Great news today!! I was just notified that my most biggest writing project ever, was named a Finalist for the 2010 Association of Educational Publishers Distinguished Achievement Awards in the category of Reading and Language Arts.

I really only started writing educational curriculum for one reason: I hated the fact that I was a perpetual complainer about all the junk that was out there being peddled to my school and my students.

And living in a world where I saw my school – and so many others – get, pardon my French, “fleeced” by educational publishers that weren’t providing what I felt needed to be provided in order to 1) effectively reach our modern students and 2) smartly empower today’s teachers with the tools they really needed to be effective professionals was driving me bonkers.

And the prices that these folks were charging? Jeez, it made my head spin. (Thus the French term above). I always felt it could be done better.

But then I had to face the facts. If I really thought it could be done better, I would have to prove it. It’s easy to talk and complain. It’s harder to actually do something about it.

And so I decided to take a run at educational publishing myself.

When publishers found out that I was going to put together a curriculum of best practices from my own classroom that pretty much used all the strategies, methodologies, insights and tools I had developed over the years and years I’d spent as a classroom educator (and as avid student of schooling itself) it landed me a bunch of meetings. Everyone was interested in working with me on this endeavor.

My literary agent, however, thought I was a bit nuts.

“Why take a detour off of a great – and growing – career as a YA novelist to go write material for teachers? The work is going to be three times as hard and the money a lot less?”

Now my agent is great. Best professional partner I have in many, many respects. However, when he heard my reasoning (i.e. I wanted to “give back”, I thought I could make a real difference, people asked me all the time for materials as to how I do what I do to reap the results I get with my kids) he said, “Ya know what, you won me over. I can see you feel passionate and think this is going to be something meaningful and special. Let’s do it! Let’s see if we can’t change, or at least try to change a world that has become fossilized.”

And so, of all the publishers available to me, I struck a deal with a young and hungry group over at Haights Cross and Recorded Books. What they lacked in tremendous size, they made up for in desire, smarts and talent. They let me captain the ship, they worked hard to provide all the resources I’d need to produce something smashing, and they put the pedal to the metal from the boardroom on down. Essentially, they gave me their full support. (And who doesn’t want/need that?)

What I was able to publish with them is, what I feel, the best teaching I have ever done. The BookJam is my response to my own complaining.

And though it’s still less than a year old – and there are more phases planned in the project (I just finished the Poetry Jam and The Classics Jam meaning 7 BookJams are already out while 4 more BookJams are being written by me this summer for release in the next 6-8 months) well… how cool is it that the Association of American Publishers just gave me a little love for my efforts.

So what’s the lesson? (I am always looking for lessons.) As teachers, we are not as disempowered as we think we are to bring about change. I rolled up my shirts sleeves and got to work.

Our schools are starving for more of us to take the lead. Science teachers, math teachers, history, PE, art, music, Special Ed and on and on and on.

We can do better.

Or kids deserve better.

The status quo is not working.

Being named a finalist for such a prestigious award, what’s it really mean? It means I now have the credibility to encourage other educators to quit looking to politicians and administrators with political agendas for the classroom answers you need.

Take the reins and have at it folks… you have no idea where it will lead.

I didn’t.

The Tax Man Cometh today… so I decided to do a free webinar providing some tool and insights on using Poetry in the classroom.

My theme: Is Poetry Dead?

My answer: Heck no!

In case you haven’t been paying attention, the past few years have seen an absolutely amazing renaissance in poetry… particularly when it come to teens and their interest in reading, writing and performing (via spoken word) poetry.

Truly, it energizes a classroom in such an electric manner that to try and even describe it is simply not possible. You just gotta live it to see it.

And the truth is, it’s SO EASY to replicate in your own classroom.

Later today, I am going to talk about this, provide some free tools and teaching tips and thoughts on how to tackle the teaching of poetry and so on because hey, Uncle Sam might be reaching into your pocket today but since it’s National Poetry Month I figured why not try to put something of solid value — and of no cost — in your teacher’s bag as well.

To check it out, simply go here.

In closing today, I’ll end with a little poetry about taxes… as authored by The Beatles.

If you drive a car, I’ll tax the street,
If you try to sit, I’ll tax your seat,
If you get too cold, I’ll tax the heat,
If you take a walk, I’ll tax your feet.

