Nitty-Gritty

Grit. It's a word that is thrown around quite often in the world of education. It's the word of the moment. Despite its recent pop culture explosion, grit is a concept I buy into wholeheartedly. Here's why.

Grit is the single most predictive factor of success, as told by Angela Duckworth and her research with the University of Pennsylvania. Despite this, Grit is something typically overlooked in the American public school system.  From what I've observed, the bulk of what we value as educators, is "accuracy, correctness." This mindset not only shortchanges students, but also reduces the educational process. Students who frequently get the answers right are often missing this essential life skill. There will be a time when these students don't know the answer and don't know how to find it.

I've often heard this tale in Algebra 1. Students sailed through elementary and middle school math with A's, then by midyear in Algebra 1, they are lost. They don't know how to study for math, because they never had to. Frequently, this snowballs into lower math grades, feelings of frustration,  and most significantly, a lack of willingness to put in the time and effort needed to learn the material.  

"The other behavior that seems to explain why grit is a marker of future success is deliberate practice. Deliberate practice is the sort of practice experts to do improve...In the National Spelling Bee, for example, gritty finalists log more hours of deliberate practice, and this time uniquely predicts final ranking whereas less effortful and more pleasurable forms of practice do not" (Duckworth). It is obvious, for long-term goals which demand a continued practice and attention to skill, grittier individuals will exceed their peers. The question becomes, how do we instill grit in our students? Is it inborn or is it something that can be cultivated over time? In my classroom, there are small adjustments I've made in an effort to promote grit. 

First, an assignment is never truly considered "done." I put a grade in the system, return work to my classes, but students can revise and rewrite to their hearts' content.  I see no problem with allowing a student multiple opportunities to improve his/her work. As long as this continued effort doesn't interfere with the class period at hand, there are no problems. Second, in a question and answer session, I try not to move on when I hear the answer I want;  I probe, inquire further, and encourage students to challenge each other's thoughts.  There is often a "right answer," but why not push the student to think further?  The word "elaborate" works wonders in a class discussion. Lastly, a major project that requires precision and time is a unique approach to promoting grit. Last year, my students completed a large mural based on the work of Sol Lewitt.  Although it was "easy" work, it was evident that most honors students did not have the grit to master the product. They were impatient, hasty, and made simple mistakes because of their lack of sustained effort and precision. Large-scale projects like this are messy and ambitious to implement and manage, but the student perspective that can be gained is unparalleled. In any classroom, designing assignments that require slow work and precision is a great way to harness grit.

The willingness to struggle through a seemingly impossible task is not only an academic skill, it is a life skill. Character is built in moments of frustration, anger, and failure...moments which often evade our brightest students until they reach high school, or for some, college. It's not to say that there is no merit in positive reinforcement, there absolutely is, but the stamina that comes from sustained effort and the momentum it builds has a decisively more substantial impact on a student's life. Motivation is often what eludes so many of our students and promoting gritty activities can help build true, intrinsic motivation which lasts and extends beyond the classroom walls. Whether through a job application process, a difficult time with family, or a time-consuming project, grit makes navigating demanding tasks much easier. 

The idea may seem trendy, but the heart of this dogma is at the core of American culture. As LaBoeuf said in True Grit, "You'll find I go ahead with what I start."

"The Duckworth Lab." Research Statement. University of Pennsylvania, n.d. Web. 12 Dec. 2014.

"True Grit" (1969). IMDb. IMDb.com, n.d. Web. 12 Dec. 2014.

"Equal" Doesn't Equal Fair

A mounting frustration for any teacher is a concern for failing students.  "He didn't complete this, so he got an F." "She didn't turn in the last project, so it's a zero."  It seems very logical, a student who fails to do the work, gets a zero, fails the assignment, and with enough zeroes will fail the marking period or the year.

In my personal experience, I never understood why "not completing an assignment" was an acceptable reason to fail a child.  Of course, in theory, I understand it very well-there was something assigned, he or she didn't do it, so he/she receives a zero.  In practice, though, it is not that simple.  There are a plethora of reasons why a student may fail to complete an assignment.  Sometimes, those reasons deserve an F, such as laziness, insubordination, or pure apathy (although, even these are often not the fault of the child).  Other times, however, there is an abusive parent at home, a lack of internet access, or a myriad of other issues that lead to that zero.  As teachers, a core issue we face is dissecting those reasons.

First, due to confidentiality laws, we are not always privy to personal information about a student.  Second, even if we are, we have to decode whether a student is exaggerating, lying, or is too shy to tell us the real story.  There is a great deal of detective work that goes into figuring out why a student failed to complete an assignment.  There is no a-ha moment to this paragraph, just an honest explication of a challenge that teachers face everyday.

