Soapbox: The Way I see Things

I couldn’t resist sharing this.

The school psychologist, social worker and I team up to lead a social group called self-science. It’s sort of like a cross between character ed and gifted ed. The group explores what it means (and doesn’t mean) to be a smart kid, and how to navigate some of the speedbumps that come along.

On the agenda for last week: Perfectionism. It’s good to want to BE good. It’s good to want to win, or to be the best. They are positive motivators, which help us in what several in the field call “The Pursuit of Excellence.” The trick is in recognizing when the pursuit of excellence works its way into perfectionism. What could we gather as a group? Perfectionism starts when bad or negative things happen as a result of our pursuit for excellence. Maybe other things don’t get done. Maybe we’re unkind to people around us. Maybe we tell ourselves mean things.

Further down in the discussion, then, was how we can use positive self-talk to help ourselves out. That’s when some magic happened. As a group, we were able to come up with this continuum for completing tasks. Grown-ups, take note. You will see yourselves in this continuum. I know I do.

PERFECTION – truly, impossible to achieve. Nobody gets here. Our brains know that (even if our hearts don’t sometimes).

OUR BEST – isn’t this what everyone tells us to strive for? Isn’t this what our teachers, parents and peers ask of us? But c’mon. Can we really expect this of ourselves EVERY single time? On EVERY single spelling assignment? And is EVERY single meal I cook for my family my BEST? No. That’s when we need to give ourselves permission to settle for

A JOB WELL-DONE – yes, we know what “our best” is. But it’s not always realistic. Let us be satisfied with something that reflects our efforts, but acknowledge that we occasionally have better things we want to do with our time. Like play. And read. And sleep.

A JOB DONE – sometimes, we make things more difficult than they need to be. Yes, creativity is wonderful. Yes, it can be interesting to make tasks more complex. But there are times when it just makes sense to get through it and get the task over with.

A JOB DONE WITHOUT EFFORT, SKILL, or TIME – I loved that the fifth graders game up with those criteria. Time, effort, and skill. Because really, aren’t these the standards by which we should judge our work?

A JOB NOT DONE – just as there is one end of the continuum, so must there be the opposite end. What we haven’t gotten to is how perfectionism can lead us to this end. Funny, isn’t it, how our pursuit of the highest level of task performance can create an obstacle so big it leads to the lowest level. That’s going to take some more thought.

 

Our lunch session was one of those days that left me once again completely amazed by the insight and depth my students bring to the table. Once again, I marveled at how much I can learn from a bunch of 10-year olds. Once again, I am excited to see where these conversations go, and which new discoveries await.

So there were many of you who read my earlier post, and you’ve asked me (or may have been wondering) how it’s going. What’s the latest?

Have things changed? Not really.

Am I happy with the way some things are? No, but it’s the way some things are.

Do I leave school happy each day? No, but I really do wish I did.

Sigh. Can good possibly come in any of this?

Right now I know that my career, my life, is at a crossroads. It’s all about choices.

I can continue to feel myself pulled down the path toward cynicism and burnout. I can bring others with me into negativity, if I so choose. But I can’t. I won’t allow myself to change who and what I am.

Another option? I can close my door, pull myself inward and protect the remaining optimism and idealism I have. Believe me, it’s incredibly tempting. But I can’t. I can’t cut myself off, stand back and expect things to heal.

Or?

I can try to move on.

I can stand in the hallway as the students come in, then greet them with smiles, hugs, and high-fives.

I can offer to teach my colleagues a new skill with Google apps.

I can play math games with the second-grade teachers.

I can set up a message board outside my room so kids can recommend books to me.

I can take student self-assessment in a new direction, one that I’m REALLY proud of (and will post about soon).

There you have it. It’s where I am, and it’s how things are. The problems and the pressures haven’t gone away. At the same time, I talk to students and parents all the time about how challenge presents us with a chance to grow. Why shouldn’t I be different, then? I’m oddly hopeful that this challenge may be a time of struggle, but in the end it will be my opportunity to thrive.

