Kids, Voting and the Classroom

For as long as I can remember, I felt voting was an incredibly important piece of being an American.  Registering to vote was not a question, it was happening and I was lucky to vote for the first time in 1992 - the holy grail of first time voting experiences - a Presidential election.  Since then I've voted in countless elections and registered to vote many times as I can't seem to commit to any one address or state for very long.  In each location, I spent a considerable amount of time in the classroom helping students to understand what voting is, what participating or not participating means, how to get registered, what voting day is like, etc.  Ahead of a conversation that will be held later on today, I'd like to outline a few things that have worked in my classroom over the past decade and a half (has it really been that long).Ideas for getting students more interested, engaged and active in the democratic process:

• Election Forum - Back in my very first teaching job in Wellsville, KS I helped students organize a community wide election forum event that recruited candidates to take questions in a public forum.  In addition, the students produced a booklet that outlined the main platform and biographical information for each candidate running in the 1998 election.  In addition, they did all the communicating with the campaigns, production of the booklet (which was placed at the bank, post office and gas station in town), vetting of and asking of the questions during the forum.  We also know that any good community event has food, so it was an ice cream social as well.  To this day, one of the most stunning examples of what students can do when allowed the room to do it.
• Offer extra credit to go and see candidates speak.  Anyone who has been in my class knows that I rarely give out extra credit, but going out to campaign events is an interesting part of the political process.  One of my favorite moments was watching the Secret Service approach 5 of my HS students (all boys on the FB team) to ask for help in repositioning the stage prior to the arrival Bill Bradley at the local Kansas City airport.  They were beyond speechless and respectful.  To get the extra credit, the students needed to turn in a one page written reflection on the experience, the next day.  Every single one of those boys brought in some of the best writing they had done all year.  Doing REAL things matter.
• Invite the official from the city/county that is responsible for registration to speak to the students about what to expect in the registration process and then in voting.  In addition, ask the official to specifically address what they students should be doing to ensure they can vote at college, or absentee at their home address.
• Weave current events and the election into the daily/weekly routine of the class.  The students need to start early to pick apart the rhetoric from the real conversation.  This is not something that just happens once someone turns 18.  This 'crap detection' takes some serious time to get the hang of and students love being in the know and wise in their consumption of media.
• Citizenship/Civis Homework - Students need to attend more public meetings and events where decisions are being made that affect their future.  For the past 4 years, SLA students were assigned quarterly Citizenship Homework: 1st Quarter - Voting Day Interview, 2nd Quarter - Attend a public meeting, 3rd Quarter - Volunteer Work, 4th Quarter - Free choice of any of the previous three options.  The point of this homework was for students to actively participate in their communities, become aware of policies and procedures that govern those interactions and reflect on their own future roles in those spaces.
• Although part of the previous bullet point - let me assure you that having students go to the polls on election day and interview people is a fabulous idea.  The process and all is a whole 'nother blog post, but if it is at all feasible in your area have the students AT the polls.  One of the barriers to voter participation is the fear factor of looking stupid or doing it wrong.  Having students enter that space and see the process when the stakes are low is key.  This works.

As educators, we are in a spectacular place to help bring awareness to students and empower them in this process of participating in the democratic process.  To waste this opportunity means that we do not value an active and informed citizenry.  Let's move this goal up, in the long list of priorities we have for the classroom.  It matters.

Personal Economics

As a part of my teaching philosophy, I believe strongly in empowering students to discover their learning, developing life skills and encouraging positive decision-making.  Keeping that in mind, several years ago my teaching team wanted to come up with a method for developing a yearlong program that bridged the distance between all of our classes and reinforced the basic team-wide goals for the students.  Our result was not revolutionary or all that original, but we developed something that was manageable and well designed for our particular situation that also reflected our overarching educational philosophy.  This was intentionally crafted to be very straightforward and simple as this is used with four different teachers  and 130 middle school students.

Goals
1.    Reinforce the habits of being a responsible student.

• Credits
  • Money earned for good grades - quarterly 
  • Money earned for having perfect attendance – bi-weekly
  • Money for a parent signature in agendas - weekly
  • Money for books read
  • Money for participating in special community service events

• Debits
  • Money deducted for being tardy
  • Money deducted for losing checkbook register
  • Money deducted for a hall pass   

2.    Introduce the concepts of a personal economics.

• Credits
• Debits
• Consequences for overdrawing account
• Benefits of saving money

3.    Provide incentives for supporting the greater community.

• Throughout the school year we have community service events in which we encourage students to take part.
• For instance, during the food drive, they would have the possibility of receiving credits based on the number of food items they collected.

