Fascinating Fun

One day in my high school debate class, as often happened in that particular course, we were having a wide-ranging discussion about a variety of topics.  The topic for the day was humor and what makes something funny. We discovered that humor is really difficult to describe or even to point to specific attributes.

I don’t remember all the details of the conversation, but I do remember our teacher told this joke:

Question: What did the insomniac agnostic dyslexic do?

Answer: He lay awake at night wondering if there really is a dog.

Before you get upset with me for including this joke, please know that I recognize it is problematic  It is slightly irreverent, and it cuts a little too close for comfort to those who have struggles with learning or love someone else who does.  Stay with me for a bit longer.  I really am going somewhere with this entry.

The point of including this joke is that, for whatever reason, it has stuck with me for almost 40 years, and it includes a misperception I have been living with for just as long.  It contains a classic example of misperception by simplification.  You see, for forty years I assumed that I had a decent understanding of dyslexia, and I think my assumption might be based on this one joke.  Dyslexia, I thought, was the transposing of letters as in the example above.

Fascinating

Last month, I came across a short article and a short video clip.  The article was written by Kelly Sandman-Hurley and started with a challenge that I’ve included here.  Take a moment to read the text in the box below.

Kelly Sandman-Hurley says, “You just experienced dyslexia for one minute.  During that minute, the passage slowed you down and forced you to pronounced words that didn’t seem to make any sense and weren’t familiar.  You knew they were wrong, but you read them anyway.” 

In the rest of the article, she debunks myths about dyslexia.  Quite honestly, I held most of the common misperceptions and myths, and my guess is you might as well.  If you have five minutes, this video clip is fascinating and may help you better understand about 20% of the students sitting in your classroom.  (That is not a misprint.  Twenty percent is the right number according to Sandman-Hurley because dyslexia occurs on a continuum from mild to profound.)

What is Dyslexia?

Fun

Since I started with a joke, I thought this might be a good time to end with some as well.  A few weeks back I sent you a list of really bad jokes and asked you to send me your favorite bad jokes.  So here they are.  If you don’t like bad puns, warped humor, and/or groaners, stop reading.  If you do, read on.

• The first chemistry teacher said to the second, "A student threw sodium chloride at me today."  The second chemistry teacher replied, "That's a salt." 
• There's a new post-apocalyptic soap opera on daytime TV….  As the World Burns. 
• What do you call a taco that has been in the freezer?   A brrrrrrrrr-ito. (Author’s comment: Yep I made it up. I’ve told to my kid at least once a month for the past 3-4 years, and she groans every time. Mission accomplished.)
• A neutron walks into a bar and orders a drink.  When it arrives, the neutron asks, “How much?”  The bartender replies, “For you, no charge.”
• A cartoonist was found dead in his home. Details are sketchy.
• England has no kidney bank, but it does have a Liverpool.
• I tried to catch some fog, but I mist.
• They told me I had type-A blood, but it was a Type-O.
• I changed my iPod's name to Titanic. It's syncing now.
• Jokes about German sausages are the wurst.
• I know a guy who's addicted to brake fluid, but he says he can stop any time.
• I stayed up all night to see where the sun went, and then it dawned on me.
• I'm reading a book about anti-gravity. I just can't put it down.
• I did a theatrical performance about puns. It was a play on words.
• I didn't like my beard at first. Then it grew on me.  (In recognition of all of you No-Shave November enthusiasts….)
• Broken pencils are pretty much pointless.
• I dropped out of the Communism class because of lousy Marx.
• All the toilets in New York’s police stations have been stolen. As of now, it appears the police have nothing to go on.

Special thanks to Kelli Hanes (and her husband), Tabby McClain, Jeremy Sprague, Cliff Bailey, Laura Pickell (and her son Wyatt).  Which contributor supplied which joke will be kept anonymous to protect the guilty.

Have a great week, HSE.  I hope it is both fun and fascinating.

