As you may or may not know, I give keynote speeches across the country. Fairly often nowadays. But if I could only deliver one more speech before my time on this planet is up, this would be the short talk I’d give. Hope you like.

If I could only give one more speech, this would be it.

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.

I’ve been a fan of Ray Kurzweil for a while. The dude is just wicked smart and presents idea that are well worth hearing, even if you don’t necessarily agree. But with Watson dominating Jeopardy last week, Kurweil’s ideas are back in the news and making the mainstream media rounds.

TIME magazine just did a story that is pretty WOW reading, I’d say, considering how immense the year 2045 might be to humanity.

Essentially, lots of big ideas get tossed around about the impact of technology. Quotes like this are everywhere:

“…thus, the first ultraintelligent machine [man creates] is the last invention that man need ever make.”

Take a moment for if the Singularity is really near, then why do I/we even need to bother with so much of what currently concerns me/us?

Cause we all need a smile now and then…

High Urinals

A group of 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders, accompanied by two female teachers, went on a field trip to the local racetrack, to learn about thoroughbreds and the such, but mostly to see the horses.

When it was time to take the children to the bathroom, it was decided that the girls would go with one teacher and the boys would go with the other. The teacher assigned to the boys was waiting outside the mens room when one of the boys came out and told her that none of them could reach the urinal.

Having no choice, she went inside, helped the boys with their pants, and began hoisting the little boys up one by one, to direct “the” flow away from their clothes.

As she lifted one, she couldn’t help but notice that he was unusually well endowed. Trying not to show that she was staring the teacher said, ‘You must be in the 5th grade.’

‘No, ma’am’, he replied. ‘I’m riding Silver Arrow in the seventh race, but I appreciate your help.’

I just spent a whole bunch of time talking about PBL (Project-Based Learning). Yet, at the end of the day, a picture is worth a thousand words:

Just one question: Where were these cutting edge-thinkers back when I was in elementary/middle/high school?

Okay, college, too? (Think about it… people who majored in English Lit because they loved the Romantics versus frat boys at keg parties… you do the wedgie math!)

If this isn’t worth an A in some class at school then really… what is?

The Brilliance of Wedgie-Proof Underwear needs to be academically validated!

I love using Project-Based Learning (PBL) in the classroom. There are about a zillion reasons why and a host of research exists on why using PBL is simply, well… good teaching. No need for me to really explain the sound theory behind it all right here. It would take too long.

PBL rocks! Let’s leave it at that.

On a practical level I find that using PBL as the cornerstone for ending the school year is especially effective in allowing me to achieve many of my objectives for this time of year.

Why? Because I want my students, in no particular order to…

• finish strong
• work hard
• demonstrate evidence of their learning
• have fun
• stretch themselves
• create something tangible
• collaborate and innovate
• feel as if their time is a valuable commodity in their lives, something not to be frittered away but rather be valued and respected.
• and on and on. (I fear I am about to digress into edu-babble, politically trite buzzword speak if I continue on.)

Of course, I want most of these things during the course of the year as well. However, having to bow at the altar of NCLB, ETS and their bubble tests while making sure to cover a host of “other things” that are not as PBL friendly for ELA teachers (like punctuating appositive phrases and teaching parallelism within sentences) well… as Mick Jagger once said, “You can’t always get what you want.”

So essentially, before my classes break for the summer, I ask my students to “step up” bigger than they ever have before through the creation of a “project”.

I preface my assignment with a little speech about how, at this very moment, my kids are most probably at the height of their aptitudes. They have never had more schooling, they’ve never been more worldly, they’ve never had more experiences, they’ve never been more ready to deliver something truly great. (Obviously, when dealing with 14-17 year olds, this can almost always be said; they are perpetually at their “height” in a way. Once you get old like me, however, you can’t always say you are “better” now than you ever were before because in 1986 I was a much better basketball player than I am today. However, as English students, they are often “better” than they were two, three or even five years ago. Thus this little warm-up speech.)

All in all it boils down to Envision, Plot, Refine, Build, Tinker, Reflect, Re-Tinker, Finalize, Present.

Ending the year with my students having created “SOMETHING” is my plan.

What is that SOMETHING? It’s really up to the teacher. From expository projects to poetry units to biographical studies and on and on and on, a host of truly great ideas are available.

PBL can be high tech… or not.
PBL can be assigned to both individuals or groups.
PBL can take the form of old school oratory or new wave multi-media.
PBL can be so, so, so many things.

All in all, when it comes to the end of the year, I want my students to have to climbed a final mountain, ascended to a new plateau, and really pushed it one last time before our moments together in my room have passed.

PBL offers me that opportunity. Showing fluffy movies, merely biding your time til the year is over, counting down the days is a freakin’ waste.

Use the time. It’s life’s true currency.

