"Nice Unit"

(A little jazz for your listening pleasure.  I think there is a point, which I'll get to later.)

Every Direction Is North

I'm putting this right here so I don't lose it. Hey! Future self! Read this again!

This is a really cool documentary about building the new South Pole station, which I am proud to say I was a part of back in 2000-01.  Lots of real-life problem solving, to be sure...and so much more.  I substituted for some sixth-graders last Friday.  The teacher had planned for me to show them CNN Student News, but suggested I vet it first.  The topic was Trump's transition to the White House.  I hadn't vetted the program, but I had overheard a few conversations in the class that led me to believe those were waters best not waded in as a substitute teacher.  I decided to show them this instead.  The South Pole station is certainly a testament to human ingenuity and resilience, and it is also a place that values the types of thinking we have studied in this class.  Furthermore, it was a place where gender equity was very evident, providing, perhaps, some alternative role models to consider.  (It is over an hour long, I guess I am really just sharing the link for effect.  But it is pretty cool.)

I checked out John Barell's book Problem Based Learning from the library last summer, as well as the other texts for this class.  I thought I would go ahead and preview the reading over the summer.  As we know, the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and of course, I didn't get any of that reading done.  Well, almost any--I did read Barell's introduction, and I was hooked.  The way he described his Antarctic obsession resonated with me on several levels.  For one, I can remember being that youth he describes, energized by different passions, and often the seeds of these passions were a book, gifted or found.  For another, I've been to Antarctica.  I wouldn't say I had had a passion specifically for Antarctica the way Barell describes, but I have always yearned for adventure and exploration in general.  I think that in some ways, the most important thing about my journey to the South Pole is that it is reflective to an adherence to not a specific objective--content, if you will, but rather to a guiding mission statement.   I didn't have a mission statement in those days, at least not one I had written down, but I think I had a pretty good idea where my polestar was.  Of course, the thing about the North Star to keep in mind when you're at the South Pole is that you can't even see it.  Luckily, every direction from there is North, so all you have to do is start walking.  And keep walking.

The idea of a mission statement has evolved for me.  Years ago, I took a screenwriting class.  The instructor, Phil Atlakson, made us adhere to a mission statement of sorts, a guiding proverb, a basic human truth distilled in a sentence or two that would guide our screenplays North.  How much we wandered East and West, I guess, is what gave our stories, well, a story.  I am reminded of my first post in this class, when I talked about how a resume version of our life is like a linear, straight line--an exclamation point--the highlights of our life, but it was the winding, curving question mark that told the real story.

So I guess the third way in which Barell's (and really everything else we've read in this class) has resonated is in the way I've come to look at my own personal mission statement as an educator.  In point of fact, I just went and updated my resume, and quite honestly, for the first time in my life I have written an objective on it that I truly, whole-heartedly believe in.  Not something that, to paraphrase Barell from page 9, is a "guess" at what is on the interviewer's mind--what is the "right" answer to get me this job.  Here it is:

Objective: Educate children to be creative problem-solvers, critical thinkers, 
and content masters.

Funny how that last part took a second line, and now it sits there by itself, in a place of prominence--or as an afterthought?  A byproduct of what came before?

This Part Might Get A Little Political, So Skip It If You Are Squeamish.  Particularly if you are sick of people whining and complaining and running around claiming "the sky is falling."

I was at the South Pole when I heard the news that George W. Bush had won the presidential election of 2000.  I was disappointed, even a bit disgusted--I didn't vote for him or Gore, but I felt that at least at that time, John McCain would have represented a better Republican candidate, but he'd lost, in some small part because my staunchly conservative relatives wouldn't vote for him because he favored the very conservative idea of eliminating the Sugar Tariffs that artificially help make sugar beet farming a competitive endeavor in Idaho.  You know, big government social welfare for a select few.   

Aargh!  I'm totally off track already.  My point was, I felt disappointed, maybe a little disgusted or discouraged. I would imagine others have spent the last eight years feeling the same way.  

Last Tuesday night was a different feeling entirely.  Cue the video below to 4:39, to see how I felt, although the whole clip shows what might have happened if Dumbledore had been allowed in the fight.  The Spanish subtitles add a nice touch.

No, I am not equating Voldemort to Trump.  I wish it were that simple.  At this point, I can see that nothing would be different if Clinton had won; the roles would simply be reversed. No, I felt like I'd been hearing Harry warning me that evil truly existed, but, like the Minister of Magic, I'd had my head in the sand and refused to believe it.  Tuesday night and its aftermath have upended my notions of reality, but in the process, my objective hardened, crystallized.  Since I've already taken a rather melodramatic turn, I'll show you a vision of what I saw coming for my sons:

This isn't just a scene from a movie.  This just happened a blink of an eye ago; and is still happening.  I had to let out a laugh when I saw the part where the soldiers are vomiting, because just the other night, I gave some young college guys an Uber ride, and one of them almost puked in my car.  My fear for those boys isn't that they can't handle their liquor, though.  It is that their solution to the problem of having to walk six blocks to get home was to tap an app.  I suppose that is a better solution than driving themselves...