Next, we have the students who do the assignment, but fail it. Either they were inaccurate, got things wrong, wrote poorly, or have some other deficiency which in our minds warrants an F.  In speaking with another teacher recently, I asked why a student had a D, his response was, "he failed the last two quizzes."  In my mind, I thought, "Okay, he failed.  If that content was important enough for you to quiz him on, shouldn't you insist that retakes it, or completes another assignment showing that he has some knowledge of what you felt was quiz-worthy?"  I don't mean to say I offer extensions, retakes, and alternate assignments everyday, however on major grade-determining assignments, it seems that if the content or skill is TRULY important, you would want the student to master it, despite what may be "equal" or what options the other students received.

It seems that we get caught up in "equity."  There is no equity in education, and there never will be, what we should be aiming for is what's fair.  Fair is equitable with Just, as the above cartoon illustrates. The world is a harsh place, that does not care about someone's circumstances, however, school is not the real world.  I do believe a twelfth grader should be held to a standard of equality more rigorous than say, a ninth grader.  What may be fair for "Sue" who has a ride to and from school, a nice house, internet access, and doesn't worry about from where her next meal is coming, probably isn't fair for "Jane" who is between two residences, has social anxiety issues due to her parents' divorce, and walks herself to and from school.  It's obvious that in the real world, these circumstances become irrelevant, but for a fourteen year old, they shouldn't be.  Equal doesn't equal fair.  

This brings me to the age old debate, does an F mean "incompetent in this skill or content, unable to master the work" or does it mean "failure to be compliant?"  The negative connotations work both ways; we have students who are VERY skilled, but refuse to do the work, so they receive F's.  On the other hand, we have students who can get by, but truly have not mastered the skills, so they pass.  Therefore, in looking at a gradebook, you frequently can be mislead.  The students with the A's are not always the smartest, of course, sometimes they are, in fact I would say usually they are, but almost every class has some exception.  Similarly, all the students who fail aren't "below level."  In an English class, where 20/25 students are reading below a 9th grade level and have not mastered the skills, one would assume they should fail.  Seems fair.  On the other hand, if they try, put in effort, and improve, then maybe they should pass.

These are my nagging thoughts day in and day out.  Grades and numbers fail to capture the student's whole story.  The story of an academic year is complex: a student who begins with an F, and ends the year with an A, will end up with a C on his or her report card.  A student who went from an A to an F, will end up with that same grade.  It essentially tells us nothing about the student's story.  The grades are equal, but they are not fair.

There's no major point to be made, except that grades and "equality" are serving us poorly in today's schools.  Data can make extraordinary things possible, but still fails to make "possible" a reality for many students. 

Bringing Weapons to School

In so many of the movies that I’ve watched over the past 25 years, a common trope is apparent.  Anytime there is some new technology or innovation introduced into our society, it is almost always co-opted by some form of bureaucracy, and in most cases, weaponized.

The movie that really drove this point home for me as a child was “Short Circuit,” a quintessential 80’s flick starring Steve Guttenberg, Ally Sheedy, and of course, the sarcastic robot, Johnny Number 5.  As anyone my age will tell you, the idea of having a robot like Johnny 5 around would have been, in the parlance of our time, radical.  This was an amazing technology, an artificial intelligence capable of independent thought, with a thirst for knowledge, and a desire for fun as well as social justice.
The main crux of the film was that Johnny and his creators were trying to save him from being turned into a mindless killing machine.  Of course they succeed, and evil is punished accordingly.
A more recent and, in retrospect, way cooler, example of this is the plotline in the latest installment of the Batman franchise, “The Dark Knight Returns”.  At one point in the film we learn that Bruce Wayne and the R&D wing of his company have constructed an experimental energy reactor capable of delivering free power to all of Gotham (read, NYC).  The only catch is that he refuses to turn it on, because he is afraid that the introduction of the technology will call for, wait for it, a desire from others to turn it into a weapon.
Eventually, it IS turned on, subsequently weaponized, and used as a bludgeon to bring the city to its knees.  Batman’s only solution is to drag it out to sea, where it can explode without hurting anyone.
Over the past few weeks, the hazy details of the State of New Jersey’s plan to enforce the development of Student Growth Objectives (SGO’s), also known by their alter-ego, Student Learning Objectives, have begun to emerge.  As the Instructional Leader in my building, I’ve been tasked with helping the staff through this process.
We are currently developing the Objectives themselves, essentially the skills that educators will target in their classrooms as a way of gauging the progress of their students.
On it’s face, a Student Growth Objective is a great idea.  The concept is that teachers will create assessments that will check a student’s level of understanding of specific concepts multiple times over the course of the year.  The teachers will look at the data that has been collected on each child, and use that information to guide the instruction for EACH INDIVIDUAL CHILD BASED ON THEIR SPECIFIC LEVEL OF NEED.
If you are at all familiar with the blog, you know what a high value I place on Individualized Instruction, and this appears to be a great tool that we can use to start actually altering the types of instruction that are considered acceptable in a 21st Century Classroom.  The more I have gone through the process with the staff in my building, from Math teachers to the In School Suspension teacher, the more I have come to realize how innovative and valuable this exercise has the capacity to become.
But here’s the problem, and isn’t this always the problem?  They want to turn it into a weapon.
The SGO process is tied directly to the state legislation known collectively as EE4NJ (Excellent Educators for NJ), an acronym that begs two initial questions:

