Where is the vision? interviewing principals

Date
Posted by
Comments0

Last night, I was part of a community meeting at our neighborhood school where my sons go (not where I teach) to interview the two finalists for principal. This is important to me because my youngest starts kindergarten there next year and the school has been sort of rudderless since our last principal left and an interim (now, for two years) was put in place by our superintendent.

Let me say, I was underwhelmed by both candidates, and that is frustrating to me.

Both finalists  seemed like hard-working people with rich backgrounds in working with kids, although their strengths were clearly in opposite sides of the spectrum. One finalist is very child-centered (coming from an ESL background) while the other was about discipline and school climate (currently an administrator in that sort of position).

I paid careful attention to the vision they had for the school, particularly around literacy. One mentioned that they like the concept of writing workshop and Lucy Calkins, but didn’t convince me that they had an idea or plan for moving those ideas into the entire school. This finalist did talk about expanding texts beyond the basil readers now in use (good) but gave no specifics about how that would be done or what that would look like.

The other finalist talked about the use of personal narratives for students (good) but did not articulate a vision that put that kind of writing at the center of a vision. This finalist also danced across the line of criticizing Response to Intervention (RTI) until the superintendent informed him that the school uses RTI. (My thought: why didn’t this person ask about programs before this interview?)

I don’t know.  Neither seems the kind of visionary our school needs, but then again, it is tough being principal these days and maybe the pool is shallower than I thought. Our last principal had clear visions, but she ruffled a lot of feathers along the way. Me? I say, ruffle them if it means improving the school.

Pet peeve: one of the finalists talked in educational jargon, peppering their answers with acronyms. I had to stop them a few times and ask them to explain what they were talking about for parents not well-versed in it.  (remember, now, this is an unknown audience member interrupting them, asking to explain the concepts they were using in their answers). While a friend of mine later said this jargon speak was not a big deal for her, to me it indicated no sense of audience, and I wondered how that might translate into how they deal with teachers.

Peace (in the frustration),
Kevin

Finding Pieces of the Writing Puzzle

Date
Posted by
Comments2

Sometime last year, just after the collapse of my band (The Sofa Kings), I had this vision of creating something different now that I was not attached to a group. The new project would be a story of a life of a character told through freeform poetry and original songs and it would stretch from childhood to senior citizen. Although it is never named, the character suffers from a variety of Asperger’s, which makes it difficult for him to connect with the world around him.

But there is this girl ….

The poems came quickly and formed the spine of the story. I began working on songs to go with it and for some time, I was collaborating with a friend on some recordings. That didn’t seem to gell and we both abandoned the project and, except for now and then, our collaboration (on friendly terms).

I shelved the whole thing for a few months because I was tired of it and needed some space. This week, I returned to the story and began doing some recording myself, trying to lay down tracks for the 12 or so songs and recording the podcasts of the poems. I felt as if I were stepping back into an old book.

But I still foresee a narrative problem with the story. There are too many gaps. I purposely have left many holes in the life story because I want the reader/listener to have to reach and think and come to their own conclusions. But I noticed too many holes and wondered what to do. This is part of what led me to step away earlier this year.

Yesterday, I had one of those “why didn’t I think of that before” moments and realized that the voice of the girl was missing and that she could be used to shine a light from another perspective. Her story is being written in prose, as short fiction pieces.

I feel happy to have found a solution to a vexing problem and am viewing the character swirling around in my head.

Peace (in the solution),
Kevin

Talking Webcomics on Teachers Teaching Teachers

Date
Posted by
Comments0

A few weeks ago, I took part in an interesting discussion on Teachers Teaching Teachers about the use of webcomics in the classroom. Among the guests were two of the guys from Bitstrips, which is a site that I have been toying around with lately and like. (I’ll be using it this summer for a youth Webcomic Camp).

Take a listen to the hour-long TTT show, if you have time.

TTT:Talking Comics

Peace (in the frames),

Kevin

What I think …

Date
Posted by
Comments1

This post combines two pieces that I pulled together recently — one for a mini-grant proposal from a teaching website and another for the YPulse Wired Teaching Award (where I was a finalist).

For the minigrant, I was asked to write about what I think about “21st Century Readiness” and also, if I were to a video documenting my thoughts, what would it look like?