‘Cause I’m the taxman,
Yeah, I’m the taxman.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid is about to absolutely rock the Hollywood box office this weekend. And it has been a rip-roaring success in the world of book publishing. As a teacher, when I see this I know that I can leverage the power of an author who has found a way to reach real kids into classroom success for me and my kids.

Here’s how I do it.

First of all, I know that the state has hired me to teach the content standards. (They clearly say so.) And when they assess my student performance, the material they test is not text specific but rather, standards-based. This means that they are not going to be testing my kids on Kafka, Twain, and Joyce but rather on denotation vs. connotation, theme, tone and so on.

And hey, Diary of a Wimpy Kid uses all of the literary elements of denotation vs. connotation, theme, tone and so on. So why not use Diary of a Wimpy Kid as a text to teach the standards in my classroom?

I do.

Now before I get crucified as being someone that does not revere the GREAT BOOKS of human civilization – a canon blaster, if you will — please take a few things into consideration.

California is a state with 6.4 million students. And 1.6 million of them are English Language Learners. This means that I need to differentiate, accommodate and be responsive to the real literary needs of the students that are sitting in my class — all while still teaching the appropriate grade level content standards.

I am not sure if there is a more accessible book for English Language Learners out there right now than Diary of a Wimpy Kid.

-It’s funny. (And kids will wrestle with text when the reward is material that will make them laugh).
-There’s a lot of white space on the page. (Check the research on the value of that to a student with low literacy skills – especially when English is not their first language).
-It’s relevant and kids relate. (The bumbling, fumbling shenanigans of Greg allow students to see their own lives reflected directly in the text.)

And Diary of a Wimpy Kid (for those who want to take a moment to jump off their high horse of that books in school absolutely must be dense, erudite art) is a good read. Personally, I greatly enjoyed it because it’s an energetic, funny and page turner.

Plus, guess what? There’s a theme. (A few of them, in fact: 1) We learn from our mistakes. 2) Self-image is very important. 3) No one escapes problems in their life. 4) You’ve got to show initiative if you are going to get anywhere in this world.)

And there are examples of denotation vs. connotation.

And the text provides me examples of tone, perspective, hyperbole and on and on.

The same stuff that the standards ask me to teach.

Should Diary of a Wimpy Kid replace Mark Twain? Nope, not even close. But can it be used as a bridge to build capacity? Can it be used as a text to illuminate literary devices?

Can it be used as a vehicle to get 100% of your class to do ALL the assigned reading? (And how often do our classes do that? I mean “faking it” through books has become so ingrained in our culture that there’s a multi-million dollar industry to provide resources as to how to better fake it — Cliff’s Notes, Spark Notes, Pink Monkey and so on.)

Yes, I read Diary of a Wimpy Kid with my classes. And guess what? It was a home-run success and a great teaching tool.

And guess what else?

We had FUN!

Since when are fun and and learning mutually exclusive to one another?

But, don’t worry — keep using those 20th century tools to reach today’s 21rst century kids. After all I am sure Hollywood is going to race right out and make a movie of your classroom textbook any day this week.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid… it certainly can have it’s place in a classroom where students are achieving.

Schools are so understaffed on the admin front that sensible evaluations of teachers that are thoughtful, timely and fair to all parties involved seem almost like a pipe dream.

Take my school, for example. We have 4 admins on our campus: a P and 3 VP’s.

That’s for something like 150 teachers.

So if each educator were to get 8 classroom visits (two per quarter; that doesn’t seem unreasonable, right? I mean not if you are to reasonably try to gain insight into a situation — I mean that’s only once every 4 and 1/2 weeks) that would mean that a total of 1,200 classroom visits would need to be made.

This means that each admin would have to do about 300 visits per school year.

This means that each admin would have to do something like 75 visits per quarter.

This means that each admin would have to do about 8 visits per week.

That’s two classroom visit a day with Fridays off from classroom visiting.

Seems reasonable for all right? (I can already hear the chuckles.) At least if you are going to be able to draw and fair, verifiable and rational conclusions.

And then, instead of using silly check sheet rubrics, they might actually be able to provide some support and guidance to better steer the direction of the campus ship.

I know, more pipe dream.

