Hitting the restart button at the start of the school year

There are so many things weighing us all down these days. Our brains are overloaded with negativity. For me, I need to refocus as I head into the new school year... and focus on the kids. That's what this is all about, and that's what gets me back on track and back into a positive mindset. And one of the cool things about the summer vacation is that it's like we get to hit the restart button every year for us and our students.

But that doesn't mean it will always be the best start it could be. In a recent issue of the Marshall Memo, Kim Marshall writes:

"In this article in AMLE Magazine, teacher/consultant/author Rick Wormeli bemoans the fact that students’ eager and receptive frame of mind at the beginning of each school year is often deflated by the endless succession of going-over-the-rules, filling out forms, and stale getting-to-know-you activities. “Students grow increasingly disillusioned,” says Wormeli. “We’ve missed a golden opportunity for them to dive into the subject material with neurons firing on all thrusters. It’s probably the most significant time of the year to hardwire students’ minds to embrace our subjects, and we don’t want to miss it.”

He recommends mixing mandatory stuff with lively activities, so students learn something new about your subject every day."

I love his idea of making sure we grab their interest at the start of school, but I would add a couple of other goals to my list of the three things I want my students to take away from the first few days of school:

1. Piqued interest - As Wormeli recommends, I want to hit the ground running the first day with high-interest, challenging and content-rich activities. Earlier this summer, as I was planning this year's Science Project Block I asked myself, "What are the most interesting topics in biology that can be tackled with a simple hands-on approach?" I want to make sure the first day they are diving right into that.
2. Success - When I ask myself what these kids need most, the answer is confidence. The students I work with are all in dire need of a feeling of competence and success. This is true for all of us. When we feel successful at something, we will not only be interested in it, we will tend to become more successful at it. And the opposite is also true, which is why school failure is a downward spiral.
3. An expectation of hard work - At the same time, I want them to be in the zone of proximal development--not overwhelmed, but challenged. Expectations are key, so I also want them to expect to work hard every day.

So what does this mean for the first day/first few days? It means I need to provide learning activities that are:

1. Inherently interesting.
2. Easy enough to ensure success.
3. Challenging enough to require help.

In the case of Project Block, this year we'll be trying to raise trees from seed and cuttings in order to help fight climate change. The first day, after introducing the idea of climate change and the "Trillion Tree Solution," we'll go right out into the woods to look for tree seeds that we can bring back inside for the next steps. We humans have a natural interest in living things, and while I am sure they will all be able to find seeds, I also think it will be challenging.

If I can infuse success into these kids, then I've succeeded. Success here could restart their whole lives, and that's what this job is about. It's not about all this other stuff that's going on in the world or in education these days. It's about these kids and their futures. It's about what we can do to help them.

Why grit is situational and what we should really be focusing on

Picture this: An Agricultural Education student can't get his mower started. He's been taught a troubleshooting procedure, but instead of going through it on his own, he gets off the mower, walks over to the teacher, and asks for help.

The other day, some colleagues and I were talking about the concept of "grit," and this student was one of our examples of a lack of grit.

We extended our discussion to other classes, and one teacher brought up an example of another student who did the same thing in biology class--asking for an answer before even trying to find the answer on his own.

But then another Agriculture teacher in our group spoke up, "I know that student you are talking about, and in my Ag class, that student never asks for help. He troubleshoots the tractors on his own all the time."

In Ag, he shows grit, but in biology class, this student gives up before he even tries. And so it occurred to us: Grit is situational. A student who shows grit in one class may not show it in another class. When he or she feels confident, he or she shows grit. When he or she lacks the skills or experience, he or she does not show grit. Could it be that simple? Could the grit concept be that wrong?

We certainly aren't the first to question the concept. In a recent peer-reviewed article, What shall we do about grit? A critical review of what we know and what we don't know, Marcus Crede writes that there are several major problems with the grit concept:

1. Grit is supposed to be a combination of perseverance and passion, but evidence suggests it's is just another word for contentiousness, one of the well studied "Big 5" personality traits.
2. Grit is supposed to be strongly correlated with student performance and success, but there are actually other factors that show much better correlation, such as test scores and cognitive ability. In fact, if you control for conscientiousness, grit shows almost no effect. 
3. Interventions to improve grit are questionable, since efforts to improve conscientiousness have only small effects.

So where does that leave us? Maybe it leaves us with plain old quality instruction in skills that build competence and confidence. Competence and confidence that will manifest as grit.

Building rasied beds... and confidence

"I've never been proud of anything I did in school before."

That's what one of our students said after he finished building and planting his raised bed full of herbs. It was part of new program we hope will help students learn self-confidence and science while earning credits so they can graduate on time. We call it the Depot Garden Project, and it is being funded in part by a grant from the E. O. Smith Foundation.

It started Wednesday at 9:00 am. I'd enrolled 9 students in the program, but I knew two were out of state, and I expected some no-shows. In fact, I would have considered it a success if only 3 had come the first day, so I was excited when 5 students showed up. They weren't quite sure about this whole learning-over-the-summer thing, and at least one student was just a little bit grumpy, but it's amazing what a little productive work can do!

We had to build the beds out of 2x12s, and that turned out to be tougher than expected. The decking screws went in hard, and the nails were not much easier, but students did most of the work. Amber and Kim worked together and built their own 4x8 foot box all by themselves, and Gabe built his own as well.

Meanwhile, the others had to move a few of the old beds, and I showed them how to dig them a bit below grade with an edging spade.

So far so good, but the real labor-intensive part was still ahead. Rick, the owner of Milrick Lawn Service and Garden Center and mentor to two of our students this year, had dropped off a big pile of beautiful, dark topsoil on Tuesday. All 3.5 yards were sitting there waiting to get moved into the beds, and it looked like our labor was about to get much more laborious. When we pulled out our wheelbarrows, they both had flat tires. I wasn't looking forward to moving all of the soil by the shovel-full, so while Ellen and I wrapped up the installations, Shannon took the students out to buy their plants... and a tire pump.

They returned, excited to get started planting their herbs, vegetables, and flowers, and hungry for lunch. There would be burgers and hot dogs on the grill, but not, we told them, until the boxes were all filled with soil. A friend of one of our students finished filling the tires with his compressor, they all grabbed shovels, and the boxes started filling up. There were a few times when I was the only one loading a wheel barrow, and I had to "encourage" them a bit, but by 12:30 or so, the boxes were all full to the brim. It was a great opportunity for learning some work ethic and perseverance.

After lunch and a quick lesson on planting and fertilizing, they each got to work planting their own raised bed. By the time they were done, you could see how proud they were.

I think that, built into our DNA, is a kind of biophilia--a love for living, growing things. There's something refreshing about tucking fresh green plants into the soil, but I also think there was more to their excitement than that. They had worked hard and had something to show for it--a real success, and a practical, beautiful, real product. Many of them called their parents over, when they arrived to pick them up at 2:00, to show off their work.

Next week, they'll design scientific experiments that they'll carry out on their gardens, and we'll learn more about fertilizer and lime. This will be the lab portion of their online biology course.

What better way to earn some credits: practising grit, doing science, growing  our own healthy food, and getting some confidence-building small wins under our belts?

And speaking of small wins: This was our first step toward what I hope will continue to grow in the future--rich summer programming for our students!


P.S.: We hope to produce some salsa and put up some veggies and herbs for use by the Depot Kitchen Crew next year. Stay tuned for a post dedicated to this year's awesome Kitchen Crew.