Strange Fire

The young man sat by the fireplace on an oaken stool, the left side of his face, red with the heat of the fire, the flickering flames dancing in the pupils of his eyes, eyes fixed on the wrinkled hands of the old man.

On the other side of the room, the old man reached down into the earthen furnace and withdrew the glass sphere that he had earlier planted there.  The fierce fire had since cooled, and the glass bulb was black with tar.

The young man’s eyes suddenly widened with astonishment as the old man rubbed the glass with his work worn fingers. As the greasy blackness of the tar rubbed off onto his hands, there appeared a faint greenish glow from within, dimmed by the film of soot. The old man removed a rag from his pocket, and firmly wiped the side of the sphere, and all at once a bright shaft of light broke from the cleaned spot as if ten candles flickered within.

The old man rubbed the whole sphere with a circular motion, and the smearing tar made weaving patterns of light and shadow on the ceiling of the hovel.  As he cleaned, the light in the room slowly grew brighter and brighter until it was as bright as day.

Satisfied with his work, the old man held up the sphere in front of his face and gazed at the stange forms within. The young man had moved his stool closer now, and was staring at the dancing, nebulous flames within the glass. He could not speak for some time.  Finally, he whispered, “What is it, sir?”

The old man paused, drew a deep breath, as if he were finally relieved of a heavy burden, and he spoke slowly, a faint smile spreading across his lips, “It is the fire…”  he drew another breath, his eyes fixed on the flames, “from deep within the world.”



*Reposted from my old writing blog, Kosmosis.

Top 2 reasons to get on Twitter right now

So, you're hesitant to get on Twitter.

Maybe it's because you're content with Facebook, Snapchat, Tumblr, Pinterest, Instagram, We Chat or whatever.

Maybe you aren't on any social media sites because you feel like they are narcissistic, materialistic, artificial, anti-social, harmful, or simply a waste of time.

I can understand some of those feelings, and I'm not thrilled with some of the potential side-effects/hurdles of social media, but I still think you should get on them, particularly on Twitter. Here's why.
 

Twitter is the quintessence of the instant globalization of society. With the right #hashtag, I can instantly share with/contribute to the global community.

I can tell my favorite author (@ramez) how much I loved his book (#nexus).. and he tweets back.

I can tweet about my first #honey harvest (#beekeeping) and an expert beekeeper from new Zealand congratulates me and engages me in conversation about treatments for mites (varroa destructor).

I can chat, real-time, every Saturday morning with educators from around the world at #satchat.

I can instantly publish my thoughts to/interact with the world with the right #hashtag.

Amazing. Not since #Gutenberg has such a seismic shift taken place. And that's an understatement. I think the printing press was nothing compared to what we'll see as a result of the #internet. Imagine all of the ideas of all of the minds of all of the people of the world suddenly connected and building off of each other. That's what's coming.

Reason #2: As a high school teacher, it's a blast to interact with my students about #chemistry (#chemaeos), #biology (#eosbio) & #science outside of class.

Towards more responsive rigor

The headmaster sat across the desk from me and listened as I explained my predicament. I was a new teacher, and my students hadn't done so well on their first honors chemistry test. Should I lower my standard?

"Absolutely not," he replied, "Make them come up to your level."

Then he told me a story.

An old headmaster was asked by a parent what would be a good course of study for her son. The old priest answered, "Any course of study is sufficient, as long as it is difficult and at least a little unpleasant."

I think most of my chemistry students would say that I listened to that old headmaster. I've always thought that the most important part of my job was to act as resistance training for their minds. But too often I've ended up with large test adjustments and students slipping through the cracks. So though it's still my mission to be like a demanding athletic coach in the classroom, I've been trying to make my rigor more responsive.

The most common modern educational meaning of rigor is "cognitive rigor," which involves Webb's Depth of Knowledge (DOK) and/or Bloom's Taxonomy. Both of these basically say that it's harder to apply knowledge and evaluate alternatives than it is to memorize and describe, especially when applying and evaluating in different contexts. Solving equations in math class is one thing, applying them to solve a problem in chemistry is another. The high levels of Bloom's and Webb's have a lot in common with critical thinking, which is one of the "4 Cs" of 21st century learning, along with communication, collaboration, and creativity.

One cool thing about this definition of rigor is that ALL students can achieve a high DOK level. For some, this might mean using addition and subtraction to create a budget. For others, it may mean using statistics to design an experiment. Both are rigorous for that student.

And this is where I have significant room for improvement. It requires attention to the needs of individual students, the way a good coach monitors each runner, swimmer, or player to keep them continuously pushing the envelope of their individual ability with each new skill. Auto racing driver Danica Patrick expressed this well in Honda's excellent video, Failure: The Secret to Success:

"You're driving your car and you feel frightened a little bit. We bump up against that feeling as much as we can to try and push that limit further and get comfortable there and then push it again."

But this is difficult in a traditional high school classroom, so I've been working on differentiated alternatives: a project- and mastery-based geology class, and a differentiated biology class. My flipped chemistry class is a step in that direction as well. By allowing students choice and flexibility in pace, process, and product, you allow for differences in readiness and interest.