(BTW, this is assuming that the admins actually know how to be an effective teacher themselves — a great leap of faith in and of itself. And by so much of the verbiage they use, I often doubt whether some of the people who oversee teachers actually could do the job of a classroom educator.)

Anyway, how far are we away from those numbers?

I am reminded of Frost: “Miles to go before we sleep.”

All right — let’s go in from a different angle. The P.E., the arts, the R.O.P. classes and such — do they even get/need a visit? I mean come on, if it ain’t gonna be tested, why should an admin waste their time, right?

Ya think they are walking though the cooking class asking where the “Daily Objective” is written on the front board?

And the “core” classes? Aren’t we merely getting cursory walk-throughs that seem as if they are merely judgement based fly-bys? After all, my first was this January — and school started in late August.

Also, are we really hopeful to get more of them? It’s like a little game. Admins come in and do their thing. We do our thing. And then, when that thing is done we both look forward to going back to doing our original thing hoping not to cross paths again over this matter — cause there are other things to do.

Note to self: new book title idea.

Sensible Evaluations of Teachers… and More Farces from the Front Lines

Whenever any other adult walks into my classroom, things change. Why? Cause classrooms are fishbowls and when a new species enters the tank, the environment changes.

Sure, in some ways, things will revert back to normal. Especially if I, at the front of the room, keep an even keel, and keep rolling on with business as usual. (Which I usually do. I have sort of given up on dog and pony shows a long time ago… but when you are a young teacher and you think that your job is on the line when a “boss” walks in, you get tense and start ascending Bloom’s taxonomy as if climbing this academic Kilimanjaro was the only thing ever that you were hired to do. What? The VP is coming? Quick kids, start to SYNTHESIZE!!! It’s such a joke.)

However, kids who are normally energetic and enthusiastic will clam up and in my experience, the “high end” of class gets lost – or at least tamped down. Sure, a few of the most bubbling personalities will still participate and share their “voice” with the room but most kids will — especially when there are people in suits or business attire in the class — remain in their own little quiet, one-word response bubble.

Classes where the teachers don’t have classroom management though… they are often exposed. I mean a teacher that can’t get Jimmy to sit down when the principal is not in the room is a teacher that feels embarrassed and threatened when the VP is in the room watching Jimmy defy classroom protocol.

But the thing is, the VP’s often look at the teacher as if it’s “the educator’s” fault that Jimmy won’t sit down, be quiet and do some work. Why the VP doesn’t enter the room with the attitude that, “Hey, this is my school and I am here to support the teachers and if Jimmy won’t get on the bus, I need to do something about Jimmy,” is beyond me.

Uhm, maybe, the teacher could use some back-up?

But no, VP’s enter the room looking for “our” problems… as if the problems they see in their teachers’ rooms are not “their” problems as well.

Goodness how I’d love to see the tables turned on this one though. I mean how great would it be to see the entire school board walk into my VP’s office? I wonder if she would carry on in the same way as she would if it was just a P.E. teacher who had popped by.

And I wonder if they had only spent 7 minutes in her office (with a check sheet in hand, of course — the rubric for good Vice Principalling… I mean who hasn’t memorized that?) if she would feel as if she was being fairly evaluated and assessed by her “bosses”.

No notice. No prior awareness of what was even on the check sheet. Just BOOM! a surprise little visit. In, then out, then gone… the only lasting impression being an air of slight disapproval from each of the Board Members.

Of course, this folly bleeds upwards. Why? Because instead of supporting her, they come in with an attitude of “looking for her faults”. And she thinks to herself, “If you know so much, then you trying doing this damn job!”

Don’t you just love how everyone feels as if they can do your job better than you can do it yourself? Parents, principals, kids, they all think, What schmoe couldn’t do a better job than the schlub they currently have in room 6213?

And when I look at the work my school board does, my VP does, the science and math and history and P.E. teachers do, I pretty much think the same thing, don’t I.

Yep, I am a hypocrite. Don’t judge me but I will judge you.

Ya gotta love school mentality, right?

There’s a part of me that feels as if the discussion I raised the other day about how using technology in way that simply adds up to “digitalizing worksheets” devolved to a place where I feel I wasn’t quite paying heed to the idea that I really do recognize the potential — if not obvious — merits of technology. I have seen Smartboards, airliners, wikis, webquests, nings and the such used in a manner that absolutely legitimizes the credibility of the argument for 21rst century skills in the classroom… and I am a fan.

