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?

Picking up on yesterday’s question, which focused on how culture can support reading, I thought it important to back-up and ask what the culture can and cannot do. I’m sensitive to this because most of us have had the experience of a leader asking the group to take on a problem or a task when the issue is about one person or a small group of people. Teachers do this all the time; yapping about lateness with the kids who are all on-time?

So I asked the question by having each student make a list of what’s fair and what’s unfair to ask of the whole culture.

Fair to expect the whole culture to support:
giving everyone a chance
everyone express their own opinion
addressing something that everybody can change (AM)
to call people out in fornt of class when they are slacking (AM)
to help one another (AM)
the whole class being involved (BC)
to tell someone when they’re doing wrong (DD)
bringing important things to the bigger group to talk it out (DD)
everyone should crack a joke once or twice a week (SH)
coming prepared to school (KH)
having people support you and your work (LS)
to make sure everyone is upadated on their work (MT)

Unfair when:
tell the class that a person is failing
people get picked on when they are having a hard time (AM)
everyone comes at one person about something that happened (BC)
calling someone out at the wrong time (BC)
people give their thoughts on things that have nothing to do with you. (BC)
having important discussions without everyone
to have to clean up after others (DD)
to lose things because of others (DD)
someone has done what they’re supposed to do but have to do more because someone is absent (IP)
the sins of the one fall on the many (EG) make everyone suffer for one person’s mistake (SH)
calling someone out in a disrespectful way (EG)
people do half a** work and expect a good grade (SH)
calling someone out on a grade they wanted to keep private (KH)
saying something that will make the environment feel unsafe (KH)
reading someone else’s work without them knowing (HG)

Debatable
Grinding people up when they leave the classroom (SH)

—
What I’m thinking about is how I can get out of the way of some of these things. In other words, how do I help students do this culture work as much as I can, without placing them in unfair positions? There are some behaviors that I have to monitor for the sake of the school and some behaviors and work patterns that occur because of the blind spots all humans have, i.e., things take longer than you think they will.

The other piece that needs to happen with this conversation is how much of this work can fall on students (as much as possible) and where should it fall on the teacher. The fact that the students have accepted so much of the responsibility is tribute to how awesome they are but it’s

We began the Tuesday before Thanksgiving thinking about three people:

our favorite celebrity,
our favorite relative,
and the person to our left.

Each student had to write down what they thought each person was thinking or feeling on a regular basis. After sharing out the top two categories, we talked about why being able to reflect on what another person thinks and feels might be helpful for thinking about gratitude.

MH: Helps you take a different perspective; humbling
AM: Think about the people around us.
VG: Think about the positive things people bring
KM: Getting a sense of knowing someone helps you figure out gratitude
BC: Seeing something from someone else’s eyes; do people change

Money: If you care about someone else, then it’s hard not to be grateful.
Think about sacrifices other people make…

The heart of this activity was the discussion, although I think that this notion of caring and knowing someone leads to gratitude needs to be fleshed out more.

First picture: Beyonce, Mom, and Clapper