Classroom 2.02024-03-29T13:10:41ZKevinhttps://www.classroom20.com/profile/kevinhhttps://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1949883707?profile=RESIZE_48X48&width=48&height=48&crop=1%3A1https://www.classroom20.com/group/storiesthatstick/forum/topic/listForContributor?user=kevinh&feed=yes&xn_auth=noWords to Live Bytag:www.classroom20.com,2007-06-14:649749:Topic:272772007-06-14T21:55:08.504ZKevinhttps://www.classroom20.com/profile/kevinh
This is a favorite teacher story of mine. It's written by a NC high school teacher about a chance encounter early in his career that made a big difference in his teaching life.<br />
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<a href="http://snipr.com/teachgoodthings">http://snipr.com/teachgoodthings</a><br />
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There are some other good stories that meet Kevin's test -- stories that stick -- at this essay archive at Teacher Magazine. "What Mattered Most to Keysha" and "The Kid Who's Sleeping in Row 3, Desk 2" are a couple of my favorites. The…
This is a favorite teacher story of mine. It's written by a NC high school teacher about a chance encounter early in his career that made a big difference in his teaching life.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://snipr.com/teachgoodthings">http://snipr.com/teachgoodthings</a><br />
<br />
There are some other good stories that meet Kevin's test -- stories that stick -- at this essay archive at Teacher Magazine. "What Mattered Most to Keysha" and "The Kid Who's Sleeping in Row 3, Desk 2" are a couple of my favorites. The latter has a definite Classroom 2.0 message embedded!<br />
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<a href="http://snipr.com/tm_tlnarchive">http://snipr.com/tm_tlnarchive</a><br />
<br />
Here's a question -- are the teacher stories that enlighten the public different than the stories that inspire teachers themselves? only one person clappedtag:www.classroom20.com,2007-06-07:649749:Topic:257192007-06-07T15:02:42.486ZKevinhttps://www.classroom20.com/profile/kevinh
A girl in my class had her grandfather staying with her. She found that she enjoyed just passing the time with him, playing games and discussing things. She knew he was ill, and felt good about paying attention to him and providing some care.<br />
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This girl was a gifted violinist. She practiced regularly, maybe an hour and a half each night. Her grandpa loved hearing the practice, so Lauren started doing all her practices in his room. This extended their time together. There was a particularly…
A girl in my class had her grandfather staying with her. She found that she enjoyed just passing the time with him, playing games and discussing things. She knew he was ill, and felt good about paying attention to him and providing some care.<br />
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This girl was a gifted violinist. She practiced regularly, maybe an hour and a half each night. Her grandpa loved hearing the practice, so Lauren started doing all her practices in his room. This extended their time together. There was a particularly difficult classical piece she was working on, and that was her grandfather's favorite.<br />
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Unfortunately, the illness progressed, and after a couple of months, Lauren's grandfather passed away. Lauren was devastated.<br />
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The funeral was a giant gathering--thousands of people in a local city. Lauren told me about the event.<br />
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"Connie, there were so many people there, so many. I had no idea my grandpa was so important. How did so many people know him? The cathedral was full, with standing room only. My mom said he was a really important doctor--but I had no idea."<br />
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Lauren went on to tell me about the funeral. She actually was sobbing as she told me about something that happened that completely mystified her.<br />
"It came my turn to share something in memory of Grandpa. I chose to play the violin piece he loved so much. Well, this was really odd. You know me, Connie, I've played before a lot of audiences; I'm used to it going a certain way. I played, I finished, and then...<br />
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The silence just about killed me. It was absolutely silent. Why wouldn't these people clap? Didn't I do a good job? I thought the piece went pretty well, I mean, I was nervous and all, but the song came off as I wanted it to. Why wouldn't the people clap?<br />
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I put my violin down and started walking down the steps from where I performed. I thought I might trip over something, so I walked slowly. I felt kind of bad that no one would clap for me, it just seemed that that's how a performance should end. Slowly, I walked toward my mom. I just wanted to hide. I could hear my footsteps, they kind of echoed in that giant place. It was awful.<br />
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I got down to the final step, and then... Then I heard it. One person was clapping. Way from the back. One sole, lone person was clapping, and clapping loud. It rang out with echoes, really strong. I was so grateful that someone was doing this, but I still wondered, why only one? It was so loud.<br />