Don’t ask me how I’ll get there. I’m not quite sure.

In the meantime, I’ll continue as I did today, listening to my eight-year-olds discussing literary themes from Shel Silverstein’s “Missing Piece Meets the Big O.” Two of the themes they chose were change and transformation, and I can hear them debating the difference between the two. (Yeah, that’s right. They’re eight. Years. Old.)

The Missing Piece (just a triangle) sits alone looking for someone to be a part of, so that it can roll. It finds all sorts of characters and tries all sorts of gimmicks and tricks to get someone to pick him up, but nothing really works.

Along comes the Big O (a circle), and the missing piece wants to roll with it. The Big O says it’s already whole; perhaps the piece could roll by itself. Roll by itself!? But a missing piece is just a triangle, with sharp corners!

The Big O’s response? “Corners wear off and shapes change.”

Change. Transformation.

Lift, pull, flop…it began to move forward…Lift, pull, flop…and soon its edges began to wear off…Liftpullflop, liftpullflop, liftpullflop…

Change.

Transformation.

Eraser shavings covering the carpet

My desk, littered with student work

A student (the same one telling me two weeks ago that she was “bad at math”) asking for more math homework — pretty please?

…complete with smiling faces and all. So where does that put me now?

Once again, I am re-energized by the eager young kids in front of me. I stood today out on the playground and again in the hallway as the students entered school today. The mood was positively electric and completely contagious. Maybe it was my breakfast coming back to haunt me, but I could swear my idealism was bubbling up inside me again.

I sat in a brief staff meeting and looked around at the faces of the teachers around me. People who had spent the past week working their tails off to get ready for Day One. People who (just like me) see every kid coming through that door as somebody’s child. People who share the same excitements and the same frustrations that I do. Colleagues.

Yes, the politics are still at play, standing expectantly over my shoulder. Yes, there are a thousand and one mini-crises that pop up each day. But today, thankfully, some of the resilience I’ve been seeking for so long has once again returned.

Tomorrow my first crop of students comes. I think they’ll be in my downstairs room, as opposed to the upstairs room I was just told I’m moving into. My desk isn’t in the room we’ll be in. There’s nothing on the walls. Just about all of my stuff is still in boxes.

But mark my words. Magic will happen.

Okay, so usually? Each August? When you ask me about the start of school? I start getting goosebumps. Literally. Just get me started talking about new school supplies, about seeing happy faces that first day of school, of going back to that wonderful structure of learning rules and routines, of thinking about the incredible sense of possibility that a new year holds, of – – well, you get the idea.

This year? Well, I’m trying. I really am.

What makes it so different?

I have to confess that last year was rough. Not the kids. They’re never the problem. They’re the reason I get out of bed each day, and I tell them so regularly. Is it the parents, then? Naw. I so enjoy having the shared experience of knowing that wonderful person that is their child that even the speedbumps are manageable. And my colleagues are an incredibly dedicated group of professionals with a heartfelt desire to do well by our kids.

It’s everything else. The politics, the issues, questions about direction and priorities and leadership and change. Not to mention major construction.

I’ve mentioned before that in teaching (as in much of life), what I count on most is my sense of idealism. By this past June, it was nearly beaten out of me. I could physically feel my resilience draining away as I entered the building and roamed the halls. I hated that. I hate writing it even now. And I hate that it’s true.

More than anything, I was hoping that this summer could be a true break, where I could breathe, focus, and find my center again. I passed on a multitude of opportunities: workshops, classes, social get-togethers. There were a few meetings and classes here and there, including a math class taught with my math idol from the junior high. (THAT was a rush.)

I was hoping that I could look August in the eye and feel the same sense of romance that I have in previous years. Honestly, that’s not the feeling that I have right now.

Right now, I’m hoping that starting to set up my classroom tomorrow is going to get my blood pumping. Maybe taking the time to sort through boxes, to see new supplies arrive for the year, to dwell on some of the possibilities ahead. Maybe that will do it for me.