I’m sold!

However, everything I’ve seen that I greatly admire has a foundation in real human thought and deep student thinking.

Technology allows students to probe deeper and wider with more expediency and more efficiency (to name but a few of the benefits). Wielded properly, the case for utilizing 21rst century technology tools is virtually inarguable. The stuff rocks.

However… well, the however category might be the biggest technology hurdle out there — and the one that so few are addressing by name. Bigger than the expenditure, the PD needed, the retrofitting of all our current institutions and the investment we are going to need to make on a zillion other fronts is the “However category”.

The “However” category relates to fundamentally asking ourselves, “What is the goal of classroom education?” If technology is not meta-cognitively implemented with an eye on reflectively asking ourselves “what is the learning goal that this tool better empowers me to achieve” then we will quickly find ourselves losing the forest for the trees.

After all, if we do not ask the right questions there is a very low likelihood that we are going to stumble into the right answers.

I know the past few years of NCLB has seen an almost manic mandate to have teachers — especially new teachers — put the day’s “academic objective on the board at the front of the room”. (As if learning is a widget to be easily stamped; today we will be persuasive argument writers, tomorrow precise gerund users, Thursday will see us read Langston Hughes for subtext and Friday will see us master split infinitives. Oh, the buffoonery.)

However, with technology, having a clear, well thought-out student learning objective really is the compass by which one can navigate the use of technology. Now, I don’t want to double dip and plagiarize from myself (can one even be guilty of this?) because I talk address this issue in depth in my Scholastic book Teaching Teens and Reaping Results in Wi-Fi, Hip-Hop, Where Has All the Sanity Gone World, yet, the fact is, when you bring project-based learning into the classroom, you need to know what intellectual goal you are pursuing before you even begin — and you better tenaciously pursue that clear and focused aim because all the bells and whistles available in tech today are like a Siren Temptress of the Sea which can easily lead a teachers onto the calamitous rocks of classroom lesson implosion.

Tech needs a litmus test to justify its incorporation into a classroom. Know your objective and then, think like Einstein who often said, “Simplify, simplify simplify.”

If the tech shoe doesn’t fit, why force it?

There was something exceptionally cool going on in Indianapolis this week during the NMSA annual conference where I just presented. Yet, it was also exceptionally troubling.

In the back of the exhibit hall somebody had set up a “Classroom of the 21rst Century”. Essentially, what they had done was bring in a class of real middle school students from a local Indy school and had them spend the day in an exhibit hall area that had been fashioned into a “21rst century classroom”.

There were laptops on every desk, an interactive whiteboard at the front of the room and all the latest digital gadgets that teachers and students can use for classroom instruction were on display — so that passerbys (and purchasers, of course) could catch a glimpse of education’s future.

And like I said they had brought in real kids to participate in a regular class that was simply being held on location at the conference. (About 25-30 multicultural 7th graders I believe, but it was very much set up as a real classroom.)

And so I watched for about 20 minutes. Like I said, the idea of it was very cool and I salute all the folks for being innovative and trying. However, a part of what I saw freaked me out.

Smartboards, laptops, autoresponders and the such were everywhere. Okay, cool. And lots of teachers and admins were gawking. Well, I was gawking as well… but for a different reason.

Because academic rigor, critical thinking and demanding intellectual thought were almost nowhere to be found. The display was basically “worksheet lessons” that had been digitalized.

Oy vey!

I mean I get the good intentions of everyone but lots of old school educators remain skeptical of drinking the 21rst Century Digital Future Kool-Aid, and though I am a HUGE advocate of 21rst century skills, when I see what I saw, I understand why there is so much recalcitrance.

I watched it take 7 minutes – that’s right, 7 minutes – for a boy to come up to the front of the room and do a “fill in the blank worksheet style problem. Uh huh, a worksheet style problem.

The sentence on the interactive whiteboard was something like, “Libby is a ________________ retriever.” His task, fill in the blank. (I swear, I am not making this up.)

Now being that this was on a Smartboard, they had a picture of a golden retriever. And the teacher could make it bark. (Took him a bit though.) And the task (for the entire class) was to have 1 kid come to the board and write the proper “fill in the blank word” by hand into the blank on the board while 26 other kids watched and learned.

