendations, or have me design it for them.
Today we spent five minutes writing about why our school has this requirement for projects. Here are three of the answers:
What’s the bare minimum, the very least you require from a student and a community? The things you have to have for a community to be viable?
Present, on-time, and civil.
If you have these three things, you can build almost anything. I can’t think of anything else that represents the very least you need to start a group moving forward.
You can take each of these apart. Present might includes being on-time but I’d argue that needs to be explicitly stated. It also implies a kind of engagement — you have to be involved to be truly present – but it also explicitly contains things like preparation. Sad to say, it also ought to mean things like sobriety.
Civility means listening to others, being respectful, and disagreeing appropriately. It’s also small things like taking your headphones out when you’re in a professional situation. I like civility over professional because there ought to be moments where you can let your hair down without losing a sense of civility.
I’m trying to define a bottom line for us to consider how we’ll build a foundation for our culture. In other words, what’s non-negotiable before we begin negotiating how we’ll be known next year.
The end of the year is in sight and we are thinking about future goals. There are lots of opportunities available at our school but it’s the near constant discussion of how do we help human beings see the connections between their daily choices and not only how they want to be known but also who they want to become.
Today we drew more pictures of future selves and then wrote about the things we did today, this week, this month, this year, and in our lives will help us become that future self.
Gone. All gone. All accounts deactivated. Worried I’ll turn to a pillar of salt.