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?

So the ning business is finally going to morph into a real business and stop allowing people to use their goodies without paying for them.

Wow, brings up a whole host of stuff when it comes to writing in the online world.

Is the sale of ad space really expected to power the entire forward progress of the whole world wide web? I don’t think so. Then again, if ning doesn’t give it away free first and foremost, do they grow into the company they now are? And if they now start to charge, how many nings fold up and think, “Well, it was good while it lasted”?

Is this what the next stage of the internet looks like? People give away items at no charge until they become apparently worth something, and then they start to charge for their services and people fold up their tents and drift off to the next latest and greatest thing. (You know, the one that people can use free of charge until enough people start using it to make these folks see “gold in dem dar hills” whereby the model changes to a fee based-structure… and everyone then flees again… and on and on and on?)

Jim Burke said… People need to wake up to the idea that they cannot expect companies to be non-profits. We have grown increasingly addicted to the idea that everything should be free, that we should have to pay for nothing. That is not sustainable.

Indeed. But as soon as Twitter starts charging me per tweet, I think I am gone.

And I think they know this… which is why they do not charge me for tweeting. Which is why so many millions of folks do tweet.

But charge even one dollar a month and, “Nah, I am not so sure it’s worth it” creeps into my consciousness. I mean there are so many other free things I can do on the web, with mobile technology and so on, that, on second thought, Nah, I just don’t think so.

The fact is, most human beings pretty much do not like paying for things that were once free. We feel ripped off. (Even if they are actually worth the money.)

If once upon a time you charged me, and you raised the price, then hey, I get that. But if was free and now you want money for it… that doesn’t really compute so well. I mean “I think I only wanted it because it was free anyway,” is what I tell myself. Then I move on.

And on the flip side, people tend to more highly value that which actually costs them more. Look at the diamond industry. DeBeers is absolutely brilliant in the way that they make us believe diamonds are precious stones worth X amount of dollars. And by controlling 85% of all the diamonds on the planet (they have vaults and vaults and vaults of them locked away so that they can manage world wide inventory and empower all these diamond dealers to say, “but they are rare and precious”) they create the illusion of high value – and the reality of high price – in the mind of buyers.

And we buy it.

Engagement rings, earrings, and so on. “Diamonds are a girl’s best friend.”

Hook, line and sinker, we drank the Kool-Aid on that one.

But NY Times news? I think the cat is outta the bag on that one. Sure, some will buy it – older folks who grew up indoctrinated into the “fine journalism” being offered will stay the course. (They also have more disposable income.) But now, news and commentary are free… and if the NY Times wants to start charging for what they originally gave away online, heck, I’ll go to the Wash Post or L.A. Times or BBC and so on.

Heck, the Huffington Post will go out and scavenge the free news for me. And they are not alone.

And if they all decide to charge at the same time, they are gambling with their very existence… cause there is no guarantee to say enough people will pay to keep them afloat.

Are they willing to risk bankruptcy? Do they really want to know if they call our bluff and insist on charging us that we are actually going to pony up cash for their goods versus simply seeking another source for our news and bail out on them?

TIME magazine charges. Newsweek doesn’t. Is there enough of a difference that I buy TIME? Right now, not really.

The Hollywood Reporter and Daily Variety, Hollywood’s Trade Magazines, got it right. They charged for content right away (after giving away small teasers.) People were used to paying for print, they immediately got used to paying for online from the get-go and now, they more or less, seamlessly transitioned to the online journalism world.

Right now, newspapers don’t really have the guts to pull the “free” plug because they know if they do, we might not come back to them and prove them obsolete. (It’s any business’s darkest fear – to recognize that the world can get along just fine without them and have the world recognize that.

Of course, all of the newspapers are hoping Apple and the Kindle will help to save their butts… but ESPN.com does sports for me and the AP wire still provides news and Joe down the block blogs about the tree root situation plaguing the local sidewalks on my street and the idea of one-stop news shopping is something that is already dead to many of us anyway. (Like textbooks providing one-size-fits-all curriculum – that ship has SAILED!)

I get my news from 15 sources, not one and until all 15 charge, I can live with only 14.

So, I won’t get to read Friedman. But if enough people stop reading Friedman, he’s going to try and deliver content to his audience another way… or else he stops being Friedman and someone else’s voice will rise up to replace his. Books still make sense. (I want to read the writing of the folks I want to read: Stephanie Meyers, Stephen King, they could publish on toilet paper and people would read it by the roll.) Newspapers don’t. Magazines… they seem to be on an edge. Can’t call it one way or the other yet.

Ultimately, I am completely at a loss for how this will all work out but I do feel that it sure would be hard to get people to start paying for my blog now that I have been giving it away at no charge for a year and a half.

Most of them would probably say, “Hasta la Vista… it was good while it lasted but I am onto other things.”

Real businesses know customers value what they pay for much more than they value what is free.

Like the dot.com bubble, so is the Free bubble.

The book FREE proposed that free was the way of the business future – at least to get a foot in the door. Actually, I think the real way of the business future is to 1) provide something excellent and 2) charge for it right out of the gate.

