The last day of school is here. How about a little free association for a moment. Just a few random words in no particular order

Exhaustion.
Done.
Happy.
Summer.
Need sleep.
Already planning next year.
Gotta clean up.
Vacation.
Tremendously busy summer planned. (Writing, writing, writing. Speaking, speaking, speaking.)
Family.
BBQ.
Yoga.
Outdoors.
Shorts and flip-flops.

In general, it’s hard to think when your head is cloudy… and mine clearly is right now. But I take that as a good sign in a way because, when all is said and done, at least I know that this year, while immensely hard, was also a good one for me.

Some of the things I faced were absolutely insane? (Getting spit on, for one.) But I fought through the adversity, followed through to the end with my eyes lasered in on a few core goals and I do believe I hit them.

In the midst of an absolutely terrible time for many, many, many teachers, schools, families and so on, I would have to say that I had a good year. And why? Probably because of my absolutely intractable dedication to making sure that my students learned something valuable this year. They grew as readers. They grew as writers. They grew as people. We didn’t cover everything that I had hoped – we never do – but we covered a lot. And we did it in the midst of a furious snowstorm.

Indeed, I am tired and spent… not much gas in the tank at all right now. But then again, that’s kind of how it should be, right? You want to leave it all on the table.

2009/2010 is now officially in the books. All I can really say is, “Wow.”

Of course, while school is out for the summer, school is also never far from my thoughts. Teaching is not just my vocation, it’s my avocation.

And [to borrow a phrase] that has made all the difference.

It’s the second to last day of school for me… and I still have things I am hoping to do. I guess I am suffering a bit from the couldda, wouldda, shouldda syndrome.

Every school year is like that I think, but this year, there are a more “wish I would have gotten a chance to do that” thoughts in my air.

Oh, what we couldda, wouldda, shouldda.

A part of it comes from technology. With so many more tools at our disposal, there are so many new ways for students to demonstrate their learning and really dive deeply into new frontiers of learning.

Oh, what we couldda, wouldda, shouldda.

On the other hand, there are a ton of great books we did not get to read. That’s always an issue for me (not reading enough). We read all the time and yet, there is so much more I really hoped to tackle.

Oh, what we couldda, wouldda, shouldda.

My students wrote, too. Wrote and wrote and wrote. And yet, did they write enough? One more high quality piece really might have been the icing on the classroom cake.

Oh, what we couldda, wouldda, shouldda.

Did I do enough prep for the bubble tests? Did I make sure to administer enough preparatory bubbles so that when the real bubbles came,my students had pre-bubbled enough so that they were ready to really rock the meaningful bubbles.

Oh, what we couldda, wouldda, shouldda.

NOT!

As a professional, these questions also eat at me a bit. Was I generous enough with my peers? Giving enough to my school? Did I reach out enough to the parents?

Oh, what I couldda, wouldda, shouldda.

Looking back, I did a heck of a lot this year. And yet, much like most coaches will reflect upon their seasons and often remember the losses much more than the victories, so too do I see more of the couldda, wouldda, shoulddas than the “signed, sealed and delivered” aspects.

Is it just the nature of this time of year to realize, “Oh, what more there might have been?”

Today is graduation day for the seniors. To see them milling about campus, dealing with everything from turning in overdue textbooks to making sure their graduation gown fits properly, it’s an amazing flurry to watch.

Some students are immensely proud. And rightfully so. When you are the first in your family to ever earn a diploma, it’s a monumentally meaningful event.

On my campus, every year, we get that a lot.

Other kids are nervous. It’s almost as if they have a look on their face of wishing they could have just one more year, a grade 13, so that they could be more prepared to face the moment for which one really cannot prepare.

Life (outside of school) is scary. And today they sense it.

There are smiles. There are tears. There are regrets and uncertainty, confidence and joy, friends one will have forever and friends one will almost never see again.

All in all, however, hope is in the air. And these students have earned that taste of hope. After all, they are the ones who made it. Made it through the bureaucratic hoops. Made it past the siren calls. Made it past the gatekeepers, trolls, foils and fools it to a doorstep of matriculation that will forever elevate them, if only but slightly, yet in a way that can never be taken away from them.

To many in this country, earning a high school diploma is a small, wholly expected achievement. To others, it is Everest.

Congrats to the seniors. My advice: pursue something meaningful in this world. It is the wellspring from which great value in life can emerge and re-emerge as you move through the years.

Not many students of mine can afford an iPad. Matter of fact, I know only one. Her name is B and she just left my class after showing me how she is using it.

Her final words before she left… “I don’t really need notebook paper or pen ever again.”

B, mind you, is a top student. To wit, she built her own flash cards for her AP History class using a free flash card app she downloaded.

Her cards were so stupendous, I think she should think about selling the set online. (She’d made more than 240 of them based on her handwritten class notes – class notes that are, in her estimation, “oh so yesterday” because of how she can manage, arrange, organize, share evolve and connect the content all in one simple device.)

And watching her flip through these cards – they flip the same way the iPad turns pictures (i.e. the note cards have a front and a back and can be organized into sets, colors and so on) it was just mind-blowing to see what the modern-day AP student is already doing with an iPad.

She did her end-of-year report for science class (typed, with graphics, charts and pictures that, of course, the teacher required to be printed meaning that there would be no color and her aspiration to create hyperlinked references was pointless), she had her school organizer, she had things I didn’t even know existed on her tablet-top and she was using them like a kid who had been handling this type of computer technology her whole life.

Assignments, schedules, phone numbers, bookmarked websites, on and on and on and on.

I was just amazed how all-encompassing the iPad was for B already. I mean, she’s only owned the thing for 3 weeks and yet she trusts her entire academic life to the thing.

And mind you, as I said, this is not a run-of-the-mill student. B is an A student. To her, the iPad could be a toy – and it is at times. She readily admits she likes to play some of the games. (NOTE: She kicked my butt in Finger Air Hockey but I wouldda smoked her in checkers if we had time to finish the game.)

The device is not a fad and it’s not a fraud. Matter of fact, I am not sure why we are not already hearing more cries from those of us in academia to “get our students iPads”.

Simply put, they can do more than even I was ready to give them credit for.

B was a more efficient and more capable student with the iPad than she was without it. And she proved that to me.

School, and it’s inability to keep up with B, was the impediment to extended meaningful thinking and not vice versa.

For those of you who are still skeptical, I say find your way to touching an iPad this summer and contemplate the possibilities because it is people like us who are going to bring about the change we need in our schools.

From vanquishing the inane bubble tests to ridding ourselves of sanitized, one-size-fits-all textbooks to liberating our classrooms so that we can genuinely connect kids to one another, connect kids to best practices, and connect kids in a more meaningful way to their own education (and on and on and on) the iPad is genuinely an amazing device.

Skeptical? I was too. But the more I see, the more I believe this is a great classroom tool that, if wielded properly, will work wonders for kids across the nation.

Yes, I am Back on the iPad Bandwagon… and my feeling is that You Should Be, Too!

The layman versus the insightful professional debate often intrigues me. And when it comes to parents thinking that the insane amount of bubble testing we are mandating for our kids is actually a good thing for education, I can easily see why they fall victim to “buying the hype of data”.

As teachers, we are privy to the “insider knowledge” of how assessments actually interact with curriculum… which interact with teaching methodology, which interact with social environment, which interact with student skill sets prior to ever even coming to school, which ultimately culminate into some sort of an equation that translates into real learning (a concoction affected by a host of other factors as well, from parents to culture to resources and so on). Yet, does the layperson (i.e. do the parents) really see and understand the complexity of all this? Probably not so much… which is what makes us the insightful professionals and them, the parents, the laypersons in the first place.

Then again, when I get an oil change and the mechanic upsells me to “high viscosity lubrication fluids” am I a sucker for blindly saying yes or am I wise to listen to the professional who should know more about car engines than I?

And when my roof needs fixing, am I silly to delegate the issue of water sealants to the person I hire or am I to be expected to climb up on a ladder and learn all the elements one needs to know in order to prevent a ceiling leak from dripping down onto my head at night?

At what point should we expect parents to be involved and know that, “Hey, these bubble tests stink!”

And at what point should we expect parents to know, “Hey, we need assessment practices that are more all-encompassing and less prone to trying to reduce the aspects of student-hood into an over-simplification that renders children faceless and talentless if they do not fit nicely into a pre-determined – and almost arbitrary – box… as designed by think-tank PhD. types, no less?”

