March is always the longest month of the year for me. Since my life revolves around a school schedule, this is the time when I can see the end of the year but it’s still fairly far away, the start of the year seems eons ago, and the realization that the ambitions I held to do this, this and that are not going to come to pass before the 2010/2011 school year turns its last page.

But if I step on the gas, I know I can make sure I at least do this… or that.

Or something. So March is when I MAKE A PROJECT.

Look, March is a 5 week month. At least there are 5 Tuesdays, 5 Wednesdays, and 5 Thursdays in this month and ostensibly, those should be the most productive work days of my week. Point is, the time is there. Additionally, I always feel it’s great to ensure that I have something tangible in my hand that I have really done after long slogs of time if for no other reason than the sense of actual accomplishment. March is a month where minutes can all-too-easily slip into hours, hours into days and days into an entire month. Doubt me? Just where-oh-where did February go?

It’s that sense which drives me to advocate for making a project in the month of March. It can be a personal project for my life outside of work lines (like exercise, build a tree swing, read a really thick by James Joyce) or it can be a work thing (like bringing Project-Based Learning into the classroom, locking down an outline for my next book or following up with that long lost uncle in Ghana who has all this gold bullion waiting for me once I give him my social security number).

But have something to show by April Fool’s Day because on 4-1-2011, the first third of this year will be over… and the question of what will I have to show for my time will be on my mind.

The credible, inevitable surprise is a term I use to describe that part of the story where BOOM! it twists in a WOW type of way that really takes the audience to a new and heightened (and, most probably) more exciting space.

It’s that “Oh my goodness, no way!” moment that was practically destined to happen anyway. It’s the shock that’s not.

• When Boxer gets sent to the glue factory in Animal Farm, it’s the shock that’s not.
• When Peeta saves the life of Katniss instead of killing her because he loves her, it’s the shock that’s not.
• When Darth Vader tells Luke, “I am your father,” it’s the shock that’s not.

These are the moments when it all makes sense. They are credible. (No  deus ex machina. No, “Come on, that would never happen” type of sentiment in the audience.)

They are also inevitable. After all, many, many good stories are often quite round in their nature. By that I mean that the problems and conflicts which arise early are the problems and conflicts which will see finality by the end. And almost always see a conclusion arrive in a way that the audience could have easily predicted… but didn’t.

• When Claudius allows Denmark to fall to Fortinbras, we all knew that was coming. It’s inevitable.
• When Huck and Tom save Jim, we all knew that they’d figure out a way. It’s inevitable.
• When Melinda finally triumphs over the Beast, we knew she’d be confronted by him again. And we knew things would be different by the end. We knew she’d figure out a way to Speak. Why? Because it was inevitable.

The credible, inevitable surprise really sets up a very unique relationship between author and audience in that the author must give the audience both the credible and the inevitable while making sure to chart a path that seems as though ‘there’s no way on God’s green earth it’s gonna work out the way I know it’s going to work out.”

And when it does, audiences get to relish in the happy surprise of 1) I knew it all along and 2) I had no idea, either.

Fairy Tales know it…

• The Three Little Pigs follows suit. (The last pig actually saves the day but for a moment, we all were quite concerned about the wolf have a few bacon sandwiches for dinner.)
• Cinderella follow suit. (We know the prince is gonna discover Cinderella’s real identity and spare her from the evil step-family.)
• The Gingerbread Man follows suit. (You just can’t be that annoying and full of hubris and not expect that you’re own sense of arrogance will not eventually lead to your downfall.)

What story are you reading right now? And what’s the credible, inevitable surprise? The authors who do those well – Dickens was a master – are the ones who will always have an audience.

It’s just the way we’re wired.

One of the reasons I consider it so important for teachers to try and finish the school year in a “strong” fashion is simply out of self-preservation. The fact is, teaching is tough. And the year is long and hard. And we are not always at our best.

Plus, when you add in a dose of the dire news we are all inevitably going to be reading/hearing about for the upcoming 2010/2011 school year (for example, I just heard rumors we might go as high as 43 to 1 on the student teacher ratio due to budget cuts on my campus), you can get demoralized.

And feel disempowered.

