The Stonecutter's Dilemma - Assumptions of Linearity

There I sat with all of the parents staring at their six and seven year old children. The same place I sat for the past two years with this child. Little boys in bright blue uniforms and neon uniforms dashing before me. Some of them are mini all-stars in the minds of their minds and their parents minds. Future Pele's, Reynaldos, Maradonas, and Messis. And there's mine, standing there, observing all that happens. Not moving. Year three of this. Last year, at times he wouldn't get on the field because he was afraid of weeds.

So, as any reasonable parent or educator, you ask why do this? Why put your child on the field? Why put yourself through the agony of watching your child suffer? The answer is simple. When I ask him if he wants to go, he says yes. He gladly grabs his uniform, proudly puts on his cleats, grabs a drink and runs to the car.

As I watch the game, my stomach churns. My first child wasn't like this. He at least ran, not always in the right direction, but he ran.

We assume, as we support kids through learning, as they work towards the 10,000 hours of mastery mentioned in Malcolm Gladwell's book Outliers, that the line of improvement is relatively linear. That's why AIMSweb produces the best-fit rate of improvement line. The black line places a linear improvement goal based on target, the red line demonstrating their best-fit slope of improvement. As we look at the same child early in the year and late in the year, what do these graphs really say?

Has the child made their goal? Is the increased intensity of the intervention making a difference? Is the AIMSweb giving an accurate picture of this child's reading development?

I look back at my child, now having completed the first quarter. He moved some. I yelled his name a few times, come on, get into the game. You go. I remind myself to smile as he walks back to the sides. He is smiling. He says he had fun. I wonder how. He proudly drinks his gatorade. He laughs as he knows he has created a blue moustache. I laugh, he really is enjoying this. And then after watch a quarter of future superstars in dance on the field it is his turn again. I think to myself, "Oh no, they are switching sides and switching positions." 

It begins again. He stands, he stares. And then, suddenly he runs. For several minutes, he has decided what to do and quickly takes path as a defender to intercept the ball. He is far from perfect. He is far from equal to the other ones. But, after 2 fall seasons, 2 spring seasons, and 1 painful quarter, my son is in the game.

As I watch, I think back to college swimming and the inspirational quotes that Coach Kent put on the wall. I remind myself of the Jacob Austin Riis stonecutter dilemma that he posted:

Look at a stone cutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred-and-first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not the last blow that did it, but all that had gone before.

The connections come as I proudly watch my son get in the game. Perhaps learning isn't linear, perhaps the graph looks more like a phase change diagram:

With the rises and plateaus as time is impacted by engaged learning, meaningful differentiation, and adult & student energy. Or perhaps the graph looks more like monitoring the energy levels of an endothermic reaction:

As we look at achievement increases over time, it is possible that our catalysts for learning are small group instruction, quality resources, and technology accelerants. 

In either possibility, learning is no longer linear. A great deal of energy is put in, and then, the light bulb goes on. The miracle happens. The child gets it. I think back to teaching swimming, chemistry, and political science. I see faces flash through my mind. Connections to students who put in the energy, needed more than the 6 or 12 weeks of RTI. The switch flipped and they got it. Stephen Krashen & Jeff McQuillan make the case for Late Intervention. They look at what excites learners and how children and adults can become readers. They talk about how the learners interest with the right content and context helps develop quality reading. Donalyn Miller makes similar connections with student growth in her book, the Book Whisperer. 

As parents and educators its time for us to questions the assumptions of linearity. These are real learners with real opportunities. Instead, we need to continue to support, advocate, and search for the right catalysts to hit the necessary activation energy to make it click. It may not happen as a function of the best fit line, but instead as a product of time, energy and interest.

Sticky Lessons

In schools, we are asked to "teach" a lot. There is Reading, Math, Social Studies, Science, Health, and Social-Emotional Learning just to name a few. As one walks from room to room, one can see desks piled high with textbooks, workbooks, and content to be disseminated. There are loads of activities for us to have the children do. Children will practice their math facts, repeatedly write their spelling words, calculate 1-31 the odds at the end of the math lesson, and rewrite vocabulary words. We all remember doing these assignments, but how much of the assignment do we remember doing. I don't, but I'm not a great example because I am pretty sure that I didn't complete many of them. My wife doesn't either, and she is a great example, because she is the type of student who meticulously completed all of them.

