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: