Vergil’s Coffee

(on having a former teacher asking me what’s been happening in my life since 1984 via Facebook)

Dear Mr. Noble,

And I start that way because what student has the gall to called their teacher by the first name? It just sounds and feels funny, so I’ll simply address you the same way I did in high school: Mr. Noble. (Besides, I think the students that called you by your first name were just being daring. To call your teacher “Dick” is both funny ha-ha and probably the result of some silly dare at the expense of your first name, perhaps).

I think the last time I saw you was at your house and I can’t remember for the life of me who was with me, but I remember it was probably after graduation and before a lot of us heading to the Midwest for college (or, in my case, post-high school education <g>). And I think your wife was there and your daughter (the one whom you proudly told us could say the Pythagorean Theorem by the age of 4). Wait, maybe it was Peter (who later said he had AIDS but I think is in Canada now) who was with me. Anyway, it was a nice visit and I think we made a lot of small talk and if I am correct, you even offered us iced tea and we accepted and sipped it (and why is it when we invite people into our homes do we give them tea or coffee or water? Maybe it’s a carry over from the olden days when traveling meant more).

From then, I sort of lost contact with you. I had heard a few reports of how you might have slightly ignored authority (creative teacher decision) and took some of your students to see Schindler’s List even if it was rated R (content over labels). I didn’t confirm the rumor, but I didn’t think it was that far out of your character. I don’t mean that in a negative sense; in fact, I think that’s one of the things I learned from you.

Remember when we were getting to Chapter 19 in Biology and you prompted us to say the “magic word” when a certain history teacher came in the room in the portable classroom you taught in? Yes, to the book, Chapter 19 was “Human Reproduction” but to our Biology class we gleeful answered your prompt “Class, what are we learning about today?” with a chorus “Sex!” This teacher-student exchange could be wrong on several levels: 1). You did it to possibly get a desired reaction from the unsuspected history teacher that walked in; 2). You were encouraging teenagers to say the word “sex” in public in the 1980s; and, possibly most damaging, 3). We were in a Christian school, weren’t we? And yet, there was so much more that I learned from your pedagogy than making someone a tad embarrassed and that was the power of being human and calling out sacred cows and celebrating things that make a lot of people uncomfortable. Sometimes the purpose of humor is to say the things that are unspoken in public so that we can simply get over ourselves.

And I’m not sure how he pulled this off, but I can say that Todd was a good “tally man” in Algebra II. Early in the semester you had made a mistake in a computation on the board and someone called you on it. Your response (and perhaps this is where the Christian school comes in) was that Jesus said that we need to forgive one another 70 times 7 (of which we all calculated to be 490). And we took it literally as most Christian folk take things in the Bible and Todd kept a running count of your mistakes, miscues and blunders (even if you corrected them immediately) until the end of the semester. When we reached 489 we decided as a class to have a celebration the following day and when you hit 490 the next day, we celebrated your mistakes with cake, ice cream, pop and other sweet stuff.

Probably what confused me the most about you was the Timothy group (I think that’s what you called them) where a few of us got a special invitation to meet as a group off campus to talk and have a look at the book of Timothy. It was a bit different of a group than I was used to and I really can’t remember any of the conversations or even topics that we discussed. I think I remember feeling like this was something special and that I was invited to be a part of it and I sometimes wonder why I was invited. For me, it was one of the few times that a teacher actually wanted to do non-school stuff outside of school. This wasn’t a school-sponsored club or even; it was something that you did for us and it was out of the ordinary.

Granted you did pick me up in Sebastopol every morning for a year or two. I would hop on the county bus at 6:20 a.m. in Monte Rio and get off by that corner where you would swing by in your … what kind of car was it? It had fins and was some shade of gold or silver or both. I think you also tried to explain why a manual transmission was better overall than an automatic one (it had three on the tree didn’t it?) And you are correct: I was a mooch for getting rides to places. I don’t think I every gave you gas money for the trip and perhaps you’d like to prorate your pay back in today’s gas prices, eh?

My oldest son, Evan, turned 11 Friday and he had two of his friends over for a slumber party thing.

Colin, the 7-year old, did his part in dressing up as a ninja/Darth Vader/bad guy from Meet the Robinsons. Lori is still a tad sore from last week’s running in the Cleveland Marathon…I got to help pace her to a new personal best of 4:44. (And, btw, this is the second year we’ve run a marathon on our anniversary and I wouldn’t exactly recommend that type of a weekend when you get a chance to get away from the kids). We’ve been married for 18 years, Lori and I, and we’ve been living in Goshen, Indiana for 12 years. She’s a SLP and works on private contract through the state with the 0-3 year old population. She’s the first person I met that really read a lot of books and had quick wit (though I’m proud to say that I beat her every time in Scrabble).

I am teacher, Mr. Noble, and though I choose English as my subject, some of the teacher persona comes from my observations in that portable classroom in that little school in Santa Rosa, California. I tried for a mathematics endorsement through college correspondence courses, but my heart wasn’t in it and I loved words more (though, I think they’re all symbols–math and English–and it’s all about language anyways, eh?). My students like appreciate respect me and have creative ways of showing it–and I think you know what I mean. Whereas somebody drew the numbers “666″ on the forehead of every one of your pictures in my 1984 yearbook, my students write “DDJD” on my board or on our class website or even on their Google Chat status indicator. I think one year, a student even made bracelets to hand out to the class with “DDJD” on it. I smiled. (Die Die Judson Die, btw).

