My friend, Faige Meller, wrote this week on how she is driven. Her words have inspired me to consider what drives me right now!
I am currently about halfway through my “longterm sabbatical” from teaching as I’m home to raise our little ones until they are at school. I’m amazed how fast the time has whipped by since the day I was put on bed rest, but I know that by the time I return to the classroom, much will have changed in the education world. Blogging and tweeting have been privileges for me to stay involved, but I’m also grateful for this unique phase of my life during which I have more time to take action in my community. For me, these opportunities all blend together to help me grow as a parent, teacher, citizen, and person.
And I, too, am driven.
I am driven to never stop learning.
I am driven toward authenticity.
I am driven to identify practices that put learning in the hands of — learners.
I am driven to learn how to empower kids to become powerful 21st century citizens and healthy self-regulated human beings.
I am driven to learn more about my community so I’m better prepared to serve them when I return to the classroom.
I am driven to model the very kinds of design thinking and action that I hope to see in my students (both my current very small ones and my future classroom ones).
I am driven to stay current with quality children’s literature so I can give timely recommendations and cultivate myself as a reader.
I am driven to share thought-provoking resources to help current classroom teachers inspire wonder and meaning in their students.
I am driven to always be able to say with confidence, “I am a teacher!” AND “I am a learner!”
We need design thinking. This has been a concept we’ve promoted here through our scholarship this year — and we’ve been astonished at the projects students have submitted to improve their communities.
As I have begun volunteering with our local bicycle committee, I have been amazed at the many ways other volunteers have made an impact on our city. But despite progress, it is with great sorrow that I learned a teen I used to teach was recently killed while crossing the street in my old neighborhood.
This tragedy has strengthened my resolve to contribute however possible. As I work toward clarity and purpose, I have found myself yet again on another iteration of the design thinking cycle, this time with my commitment toward better design. Here’s what it currently looks like:
Look, Listen, & Learn:
As I have renewed my research efforts, I have sadly uncovered direct opposition to design when it comes to taking measures to make room for all people using our streets.
For instance, last summer a local paper ran a report with the tone that pedestrians “assuming right-of-way” are foolishly getting themselves hurt and killed:
“UDOT director of Traffic and Safety, says 94 percent of crashes are a “behavior decision,” not a road design. None of it matters if pedestrians don’t take advantage of safety features or if drivers are distracted or blow past them.” (Source)
Yet in the wake of this tragedy, a common response has been a demand to know more about how design can improve that road’s safety. Residents of the neighborhood even state that far from serving them, the surrounding roads have functioned as walls, compelling them to drive rather than walk even 2 blocks to the local rec center to stay safe.
This has led to more in-depth investigation into Complete Streets policies, one of which is currently being considered in my city.
Ask Tons of Questions:
What do Complete Streets mean?
What do Complete Streets not mean?
What are the costs of Complete Streets policies?
What are the obstacles in designing roads that permit all people to freely and safely navigate their communities (not just bicyclists, but pedestrians, people in wheelchairs, children on scooters, etc.)?
What has been the impact of Complete Streets in other parts of the country?
How do Complete Streets impact local economies, in addition to health, safety and environmental factors?
Understand the Process or Problem:
In response to my many questions, my research has been expanded to a more in-depth understanding of Complete Streets, including these informative videos from Streetfilms:
“It’s extraordinarily important that we find ways to make our communities more accessible to all the people that want to use them, and allow for kinds of transportation that are more sustainable in the long-run.” (from above video)
Benefits of Complete Streets I’ve found include (but are not limited to):
Cost effectiveness:
Provides long-term savings as it avoids the need for expensive retrofits later on.
Many small road improvements that make a big difference come at little to no added cost.
“allows for an efficient and optimal use of limited resources: time, fuel, land, public health, the environment, and money.” (source)
Safety:
Complete Streets have been found again and again to decrease injuries and deaths (source).
Protects the most vulnerable of society (children, the elderly, people of color, and the disabled), thus addressing issues of equity (source).
Quality of Life:
Encourages healthy active transportation, walkability, and even a sense of community as people have options to travel on more attractive, pleasantly landscaped areas.
Provides “green dividends” that allow people more money to spend elsewhere
Improves access and foot traffic to local business (source). (During a test ride for a new local bus system, transit co-vice chair Sherrie Hall Everett commented, “[Though the road is still] under heavy construction, and many have been concerned about the sidewalks being narrower…what I didn’t anticipate was how much more I noticed the stores, how much closer they felt and related to the street. I noticed the windows and what was going on inside and felt more of the energy of their presence”).
Public transit improvements:
Considers how many people have access to bus stops from their homes.
Improves comfort and convenience of stops, speed of service, and measures that lower congestion. (source)
Environment:
addresses pollution through a combination of more active transportation, better public transit, and lowered congestion.
allows people to complete trips (39% of which are three miles or less in metropolitan areas) in a zero-emissions manner (source)
More importantly for the context of our local concerns, I have also uncovered some important facts that debunk notions that it’s not about design. These I have turned into graphs, which has lead me to…
….Navigate Ideas:
The most important finding is as follows: on average, 45% of bicyclists and 50% of pedestrians in the last decade had no contributing factors in the crash, a figure that has been on an upward trend. This means that even when they’re doing everything right, a significant portion of people who are walking and biking are still getting hurt.
Furthermore, pedestrian deaths and injuries have been on the rise in my state over the past 10 years.
Create a Prototype:
In this case, the prototype was an event where I attended and voiced some of what I shared above; our city Planning Commission met to review a proposed Complete Streets Policy for our city, along with feedback shared by another city department that seemed less than supportive of the policy. Below is a clip beginning with a moving response from one of the commissioners, Jamin Rowan, after hearing from all the community members and reading the other department’s feedback:
“It is time we demand to revisit those standards…It is not an amendment in our constitution to be able to get in your automobile and travel down the road as quickly and conveniently as possible. Our society and culture has operated upon that assumption. It has become a de facto amendment and I’m tired of it. And I think the people that we’ve heard from tonight are tired of it…I’m not in favor of defending old codes instead of defending the vision that’s outlined in this [Complete Streets] policy…Streets are one of our most valuable public spaces…This is one to fight for and not let it get watered down.”
Highlight & Fix:
Mainly, I learned that I should write down my talking points before making formal presentations. I plan to do so for the next phase of the design thinking cycle…
…Launch to an Audience:
Next week, I’ll be presenting to our City Council members.
I’m looking forward to continued iterations of this design thinking process. I hope to convey a strong sense that the quality of our communities and of our very lives depends on good design.
Taking part of the Innovator’s Mindset books study via #IMMOOC was one of the most refreshing professional development experiences I’ve had since leaving the classroom.
One of the reasons I chose to participate was because this feels like an important time for me professionally.
For one thing, I just finished the process of renewing my teaching license, which involved a lot of reflection. For another, this spring marks 4 years since I’ve been away from the classroom, which is as long as I was actually in the classroom! I used to think sharing this would hurt my credibility as an educator and as a blogger (“what does she know?”).
Now I know that it’s less about writing what I know and more about writing how I’m growing and changing. I thought Katie Martin summed it up beautifully in the last episode of the #IMMOOC:
“I shifted my thinking from I’m an authority to tell people something vs. This is my space to reflect & learn.”
I feel like this also captures the contrast between working and living from a place of fear vs. a place of passion. Sometimes we think it doesn’t matter if the results are the same (bottom-line thinking); the truth is that fear acts as a drain of our energy and opportunities, while passion feeds our energy and opportunities. While many of us readily accept the above statement, it’s tricky to detect the way it’s playing out in our own lives, particularly if we are, in fact, choosing fear.
My graphic below (last challenge of this #IMMOOC) is meant to capture some of the ways I found that contrast of fear vs. passion throughout reading George Couros’ Innovator’s Mindset and watching the #IMMOOC episodes. My hope is that it might serve as a tool for self-reflection. I would love to hear additional examples of the difference it makes to choose passion over fear!
…we told that one kid on their way out that we hoped they had a terrific break and could come in fresh to try again?
…we sat down with that child who will. not. finish. that assignment, and discussed alternative opportunities for him/her to practice/demonstrate learning?
…we spend those 15 minutes contemplating that child’s strengths and how we might tap into those in order to overcome the current difficulty?
…we found ways to create more flexibility within our own schedules so students don’t necessarily have to work on the same assignments simultaneously all day long?
…we created positive calendars, complete with “publishing parties” for kids to anticipate?
…we worked on making our classroom a place kids hardly ever want to leave, rather than a place they can’t wait to leave?
Just a few questions from a teacher who has kept way too many kids in from way too many recesses. Inspired by Chapter 8 of George Corous’ Innovator’s Mindset. And still wondering…
When classroom literacy instruction starts to become completely overtaken by that literacy programs, do actual books start to get in the way? After all, reading a book takes more time. Selecting passages from actual books to share with students takes time. Talking about our favorite books (and building the culture that makes us want to) takes time.