Learned what, I don’t know.

Of course the kid struggled with the digital pen for a wee bit, he accidentally leaned on a part of the board rendering it ineffective, the teacher tried to correct the kid’s mistake but they both found themselves writing at the same time so the board couldn’t respond properly and by the time all was said and done, over seven minutes had passed before this kid had written the word “golden” by hand into the blank… and then the teacher magically transformed the student handwriting into digital text with a press of his magic pen.

The audience went wow.

And I went WTF?

Like I said, seven minutes to fill in a single blank on a glorified, digitalized worksheet with a self-evident answer while the other 26 students did nada but try to remain well behaved.

In a way, being that I am the type of teacher who believes that there is a place for cell phones and the such in the classroom, this is my great fear. Just as some educators have turned computers into nothing more than glorified typewriters and then relaxed into believing they are incorporating technology into their curriculum by having done so, I am also afraid that the gadget craze is going to create a sense of false futurism.

The bells and whistles of technology are not going to replace the need for critical thinking and whether or not you mimeographed your worksheet question “Libby is a ________________ retriever.” in 1950 or you put it up on an interactive whiteboard at the front of a room filled with kids in some kind of one-to-one laptop environment, the actual teaching is still piss-poor.

If you are going to demonstrate a 21rst century classroom, these kids better be doing things like using the tech tools to build inquiry based webquests on the retriever breed or something… not “Libby is a ________________ retriever.”

Otherwise, what’s the point?

And more scary is how I saw the heavy hitting admins and superintendent types in the back almost salivating at the thought of all this 21rst century digital technology.

Lemme tell ya folks, I don’t care if “Libby is a %^#$Q* retriever.” Technology is a tool to wield but if we are not building the brain muscle of our kids, it’s better that these tools just stay on the shelf so that we don’t all dupe ourselves into believing that just because a class has laptops, Smartboards, and gadget up the yin-yang, there is actual learning going on.

And I am sorry if anyone from NMSA takes offense at this but if you are going to demonstrate a classroom lesson for the educational public to see, demonstrating scholarly rigor has got to be your first priority.

Let’s not let our eyes deviate from the real prize, right?

I was in my classroom when the second plane hit the World Trade Center in 2001. I heard about the first plane as I drove into work, turned on the tv in my room and then watched the second plane hit.

And that day, all we did in my class was watch the news and talk. I remember telling my kids, “You just saw the world change.” I didn’t know how, I didn’t know in which way, shape or manner, but I did know that right then, our world had changed.

And it did.

And today, I gotta say I am still hoping it will change some more because where we are, well… it could be better. A lot better.

A few weeks ago I talked about H.R. 1895 and The Stand Up Act in regards to providing more strict guidleines for teen drivers.

It just smacked of complete common sense. Well, banning txting and driving is next up. This seems, to me, to be another one that just elevates itself to the level of NO-BRAINER.

See, when I click on this article and see a picture of a tow truck in a swimming pool, I gotta kinda laugh. Then again, I am not the 68 year old lady that went to the hospital as a result of this txting tow truck driver who caused one heck of an accident.

And alerting teens to the dangers of txting has gone international. Check out this PSA aimed at young-ins to scare them into keeping their eyes on the road and not their phones when operating a vehicle. (Warning: this thing doesn’t pull any punches. It’s gruesome!)

Are we, as teachers not responsible to bring up these issues in our class? I mean, I know it’s not necessarily “standards-based” but still, is there not an almost moral imperative to teach right from wrong, as well as skills, in the modern day classroom? (BTW, this could easily lead to a standards based assignment, whether you want to tie it to reading comprehension, a written reply, and so on.) But does every little thing have to be standards-based?

Kids need to know that txting and driving is SUPER DANGEROUS. For me to teach this, to discuss this, to hammer this home, do I have to “lesson plan it out according to the California state standards” or is there room in my classroom for just some lessons about life? And when the national standards people meet in the secret halls of covert “We know what’s bestness?” are they taking things like this into consideration? I really wonder.

Will I get “merit pay” if I happen to save a kid from a fate worse than choosing incorrect bubbles on a standardized state test?

I mean, I hate to say it, but dontchya get the feeling that the higher-ups would prefer I spent the time teaching gerunds?

Cause as we all know, gerunds save lives.