And in a sign that the world of education just became even more dystopian, I offer you this article… a piece about how real teachers can now cut their teeth and practice being a teacher on virutal students.

As the article says (cause, you can’t make this up), “such simulations give teachers in training the ability to experiment—and make mistakes—without the worry of doing harm to an actual child’s learning.”

Without the worry of doing harm to the child’s learning? I’ve spent 10 minutes trying to come up with a snappy way to mock this nonsense when it just dawned on me… I don’t even understand what that phrase means!

So if I make a mistake at the front of the room – I misquote a famous poet, fail to properly illuminate a missing comma, and so on – I am “doing harm to a child’s learning”?

Of course, I don’t want to be a cynic, but if you read the article they open with an example of a teacher wrestling with some classroom management issues.

The student-teacher faces a rowdy class.

“We’re not going to have that kind of behavior in here,” she says. “It’s too loud in here to move on.”

The students don’t pay much attention. A boy in the back row, wearing a sleeveless T-shirt, slumps his shoulders. Another student waves his hand aimlessly.
“Nah, just stretching,” he replies, when the teacher asks if he needs something.

Indeed, sounds like rough stuff. I mean, oh my goodness, those computer kids really seem to talk back, too. Heavens-to-Betsie’s, what in the world is an educator to do?

I wonder if the avatar kids do any of the following:

• fart
• laugh when their friend farts
• falsely blame a non-farter for farting (all while making a big stink of the stink)

Okay, okay, a little decorum, please. The avatars, it’s safe to assume (and unlike very real kids), generate zero wind.

But I do wonder if they ever…

• walk into class crying because their alcoholic mother smashed their cell phone to smithereens 4 minutes before 1st period started.
• bounce into class simultaneously elated and terrified by the prospect of losing their virginity after school.

Do I need to go on?

Okay, it’s a good idea to be innovative but if we’re gonna bring avatars into education, why not flip the script, have an avatar teach a standards-based classroom lesson on the front video screen and have security guards with dogs patrol the room waiting to pounce at the slightest behavioral infraction? Security guards are cheaper than teachers, dogs don’t draw a paycheck or a pension and, as we all know, central command can then script the lessons while bubble tests can assess the performance.

Now the article which I mock does try to buttress itself with buzzwords and fancy sounding terms such as “there are 2 million discreet combinations possible.”

But these are not real kids! And are we not teaching educators if we dare to pre-service them with avatars instead of real kids, that there really is not difference between computer generated children and REAL children? Plus, what message are you sending to these soon-to-be instructors?

• We’ve discounted the value of humanity so much that we believe we can replicate the actions, feelings and behavior of real children?
• We are so confident that personhood can be imitated through 0′s and 1′s that as soon as we figure out how to simply replace you, the classroom teacher, with 1′s and 0′s, we are gonna pull your plug?

Are fake kids ever real kids? Doctors warm up for surgery using simulations to lock in and “get loose”. I get it. Doctors using avatars to replicate bedside manners when they have to relate news of a terminal illness?

It’s soul-less. And teaching, like medicine, police work, nursing, DMV work, and on and on and on, if it’s ever going to be any good, must have soul.

Is there anything more enjoyable/memorable/inspirational than having a bunch of admins in business wear cruise through your room in the middle of class wielding checklists?

They gaze at the walls, your demeanor, the students in their desks, and so on, with a keen, knowing, eye. They glean insights – lost to all but the most well-trained of checklist-checking bureaucrats – and discern how ably you are educating to the essence of Socrates’s finest philosophies by the way you’ve written your daily agenda clearly on the board.

And then, in their most ironic move of all, each of the educators that these people will eventually salute during the state accreditation process when they turn in their checklist to other checklist checkers (because every campus needs to hold someone on the staff up as a paragon of professionalism on campus) will be someone who…

Does all sorts of thing that never appeared on any checklists.

I mean if they want teachers to conduct themselves in a manner that aligns with the checklists then that’s what they should put on the checklist to check. But no. It’s the person that strays from the checklist. The person that re-invents the checklist. The person that builds a better checklist that gets all the spotlight during these moments when they need to hold up a leading campus light.

And yet, if anyone dares to let the checklist bearers know that they intend to stray from the checklist, re-invent the checklist or attempt to build a better checklist before they actually do it, they get met with a “Ha-rrumph!”

They want you to do what’s on the checklists but those that are exemplary in our field are those that do the things that are not on the checklists.

But then again, those that do not do the things that are on the checklists are also the pariahs in our field.

Ah, the paradoxical tango of the checklist and the checklist checkers.

Yesterday I blogged about how I was thinking of adding an occasional Dear Alan wrinkle to my blogs. This was a question posed to me.

Hi Alan, Could you please do a blog about rosaries being a sign of gang affiliations? My high school has had six police cars in the last week, added security and two lock-downs. We have a gang problem. Our high school accepted more schools of choice kids than any other district – no background checks – period. We had a rumor this week that someone was going to come in and shoot up the school. It was not substantiated. We had so many students absent on the day it was supposed to happen, it was unreal. Students were scared. Staff was scared.

In our “Emergency Staff Meeting,” I brought up the fact that many of our students are suddenly wearing rosaries and this is a gang symbol. Our administration basically told me that I was absolutely wrong and that it’s a trend. This is the same administrator who after I sent reported a student wearing a tshirt with his gang air-brushed all over it, he called him out of class and made him turn his t-shirt inside out and then sent him back to my class for two hours. It was hell. The kid was furious and was extremely disruptive. Some staff said that I never should have reported it because I could get my tires slashed…
I’m frustrated! Did you ever deal with gang issues in your classroom and was your administration helpful?

I know for a fact that rosaries are a touchy subject, but I also know that many students are strutting their gang affiliation right under our noses and not one person is doing anything about it. Any suggestions?

Thanks,

Okay, have I ever dealt with the problems of gang members in school? Yes.

Have I ever dealt with silly admins who were entirely too dismissive of the very real threat that these kids posed to the safety of other other kids or to staff? Yes.

How did I handle it? It’s a REAL challenge. I mean Grade A number 1. And when it comes to kids and gangs and violence and schools, there are no easy answers. Anyone who tells you there are is probably trying to sell you something.

On one hand, to let the threat of these kids take precedence over education is to allow “the bad guys to win”. (And save the hate mail, please. I have done EXTENSIVE work with gang kids and I clearly understand how troubled these young people actually are. Read my book HOMEBOYZ if you doubt my street cred on this front. But I do need a simple [oversimplified] term right now to address the bigger issue and, in case you have your head in the sand, some of these kids are actual felons with violent and malevolent dispositions… so if I am not all-that-PC right now in using the term ” bad kids” please know that if you have ever been in the thick of it, the word “bad kid” is a very mild description as compared to some of the stuff being perpetrated by more than a few young people today. Anyway…)

Thus, as a teacher I am torn. Why? Because it’s my job to be on the front lines and make sure the “bad guys” do not win… so making sure that I don’t let their fear and intimidation tactics sabotage my professional aims is VERY important. It’s why, when I have had days like these, yep, I did, indeed come to school.

Then again, I did so with a prayer in my heart. And why’s that? Because I have no aspiration to “die for the cause”. And when foolish admins don’t take threats of violence like this seriously, I think heads ought to roll. I mean Holy Moly, we we need proactive responses to the threat of violence in schools – not reactive ones – and reactive ones are what we all-too-often see.

There were days that I truly believed it was going to take something as tragic as a teacher to get shot before I’d see a reasonable response to the frequent threats of violence I felt on campus. Thank God nothing like that happened. But do I think far too many admins are playing with fire on this front? Oh, hell yeah!

Of course, I do student assemblies all the time across the country. And just last week I did one in at an inner-city school and asked the crowd (hundreds of urban high school kids), “How many of you know someone that has been shot?”

At least 40% of the hands flew into the air.

Think about that. Put that in context of your own high school experience. Put that in context of your ability or desire to do homework when this is what your home life/neighborhood existence is like. Me, I didn’t know one kid who had been shot when I went to high school. Not one. And if a friend or cousin had died at the hands of a bullet, I really don’t think my ability to prepare for bubble tests like the SAT would have been the same.

(Side note: My goodness, I took the SAT over 25 years ago. Can we please build a better form of student assessment before the year 2200 hits?!)

See, the rule for shootings is pretty simple: avoid it happening to you. Do whatever you need to do in order to avoid being shot. Everything else is secondary. It’s why you give a mugger a wallet instead of standing your ground. Bullets trump!

This means that if means the rumors are flying and there’s a chance that someone might get blasted on campus, as a kid, most play it, “Better safe than sorry.”

And I don’t disagree with them at all. Live to learn another day. Especially, if you do not feel the school has an adequate grip on things.

Plus, if I am a parent and I do not feel the school is being as diligent as they ought (and in your case, it seems pretty clear to me that the parents probably wish the school was able to better insulate the campus from the community violence) then there’s no way I am sending my kid to school that day.

Safety first. That’s the rule.

Additionally, if the teachers are scared it’s because they lack faith in the authorities who are supposed to be able to ensure campus safety actually exists. Cavalier attitudes combined with, “you better not report that kid or else your tires could get slashed” tips from fellow peers wouldn’t inspire me much at all to believe, “Yep, the adults on campus actually have a good grip on this.”

My feeling is that if the teachers are being asked to deal with “gang kids” that are being sent to the office, then sent back to class with their t-shirt inside-out, the implied message is, “just teach, would ya… and don’t send me your minor problems”… which shows a total lack of appreciation for the fact that kids will die for the affiliations being boasted about on their shirts.

As an adult we may think it’s stupid and what-not, but to kids who are real gang-bangers, that’s their “flag”. And they will “represent” for their hood.

They will shoot for their hood, they will fight for their hood, they will shed blood for their hood.

And if school allows them to fly their flag on campus, it’s inviting fantastic amounts of trouble. A campus with these challenges needs to have a zero tolerance policy when it comes to attire because really, attire is a gigantic fuse.

The rosaries, now they are a touchy subject because of the religious implications, But if gang-members have absconded with the symbol and violence is a by-product of the rosary’s association, IMHO, they gotta go.

That’s my take. And I have a feeling even nuns might agree with me on this one.

So, what can you do?

1. Stay safe.
2. Create an environment where your students feel safe. (to the best of your ability).
3. Don’t be afraid to be a whistle blower when admins are not doing what you feel they ought to ensure campus safety. Better for nothing to happen with extra precautions than something to happen due to less precautions.
4. Remember, if you are scared, the students are even more afraid… even if they do not seem to show it. Dialogue, expression, exploration of “what we can do to make our campus community better”, there are all sorts of things. But to deny it… it’s just begging for trouble. Cancer thrives on inattention.
5. There is no real playbook for this sort of thing. Talk to six different educators and you might get six different answers. At the end of the day, you sort of have to follow your heart.
6. This icon really tells a tremendous part of the story. I am not sure they have all the same puzzle pieces I would list, but the big point is that it takes a lot of different folks to keep a school safe.

America really has a variety of different school systems all living under the banner of American Education.

Some schools know absolutely nothing of violence on campus. Others can’t even imagine how the school might operate on a day to day basis without the threat of gangs and violence.

The only thing I can tell you is that, at the end of the day, senselessness seems to have grabbed certain corners of public education by the throat.

With all the WOW stuff flying around, I am thinking about starting a Dear Alan column because I’m getting more and more and more emails from people asking me for my take on matters that really, well… they have no “right” answers.

And so, sharing some of those questions in my blog, and lending my own perspective (while acknowledging, “Hey, this is just my viewpoint but in a world where little is black-n-white sometimes it’s nice to be able to hear about the many shades of gray) feels like something that might catch traction with me.

Anyway, all questions will remain anonymous – for about a thousand different reasons – so if you write to me, know that you can use your real name and I won’t publish it.

Can’t promise I will always post a Dear Alan as a result but hey, in this day and age, it feels like a lot of folks are looking for a place to turn and talk. And if I can even help one person through these efforts than hey, it’s worth it, right?

Anyway, here’s this week’s question:

Hi Alan, Could you please do a blog about rosaries being a sign of gang affiliations? My high school has had six police cars in the last week, added security and two lock-downs. We have a gang problem. Our high school accepted more schools of choice kids than any other district – no background checks – period. We had a rumor this week that someone was going to come in and shoot up the school. It was not substantiated. We had so many students absent on the day it was supposed to happen, it was unreal. Students were scared. Staff was scared.

In our “Emergency Staff Meeting,” I brought up the fact that many of our students are suddenly wearing rosaries and this is a gang symbol. Our administration basically told me that I was absolutely wrong and that it’s a trend. This is the same administrator who after I sent reported a student wearing a tshirt with his gang air-brushed all over it, he called him out of class and made him turn his t-shirt inside out and then sent him back to my class for two hours. It was hell. The kid was furious and was extremely disruptive. Some staff said that I never should have reported it because I could get my tires slashed…
I’m frustrated! Did you ever deal with gang issues in your classroom and was your administration helpful?
I know for a fact that rosaries are a touchy subject, but I also know that many students are strutting their gang affiliation right under our noses and not one person is doing anything about it. Any suggestions?
Thanks,

In short, this is a WOW question. So many things come up.

Today, I am just gonna let you “chew on it”. Tomorrow, you’ll be able to see my response. (Plus, it’ll be kinda long and already we’re at the edge of a reasonable day’s post.)

Is this how abby started? (LOL)

We’ve all heard about the 5 W’s of writing. The Who, What, Where, When and Why. (Also, there’s the H: the How).

But when I apply the 5 W’s to school, it seems pretty clear to me that there is one W which ought to come before all others.

The Why. As in Why the heck am I being asked to learn this?

In so, so, so many classrooms across our country, the students simply do not have an understanding as to WHY they are being asked to learn the things that are perpetually rolling across their school desks. Algebra, photosynthesis, the people that signed the Declaration of Independence… we “assign” these things under the banner of “you need to know this” and yet, I am not really too sure we are explicating WHY they need to know this.

If you doubt me, do a survey. Ask your kids about the reason they are learning the things they are learning in another teacher’s class. Ask them about WHY they are dissecting a frog in biology? Ask them about WHY they are learning about the great stock market crash of 1929.