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I got back to my mom and asked her about it. Why was only one person clapping? Who was it? When I got to the seat I turned around to look, but couldn't see who it was. 'Who's clapping, mom?' I asked.<br />
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My mom turned to me, that look of bewilderment on her face. 'Lauren, there's no one clapping.' Then..." As Lauren told this part, she relaxed a bit. A tender smile appeared on her face.<br />
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"My mom's expression turned into complete astonishment. She hugged me real close. 'Lauren, now I know what you heard. That was Grandpa clapping.' That's what my mom told me. And you know, after getting through this together, Grandpa and I, I think things will be alright. A Sense of Humor is No Joketag:www.classroom20.com,2007-06-04:649749:Topic:247882007-06-04T14:39:24.851ZKevinhttps://www.classroom20.com/profile/kevinh
Previously posted on <a href="http://shannonprincipal.edublogs.org">www.shannonprincipal.edublogs.org</a><br />
May 8, 2007<br />
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I was walking down the hall one day and noticed a young lady down on her hands and knees looking closely at the floor. Assuming she had lost a contact, I got down on the floor and starting looking, too.<br />
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“Lose a contact?” I asked.<br />
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“No,” she replied. “I sneezed and blew out my nose ring.”<br />
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Realizing what she had just said, she gave me a look that said …and maybe I shouldn’t…
Previously posted on <a href="http://shannonprincipal.edublogs.org">www.shannonprincipal.edublogs.org</a><br />
May 8, 2007<br />
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I was walking down the hall one day and noticed a young lady down on her hands and knees looking closely at the floor. Assuming she had lost a contact, I got down on the floor and starting looking, too.<br />
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“Lose a contact?” I asked.<br />
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“No,” she replied. “I sneezed and blew out my nose ring.”<br />
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Realizing what she had just said, she gave me a look that said …and maybe I shouldn’t have said that to the principal…<br />
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There was a split-second pause and then we both started laughing.<br />
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We found the nose ring. And in a true gesture of gallant chilvary I let HER pick it up.<br />
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I never had to say a word. Nose rings are against the rules, and she was so busted. She stopped wearing it to school.<br />
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We house the Newcomer Academy here. It is a total English language immersion program and we discourage the students from using their native language during lessons. One of the students in our Newcomer Academy answered a question in class one day and used the f-bomb. When the teacher attempted to correct him with the prompt of, “That is not appropriate language for the classroom”, he looked confused and replied, “But, Miss, I was using English.”<br />
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The teacher laughed. The students joined in (although not sure why). The teacher used the opportunity to explain “good” and “bad” slang words in English.<br />
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I was walking past a classroom and glanced in. I saw a student with his head down, fast asleep. I walked in and immediately became the focus of the whole class. I heard one student whisper, “Uh, Oh!” They were certain I was about to chew on the Sleeping Beauty. They were surprised when I asked the teacher for a Post-It Note.<br />
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The class stared intently as I wrote a note, walked over and ever-so-gently took the paper, pen, and textbook off the sleeping student’s desk and left the note stuck to the desktop. I then walked out of the room with all of the Snoozer’s belongings.<br />
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Eventually the student woke up and when he was able to focus on my note, he read, “Good Morning, I have your things in my office. Come get them at your convenience. Mr. Farr.”<br />
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He walked into my office, I smiled and said good morning, pointed to his things and….then we laughed. He gathered his things and as he walked out of my office he said, “Thank you, Mr. Farr, it won’t happen again.”<br />
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And then there was Bill. A six foot four student athlete, solid macho man. He had a little problem with attendance. I told him I needed to see a note from his doctor the next time he missed school. A couple of weeks later he was absent. But he did bring me a doctor’s note.<br />
