Teaching as a Restless Journey

Teaching as a Restless Journey

Consider How Augustine’s Travels Helped Him Experience Learning as a Journey

Saint Augustine is most commonly known as a Bishop and as the author of Confessions. However, he was, first and foremost a teacher. Although a powerful intellectual and renowned teacher , Saint Augustine viewed himself as a constant learner. In "The Mind of Saint Augustine" by Anton C. Pegis (1944), Augustine is said to have viewed "learning as a restless journey", and that through the journey one acquires experiences, which lead to learning, reflection, and accumulated wisdom. 

This has certainly been the case in my own personal road to becoming a teacher, as well as my growth as a teacher. In my life before teaching, I was extremely restless and unsatisfied with the direction of my life. After moving to Washington State and living on a Native American reservation for two year, I joined Peace Corps and served as a Small Business Development Volunteer in Honduras and Nicaragua for another two years. 

Those 4 years of experience opened my perspective up tremendously and I began to see other possibilities for where my path might take me next. Nonetheless, I sensed that my journey was incomplete and still had that nagging restlessness tugging inside me. 

So, after my tour of service in Nicaragua, I took two months to backpack throughout Central and South America. During the long bus rides through some of the most devastatingly beautiful and poor areas I've ever seen, I took the time to slow down and reflect fully on my experiences of the previous four years. 

One day, on a bus ride from the southern tip of Ecuador to Peru, a realization hit me that I had never considered before. During my work teaching micro-entrepeneurs how to more effectively manage their business, I was really happy and enjoyed the work immensely. However, the real epiphany was that it was not the business part of the experience that I enjoyed, but rather the teaching. That was the moment I decided to "become" a teacher. 

Fifteen years later, I am still "becoming" a teacher, and I suspect I will be for the rest of my life. My first few years I learned how to survive in the classroom and refine my own knowledge of the content. I was definitely more of a student than a teacher back then. As time went by, I found that I was more comfortable and confident in the classroom, but could never fully feel a sense of having "arrived"at my destination. Each successive year, I have found myself tweaking, exploring, questioning what I do, and yet I still feel a restlessness as a teacher to continue seeking. 

Teaching indeed is a journey which requires growth and learning through experiences and reflection. I continue to drawn on my experiences of working and living in Nicaragua as a volunteer and later as a director of a service-learning organization. They inform my approach to teaching and learning every single day. However, as Augustine taught, "everyone's learning journey is life-long", and we need to continue to make "steady progress rather than meandering"(Cracked Pots and Brave Hearts: Augustine on Teaching and Learning; Gary N McCloskey O.S.A.). 

Some of the most important experiences I've had as a teacher over the past 15 have been outside of the classroom, in professional development, brainstorming and sharing ideas with other teachers, researching new pedagogical approaches and teaching strategies, and reflecting on successes and failures in the classroom. The more experiences I have, it seems, the sharper the focus of my journey becomes, and the less meandering I do. 

Sharing that journey with a small group of colleagues from my school during a two-week summer institute has enriched my experiences. It has provided me also with some important critical friends (like Ambrose to Augustine) to support my learning and my teaching. 


It is truly incredible how the reflections of a man who lived some 1600 years ago can hold such relevance and truth today. So teachers, go forth and journey. 

Is the Soda Can Mightier than the Book?

Is the Soda Can Mightier than the Book? 

Over the past week, I have been working with a group of educators in a research cohort. At the beginning of the week, we brainstormed ideas for a project-based  learning (PBL) or action research project that would address a concern or question we share commonly regarding education in the 21st century. After some discussion, debate, and compromise, we decided on researching more informative student performance reporting options. One of our essential questions that is driving this project is "what role should grades and performance reporting play in 21st century education?" another important question behind our research project is "how can report cards more accurately inform students, parents, and teachers about what students know and can do, and with what level of proficiency?" A third important question for me is "what does learning look like and how can we provide timely, accurate, and informative feedback to students and parents about a student's learning process?"

As a Spanish teacher, I have a pretty good understanding of what language learning looks like in practice and I can articulate that pretty clearly to my students and their parents.

In Spanish class, I can listen to a student speak in an interpersonal situation in Spanish and gauge their ability to negotiate meaning, ask and answers questions, navigate major time frames, circumlocute, speak in paragraphs rather than discreet sentences, etc.