If not, I know that next Tuesday there will be hundreds of smiling, tan, eager-to-learn faces coming to greet me and the rest of my colleagues. I know that no matter how heavy I feel my burden is, I can count on those amazing people to pull me through. And they will.

And I’m hoping by the end of the year, I’ll still be a teacher who teaches with her door open. Who still goes into the staff lounge for lunch. Who still blogs about the excitement and adventure of teaching.

Who still gets goosebumps thinking about new crayons.

So THIS would be why I didn’t have kids come down to my room today:

Even though the water itself was gone within a couple of hours, I was not sure whether or not I would make it back into my classroom to TEACH. I’m still not sure. So, I tried to grab whatever I might need for teaching for the rest of the week:

And what have I learned from this experience?

-I can think (and move!) really fast when I need to.

-It’s easy to have a decent attitude about these things in the wake of what’s going on in Alabama and Missouri.

-I have amazing colleagues. From my principal, who was first to arrive at the scene, kick off her heels and start hauling stuff, to the custodians from all over the district who swarmed in to take care of the flood, to the colleagues who offered help, kind words, and shoes, I am one lucky gal.

Actually, if you had asked me at about 7:30 this morning, I couldn’t have told you. I was tired. Crabby. Feeling overworked, overweight, over-scheduled, and under-appreciated. In need of that last hug from my boys, hoping that extra squeeze could set me on the right path for the day. Close, but not quite.

On to a meeting. I think everyone else there had the same Crab Factor (it’s a technical term) as I did. Left with a cup of hot cocoa and a desire to go hide.

OK…before I go on, I have to say that you mathophiles out there will totally get this activity and maybe even want to try this out. You mathophobes out there…well, I promise there’s good stuff by the time you get to the end.

I love to play the calculator game with kids. It’s simple to learn, but oh so rich. (For those of you wanting to use this activity, I’ve typed up instructions and variations below.)

So that was my lesson plan with fifth grade today. To let them see the Great Unfolding of the Calculator Game. Of course they’ve played it before. But they didn’t know what it’s really ABOUT. And today I was not only going to teach them, I was going to give them time to practice these feats of superhuman intelligence.

My secret number was 120. And what did they pick? 150. And what did the calculator show? 1.25.

I was going to let them play the game out. I was going to let them just guess as they had been. I was going to move on with my lesson as planned. But my mouth worked faster than my brain. I told them that if they worked at it, they could get the secret number on the second guess – spot on.

You think the kids were going to steer away from a challenge like that, or hijack my lesson for the next thirty minutes? You guessed it.

It was interesting. Two children clearly had the concept and were trying to explain that the answer was 120. They were fighting an uphill battle against the kids who still were developing their ideas of number and percent, who felt that the group should guess 125. Believe you me, I learned a LOT about their understandings and misconceptions. Conversation went something like this:

“The number has to be 120 because 1.25 is 1/4 above the number. There are 4 30’s in 120 and if you add 30 to it it’s 150.”

“It’s 125 because 25 above the number is 150.”

“If it were 125, the calculator would read 1.2 when we put 150 in because 25 is 1/5 of 125.”

…and on and on. I reminded them that they could work on showing their thinking with a mathematical representation. Somehow, only those two students could figure out a way to mathematically show their thinking. They came up and showed their work: 25%=30, 50%=60, 75%=90, 100%=120, 125%=150.

The lightbulb went on. It was unanimous. All guessed 120. And all breathed a sigh of relief to know that they did indeed get the secret number – spot on.

Yes, I loved that they got the right answer. But what I really loved? Graduating from one level of listening to another. In the space of this conversation, students did away with the I’m-looking-at-you-and-demonstrating-listening-behaviors-but-really-not-caring-very-much habits of listening. So what did they do?

They listened and spoke with the goal of understanding and being understood. They asked each other questions, and forced people to explain further when they didn’t follow their reasoning. They discovered how tough that was – on both sides.