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I looked at it, looked up at Bill and asked, “This is your doctor?”<br />
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“Yessir,” replied Bill.<br />
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“So what was wrong with you?” I asked.<br />
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“That’s kinda personal,” he answered.<br />
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“I’m sure it is.” I said. After a pause, I asked, “Bill, why are you lying to me?”<br />
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“Huh?”<br />
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“Bill, this doctor is a gynecologist.” I said.<br />
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“Huh?”<br />
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(Bill’s girlfriend, believing she was keeping him out of trouble, had “borrowed” a pad of excuses from her doctor and gave one to him.) After we shared a true TEACHABLE MOMENT and I explained to Bill what a gynecologist is, he suddenly “got it” and guess what? We laughed. Oh my, did we laugh!<br />
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There are reams and reams of research articles on using humor to redirect or reinforce student behaviors. And I only bring this up because I’ve noticed a disturbing trend…especially among younger, newer teachers. It’s like someone somewhere sent out a memo declaring that fun is not allowed in school anymore.<br />
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I could have written a very scholarly-sounding, well-researched post on this subject. But wouldn’t that have been the hard way to make my point? Not to mention boring…<br />
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I’m calling on all administrators to remind their teachers:<br />
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LIGHTEN UP!! IT’S OK TO HAVE FUN AT SCHOOL…IT’S OK TO LAUGH IN THE CLASSROOM! Are we killing imagination?tag:www.classroom20.com,2007-05-30:649749:Topic:234292007-05-30T18:21:36.934ZKevinhttps://www.classroom20.com/profile/kevinh
After Decherd Tennessee, my dad set sail, with us in tow to Pennsylvania, where I was pronounced a dullard. My time in the library in Tennessee had been adequate to drain my neo-cortex of enough synaptic connections so as to render me stupid..or so I was coming to believe. I was two grades behind in math and quickly gave up, under the frustrated gaze of a cute young math teacher who didn’t know how to bridge the gap in my learning and catch me up with her herd. I aquired the label of "remedial"…
After Decherd Tennessee, my dad set sail, with us in tow to Pennsylvania, where I was pronounced a dullard. My time in the library in Tennessee had been adequate to drain my neo-cortex of enough synaptic connections so as to render me stupid..or so I was coming to believe. I was two grades behind in math and quickly gave up, under the frustrated gaze of a cute young math teacher who didn’t know how to bridge the gap in my learning and catch me up with her herd. I aquired the label of "remedial" in math and believed it and still do. I survived this school and found comfort in art class, where I seemed to excel. In this room my imagination and substantial life experience seemed to benefit me! The supply of rooms in schools, where kids are invited to bring their imaginations and keep them active, seemed to me remarkably low. Choir, band, drama and art seemed to be the only safe places to emerge from the stupor of compliance. As I look around me now I see hope, I see teachers using constructivist math to help kids with multiple intelligences understand and excel. I see teachers beginning to use real-world scenarios to make learning relevant. I have to add that teachers who use these approaches are sometimes in danger. Without hard fast proof that kids have memorized, long enough to pass a standardized test, their approaches are always suspect. I admire these brave souls and worry that they won’t out-survive NCLB. While I was in Pennsylvania at New Oxford Jr. High I was assigned a book report and given the option of building a device to show what I learned. I was earning a solid C/D in the class but this assignment lit me up. I took a cereal box and created a long story board with illustrations. As I rolled the coat hanger handle and scrolled through my report, the flashlight backlit my pictures. I like to think this was an early version of powerpoint. For this effort I received and A+, the last A I would make at New Oxford, that wasn’t in art. I longed for projects of this type and ever so rarely a teacher would loose the hounds and let us dream up something creative, usually a social studies teacher. Thank God for them! My cardboard cotton gin would still be in my possession if not for all the moves we made. This hands on learning matched the talents in my developing brain and provided it’s own incentive to learn. Over many years in my own art classroom I watched as the "bad kids" excelled at hands on learning. My colleagues most likely dismissed their A’s in art as easy curriculum, since they were failing in their classes. What I came to believe is that these kids are so marginalized by the system, that they give up. Better to be a rebel and a trouble maker who seems to want to fail, than a kid who cannot perform in the current construct. It’s a hop. skip and a jump from bad grades to behavior problems. These "trouble makers" were my people. We had few rules as I treated them like the adults they would legally be in one or two years. It was interesting to me that one year they had to ask permission to pee but next year they could die for their country. At 16, kids are closing Taco Tico and counting the money and locking up, then asking for permission pee in our schools. Are we undervaluing their experience? Are we dooming them to be followers who need permission to do anything? What are we teaching outside the classroom?tag:www.classroom20.com,2007-05-30:649749:Topic:234262007-05-30T18:10:40.124ZKevinhttps://www.classroom20.com/profile/kevinh