However, when I step outside of my discipline, my ability to visualize and articulate what authentic learning and mastery look like in, say, math or science, is weak.

Today  I came to understand much more clearly what learning in science is by selling my kitchen cabinets on Craigslist. 

This afternoon, a man came to my house with a bulky conversion van to pick up some cabinets I was selling on the Internet. The man who lowered himself from the driver's seat walked toward me wearing construction work clothes and a few conspicuously placed tattoos. By appearances, this was a man who worked with his hands and knew his way around a workshop. When we arrived at the kitchen to disassemble the cabinets, my suspicions were confirmed when the man borrowed some tools and went straight to work, disconnecting the cabinets with extreme efficiency.

As we worked, we talked about all sorts of things, from music, cars, home repairs, and global trade. At one point, I asked what he does for a living, and predictably he told me that he used to be a contractor. However, that was in between his jobs at Lockheed Martin (building airplane fuselages) and his current job at Princeton University (working on hydrogen fusion). He went on to explain the physics and engineering behind fuselage design and the science behind developing sustainable and green sources of energy by means of hydrogen fusion.

I stood there mystified as this handyman with work-calloused hands explained to me, with clarity and great enthusiasm, the process of fusion reaction in which hydrogen nuclei collide, fuse into heavier helium atoms and release tremendous amounts of energy in the process.

Later, while loading cabinets into his van, the buyer  (Mike) engaged my son in a conversation about car design. Mike went on to explain key elements of automobile design, much to the delight of my car-obsessed 10-year old.

I  left the conversation to go to the garage to grab a measuring tape. When I returned, Mike was explaining to my son how he was in the process of inventing a new kind of motorcycle made from soda cans, designed with the physics of an airplane fuselage to increase the strength of the aluminum cans as to make it safely road-worthy.

Listening to Mike talk was like being in the most interesting science class I could imagine. He made science seem so exciting, fun, and practical. This was not the science that I studied in school, but I wish it was.

I told Mike that I thought he'd make a great science teachers. He laughed and told me that the two most influential people his life were science teachers he had in high school. He said that he couldn't wait to get to science class to see what they would do next and what they, the students would be learning to do next. AS he spoke, I noted that Mike continued to use the word "do" when he referred to his science learning.

When I asked if he studied I science in college, Mike responded that he never went to college. He said, "I didn't need to go to college to study science. I do science everyday." He told me that his teachers didn't "teach" him science, they taught him how to "do" science.

I found out later that Mike will be working with a hydrogen fusion program in France called Iter using the science he learned to "do" in high school from two influential teachers who knew that the real  measure of learning is being able to do something out in the world with what you have learned.

After Mike left, I began to wonder what his grade in his science classes were. Was he an A student? He didn't strike me as the kind of guy who cared much about that. I could be wrong though. Nonetheless, I began to wonder again. If Mike did get A grades in his science class, how did his A compare with the A of his classmates. 

Surely not all of Mike's classmates came out of those classes with the same level of application and synthesis as he did. I would guess that there were several A students in that class that would have little idea of what hydrogen fusion even is. 

So how might that hypothetical A grade informed those students about what scientific skills they possess? 

What if Mike received a C in science because he didn't do his homework or didn't do well on rote tests, but he was masterful at practical application of scientific principles? 

Would Mike think of himself as simply an average science student? Would that be an accurate evaluation of his science skills? 

What makes a science student excellent? Averaged numbers? Demonstrated skills to work within the scientific model? How do we communicate that accurately to students?

Somewhere along the line, someone taught Mike what skills a good scientist possesses, whether explicitly or implicitly. He continues to use those lessons everyday in complex and authentic situations that might one day benefit all of us. 

Is the soda can mightier than the book in terms of science skills? I don't know the answer to that question yet.  However, I am pretty sure that helping students understand what scientific skill sets they need to "do" science led to some pretty impressive results for one Craigslist buyer. 

The following is a Ted Talk video by a  9th and 10th grade physical science and biology teacher on Standard based grading: 

Standards Based Grading and the Game of School: Craig Messerma

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bn_sCLoQNVs

Making the grade

Making the grade

There is a lot of debate about grades and what qualitative data on student performance really report. What is an A or a C and how do those grades inform about what a student can actually do within a specific discipline? 