And time is what we lack most as teachers!
Plus, when that program has mapped out tasks and “personalized” progress for every day of the school year, it seems our literary expertise starts to take a back seat to that very expensive program.
So what starts happening when programs > books?
Books seem like luxurious “extras” (you can get to your book when you finish the worksheet or level).
Books seem less efficient than the programs (we all know books have value, but if they’re not carefully scaffolding the reading development with every word, are they as valuable during class time?)
Read aloud time starts to disappear (after all, the programs seem to encompass all the literary needs, not to mention time).
Programs are deemed more adept at identifying skills (at least, the skills most easily recognizable/test-able).
Kids talk less about the books they’re reading and more about the levels they’re on (it makes sense since all that time on programs suggests we’re more interested in getting them to the next level than we are about their reading interests).
No matter how appealing and adept a program might seem, we must be careful to seek balance and to protect our students’ love of books. As authors by Antero Garcia and Cindy O’Donnell-Allen write, “To see themselves as readers, students must also have opportunities to make decisions about what they will read.” p. 98, Pose, Wobbble, Flow. Pernille Ripp also writes eloquently on programs like Accelerated Reader & selecting literacy programs. Also this:
If you have an expensive computer program to teach reading, but you have no classroom libraries, school libraries or a certified school librarian, something is seriously wrong with the decision making process
If books have started to be relegated to a sideline role in our classrooms, it’s time to ask ourselves how we can bring them back into our reading instruction in meaningful ways.
I recently had another “aha moment” as a result of reading Seth Godin’s blog. Check out this passage:
“I didn’t let the dough ferment long enough.
And then I made the oven hotter, in an effort to get the loaves finished so I could leave to meet someone.
That’s not how great bread works. It’s ready when it’s ready, not when you need it to be.”
Pacing was my biggest opportunities for growth in the classroom. I’d plan on a “mini lesson,” only to find myself talking at my kids for 20 minutes before letting them get started. Or I’d try to keep it brief, and then find myself interrupting them again and again as I added additional thoughts.
Of course, pacing isn’t just about the length of our lessons. It’s also about gauging our kids’ learning and development in general. How soon and how fast do we push? How much room is there for students’ voices and inquiries amid the curriculum we have “to cover?” This is where the fear can also come in that Seth mentioned in his post; how often do we allow our fears to keep us letting go of control?
Either way, when our pacing is off, it’s often because the focus has strayed more to our timetable than our kids‘ timetable. Just as great sourdough is “ready when it’s ready, not when you need it to be,” kids are ready when they’re ready. The best way at being more in-tune with our kids’ needs is by listening to their voices. This might include:
using a suggestion box/holding class meetings
using wrap-ups at the end of our lessons to reflect collectively on the understanding thus far
co-constructing rubrics and soliciting kids’ definitions of success (both for specific units and for learning in general!)
talking less
inviting kids in on the planning
tapping into kids’ process for work (rather than focusing solely on compliance)
Even when we think we’re too short on time, when we choose to seek out students’ voices, we will more often find ourselves uncovering great learning and great learners.
As moving and remarkable as this story is, it makes me wonder: would this kind of response be unique to just that group of students? It seems to me that this highlights the broader goodness that is inherent in our kids, if only we give them the opportunity to rise to and express it.
And what does that take? Clearly, this teacher has taken the time to form a relationship with her students. She describes a classroom environment of shared ownership as her students step up to write on the board and pass out papers as she’s confined to a wheelchair. She gives them the opportunity to find and share their authentic voices.
Of course, it’s easy to lose sight of these things amid all the obstacles we face as teachers. Pressures of time. Pressures of curriculum. And, like in the circumstance of this Detroit kindergarten classroom with 38 students this year, pressures of resources.
We can and should do what we can to fight for improvements in our schools. But even as we wade through these limitations, we can always find opportunities for student voice/choice and agency.
This might take the form of:
inquiry-based learning and provocations to help them make connections and discoveries.
regular class meetings in which students help address issues and express concerns/suggestions.
Authentic problem-based learning in which students investigate personally-relevant issues.
Less dependence on contrived-learning (ie, boxed or computer programs that take the person out of personalized learning), and more meaningful co-constructed learning experiences.
Teaching them ways to positively harness the power of social media and digital tools (rather than solely focusing on cyberbullying/safety).
As we work to find ways to give our students their voice and ownership, we will be astonished again and again at their ideas, their empathy, and their capacity to lead as the next generation.