The societies we create in schools that are "compulsary" are not ones that we either control or even know how to. Human social interaction is complicated an even in the best of circumstances, we struggle to affect even the smallest of interactions between students. The fact that we are adults in this society renders us socially impotent and casts us in roles as "background players". Here we leave all students to the mercy of the dramas that unfold. Our only simulation of control is what we call…
The societies we create in schools that are "compulsary" are not ones that we either control or even know how to. Human social interaction is complicated an even in the best of circumstances, we struggle to affect even the smallest of interactions between students. The fact that we are adults in this society renders us socially impotent and casts us in roles as "background players". Here we leave all students to the mercy of the dramas that unfold. Our only simulation of control is what we call disciplin. These extreneous attempts are by no means complex enough to adequately address the range of human interactions that are occuring in real time all around us.<br />
As educators we are charged with custodial care of kids from 8 till 3:30 but the ugly truth, that we all know is that we really only control a thin line of behavior in our classrooms. The real powerful learning, “social learning” is out of our perview. In the time we have kids in our rooms we have a measure of control or at least it looks so on the surface and that seems to be enough to put us at ease. Research I have read compares the former, aggressive behaviors that served homo sapiens well, to the less overt social aggressiveness that modern society has given birth to. To illuminate this thinking, compare the feeling of seeing a carnivorous animal at the only watering hole to seeing a bully in the bathroom. Kids often express their adolescent insecurities by being socially aggressive to other kids, usually those who are percieved as “easy prey”. While these attacks seem more civilized than physical attacks, they may have must longer lasting effects in terms of confidence and self esteem. One only need to watch Opra to hear tales of the lasting affects of public school social aggression. Research done with non-invasive technologies like MRI’s and CAT scans show that the thalamus, the fight or flight center of the brain is active when subjects are exposed to imagery that conjures up the emotions created by social aggression. What are we teaching kids in schools? It seems the lesson we are teaching is as old as the fight for survival. Don’t stand out from the herd or take chances. Be strong or silent and do not take chances.<br />
As I look at the skills sets demanded by the changing workplace ( Read The World is Flat ) of today I am struck by a glaring disparity. Schools are teaching compliance and how to follow rules, both social and institutional, while business needs individuals who can take chances and think independently. Something has to give and my fear is that without a redesign of American education, our economy may be doomed.<br />
Think of all we as parents try to do for our kids while they are in our custodial care. We read about the importance of stimulating that growing brain. We expose our children to new experiences and even stand proudly as they peddle a bike awkwardly for the first time. We want their minds to be open to new learning and to experiences, then we dress them and point them toward a yellow bus. What a leap of faith it is to send them off to a strange new place where they will spend the first full day on their own, with only the hope that it won’t be worse than it was for us. As I look at the growing divide between what schools do to prepare kids for life and the realities that life entails, I am conviced we are in a crisis. Because of it’s beaurocratic controls and the need for consensus about what is important enough to be taught to our kids, public schools are doomed to mediocrity, always aiming for the middle to serve the herd and the parents of the herd, especially the loud ones. How can public education improve? You must first ask yourself the question; Can a system designed to teach "all" kids, really teach all kids? Do you believe this is even possible? In nature’s model, the parent wolf, dog, deer etc. takes it’s young out into the world and shows them firsthand how to deal with reality. The momma deer does not send it’s young to a building where there is little that resembles real grass and dirt to listen to another deer talk about nature in the abstract. Even though her young could be eaten by a wolf on it’s first outing, nature seems to favor real experience. The one lesson I learned firsthand, was that compliance was favored over all. Sit in your seat, (the hard one) and raise your hand and if I call on you you may speak. Please indicate with a show of fingers if you need toilet tissue. In what way are we preparing kids to be self-starters. Tennesseetag:www.classroom20.com,2007-05-30:649749:Topic:234232007-05-30T17:59:19.082ZKevinhttps://www.classroom20.com/profile/kevinh