But in a way, this sentiment is an illusion. Sure, there are many things we cannot control in our teaching universe… but there are many things we can as well.

Choose to focus on the things that are within your realm of being able to control. It’s one recipe for staving off the wolves of educational despair.

When you strap it up and work your butt off bell to bell all the way to end of the year, you feel a certain personal dignity that can’t be stolen away from you. And when you work in a chaotic, frenzied, dysfunctional world where up is down and buffonishness trumps common sense, feeling as if you are making a positive contribution matters, despite the events going on all around you.

It actually matters a lot. In fact, it might be all the difference in the world.

Now of course, we owe it to the kids to give them our all, but in reality, a lot of teachers feel dumped on by their districts these days and as a result, they often passive-aggressively take out their own frustrations with their superiors on those that are most easily within lashing-out distance.

i.e. the kids.

My district pink-slipped me? Well, screw them… I ain’t teaching crap for the rest of this year. What are they going to do, fire me?

-Uhm, aren’t you forgetting the needs of the students?
-Aren’t you forgetting your own sense of professionalism?
-Aren’t you forgetting that you are still being paid for a job and just because you can shirk you duties doesn’t mean that you should shirk your duties.

As this year winds down, a lot of “stuff” is going to bubble up. My feeling is that the best defense to preserve your sanity, your dignity and your own personal sense of self can begins with a strong finish to the end of the school year. Refuse to be one of those teachers that just phone it in because at the end of the day, heck, at the end of your life, you’ll be able to look back and at least know that when it came time hey, at least you did what you could.

Trust me, there’s more juice in the fruit of students to be squeezed and wasting it, well… the knowledge that you’ve done so can wear on your soul.

(FYI, I am going to host a free webinar on Finishing Strong next week (on May 19th from 6:30 – 7:30 EST. If interested, you can sign up here.)

I am a huge fan of teacher autonomy. Trust me on this. I used to be a pariah, now I am considered an innovator. Either way, it’s my own internal teaching compass which always drives my class and if you look at all the writing I have done, I really don’t feel the need to open this post with a defense of myself on this front.

I believe I can be taken at my word – I am a HUGE fan of teacher autonomy.

However, teacher autonomy has wrought having scores of unfit boneheads in the classroom and they are doing so much damage — and they operate with virtual impunity in an unchecked manner that’s making almost a mockery of teaching as a profession… to say nothing of how the application of common sense employment guidelines are being kicked to the curb – and there needs to be reform.

Is the federal government’s desire to measure teacher effectiveness really an oligarchical march to power with an eye towards submarining democracy? Sure, the point actually has a small speck of merit because politicians are psychos… but to me, this is about “How do I know that the 9th grade English teacher down the hall isn’t checking her Facebook page all day instead of actually educating the children in her room?”

Because that is what is really going on out there.

And so, do we stall efforts at reforming the system so that the people who are literally stealing from our kids and taxpayers get outed and addressed or do we get mired in fighting off the shadows of potential dystopia through ceding to a measurement system?

Personally, I don’t even think the decision is a close call.

We really, right now, have a segment of teachers that do not deserve to be in the classroom. We also have a segment of teachers that are rock stars. And we have practically no means of knowing who is who. As a result, we are worse off for it. The top teachers can be empowered to expand their influence and the bottom teachers can be reigned in to re-adjust theirs, if we were only to know, who is who.

Now, if this means I am setting myself up to be an unwitting lemming that empowers the forces of oligarchy to finally seize control of democracy once and for all, then I think what really has come to pass is that we have lost the ability to apply some common sense to this issue.

I need to know if the sixth grade teacher down the hall is actually teaching pre-algebra to her kids or if she’s playing soduku.

CAUSE THAT IS WHAT’S REALLY GOING ON!

And if she’s the universe’s most awesome pre-algebra teacher, the pied piper of factoring equations, maybe she should be turned to as a thought leader on this subject area so that others can learn from her methods?

That’s what I believe measuring teacher effectiveness is all about.

One one hand it’s about outing the lemons. On the other hand it’s about taking advantage of our best talent to expand their “sphere of influence”.

And for those in the middle — most of us — it’s about identifying ways to see our strengths, recognize our weaknesses and see how we can better grow as professionals.