Phil

The Other Side of the Desk

In the middle of October, Grant Wiggins gave space in his blog for a guest writer.  Some of you read the Wiggins blog, and for whatever reason, the experience of the guest writer resonated with you.  I know this because a handful of you sent me links and a few more shared comments or made references to the article over this past month. 

For those of you who don’t follow the Wiggins blog, his guest writer had recently left the classroom after fourteen years to become an instructional coach.  The first assignment she gave herself was to shadow two high school students, a sophomore and a senior.

Link to Grant Wiggins Blog

For two days, she followed these students wherever they went during the school day, sat when they sat, took notes when they took notes, and took tests when they took tests. (She reports that she passed the Spanish test but failed the one in Business.)   “My task,” she said, “was to do everything a student was supposed to do.” 

To be clear, her goal was not to criticize what teachers were doing.  She wanted to understand the student perspective in order to inform her own professional development.  At the end of the two days as a student, this is what she reports learning:

·         Most students sit all day, and sitting is exhausting: “By the end of the day,” she says, “I could not stop yawning and I was desperate to move or stretch.”

·         Students are passively listening 90 percent of the time: “In eight periods of high school classes, my host students rarely spoke,” she says.  “It was not just sitting that was draining but that so much of the day was spent absorbing information but not often grappling with it.”

·         Students feel a little bit like a nuisance all day long: “I lost count of how many times we were told to be quiet and pay attention.”  She also found, to her dismay, that “There was a good deal of sarcasm and snark directed at students.”

For each of these points, the writer created “implications” for herself to improve her teaching.  For example, she vows to include lessons with more movement, use a timer to keep herself from talking too long, make a public pledge of no sarcasm to her classes (and ask her students to hold her accountable), and design tests that include time for students to ask questions of the teacher.

I don’t know who the teacher is or in what kind of school she works, but some of you, like me, found her experience intriguing.  I can’t help but wonder what we would find if we tried this experiment at HSE.  What would it be like to sit on the other side of the desk?  What implications for your teaching might you discover?

In the spirit of the Wiggins blog, I have two proposals I hope some of you seriously consider:

1. Guest Writers: Do you have something important you would like to say to your peers about curriculum and instruction or about life?  If so, come and talk to me.  If you have read my entries, you know they can be wide-ranging.  There aren’t many limits to the topics you could cover.  I welcome guest writers for “From B106.”  If Grant Wiggins can do it, why not us?
2. Student for a Day: Would you like to spend a day sitting on the other side of the desk?  We can make this happen.  The experience was a powerful one for the teacher who was the guest writer for Grant Wiggins.  If this possibility is intriguing to you, come and see me.  I would love to hear what you learn from the experience.

Have a great (and short) week and wonderful Thanksgiving, HSE.  At this time of year, I am particularly thankful for having the opportunity to work with all of you. 

Phil

A few thoughts on being thankful…

• Be thankful for what you have; you’ll end up having more.  If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough.  --Oprah
• When you practice gratefulness, there is a sense of respect toward others.  –Dalai Lama
• Thanksgiving dinners take eighteen hours to prepare.  They are consumed in twelve minutes.  Half-times take twelve minutes.  This is not a coincidence.  –Erma Bombeck
• When you rise in the morning, give thanks for the light, for your life, for your strength.  Give thanks for your food and for the joy of living.  If you see no reason to give thanks, the fault lies in yourself.  –Tecumseh

Sleep, Creep, Leap

The last few weekends, when the weather has cooperated, Lisa and I have been out getting the flowerbeds around our house ready for winter.  We pruned a few things back, deadheaded some of the perennials, and divided or moved a few plants as needed.

During this time, I came across three interesting surprises, and I have included the pictures below.  They create a good metaphor for what we are trying to do with Royal Outreach to Another Royal (ROAR).  So this entry is especially for those of you who have become ROAR Champions.