Yesterday, a colleague in my action-research cohort framed the question in terms of an analysis of his golf swing. He commented that if a golf pro were to observe his golf swing and afterwards simply respond "that's pretty good" or "nice job", it would provide him with almost no information about his golf swing. Sure, it would be a nice affirmation from a qualified pro, but it wouldn't tell my colleague much about what technical aspects of his swing he is doing well and which parts need work. Therefore his swing will just continue to be "pretty good", whatever that means. 

http://www.golfdigest.com

My cohort group's discussion over the past few days has focused on how to make reporting students' progress (i.e. grading) more informative for students, parents and teachers. We all agreed that grades are generally lacking in informative detail for a variety of reasons. 

By way of example, the B in Spanish class does not typically provide us with much information about a student's ability to use interpersonal communication to resolve a situation with a complication. Nor does the C in science elaborate on his understanding of how the water cycle processes might impact climate changes. Not that we would expect this kind of specific detail to show up on a report card, but the stand-alone B or C does not provide the student with any informative feedback about what specific skills he is strong or weak in, and to what degree. Worst of all, there is nothing a student can do at the this point because the grading is done and the goals have been measured. Now it is time to move on with whatever grade and skills he may have acquired. 

Robert J. Marzano, PhD, a leading researcher in education,framed the conversation with another sports analogy:

"Think of a baseball card — when you looked at Mickey Mantle’s card, it didn’t say an A on the back. It included his fielding average, hitting average, homeruns — then you know why he’s a good player. Why would we give a student just one grade?"   
(http://www.mlive.com/news/bay-city/index.ssf/2010/11/qa_standards-based_grading_exp.html)


Public schools (all of them, I would suspect) have been using standards to develop their curriculum for some time now, but few schools use standards to inform about what the final grade means in terms actual abilities. Here we are talking about Standard-based grading, which is a grading system that provides information about how students are performing against a set of clearly defined learning outcomes, typically state or common core standards. 

With standard-based grading, "there is no single mark for a course as is traditionally generated by averaging or combining multiple scores across the duration of a class. Unlike traditional grade reports, standards-based grading measures students’ knowledge of grade-level content by reporting the most recent, consistent level of performance. So, a student might struggle in the beginning of a course with new content, but then learn and demonstrate proficient performance by the end of the course." (http://www.sumner.wednet.edu/studentfamilyservices/academics/pages/sbgparentfaq.html)

The focus here is on all students developing certain levels of developmentally appropriate proficiency in particular skill sets and demonstrating them through a series of assessments throughout the school year. Some student might get there more slowly then others, but all are provided meaningful feedback along the why in order to identify areas of weakness and to learn to strengthen those skills across the continuum of proficiency until they meet the standard. Some students might just meet the standard while others  exceed the standard, but all would need to meet the course standards in order to more on to the next level or grade. 

This is quite different from receiving a C in French 1 and limping on to the French 2 with whatever foundation you have built at the first level. Most of the time the C in French 1  might tell you that you covered chapters 1-7 and that you know how to use the basic present tense, and have some basic vocabulary related to school, food, self, and family. However, it tells us nothing about what a student can actually do with that content knowledge. 

Last winter, I visited Casco Bay High School in Portland, Maine to observe their exploration-based learning model. While there I learned that they also use standard-based grading. Watching the teachers and the students in action, working actively and fluently with the standards in the classroom, I came to understand the value of setting clear learning outcomes for students and making them a requirement for everyone for course completion and advancement. The students clearly understood the skills they would need to demonstrate and at what levels of proficiency they would need to demonstrate them in order to earn course credit and advance. One student even explained to me that she was able to choose whether she wanted to shoot for an "Meets Expectation" or "Exceeds Expectation" on an assignment that asked students to use a piece of Spanish-language Caribbean literature, to describe how their ancestry influences  their identity. She told me that, at first, she was unsure she had the written communication ability in Spanish to reach the project's proficiency goals. However, as she worked on the project, discussed the theme with classmates, self-evaluated against project rubrics, and received ongoing feedback from her teacher, she slowly began to identify and understand her weak spots in her essay. One day, she decided to change her proficiency goal to "exceeds". When I asked her what she needed to do to reach that new goal, she was easily able to articulate that strategies she would need to implement. She ended by telling me: "Nobody is allowed to not meet the standard; it just doesn't happen here. If you keep up your habits of work, the teachers will work with you until you have the skills to meet expectation." 