In short: when you messaged me via Facebook: “I’m interested in you and your family and your work, etc, etc” I can tell you that I am happy, that I have a wonderful life with Lori and Evan and Colin (and sometimes LukeTheCat), that I am amusing myself in my work, that, and I think I got this from you, the classroom is not so much a place to learn about stuff for the future but a place where one can live a life. I think of you often: about a 4-year-old girl saying “The sum of the square of the legs equals the square of the hypotenuse” and a father smiling in approval, about Chapter 19, about 490, and about someone enjoying what they do and the people that watch him perform each day. And, about the improbability of impacting human lives and the randomness of words and how sometimes the whole business of life is a bit funny.

Thank you.

Peace,

Chris Judson

Class of 1984
(Geometry, Biology, Algebra II and Basic Auto Theory)

Because I can.

And that is perhaps the long and short of it.

As it stands, my teaching schedule does not include Student Publications nor Beginning Journalism and that is a first since I’ve taken this position at Concord High School 13 years ago. The change also has me not in Room 138: a room I’ve occupied since it was built 12 years ago. I will no longer be responsible for the Journalism program at Concord High School and it’s a change that I requested–a change that has been in the works since first trimester of this year and so it has little to do with the current newspaper staff and more to do with some necessary changes in my life and my department.

I requested from my department chair (Livrone) and principal (Cunningham) that I teach sophomores again and that in order to do that I would give up my teaching and advising responsibilities of Newspaper and Journalism. My schedule for next year will still include the other classes that I have been assigned this year (English 12b, Biblical Literature, and yes, AP English Language and Composition) and then sections of English 10A, 10B and another English 10 class to be titled later.

The teacher that will be taking the Student Publications teaching and advising responsibilities along with the Beginning Journalism class is Ms. Lauren Martin. We will probably be swapping rooms as we swap teaching assignments.

I’ll be adding more to this post tomorrow, but for now I thought it was time that you know.

Hint: It’s really simpler than you think.

Let me tell you a story:

It begins yesterday when I’m listening to simply the best version of “Mack the Knife” (Sinatra and Buffet) in my 1993 Ford Escort Wagon heading north on US 33 South toward school. If you remember this version (and probably like other versions) there’s the part toward the end when the whole brass section builds to an explosion: Pow! and I’m hitting the “back” button on my iPod Shuffle to hear it again. In my mind, this is one of the best recordings of music ever.

I’m at school and after 3rd hour one of the music teachers motions me to talk and we’re discussing some arrangement for a student of his to get out of my class to listen to a pretty famous musician. I’m cool with that, but what I really want to ask him about is “Mack the Knife.”

“You doing the Jazz band thing, eh?” I verify.

“Yes, I’m the other director,” he says.

And then I ask him if they’ll be playing “Mack the Knife” at the Jazz Cafe this year and he says “Yes” like they always play it.

“It’s a standard, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” he says.

And then I launch into my experience of listening to “Mack the Knife” and how it’s incredible the way that “ol’ Blue Eyes” includes himself in the list of names in the verses that he and Buffet add to the song. And then I ask him if he thinks it’s a violent song as far as the lyrics and I think it is and he stops for a moment.

“You know,” the jazz director says, “I don’t think I remember the words…I just listen to the music.”

And I say “Oh” and he responds “But I’ll have to look at the words now that you bring it up.”

Here’s another story:

After I got my teaching degree, my wife and I moved to Bloomington, IN so she could complete her graduate studies in speech/language pathology. It is simply impossible to get a teaching job in any school district within an hour’s drive from Indiana University for someone who is from the outside and who has no contacts. I did, though, interview twice for a school within 25 minutes and those were sorry interviews (mostly because I’ve been told that I don’t interview well). But in one case, I realized that I hated some of the people that did the interviewing.

I was answering the usual questions and trying not to sound too desperate in wanting to do anything to land my first teaching job. (In our senior ed. seminar class, we were encouraged to say “Yes” to any coaching assignment or an extracurricular activity). I was working as a bill collector in Indianapolis at the time and I was ready to mop the floors if the school asked. I simply wanted to teach.

The principal then looks at my application and is unsure of where Grace College is at and “where’s Winona Lake anyway?” I tell him it’s by Warsaw and he still doesn’t get the geography of Northern Indiana and then looks back at me and asks/tells “You know, you can’t evangelize in the classroom, don’t you?”

I was amazed at this man’s inability to understand my application. First he didn’t know his Indiana geography and second, he was being an idiot (or at least that is what I thought at the time). I took a breath and then calmly pointed out to him that I had been a bill collector for 5 years and it wasn’t my general practice to “share the Good News after I had just asked a person to pay their hospital bill.” I don’t think he wanted me and I certainly didn’t want that type of a person as a principal.

And a last story:

Last Friday, a student in my Expository Writing class (senior composition) challenged my requirement of a 15-20 page paper when I was teaching them about how to write good sentences.

“If we can’t write a sentence, then how are we to write a 15-20 page paper then?” he said. And the kid next to him was saying “Well, there’s simply no way I could write a 15-20 paper.”

When the murmuring died down enough for me to answer–and maybe he didn’t want an answer, maybe he just wanted to say aloud what was going around in his mind–I asked him for a favor: to ask me the same question after he wrote the paper and to let me know if it was worth it. And, if he could, to then let me know in a year (after some college/life work) if he could see why I had the class write a massive paper.

And I think he backed off a bit and I’m not sure if he believed me, but I added: “You might just have to trust me on this one” and walked back to the front of the class.

Each day, teachers and students and staff engage in sharing their religion with one another by the stories they tell. We talk about our passions and we sometimes actively try and convince others that they too should see or hear or feel those same things that rouse in us the stuff that dreams are made of. Other times, some folk may misread us and instead of seeing a person full of passion, they’d rather see a label and restrict human potential through an incomplete sentence. But most religious of all school practices is when someone asks the simple question “Why?” For in that very question, one is attempting to figure out place and perspective and purpose. And as long as public schools encourage questioning and discussion of ideas with others, the public school will continue to be a place of religion.

I thought it was quite humorous too. It had been a day that began with me being slightly hostile toward…well, a few things: being moved to another room so my classroom could be used for retesting of the ISTEP and a faculty meeting that had me say some things that ran contrary to most of my colleague’s opinions. Some call it grumpy; I call it “Tuesday.”

So, there’s this student whom I swear is in the hallways, when he should be class, almost every hour. I’ll make some comment and usually the response is playful banter. He also has a girlfriend and she is in my resource period class (sort of a homeroom idea) and so I feel even more welcome in sharing my views on dating with the both of them. And at the end of the day I’m watching the rush toward buses and dash to after-school activities and there’s the couple doing the “departure” kiss and I yell down the hall: “Hey! Stop your kissing and read books.”

I think I’m funny, but the boy doesn’t. She leaves for the bus and he walks toward me and I feel the compulsion to say it again: “Don’t Kiss; Read Books.” He mutters something slightly negative and I turn toward my editor and tell him how funny I think my new found phrase is and he perhaps humors me and I’m feeling pretty good about myself.

My day started out hostile and I think I passed that hostility on to the kissing boy.

Like Target, eating a meal at Hacienda will yield at least three encounters with people from school (it’s usually 3 students to every 1 teacher). And as Lori and I are enjoying a night out without the kids, I see four students swing by our booth to say “Hey” or to bring us our food (I’m a fan of the wet burrito myself). Occasionally the conversation goes a bit beyond the “Hey” stage and Paige and I are chatting a bit while my wife was…well, now I think of it, I don’t remember what she was doing during this time. Anyway, Paige (maybe her real name) and I are talking and she wanted to make sure that I told my senior students something that needed to be told. So, I’ll repeat it here:

“It’s not that great.”

Or, at least that was the theme. After high school, according to her, it really isn’t that wonderful. You work on finishing college and then you get a job and you suddenly find yourself– well–at the bottom. And sometimes, at the real bottom with little money and little respect and little power. So, she tells me, “Tell your little seniors that” and I say “Okay” and she leaves.

Tonight I coerced my son into playing in a chess tournament this weekend. He’s two weeks out from playing in the state team chess tournament in Terre Haute at the end of the month and we have talked about playing in the county tournament this weekend. He was wavering a bit because my son’s calendar revolves not around events, but opportunities to be with his friends or PlayStation or–and the best scenario–both. He wanted one of his friends to come over Friday night which means lots of PS2 time (and not the usual 30 min. timer limit). So, before dinner, I tell him (whiles he sits on my lap and he’s being all silly) that I think it would be good for him to play in the tournament and he objects a little but then concedes with “Well, maybe he could come over Saturday night.”

During dinner I ask Evan if he feels like I coerced him into playing in the chess tournament this weekend and he says “Maybe.” I ask him if he knows what “coerce” means and he says that he thinks it means “To force” and I say “Yes, do you think I forced you into playing in the tournament” and he says “Sort of.”

And I don’t feel really bad about it. Father knows best, right?

Maybe Paige has a point: Life’s not all that great after high school. Maybe there’s an upside to the coercion that parents and schools inflict on students. Sure, we parents and teachers “talk” our kids and students into doing a wide variety of things and most of the time they’ll smile and nod their way through compliance. And at what cost?

The kissing boy said I should just go ahead and write him up because “I already got a referral today anyway.” I told him that’s not what I wanted to do. He wasn’t too pleased with what I had to say and started off down the hall. I told him that all I wanted him to do is “Stop Kissing and Read Books.”

He didn’t laugh. I did.

Here’s my trip from my classroom to my house (in case you wanted to know what northern Goshen looks like).

And this is not a rant against not getting the Lilly Endowment for not granting my proposal “Writing a blank canvas: Arctic Canada and Northern Indiana” (There is little distracting about the landscapes of Nunavut, Canada and Northern Indiana. But in writing about place, I plan on crafting an non-fiction essay about the vast beauty of each in a longer article for publication).

Is that not a cool proposal? Well, apparently it didn’t make the cut, but I’m still living without having the summer Lilly grant experience. And I just a call from a teacher in my building who also applied for the Lilly Teacher Creativity grant and well laughed about not getting the “good” letter of acceptance. Sigh.

So, for fun, I thought I might recount the last six years of grant proposals:

2008: Writing a blank canvas: Write an article about Nunavat and Indiana landscapes

2007: Building an Inuksuk garden (visit Nunavat and then recreate the experience in my backyard).

2006: Running in Nunavat: See inuksuk and run a marathon in Nunavut.

2005: Jack London: Visit Glen Ellen, CA and write short stories.

2004: Get a private pilot’s license.

2003: Study and complete in the National Chess Championships in PA.

I’ve been hanging around the idea of going to Nunavut for the past 3 years and I have a feeling that once people see the promotions for the 2010 Winter Olympics, everyone will want to know more about Inuksuk. But, perhaps, I need to let that idea go for next year.

And, to the winners of the 2008 Lilly Teacher Creativity Grant: congratulations and enjoy the experience. I hear that it is a wonderful boost to your teaching.

Five years ago, a friend, colleague and department chair, Steve Kirkpatrick died after a battle with cancer. I mostly think of Steve when I’m running by the dam by the reservoir and I am reminded of his idea of saving the world. I think I posted this last year, but in honor of Steve, I’m posting his speech to the graduating class of 2002 (roughly 8 months before his death).

Thanks Steve.

Commencement Speech, June 2, 2002
Mr. Steve Kirkpatrick

Public speaking and its relationship to fear is an interesting phenomenon. If I were to ask you what the following people have in common–Albert Berkley, Barbara Helleen, and Arthur MacArthur–you would be hard pressed. The simple answer is that they are the only people who have died while delivering a speech. So, I feel relatively sure I will walk away from your commencement.

I would also like to point out that if Mr. Staley or Mr. Dwyer or Dr. Nelson had to lead a mule across this stage, they probably would have little trouble because the mule is calm, sedate, and not easily excited. On the other hand, if they were asked to lead a thoroughbred across the stage, they would probably have difficulty because they are known to be nervous, skittish, and all together difficult to handle. I want you all to know I am perfectly calm-not the least nervous.

Now that my state of mind has been established, I would like to thank the entire Concord community, the students, the parents, and the staff for their prayers, their hugs, and their constant concern. You have lifted me and stood by me. You have shown me the kindness that dwells in all of us. Thank you so much.

At the beginning of the 90’s, I was excited about the prospects of the future. I felt education and rapid change would play a major role in our lives and that is what I would like to discuss with you today.

The aim of the teacher is to prepare his students to do without him: to see life through their own eyes, to hear the day with their own ears, and to understand with their own minds. The good teacher recognizes the differences in his students, will seize the teachable moment and cause it to evolve. The good teacher places roadblocks in front of his children and encourages them to overcome.

Here it is important to point out that the state and national governments have mandated that language and math skills need to be improved and that tests are to be the measure of our success–the success of our children, their teachers, their schools.

I agree that academic skills are important. Our children need to read better, write better, and do math better. However, we are leveling downward and praising that as common sense. We educators spend a lot of time discussing rubrics, aligning the curriculum, and assessing student academic skills with the single goal of raising test scores for that is how our success is to be measured by our state and national government. As a result, I have seen hard working teachers and students labeled failures in much the same way that a business labels parts defective.

Our children are not flawed or inadequate. The focus has moved from the child to the subject matter because that is what is to be tested. Students and their schools work hard and for the most part do an excellent job. What is needed from Washington and Indianapolis is a change in the paradigm that student, teacher, and school success is best determined by a paper and pencil exercise. We need a new mandate that emphasizes the building blocks of our society: compassion, sacrifice, integrity, and justice. This is how the success of our society will be measured by future generations.

Many of the thoughts that I tend to dwell on and can’t shake revolve around change. Whether thinking about the fall and the leaves turning from green to red or a young child and her desire to be a paleontologist or astronaut, of one thing I am sure, change has a heart and soul of its own and yet it is part of every fiber of our being. It is powered by Aristotle, Newton, and Edison. It gains energy from our grandmothers and grandfathers as they are reflected in our hearts and smiles and laughter.

Sometimes as I think about change and my classroom, I ask my students to fill in the blank to this sentence, “I remember a time when there was no such thing as

When I fill in the blank, I say television. My students say,” computers, and I imagine you parents might say calculators. If my wife’s father were to have answered this question, he could have said automobiles or airplanes, almost everything that is a part of the twentieth century. Change is not happening at a leisurely pace. It has become a stampede and as a result significant problems have occurred. Drug abuse, alcoholism, stress related illnesses, and in many cases the idea that bigger and quicker is better, and that hard work is not needed, and worst of all that morality is relative. I don’t mean this to be a sermon but there are laws we have been given that cannot be broken. These are the laws that God has given to us and at no time did he mean to have a friendly discussion over whether he was right or wrong.