1.  By what measure are the educators in NJ, a state that consistently over the last 40 years has been ranked among the top 5 performers in the country, not excellent?

and,

2. How can we strive for excellence when the bill itself substitutes the word ‘for’ with the letter ‘4’ in its own name; did they write it through text message?

All joking aside, the bill calls for the SGO’s to make up 50% of a teacher’s evaluation each year.  While this may not seem problematic, there are many troubling reasons this should not be tied to keeping your job.

The first is that teachers, in order to guarantee that they can keep doing what they love, will be reluctant to make the SGO’s as rigorous as they should, or can, be.  By holding the bar as high as possible, you are potentially shooting yourself in the foot.  

In addition, the student populations in individual schools will now be consistently called into question within that school.  Since the ability to show growth in your students is the measure of success, a teacher with a different classroom make-up compared to his or her colleagues may be at an advantage or disadvantage.  Students with strong work ethics and supportive families will be a hot commodity for teachers.  In some schools, however, the strongest teachers are sometimes syphoned students that struggle in various ways, because of their previous track successes with such students. Unfortunately, a class full of struggling students competing against a more heterogeneous grouping may hurt these high quality teachers.

Finally, those that teach Math or Language Arts are considered teachers of a “Tested Area”.  In addition to their SGO’s, these teachers will have up to 35% of their retention evaluations linked to Standardized Test scores alone.  Aside from keeping potential Math and Language Arts graduates away from those subjects, and the lack of job security linked with pay that they offer, current teachers in those subjects have a distinctly different level of anxiety when compared to their colleagues in the “Non-tested Area’s”.

The culmination of the building-wide anxiety that was created by this law, and its intended effect of essentially ending tenure, brought the tension in our building to the forefront the past three weeks.

And it didn’t have to be this way.  They took a great, innovative idea, and used it to create a cudgel, a weapon.

This is nothing new, the influx of high-stakes testing as an evaluative tool is in and of itself a very similar story.  What we need to ask ourselves as we move forward, not just as educators, but as a society, is what do we truly value in the education of our children.  Do we hope to make them into critically thinking innovators, or simply an army of test-taking, institutionally bullied imitators.

The state has it half right, looking at students as individuals is key to unlocking their potential as students and learners.  The problem is taking that good idea, and using it to intimidate and threaten the very people responsible for creating the type of students we all want to see in our society.

I think back to the way this is handled in the films that I’ve seen.  The only way to stop the potentially damaging weaponization of quality innovations is simple, you have to fight back, and you have to let everyone see you doing it.  If we do it that way, we can retain the value of the innovation, and shame those who would use it inappropriately into the background.  That, or we’re going to need a talking robot or Batman to save everyone.

I think I’m more comfortable relying on us.

Fast Food Education Nation

“Education is being strangled persistently by the culture of standardized testing.  The irony is that these tests are not raising standards except in some very particular areas and at the expense of most of what really matters in education.

    To get a perspective on this, compare the processes of quality assurance in education with those in an entirely different field- catering.  In the restaurant business, there are two distinct models of quality assurance.  The first is the fast-food model.  In this model, the quality of the food is guaranteed, because it is all standardized.  The fast-food chains specify exactly what should be on the menu in all their outlets.  They specify what should be on the burgers or nuggets, the oil in which they should be fried, the exact bun in which they should be served, how the fries should be made, what should be in the drinks, and exactly how they should be served.  They specify how the room should be decorated and what the staff should wear.  Everything is standardized.  It's often dreadful and bad for you.  Some forms of fast food are contributing to the massive explosion of obesity and diabetes across the world.  But at least the quality is guaranteed.