And the landing craft driver--I worked with a guy when I was a bellman in Sun Valley.  He and his wife were bored with retirement, so they traveled around, living in interesting places and just doing whatever job.  In his case, he wore the stately garb of the Lodge doorman.  He was a retired sheriff, and in WWII, he had been a landing craft driver in the Pacific.  This was before Saving Private Ryan even came out, so what he told me was rather prescient and relevant to what is depicted in this clip.  He told me a lot of drivers would stop short of the beach, because they didn't want to risk getting stuck, and so, exactly what is depicted in this scene would happen.  Soldiers would have to swim to shore, sitting ducks, their equipment waterlogged before they even got a chance to fight.  He assured me he rammed his landing craft as far up the beach as he could, to give his men a fighting chance.  

Do I think a World War is coming?  Not necessarily--but I see now how it happened before, and how it could happen again.  I'm serious when I say I want my sons and students to be equipped with the thinking skills that will help them survive and thrive in the world to come. If it is a future D-day, I want them to be sure they are fighting for the right side--and if the "right" side is even worth fighting for.  And if they do fight...I want them to live.  I want to drive the metaphorical landing craft as far up the shore as I can.  After that, they will be on their own.  No teacher, no apps.

Hopefully, it will be as simple as finding a job in a rapidly changing world.  By the time they graduate, there won't be jobs with UPS or Uber.  I heard as much on NPR today, at least the Uber part.  The easiest way for Uber to eliminate their biggest expense, the wages they pay their drivers, is to eliminate those jobs.  There are millions of people driving for Uber across the world.  Eliminating those costs makes perfect economic sense, but it makes me wonder what exactly people will do for work in the future.  I certainly don't know how to teach content that hasn't been invented yet.  (Edit:  Sure enough.  Here is an article describing those self-driving trucks, and the socio-political implications thereof.)

My mission then, is to teach my sons, and my students, to be critical thinkers:  What has shaped the world?  How and why do things happen?  Am I on the right side?  What is right and wrong?  Whose Facebook posts should I believe, if any? If cars drive themselves, but I drive truck for a living, is it fair for me to lose my job?

And creative problem-solvers:  What can we do to prevent these kinds of wars from happening?  And realistically, how do we survive war, and thrive in difficult situations?  If cars can drive themselves, what does that free me up to do?  If my financial aid runs out, how will I finish school?

In this context, I can see why teaching content becomes less relevant.  I'm certainly not going to be teaching the art of warfare in my class.  The content I am directed to teach will probably change anyway, which is fine with me.  I want students to think, critically and reflectively.  Know how to learn, not what.  Solve problems, creatively or practically.  That is my mission.  

So there you have it, probably a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing.  I hope when I check back in in two weeks, I'll be able to share ways in which this mission statement is manifesting itself in my unit plan, in more practical terms. This image is kind of mesmerizing.  It's getting harder and harder to look away...must go north...but it looks like the best route might be to veer to the east, through that valley, and then over that low pass...or should I just try and go straight over the top of that mountain?

When You Assess Something, You Are Making An Ass Out Of "U" And...Whoops

"Der Vivisektor" by Gabriel von Max (1883)
http://www.greanvillepost.com/2016/02/07/115395/
(random website attached to photo that looks interesting)
((Hey, this picture may be a good one to use in a "Zoom In" routine.))

Searching Google for "brain on a scale" yields a multitude of images depicting hearts outweighing brains on a scale--a worthy metaphor to consider for our students, to be sure. For them, and indeed, many people, it is truly a creative product to consider:  The idea that what you feel, how you act, and the love you show is more important, more weighty than what you know or how you think.  This idea may have originally been depicted by von Max in this painting from 1883.  If so, to him go the kudos of originality of thought.  Based on the unit he was studying in school about value judgements, I would give him excellent marks for his creative process.  All the other kids in his class wrote five paragraph essays that quoted heavily from the Bible.

As far as the product goes, it would be unfair of me to judge, as I know nothing about art history, but I can tell you this:  Compared to his peers on Google Images, von Max has created an innovative and appropriate depiction of a now cliched metaphor, as well as demonstrating technical proficiency.  See for yourself:

Using the following hastily constructed rubric, I submit that we could get consistently reliable assessment results:

Wait a second...we probably couldn't, based on interrater reliability.  Without more detailed criteria, my rubric is not reliable.  Some may find all of the images lame--or interesting.  Or exactly opposite.  This is complicated, but I see that creating a valid and reliable form of assessment is fundamental to teaching creativity.  We need to be able to find a way to reliably assess with a valid process that encompasses both innovation and appropriateness.  (Phew, knocked out all my vocab in one sentence, and even included the bonus word for the week.)

