Learning the Force

Halloween is a cool time to be in close proximity to a lot of children. There is something so genuine about the holiday, despite its emphasis on disguise. Yesterday the kids wore their costumes to school. We had the usual mix of horror movie characters, princesses, witches, werewolves and ninjas. Dressing up is the ultimate playful act and it's fun (and often super cute) to watch kids play when I spend so much time trying to get them to stop playing and be serious.

And, of course, since the kids were dressing up, the teachers did, too. I wore a full-length, black cape my mom made me when I was a teenager. It's the most beautiful piece of clothing I own, but I don't have a chance to wear it very often. So I dressed in all black and put on the cape. With the hood up and a suitably solemn expression, I decided I could pass as a Jedi. (Although the kids came up with other options, most of them having to do with characters in Lord of the Rings, though I didn't have the outfit or the ears to pull off a hobbit.)

I didn't even know if the kids would know what a Jedi was--but they all do. Some even knew about the scene in the original movie when Obi-Wan Kenobi hides R2D2 and C3PO in plain sight by using his Jedi mind powers on two Stormtroopers at a road block. (These aren't the droids you're looking for.) I was joking around in class about that scene, going up to kids and moving my hand, Obi-Wan style in front of their eyes: You aren't tapping your pencil incessantly on the desk; you are studying for the quiz so you get an A. We laughed and moved on, but it got me thinking. Being a teacher is a lot like being a Jedi. And it's not just about messing with kids' minds.

Maybe it was the hood. Maybe it was billowing around school all day in a long, black cape. But hear me out on this one because I'm not trying to be cheesy. (Nor am I really much of a Star Wars fan.) But from what we see in all of the movies, being a Jedi is mysterious. It requires a mix of rigorous training and genuine faith. Sound familiar? I'm thinking of another scene in the original movie when Luke Skywalker has a helmet covering his eyes. Light saber at the ready, he is trying to deflect laser beams being shot out of a small ball hovering around his head. He doesn't know when the laser beams are going to be shot or where. But Obi-Wan (monitoring nearby) encourages him to relax and use his feeling and instincts to guide him. Luke gets shot in the butt a couple times, throws a fit, wants a clearer answer but Obi-Wan is insistent that there is no other way.

If there is a better metaphor in film for learning how to be a classroom teacher, I challenge you to find it. Although instead of one hovering, laser-beam-shooting orb, imagine, say, 25 or 30. True, I don't walk into the classroom every day with a helmet over my face, but, as with all human interaction, I can't see clearly into the hearts and minds of my students in order to provide exactly what they need at all times. I have my tools at the ready and a clear understanding of the goal, and then I have to get on with it, trusting my instincts to channel the laser beams where they need to go. And, despite my best-laid plans and intense concentration, they often nail me in the metaphorical ass. Yesterday, in fact, my last class was mostly laser beams and despite my Jedi-cool outfit, I was no Obi-Wan.

These days, though, classes like that are rarer than they once were. Which brings me to the next way being a teacher is like being a Jedi. Like Jedis, every teacher needs a mentor but, like Luke, one's teaching mentor is going to sound like they are spouting vague, Kenobi-ish platitudes for a long time before anything s/he says really makes sense. In the movie, Luke rips off the helmet and stalks off to pout in a corner of the Millenium Falcon after getting zapped one too many times. Obi-Wan can only watch him go. I was reminded of this earlier in the week when talking with a colleague who is struggling. Her classes are improving markedly (no crash and burn here, and I've seen plenty), but she is in despair. The laser beams are coming too fast and furious. It's very dark inside her helmet, and she's not sure if her light saber is even working. I sat there and felt every single thing she was saying. I tried to channel my own teaching mentors, true Obi-Wans, with their finger on the pulse of the Force itself. But I also knew everything coming out of my mouth sounded like dialogue from a cheesy sci-fi movie from the 70s. It was the equivalent of "trust your feelings, Luke" with some practical logistical advice thrown in. It was the kind of advice I remember hearing and not really understanding from my own teacher mentors. The task seemed too big, and I felt blinded by my inexperience.