What I do remember are different lessons, ones that were sticky. Those lessons that engaged, resonated, and ensured that we owned the learning experience. Sticky messages, as identified in Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point, are "The specific quality that a message needs to be successful is the quality of 'stickiness.' Is the message-or the food, or the movie, or the product-memorable? Is it so memorable, in fact, that it can create change, that it can spur someone to action?" There isn't much I remember about High School English. I spent 4 years taking it. We read Julius Caesar. After that, the only lesson I remember is this. The teacher called it bathroom English. He indicated that we could remember parts of English by looking at the walls of the bathroom stall. It was a simple 4 sentence lesson:

"If on the wall of the stall it says, "This sucks!" This is a pronoun. If on the wall of the stall it says, "This school sucks!" This is an article."

That was the lesson. Simple, elegant, and sticky. I remember the class roaring with laughter. Students repeating it to their friends. When they left the room, they went and told it to their locker partners, their friends locker partners, and their parents. The message contextually connected. It was funny. And 26 years later it has stuck for me and everyone of my friends. It is the only English lesson or content component that any of us remember.

For the past 15 years I have had the honor to co-teach with the best teacher I know, my wife. Each Sunday for nearly a decade and a half we have rolled into Sunday School to help fourth and fifth grade students learn Genesis, Exodus, Modern Israel, and the Immigrant Experience. As a student, she was the quiet good student who sat in the back of the room and only answered if called on. She worked hard to do the assignments that teachers asked. She spent the extra time trying to remember things for the test. She actually earned her grades. Really, she doesn't remember a whole lot of the content of those classes that she sat through, just working hard to be there. However, as a teacher, she is totally different than those that she learned from. She is the master of the "sticky lesson." When we first started figuring out how to help students learn Genesis & Exodus, I figured we'd have them read the stories and draw some art, talk about it, or write about it. Nope, she decided they needed to act it out. The students needed to take on roles from the stories and be those people. It quickly became a play, "History of the World part 1." College students come up to her and talk to her about who they were in the fourth grade play. Twelve years later the children can share their experiences as a biblical character in a Sunday School play. More over, they can tell you who got the character they really wanted and how that wasn't fair. When we got too many students to do a play, she changed it. While she probably wouldn't say the reason why was to create "sticky learning experiences," she knew intrinsically that she wanted that meaningful personal connection between the students and the learning. So, she came up with a "Wax Museum." Annually 5th grade parents walk around the Caruso Middle School Library and tap a button and their child's or their child's friends feet and the statue comes to life sharing the role, challenges, and life experiences of a biblical character. They dress up in bed sheets and beards and share biblical stories. Two months ago, our former student and current babysitter and her friend recited their experiences 7 years after doing it. It was a sticky lesson.

In studying Modern Israel, originally I wanted to have long discussions of the regions, geography, political relations. As a former Political Science major and teacher, I loved that stuff. I think my wife's eyes glossed over even as I suggested it. She instead suggested that they make a tour guide. Encouraging the students to pick a city, study it, find out relevant facts and make a visual representation. Through the years, the experience has evolved from a guide and a float to children make posters, digital presentations, and even building their cities in Minecraft. It's a sticky experience. Almost every child can tell us what their city was, why they still want to go there or how it was different when they went there, and what their visual representation was. The lesson and the learning mattered.

Sticky learning experiences are engaging. Student owned. Meaningful to the learner. They resonate past the single day and become authentic. The products can vary from child to child because the learner is invested in making it their own. The learning becomes important through the engagement of the student.

On Friday, as I sat with my Instructional Coaching team, I asked a coach who had taught for me years early what was the most powerful learning experience she had led as teacher. The answer came so quick that I was floored. Easy, she said, "Ellis Island." The kids participate in it, take on the roles, and are always engaged. She's right, it is an awesome learning experience. Funny thing, eight years ago, my wife came to the school I was working with and helped the Fifth Grade team design and implement the Ellis Island immigration experience. It's a very sticky lesson.

She's the best teacher I know. Master of the sticky lesson even if she doesn't realize it. I can't wait until Sunday night when the 5th grade team gets together to design this year's learning. I get to see what she comes up with next.

Clip is long, but look for the "sticky learning"!

Look at the Glowing Parchment

Moving from a traditional classroom to a blended learning environment is certainly all the rage. As the price point has dropped significantly, school districts are discovering that we are reaching that critical level at which it is nearly practical to provide each student with a digital device to enhance their education. It is clear to most educators, these tools can make a difference. The question is how will this level of technology impact learning in the classroom.