Process

1. Each student staples a blank ‘check register’ into his or her student agenda.
2. The first of every month one teacher would ‘pay’ the students a credit.  At that time, the balances were checked and if any student had lost their agenda or overdrawn their account, they were assigned a lunch detention. 
3. Bi-monthly the students receive payment for two weeks of perfect attendance
4. Quarterly the students received a bonus for getting good grades.
5. Extra pages of the check register available as needed.  It is important for each teacher to have copies of the register pages on hand.
6. Balances are verified the last week of school.
7. At the end of the year students gather in the commons area for a large auction.

Challenges

• Teacher transience
• Consistency of use/implementation
• Students fail to bring the student agendas to school or lose them
• Use of instructional time for salary, checking balances, etc.

Since we are a multi-age looping team of students, there are both 7th and 8th graders on the team.  Often times the 7th graders are irresponsible with the registers and use up all the money on hall passes or lost registers.  The 8th graders are much more tuned into the balance in the register because they sat through the auction the previous year and know opportunity awaits them.  It became evident is that the benefits of the program were best seen in year two.  My proposed solution if I only had the students for one instructional year is to conduct two smaller auctions to instill that saver mentality.

The concept of money is slippery for students.  When conducting this activity one can really start to see what the natural tendencies of a student are with regard to long term goals.  Most students want to have a large balance going into the auction, but do not seem to make choices that will yield that result.  The students that are the savers in the group use their hall time wisely and make sure to get the easy money, like the agenda signatures.  In addition, when a student wants a hall pass, it takes the pressure off the teacher to let the student go or not, because no money means no hall pass.  If they have forgotten their agenda or have no money, they have no flexibility for hall passes.  This mirrors the real life reality of being out of money and not being able to do whatever you want. 

The credit crisis in America should give rise to a larger conversation about teaching and practicing the skills of personal economics in a much more deliberate and meaningful way for students.  The lack of money sense and restraint has contributed to the current national money debacle.  There are some very simple but effective ways to bring basic concepts and habits of practice to our young people.  This has to be one of the most relevant lessons that can be taught to all students and KNOW that they will need it as the years pass.

*** The Personal Economics program was developed by the fabulous teaching team of Barry George, Kathie Quigley and Amy Smith (and me of course).***

***This whole post came out of a great twitter conversation with Wes Fryer this morning about economics education.***

Students will be able to...

As the result of a recent requirement in my district, we are being asked to write both content and language objectives each day, post them for the class and recite them at the beginning of class.  Although I am naturally repelled by things that are formulaic, this is something that, in theory, I can wrap my head around.  The part that I am struggling to deal with, though, is that each objective is supposed to start with the phrase, "students will be able to" or SWBAT as has been shortened by a vast majority of teachers. 

Now, there are exactly two pieces of this that rub me the wrong way.

1. The SWBAT phrase negates the teacher as learner within the classroom and furthers the 'us vs. them' mentality. 
2. SWBAT is plain and simply boring.

So, as a means of complying with the spirit of the requirement, I have been devising new ways to introduce the content and language objectives.  Here are some examples:

• Today for our learning enjoyment we will...
• In order to expand our gray matter today we will...
• Because we just can't get enough knowledge today we will...
• In an attempt to add to our already voluminous mental capacity today we will....

Now, I admit, some of this is meant to be silly, but if I am going to list something on the board everyday, it just can't start with SWBAT.  The very acronym'izing' of the phrase shows how little the words actually mean to the overall message.  So I have a request... I am in need of some other starters to make it through the 130 school days... 

Post River Trip Let Down

Returning from a trip on the water with students is hard, particularly hard when the trip went as well as it did.  School just never feels the same when we get back.  This is the list of quotes I love hearing from students since we got off the river....

1.  How will we ever be able to go back to school now?

2.  I sat down to watch TV last night and I was totally bored

3.  Can we go hiking more when we get back to Flagstaff?

4.  I really liked playing in the mud.

5.  Remember that time I almost stepped on the rattlesnake?

6.  School should always be outside.

7.  Before going on this, I didn't really think I liked sleeping outside.

8.  When can I do this again?

I am in the process of making a montage video, burning up all the pictures for each student, printing nice 8 X 10 group pictures, making thank you cards for the guides and organizing the post-trip party.... phew.  I will post a link to the wonderful pictures as soon as I get them uploaded!   