I think my mother’s advise is important in these times, “Keep it simple.” Say, “Self, what is important–really important to me?” Most would respond with answers relating to God, our families, or our country. But how do you spend your time? Did you pray today? Tell your family you love them? Did you vote when you had the opportunity? Everything that detracts from what we value subtracts from life–makes your life more complicated.

I want you all to understand that each day I see beauty in all its glory. I see children. I see their smiles, hear their laughter, feel their innocence. Each day I tell myself my job is easy. Each day I hold up by hand and tell those near me to save the world. It sounds incredibly difficult, like bringing peace to the Middle East or eliminating prejudice. But, the beautiful part of it is that saving the world is easy. All you have to do is place a smile where there wasn’t one, plant hope where sadness lives, instill confidence where belief has been shaken, wipe a tear, or pat someone on the back for a job well done.

We must be careful of how we walk, for the footsteps we leave behind become the path future generations tread.

It was given to me from a former colleague’s husband who worked in DC when the love-years of NoChildLeftBehind were being birthed in the aisles of Congress. NCLB was the thing to rally behind, leaving no one behind. And yet, even though some knew that the emphasis on high-stakes testing was bad, the idea of NCLB was something to believe in (or vote in).

And I’ve worn my NCLB lanyard to secure my ID picture for these years until the day that the act gets repealed and torn apart because of what it has done to US education: trying to measure all peoples in all places the same way. And the result is to reward the rich schools and punish everyone else. And when, as I explain to some people who let me explain, NCLB is no longer the reigning educational law of this land, I will stop wearing my NCLB lanyard.

It’s been the albatross around my neck and an editorial statement for the past years.

But, I have a confession to make: NCLB has been great for education.

I know, I said wtf to myself when I realized it too. So, I’ll state it again: NCLB has been great for education.

It hit me two weeks ago when I was running, I think, along the canal in Goshen. And I was thinking about the part in John Stossel’s “Tampering with Nature” when one guest was telling us why all the Green Peace activists were trying to scare us with the images of polar bears and ice melting. And he said it was that if there was fear, then people (or lawmakers) will allocate money for that cause…lots of money. And then it hit me: Same goes for NCLB.

Because of NCLB, the overall public perception of US education is that our kids are struggling to keep up with the world economy (and, btw, look how horrible the US economy is). And if our students are struggling and the teachers are struggling and the schools are struggling, then something needs to be done right now…or else! So, let’s look at these charts that show how horribly our students are doing, how badly we compare to every other nation in the universe (of, don’t worry about where these stats came from or if they are measuring accurate data). The DATA shows how bad it is.

Now, enter NCLB and we have created a lot of jobs for people to advise schools how to run their educational centers more like an efficient business. Textbook companies are cranking out an incredible amount of “technology-based” software to help your students use technology to achieve state standards and pass that qualifying exam.

And, let’s allocate lots of money for teachers to go to conferences and for staff development. (Which, probably, is the reason why I get to go to a cool conference in Georgia in May).

NCLB emphasized the need and now we have funds for lots of stuff to help schools get better. And that’s my confession. For I’m not sure if there wasn’t a perceived crisis in education, that schools would have received the money to do some good things.

Unfortunately, we have paid a lot of money to outside experts whom we will dub “guru” and smile and take in all that they might have to say so that schools can “get better.” Tomorrow, I will sit in on one such presentation for a nationally-known company whom people swear by as being the way to fix schools. And I think, unlike good business, that this company does not have a money back guarantee on their program. My feeling is that, like most educational reforms, experts are willing to give advice for a large fee and a nice PowerPoint presentation; but like a Rainmaker, will not be around when the results fail to meet the promises.

Next slide.

It’s the one thing that I can say to Evan that will guarantee a dramatic response. It goes like this:

ME: Evan, how was your day?

EVAN: Eh. Fine, I guess. (Fiddling with a miniature paper airplane as he looks longingly at the PlayStation2 which he’s been ground from for the rest of the week. These are mean parents).

ME: (Noticing the hope in his son’s eyes for all-things-PS2) Yeah, that’s not going to happen. So, have you practiced your piano and cello?

[EVAN immediately hits the ground like a sack of potatoes and screams as if he were in pain...real pain]

EVAN: Noooo! [And EVAN throws the miniature airplanes in the air and runs upstairs to his room before the planes hit the ground]

ME: (to his wife): Well, that didn’t go well, did it?

And really I can’t talk. When I did make the varsity basketball team and then started, I can’t tell you if or how much I practiced during the off-season. Sure, I wasn’t a great player, but my heart wasn’t it. I remember trying to do conditioning (running I think) on the back roads of the town we were living in at the time (Monte Rio). And, I remember getting all jazzed up out getting into shape for the season and I think I made it 5 minutes down an incredibly beautiful road lined with massive redwood trees and then stopping. I think the universal, existential question popped into my mind as it probably does with Evan when he has to practice his piano: “Why am I doing this?”