Unfortunately, as is often the case in education, we aren't getting the message across to the public very well. Throughout the news one can find articles about how tablets, chromebooks, & laptops are replacing textbooks. Children now no longer have to read those old textbooks instead they can have a $200-$300 glowing screen. Put your Smith-Corona and correction tape away, we have a shiny laptop to type that five paragraph essay on. No more looking through the encyclopedia, the Internet has all the information on the Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act. 

In the technology press, reporters look to extend the narrative about how each new product will disrupt the status quo. Whereas in education, the narrative is consistently about substitution. The pen substituting for the quill. The word processor substituting for the type writer. The tablet substituting for the textbook. It's not that innovation isn't happening, its the narrative that is defining the change a substitution instead of redefinition.

Yes, tablets, chromebooks, & laptops can substitute for the textbooks and word processors. However, if that is all we use them for then the narrative is right, we are buying really expensive glowing parchments. The reality is that we are redefining the learning environment. Each day our teachers and students are discovering new ways to learn concepts and create innovative products. No longer is a flame test subject to the observations of a freshman's eyeball, but with tablet in hand, the students can record the experience and debate the nuances of colors and wavelengths as they analyze their recording of the experiment. Now as second grade students have a question about the distance between the Earth and Mars, they reach out to experts in the field, tweeting 8th grade science classes down the street or NASA engineers developing rovers exploring the Martian Surface. Students create videos modeling the prepositions they are learning in dance and song. Our teachers and students are disrupting the learning establishment in classroom after classroom. They are not using these digital tools as simply glowing parchments but are instead creating products unimaginable five years ago. Now it is time for us to disrupt the narrative. We, as leaders, whether students, teachers, or district administrators cannot sell ourselves short by publishing the message about digital textbooks. The 1 to 1 revolution is about changing the learning experience not simply the latest model of a glowing parchment.

All societies need a little disruption:

Building the Perfect Classroom

Walking through schools throughout the land one sees names kindly beautifully handwritten name tags painstakingly placed on desk after desk, bulletin boards identifying roles for children in the classrooms, signs for star of the week, word walls ready to gain their first nouns, reading corners carved out with familiar childhood stuffed animals, pillows, and well organized books. For many hours, teachers have spent preparing at home and at school for these days, the beginning of a new school year. In homes across the land, clothes have been laid out, bags packed, lunches made. School is here, but are we ready for it?
In his book, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Dr. Stephen R. Covey indicates that we need to "begin with the end in mind." It is in these first days, we as district leadership, building principals, teachers, teachers' assistants, and students carve out our vision for what we want our year to be like. It is at this time, in our rush to complete all those little details, we often mistake the forest for the trees. For years, advocates for student ownership of the learning environment have encouraged teachers to have children participate in setting the rules for their classroom. Guess what, the kids are on to us. They realize that this is a token gesture and not an application of true co-ownership of the learning experience. The reality is, if we desire to create innovative student-owned classroom environments, we must give up our image of starting with the perfect classroom and engage our children in meaningful dialogue about our collaborative workplace.
Every action we do as leaders, district, building, or classroom sends a message and sets a tone. If we hand our students or staff the theme for our classroom, our building, or our district, the only one who owns it is the leaders. If we talk with our constituents, whether students, staff, or principals, and co-create our theme, then it is ours together. The same is true with the classroom design. If we hand the children the design, it is something done to them. If we ask them "What needs to go into a classroom that promotes learning for all?" and they brainstorm the design, its owned by both teacher and student. Furthermore, if later in the year collaboratively you and the children change it, the ownership reaches an even higher level.
Each of us at times has perfectionist tendencies. Each of us wants the year to start our on just the perfect note. Each of us wants the cultivate the feeling that we care for each child, teacher assistant, teacher, and principal. However, if we truly do care, we involve them in co-creating the environment we will work, share, and learn together.

Writing - More than an Action - How 1:1 Makes a Difference

Our past experiences frequently provide us context to interpret our current reality. When we take in new challenges and opportunities we interpret these situations from our own history and paradigm. For us adults, writing is grounded in the idea of us constructing letters into words, words into sentences, sentences into paragraphs first on paper and then through type. We see writing as a set of action. An process of organizing our thoughts and communicating them to others in text. Growing up, we learned the writing process. We learned to hand write. We learned block print & cursive. Typing was the class in which we discovered the home row. Eventually we learned to structure our thoughts through graphic organizers. We went through the painstaking process of writing and revising. Draft after draft this process grew. Lost in this was the goal, the product of developing a set of concise coherent thoughts which would generate meaning for others.

As educational professionals, our experiences are grounded in this thought process. We assume that in the future, our students will need to learn both the physical actions and structured organization thought in order to be successful. Through this, at times, we loose track of the end goal, the product of developing a set of concise coherent thoughts which would generate meaning for others.

