More Coffee, Please

One of these summers, I’m going to have a vacation the way that people who aren’t teachers think teachers enjoy.

But it isn’t this one.

Upward Bound first, since it is the primary reason that I have the time to type right now and not teach. At this moment (as best I can tell from their Twitter accounts) the students are arriving back from Boston, from Maine, from Connecticut, from three days of visiting colleges, seeing things that many have never seen before, and generally having their horizons opened.

If Upward Bound did only this, it would be counted a good thing. Obviously, it does a great deal more.

It’s when parents arrive and take a few classes that we—and they—have a chance to see what we’re doing and why it’s so valuable. I’m teaching two classes this summer—an SAT prep course and Computer Design. The latter is supposed to be about PhotoShop (and one reason I finagled a WACOM tablet…) but in the interest of preparing kids for the world they’re going to live in, it’s more about using digital technologies to help “own the world.”

We think that kids know computers better than we do. They don’t.¹ They need as much coaching and as much help with that as any other skill, and if they have an advantage, it’s that they see so much more clearly than we do what they can use it for. And if they don’t, then that’s where we can help them—help them to come off the collective bender of television, and do something real with their time and energy.

What’s fun is having the parents say, “Why didn’t anyone tell me that when I was a kid?”

It’s even more interesting when students are told they’re going to be taught to cheat on the SAT. After all, who wouldn’t want to? So when they hear they won’t need to do any math, and that their score will go up—well, that’s just a fun class.

What’s truly enjoyable about both, however, is that they’re very much outside of my comfort zone. Heck, I’m trying to teach math, which, although valuable, is not something I’m terribly skilled at.

Which is awesome. I’m a teacher, and that pretty much means that I’m the number one learner in the room. My kids spend a good chunk of time teaching me, teaching themselves, and teaching each other—and they remember it because of that. I’m not sure when calling a kid to the board and making them teach the class fell out of favor, but I sure do like doing it now—and so do they. They’re more active, they learn it better, and it’s easier for me to be the coach from the back of the room than it is if I’m up there.

So it’s been a good summer. But that isn’t it.

Teachers don’t meet enough. Ideally, there would be time for common planning and meeting during the school day, and every week—and not just for thirty minutes after school once a month. I like short meetings too, but we need to spend some time as a faculty talking about the things that need to be done, and if that runs until 3:50 a few times—well, that’s okay. I won’t like it, but it *is* my job.

But summer does provide more time to meet, and people have been doing so. I couldn’t be there (that whole Upward Bound thing above…) but I read the minutes, and the English department is really starting to move and shake. Having a “what worked/what didn’t” meeting at the end of the year ought to be pretty obvious, but it hasn’t been, and let’s awesome to see it take place. In addition to tightening up curriculum (so we’re not teaching books, we’re teaching skills, and we’re teaching things *about* books, which is a much different thing!) there were a number of good suggestions about the senior project.

Which was the focus of another set of meetings: How do we make this thing that we do serious and rigorous enough that it actually does what its intended to do? The senior project is not about teaching English skills (and the only reason why it’s in the English department is because it’s the only class required all four years) it’s about teaching the skills that should be in all classes—research, organization, presentation, and so many others. It’s a school responsibility, and it should—and increasingly is—viewed that way. Some very strong and some very amazing suggestions have been suggested by others outside of the department, and the more ownership shared, the better all our kids will be able to do.

So, in any case, though the conversations are still on-going, things will be better. That’s a very nice thing to be able to say—that there will be firm and clear improvements from one year to the next, and that the students will benefit from them.

When they’re not complaining about the higher standards, of course.

Speaking of SAT Prep…

One of the marks of any good organization is its ability to make change, the ability to quickly adapt to a world that doesn’t often provide much time. that’s pretty much the way I found myself teaching an SAT Prep course after school—at least one, maybe more, four week sessions for students who are going to be wasting four hours of their life on the SAT.

I hate the SAT about as much as the students do, which means I enjoy cheating. The fact that it’s a test that functions only to determine how well a student can take a test means it can be beat—it doesn’t really measure how well a student knows the content. Giving students ways around the test, giving them access to the same sort of tips and techniques wealthier and more privileged students take for granted—now that’s just cool.

So the fact we managed to take an idea floating around the English Chair’s brain, get it to the principal, and make it happen in about four hours via email—that speaks to me of a very good thing. I’m going to be busier than a one-armed coat-hanger, but that’s fine—I need to run around.

Monadnock will be starting advisories, which is going to be one of the best things we could be doing to help our kids. It’s a space that students can not only get help they need in specific skills and areas of their lives, but it’s also a place to form relationships that will last longer than a 180 day school year.

Of course, there are going to be some who are not comfortable with the advisories—they’re well outside the role of “math teacher” or “Spanish teacher” or “whatever” teacher that we’re used to—and into the slightly more nebulous realm of “teacher.” But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it, and though it will take time for people to grow comfortable with the process, we should most definitely be trying to do so.

Speaking of meetings, Erik Skarsten and Dane Badders are going to be having an amazing ecology class, if my thirty seconds with them both at Brewbakers was any indication. I’m jealous—it’s going to be an amazing class, and the work they’re doing with GIS is going to be really neat.

Oh, and it ties very well with the kind of thinking and working that the senior project ought to be invoking, as well.

1 They certainly don’t know them better than I do… ↺

Gregarious

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