After Hawthorne came Pelham Tennessee, where I came to discover that I was a genious! It seems that my Texas and subsequent Kansas schooling had put my learning on such a high plain that I was out of sync with Tennesseans my own age. It was suggested that I was gifted and that I be put in independent study. At Pelham this meant I was sent to the library to be around books and look at excyclopedias until my mountain-raised colleagues could catch up. The rules at Pelham were similar to those in…
After Hawthorne came Pelham Tennessee, where I came to discover that I was a genious! It seems that my Texas and subsequent Kansas schooling had put my learning on such a high plain that I was out of sync with Tennesseans my own age. It was suggested that I was gifted and that I be put in independent study. At Pelham this meant I was sent to the library to be around books and look at excyclopedias until my mountain-raised colleagues could catch up. The rules at Pelham were similar to those in my previous schools but for one. When going to the bathroom, you had to raise one finger for pee and two if you would require toilet paper which was dispensed at the teacher’s desk in front of the whole class. I never decided if girls had it better or worse for always requiring tissue. This approach was apparently adopted because some kids sometime in the past chose to put large amounts of tissue in the toilet and cause a blockage. It was this kid whose face I imagined each day when stopped by potential embarrassment I held back my bodily functions for eight hours. It wasn’t the kid who was the criminal here I came to realize but the system that had to respond with a wholesale response to what seems a minimal problem. When you try to educate the masses in a mass-production approach, you must make some sacrifices in the name of the greater good. I only spent about three months at Pelham, for my dad’s greener pastures beckoned.<br />
We moved into the mobile hame in Deckerd Tennessee without the luxury of electricity. My father assured us that lights would be forthcoming but for the time being we were lucky to have hot water. Deckerd was to be my most exotic school experience to date. For the first time I noticed that blacks outnumbered whites 50 to 1 and that different rules applied accordingly. It was during my tenure at Deckerd that I first began to see the subtle rules that governed subcultures in public schools. The adults don’t make these rules but they don’t intervene when a social rule is breached either. In this way the role models can become caretakers of negative social constructs. While at Deckerd I learned that I had a place in line and it was at the back and that I had to give up my bus seat to anyone of dark skin who asked for or demanded it. When I see the films of the racial struggles of blacks in America I like to think I can taste just a small hint of what their plight might have felt like. Whenever the school I attended was really challenged, either by over-population or budget, I observed that disciplin was stronger. When I say stronger I don’t mean more effective..we’ll maybe I do. The severity of the disciplinary action seemed to grow commensurate to the fear that administrators would lose control of population. Disciplin became more public, like the beheadings of the French Revolution or the lynchings of the southern past. Intended for effect, disciplin became a cautionary tale for would-be rule breakers. What I haven’t mentioned at all yet was learning. What was the learning like in the environments I’ve described so far. The fact that these experiences have dominated the story might be a hint to the real lessons we learn in public school. As a student, which is more important; the civil war or where you should sit in the cafeteria on the first day of seventh grade. The brain is in survival mode and is engaged in "fight or flight" until one is assured they understand the rules, social first and then those of the system, as they may pertain to social embarrassment.<br />
At a recent Learning and the Brain conference in Cambridge Massachusetts I listened as the social constructs of schools was described as it impacts the emotions of the developing brain. In a study of what they call “Controversial Girls” ( These are girls who most would describe as the mean ones who seem to breeze through schools, blithely destroying psyches along the way.) These girls seemed to only care about the opinions of their male peers and the collateral damage left in their wake was the subject of the study. The study sought to see if intervention with the victims of these girl’s behavior could be helpful. As the developing adolescent brain endeavors to attain executive function, individuals struggle to make good choices and often fall prey to peer pressure while waiting for the frontal lobe to develop fully. After weeks of remediation, where victims were taught to put the effects of social attacks into proper perspective, these girls realized some benefit. Unfortunately, these efforts are not carried out in schools everywhere. Moving ontag:www.classroom20.com,2007-05-30:649749:Topic:234222007-05-30T17:50:29.745ZKevinhttps://www.classroom20.com/profile/kevinh
