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Running Shoe Sketches and Three Minutes of Class Time

Wednesday, July 14th, 2010

I’m sharing this story with everyone so they might feel more confident about changing their agendas and schedules to focus on what’s real and important from time to time.

The other day my wife and I were out for a walk when a car that drove past us slammed on its brakes, made an abrupt U-turn, and drove right up to where we were walking on the sidewalk. I was slightly concerned until I saw who jumped out: a former student shouting, “Mr. Ross! Mr. Ross! I have to tell you … ”

Four years earlier I taught this boy, now a young man, in a 10th grade social studies class. He wasn’t what you would call a ‘strong’ social studies student, but I’ll be the first to admit that the content was not enthralling, and it most definitely wasn’t relevant to a lot of the 15 year olds in the class. Anyway, several times during that semester I saw Ryley drawing running shoes, and I thought, “OK, the boy likes running shoes.”

One day, however, during an open book exam, I walked past his desk and saw he hadn’t even started because he was busy drawing yet another picture of shoes. “Hmmm…” I thought, and asked him, “Ryley, what’s up with the running shoes?”

With a big, embarrassed smile, he replied, “I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know?” I asked.

“No one knows. Like I always draw running shoes and I don’t know why. It’s weird, right?”

And here I saw a 15 year-old boy who knew he should be working on his in-class exam, who knew he wasn’t the strongest social studies student in the class, who knew that there weren’t many other kids who drew running shoes, and he looked pretty embarrassed being caught with what he thought was a weird habit.

“Not at all,” I said, “I think it’s great! How long have you been doing this?”

“Like for as long as I can remember. I’ve always wanted to make running shoes when I grow up.”

“That’s great!” I said and I proceeded to tell him – in the middle of the open-book exam, that he was lucky to know exactly what he wanted to do at such a young age. I had run this lesson with that particular class, so this advice wasn’t coming out of left field, and I encouraged him to sketch out a life-plan that included running shoes. “Heck,” I said, “I can just see me and everyone in this room one day paying big money for your shoes. Wouldn’t that be awesome if we were all wearing your shoes one day?”

He nodded and smiled, and I gently encouraged him to get started and do his best on the in-class exam. That was it. Three minutes of my time.

Fast-forward 4 years and here he is, jumping out of his car to tell me, “I’m doing it! I’m doing it! I sent my designs off to a manufacturer in China and I’m getting my first prototype in a couple of weeks.”

It took me a second to figure out what he was talking about and then, once I did, he and I excitedly told my wife about the story of him drawing running shoes in social studies class.

“You were the one Mr. Ross. You were the one who told me to do it. I just thought you’d want to know.”

(How much time did I invest? Three minutes. It had nothing to do with me … but anyways … )

And here I saw a young man who was excited about life and his future plans, confident about himself, and grateful to a former teacher for not scolding him for drawing pictures in class when he should have been working. It was pretty cool to say the least, and I’m happy I spent the two or three classes talking to that group of students about life.

I’m glad I chose to make an otherwise boring course meaningful instead of  simply ‘covering’ the curriculum.

I’ll end with Ryley’s words, who messaged me on Facebook the other day:

hey mr. Ross! hope your doing well, i just thought i’d tell you i’m leaving to florence italy on tuesday to attend Polimoda fashion university for shoe design!!

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Focus on Student Actions and Choices, Not on the Student

Wednesday, May 5th, 2010

There’s a massive difference between someone judging you and someone judging your actions and decisions.

When someone says that you’re bossy, or timid, or too sensitive, what they’re doing – usually without even knowing it – is psychologically backing you into a corner. They’re dead-end conversations. You can’t differentiate you from yourself.  So when someone says, “You are this,” well it’s only natural to get defensive. “What?” you’ll say to yourself, “They’re saying this about me? How could they?  No, no, no! I’m not that.” And off you go mentally defending yourself from the direct judgment made about who you are.

On the other hand, if someone comments on something you have done or chose to do, then their remark isn’t as much about you as it is about your action or decision. There’s psychological wiggle room. There’s room for discussion and exploration.

The focus on the action or decision allows us to step outside ourselves.

We can safely reflect without worrying about threats to our identity.

Focusing on our actions and decisions enables us to detach from ourselves … a key ingredient for meaningful reflection.

We can even join the other person in a discussion about ‘the act’ or ‘the decision’ without discussing who or what we are (or aren’t).

Now this is all very esoteric stuff, but it has massive implications for teachers and their dealings with students. I’ll illustrate with two quick examples, and will let you mull it over thereafter. I would love to read your comments.