I did practice, though, my lines for the play “Who Am I?” in which I had the lead and the entire short play (30 minutes) was based on my character and what he said (it was sort of a 20 questions “show” with me being host). I felt the pressure because, well, I was the lead and Ms. Jungkeit said I needed to know my lines. So, each day to school, I would drive 40 minutes and practice my lines until I got the mountain that crossed into Rincoln Valley (the driving was curvy and I really needed to concentrate). I knew my lines and the performance was, well, okay. See we were the opening play, then there was another short piece, and lastly, the main event: You’re A Good Man Charlie Brown in which my best friend Jeff Graves had the lead role.

Now that I think of it, I wonder if I was on the “B” team and the “A” team played the important parts.

And now Evan sort of faces the same situations. See, the guy who played Snoopy couldn’t sing, and if you know the musical, you know that Snoopy has at least one solo and our Snoopy could not sing. No, he could not sing…I’m not kidding. But, people liked him and he was able to ham his way through the song and people were happy. Sometimes the more talented don’t get the lead roles or the better spot on the team.

Evan has had his best year in playing chess than the previous two years. He’s had better tournament records than before and had a great team contribution last weekend in winning all the games he played. See, originally he was on the “B” team, but because one of the players didn’t show up, Evan got to play on the “A” team and, again, did well (won all four of his games). One of the kids on the team is a good friend of his and the others were happy to have Evan on the team. In fact, they might have wondered why he wasn’t on the team.

Now, this is where I stop as a parent so it doesn’t look like I know what is best for the team and my son (imagine a fist fight breaking out in a chess tournament: Dad slugs the tournament director). But that’s not how I do things and frankly, I’m not violent. I was happy for Evan and how well he did. But the worst thing for me was realizing that he’s had a “successful season” without little or no practice outside of Monday and Tuesday school practice times.

Ouch!

And I think he’s a smarter player for it. He understands the board a bit more and he makes the most of his playing on Mondays and Tuesdays. But even at those times, he doesn’t show off or try and make sure that the coaches see him playing. No, he plays against his friends and sometimes is a twit (and yes, he gets that from his father).

Unfortunately, the “practice like you play” and “practice makes perfect” or “Independent Practice” (aka Homework) are all hallmarks of parents and teachers of the answer to “Why do I have to do this?” It’s unfortunate, because it is not accurate. And I think down deep inside, most reflective people know this to be true (and sometimes we call those kids who don’t practice: “bright, but don’t work up to their potential”). It’s as if that we as adults merely make the children do stuff as payback for when we had to practice when we in their shoes (it’s the anti-lesson of Atticus “…you never really knew a man until you stood in his shoes and walked around in them”).

It seems to me that instead of practicing something over and over that one should actually be doing that particular task (be it writing or reading or calculus or chess). Instead of reading about or talking about or thinking about a particular skill or activity, shouldn’t we just be doing it? I think Evan is learning that lesson and he seems happier this chess season because he gets to play some chess and be silly with his friends.

I wonder if he’ll hit the floor today when I remind him to practice his piano and cello.

These are notes from my rough draft idea blog (http://blogs.opml.org/chrisjudson) that I used to present a concurrent session at the 2008 Indiana Computer Educator conference last week. Here’s the abstract of my talk:

Most of the successful transitions to moving instruction toward technology suggests a shift in pedagogy. Many times, incorporating technology into the classroom has amounted to the “Napoleon Plan” of decision making. Instead of merely putting up a static .html page with class rules, an assignment schedule, and perhaps some online quizzes, the effective online classroom makes use of the social aspect of the internet and structure and some would suggest moving toward a social constructivist approach to pedagogy.

We got a website! (The Napoleon Plan of Technology Integration)

And we’ve all done it: either it was coded by hand in some text editor or we used a visual web-editor such as Claris Homepage or Adobe Pagemill, but the school’s site was live and we had presence on the world wide web. Now all of our students, community and the world could come to our school website and … well, see our crafted table-layout or the more elusive frame-based text with stock gifs and scrolling java banners. And not much has changed, has it?

Well, swap out java and frames for Flash and perhaps add a lot more information (especially your school improvement plan and a link to the DOE school snapshot page) and that’s about it. The potential of the Internet got duped by the politics of the technology to put a computer into every classroom and wire all the schools so that all of our students could access all of this information. All for what? Besides cost a lot of money for our “shareholders” and a lot of headaches for teachers and IT folk to keep the little kiddies on task rather than any or all game sites, it reinforced that idea that we as educators and tech leaders are most guilty of: a Napoleon Plan [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0707436/] of technology integration: 1. Show up and, 2. See what happens. The new technology is purchased or presented to teachers and then we’ll just see what happens.

It’s no wonder why David Shenk in his 1997 book Data Smog stated that putting in the internet into every classroom is like putting a power station into every home. There was a fury of internet love last decade and seemingly everyone connected with education and technology was “on board” with the national plan to wire all schools and get Internet access for every child (the lesser No Child Left Unwired plan ). More energies were spent in acquiring Internet access for schools and honestly, it would have been viewed undemocratic not to get the access for “the students.” (Insert teacher and staff jab here for all of the eBay purchases and ESPN streaming video highlights that have been done by the adults). The most pedagogical the conversation got was which educational site the staff could visit or the latest online teaching “tool” javascript we could copy and paste on to our stale, static HTML pages.