Moving was a part of my father’s biological imperative and true to form he moved my family to yet another venue in the summer of 1978. This time we went to Ottawa Kansas and the flavor of the week was Hawthorne Elementary. Kansas still had corporal punishment but the locals didn’t call them “licks” and I was careful not to show my recent pedigree by using the term. ( I now only enjoy the term in the context of movies where southern kids fear punishment from a strap or some other medieval…
Moving was a part of my father’s biological imperative and true to form he moved my family to yet another venue in the summer of 1978. This time we went to Ottawa Kansas and the flavor of the week was Hawthorne Elementary. Kansas still had corporal punishment but the locals didn’t call them “licks” and I was careful not to show my recent pedigree by using the term. ( I now only enjoy the term in the context of movies where southern kids fear punishment from a strap or some other medieval device.) Hawthorne was a revelation. There were kids of different colors and the size of the school meant that the adults in charge could in no way take the time to dispense all of the paddlings that were more than earned by segments of the population. They tended instead to focus their disciplinary attention on a few players in a “usual suspects” approach, this is how I came to know and befriend Ricky Green. As I was getting enrolled and Mom was filling out the required paperwork to allow my to eat my lunch for free, I noticed a large, sweaty figure nestled in a narrow hallway adjacent to the secretary’s desk. He slumped in between two coat hung above his head and was half hiding behind them, sharing his sweat with the fabrics. “ I didn’t do anything!” he screamed as my mother’s writing speed increased. I pictured her ironing in five minutes and me playing dodge ball with the sweaty figure. “ Let me talk to the principal!” he demanded but the secretary shook her head. It so happened that as I stood on the blacktop playground, too new to be considered for kickball, the sweaty boy, still sweating named Ricky approached me. It felt strange to talk to him, as if I was identifying myself on day one at Hawthorne as a trouble maker, hungry for a paddling but it was not as if he was at the head of a long line of kids wishing to strike up a conversation. “Do you get in trouble a lot?” I asked.”Every day” he replied with something akin to pride in his eyes. I thought about the boy who would become a friend for years afterward but especially as a teacher, whenever I encountered kids who had come to inhabit the social identity of "trouble maker" and had chosen to wear the stigma like a crown. There are many crimes committed in schools daily but non I fear more lasting than those inflicted by a system that paints kids with broad strokes in order to preserve it’s rules and control measures. Learning how to get away with anything!tag:www.classroom20.com,2007-05-29:649749:Topic:230182007-05-29T00:04:57.173ZKevinhttps://www.classroom20.com/profile/kevinh
My stories are ones where I learned how to "get around" the system. My first good lesson was when I was in third grade when the meanest teacher in the school caught me sliding down the stair bannister.<br />
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I had asked to go to the restroom in the middle of class and found myself in the perfect sliding atmosphere. I'd seen other kids do it and while it scared me--I may plummet to the concrete floor below..why couldn't I at least test it out just now when no one was looking?<br />
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I got about 3 feet down…
My stories are ones where I learned how to "get around" the system. My first good lesson was when I was in third grade when the meanest teacher in the school caught me sliding down the stair bannister.<br />
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I had asked to go to the restroom in the middle of class and found myself in the perfect sliding atmosphere. I'd seen other kids do it and while it scared me--I may plummet to the concrete floor below..why couldn't I at least test it out just now when no one was looking?<br />
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I got about 3 feet down the dark polished wood when Mrs. Hobbs caught me with a sharp "Ginger!" I jumped off the bannister so fast and instantly knew I was in for a whipping at the Principal's office, which would <i>inevitably</i> lead to a pre-promised double-whipping when I got home. I was SO screwed at that moment and felt the tears and urine both begin to emerge slowly from fear (whippings at home were NO laughing matter).<br />
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But, very oddly, Mrs. Hobbs then only said, in a very disparaging tone, "You know better than that!" and she WALKED AWAY! I was left alone on the stairs; the hallway was empty. Why did I not get the punishment that every single other kid got?<br />
