Never Good Enough

Good enough ?!?!

photo by:Austin Fraser-Jones

The school councilor told me about a discussion she had with third graders about their fears. Surprisingly, it was not about violence or bullies. What they really wanted to talk about was their fear of never being good enough.
I think my students are great…but I’m not sure I’d ever say that they had nothing to improve upon. On several occasions, I’ve made them rework assignments that didn’t, in my opinion, show their best efforts.
At what point in academia do we say to our students, “that’s good enough”? We are constantly pushing kids to earn better test scores, read more, do harder math, etc,. It seems like we are just contributing to them never feeling like they are good enough. Are our schools producing adults that can never truly feel like they’ve “made it”?

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Top Five Teacher Takeaways from Dance Moms

Ballet | En Pointe

Photo by: Edward Langley

One of my guiltiest T.V. pleasures this winter is the reality show Dance Moms. I’m completely captivated by the show’s enigmatic dance teacher protagonist, Abby Lee Miller. It’s hard to look away from some of her questionable teaching techniques. In a recent episode, “Miss Abby,” resorted to referring to an 11 year-old dancer as, “Hey you,” after the dancer’s mother had upset her. Regardless, one can’t argue with the short-term results of producing top-tier dancers.

Here are my:

Top Five Teacher Takeaways from Dance Moms

Be clear and communicate about your goals and what you have to offer
Abby’s objective as a teacher is really clear. She produces professional dancers, who can make a living and survive the business of dancing on Broadway. She is candid with the moms that this isn’t a soft-skills warm and cuddly studio. If they want that, they should go somewhere else. For the most part, teachers don’t have the luxury to tell their parents “where to go.” But, we do have the opportunity to be clear about the vision we hold for our students and communicate this with parents.

Don’t let fame go to your head
Despite their continued success in dance competitions, Abby is adamant about her students remaining humble. I’ve noticed how notoriety can turn some educators into self-absorbed monsters. They loose perspective that education and innovation  are a community endeavor.

“Save the tears for your pillow”
I’ve talked before about the concept of not letting emotion interrupt professionalism. I’m not sure how well it applies to kids, but for adults/educators, she makes a good point.

“Everybody is replaceable”
This is the go-to quote for Abby whenever she is displeased with a student or visa versa. Everyone really is replaceable. There is always someone, smarter, less expensive to hire, faster, more creative, etc., waiting in the wing. Never think that you are so special that you can’t be (easily) replaced and forgotten.

Expect a lot from your parents
I would contest that the dance moms work twice as hard as Abby. If gluing sequins to costumes at rapid rates were the only way to save the world, these mothers would be the first ones I would call. Abby makes the clear correlation between student success and parent involvement.

 

 

 

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A Note from Technological Darkness

gerryrigging

It has been a trying week of first-world technological problems in my classroom. Defunct “SMART” board, busted speakers, non-charge holding laptops, aggressive web-filters, endlessly updating ipads, java jam-ups, even extension cords seemed to have it out for me. Given my make-do scrappy teaching style, surprisingly, this post is not about how great it was for us to unplug and connect as a class.

My time in technological darkness did make me appreciate how much more engaging my classes have become since back in the day when I was teaching in a tin trailer in Tennessee. A really simple example of this is, that before the tech-blow-up,  I taught one class where we watched an excerpt from a new telenovela and read the comments people left about it, then devised our own comments. In the class where we didn’t have connection or projection, we used, Hoy, a daily Spanish language newspaper to do a similar exercise.  It just felt stale and pointless. The “stakes” were fabricated. In the first class the students were clamoring to write, the second, it was like pulling teeth.

Not everything is better with tech…Just most things.

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Leaving the Drama at the Door

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What is your school’s puppy?

My puppy Olive’s walks, mainly consist of taking a few steps in between people asking if they can pet her. We don’t get far, but she happily obliges to their nonsensical baby talk and belly rubs. It’s not just lonely single women who can’t resist her cuteness; frightening chain wearing teens, non-english speaking grandmas, briefcase toters, yoga nuts, and construction workers all fall apart when they see her. No matter who they are, they leave the session looking happier and wearing a smile.

At my first school we had an awesome Golden Retriever named Sabai. Sabai acted as a roving therapist. She was available for anyone at any time that needed a little bit of comfort. Obviously, it’s not practical for most schools to have puppies wandering the halls. But, you can see how valuable something like a puppy can be for morale and therapeutic purposes.