Anyway, let's try a slightly less-hastily created rubric, with innovation and appropriateness as the axises(sp?):

Better--I think it may be a bit more reliable, but is it valid?  What constitutes "original?"  Original to our students, or original in the history of the world?  And maybe some student truly saw the value of heart vs. mind as a seemingly inappropriate image like this:

Starko mention "Glogster" at the end of one of the chapters (9?) and I wanted to try one out.  Kind of neat, but spendy. It is supposed to be embeddable, but Blogger wouldn't allow it, so I just screenshotted it in.

Clearly, this student just repurposed a Glogster she made for a science project about the water cycle...or did she?  What if the text said something like: 

 Life is a constant process of bouncing between following your heart and following your mind.  As a young water molecule of limitless potential, your mind tells you to move to Lake Tahoe and ski your brains out, but the winds of your heart instead blow you to Seattle, where you become frozen as snow in the mountains, thinking and gazing at higher, now unattainable heights, unattainable because you can't turn back time and float on the jet stream anymore.  Instead you melt and rage downhill, bouncing back and forth, first following one course and then another as you follow your heart and then your mind and then back and forth again and again.  And then you slow down like a mature river, feeling stagnate at first, but then accepting that you are simply merging back with the sea...

 As a depiction of the water cycle, it's a nice enough product, but as a creative way of looking at the question at hand, this student suddenly seems both innovative and surprisingly appropriate in her choice of metaphor.  At least in my judgment.  

Lets take a quick break, and think back to those original images of weighing brains. Brains.  Brains on scales.  Brains in jars...

I feel refreshed, somewhat.   I think my biggest fear in considering assessing for creativity is the potential and power I have to accidentally squelch it.  To be someone who inadvertently shovels dirt on creativity, because I didn't recognize it, or wasn't looking for it.  Creativity is in all of us, I believe, but is easily frightened underground.  For me, writing in a blog has been a much welcomed and anticipated respite from the rest of my schoolwork.  It feels creative to me, and I think it has been creative for me--it has helped me to create meaning from this class in a way I otherwise wouldn't have.  Whether or not it is creative to anyone else depends on who else the audience is, and how much they understand of the context.  I'm not sure if I would have continued if I'd have received any hint of negative feedback.  I only have to look at my "Spring 2016" blog, all one post of it, to be reminded of that.  (I quit that one not even because of actual feedback; I think I quit because I imagined I was rocking the boat, or being different, or something.)

  My challenge, then, is to both recognize it in my students when I can, and also, to create a classroom environment that nurtures it.  Ultimately, this is a lot of snake-chasing-its tail, I think.  Or, as Starko sums up, blind men feeling an elephant.  If one of my students is ever creative enough to trick me into thinking a snake actually is an elephant tail, then what?

Here's my assessment plan, Version 1.0, in no particular order:

• No matter the content or whether the task is sciency or artsy or mathy, find ways to use problem-based, authentic (or authentically simulated) tasks.  It's easier to assess a solution to an authentic problem--and easier to justify that assessment.
• Have a generalized rubric kind of like the one I made above to use as a template for everything--including myself.  I want the students to learn how to use it.
• Model creativity.  I am fairly confident in my ability to be creative myself, but I worry I won't be all that effective at fostering it in others.  BUT, rather than worry about that too much, I've realized that if I can consistently model creativity in how I teach and manage the class, I'll at least have my money where my mouth is. 
• On that note, with young kids at home, I get near constant opportunity to practice all of this.  How much teaching do I do, and how much preaching?  I've been considering a scenario from this past weekend.  We have lots of leaves to rake.  I thought this might be a chance to motivate the boys extrinsically, with the promise of cold, hard cash.  To my surprise, this had no effect, I think because of the fact they have actually saved and held onto a few dollars for once--at least more than they ever have.  So I went to plan B.  I raked up a big pile right next to the swing.  After a few dozen launches into the pile, I offered up the blower and the rake, so they could make the pile bigger.  Here are the results:

The assessment results vary widely depending on the goal.  For the boys, maybe in twenty years I'll be able to assess them based on their attitudes towards work:  Do they look for creative ways to make it fun?  Assessing myself, I thought it was a pretty slick way to get them to work, although the resulting pile was none too neat, and later on Wally got walloped on the cheek by the swing.  Which is a whole other lesson learned (hopefully)--keep your head on a swivel when in the vicinity of a swing.  Or helicopter rotors, or whatever.

To continue:

• In the interest of promoting a creative environment, I thought the mini-checklists were a nice idea, and again, something that works for parenting as well.  "Did I try at least three strategies" to solve that math problem/find my favorite black cargo pants/complete that discussion board assignment?

Why Assess...not sure what punctuation to use...am I asking, or telling?

Calvin pretty well sums up why we create, in four neat panels.  Maybe I should take a cue from him...why do we need to assess creativity?  Is it to assess man's quest to express himself, to assess how well he brings form to thought or how well he discover's meaning in experience?  Or is it because we need a grade for the grade book?  I'll stick with the former, and the reason, the only reason, would be to help student's become self-aware of the process, so that they may become more adept at that process.

My self-assessment for this post:

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