I have lived my life
As if in a lament
As if cemented in
A file folder
Of another’s devising
Or vision of the future
Much like the now
I can’t quite own

- Jeff Derksen, Transnational Muscle Cars

Ultimately, self-motivation comes from a sense of ownership over one’s work; if a student (or anyone) feels that they are doing something of worth then they will pursue it. Because youths develop at a different rate, some students have difficulty registering the more abstract reasons they might want to pursue a line of thinking or a subject; these more “concrete” students feel motivated to do their work (if they are motivated to do their work) because of the “prodding” of their teachers and parents (other stakeholders in the educational process) perhaps creating the perception that those other stakeholders “own” the ideas contained in the schoolwork. While this extrinsic motivation may “get the job done” as far as getting content across to students, it may not create the values and work ethic needed for students to become self-motivated learners.

How then do you teach the values students need to take ownership over their work? Is there a way to structure a hidden curriculum that would give students ownership over the work while still getting across required content? At Lord Beaverbrook last year, my partner teacher was very interested in project-based learning especially with students who did not work well within more traditional learning structures (ie. transmission model). This tactic worked particularly well with the group of students she taught, but how would something like this work with the grade 7’s I’m currently teaching, who need a greater structure to what they’re doing in order to get things done? What is the level of inquiry and play we can give students?

I'm starting poetry with my grade 7's. Here are some HAIKU I wrote for them:

i. 'dividing line on road + leaves hanging on trees'

The black road divides
below yellow leaves hanging.
Fall and cut the air.

ii. 'crane + leaves falling from branches'

A crane swings its arm.
Pale leaves tumble from steel hands.
Wind shakes branches loose.

iii. 'smokestacks in railyard + group of trees'

Near the Ogden shops
a group of trees stands fiercely,
stares down the smokestacks.

from the "infamous" poetry recipes lesson I've been working on:

GROUP ROLES IN THE KITCHEN

When you form a group to work on any type of project, it is helpful to define the roles each member of the group will take. For this project, I’d like each person to take on one (or two) of these roles. But remember, each group member is responsible for contributing to the ideas of the group in a meaningful way.

Lead Chef:

The Lead Chef is responsible for making sure that the meal gets prepared right and on time. Those people are hungry!!

In this project, the lead chef must ensure that the group is on task and finishes on time. However, the Lead Chef is not the boss and is not responsible for the entire project.

Mix Master:

The Mix Master is responsible for “stirring the pot” and making sure that everything mixes together in a tasty way.

In this project, the Mix Master must ask questions and push the group’s ideas forward to the best possible solution.

Oven Handler:

The Oven Handler is responsible for giving the meal a warm and rich environment for the meal so that it can reach its most flavourful.

In this project, the Oven Handler must make sure that the group dynamic is positive by settling disagreements and encouraging good comments.

Cook Booker:

The Cook Booker is responsible for making sure that the great recipes of the kitchen aren’t lost and can be shared by all.

In this project, the Cook Booker must record the group’s ideas toward a final and definitive poem recipe.

Table Busser:

The Table Busser is responsible for making sure that the meal is presented to the diner in the most appealing way.

In this project, the Table Busser must stand and deliver, telling the entire class how the group has come up with their recipe.

Case 1 Initial Response

Doors have a back side also. And grass blades are double-edged. It’s no
use trying to deceive me, leaves fall more by the buds that push them off
than by lack of greenness. Or throw two shoes on the floor and see how
they’ll lie if you think it’s all one way.

-William Carlos Williams, Kora in Hell

The difficulty in integrating the various high school curricula lies in the range of ideas expressed in the various disciplines. While it may be relatively simple to integrate Social Studies and English Language Arts by studying historical or political literature, it might not be so easy to combine Social Studies and Math. This is especially true in High School, where curriculum content is so heavy in some courses that it is a trial for teachers to get through the prescribed content of their course without having to worry about the content of another course as well. The problem with this attitude is that the world is a complex place filled with complex questions that need answers encompassing the ideas from many different disciplines. As a social issue, cloning cannot be explored without both biology and ethics; war cannot be fully understood without politics, history, economics, and religion. As a poet, what has helped my writing the most lately is not reading other poetry but reading current events and political theory.