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

A common mistake I see with many, many educators is that when the end of the school year peeks its head on the school horizon, they begin to – how should I put this – well, they begin to “kind of coast”. They take it easy. They don’t stress, they don’t fret, they do not push the pedal to the metal but instead, they go into “Countdown mode”.

It’s educational quicksand and my warning to you is: Stay Away!

I’ll explain why. But first, some backstory: this educational insight hit me in the bathroom. (I’ll spare you the potty humor right now though, let’s admit it, I am really, really tempted to crack a bodily function joke at this moment.)

See, there’s a guy I see in the restroom practically every day… and every day for the past week, instead of greeting me with his usual, “Hello, Alan,” he has greeted me with, “Only 25 more days, Alan” – and then he adds a beaming smile.

“Only 24 more days, Alan.” (Beaming smile.)

“Only 23 more days, Alan.” (Beaming smile.)

Truly, it’s a great exercise for discussing the literary device of perspective. To this teacher, he sees the dwindling days as an exciting time, as if the torment of teaching will be over oh-so-soon for him and the joys of watching re-runs of Dancing with the Stars, or whatever he does, will begin in earnest. (Look, maybe he he’s a championship knitter over the summer, what do I know?)

The bigger point is that his beaming smile and countdown greeting are not filling me with glee but rather, they are making me tense. (I’ve written about this feeling before.) I have stuff to do, still. I have books I still want to read, projects I still want to tackle and on and on and on.

There’s still so much more I didn’t get to!

Obviously, our classes must reflect our varying dispositions. His class, I am assuming, operates at a leisurely pace whereby the students are, like the teacher, most probably biding their time.

My class operates as if, well, the classroom minutes matter. That’s a choice.

Ya know, we complain so much as teachers about all the stuff that isn’t right, that’s going wrong, that’s being cut or under-funded and so on and yet, here it is that we still have a patch of open road and some teachers are squandering their opportunity to do more, be more, teach more and so on, while others are not.

Really, the way I see it, there is only one way to conduct yourself as a classroom educator this time of year: be the type of teacher you would want your owns kids to have at the front of their class. It’s one of the best litmus tests you can apply to your own personal, self-reflective, professional assessment.

And if I would want my own kids in a class where the teacher is still demanding thoughtful, productive, hard work, then that’s what you yourself should still be doing. (And what parent wouldn’t want this?)

Really, why do the classroom minutes of late May hold any less value than those of early October? Of course, I am not saying don’t have fun. I have tons of fun. (But I do in October as well. Fun and rigor are not mutually exclusive to high quality schooling.)

Additionally, let’s be honest… I love summer, too. Really, I LOVE IT! (Maybe even more than the other teacher does.) But summer is not here yet… and there’s miles to go before we sleep.

(Hey, now that I think of it, maybe I can squeeze in a little extra Frost poetry this year. And connect it to this great article I read on Steve Jobs talking about how even though he is a billionaire on top of the world, he is still as driven as ever… because he feels, I assume, there are still “miles to go before he sleeps”, right? Ah, the possibilities.)

So much vibrant stuff is still available to do… with so little time so please, use the opportunities. It’s the stuff of which our careers are made… and our kids deserve it.

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

This weekend Stephen Hawking talked aliens… and the world perked up its collective ears.

First off, he finds the probability of the existence of “extraterrestrial life forms” to be highly likely. I’ve felt this way for a long time. With so much “out there” how we can we possibly be all alone in the universe? (Heck, we can’t even define the parameters of our universe much less say for sure no other life forms exist.)

And don’t we disprove almost daily (if you watch the evening news) the idea that human beings are the most intelligent form of life in the galaxy?

I am how pathetic of a galaxy are we living in? Goodness, I am hoping that we’re not the tops because if we are, we are eventually going to encounter some real idiot aliens one day.

Idiot aliens would, of course, be gullible enough to come in peace. Not to be a skeptic, but I really feel that would end badly for either one party or the other.

If aliens really came in peace, we’d end up capturing them and studying them and trying to “learn” something from them and then they’d be sad and bummed out that they ever stopped by our planet, sitting in their little sterilized glass cages while our best and brightest tried to dissect them under the auspices of advancing humanity.

It’d be a regular “break your heart to watch” calamity, like watching baby seals get clubbed or something.

“Stay away, Aliens! Stay away!” I say. When we beamed out that Beatles song asking you to come in peace if you ever were to come what we really wanted was you not to, as Stephen Hawking suggests, colonize and enslave us for your own nefarious aims.

But if you are not going to colonize us and enslave us for your own nefarious aims, then heck, we’re probably gonna do that to you.

Like I said, “Stay away, Aliens! Stay way.”

If you know what’s good for you, I say stay away.

(BTW, if you spend too much time on our planet, we’re gonna make you take bubble tests. Fair warning, dudes.)

I just left the Apple Store and touched the iPad for the very first time. My take on it?