Wow. What trust these students have in their teachers, in the learning process, and in their own ability to succeed. "That's what I want for my students.", I found myself thinking when the student finished.  

So my essential question for tonight is "what would be the impact of using standards based grading in a small affluent private school where GPA is seen as an essential tool for advancement educationally and professionally, and where teachers are accustomed to working and developing their own curriculums and grading systems autonomously?"

The following is a video that will illustrate the Casco Bay model: 
http://vimeo.com/43992570

Here is a PDF explaining Casco Bay's grading model.
http://cbhs.portlandschools.org/files/2012/07/Casco-Bay-Family-Grading-Guide.pdf

Coming to "Terms" with 21st Century Education

July 23, 2013

Coming to "Terms" with 21^st Century Education

The academic world is abuzz with the term “21^st Century Education”. It is difficult to attend a conference, read an academic journal, or have a causual conversation in the school cafeteria without this term creeping in and eventually dominating the conversation.

Of course the idea of 21^st Century education can be both exciting and daunting, and, more often than not, polemic. Personally, I’ve had more detailed conversations on this topic over the past year than I have had about my own family. Why all the buzz now? In my opinion, this is such a high frequency topic now because it has become an immediate one. The demands of the 21^st Century are here, right now. They are not hypothetical, but rather reality-based.

Yet, the conversations about 21^st Century education, even among those educators who are supportive of the baisc principles behind the “movement” are often confusing and lacking in commonly shared understanding. Most educators have heard talk of the 21^st Century skills and lectures on the shift from knowing to doing. Many have heard about, and maybe even implemented, a flipped classroom or STEM, tuned into TED Talks or the Kahn Academy, tinkered with Project Based Learning, or downloaded some cool educational tech apps. Despite so many resources and tools at our disposal, there still seems to be a great amount of confusion and worry about what 21^st Century education is and what it demands.

During a series of discussions today with colleagues who I consider to be extraordinarilly open to the changes that the 21^st Century requires of education, I found our group floundering while trying to develop some concrete, actionable plans for moving some aspect of our school program into the 21^st Century. Let me point out that I am talking about a highly intelligent, articulate group of people who have been collaborating on 21^st Century assessment ideas for the past year. We have taken part in numerous and well-developed workshops on this topic. However, as I was leaving the school today, I was struggling to understand our difficulty in putting together some concrete ideas.

Part of the problem, I have come to understand, is in the venacular. I have found this to be true over and over with educational movements. It simply takes a long time for people to come to agreement about what specialized terms like “assessment” vs. “evaluation”, or “learning outcomes” vs. “standards” mean. Without a commonly and mutually understood vocabulary it is difficult to sustain a coherent and balanced discussion of any issue.

We, as educators, are familiar with the 21^st Century buzz words, but do we all agree about what those terms mean and what they look like in practice? My personal observations say that the answer is no.  

If we are to begin to implement 21^st Century strategies in the classroom, we first need to understand important terms. It seems to me that, starting the process with the utilization of new technologies or creating assessments that seem to have 21^st Century characteristics is putting the cart in front of the horse. We will simply be occassionally peppering our 19^th Century curriculums with 21^st Century tools /toys, but probably not reaching, or clearly understanding, 21^st Century outcomes.

This leads to my seoncd observation tonight. Many of the educators I have spoken to over the past year are only vaguely familiar with what the 21^st skills are that we are supposed to be fostering in our students. Many can list a few, which have become, what I consider, the more common buzz words of the movement, such as critcal thinking, collaboration, and connection. However, when pressed to discuss what these skills would look like in practice or how they might be assessed and reported on (think grading here), discourse-breakdown occurs.

I have looked at many sources for lists of 21^st Century skills, but the one I found one tonight that I find concisely informative, accessible, and easy to conceptualize in practice. It comes from Dr. Tony Wagner, co-director of Harvard's Change Leadership Group.