Example 1: The statement,

“Come on Susie, you have to be able to accept criticism in life if you want to be successful.”

is about who Susie is. If Susie was your student she’s going to be thinking she has to change, whereas this statement frees Susie from the worry about who she is and allows her to focus on the consequences of her actions and decisions:

“Susie, have you ever thought about how many growing opportunities you’re going to miss out on if you continue to cry/ blow-up / retaliate whenever someone tries to give you constructive feedback? You’re better than that. Do you really want to let those outbursts rob you of important information that could make you stronger … and maybe more successful?”

Example 2: Or what if a teacher asks a student to leave the room, or sit off to the side, or do push-ups for repeated misbehavior … and the student retorts, “Why do you always pick on me.” (I got this a lot this year). In my opinion, the teacher shouldn’t get into the ‘about me’ trap. The discussion should shift to one about actions and decisions. A reply like the one below points out to the student that he’s not the problem, it’s simply his actions and decisions that are causing him problems. So I would say,

“Gee, I don’t know Dylan. I wish I could answer that question, but only you can. You know, I don’t like it when you sit off to the side, but you keep saying and doing things that result in that happening. It’s not that you’re bad or I don’t like you. It’s just that you keep deciding to put yourself in this situation. What’s funny is that I don’t think you really want to be in this situation. It doesn’t make sense, really … but it’s not like you’re giving me any other choices.”

The point is this: Discussions about actions and choices enable far more meaningful and reflective conversations than “you/me” discussions can ever generate.

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Deviant Thinkers, Schools, and Schools of Thought

Friday, February 5th, 2010

When I went over who Wilhem Wundt was with my psychology students yesterday – “the father of psychology” – I was struck by our text’s manner of introducing him as just another brilliant mind who floundered in school:

“Like many famous people, he (Wundt) got off to a rocky start. Darwin’s father, for example, had called his son a bum and told him he was too lazy and stupid to ever amount to anything. Albert Einstein, one of the world’s greatest mathematicians, kept failing high school math and failing college entrance exams. When he finally got through school, he said it had injured his mind. So, too, with Wundt: he had spent most of his time daydreaming and failing, for his teachers kept slapping him in the face (literally).”

To be honest, I automatically agreed with this statement as I went over it. How could you not? School is no place for brilliant, deviant, field-creating thinkers, right? How could it be? The mission of schools is to teach students about fields of knowledge that already exist, right? You couldn’t have a course titled, “Create a New School of Thought 12,” offered in the course calendar, could you? What would the prerequisites be? A track record of frustrating and annoying teachers? Daydreaming? What would its standards and benchmarks be? How could you blanket what a good school of thought was versus a bad one? Now that would be tricky!

Then I looked up at my students. They were just sitting there, patiently waiting in silence (I must have been staring into my textbook for a good while), and I asked myself: Do they need to flounder in school in order to be game-changers? How many Darwins, Wundts, and Einsteins have I taught? How many of my students have had the genius beaten out of them by red x’s, teacher sighs and eye-rolls, pre-packaged content, and standards and benchmarks that challenged them to ‘get’ what has already been discovered by others? How can I, with my prescribed curriculum, challenge them to discovering things for themselves? Are schools, then, worthless? Should I just stop the lesson and tell my students the dirty little secret that the author of this text is referring to?

I wish I could have seen the look on my face when I read the next sentence from the text:

“Fortunately, a few teachers saw the promise of greater things in him (Wundt) and helped him to pull himself together.”

“Aaah,” I thought, “That’s why we’re here.” And with that bit of paradoxical irony, I continued on with the lesson.

*            *            *

End Note: (and I’m not joking)  After class a student (who a colleague of mine referred to as the boy “With a lot of stuff going on in his head,”) came to my desk and asked if I had ever read Julian Jaynes’ The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown in the Bicameral Mind. Ironically I had. I couldn’t believe it! That book was/is the most mind-blowing, field-converging book I have ever read. I was 24 when I read it and it took me a long time to get through it. This student is 16 and I got the sense that he read it over a weekend. We talked for some time and he ended by saying how one of his goals in life is to learn lots about a lot of different things so he can create his own insightful conclusions and associations … just like Julian Jaynes (and Darwin, Wundt, and Einstein if I might add). It was a perfect way to end the class.

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What it Takes to Create a Culture of Learning

Wednesday, November 11th, 2009

“Creating a culture of learning” has been an educational catch-phrase for several years now. I’ve heard it spoken many times in classrooms, staff meetings, and conferences, More often than not, though, I’ve observed teachers roll their eyes whenever the phrase is uttered.