Which brings me to the last way being a teacher is like being a Jedi. To maintain their classic cool and draw strength to battle evil, Jedis connect to the Force. The Force is described as the combined consciousness of all living things, a power that can be tapped and channeled, by those who know how to use it. This concept is either cool or ridiculously woo-woo, depending on your point of view, but it does have implications for teaching. In fact, it has implications for any activity that is too complex and emotionally charged to quantify in a spreadsheet or checklist, as education is, despite continued and sometimes worthy efforts to fortify and box it like breakfast cereal for delivery anywhere, anytime. It's something I've known for sure only recently, but one I have felt since July 16, 2003, the date the school where I worked in San Francisco opened. Teachers need a Force. They need others to draw on when things when things get tough or the laser beams are coming fast and furious or the Death Star of institutional racism and educational inequity becomes too much to handle. They need colleagues who believe the same things about the work and are willing to put those beliefs into action repeatedly. Like the living consciousness in the Star Wars movies, these belief-inspired, repeated actions add up to something else, something bigger. Something like a Force that keeps a school, a classroom or a teacher moving when there is nothing else. I would be lost without it, as would anyone, I would argue, who has to feel their ways in the dark for as many years as teachers do.

So I came home last night and hung up my cape for another year. I had a head full of deep thoughts and a vague notion that I needed to buy a light saber as a prop for next year. Take that, laser beams! And may the Force be with us all.

The times between

I stumbled onto something awesome recently in the ongoing quest for a work-life balance. I'm not sure what to call it, but it makes me think of that trick that turtles have of carrying their houses around on their backs. They have everything they need at all times, but can use it or not, as the situation warrants. It reminds me of the running around town I've been doing with my laptop bag, and how much of a life becomes possible when everything you need is right there on your back.

For the past two weekends, I have become a master at using the times in between the things I want to be doing to get work done. I have mapped out free wireless connections all around Austin, scouted cafes and made a mental note of accommodating park benches. As I go about my business, I am never far from a place where I can whip out my laptop or stack of grading and use the time to my advantage. It's been working like a charm. I get a surprising amount done in small intense bursts, then merrily speed off to my next extracurricular activity.

Take last weekend, which was a three-day weekend. Now, I still suffer from the delusion that I'm going to get a ton done on a three-day weekend, so I save up longer-term projects. Not the best plan. In this case, I had to prepare two presentations for a staff meeting, in addition to planning for the week and grading my first major test. Yeah. You can see the problem. I also wanted to go to yoga all three days, attend the Texas Book Festival and go to Spanish class. While Monday was reserved for work, I knew it wouldn't be enough. But I had stuff to do! I mean, really. The Book Festival! Author talks, book signings, yummy food! My personal version of nirvana, for free at the capitol building! The old me would have sucked it up and spent two full days at school. The new me...well, I was frankly flummoxed.

Until I started using those between-times to get stuff done. I didn't plan it--it happened that way because I just went ahead and did the fun stuff I wanted to do. I went to the Book Festival and spent all the time I wanted cruising the booths and eating chicken tacos. Then I took my computer to the lovely Capitol grounds and spent the 90 minutes left before an author talk writing my homework handouts and preparing the short activity the kids do at the beginning of every class. Afterward, I spent the 45 minutes between the author talk and yoga on a bench in front of Whole Foods working on Tuesday's lesson plan. (It was a three-day weekend, remember, so I had Monday off). The next day, I spent the hour before church at a cafe, sipping a cappuccino and grading the last of my tests. By the time I went into school Monday to prepare my presentations and finish everything up, I had done enough in between times to be able to leave at 3 p.m.! Since yoga wasn't until 6:30, I could go home, put my feet up and watch a movie. True, I had to watch the movie to write a lesson plan for our Saturday School film study, but, hey, it didn't feel like working.

This weekend is shaping up in much the same. After Saturday School and Spanish class, a time-sucking double whammy, I went back to Whole Foods and got in about an hour of work before yoga. Tomorrow before church, I'll be back in the cafe.

Now, you, dear reader, might think it's a little sad to be pulling out work to fill every free moment. I mean, here I am, flush with excitement about this brilliant efficiency when I am literally carrying my job with me wherever I go. But I don't see it that way. Maybe it's because I'm most accustomed to working alone in my classroom for hours at a stretch, relentlessly producing the needed materials for the week and hardly blinking until it's done. This new in-between-times thing seems like a vacation by comparison. I can still work with intense focus (and it's true, as the security guard at Whole Foods informed me, I don't blink a lot), but the work occurs in the context of a life that is actively taking place beyond four classroom walls. Which is a huge step in the right direction, or so it feels.

Now, all I need is a name for this time. In-between time is descriptive, but not particularly inspired. Getting-a-life time? Pocket time? My personal favorite is turtle time, though I know it evokes a different image than the one I'm after, the one of me with my job neatly contained on my back, and my life rolling out ahead of me.