What is your school’s puppy equivalent? I’ve seen many schools use art. The other night, I found a school with such glee inducing artwork, that I wondered if it would be possible to snuggle with the building. During Friday hall dismissal, I DJ music requests on portable speakers, blow bubbles, and wish the students a happy weekend. It’s silly, but everyone leaves with a bounce in their step. Of course we should work to make our lessons joyful and the connection we build with the students safe and meaningful. But what more can we do to help our school community experience bursts of joy and comfort?

Building Art Nettlehorst School, Chicago

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We are not all doctors or bridge builders

Perfect is good enough?

photo by:Robin Danehav

I asked my father if he could repair a broken foot on an old wooden toy chest so I could use it as a coffee table. What I thought was going to be a bit of glue and a couple of clamps turned out to be a three-day antique analysis and repair class.

I have known for some time that my father comes from a generation where, “good enough” never existed. It’s a quality that I admire. Yet I question it’s over arching usefulness.   Don’t get me wrong. If a doctor is going to set a bone, I want to make sure that “good enough” isn’t the mantra.  I’m still convinced though, that there is a place for “good enough” in our world.  We are not all doctors or bridge builders. In most cases a mistake in our work or thought process doesn’t have dire long-term consequences.  We can fix modify and improve.

Simply put, there is room to be wrong. When you release something (a blog, a lesson plan, a business idea) in a “good enough” state, while holding a beta mindset there is less ego attached to it. In the process you may discover that your idea sucked to begin with or you may end up with a vastly superior result.  Either way, you’ll be far ahead of trying to convince everyone it was the finished product.

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November Thoughts

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What am I learning?

thought-bubble

I thought I’d ask the simple question: “What am I learning?”

How to do it differently
No matter which school you go to, the real problems, the ones that get under your skin, tend to repeat. I can safely say that I haven’t seen anything this year that I didn’t see in 2003. The difference for me is, that I’m finally learning from my mistakes. I’m actively trying to address the same problems in a different way. I can’t say that all of my new approaches have worked. Nevertheless it is a great experiment. Something has to be different in order to get a different result. Right?

How to stick to what feels right for the long term
I use to think that one of my best qualities, as a teacher was my ability to “read” a class and instantaneously adjust to what needed to happen in the moment. It was a trick that worked for individual class periods, but often interrupted in the continuity of course. I’ve worked harder to get to know my students on a deeper level and understand when they are just having a “moment” and when something fundamentally needs to change in the curriculum.

How to enjoying things I create
I think as teachers, especially those involved in the whizziness of Twitter, there is an underlying idea that if you are not constantly innovating you are falling behind. For the last almost two years, I worked really hard to develop a grades 5-8 curriculum. This is the first trimester, where I’m not simultaneously teaching and developing it. It feels amazing to live in something that I created. I’m enjoying it and resisting the urge to immediately pull it all apart for the sake of being “innovative.”

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An Insane Pursuit

Maze

photo by:Memphis CVB

I keep thinking that there is a point in teaching where I’ll feel like “I’ve made it.” This irrational side of me believes that there is a glorious moment, where I’ll sigh and be released from the tension and exhaustion of the climb. The logical part of me, has always understood that this apex doesn’t exist…in any realm. It rolls on the floor in hysterical laughter as I frantically try to form neat piles of leaves in the windstorm. In a profession that is so deeply rooted in human idiosyncrasies, what a joke to think perfect is possible. The only conclusion can be that teaching must certainly be an insane pursuit.

More and more I am coming to understand, that being a good teacher involves becoming a better practitioner of accepting, embracing, and reveling in the imperfection and the frustration of a problem that has no tried and true solution set. Empowering statements aside, for me, it is a race against the clock, to get the irrational side to understand this, before I go mad.

 

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First Day of School Thoughts

As a government major, I waited until the absolute last minute to add 19th century political philosophy to my course load. Nothing about the thoughts of dead beardy males appealed to me.

I headed into my first day of class with dread. The professor of the course didn’t help me feel any more assured. He “didn’t care if we were in the hospital dying. A paper that was due at midnight was due at midnight. If we were going to be late to class “don’t even bother coming…ever again.” In the middle of his egocentric tirade, a classmate’s cell phone rang. The professor answered it.  He proceeded to say something snarky to the caller and slammed the phone on the desk. “And no cell phones!,” he screamed

The date of that class was September 11, 2001. The caller was our classmate’s daughter who worked near the towers and was fleeing the city.

The next time the class met, the professor, who had subsequently learned about the circumstances behind the call, was a different man. It wasn’t that he changed his strict rules. It’s just that they were no longer the focus and the defining characteristic of his course or who he was.

I always think of this first day as I head into a new school year. It is a reminder to call upon empathy as my first emotion and that it’s impossible to know the complete story of our students’ lives.

 

 

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