We all know learning is important, right? We would all like to work with people who were excited to teach and learn, right? Then why is creating a culture of learning – or getting people to buy into a culture of learning – so difficult?

RUMINATIONS

Now I don’t know this for certain, but I’m willing to bet that a culture of learning  has more to do with the quality of relationships in a workplace community than anything else. I say this because I truly believe that learning is an intrinsic and intimate activity – we learn on our own and for our own reasons. This means that creating a culture of real learning requires genuine – and shared – interest and curiosity.

Think about it: would you openly and willingly share that something you’ve been wondering about with someone you didn’t like, or trust, or value?

No way! Absolutely not!

So, I think it’s quite simple:

Before you can create a genuine culture of learning, the people in the culture have to like and respect each other … genuinely.

So assuming this is right, I think three things are needed to foster good relationships of any kind: Space, Time, and Compassionate Effort. The more time we spend with people in particular spaces, the more likely it is that we will develop relationships with them. No space to spend time with one another also decreases the chance of relationships being developed.  And even if you have an abundance of Space and Time, if the key people in the culture and/or community don’t make a Compassionate Effort to get to know the other members, there’s no chance of developing a culture of concern, which means fewer quality relationships will be developed.

Few relationships developed equals no chance of creating a culture of learning because people won’t care!

SPACE ~
For starters, the nature of teaching is very insular. We’re all in our own rooms all day long with children and/or pubescent young adults. Not ideal for developing adult relationships. Can much be done about changing the layout of your school? Yes, but not realistically. Let’s move to Time.

TIME ~
Lots can be done with time and – by and large – there is NO time in public schools. Our students get dropped off 15-20 minutes before the bell rings. Lunch hours are short. Our students race to get back on the bus right after school. To be frank, the average public school schedule is a whirlwind. But you can’t change architectural structures as easily as you can change time structures, so I think TIME is a great ingredient principals and district leaders can tinker with.

I have no concrete suggestions on how time should be used/designed differently, but rather some general ideas.

  1. The more time can be manipulated to get staff rubbing elbows with one another while engaging in fun and meaningful activities, the greater the chance you’ll see positive, healthy relationships develop.
  2. When that happens, the more likely the people in your school want to be a part of what’s happening, to take pride in that something, and to willingly and openly share what they’ve wondered about and learned along the way.

COMPASSIONATE EFFORT ~

I believe, however, that wanting to develop positive relationships with your staff-mates is the most important factor in creating a culture of learning.

The “indifferent cows” (picture above) you work with are indifferent about what others are learning not because of what others are learning, but who the other people are.

If the leaders don’t make a Compassionate Effort to get to know the people in their community, the people won’t care. Why would any of us care about what others are learning if we didn’t care about them personally.

It’s simple really.

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On Wisdom and Creativity

Monday, August 31st, 2009

Last week, at the first-ever Civic Mirror Summer Institute in Edmonds, WA, I spoke to the group several times about how truly crazy it is that I’ve spent the last 8 years developing The Civic Mirror and now Action-Ed. I mean, when all of the emphasis in education over the last ten years has been on assessment methods and curricular standardization, I’ve totally done the opposite and invested everything into an experiential, growth-oriented, game-based educational initiative.

But (I continued to explain) there was always something deep down that told me it was the right thing to do. It was real teaching. It brought out the inner-life in my otherwise sedated students. It got them out of their seats and talking about life and the world and how they want it to be.  It was the reason I put “wisdom” at the center of Action-Ed’s philosophy.

And so I want to share an inspiring passage from the best book I’ve read in a long time. It’s taken from Brenda Ueland’s If You Want to Write (page 144). It reminds me of why I got into the business of teaching in the first place, and what “real teaching” and “real learning” truly is. I hope you find it a pleasant contrast to all the standards and benchmarks and assessment methods we’re all worrying about right before this new school year begins:

“Or should I put it this way: van Gogh and Chekhov and all great people have known inwardly that they were something. They have had a passionate conviction of their importance, of the life, the fire, the god in them. But they were never sure that others would necessarily see it in them, or that recognition would ever come.

But this is the point: everybody in the world has the same conviction of inner importance, fire, of the god within. The tragedy is that either they stifle their fire by not believing in it and using it; or they try to prove to the world and themselves that they have it, not inwardly and greatly, but externally and egotistically, by some second-rate thing like money or power or more publicity.

Therefore all should work. First because it is impossible that you have no creative gift. Second: the only way to make it live and increase is to use it. Third: you cannot be sure that it is not a great gift.”

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