BTW, we could say the same for each new technology through the decades as Todd Ophenhimer did in his Atlantic Monthly article from 1997: “The Computer Delusion” [http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/97jul/computer.htm] (which he later developed into the 2004 book The Flickering Mind: Saving Education from the False Promise of Technology). There is a pattern of “Showing up” and “Seeing what happens” and then it repeats all over again (almost like our educational reforms but we have chosen the technologies as silver bullets — but we will always say that they’re not…we’ll deny it).

We like shiny objects, we like the new new, we like CES and MacWorld announcements, we like computers, Palm Pilots, digital cameras, scanners with OCR, iPod touch, iPhones (or we have iPhone envy but can’t seem to justify the data plan to our bosses: that is, our superintendents or spouses). In short, we like the new shining object and we’ll talk for days on what it does, but the conversation slips into generic terms when we are asked how and why is it important or useful for learning.

Here’s my favorite response to “How” and “Why”:

These are the current tools of the trade and we should be using X (or having students use X) so that they will be better prepared for the real world.

What a load of desegregated data. Logically, there’s problems with that answer and I think you can figure it out. (Hint: How much does your school spend on making paper copies…I thought we were supposed to use those document scanners).

Herein lies the heart of my talk: We have been guilty of acquiring a lot of gadgets and URLs and just hoping that something magical educationally will happen, and it hasn’t. We’ve sometimes used the software companies own “studies” as justification to purchase Inspiration [www.inspriation.com] or Writer’s Workbench [http://www.emo.com/wwb/] because it says here that research says or that–and here it comes– it connects with most of your state standards. (BTW, probably one of the few pieces of software that has done real and reasonable educational research is CMaps [http://cmap.ihmc.us/]. Their white papers are for review and study and not for marketing alone). Instead, there is some hope out there and it happens to be connected with a product that some in the state of Indiana think is really great. It’s a framework for building and managing learning communities.

It’s really nice and I stumbled upon it about 3 years ago and now I’d like to give you some advice regarding Moodle: Don’t use it. Don’t install it. Well, okay, you probably will…but at least listen to the reason why it’s good for education and presents a solid case as far as pedagogy.

It’s based on an evolving idea of social constructivism and I’d like to talk to you about how doing education this way, in your classroom and schools, makes sense when using a framework such as Moodle [moodle.org].

Getting the “Those who can’t” on board (or Those stubborn teachers are like sticks in the mud)

It’s not about tools and more about how and why of doing things. And that’s the conversation we should be having and it is the conversation of teachers: pedagogy. It’s a much longer conversation than a demo of the latest site or shiny object; it’s a conversation, not a lecture. These people are a stubborn sort and many folk from different walks of life and points of view are wondering when these teachers will just “get on board.” The great thing is that they usually just don’t…you got to talk the talk of teachers and that, again, is pedagogy. And if there’s something that technology folks have done a lousy job is just this: explain how to use technology for learning. Not as a “learning tool” or how technology help with record keeping…nope, technology for learning. And that pedagogical conversation now turns to an idea–not a new one–but an idea that when individuals create and share information, something really cool happens. This is the general idea of social constructivism.

Here’s the bulleted list from Moodle’s site [moodle.org/philosophy]:

• Constructivism–This point of view maintains that people actively construct new knowledge as they interact with their environment.

• Constructionism asserts that learning is particularly effective when constructing something for others to experience. This can be anything from a spoken sentence or an internet posting, to more complex artifacts like a painting, a house or a software package.

• Social Constructivism–This extends the above ideas into a social group constructing things for one another, collaboratively creating a small culture of shared artifacts with shared meanings. When one is immersed within a culture like this, one is learning all the time about how to be a part of that culture, on many levels.

• Connected and Separate–This idea looks deeper into the motivations of individuals within a discussion. Separate behaviour is when someone tries to remain ‘objective’ and ‘factual’, and tends to defend their own ideas using logic to find holes in their opponent’s ideas. Connected behaviour is a more empathic approach that accepts subjectivity, trying to listen and ask questions in an effort to understand the other point of view. Constructed behaviour is when a person is sensitive to both of these approaches and is able to choose either of them as appropriate to the current situation.

• Conclusion–Once you are thinking about all these issues, it helps you to focus on the experiences that would be best for learning from the learner’s point of view, rather than just publishing and assessing the information you think they need to know. It can also help you realise how each participant in a course can be a teacher as well as a learner. Your job as a ‘teacher’ can change from being ‘the source of knowledge’ to being an influencer and role model of class culture, connecting with students in a personal way that addresses their own learning needs, and moderating discussions and activities in a way that collectively leads students towards the learning goals of the class.

Again, these are not entirely news ideas (I’m thinking of Project-Based Learning [mindmap: http://www.vergil66.com/pbl/]) and there’s been other software that have attempted to bring collaboration into a teaching moment (Daedalus Integrated Writing Environment [http://www.daedalus.com/] comes to mind). What is interesting is that there is so much talk of social networks and the maturation of Web 2.0, once again we might just be missing the boat with our stubborn colleagues by telling them about all the cool stuff they could be doing with X.