People will always pay for quality and if you are giving it away at no charge, how much is it really worth anyway?

Nings seem to have blown it if they want to charge. Someone else is gonna fill their void if they do because most people will not pay for the same thing they used to get at no charge. They will pay for something new, better, enhanced and so on.

Nings aren’t proposing that. There is no Ning II that’s a platinum version they will be selling. Ning just wants money now… and I am not sure how many folks are gonna roll with that.

However, I would chip in a buck to keep this ning alive. And if we all did, maybe the ning folks would let us keep rolling, huh?

Testing season is coming up — and if I am ETS (or another test-making company of like ilk) that means, it’s time to pop the bubbly.

Why? Because we are about to become a nation of bubble test takers and that means, cha-ching… cash is gonna be flowing into the coffers of the people who make these tests.

It’s like being a pumpkin salesman during the month of October — business is good.

But here’s a question. As far as I can tell, every corner of the world of education has seen the current budget crisis play a major role in their operations. At my school district, we RIF’d around 20% of the district’s teachers.

Across the state, we’ve reduced services to kids, cut out extra-curricular activities, started charging parents fees to allow their kids to play sports and so on.

But have the test takers reduced their prices for us?
Have the bubble test makers given us a break on cost?
Do we get a volume discount for literally lining up millions of customers annually?

My school is out of copy paper… but the bubble tests still cost the same price?
My school is out of toner cartridges… but the bubble tests still cost the same price?
Major school districts are literally shortening the school year whereby they will be providing less instructional hours to our most needy kids in order to make ends meet… but the bubble tests still cost the same price?

Pop the bubbly if you make bubbles… cause it’s boom time in a land where so many others are going bust.

It’s good work if you can get it, right?

I am asked all the time about how to become a published author… so here’s some advice for aspiring writers.

Lots of people, it appears, have the desire to write a book one day. My thoughts: just do it.

Spring Break is here and summer is coming up. At some point in all our lives we must step up to do those things we one day had always hoped to accomplish so if there is a book living inside of you waiting to be born, you gotta ask yourself, “If not now, when?”

I say, do it!

And then do it and do it and do it some more. Will it be hard and aggravating and gut-wrenching and rough? Of course. But will it also be fulfilling, exciting, adventurous and rewarding? Most probably so. (I can’t promise, but it is for me.)

In my experience, the people who are most frustrated as writers are either 1) people who swear they are going to write a book but never actually do write a book or 2) people who do ultimately write a book and then come to believe that the world has failed to recognize their literary brilliance when they don’t sell as many copies as John Grisham while at the same time garnering the same critical reviews as Oscar Wilde.

Hogwash.

Real writers write because they can’t not write. If that is you, write, continue to write, continue to read and and continue to keep learning and learning about the craft of writing. Your publishing break will eventually come (mine took more than a decade) and when it does, it’s only going to mean that more writing will be expected of you one day.

This is a profession for lifers. The first ten years are school, the next ten years are learning the business behind the business. Write an average of 10 pages a week for 50 weeks a year (that’s 500 pages) for 20 years (that’s 10,000 pages) and then talk to me then about how no one wants to publish you. Cause you know what? You do that and I can almost guarantee, you will be published.

Malcolm Gladwell in his book Outliers talks about the 10,000 hour rule. (i.e. it’s takes a ton of time to get really good at something.) Me, I kinda think there is some wisdom in this.

Now sure, you hear stories all the time about first time-authors who just got paid $750,000 for their debut novel… and maybe that will be you. (You’ll never know unless you actually write your book.) However, if you are looking for a quick score, a lottery ticket, I am not sure book writing is the best path.

But if you are looking to write a book for another reason, such as possibly believing that you actually MUST write this book (even if only your mom will ever buy a copy; but don’t worry, my mom bought 16 of my first book thinking she was going to propel it to the bestseller lists all by herself. BTW, nowadays, she waits for me to send her a free one. Sheesh, times have changed.) then do it.

More about the writing process is gonna come next week. But in the meantime, think about tapping at the keyboard. The page is blank for all of us when the sun comes up in the morning. The only question is, are you going to fill it?

I think I’ve spoken before about how, as a writer, I spent years and years and years knocking out material only to be rejected and rejected and rejected.

I used to think, back then, that it was a sign of my own weakness, my moral shortcomings, my inability to be articulate and disciplined and witty and engaging and a good storyteller and so on. Essentially, I used to think that being rejected as a writer was a negative.

These days I realize how wrong I was.

Yes, being rejected hurts. Being rejected humiliates. Being rejected stings in a deep way that only someone who really lays it all on the line and then hears “Sorry Charlie, no thanks,” can understand. The “owch-factor” is brutal.

Matter of fact, the owch-factor is probably why so few people actually ever really attempt to reach for their dreams in this world… cause coming up short can be way more painful than not ever having tried at all because then you can always tell yourself, “I could have if I tried.” Which is Bullshit! btw.)