And then see the fuzziness. Witness the vague-ness. See the lack of precision in their comprehension of the WHY.

And then (if you have the guts) ask them WHY they think they are learning whatever it is you are teaching them this week in your own class. Try not to give away any clues or hints or answers. Instead, just ask, “Can somebody please tell me – really tell me – why we are learning the parts of speech? Or how to properly use a comma? Or why we are even bothering to read HUCK FINN or this Shakespearian Sonnet?”

So, so, often, I have found that most of my kids really do not clearly know unless I overtly make the point of clearly explaining the reasoning behind me teaching whatever it is I am teaching. (And the lower-performing the student, the less aware of the WHY of learning – that’s another correlation I’ve seen time and time again.)

If a kid doesn’t know WHY they are studying the things they are studying they are, well… adrift. People are driven to pursue things out of meaning. Meaningfulness motivates and inspires our actions. Therefore, if a student doesn’t even know why they are being asked to learn Please Find for X in 3rd period, how well can we expect them to perform at the job of finding for X?

I mean when I think back to my own days as a student in a math class, not once do I ever recall my math teacher explaining WHY it was important that I learned to do things like factor equations.

“Because it is.”
“Because I told you so.”
“Don’t be a smart alek.”

Here’a real story that happened to me when I was a kid in school:
“Uhm, why do I even need to learn this? I know I’m never gonna be a mathematician”
“Mr. Sitomer, would you like to go to the office? Stop clowning around and do your work?”
“But why I need this?”
“That’s it… you are outta here.”

And yep, I got bounced. (Disclaimer: I got sent to the office a lot when I was a kid in school. I think that’s why I’ve always had an affinity for at-risk kids. I sorta see a bit of myself in them.)

It wasn’t until after I had earned a Masters degree that I came across the reasoning for teaching algebra to kids who don’t have any aspirations to be mathematicians.

In short, it’s because Algebra develops the cognitive ability of a kid to think for X. And in life, there are a lot of variables, a lot of X’s, one will eventually have to deal with. It’s like a a boot camp for critical thinking and high level choice weighing. “If this is this and that is that, how do you get X out of a situation?”

If someone would have just taken 2 minutes to explain that to me, I might not have been sent to the office so often.

Alas, I am scared not even my teachers really knew, though. (At least not clearly.) And the thing is, I was a good math student. But I became easily bored when there was no meaning in the work for me. And yet, there was meaning in the school work. I just didn’t know it and no one took the time to explain it to me.

How many kids today are experiencing the same phenomenon?

The WHY… students today need to know.

Anyone who says that size does not matter is not a classroom teacher. The notion is pure and total BS!!

And when I hear stories of how middle school class sizes are now averaging 40 to 1 in San Francisco, I recognize in myself a raging anger at the indignity being suffered by a generation of kids.

With teachers serving as the punching bag all along the way.

It’s a humiliating affront to parents, educators and kids that middle schools in one of the planet’s wealthiest nations have ballooned to this level.

Ain’t no way to try and defend it, either. Instruction suffers when class sizes elevate to these levels. I know. I’ve been there.

You give out a simple assignment and you get a phone book worth of papers to grade.

You try to take a moment to work one-on-one with a kid and 15 other kids don’t get the same opportunity even though they need it as well.

Taking attendance consumes a quantifiable percentage of instructional time. Keeping up with kids who missed class becomes labyrinthian. Teaching the word labyrinthian becomes Herculean because the kids do not have the mythological background knowledge to understand the reference to either a labyrinth or to Hercules beyond a mere cartoon (as opposed to a Greek hero with actual labors).

Additionally, we all know that the L.A. Times is “outing” educators right now (in an effort to drive controversy and thus readership and thus ad sales to their sinking enterprise). But will class sizes show up.

Does a teacher with 22 students not have an instructional leg up on a teacher who has 39 in her class? Will any of the value-added rankings mitigate for that? Anyone who says it doesn’t matter has never stood in front of a sea of public school kids and tried to move their academic mountain.

BTW, I know all the tricks. I had to learn them. I learned how to cut corners on grading papers so that I didn’t need to get hauled off to the loony bin. I learned how to assign things like Daily Oral Language activities at the beginning of class so that I could take attendance while still making sure my students were being productive. There are scores of “little secrets” one learns.

Because when you teach in impacted classrooms, sometimes you are simply trying to survive and the idea of prospering feels Pollyannishly out of reach!

It’s just such a farce what is going on and though I don’t think I would homeschool my own kids, I do see a growing reason why it’s a very real, very legit consideration. Being a faceless number in an over-taxed teacher’s class is no recipe for scholastic excellence!!

But yet, we’ll still pay for the bubble tests. Millions and millions of dollars for them, flawed as they egregiously are.

The blood boils when I think of this stuff. Truly, we have reason for shame.