You should notice that this is going to be a shift in how folk approach teaching. BTW, please don’t think that this is small groupings or merely student-centered classrooms; both of those ideas were and are good but their implementation was and still is pretty lousy. It’s the mindset we sometimes live in: Education is broke, let’s fix it by the end of the next NCA cycle or before the next ISTEP scores are released.

It’s about time to pause for a moment and find a way to use technology for learning and the social constructivism model is well-supported with in a little CMS called Moodle.

The good, the bad and the ugly of managing a Moodle site

Don’t get me wrong: I love technology and gadgets and all things shiny. I’ve been trying to talk my principal and technology folk into purchasing things since I’ve been teaching. I advise student publications, so I’ve been able to get my hands on hardware (had a lab of the original bondi blue iMacs after they came out…that was cool). But as I started making class webpages in the late 90s and then as I noticed that not everyone came a clicking to my static html page, I started to look at my practice as an educator and how in the world could this fun stuff be useful beyond a “yeah, my teacher has a web page.”

Probably like many folk, I started to add opportunities for students to leave comments and make social comments on my page (I think I was using iBlog at this time). I wanted my students to read and comment on each other’s papers, so I made a link to some discussion doc site (I think it was QuickTopic.com). I had a shout box on the site and invited students to leave messages for me or anyone who went to the page. But the whole thing was so duck-taped together, I continued to look around for something to manage all of the social activity along with integrating assessment.

Three years ago, I installed Moodle on a hosting site that I paid for out of my own pocket. Students in my classes we already used to the blogging way of me organizing our class info, so the jump to Moodle was a bit more polished. So since using Moodle for 3 years, I’d like to leave you with some advise on the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of using Moodle.

The Good.

• It’s Open Source (or, free…for the most part). This is the buzzing that’s sweeping through IT department across the state and nation. Stress budgets are now looking manageable as folk are seeing the possibility (and strength) of FOSS. Moodle is like Blackboard without the money concerns and there’s no financial obligation to a company who needs to make money off of their product.
• No coding! Yeah! I love to dabble…I like to mess around with putting things together, but Moodle (like many other Web20 apps) allows you to focus on creating and managing content rather than figuring out how it works. For most of your non-tech colleagues, training should be harmless and there’s wonderful documentation and online, in-context help system on each page. It’s easy to use…really.
• Full integration of all your classroom activities. That’s online stuff and offline stuff. Assessment presents some newer ideas and I especially like the Workshop module.
• Tons of opportunities for student interaction through bulletin boards and messaging to even blogs (if you so desire). More reasons to visit a site means more investment in its cause. Students can interact (along with the teacher) outside of the classroom day.

The Bad.

• Frankly, it takes more of my time outside of class and that’s because if I want something to be interactive, I just can’t build it and wait until they come. Tons of opportunities for interaction. I usually spend time each night responding to student’s messages and questions (though, for questions, I remind them to make a post and seek the help of the other students).
• Not every student has Internet access and so yes, those students miss out…a bit.
• You got to step down from the pedestal and allow stuff to happen. You have to let students argue things out for time to time and not always be the morality police. Sometimes you just have to not comment and allow other students to be consciousness of the classroom.
• There’s hiccups in the program and I think I’ve learned many workarounds in the gradebook module (which is going through a revision). Look, this is Open Source and many people are working to make it great…and it is. The wonderful thing is that if you have a question, there’s a great support community out there on the Moodle.org site.

The Ugly (only two things here…more cautionary things).

• It would be ugly to force every teacher in a school, district, region or state to use Moodle. That would be ugly because Moodle, like every other new idea or shiny object in education, is not for everyone. It supports a wonderful and dynamic way of approaching learning, but that’s not the only way of doing education. Sometimes I wonder how long some of the great teachers of the ages would last in the classroom (”Oh, just who just quite after one day?” “Oh, that was Socrates…he just asked ‘What am I doing here?’ and left.”)
• Another ugly thing, and this is all editorial comment, is that as schools discover great FOSS such as OpenOffice, Firefox, Audicity and Moodle, that the educational community wouldn’t feel an ethical and I would say moral obligation to give back to the OpenSource community. Sure the stuff is free, but with the freedom is an obligation to help pay for or help develop which ever project that we’re using. All of these FOSS projects list how you can get involved and I would encourage all of us to give back.

During lunch today, I did what many folk do when we go to conferences: made small talk. And I’m eating my cheeseburger and fries and I say “Hey” to the suited man at the next table. Dave Dobos was here at the conference as an exhibitor for a company that sells supplies for math and science classrooms and so I wasn’t really his target audience. He did thank me (as the representatives of high school English teachers) for teaching him how to write clearly and concisely (not that I’ve spoken that way today). We talked about how long it takes to learn to do just that: to communicate clearly and concisely and I think that is precisely what I’ve attempted to say in today’s talk: that education and learning take time and that something new and shiny may or may not have an impact on the stuff of learning. Let’s pause and think about broader and deeper issues such as pedagogy and it’s impact on using a content management system such as Moodle. Why are we using technology and to what real purpose are we aiming for? Let’s go beyond an endless cycle of Napoleon Plans for technology integration and try to speak clearly and concisely on why we do what we do.

Thank you.

Questions and some demonstration of actual classroom site using Moodle.