Contemplating Superman

We know what works, proclaims Waiting for Superman, the new documentary about one way to reform the public school system so that all kids have an equal shot at success. The Answer, it turns out, happens to be exactly what my colleagues and I do every day, as teachers at a high-performing charter school. According to filmmaker Davis “An Inconvenient Truth” Guggenheim, teachers unions, the practice of tenure and the bloated bureaucracy of school districts are keeping principals from stocking their schools with passionate educators committed to closing the achievement gap through high expectations, longer school days, Saturday classes and mandatory summer school. Sound familiar? The charter network I work for is especially lauded in the movie as a model of the kind of schools that work. We see five adorable Everykids try—and heart-breakingly fail, in most cases—to be accepted to these educational havens. Demand is great. Space is so limited. If we know this model works, the movie proclaims, why aren’t all schools like this?

It is a crime of epic proportions that public education in this country is so savagely unequal. I borrow the word savage from the title of Jonathan Kozol's groundbreaking book, Savage Inequalities, which came out in the early 1990s and takes on much the same issues as Waiting for Superman, albeit with a slightly different emphasis. In Kozol's book, the lavish public schools of suburban Chicago are compared to their practically derelict inner-city counterparts. The word savage is as appropriate then as it is now to describe the brutal consequences of a failed school, a failed education. The next generation is made up of children, after all; children who depend on every single one of us, whether we are their parents, relatives and teachers, or simply taxpayers and voters. We cannot fail them.

This belief put me on my current career path and takes up a great deal of my mind, heart and blog, as you all know. So, I’m the last one to argue with the need to reform public education, along with a lot of other institutions that truly aim to serve the People in all our messy complexity. But sitting in the theater watching Waiting for Superman, my feelings were decidedly mixed. Not about the movie’s ultimate message, but about the way the work I do every day was being sold to the general public. Mainstream documentaries by nature need to be punchy and overly general to stir folks up. I get that. But I’m here to propose a sequel to Waiting for Superman. Because if turning every school in America into one like mine is really The Answer, then the public also needs to be equally agitated to support the excellent, dedicated teachers we need to make this happen.

I’ll call my sequel We Are Still Standing. As the title implies, it would be about perseverance in the face of the constant onslaught that is teaching those longer hours, of never relaxing those high expectations, of insisting that you aren’t going to give up on even one kid and meaning every single word. There is a saying in our network, "The secret is, there is no secret." Meaning, all it takes is time. Lots and lots of time, given repeatedly and consistently day after day. The teacher parking lot at my school is full by 6:15 a.m. Most cars are still there at 6:30 p.m. and later. Working on the weekends--working most of the weekend-- is the norm, even if we didn’t have Saturday School nine times a year. I’m not complaining. This is the life I've chosen, and I love. I’m simply stating the reality. The movie didn’t really touch on that part. In fact, no teachers were interviewed at all. Instead, it was taken as a given that most teachers are standing by ready to throw themselves bodily across the achievement gap if only those dastardly bureaucratic, anti-kid unions and district offices weren’t holding them back. I think that’s what made me the most uncomfortable. Not the image of teachers as remarkably dedicated but the assumption that this happens in a vacuum, or that it should. The president of the biggest teachers' union has said that the movie makes it "cool" to blame teachers for all of our problems. I disagree. Waiting for Superman doesn't blame the vast majority of teachers. Instead, it puts them up on a very high pedestal by assuming that they will--and should--stand alone in the fight to improve our classrooms. The movie pooh-poohed the need for more funding (don't we spend enough already?) and, while it interviewed several dedicated parents, suggested over and over that the saviors, the "supermans" of the film were the reform-minded teachers who were ready to swoop into the rescue. Problem is, there isn't much room at the top of a pedestal, hardly any room for things like families, friends, hobbies, the ups and downs of life. Without changing the current staffing models of most high-performing charter schools, there simply isn’t a whole lot of time for teachers in schools that work to be anything other than teachers. Everyone in Waiting for Superman seems OK with that. I'm not sure how many of the 1 million teachers in this country would say the same. And I wouldn't call them "anti-child" or selfish for thinking so.

Not that I'm throwing up my hands or joining the ranks of the naysayers who say it's impossible to reform something as entrenched as unequal public education. Where such inequity is concerned, there are very few hills I'm not willing to die on. I'm saying, though, is that before we completely dismantle the organizations designed to advocate for teachers, we think about what else it will take (besides the worthy goals of ending antiquated and destructive hiring/firing practices and streamlining district offices) to make sure all of our schools can become the educational success stories we see in Waiting for Superman. We have to face the issues that high-performing charter systems are already addressing that the movie didn't mention. Issues like keeping teachers in the building for more than two years (about 40-45% of all teachers in my charter network have been teaching for under two years. The next big group has less than five years under their belts). And, related to this, supporting all the students who enter our doors to see the program through.