   The other model of quality assurance in catering is the Michelin guide.  In this model, the guides establish specific criteria for excellence, but they do not say how the particular restaurants should meet these criteria. They don't say what should be on the menu, what the staff should wear, or how the rooms should be decorated.  All of that is at the discretion of the individual restaurant.  The guides simply establish criteria, and it is up to every restaurant to meet them in whatever way they see best.  They are then judged not to some impersonal standard, but by assessments of experts who know what they are looking for and what a great restaurant is actually like.  The result is that every Michelin restaurant is terrific.  And they are all unique and different from each other.

  One of the essential problems for education is that most countries subject their schools to the fast-food model of quality assurance when they should be adopting the Michelin model instead.  The future in education is not in standardizing but in customizing; not in promoting groupthink and "deindividuation" but in cultivating the real depth and dynamism of human abilities of every sort.”

-From “The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything”, by Sir Ken Robinson

I’m thinking about the balancing act that teachers are being forced to play these days, especially the good ones.  It seems we’ve moved into an era where we need to go underground.  The attacks on the profession have created a false accountability that is more political than effective.  Good teachers are forced to whisper about the progressive individualization they employ in their classes, or face possible public scrutiny.  Bad teachers embrace the calls for standardization because it is easier to implement, and is in their eyes, more easily defended.

As the stakes become higher, and pressure is mounted, we see a desire to return to more draconian practices in the classrooms.  The need to pass standardized tests as a district, by its very definition, robs the individual of his or her rights as a learner.  We need more analogies like Robinson’s.  We need to get the information out there that our students DESERVE a personalized education. 

It is not frivolity, it is not a pipe dream, it is not a lofty goal to be attained.  It is their RIGHT. 

Everything we do to posture and squirm around this fundamental truth will only delay the inevitable.  We can change the system to make it work for our students, or we can allow outside forces to declare our regressive system a failure, and shape it to their interests, whatever those may be.  As teachers, I believe that we are the protectors of our students; we got into this to make a difference in their lives.  What better difference could we make than to hand them a system that they deserve?

There is a change coming, and it’s up to us to get in front of it before the cynics among us unintentionally damage it beyond repair.  That greasy burger is not good for you, even though it’s cheap and fast.  Try not to choke on it.

Design Loops and American Idol

Teaching students to be creative is often seen as a difficult thing.  We feel the need as teachers to direct this process as a way of better controlling outcomes so that they are more easily measurable.  We create specific rubrics that tell students how many points will be lost for certain infractions, we create arbitrary rules to guide the types of products that we will be comfortable putting a number grade on.  Not surprisingly, this approach rarely leads to inspired work; rather, it only creates compliance.

I fell into creativity as a result of my perceived isolation as a child.  I was looking for a way to express myself in ways that could communicate my feelings in ways that I seemed unable.  Poetry was something that I learned outside of “school”, and that I did almost exclusively in my “free time”.  It would be anathema to bring what I was doing into a classroom, because it wouldn’t be mine any longer.

After college, I enrolled (read; Lucked Into) an MFA program in Poetry.  The writing workshop was the first time that my art was being judged in authentic ways, by like-minded individuals.  The worth of what I was doing became paramount, and the criticism I received (believe me there was plenty of it) was easy for me to accept, I knew I had work to do.

Courtesy 19 Entertainment, FreeMantleMedia

When I watch television now, and I see the rash of reality shows that deal with talent competitions, I’m often struck by how they represent the opposite of the true creative process.  Shows like American Idol and Project Runway create challenges for the competitors, whether it’s designing Women’s Outerwear using only Twizzlers, or picking the right song to perform on Barry Manilow Week.  The constraints that are placed on the competitors are often arbitrary and strange, and the critiques that are given are usually equally disturbing.  There is a certain amount of anger in the judges, they seem to feel a strong need to put everything into two distinct categories.  The performance or piece is either the best thing they have ever seen/heard, or a complete disaster that requires the shaming of the player.  Putting forth an effort that the judges deem to be poor, almost always results in them becoming seemingly offended at the contestant.

Notice here that I don’t say Artist.  They are players or competitors only.  The irony is that they are competing for a title that is supposed to verify that they are in fact, true artists.  Let us for a few seconds look at the track records of some of these so-called winners.  American Idol, considered the premiere singing competition in the world, has been miserable in its supposed aim, finding talented individuals that will become stars.  In 11 seasons, the show has produced only 3 contestants that have arguable staying power.  Likewise, Project Runway has yet to find mainstream sustainable success for any of its winners.  I would argue that this is because the assessment techniques, and the work products created are not as much a function of an aspiring artist, but simply a compliant show character.