Clematis: November Blooms

 We’ve heard that perennials have three stages following their planting: at first they Sleep, then they Creep, and eventually they Leap.  This particular clematis was a bit spindly when we bought it off the clearance table in hopes that it might eventually do well.  We planted it near the back of the house, watered it regularly, and at times we thought it wasn’t going to make it through the sleep stage, much less creep or leap.

About a month ago, however, we saw some new leaves emerge.  Then, well into the cold of fall, it opened up a handful of blooms.  As you can see, the plant still looks a bit anemic, but the flowers are amazing.

Toad Lily: Wrong Name, Right Flower 

The home of this Toad Lily is in deep shade at the side of our house.  We planted it last spring and haven’t paid much attention since then.  It looked fairly healthy this summer but was overshadowed by the plants around it.  Soon after several bitter days of rain and cold, it burst into flowers.  Its name is an unfortunate misnomer.  These blooms are far from toad-like.

Our Toad Lily came into its own long after the others around it had flowered and wilted.

Succulent: From the Desert

This one is my favorite, and I don’t know its name.  I only know that it is some kind of succulent, and that succulents grow wild in the deserts or steppes of the world. You can’t tell by the picture, but the blooms on this plant are only about an inch across.  It was planted in the rock garden—you can see the tufa stone in the background—and it takes full sun.  All through the summer heat it stayed green and grew only a handful of new spikes.  Suddenly, when other plants were turning brown and getting ready for winter, it sent forth these flowers.

Late Blooms and Winter ROARs

Maybe if these plants had bloomed during the summer along with the others, we wouldn’t have paid much attention.  But they didn’t.  They waited until most of their neighbors had long since blossomed, dropped petals, or became dormant.  I suggest to you that seeing blooms late in the season, even after the first frost, makes them all the more beautiful.

We all know students just like these plants.  They go about the business of school without much fanfare.  They sleep and maybe even creep, but they are not likely to see spectacular successes.  If, however, we are patient and continue to nurture these students, we may see them change, grow, and even leap. 

If they do, their success can be something truly special.

Thanks again to all of you who have become ROAR champions. Continue to watch and nurture your students.  Outside we are well past the first frost and even the first snowfall, but inside HSE, it’s still growing season.

It’s a great week to be a Royal.

Phil

This I Believe

When tragedy strikes, as it did this past week, we are always caught unaware.  Even those of us who have been around long enough to have experienced painful events in the past are still caught off guard.  Tragedy is insidious.  It does not take just one form or follow expectations, and it is easy to let emotions overrule logic.  Our rational side understands that tragedy is not just probable; it is inevitable.  When it occurs, however, we struggle with the full range of contradictory thoughts and emotions.

I picture Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof holding out his hands and debating with himself.  “On one hand” is followed closely with the rebuttal, “On the other hand…”   As we try to make sense of the events of the past week, like Tevye, we soon run out of hands.  In most matters surrounding human life, issues are incredibly complex with no easy answers, and the clamor of the media and the cacophony of rumors just add to the confusion.  Our emotions, however, eventual tend to end up in a paradoxical dichotomy of fear and hope.  These may not be opposite emotions, but they are close.  

Fear diminishes and hope encourages.  In the coming days and weeks, I encourage all of us, whenever possible, to work tirelessly to diminish fear while encouraging hope.  We are, after all, in a profession that does this exact work.  Fear arises from the unknown, but our profession is about helping students understand the unknown and find ways to deal with the unknowable.  Hope looks forward to a better future, and at its core, our profession is about preparing students to create a future better than the present.

In times like this, we need to acknowledge the fears of our students and our own, but our focus must remain on improving the future. We must refuse to let the tragic events of last week define who we are, what we do, and what we believe about ourselves, our students, and our school.   Being a Royal is more than celebrating the positive.  It is also about rising to challenges and overcoming obstacles. 

Keep fighting the good fight, HSE.  Bring hope to yourself, to your peers, and most importantly, to our students.  Find time to grieve.  Find time to laugh.  Find time to hope.

This I believe: There is neither a finer nor more important day to be a Royal than today.  I hope you do as well.

Phil