Where is the line between a diligent, well-informed parent and a naive, how-can-you-be-so-silly-to-but-into-the-standardized testing-propaganda, get drawn?

Should parents trust the child’s schooling to our schools? I say yes and no. Except determining where the yes is and where the no is can be quite a fuzzy thing.

Parents… be informed. To what extent? I say the more the better… but then again, the layperson will never know as much as the insightful professional… but that’s no excuse for simply throwing up your hands, remaining uninformed and buying into the sizzle and not the steak.

Legendary coach John Wooden passed away last night and the truth is, I have been struggling with multiple attempts at today’s blog post in an effort to put some of my thoughts about the man into perspective.

Alas, I am just discombobulated about it. Sure, he was a basketball coach who reached unprecedented heights, but it was his Pyramid of Success which really helped to inform my own philosophy and outlook on life.

And so, for today, I will leave it at that. With an eye towards doing a blog series about the Pyramid. Truly, he was a man which brought a lot of good light into this world.

A few days ago, a major league umpire blew a call and cost a pitcher a perfect game. Being that the “perfect game” is such a rare feat in baseball, this was a big deal to many in the sports world.

But what struck me about the whole incident was how quickly and completely the ump owned up to his error.

He blew it. He said he blew it. He felt terrible about blowing it and if there was a way to make amends for screwing up the call beyond apologizing, he made no bones about saying he would have done it.

“It was the biggest call of my career, and I kicked the (stuff) out of it,” Joyce said, looking and sounding distraught as he paced in the umpires’ locker room. “I just cost that kid a perfect game.”

This, to me, is a great reminder as to why I often try to bring in “pieces” I find from my random readings into English class. The language arts standards are easy to teach. Aspects of being a high quality human being, much tougher. (And being that the bubble tests don’t even bother to pay lip service to this aspect of a student’s education – beyond the threat of DON’T CHEAT ON THE BUBBLE TESTS, that is – we are sledding up an even tougher hill on this front!)

An article like this is a great way to end the year. Why? Because at the end of the day, kids need to know that no matter what they do, no matter how hard they try, no matter where they work, how much they make or who they partner up with, they are going to one day “screw up big time”.

And how they respond to their errors will determine much more about their lives than most kids really ever give any thought to.

I know I’ve screwed up a lot this year. (School ends next Friday, June 11 for me.) I am sure there are students to whom I have seemed insensitive, peers to whom I’ve seemed self-righteous, admins to whom I have seemed intractable and readers who think I am a bleepity-bleep.

Heck, sometimes when I read what I have written I think I am a bleepity-bleep so how can folks not?

What can I say but, “Hey, I am human… I screw up.” And just like this baseball ump, when we do foul up – and admit it – I find that most people are pretty quick to forgive us and think we are better people for admitting that we have shortcomings. Matter of fact, the people who own up to their mistakes are the type of people with whom most of us would prefer to be associated with.

Do you know anyone who always thinks they are right?
Do you know anyone that perpetually refuses to apologize?
Do you know anyone who feels that they are entitled to behave the way that they do because of… gulp… who they are?

Drive ya crazy, won’t they?

Umpire Joyce, you can call my ball game anytime because I am much more wary of the folks who claim they are not at fault than I am of the folks who own up to matters and say they are when they are.

In life, as in baseball, no one bats 1.000

The private schools smell blood in the water… and they are turning the screws.

In an interesting case of “let’s shore up our finances while the time is ripe to do so”, the Saddle River Day School has taken out ads extolling the virtues of their [private] school while implying that the public schools in the area inferior/slipping.

“Skimping on science isn’t smart” says the ad.

And really, who would disagree that skimping on anything, when it comes to education, is smart?

BTW, who can argue that in public education these days, it’s not just skimping. Sheesh, we only wish that “skimping” was the term folks were using to describe what we are doing in our/to our schools.

Words like “draconian cuts/unprecedented devastation” are more likely to be heard from those in the know… not tepid words like skimping.

In Detroit, they are closing/bulldozing schools.
In California, they have pink slipped more than 20,000 of the state’s teachers.
In Arizona, Texas, Illinois… so I need to go on?