As a society, for both children and adults, we "write" more than ever. At young ages, children text. Many tweet. Some blog. Some make video diaries. Others quick game plays. The reality is we need to divide writing into its' two core components: the act of input and the act of organizing our thoughts to communicate concise & coherent meaning.

When we consider writing, as the act of input, created by formation of block print, cursive, or typing, is simply that, just an act of input. We live in a society in which these are already legacy technologies. They are acts of choice, not requirement. While many desktops, laptops, chromebooks, or netbooks may take these currently as their sole method of input, mobile devices have gone far past this realm. Whether an individual uses Android or iOS, both Google Now & Siri provide high quality mechanisms that import audio to text. These mobile devices also allow students & adults to create their own videos. Right now, we have tools in our pockets that routinely except multi-dimensional input. A student can just talk and the words come right to the page. They can record powerful images. Both static photos and vibrant video and add key dialogue both auditory and text to communicate concise & coherent meaning. We live in a society right now that not only no longer requires but prefers multidimensional input.

However, if we consider writing as the act of organizing our thoughts to communicate concise & coherent meaning, here is the cornucopia of learning opportunities. Regardless of how the input was gathered, students (and many adults) need to learn how to organize their thoughts in a way that makes sense. Furthermore, global society prefers concise coherent communication rather than long form prose. Think of what happens when you receive an email. How often do you get past paragraph three? There are still moments for long form text and dialogue. It is not that we should abandon our work on this. But it is not the sole focal point. Concise, organized, technical communication matters.'

As we prepare ourselves and our students for the future, lets recognize our current reality and the immediate future. The act of writing as an input is an option, the act of organizing our thoughts and communicating effectively is a necessity.

Choosing for the Future

In schools, we find ourselves standing on the crossroads each day. From the outside, there is an incredible pressure of manufactured governmental accountability. From the inside there is our own personal desires to be successful. There are parents who send us the best children they have to offer us with the highest level of preparation that each individual can offer. And in front of us, we see the future. A collection of innocent bright shining faces who look upon us to help them learn and grow, for us to believe that they can be truly outstanding individuals.  

August is an odd juxtaposition of optimistic teachers, parents, students, and administrators genuinely excited to make the world a better place while at the same time district leaders are being told just how poorly their schools are "performing" on the newly benchmarked standards. A hard pill to swallow when based on parameters not drawn by agencies influenced by legislative agendas our schools and our students show growth and progress. 

Each day, as district leaders, building leaders, or classroom leaders, we need to make choices. We need to choose often between what is easy and what is right. A thousand times a day we look into the future and make a decision to decide how can we help that child learn, grow, and become a better person. Sometimes that decision is to cover one more conjugation of the verb, one more part of grammar, one more method to calculate area. But sometimes that decision is to slow down, ensure deep understanding, and make it real. There are times where we may not cover as much, a child may have less exposure to a concept, and we may score lower on the ISAT, PARCC, or ACT, but that child may be developing a skill or memory that will help them when working with others or support a colleague on the job. 

When we look at the future, what do we dream it to be. I look at my children and see limitless possibilities. I trust my children in the hands of caring teachers and administrators each day. And because of that journey, and hundreds of thousands like it going on each day in our schools we are a better place. 

Enhancing Creativity Through Using Rubrics

When analyzing the skills and attributes needed by citizens and workers in the modern day, the Partnership for 21st Century Skills recognized that while having an understanding of concepts and content was necessary, the new learner and worker would need four learning and innovation skills  in order to be successful, Creativity, Critical Thinking, Communication, and Collaboration (4C's). While the Partnership's work is dated, circa 2002, it is the source of key conflict with the current movement towards high-stakes accountability. Each of these key learning skills is not easily measured by a computerized analytical assessment. The validated experience is subjective and requires human assessment. In an era where high level governance rarely trusts is classroom practitioners to understand what is best, the pendulum has swung from these 4 C's to content consumption & analysis.

Grant Wiggins points out in his article, How to Use a Rubric Without Stifling Creativity, that utilizing a set of standards does not necessarily require the same product outcomes nor the same products. His sample provided gives insight into Collaboration. How groups work and how ideas are exchanged. While this model does identify core practices for successful integration of Collaboration, rubrics can go farther. Rubrics can help our students recognize different ways in which they can be creative while still developing common understandings desired by the teacher.