We won't ever have to give up our high expectations, longer hours and zeal for achievement, but if we're going to ask teachers to work the hours of CEOs and high-powered lawyers, we might have to start paying them accordingly, or figure out ways to job share and drum up community support. Even as they are being hailed for their long hours, some schools in my charter network are actually shortening their school days (from 5:00 to 4:30) and rumor has it that Saturday School may be on its way out. These are changes are meant to make the work more sustainable for the people doing it. No one could accuse us of being adult-centric bureaucrats (cause, wow, we really aren't) but it turns out that even the most committed teachers don't want to be Superman. We just want to be able to remain teachers, and we can't do it alone.

This need for balance (in more ways than one) reminds me of a low-ropes course challenge called All Aboard. It asks a group to stand up on a large springboard that wobbles from side to side. The only way to get the whole group up is to step on board one by one and then carefully balance the spring as others climb up. It doesn't take Superman; it takes teamwork and patience and not letting go. Three superheroic qualities that, if put into action, will save a lot more children than the Man of Steel ever could.

We already have so many pieces of the educational reform puzzle. Waiting for Superman is right (good teachers are vital, and every kid deserves one). My charter network is right (every single student can learn). The politicians are right (money isn't going to solve all of our problems). Parents are right (we need more schools that work). Even the president of the teachers' union is right about a few things (teachers do need to be supported rather than pitted against each other). Instead of using our favorite pieces to tilt the springboard our way (and shove everyone else off), we need to step up together to find the equilibrium we claim to want. Sound impossibly naive? Or maybe just impossible? Now who's throwing up their hands. Despite everything that's wrong, we are blessed at this time in history to have a great number of passionate and tireless reformers on the educational scene; reformers who stand unmoving behind slogans like "No Excuses" and "Whatever It Takes." If there was ever a time to move public education toward the ideal, it's now. Our kids shouldn't have to wait any longer.

Leading and leaning

I spent the weekend at a camp in the piney woods outside of Huntsville, Texas, with about 200 students and teachers from schools like mine all over the country. The annual student leadership summit (there's that word again, and, no, we weren't signing peace treaties) brings together 6th graders and 10th, 11th or 12th graders, two from each school, hand-picked for their ability to lead other kids. They spend time completing a series of team-building activities, games and reflections meant to further stimulate this potential.

The students certainly were stimulated. Like most things related to this particular charter system, the day started early and ended late. My kids spent the first 15 hours or so moving from an in-depth discussion about leadership traits to a kickball game followed by an intricate school-improvement process, low-ropes challenges, canoeing, archery and the infamously fun gaga ball (an intense dodgeball played in a circular pit the size of a taco stand). On the second day, they climbed telephone poles and walked across wires suspended 25-feet in the air as part of a high ropes course. There was also a zip line (too fun!) and a climbing wall.

Needless to say, the kids had a blast. I, too, enjoyed the mellow of an absurdly low teacher-to-student ratio. Each duo was accompanied by one teacher. (Usually, even on field trips, we are easily at 25-to-1 if not higher). This changed my typical vibe quite a bit. I dropped what I like to think of as fond-efficient, a sort of smiling Mr. Von-Trapp-pre-Maria-sans whistle. Instead, I went into what I can only imagine is Mom mode, keeping track of comings and goings, taking a ton of pictures, urging them to go off and have fun with their new friends, stopping just short of tucking them in at night. The other teachers and I sat around, talking about our schools and stopping every so often to cheer on the kids or check in. Though we run our classrooms with a clockwork efficiency worthy of any Rodgers and Hammerstein Austrian, we in this charter system are in the habit of doting on our students a fairly ridiculous amount. Like most teachers, we love them to pieces. Unlike many teachers, we are encouraged by our schools to get to know our students in and out of the classroom in a big way (see "Home Visit Bridge" from last month). Trips like this are just icing on the cake.