My biggest concern as an educator, and as an artist, is the effect that these shows are having on the perceptions of creativity in our students.  More than anything else, these shows espouse the idea that you can bypass the very important phase of the creative process that requires hard work, refinement, and adequate time for self-reflection needed to become a functioning artist.

Our district is in the process of rolling out a series of “loops” to replace and improve the standard ways of planning that most students have been exposed to over their education.  The loops allow students to enter the process at any point, and to begin to see that the creative process (as all loops lead to creating something, whether tangible or not) is rarely a linear event.

            The loops that we use are currently in development, and are hosted on the high school’s Media Center website.  You can explore the work that Deb Gottsleben and Anne Piascik have done HERE.  In addition to the research loop, John Madden, Instructional Leader at MHS, has developed a series of other loops for other processes, such as an Identity Loop and a Critical Thinking Loop among others.

            The goal here is to begin looking at the reality of being creative, that it is a way of thinking and problem solving, not just arbitrarily jumping through teacher-provided hoops. It requires authenticity, a desire to improve for the sake of improvement, and feedback that is not simply punitive and mean.

            Only when we begin looking at authentic modes of inquiry can we begin to create the problem-solving, creative artists we will need, to begin changing the perception and efficacy of publicly-educated students in this country.

As always, a few questions:

1.     How can we create better environments for “authentic” experiences for students?

2.     What can be done to counteract the onslaught of inputs that tell our kids that taking the risk to be creative is a punishable offense?

3.     How can we more effectively spread the idea of looping in our educational system?

Compliance and Ownership

Image by Humphrey Bolton

Last September, I decided that my class was going to embark on a full-fledged, studio approach to the year.  Students would self-select topics and papers that they would develop over the course of the year, and my role would be to mediate and conference with the students over the course of the year, effectively providing an individualized experience for every child.

            I knew that for many of the students, this would be a sea-change.  There were exiting a class that was far more rigid in it’s methodologies, one that prided whole-class direct instruction and specified intense rubric-based papers for all kids.  I spent the first few weeks laying the groundwork for the class, explaining the importance of being self-motivated, an interested person in our world.  We did a few preliminary papers to illustrate the process, and then began to open everything up.

            My struggling writers took to it immediately.  They found themselves writing more, finding ways to get deeper into their topics, and were proud to share the work that they were creating.  I was proud of myself. I was seeing a change in my struggling students.

            About a month into the second semester, I was walking with one of my students down the hall.  John (we’ll call him) was an average to high-functioning student, who had been rewarded highly for his compliance throughout his school life. 

He turned to me and asked, “Mr. D, this is fun and all, but when are we gonna learn something?”

“What do you mean?” I asked, now very interested in the response.

“Well, last year, we used to have vocab tests and reading quizzes, and we would learn little tricks?”

“Tricks?”

“Yeah, she would show us how to use a thesaurus to…”

“Okay, hold on,” I interrupted. “What have we done this year?”

The conversation went on, and I tried to explain to him how much individual attention he had received to that point in the year.  He conceded that he knew that his writing had improved, and that he had read more on his own that year than he had in the entire year previous.  Despite all of this however, he still couldn’t shake the idea that something was off.

The conversation floored me for a few reasons.  First, I realized that I may have not adequately explained myself to the kids in terms of why we were doing what we were doing.  Secondly, I was shocked that John had been so CONDITIONED to what he considered “school”.

Regardless of what they are exposed to, CHILDREN ARE LEARNING.  We would do well to understand that, and it’s implications.  If we provide students with experiences that are simply a measure of their ability to recall, or to get things done for the sake of doing them, we will create a class of student’s that excel at simply doing what they are told.

John was being given a chance to truly take control of his own learning, and without more help to understand why that was a good thing, he was reverting to the only thing he felt comfortable with: Compliance.

We must teach our students that they need to become comfortable being uncomfortable.  They need to live within the mindset that there are few absolutes, and that being there is ok.  When we narrowly define progress through a curriculum, we narrow our students’ ability to roll with the punches, we destroy their natural ability to be adaptive.

This year, I am spending much more time extolling the rationale for why we are taking a turn away from traditional methods.  My students need to know not only why they deserve to have ownership of their education, but why they should demand it.

A few questions to close as always:

1.                     How can we increase individualized experiences for students in the face of public scrutiny over narrow measures?

2.                     What positive effect will tying student achievement on standardized tests have on best practices in classrooms?

3.                     How can we approach the institutional changes necessary to allow more progressive methodologies across our classrooms?