In our sixth grade Social Studies curriculum, students are asked to develop an understanding of common components of Ancient Civilizations including their population, economy, governance structure, & contributions to other societies. Utilizing this curriculum objective, a flexible teacher could allow for the development of content understanding and creative capacities by asking the students to do this project: As a team, analyze 3 ancient civilizations of your choice, identifying the economy, governance structure, & contributions to other societies and create a civilization of your own (including  economy, governance structure, & contributions to other societies). Develop a way to share your civilization with an authentic audience.

Rubrics are intended as a method of assessment that based on a set of standards developed by the teacher (and possibly students together) which indicate what the student understands and what the student needs to work on next. Assessment for both creativity and content knowledge could occur using this rubric:

Content Knowledge
Governance (non-ranked rubric)	I can identify who made the laws and decisions in the society	I can identify the power structures within the society	I can identify key leaders and important followers in the society	I can identify which groups were not allowed to participate in decision making	I can identify what type of government the society lived within
	1	2	3	4
Economy (ranked rubric)	I can identify basic jobs within the society	I can identify how the society performed trade	I can identify how the society grew as a result of the interaction between employment structure, trade, & laws	I can identify how changes in the society's economic structures impacted growth of the society
Contributions to other societies (ranked rubric)	I can identify activities that other societies near the same time period modeled from the original society.	I can identify how practices from the original society evolved into two other societies.	I can identify current practices in our society that originated during the first society.	I can identify how core values from the original society can be identified in two other societies and modern day.
Creativity Rubric
Innovation (non-ranked rubric)	I generated several ideas about the capacities of governance, economy, or contributions to other societies for our original society.	I identified how different ideas may impact life within our original society.	I cultivated at least one unique model of governance, economy, or contribution to other societies that was not studied in our examination of ancient societies.
	1	2	3	4
Diversity of Thought (ranked rubric)	I brainstormed with my team to collect as many ideas as reasonable within the time frame.	We developed a mechanism for analyzing the impacts of our ideas.	We developed a methodology for choosing ideas which crafted our society into an original "cool" place to live	We crafted unique ideas in each of the areas studied (economy, governance, & contributions to other societies).
Inspiring Change (ranked rubric)	We accepted ideas as individuals proposed them.	We combined ideas from each other to create more a more unique society.	Some of our ideas changed by listening to each other to make new ideas.

In this model, the student and instructional team can identify desired steps for student content understanding and evaluate the level of creativity generated by the pupils. As with all learning experiences intended to enhance creativity, instructors and pupils must be willing to accept a multitude of unique products. However, unique learning creations still can be formatively & summatively assessed by both teachers and students based on the curriculum objectives of the assignment both in the areas of content and creativity. Rubrics, as a result of their explanatory nature, can enhance the growth of both content knowledge and creative practice in students. Thus, creativity can be fostered in even the most challenging of learning environments.

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Dichotomous Relationships

Perhaps its human nature, perhaps its marketing, message crafting, categorizing. Perhaps it is us, but for some reason as a society we have created this dichotomous environment in which you are either one thing or another.

Are you a PC or Mac

Right or Wrong

Believer or Denier

For Common Core or Against

Apple or Google

Democrat or Republican

Pro-Designated Hitter or Against

Our message makers have crafted this world of polarity, one in which we are forced to be in the in-crowd or stand in opposition. Sides, always sides.

Is this necessary? Is it possible that there are other options to lead us on the journey to clarity and growth. Instead of choosing dichotomous relationships, can we at times choose both options, other times choose neither, and as we explore change our position?

In education, at the most fundamental level our professionals have entered this world to serve our communities and help our children, all children learn and grow. Since 1983, "A Nation at Risk," we have been identified in the United States as unsatisfactory in our work. Pick the initiative. Choose a leading political party. Select your measurement. It doesn't matter, politically we have been identified as unsuccessful, wanting, & lacking accountability. Yet during this same period our economy, creativity, and knowledge base have grown exponentially. What was imagined on Star Trek is alive in our world.

It is not dichotomy which we seek, but multiplicity of opportunity. If we want to cultivate creative students, we need to embrace student, teacher and principal creativity. If we desire critical thinkers, we must ask our students, teachers and principals to analyze and question our ideas as much as those within the text.

Perhaps there is a power of and in our relationships. As schools, districts, teachers, and students we can embrace the concept that powerful learning opportunities are currently occurring in our schools and the idea as educators, politicians, communities and corporations we want to help our schools cultivate deeper levels of understanding, creativity, and knowledge. If we label, categorize, and seek dichotomy, that is all we will find. If we bring an open mind we may find more.