Of course, these days I am much more philosophical about rejection. Sure, it helps that I am now under contract for my tenth published book aside from having captained an immense curriculum project that represents the best teaching I have ever done. Plus, nowadays all kinds of major publishers are eager to work with me. Truly, I am one of the lucky ones. (And I work hard not to forget it.)

However, rejection is a giver of wisdom once you can learn to put your own feelings of having your ego bruised aside. Rejection teaches things. (BTW, I don’t know that success doesn’t teach things as well — I won’t go that far to say that the wisdom rejection offers is more profound than that of success because both, I’ve learned, are pretty profound if you are paying attention.)

But nowadays, I see more of a pattern to rejection. And it’s staring us all in the face if we pay attention.

For example, read this article.

Look at what Warren Buffet has to say about rejection in the piece.

“The truth is, everything that has happened in my life…that I thought was a crushing event at the time, has turned out for the better,” Mr. Buffett says. With the exception of health problems, he says, setbacks teach “lessons that carry you along. You learn that a temporary defeat is not a permanent one. In the end, it can be an opportunity.”

Mr. Buffett regards his rejection at age 19 by Harvard Business School as a pivotal episode in his life. Looking back, he says Harvard wouldn’t have been a good fit. But at the time, he “had this feeling of dread” after being rejected in an admissions interview in Chicago.

And the other night, I was burned out so I turned on the tv. (Rare for me.) Lo and behold the biography channel was showing an episode on Rodney Dangerfield. Literally, what I learned about the man amazed me.

Rodney Dangerfield was once Jack Roy, a comedian who never made it. For 12 years Jack Roy toiled. Finally, he got married and quit showbiz all together. For the next 11 years after that he sold aluminum siding. (Middle class successful, too.) But he kept writing and writing and writing jokes. Finally, he couldn’t stand his life anymore and hit the stage again… with a new name. (Yep, Rodney Dangerfield.)

He ended up on Ed Sullivan.
He ended up being one of Johnny Carson’s favorite guests. (25 million viewers a night at the time.)
He opened a comedy club, did a few movies (Caddyshack and Back to School being all time classics, IMHO) and basically, Rodney Dangerfield became the man we know today. (Or used to know – he passed a few years ago.)

As it turned out, Rodney was a writer’s writer as well. The guy made it look so easy, “I tell ya, I don’t get no respect…” but Rodeny didn’t even hit upon that tag line til he was in his fifties.

Over 30 years after he started in show business!

And all the pros in the comedy business talked about how Rodney was so precise and meticulate with his lines. How he’d re-write and re-write and re-write jokes.

In the tv piece, Rodney talked about how it would talk him 3 or 4 months to write 6 minutes worth of material for Johnny Carson.

Four months to write 6 minutes? Wow.

Rodney knew rejection.
Warren Buffet knew rejection.
It taught them success.

And if we can teach our students this, we will have taught them something of great value.

Don’t give up. There is an Outstanding Plus Side to Rejection.

So a kid breaks the school rules by say, ditching class, and what do we do? Suspend them for 5 days.

Oh, that really teaches them.

Maybe back in the old days being suspended from school carried a stigma but for oh-so-many of my kids, when they get suspended, it’s like a vacation for them.

Sure, maybe they get in trouble at home. Perhaps their mother is angry at them or what-not… but what we’re inevitably doing is making a problem that much worse by keeping kids out of class.

I say, when a kid violates the rules and earns a suspension, what they should really earn is School Boot Camp.

That’s right… you have a major infraction, that means more time, not less at school working on your deficiencies of both character and academic ability… and you are going to be forced to contribute to both your own benefit and that of the campus at large.

Obviously, we are talking Saturday School here. (BTW, immediately we have a deterrent. Right now, being threatened with a 5 day vacation/suspension is not any kid of deterrent with teeth at all. But make a kid give up weekend hours and you’ll see a newfound respect for campus law.)

Instead of 5 days worth of suspension, I say we given them a month of Saturdays, from 8:00 – 3:00.

The “suspension time” would be divided up into two categories. Personal enrichment and campus beautification.

I’ll start with campus beautification. That’s a euphemism for grab a freakin’ broom, buster… you are going sweeping.

And wiping.

There’s gum to be scraped, graffiti to be removed, trash to be picked up and bathroom sinks to be polished.

You violate the rules of this community, you need to step up and improve the ambience of this community.

That’ll learn ya!

But there’s gotta be academic work, too. Clearly, there is often a link between low academic skills and behavior issues. How about if the suspended student’s learning profile was taken into consideration and if, for example, they showed a lack of proficiency with pre-Algebra skills, they were afforded the intervention needed to help them raise their mathematical abilities?

I know. Too sensible. Send ‘em home, let ‘em meander and pretend we all don’t ultimately pay for it later on once they are uneducated adults.

When you think about it, school suspension makes no sense.
A kid’s time could be used so much more productively to forge character as well as academic aptitude.
A month of Saturdays is a much better approach to trying to snap a misbehaving kid into shape.
I say SCHOOL BOOT CAMP!