1) Critical thinking and problem-solving

2) Collaboration across networks and leading by influence

3) Agility and adaptability

4) Initiative and entrepreneurialism

5) Effective oral and written communication

6) Accessing and analyzing information

7) Curiosity and imagination

The Asia Society has posted a Power Point of Dr. Wagner's that brief explains these skills. 

To hear Dr. Wagner talk about these 7 skills, click on the You Tube link below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NS2PqTTxFFc&feature=fvwp

I would also encourage educators with the same concerns or topical interest to read the following breif article from the Asia Society. There is an interesting discussion question at the end of the article that refelcts many of the concerns I hve heard from fellow educators, and have indeed wondered about myself.

http://asiasociety.org/education/resources-schools/professional-learning/seven-skills-students-need-their-future

Discussion question

At one point in his remarks, Dr. Wagner states that "we have no idea how to teach or assess these skills." It is difficult to do systemically, but good teachers exercise these skills in the classroom all the time. What are your approaches for student skill development? And how can we bring it to scale so all students can succeed in a global knowledge economy?

This is another resource I found helpful in understand what each of these skills mean in real terms as they apply to what the job market demands:

http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/uploadedFiles/about/strategicplan/advisorscorner.pdf

http://www.teachthought.com/learning/how-to-prepare-student-for-21st-century-survival/

These are just a few resources to get started with. Please feel free to send some good resources you have found on this topic. 

Summer Institute Blog 7/22

Monday, July 22, 2013 

"As long as I am a good teacher, I will continue to be a student." (Saint Augustine, Sermon 244, 2)

"To achieve maturity, a human being needs a certain balance among these three things: talent, education and experience. (The City of God, 11, 25).

When I returned from Peace Corps and called my friend Jim Stewart to tell him that I'd decided to go into education and also wanted to perhaps get involved in youth ministry, a coincidence happened. He told me that he was planning a spiritual retreat for students at Holy Ghost Prep, an all boys private Catholic school in Bensalem, Pa.

Jim went on to explain that he had just gotten off the phone with a person who was to speak at the retreat, but who had to cancel at the last minute. In short, Jim asked if I could fill in and give a talk about love in action. As Jim explained the retreat and the talk he wanted me to give, a bit of doubt started to creep into my mind. What qualified me to do this?

I had just returned home from a living for two years in a country that went through 10 years of brutal civil war, so I was thoroughly ashamed to realize just how terrified I was about the prospect of having to give that talk about love at the retreat. However, I knew it was a chance get involved and to learn from some pretty amazing people. Seeing my chance, I agreed.

At the retreat, speaker after speaker (two of which were Malvern Prep teachers) stood up to talk to the group, much more eloquently than I had expected. I began to think that I was too casually prepared and I began to stress out as the time for my speech came closer.

Then the next speaker came to the podium and the first thing he said was, "there are no coincidences in life." He went on to tell a stories of the many times that the pieces of his life almost miraculously came together to lead him in a new and increasingly fulfilling directions. He told the boys that day, "you are not here by coincidence."  Those words struck me immediately. I realized that this speech, this retreat, would be the first steps toward my path (wherever it might lead me); one that would probably change my life forever. It did indeed. Holy Ghost Prep offered me my first teaching job that next August, and I found what I consider to be my true calling.

After almost 15 years in education since that first small step, I found myself this morning once again sitting nervously, surrounded by a remarkable group of educators, waiting for my time to speak. Afraid to put myself out there, and perhaps feeling a little less prepared than I would have liked to join in on a discussion on 21st Century education.

However, in our opening activity in which we discussed the readings regarding St. Augustine's views on education and the educator, I read aloud the following quote: "To achieve maturity, a human being needs a certain balance among these three things: talent, education and experience" (The City of God, 11, 25).

This quote made me reflect on my own journey as a person and teacher, and brought me back to that day when I decided to take a chance and say yes to something scary, but formative. I relaxed into the rest of today's meeting, knowing that, ready or not, I was embarking on yet another path to develop my talent, education, and experience. A path that I am certain will make me a better teacher and student in the Augustinian tradition.

At the opening session, Christian asked why do you think you are here at this summer institute. Honestly, I didn't have a clear answer to that question at the time, but I do know this ... it was no coincidence.