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I learned then and there--and began to carefully hone my new-found craft--that if you were a good kid in class and teachers liked you, you could do some of the most horrible things and get away scott free. This is something that I took advantage of every single year after that...and many of the things I did would have had "bad" kids expelled, but because I answered all the questions in class, and knew when to shut my mouth, I was able to exact punishments on peers behind everyone's backs. For example: not allowed for anyone else, I was frequently trusted to be alone in classrooms--to the detriment of that person who just "slighted" me on the playground. Their homework was suddenly and inexplicably TOAST.<br />
...but I was a good kid and could NOT have been the culprit... "Sandy, you'll need to be more careful with your homework in the future. You must now _____ (fill in your own punishments for "lost" homework)."<br />
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What do we teach kids by playing favorites? I was allowed to lie about missing homework (that I'd never even begun to complete). I was allowed to cheat on tests and assignments that, had I studied one hour, I'd have passed easily.<br />
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Bright kids learn lessons--many of the lessons are learned without knowing we're teaching them.<br />
We must hold our bright kids accountable for <i>thinking</i>; for applying their learning--and not simply expect a regurgitation of facts--that's no real accomplishment for them.<br />
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I was allowed to cheat myself of an education and to learn/perfect the desire to use dirty, backhanded tricks that now my morals have to fight nearly every single day. We need to re-think education to not only engage the academically slower students, but also those who find their own entertainment; those who struggle to stay engaged in the silliness/irrelevance of schooling. Childrentag:www.classroom20.com,2007-05-28:649749:Topic:230042007-05-28T23:07:18.202ZKevinhttps://www.classroom20.com/profile/kevinh
I've been teaching forever...and have worked with many different children. I grew up on Long Island and teach on Long Island now but, my first year of teaching was in Texas...which, in 1985, still had corporal punishment. Michael was constantly in trouble. Each day, he would come into my fourth grade class, tell me that today was probably his last day, and then try to make that a reality. His foster mom had told him if he got into any more trouble, she was sending him back. So he believed she…
I've been teaching forever...and have worked with many different children. I grew up on Long Island and teach on Long Island now but, my first year of teaching was in Texas...which, in 1985, still had corporal punishment. Michael was constantly in trouble. Each day, he would come into my fourth grade class, tell me that today was probably his last day, and then try to make that a reality. His foster mom had told him if he got into any more trouble, she was sending him back. So he believed she would.<br />
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What I saw in Michael was a funny, clever, frightened little boy. In my class, it was how he acted. But everytime he left my room he would talk back to a teacher or fight with a student and get paddled. I begged him to stop. Finally, one day he got in trouble at lunch and the vice principal made me, who never paddled and didn't believe in corporal punishment, witness his paddling. While this little boy grabbed his ankles and held back his tears, mine flowed freely down my face. When all was done, Michael looked at me in shock. "Please don't do that again," was all I could say. "Bring your problems back to me."<br />
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Michael didn't get in trouble again that year. He came to me with problems, we talked about solutions, and things got better. Michael did get moved out of his foster home, but into a permanent one with a loving foster mother. He moved to a new school and I never saw him again. I can only hope Michael remembered how to solve problems without causing trouble.<br />
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I know I will always remember that there is ALWAYS a better solution than violence. And I know that all children, even the tough ones, deserve kindness and respect. And that they all need someone who cares about them. How sad that sometimes the only person who does is their teacher. Tyrannosaurus in the Windowtag:www.classroom20.com,2007-05-28:649749:Topic:228642007-05-28T03:26:01.937ZKevinhttps://www.classroom20.com/profile/kevinh
(This story comes from Richard P. Feynman's <i>The Pleasure of Finding Things Out</i> published by Perseus Books, Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1999. Feynman was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1965. See this <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feynman">Wikipedia article</a> for more about his life and work.)<br />
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We had the <i>Encyclopaedia Britannica</i> at home and even when I was a small boy [my father] used to sit me on his lap and read to me from the <i>Encyclopaedia Britannica</i>,…