All across the country, public schools are being foundationally eviscerated and private schools – places that cost up to $30,000 a year – are seeing a chance to tout their own institutions by basically saying, “Public school can’t match us, they can’t keep up and if you are a parent that loves your kid and cares about your child’s education, you really ought to consider ponying up the big bucks to send your little angels to us.”

Talk about piling on… WOW!

But the thing is, they have a case to make. The schools of even decade ago are not the schools of today. From NCLB and the insane focus on bubble testing to the economic crisis and the insane amount of “cuts, cuts, cuts,” these private schools are making a very shrewd play.

And a hard case to argue with.

They see the blood in the water and they are doing what they feel they need to do to survive/ prosper.

Smaller class sizes. A culture of achievement. Diversity of curriculum. Enviable graduation rates. No, it’s not apples to apples at all, but that’s not the case they are making. They are making the case that if you can send you kid to a private school, you really ought to consider it because “we do it better than they do it”.

And less and less public schools in this day and age are able to stand up and say, “No you don’t.”

I’ve been in my current classroom for more than a decade now. And across the hall from me has been one of the most fantastic, supportive, wonderful teachers I know at my school.

She’s retiring this year. After 34 years teaching English at Lynwood High, she’s hanging up her spurs.

I am sad.

School, of course, will roll on. It always rolls on. As teachers, we like to think that we are so important, so critical, so essential to the success of the campus – and in a way, we are.

But in a way we are also not.

I am happy for my friend across the hall. Really happy. A new adventure begins for her in less than 2 weeks. (I scored her chair – nice!). But for me, a bit of the rock-solid foundation that has always been in place for me will no longer be there when the 2010/2011 school year begins.

That unsettles me.

Life is change and those who best adapt, most prosper. I get that. But there are some changes I think I’d rather not make.

Losing the person to whom I feel most close on campus represents an unfillable hole for me next year.

Melancholy is the order of the day. I am thankful, but I am sad.

Last week I mentioned about me being up on stage speaking to a large group of big kahunas from all over the state. Basically district officers and principals.

Now one of the unspoken rules of public speaking is that it’s a good idea not to fight with the audience members. Pander, don’t provoke.

Let’s just say that my behavior onstage sometimes proves that I didn’t get that memo.

It started with a high ranking woman taking a bit of umbrage with my stance that using cell phones in class, as woven into the fabric of a lesson plan, is a much more sensible approach than banning cell phones outright. Why? Because cell phones are here to stay and they virtually demand their own type of literacy and if we can leverage the students’ love of technology and build a bridge between using their cell phone and using their brain to achieve an academic objective, there is nothing wrong with doing so.

Matter of fact, I believe we ought to do more of it. Prohibiting cell phones on campus just strikes me as a battle we will never win. Especially since most teens have their parents buy them their cell phones in the first place which automatically gives cell phone approval that trumps my own disapproval (if I were to disapprove, of course.)

Anyway, that set the stage. She took umbrage with my cell phone stance. And why?

“Because,” as she said, “she can remember back in the 1980′s when kids were doing drug deals in class with their pagers.”

Okay, I won’t even go there. We all know that’s an argument I wouldn’t dare touch because it’s be like take out a bazooka against a person that barely held a poorly constructed bow and arrow.

But then she continued and said, “For example, I just left a session where the person next to me was texting the whole time. I mean they missed the whole session while fiddling with their cell phone. And it was a good session, too. They missed some valuable stuff.”

Now the fight is more fair here, right?

Let’s take a look at her presumption.

First of all, the txt-er could have been tweeting the whole session because they were riveted and really wanted to spread the awesome info to 1,268 of their followers.

Or perhaps, they were taking note on their phone.

Maybe they were live-blogging?

Her presumption that because the person was txting they were missing out on the info could have been preposterously wrong.

Then again, this presupposes the inverse is true – that just because someone is looking at you, they are actually listening to what you are saying.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had my eyes lasered in on some kind of lame consultant as they fumble through a Power Point with an expression that beamed, “I am riveted by your genius!” while inside my brain, I was thinking, “I wonder if Subway is still running that $5 footlong deal. Boy, they have good pepperoncinis.”

In this day and age, a person on the phone is not necessarily a person on the phone and a person looking you in the eye might really be thinking, “McDonalds… I am lovin’ it!”