So why did I get up today? To experience the same joy that they do in learning. To remember the pride of making a discovery. To see what magic sometimes happens when lessons don’t go according to plan.

<<how to play the calculator game>>

Take a simple calculator. Secretly tap in a number, divide it by itself and press “=.” The display will read 1. Your opponent will then guess numbers. Tap in the number and press “=.” If the number’s too big, the display will show larger than 1. Too small, and it’s less than 1. Keep guessing numbers until the calculator displays 1. That’s how you know you’ve found the secret number!

Kick-it-up 1: Make a table of guesses and displays so they can track their thinking. (Good for learning greater than/less than)

Kick-it-up 2: Let them play each other. Even primary kids love this activity!

Kick-it-up 3: Let them play each other, but make them round to the nearest hundredth.

Kick-it-up to notches unknown: Do your kids know anything about fractions? Decimals? Percents? That’s what this game is really about. Does that calculator show 0.5? Then your guess is 50% of the secret number. Kids think I am TOTALLY whacked when I tell them I can deduce their number in 2 guesses (3 on a bad day). And then I prove it. Booyah!

So…how do I exactly know that I’m working with gifted kids? Well, let’s start with the kindergarten and first-grade students I’m working with, shall we? (For the uninitiated, that puts them at ages 6 and 7.) I gave them the following premise: “If you could spend all day studying about anything you wanted, what would you most want to learn more about?” Here is a sampling of responses:

Social studies (people)

How we can help endangered animals

History of the world

Geography

5 least busy airports in the world (followed by a list of them)

Presidents

Mummies

Tuberculosis

Pertussis

History (BC)

So yeah. It probably goes without saying that this group will keep my hands full.

P.S. For those of you who have been following the thread about how I’ve changed my grading practices, stay tuned. It’s been going well! I promise to write an update. Pinky swear, even.

Here I am, grading the latest round of tests. This time, it’s geometry. Last time, it was decimal multiplication and division, and I don’t know who wanted to cry more – the kids or me.

Those of you who read of my dream know I told myself that I’d put together a checklist (buzz-speakophiles will call it a “rubric”) highlighting the learning targets, then judge how far students were towards mastering those targets. Perhaps it would be easier for me to grade (read: I can sleep at night), and it would be better for the students.

If you’re curious how it looks

Drum roll please? Now, I’m a numbers person. Don’t get me wrong. I LOVE numbers, and the ability to quantify a construct. But using this checklist to grade, rather than assign point values on each question, was about 500 times easier (oops! there I go, quantifying again).

Why?

For starters, just about anything you ask someone to do in mathematics requires more than one skill at a time. I have to say it’s already a habit of mine to conduct error analysis on just about everything my kids turn in to me. Did they make a math fact error? Are they missing a key part of the procedure? Did they just not read the stinking directions? I also encourage kids to keep an eye on their work so they can learn that same analysis.

Having this checklist allowed me to treat one problem as though it truly required more than one skill set. Take the first problem: “Identify two parallel lines or line segments.” If a kid missed the first problem, maybe it was because they didn’t properly notate lines. Maybe it was because the lines they wrote down weren’t actually parallel. I had kids miss for either reason. For both, I was able to accurately reflect where their skills were.

I found that it was far easier to decide if a student should be marked “developing” or “got it!” than to decide on a point value for a set of problems. For me, it feels like I’m establishing the difference between being evaluative and being constructive. For me, it feels like I am seeing kids for their strengths and needs. Correction: I’ve always intuitively done that. I guess now it feels like I’m putting my money where my mouth is.

What started to become difficult was to follow one reader’s challenge to also quantify a score. I’m still working on that. My first thought is to connect it to the checklist. I could also go by my standard test-scoring procedure.

What I want most is to have a student look at a graded assignment and feel that it’s an accurate reflection of the time, effort, and heart that they put in.

Tomorrow’s the big reveal. I’ll be bringing these to the kids for their responses. Tune in tomorrow, kids!