Kids and the Outdoors

There are very few perfect moments in the course of the school year, especially at the end.  The past four days probably qualify as some of the most perfect days with students.  Most people that I told I was spending four days on the river with 20 middle school students thought I was nuts!  What they don't know and what most people fail to realize is that the outdoors have a transformative effect on kids.  We ask them to sit in desks and soak information for an insane amount of hours each year, hoping that straight rows, 'good textbooks' and the proper discipline model will accomplish the goal (which seems to be high test scores).  But, if you were on my trip the last four days you would rethink everything about the nature of learning and kids.  Coming back from excusions like this become harder and harder because I KNOW without a doubt that kids are too patterned, regulated and standardized at school.  I KNOW that there is a better way to learn than sit and get.  I KNOW that I want to be a part of something that allows kids to learn by experience, connected to that which they are learning about (as much as humanly possible).  Nature has a way of bringing out the essence of a person and I was lucky enough these past few days to be part of a transformative moment for everyone involved in the process!  A special shout out to our PHENOMENAL guides... Pam, Jeri, Jerry, Aaron, Julia and Mark.  A monumental debt of gratitude to Angela for taking personal time to accompany and assist the group.  Finally, to the fabulous GCY staff... Emma, Reid and Chantal... we would not have been able to do it without you!

Before Google

This week in Arizona is AIMS week... standardized testing week... not my favorite week of the year, but we get to start school late and the students and I have breakfast together in the morning... very civilized.

Today is the fourth and final day of the testing and as we went over the sample question prior to starting the actual test, one of the multiple choice options was 'encyclopedia'.  A student raised her hand and said, "What's an encyclopedia again?".  Without missing a beat, I said that it is what we used to look things up before google.  She nodded knowingly and went on with her sample bubbling. 

What I really wanted to say, is that if I need to know the population of a country the options should not have read a.table of contents  b.index  c.encyclopedia and d.dictionary. 

The options should have read a. Google  b. Wikipedia   c. ask.com  d. cell phone  e. all of the above.

I love my job!

Right before Christmas break I gave out email accounts to all my students.  I knew that using the tool would be beneficial for the students.  They really enjoyed the freedom to have their own account.  It allows for the easy, safe transfer of documents from home to school.  Overall I had an idea of the benefits that this tool may offer my students. 

We are almost a month into it and all that I expected has come to be.  But, today I realized the wonderful extra benefit.  After I played (and lost) two volleyball games tonight I pulled up my school email account to see several messages.  Most of them appeared to be questions about the project we are working on... love that they are going home to work on their own!  But there were two messages from kids thanking me for teaching them... I worked really hard this weekend to pull together a meaningful project, it took a ton of my time, but after getting those emails I knew how well spent the time was.  I love my job, and not in a 'PollyAnnaish' kind of way, but in the 'I've been doing this for ten years' kind of way, and there's no place I'd rather be working than in a classroom.  It's just too good.

Telling the Story...

A continutation of the last post, related to the Rwandan genocide...

I re-watched Hotel Rwanda sorting through clips that would be appropriate to show to a middle school classroom.  I thought that I would never watch the movie again after I had seen it the first time.  There are things that I only need or want to see once.  This was one of those movies.  But, now I sit with the opportunity to tell the story... to an audience that is completely out of the loop... my students.  Watching the movie again was necessary to bring another form of information to them to learn from, to see, to understand.  It has been a long day and I am thinking that tomorrow will be as well.

But here's the thing, the story can be told in such a compelling way today.  On the blog circuit I read Tell Me Your Story; Stir My Heart and What’s in a Story? today.  These two posts get at the crux of what I am trying to do with the story of the Rwandan genocide.  The big idea about telling a story with conviction and passion came through loud and clear.  The story I tell to the students this week is a heavy story, one that both shatters and inspires, uplifts and ashames, horrifies and amazes.  The great thing about teaching history is that the whole subject is one long story.  But the perplexing part is in what story is told, how the story is told and with what passion the story is told. 