Of course for me the strongest argument for integration of the disciplines is the authenticity it provides; integration provides a “realness” in its complexity which resembles the complexity of the “real world”. My issue is the feasibility of these integrated curricular systems and how efficient they are. This issue is shared by a great many teachers to whom I’ve talked. Even in my Grade 7 classroom this week, the idea of combining figures of speech with short story writing seemed daunting, despite the two concepts being linked in my mind so closely. I guess sometimes two sides of a thing are never as close together as they might seem.

Linda Hatfield, my partner teacher, writes:

"You mentioned your distaste for 'whole-class' instruction. I'm not exactly sure what you mean. Can you explain?"

This comes out of a conversation Linda and I had about classroom management when conducting a whole class session, whether it is a lecture or discussion. Perhaps distaste isn't the right word, maybe distrust is better, though I imagine neither is as precise as I need it to be. My gut instincts about whole-class instruction come from both my own experience as a learner and concerns over creating a teacher-centered environment. As a student, I primarily learn through talking and listening. "Whole-Class" instruction allows for a lot of listening but not necessarily a lot of talking especially in its extreme form: lecturing. In my first two years of university, I took science lectures with 500 students in the class where I felt completely alienated. I worry that this could happen even in a classroom of 30. I believe that students need to feel ownership over their work and the direction of that work. Of course, this is an ideal pressured by the demands of governmental curricula as well as the demands of the "real world".

My worry though is that by creating a teacher-centered environment, we also model the world as a place where we are told what to do rather than having to figure things out for ourselves. This seems slightly paranoic (almost an alliteration), but I think that it is important to keep these thoughts in the back of the head. This is why when I have been instructing the "whole-class", I've attempted to open the floor to inquiry on the topics. I've noticed that this generally works but does raise some interesting management issues, like "how do you get all of the students involved?" or "how do you get all the students motivated enough to involve themselves?" that I will need to address. Add those questions to the list.

"The question is not whether grammar should be taught, but how it should be taught."

"In order to construct a more effective grammar pedagogy, teachers must first address the deleterous effects of their traditional conception of grammar instruction as an accumulation of entities."

- Carl Blyth

As I'm immersed in teaching basic grammatical principles to my 2 classes of grade 7's the question becomes how to teach grammar without falling into my memories of grammar in junior high: copying dry notes about subjects and predicates and nouns and prepositions. Today, I tried to treat grammar through a constructivist approach, where the students get the opportunity to define the rules. While my vision of the lesson was originally much different than the result, the lesson started very well I think. What we did was to break the class into groups and hand each group a sentence broken into its constituent words with the instructions that they were to "assemble" the sentence. The exercise became an intuitive exercise in meaning making: quietly asking that question, "How do these sentences work?"

For me, another question raises itself then, "Will they get it?" The hope is that after we start looking for patterns in their now posted sentences (ranging from straight-forward to absurd) the answer will be yes.

We'll see.

Mr. Comeau writes

"Hey Ryan,

Nice new fortified site! Anyway, I, too, had an odd encounter with a
cynical teacher yesterday. Actually, she left the profession not long ago
after many years of teaching high school English. Soon into our
conversation, as I was oozing enthusiasm, she snapped: "One day soon, you'll
find yourself at home on a Saturday night with a stack of really bad writing
to mark. About half way through, ask yourself, 'Do I really want to read
this sh_t for the rest of my life?' ... Really!" I suppressed a laugh.
For the past 25 years, I've been reading ambiguous corporate memos,
misleading executive directives, and irrational procedural documents. I'll
cheerfully take a stack of poorly written student essays home any day!

Regarding your site: For some odd reason, I was unable to scroll through the
whole entry. I got only as far as ""So Joseph sobbed. Both he and I
understood what this meant. There would be no additional help for me - or
children such a s Joseph - next year. The promises would". I was unable to
scroll any further. Now, maybe it's because I'm still groggy (it's early),
or there's a little glitch with the site. I'll try again later.

Once again, thanks for sharing your thoughts and experiences.

Ciao,
Don, the oldest kid in class."

Thanks, Don.

As for the page jamming up, I've had the same problem. I find it all loads if you refresh the page though I'd like to get it actually working properly.