My thoughts:

Young people compose all of the time, although it often happens outside of our classroom. They are texting in short-hand language that some adults find unnerving. They are surfing the Net. They are creating and sharing videos. They are “reading” video games and navigating information, and then using that information to inform the “story” of the game. Some are on Facebook and other social networking sites. Unfortunately, many educators don’t view this world as composing and writing. They erect walls between home and school. But I see this world outside of school as a possibility for learning that we cannot ignore. If my students are to be ready for the future, then they need to understand the platforms and networks which are they use. A readiness for 21st Century means being taking a critical stance, understanding the world in the midst of technological change, and adapting in order to achieve goals and success. As teachers, we have to realize that the exact skills we teach right now might not be applicable in the future. But if we can educate our students on how to work with others (even in online spaces, beyond a physical proximity); how to use inquiry as a path forward towards understanding; how to use technology for their own means; and how to always be critical and asking questions, then we have done much to prepare them for the world they are entering. Readiness for the 21st Century means being unafraid of challenges that come with the world of digital media.

My movie idea:

My video story would begin with a bored student leaving school after a day of five-paragraph essay writing, and as soon as they hit the doors, they immediately take out some mobile device and the frame shows them composing a long message. We follow this young person around through the rest of the day (outside of school) as they use digital media and technology in authentic ways: making a video; using apps on a mobile device for some authentic purpose; composing and recording a mash-up song; etc. I imagine that the video story could also show a teacher opening up their eyes to the possibilities of what this student is doing, and turning to the student as a class leader to help develop a project that engages the class, so that the traditional writing activity (essay) is coupled with other possibilities (persuasive video, podcasts, etc.)

The YPulse Award asked us to contribute a short video on advice that we would give for educators when it comes to using technology. Here is my one-minute take on urging folks to get their own hands dirty before they bring a tool into the classroom.

Peace (in the sharing),
Kevin

When News Goes Manga

Date
Posted by
Comments1

「政権交代」その５─政権発足１００日

I am not suggesting this move would save our newspapers, but some papers in Japan have started to shift towards Manga News, which converts some news items of the day into a manga-style story. I suppose this is both cultural (Manga comics are everywhere in Japan) and demographic (how to keep younger people reading the newspapers).

You can check out a website with Manga News here, although it is all in Japanese.

And Wired had an article about the shift, too. Like every other idea now in the world, there is an app for it, too.

Peace (in the news),

Kevin

Sneak Peeks at student Stopmotion Movies

Date
Posted by
Comments0

There’s a lot of work being done on our stopmotion movies, particularly now that I set a deadline of next Friday for completion. Yesterday, I presented as mini-lesson around using Moviemaker, including making titles and credits (use restraint, I told them), adding narration and cutting into video to remove unwanted hands from scenes.

I went through and randomly grabbed some of the raw footage so that I could share out some of the work at our class website. It’s always good to give parents a glimpse into the room (I wish my own sons’ teachers would do that once in a while).

Note: these are short movies built around concepts of figurative language.

Peace (in the raw),
Kevin

Keep those video files organized

Date
Posted by
Comments3

http://www.tecnerd.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/folders.jpg

I honestly try not to take too much technology knowledge for granted with my students. But yesterday, as we moved deeper into our figurative language stopmotion animation project, I realized that a very small percentage of my students knew how to create a very basis  element of Windows: a folder.

Each day, as they shoot raw footage (later to be edited in Moviemaker), they have just been randomly saving it to wherever the computer has defaulted a folder. Which means I had a lot of: “Mr. H, our video from yesterday is gone,” and me replying, “Where did you save it?” and them responding, “I don’t know.”

This happened once too often so I set aside some precious time to go through the process of creating a folder for their work, moving video files into their folder, and reminding them that three other groups are sharing the same computer, so folders are key to organization.Then, I walked around to make sure every group (I have four classes, with about five to seven movie groups going on right now) understood the concept of their folder and how to save their videos in there.

My own lesson here is to remember not to assume anything. My students may look proficient with basic technology but it is unlikely anyone has shown them what to do.  They stumble and discover, just like we do. There is something to be said of learning by doing, but in this case, keeping video files organized in project folders will save a lot of headaches later on.

Or so I hope.

Peace (in the folder),
Kevin