Then, by using a mastery model, which allows multiple attempts until the standard is met, and providing ample, personalized support, you enable every student to reach rigorous standards. Ideally, the outcome is twofold: 1) every student leaves the school as a competent critical thinker, communicator, collaborator, and creator, and 2) they learn perseverance (grit? a subject for a later post). In short, they are die-hard mental athletes, and you are their crazy coach.

And I think that was the message behind that old headmaster's advice. The content itself doesn't matter, "Any course of study is sufficient, as long as it is difficult and at least a little unpleasant." I'd just add one thing. It should be difficult because it teaches the student to think critically, collaborate, create, and communicate, because these are the skills they'll need to reach their potentials in the 21st century (and beyond). And it should be personalized, so that every student succeeds.

Content is not the point

Standing on a piece of Africa in CT

Controlled chaos is what it may look like (or worse). Or maybe sometimes it looks like laziness (God, I hate that word). Either way, it was my geology class. I call it differentiated, but really, it's an experiment--a dream, maybe. A new kind of school, maybe. A mistake, maybe, but I don't think so. And darn it, I'm proud of these kids.

They had lot's of choice, that's for sure. Every unit, an "assignment," with curriculum-dictated content-based objectives, but (and here's the key) open-ended products. Students can make presentations, write essays, build models, produce videos, posters, workout videos (more later). They make their own learning plans and set their own deadlines. (One got angry at me at first... about the no-deadlines part--wanted more structure. "That's fine, we can do that for you," I said.)

They need to get at least 60% on each assignment (graded by rubric). Otherwise, they are incomplete until they improve it (my attempt at the "mastery" model). I also tried to keep track of their progress on GLEAMS (social skills, goal-setting. etc.), but more on that in a later post.

But one day, earlier in the semester, I was doing some grading on a Saturday. I watched a video produced by a group of my students. They read from notes (*grits teeth*). At the end, they joked, laughed, swore... and forgot to edit it out. They learned nothing, I thought. What a disaster, I thought. My experiment is not going  well at all, I thought. I've failed, I thought. My ideas about learning are all wrong, I thought.

Then I thought... wait: but didn't plan it all by themselves? They may not have learned a ton, but then a again, didn't they? And do they learn more from the typical lecture? And they planned their own learning! They. Learned. By. Themselves. (With my guidance.) And what's more important? Filled-in-blanks-vocab or... this.

Since then, I went back and forth: Between...

• worrying that we were not covering enough content... and enjoying myself,
• worrying they are not working hard enough... and enjoying watching them learn,
• focusing on "failures" (the guy who sleeps and "youtubes" away half the time, the boys who snapchat each other, the chronic absences of a couple of students, the cut-and-pasting from the web, the gaming of my system :-l )... and focusing on successes (the Earth cake, the awesome volcano art, the "Earth goes to the doctor" story, the innovative mountain-building models, the final project that nailed the reason gems are found in only certain places, the self-imposed deadlines being met, self-created goals being achieved, and the fact that they are learning to learn, the fact that they sat there every day (at least some of the time) planning, researching, producing. 

And that's what's important.

Content? Yeah... I think they're getting that too (as a bonus), but content is not the point. How many people know what a subduction zone is or can tell a metamorphic rock from an igneous rock. And really, what difference does that make in an age when we can Google the answer in a second. But what difference does it make if you know how to ask a question, find the answer, and learn?What difference does it make if you can set a goal, plan, and produce? All the difference.

And they did. Ten units. Ten projects. All individually planned & executed. I'm not bragging on me. I'm bragging on them.

What's in your bowl?

Bacon, chicken, & avocado salad (http://goo.gl/zBaLRZ)

If you're a recovering stress junkie, like me,  you're constantly playing crazy mental video games,  shooting down tasks before they reach you and it's game over. But how can you ever enjoy the present now, if you're always worried about the next now?

Imagine the present moment like a bowl of food. Future bowls are stretching off far into the distance. We can fill our "now" bowl with sweet things, fun, pleasure, socialization, rest, or we can fill it with hard things--studying, work, planning, and exercise. I tend to focus on worrying about future bowls, filling the now with work, so much so that I can't enjoy life. I don't want to focus too much on the present, because then I may not get as many future bowls.

But neither should I just fill it with stuff that is only "good for me"-- stuff that is only for the future. Why? Three reasons: 1) That future may never come. 2) How many missed "nows" until they outweigh the future "nows" I'm saving up for. 3) How will I ever learn to enjoy the "nows" of the future if I can't enjoy the "nows" of now.

No. What I want to do is fill my "now" bowl with a mixture of things I can enjoy now and things that are preparing me for the future. Maybe some kale, but also some bacon. Maybe some coconut milk, but also some honey. Maybe some carrots, but also some dark chocolate. Maybe one day I'll come up with an equation for what percentage of each moment should be spent enjoying and what percentage working on the next bowl. For now, I'll keep it simple: Next time I'm tempted to sacrifice now for tomorrow, stop and savor at least a bite of the present--every present moment, even in the midst of preparations for future bowls. Make sure every moment has a balance of hard and soft, rough and smooth, pushing myself and having compassion on myself, responsibility and relationships, protecting people and enjoying people, exhaustion and ecstasy, improvement and immersion, struggle and sweetness, justification and joy, roughage, risk, richness, rapture, relaxation and release.

Now, what's in my bowl? What's in yours? What's in ours?