As the new school year starts, I find myself thinking more about my ability to teach. A hiatus from anything may not necessarily rust one's ability, but at least adjusts the perception of one's ability ("I can play, but I'm a little rusty" is the comment I got from one of my drummer friends). Summer was certainly a hiatus from teaching. But last night, I had an interesting "talk" (not dialogue) with a former teacher whose only advice to me was a sharp and condescending "Good Luck". She questioned my right as a student teacher to talk about teaching; she was sick of listening to student teachers talk about teaching. I don't want to misrepresent her (she is a wonderful person and I am ultimately glad that I met her) but our conversation threw me. At a point where I am already a little nervous about my second foray into the schools, to be questioned about my motivations, abilities, and desire in the teaching field is not a good thing, though I suspect it may end up strengthening my resolve.

During some research for my case class I found a recent book by Michael Apple called Educating the "Right" Way (RoutledgeFalmer, 2001). At the opening of the book, Apple relates the story of Joseph, "a tough kid, a hard case, someone who often made life difficult for teachers". Apple taught Joseph in an inner city school in the Eastern United States. Despite the fact that Joseph had "made real progress during the year", Apple was instructed to keep Joseph in the fourth grade the following year. Because of the cash-strapped nature of the school and the poverty in the community, things would not improve in the next year:

"So Joseph sobbed. Both he and I understood what this meant. There would be no additional help for me - or children such a s Joseph - next year. The promises would remain simply rhetorical. Words would be thrown at the problems. Teachers and parents and children would be blamed. But the school system would look like it believed and enforced higher standards. The structuring of economic and political power in that community and that state would go on as 'business as usual'"

Teaching will be tough. I see it. And while I may not feel the weight of it now (though my shoulders are getting steadily weighted down), I can glimpse my future in stories like Apple's. There is no sense in pretending that teaching is anything other than a path to slowly enact change in the world. No one said moving mountains was easy.

from stephanie young:

"THE FRIENDSHIP BOARD

The mirrors in the rehearsal studio last night were covered up with "hand portraits," painted by the daytime class. On the table by the door were a series of postits with student names, for use the next day. Instructions said "Put your name on the feeling board next to the way you feel."

I didn't get a close look at the feeling board, but I agree with myself that it would have made a good quiz.

I did examine the friendship board up close. Student names ran across the top and within each child's section, colored papers were taped to the board. The key said:

Green Paper = Questions
Pink Paper = Offers
Lavendar Paper = Compliment
Yellow Paper = Comment

Several names had far more paper below them than others, and I assumed those children were more popular, and then got a little sad thinking about why some kids might have more or less paper (questions, offers, compliments, comments) to their name than others. But when I got closer, I saw that each paper represented something the child had said to a classmate or teacher, instead of what had been said to them. The more verbal a person was the more popular they appeared on the friendship board. Another actor and I started to trace conversations ("It's a blog!" I shouted) and the categories unravelled. While compliments were pretty stable ("Nice shirt!" "Pretty Shirt!") the questions and comments were all mixed up. Many were variations on "Would you like to play with me," but also detailed exceptions, i.e. "________ informs _________ that the square root of 144 is 12." All of this was of course mediated by the teachers, who write down what the kids say since the group isn't yet writing the language on their one. One point of the friendship board, then, seems to be a patterning and organization of social (verbal) interactions."

"The fixed categories into which life is divided must always hold. These things are normal - essential to every activity. But they exist - but not as dead dissections.

The curriculum of knowledge cannot but be divided into the sciences, the thousand and one groups of data, scientific, philosophic or whatnot - as many as there exist in Shakespeare - things that make him appear the university of all ages.

But this is not the thing. In the galvanic category of - The same things exist, but in a different condition when energized by the imagination.

The whole field of education is affected - There is no end of detail that is without significance.

Education would begin by placing in the mind of the student the nature of knowledge - in the dead state and the nature of the force which may energize it."

- William Carlos Williams, Spring and All

check out teacher/kreature, a blog I am participating in with Christine Lee, a good friend of mine who is also (as I understand it) a fantastic math teacher.

we're also looking for other participants so if you're interested in participating, email Christine or I and we'll set you up.

Bill Marsh writes:

"Hi Ryan!

I've been checking in on Process Documents for a while
but just came across your other blog, which I like
much. It seems 'infrequent' but I do hope you keep it
up.

I blog at sdpg.blogspot.com and for a while had it
as 'special delivery pedagogy group' -- testing out
names -- i'm real interested, as it seems you are too,
in the intersections of poetics and pedagogy

anyway, thought i'd make contact and encourage you to
rock on with the p/d work

(your grid, by the way, is a nice way to present
teaching orientations -- i'm thinking about
how 'process/product' might be added as traditional
binaries as well -- it gets messy when you start
looking at the way orientations (like group and
individual, social and personal) have changed
historically, trading places along the way --
what's 'traditional' now was radical thirty years ago,
in some cases if not all

anyway,

take care,
bill marsh"

Wow! It's great to see that someone is paying attention to the blog (not that I've been paying it much attention).