The story of the Rwandan genocide can be brought to life for the students in my classroom with the resources at our fingertips.  We listen to interviews with the UN generals that were on the ground, with survivors of the genocide, with officials that were part of the world governments at the time.  We stream in videos that play the story of the Hutus and the Tutsis, show the violence of the time and report the events that occur as a part of this devastating chapter from history.  We watch with horror as the flash based timeline rolls though events and death tolls.  We closely watch the news to see what is happening in Darfur and Somalia as both have connections to the Rwandan story.  The story is powerful in the written word, becomes vivid with the audio, transforms to mezmerizing with video... the kids get this in a way that I cannot 'tell' the story of 200 years ago.  The capability to bring this digital information to the students revolutionizes the way I teach, transforms the way they learn and transcends any bubble test the 'powers that be' come up with. 

Using this story of courage, hope and integrity as a model the students soon begin telling the story of someone else who has used their life, like Paul Rusesabagina used his life... and the students will also include the story of how they plan to use their own life to positively impact the lives around them.  There is a quote from Think:Lab today that sums it up to a tee

If you can tell a story, you have an audience. If you tell a great story, you have a great audience.  If you invite others to create that story with you, you have something far deeper.

Starting on Monday the students will begin to tell their stories and I look forward to the challenge that this will bring for all of us.

Never again...

A few months ago I received an email with an open invitation to students from Flagstaff to attend an event where Paul Rusesabagina, the hotel manager that shielded 1200+ Rwandans from slaughter in 1994,  would be speaking.  The event was free, the venue was close enough to walk to and after a small amount of investigation I decided to sign up my 135 students.  It was not often that we get internationally known speakers, for free, in this mountain town. 

While I was making the decision, it became abundantly clear that I couldn't take these students to hear from this man without a serious amount of preparation.  Genocide is not a topic that one introduces to students lightly.  I struggled with the decision to focus on such a grim topic, not that war is not grim and history is not grim, but genocide, for some reason is different.  The Rwandan genocide was recent, there were vivid images, the stories live on being told by the people who survived.  It is very real, almost too real.  I ran my decision past a few of my sounding boards to see if I was being overly sensitive, or if I should rethink genocide as a topic of study for a few weeks in January.  Most people agreed that, yes, it was grim... but that doesn't make it unworthy of study.  I decided that the focus of the unit would be on the power of one... one person, one idea, one moment, one decision.  After learning about Mr. Rusesabagina and the story of the Rwandan genocide, the students would choose one person who uses/used their life to positively impact the lives of other, tell the story and then at the end tell the story of how they plan on using their own life to positively impact the lives of others.  The goal is to have each student make a short 3-5 minute movie. 

Then, I received a call from the organizers of the event, the Martin-Springer Institute.  They were calling to let me know that I could choose one student to attend.  One, one student out of 135.  This was not going to be easy.  So I decided to turn the whole thing into a competition to earn the privilege to go to lunch.  Each class will view another classes videos, vote for the top video... those five will be viewed by a panel of five impartial judges (a college professor, a PhD. candidate, a MS science teacher on sabbatical ;), a community college instructor and a web entrepreneur).  These five would choose the top individual who would then be chosen to go to lunch at a very swank location in town with Mr. Rusesabagina. 

We are on day three of genocide and the students still can't believe the stories and realities that the people of Rwanda faced in 1994.  As a related tangent, we have been looking briefly at Darfur and noticing the similarities and differences in the world response.  Most students didn't really realize that genocide happened anywhere outside the Holocaust.  This has been an incredibly emotional topic.  I am a little concerned that this is a little much.  But, I fear that if they don't hear the stories and grapple with the issues that they will grow up ignorant of the situations that happen on the global scene.  Also, I want the experience to focus on the extraordinary actions of 'ordinary' people that step up in times of need.  I want them to ponder for a bit what role they may play to help out their local community or more.

The phrase 'never again' is used time and again to describe the world committment to not allowing another genocide to take place.  Well, it's been never again over and over again.  It is a story with extreme historical relevance and tangible connection to the students in my classes.  By studying the story and hearing, first hand, from a man who lived through a genocide, I hope that the students may remember, may get it, may hold onto the story and act, think, feel something, as a result.

This is a new topic for me, and unchartered territory... I have faith that this will be a meaningful story to tell and path to take with the students, but we are only on day three... anyone have any suggestions? other ideas? thoughts on teaching about genocide to middle schoolers?