We started a program. Now we are starting a school. I have a few credentials. I do not have a principal’s certificate yet. I need one.

I interviewed at a local university, one where I currently adjunct. At least a year and at least $20k. There are other programs that are more expensive and then those that cost less and take longer. I’ve rarely never encountered someone who raves about their principal cert program other than the occasional person who talks about how painless it was.

Here’s a program, then, that will provide a route to principal certification. Free. I had to apply.

It’s run by the New Teacher Project (tntp) and sponsored by the Philadelphia School Partnerships (PSP). I think.

I know TNTP was started by Michelle Rhee. It looks like a lot of TFA folks are on their staff.

Anyway, tomorrow I miss my weekend day, my son’s baseball game, my daughter’s softball game, a long-run with an old friend, a chance to finish a Hilary Mantel novel, and time in my garden so that I can report to an interview at 8:30 that will last until 6:15. I had a shorter interview for an academic position at a terrific liberal arts college.

I’m supposed to read a chapter from Rick Hess’s book — Cage Busting Leadership — and the executive summary of The Irreplaceables. The chapter from cage busting wasn’t bad and was fairer than I thought it would be. You could see how the union folks would hate it; for example, you can generate a clean slate by crushing the union or you can generate a clean slate by starting a new school with the union as a partner. I also thought much of the general advice was spot on — you can’t think about teaching without thinking about the situation within which people teach — if not particularly original or deep. Begin with a quote from the Matrix and end with a line from Swingers and your target age group becomes readily apparent.

I struggled with The Irreplaceables. There are some good, even great, teachers in most buildings. But their greatness isn’t just about test scores and at least the executive summary seemed to show that test scores are the sole way of measuring an “irreplaceable.” I’ve seen average teachers completely elevate their game when part of a great team and I think I’d rather be the leader who builds a team than one who identifies some teachers as too valuable to lose.

Sorry for rambling. My famous friend and neighbor suggested that I blog about this experience.

I had this phone interview yesterday with a thoughtful teacher leader. The questions focused on failure: what’s a failure I experienced as a teacher, as a leader, as a teacher interacting with a parent, as an assessor. The questions were fine but called for distinct stories, for specific examples and interactions I had with kids around school.

And I have those stories — when things broke down, when my perceived level of student understanding didn’t match the reality, when I failed to communicate with a kid effectively, when my expectations were not met. I struggled with the questions because as a teacher, a father, and a human being, I fail pretty much continuously. I make mistakes with my students each day. Of the thousand decisions I make each day — how should I talk to this student? How should I structure this assignment? How should I offer help? What should I suggest? Should I be funny or serious? Should I bring up past conversations or not? Should I talk about what I know of their life, their family, or merely hint at it? Should I ask questions or give advice? — a significant portion are decisions I’d reconsider.

Yet I also have clear ideas about what I want for my students. I want them to use their significant social and academic skills to solve real world problems. I want them to monitor their own learning and to be able to adapt to difficult situations. Each conversation, each interaction via email or gchat or in the comments section of a paper, I’m trying to get them towards these goals.

But what felt weird about this interview is that it seemed like you could isolate certain factors. Let’s look at the way someone asks questions without any sense of the context of the class. Or let’s look at the student work without any sense of where in the year it was written or what real world purpose it might serve. Let’s ask teachers to forget about everything except how they’re completing one particular task.

Don’t get me wrong…I understand the impulse. If we can block from our minds the social and cultural worlds of a school, a community, and a city, and pretend that they have no impact on what the classroom might feel like, then we can laser in on one point. And if we declare that all a teacher needs is guidance on a few areas, areas that can somehow be isolated, then we can believe that we can improve education without addressing the structural inqualities that permeate American life.

We’ll see whether I make it to the interview stage…

Got to Larry’s shop and found four things:

A Ted Sizer hardback in great shape that I hadn’t seen before. He was the school leader of my high school until the year I arrived. I wish I’d met him. Horace’s Compromise remains one of the better books about what it means to be a teacher. I’m interested in this memoir.

(Theodore R. Sizer, The Red Pencil: Convictions from Experience in Education (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005).

Tom Sugrue’s latest book. I didn’t get it when it first came out and was thrilled to see a hardback in great shape.

(Thomas J. Sugrue, Not Even Past: Barack Obama and the Burden of Race (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010).

A book that I must have read a review about because as soon as I saw it, I knew I wanted it.

Frederic Raphael, A Jew Among Romans: The Life and Legacy of Flavius Josephus (Pantheon, 2013).

And lastly, a book on a mathematician because I’m always looking for books for my math and science teachers. Will post citation later.

First time since 1999! The last time I did it was a cold night in November of 1999 and I ended my run at my girlfriend’s apartment in Fairmount. Good thing I married that woman so I could run it (8:25s) with the son we had together.

I’m going to try and keep track of the books coming into my house. Had another great trip to Port Richmond Books today (watch out, Richmond Street is closed) and found two things:

A paperback copy of Nell Painter’s Standing at Armageddon: A Grassroots History of the Progressive Era. I had read much of this book studying for my oral exams, along with the other syntheses of this time period including both Alan Dawley’s, Jackson Lears’s efforts, but I didn’t buy a copy then. Seven bucks, not bad.