The intersection of poetics and pedagogy is an interesting, and is certainly a concern of mine. Underneath all of the discussion in this blog to date is my assumption that pedagogy has a shape, a rhythm, a poetics of its own. I know now that pedagogy's "shape" is not a simple one (something I suspected before), but as in geometry, we need to learn the properties of simple shapes before we can move onto more complex ones.

Bill's addition of the third axis to my pseudo-Cartesian/mathematical model creates a conundrum: what happens when I figure out what the fourth, fifth and sixth axes are, because certainly nothing that happens in the classroom can follow a simple three-dimensional model.

Perhaps a more detailed orientation to the present model is needed.

Begin by drawing a line. Now at one end of the line write teacher-centred and at the other write student-centred. Draw a second line that bisects the first at a 90 degree angle. At one end write individual-centred, at the other write group-centred. Now, draw a box (or a circle, Yvonne) around the cross connecting the four.

What you now have is a divining rod to figure out where your philosophy as a teacher lies. A more traditional teacher might end up in the teacher-centred/group-centred quadrant, whereas I might be drawn to a different pole (student-centred/group-centred). Who knows? It's fun though.

from Andrina Mellon:

"Hi Ryan,

I finally got around to reading your blog site and I must say it is impressive. I'm not sure about what I expected but either way I like it.

I found some of the comments in the process documents link really interesting. Especially the one sections on the peace protest, I have never protested for any cause. Call me sheltered but i think most people are, it is amazing how ethnic minority groups feel so strongly about certain topics such as young Arabic men with their opinions on the war in Iraq.

My parents are from Ireland and I can only imagine them in the same situation so many years ago. what is this war really about? Religion, oil or safety for the world by stopping the production of bombs?

No Peace in the Peace protest

Andrina"

Ultimately, Andrina's comments would have fit better on my other blog (process documents), but I thought since she's in the MT program as well it might fit better. As well it leads into something that I've been wanting to talk about and that is the process of dialogue in the face of confict. I am struck by the lack of real dialogue happening in the media, especially when someone is questioning the war. While I would admit that I am definitely biased on this subject (I was at the peace rally that Andrina talks about), I think that it is really important to explore this issue.

Here's an email I recieved anonymously about my other blog a month ago from sk8trboi@mchsi.com:

"While I fully support you right to protest (a right granted to you by the men and women who have fought and died for this country), I just don't understand how young people like yourself just don't get it. This conflict with Iraq is only 1 day old and already Saddam has set oil wells on fire (a crime against our environment and all humanity) and fired missles (which you liberals claimed he didn't have) at our troops. What's it going to take to make you realize the danger we face if we sit idol on this?"

The message takes on several tactics that are key to a rhetoric that tries to convince and change minds. First, the person states that he supports my right to free speech. The problem with this admission of support is that it is followed by an assertion that I "don't get it". What this kind of stance does is to undercut the first admission. What it also does is effectively remove my voice. I am part of a larger group that needs to be viewed negatively; I am one of "you liberals" and one of the "young people" who "just don't get it". I feel distanced and othered by this voice. To this voice, I feel I am nothing more than a silly protester that needs to be converted or cut down.

This reminds me of Parker Palmer's discussion of the "culture of fear". He asks us "What is the fear that keeps us beholden to those structures?" Those structures are the structures that separate us from others. He posits an answer:

"We collaborate with the structures of separation because they promise to protect us against one of the deepest fears at the heart of being human - the fear of having a live encounter with alien "otherness," whether the other is a student, a colleague, a subject, or a self-dissenting voice within. We fear encounters in which the other is free to be itself, to speak its own truth, to tell us what we may not wish to hear. We want those encounters on our own terms, so that we can control their outcomes, so that they will not threaten our view of world and self"*

This irrational fear of the other is an important thing to be aware of both in the classroom and in life. I feel so much now like others are trying to restrict my voice and I imagine that this is how many of our students will feel unless the classroom becomes an environment safe enough for students to speak their mind honestly. We cannot let ourselves be mini-McCarthy's holding witchhunts over disagreements of opinion.
--------------------------------------
Palmer, P. (1998). The Courage to Teach. (p.37). San Francisco: Jossey Bass.