(This story comes from Richard P. Feynman's <i>The Pleasure of Finding Things Out</i> published by Perseus Books, Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1999. Feynman was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1965. See this <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feynman">Wikipedia article</a> for more about his life and work.)<br />
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We had the <i>Encyclopaedia Britannica</i> at home and even when I was a small boy [my father] used to sit me on his lap and read to me from the <i>Encyclopaedia Britannica</i>, and we would read, say, about dinosaurs and maybe it would be talking about the brontosaurus or something, of the tyrannosaurus rex, and it would say something like, "This thing is twenty-five feet high and the head is six feet across," you see, and so he'd stop all this and say, "Let's see what that means. That would mean that if he stood in our front yard he would be high enough to put his head through the window but not quite because the head is a little bit too wide and it would break the window as it came by."<br />
Everything we'd read would be translated as best we could into some reality and so I learned to do that--everything that I read I try to figure out what it really means, what it's really saying by translating and so (LAUGHS) I used to read the <i>Encyclopedia</i> when I was a boy but with translation, you see, so it was very exciting and interesting to think there were animals of such magnitude--I wasn't frightened that there would be one coming in my window as a consequence of this, I don't think, but I thought that it was very, very interesting, that they all died out and at that time nobody knew why.<br />
We used to go to the Catskill Mountains. We lived in New York and the Catskill Mountains was the place where people went in the summer; and the fathers--there was a big group of people there but the fathers would all go back to New York to work during the week and only come back on the weekends. When my father came he would take me for walks in the woods and tell me various interesting things that were going on in the woods--which I'll explain in a minute--but the other mothers seeing this, of course, thought this was wonderful and that the other fathers should take their sons for walks, and they tried to work on them but they didn't get anywhere at first and they wanted my father to take all the kids, but he didn't want to because he had a special relationship with me--we had a personal thing together--so it ended up that the other fathers had to take their children for walks the next weekend, and the next Monday when they were all back to work, all the kids were playing in the field and one kid said to me, "See that bird, what kind of a bird is that?" And I said, "I haven't the slightest idea what kind of a bird it is." He says, "It's a brown throated thrush," or something, "Your father doesn't tell you anything." But it was the opposite: my father <i>had</i> taught me. Looking at a bird he says, "Do you know what that bird is? It's a brown throated thrush; but in Portuguese it's a . . . in Italian a . . . ," he says "in Chinese it's a . . . , in Japanese a . . . ," etcetera. "Now," he says, "you know in all the languages you want to know what the name of that bird is and when you've finished with all that," he says, "you'll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird. You only know about humans in different places and what they call the bird. Now," he says, "let's look at the bird."<br />
He had taught me to notice things and one day when I was playing with what we call an express wagon, which is a little wagon which has a railing around it for children to play with that they can pull around. It had a ball in it--I remember this--it had a ball in it, and I pulled the wagon and I noticed something about the way the ball moved, so I went to my father and I said, "Say, Pop, I noticed something: When I pull the wagon the ball rolls to the back of the wagon, and when I'm pulling it along and I suddenly stop, the ball rolls to the front of the wagon," and I says,"why is that?" And he said, "That nobody knows," he said. "The general principle is that things that are moving try to keep on moving and things that are standing still tend to stand still unless you push on them hard." And he says, "This tendency is called inertia but nobody knows why it's true." Now that's a deep understanding--he doesn't give me a name, he knew the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something, which I learnt very early. He went on to say, "If you look close you'll find the ball does not rush to the back of the wagon, but it's the back of the wagon that you're pulling against the ball; that the ball stands still or as a matter of fact from the friction starts to move forward really and doesn't move back." So I ran back to the little wagon and set the ball up again and pulled the wagon from under it and looking sideways and seeing indeed he was right--the ball never moved backwards in the wagon when I pulled the wagon forward. It moved backward relative to the wagon, but relative to the sidewalk it was moved forward a little bit, it's just [that] the wagon caught up with it. So that's the way I was educated by my father, with those kinds of examples and discussions, no pressure, just lovely interesting discussions.