It is also the only time (to my knowledge) that students are invited to a nationwide gathering of other students. You would think, in this charter system, that people would bend over backwards to fund and plan events like this that gather students from all over the country. It was incredibly powerful to see the ties that bind kids--the common chants, hand motions, slogans, extended metaphors and brightly colored t-shirts. The highlight of the weekend (other than the zip line) was the t-shirt exchange (mad trading of school shirts) followed by a campfire led by the high school students. Seventeen years olds who had been in the system since 5th grade stood up and told the 6th graders (hanging rapt on every word) how important it was to keep going, keep leading and keep striving. Kids who will be the first in their families to go to college next year stood face to face with 11 year olds who are trying to do the same thing. The adults hung out in the back and said exactly nothing. In fact, nothing I say for the rest of the year will have such an impact.

We finished with a stirring rendition of the song "Lean on Me" led by a teacher with a gorgeous voice and a huddle of high school students with a lot of heart. The middle schoolers stood up and threw their arms around each others' shoulders (unless they were, eek, standing next to someone of the opposite sex....) Swaying to the beat and singing with all their might, they walked away from the campfire and back into their lives that much stronger, knowing they had a whole country full of fellow travelers to lean on. More kids should be able to feel the same.

The likes that bind

I haven't yet seen "The Social Network," though I've heard and read many a rave review. Whether you love to hate (or just plain hate) Mark Zuckerberg, the creator of Facebook and apparent heartless egomaniac, you have to admit that his invention (or, his ripping off of a series of other people's inventions, depending on your point of view) has changed the way we socialize. Facebook has now reached the point of saturation in our culture where its merits and pitfalls are being debated in the vast public forum of the mainstream. About one in 14 people worldwide are on Facebook, exchanging information, posting pictures, liking each others' statuses and turning the word "friend" into a verb that will likely make its way into upcoming editions of the dictionary. Though some shudder and bemoan the loss of person-to-person contact, it's hard to argue with 500 million people who use it as a way (or another way) to keep in touch.

I'm one of them. This week I've felt powerful fondness for Facebook as a web that connects us rather than an impersonal algorithm that disrupts meaningful interaction. I don't know about you, but I like reading my friends' statuses. I like scrolling through the pre-game, during-game and post-game agonies of the sports fans; I like hearing about the meals people have cooked, their kids' latest adventures, their vacations, moods, workouts, gardens, pets and how glad they are when it's Friday. I dig reading recommended articles and watching favorite videos. I love the commonalities among friends from the same region who don't know each other, but write similar posts. For example, whenever it is over about 80 degrees in the Bay Area, everyone writes about it. It's charming. My sister's best friend from college has an uncanny knack for spotting celebrities. He posts every one of his encounters. It's cool--and has gotten to be hilarious. When would I ever talk to my sister's best friend from college, a guy I like a lot, but am never going to call? But reading about who he sat next to at a Manhattan restaurant is a bright spot in the day.

And that's the thing about Facebook. It's not a long, wonderful conversation with an old friend and never will be. It's a thousand conversations in passing, daily connections with people who we don't see daily. Just like cell phones have allowed us to bring our conversation partners with us wherever we are (again, for better or worse), Facebook allows us to stand around the proverbial water cooler with people who are miles away, who we'd never see or hear from otherwise. Do I need to know that my friend from elementary school closed down a bar on her 37th birthday, or that my former colleague finished four grad school assignments? Of course not. But I want to. This kind of information brings us together in ways that strengthen our connections, as daily interaction always does. It might not move mountains, but it adds up, pulls us closer, gives us a common frame of reference, a thread to follow through the complexity of daily life. When my friend attached to the US Embassy in Mauritania posts running commentary on the fashion choices of African First Ladies, I'm that much more connected to him and the world. When a friend in Abu Dhabi cheers on her Aussie rules football team (the Collingwood Magpies, dontcha know), I smile at her enthusiasm for the sport, even though I no longer see her every day. When my former students complain about homework or broadcast their latest likes, I understand them in ways I never did as their teacher.

Do I really know them any better? Probably not. That's another thing about Facebook critics are quick to point out. It's a very public forum. What you see is what people choose to present to the world. It may or may not be the real story. To which I say, who cares? Why is this different than any other casual interaction? The difference is the interaction itself, the privilege of being able to keep connected, in whatever way works.

When I was little, my mom would come in to my sisters' and my room and, as a bedtime ritual, list all of the people (mostly faraway relatives) who loved us. It was very sweet, a reminder of the ties that rooted us in our family and community. Today, Facebook does the same thing, albeit on a less intimate scale. It makes our bonds visible and updates them constantly. It shows us the web we have spun and sit in the middle of, the web of family and friends, colleagues, neighbors and eras of life.

What's there not to like?