"How do you create classroom dialogue when you have a script?" -Jennifer Robinson

Here's a comment I pulled from a conversation in our prosem class last Wednesday. While the comment was made regarding the difficulty of planning lessons, I think that the comment is appropriate to the problem of facilitating dialogue in the classroom. I would argue that people are socialized into different "scripts" and while this is much different than the scripts that the lesson plan might provide (is it different?), it is important to realize that when we create a script for actions in the real world, we are affected by our subconscious expectations of that world. If we assume that the world is flat, then the questions we ask could affect that assumption and close out the opposing idea that the world is round. What we need to do is build the possibility that there are multiple scripts into our lesson plans. We need to explore with our students those multiple scripts so they don't get caught in a monolithic world view that increasingly does not exist, especially in the ways our world is shrinking communicationally, yet growing culturally. We can no longer assume one truth exists in a pluralistic world.

In the English 30-1 class I partnered in, we discussed a variety of literary theories (ie. Marxism, Feminism, Psychoanalysis, Post-Structuralism, Post-Colonialism) that the students could use to apply to various literary texts. I never would have thought that this would be an option in the high school classroom. When I went through high school, the analysis that literature underwent was very monologic and New Critical, and it wasn't until University that I learned that there were a multitude of ways to read any given text. What I think that this multiplicity of views allows is a greaters set of scripts for students to try on to decide which viewpoints suit them best. For me, Marxism and Post-Structuralism are extremely valuable, whereas Psychoanalysis is a waste of my time, but I wouldn't know that if I wouldn't have had the opportunity to experiment with those scripts. Otherwise, I might have ended up in a dumb silence.

Which leads me to the infamous Mr Konojacki, who, prompted by some of my comments last week, weighs in on the issue of silence:

"Ryan,

You have provoked in me a few more thoughts on silence and the ambiguity thereof. You mention that silence could mean a number of different things to the person who is being silent; however, on that same train of thought, silence also invokes the people around the silent person to act/ react or to think in a particular manner. Your comment exemplifies some of this- if someone is silent, what are they thinking and/or feeling? Is that particular person comfortable with his/her silence? Thus, is it then you who become uncomfortable? Is it you that wants that dialogue to proceed as to remove your own discomfort? Does silence in the listener make the speaker uncomfortable because he/she does not receive any feedback on what has been spoken? More thoughts to ponder...Have you ever just met a person and for some reason have had to spend some time with them (I'm thinking a long car ride)? If silence accompanies this ride, it represents something very uncomfortable; however, if the people in the car know each other and silence ensues, the discomfort is absent. Now, you must be asking yourself, what the heck does this have to do with pedagogy? The point that I am trying to draw out (in somewhat of a long-winded fashion) is that silence, like everything else in the realm of pedagogy, is subjective. The comfort or discomfort with this absence of speech (dialogue) will be received by some students with disdain, while others might quite enjoy silence. I guess what I'm trying to say is, though people like you and I enjoy dialogue, there are many people who prefer just to listen. If a student of this sort was in a class wherein a multi-voiced discourse was taking place, should he/she be encouraged to engage in said discussion? Is the vocalization of one's opinion necessary?

Dave"

The issue of subjectivity is interesting, but also problematic when the written curriculum for language arts is considered. Within the curriculum there are 6 "language arts" that need to be handled in the classroom: reading, viewing, and listening on the receptive side, and writing, representing, and speaking on the other. I realize that what this response does is effectively sidestep Dave's final question, but I think that it is important to note that speaking is an important part of the curriculum and, I would argue, an important part of life. So while students must speak in some fashion in the classroom, the question becomes how do we get them to speak without having them develop negative feelings toward speaking in the classroom. There are any number of methods and approaches to reach this, some of which I have experienced and others I haven't. Small group discussion can reduce the diffusion of responsibility that happens in whole-class discussions. Another that plays into Dave's past suggestion that we give students a moment to think about what they are going to say before they say it, is one that I picked up from Dom Saliani, a teacher at Sir Winston Churchill High School. Before a class discussion, Dom has his students write non-stop for 3-5 minutes about a couple of questions that they are going to discuss. This gives the students an opportunity to develop thoughts about the questions, so that they don't get caught in a discussion "with their pants down", so to speak.