But there’s no trust. That’s what the conspiracy theories illuminate for me. We believe nefarious evil-doers are at the gate waiting to pounce on the unsuspecting sheep who lower their democratic guard for a minute.

Naahhhh. It’s about the fact that our entire system is riddled by a lack of trust. We don’t trust our federal government, we don’t trust our school districts, we don’t trust administrators and we hardly trust one another.

It’s like an overweight person getting on a scale. Only the people this person trusts get to see the number of pounds posted. And if you are forced on the scale, it’s an exercise in shame.

But if you can get the person to the scale willingly – because they trust that you are there to help them become more healthy, lose some weight, let go of some issues that are interfering with their ability to be better — you can make some real headway.

How can we really see where we are and learn how to improve if we are so unwilling to actually see where we are?

This is not about dystopian power plays. This is about common sense. People are being paid to do jobs. How are they doing?

We have no means of answering that question and it’s a gaping hole.

Turns out that Bill Gates lost 7 billion dollars last year. That’s billion with a B. I gotta say, he’s a better man than I cause if I had lost even a mere 7 million last year — that’s million with an M — I’d certainly be doing some very vocal complaining to whomever would listen right now.

Funny thing is though that I don’t really get a sense that this loss affected his life all that much. I mean did he suddenly start carefully selecting where it makes fiscal sense to eat based on the prices in the restaurant? As a teacher, I do this all the time. I mean I’d love to eat sushi WAY more often than I do, but I don’t simply because well, hey, it’s kinda expensive. And does Bill Gates now have to think differently about the type of car he drives, the cost of gas per gallon, or the price tag of a new shirt?

Probably not. So here it is that this guy loses 7 billion and it doesn’t impact him all that much (it’s probably a quaint little joke; Ha-ha, lost 7 billion this year… only 50 billion left, time for coupon clipping!) and yet my school district gives us a 3% pay cut and raises our insurance premium and I suddenly have to go through my entire lifestyle to see where edges can be trimmed.

And I am a salaried professional with a Masters degree and 2 full time jobs (teaching and writing — 3 if you count speaking). Makes me kinda wonder how folks making an hourly wage with no health insurance are actually making it in this world.

Actually, they are not. Nickel and Dimed is a a great read for those who want to explore more on this but let’s face it, when it comes to getting by in America these days, the older generation has left us in a less advantageous position than the generation prior to theirs left them.

And we have got to turn this puppy around because it’s bad for all of us when the children of our nation have “less” than what we ourselves had.

Of course, where does it all start? In my opinion — D’uh — education. Gotta love those school budget cuts, right? Good for today, great for tomorrow.

This stuff is starting to make my head spin.

On one hand, our courts ban same sex marraige,on the other hand a high school in Los Angeles elects a male prom queen and on the third hand 1 in 4 U.S. school-aged kids are Hispanic, but they are not recent immigrants.

Jeez, I don’t know whether to be homophobic, heterophobic or xenophobic at this point. Goodness how I wish the myopic, closed-minded folks who steer public sentiment could give me a better sense of direction. These days it’s confusing to know who I’m supposed to hate.

Los Angeles Unified has also decided to cut summer school due to the budget crisis — but we’re going to keep credit recovery courses at the secondary level for high schoolers. Now this makes complete sense to me. I mean come on, what kind of hit would this school district’s iconic educational image take if we weren’t still offering the chance to make up 18 weeks of F work with 4 weeks of D work (via worksheets, of course) and kept funding programs that had been proven to help that small little segment of our state’s population like elementary age English Language Learners.

Good call! I mean heaven forbid we actually associated an F with the idea of failing or recognized that young kids who need more time in class but don’t get it while they are still young will turn in to old kids who don’t care about spending any time in class because they already know it all.

I mean I don’t want to say that this is a jilting bigger than that of Betty being passed over for Veronica by Archie (not sure I agree with this one, Arch, my friend) but still, if I was going for where my buck will get more bang, I’d be betting on the little kids who are trying to learn the language over the big kids who just had their chance to earn credits oh, 2 week ago.

And you wonder why teachers need aspirin.