Now PRB has a crazy collection of dictionary/words/writing/style/usage books that are spread across a couple of shelves. I love these books, love reading them, picking at them, hoping I’ll get the perfect description of how to use a particular word or how to manage parallel constructions. Today I found a hardback copy of “The Complete Stylist” by Sheridan Baker. I’d not seen his other books but this 1966 book had a number of cool looking chapters that I wanted to wander through.

Kara and I planted two strains of peas in the side bed up front. This bed gets sun from early in the morning until about 1P, so I’m hoping they’ll take.

We also planted a bunch of starts in the middle bed in back. Four red-leaf ($1.78), four arugula ($1.78), four spinach ($1.78), four butter nut ($1.78), and four broccoli plants ($1.78). We’ll see how it goes. This was the bed where I grew tomatoes last year.

Started getting the beds ready in both the front and backyard. I can’t get to the Fairmount recycling center during the week (close at 3PM) and their weekend hours don’t begin until April), so I loaded some Lowe’s manure/compost into all five banks. I’d cut Peat Moss in already, so there should be plenty of natural, aerating components in the ground.

I’m debating adding some vermiculite as well. While I really like the intensive gardening approach (Mel’s mix is 1/3 compost, 1/3 vermiculite, and 1/3 peat moss), I’d like to know more about the science of how this works. It feels like there should be some academic writing about a different soil composition is absolutely necessary in order to load up a garden this way, but I don’t feel like looking for it right now. I do know that there are crazy thick books about soil and I know that’s not going to get read. I’d also like to see what was there before Mel Bartholomew; where did he get his idea from? Had no one else ever attempted this way of growing things? (His book offers no clues).

Either way, I went to a great seminar hosted by the Penn State Extension Service Saturday morning on Square Foot Gardening. While there was no shortage of earnest folks — is this a necessary trait for gardeners or simply for folks who go to seminars on Saturday morning — it was a well constructed, well-organized, seminar that moved fast and had lots of good information.

One interesting point: worry less about what compost you use and more about using multiple sources. I need to dig more into this topic, too.

1. Daughter wants to ride bike through West Philly. With me.
2. Daughter wants to go to used bookstore.
3. I say — first thing you want to do at a bookstore is look in the window. She picks out the book in her hand, by herself, with no prompting.
4. My work here is done.

Kara and I worked hard to get our greens started today.

We used Organic Mechanics Seed Starting mix, the egg cartons we always save, and planted a bunch of greens:

Lettuce
Winter Density
Marvaille des Quatres Saisons
Green Oak Leaf
Susan’s Red Bib
Burpee Organic Green Leaf

Arugula

Spinach

Apart from the Arugula, which has a germination time of 5-7 days, everything else is 7-14 days. That’s when we find out whether this system will work:

Total cost:
El cheepo Home Depot Green House: $25.00
I bought it basically for the prefab plastic cover. Our little cat would tear up the plants otherwise.
Two grow lights and four t12bulbs: $60.00
Seeds: $20.00

Plant starts range in price. At a 1.00 a piece, once we get 100 plant starts, we’ll break even. I’m hoping I can get the greens into the ground next to rows of direct seed to judge the two against each other.

I also want them out in time to start all of the basil and tomato plants.

Re-reading one of my favorite series from childhood with my son. I love it more than he does and, just as my daughter can’t help but laugh at my willingness to use Little House on the Prairie as a source of wisdom, he goes along with it, maybe just to have me read to him before bed. Anyway, as young Taran speaks to Dallben at the beginning of the series, he notes the following:

In some cases we learn more by looking for the answer to the question and not finding it than we do from learning the answer itself. This is one of those cases. I could tell you why, but at the moment it would only be more confusing. If you grow up with any kind of sense — which you sometimes make me doubt — you will very likely reach your own conclusions. They will probably be wrong. However, since they will be yours, you will feel a little more satisfied with them.”

Lloyd Alexander, The Book of Three (New York: Square Fish, 2006), 9.

We saw Louis CK in Philly and he raised a similar point, saying something like, “you should listen to people who are older. They know more stuff. They may be wrong but at least in being wrong they are basing it on more knowledge.” (I know I’m butchering a really fine bit).

What I’m thinking about tonight is how we come to feel the edges of our own ignorance, how we come to sense our own blind spots. For better or worse, I don’t see the world in black and white terms any longer (life was much easier when I did), but I still think about things, or debate stuff, or talk about ideas while teaching, knowing that there’s a real possibility that I’ve left out something important. This isn’t false humility — cue shitty Boston accent, “the true measure of education is an awareness of your own ignorance” — but this realization I’ve had over the past few months. When presented with a choice, I’m much better at seeing all manner of options, but I’m not sure that my decisions are really improving. What is getting better is my ability to, as Dallben suggests, feel a little more satisfied with them.

—
Anyway, back to gardening. I viciously pruned the rose bushes in the front yard after seeing this article in the Guardian. I pulled weeds out of the front and side and put down chicken wire to keep the cats off of the ground now that the soil isn’t frozen.

You can barely see them but there’s two cardinals living in the back garden. Look in the bush: