Robert got that annoying 504 security rule on a comment today. It’s happened to Eric a few times lately as well. If it happens to you, just send me the comment and I’ll find a way to get it posted.
Here is Robert’s addition to the current DPS assessment thread, which I added to the Assessment/Robert Harrell category as well:
Ben wrote:
…I will say that motivated kids do some AMAZING things on the speaking test. I’m talking about the kids that are there AND focused every day. I had to run out of the room once to keep from crying in front of one quiet kid. I wasn’t in awe of just the kid, but also the magic that happened, where we hadn’t worked on speaking once and yet BAM! there it was – instant proof of the power of comprehension based instruction….
Word! Some of the students in my first year classes are amazing. Others, even in my second year class, show little acquisition. (In second year last week, on students failed to recognize “drives” even though we have talked countless times about driving to school, driving to grandma’s house, driving to numerous places.) What makes the difference? Kids that are there AND focused every day. That’s it. It’s such a simple thing but so rigorous that most students are incapable of achieving it. (Simple does not equal easy)
On the other hand, I have a student – a big, quiet guy who sits in the back of the room – who just knows stuff and can put it together. One day after he had given an answer that required building on something we had done only once or twice, another student asked, “How do you know that?” My big guy turned red and got tongue tied, so I answered, “He’s mentally present in class all the time; he doesn’t tune out; he just opens himself to the language.” A nod and smile from the big guy. In the same class I also have a special ed student (on the autism spectrum) who has been speaking in complete sentences and creating language since October; his writing is also incredible. The reason, again, is being truly present.
Something that I occasionally share with my students is the success story of the Pike Place Fish Market in Seattle. It represents, I believe, the sort of thinking and change that needs to take place in schools and classrooms for education to become truly student friendly and successful.
Four basic principles express the core philosophy:
1. Be There – be truly present: physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually; be there for others and for yourself [As a teacher, I need to be present in the moment; students need to be present as well]
2. Choose Your Attitude – this is the one choice that no one can take from us, and it is one of the most important choices we can make; we need to choose the conversation we have in our head about things [As a teacher, I need to choose my attitude toward my students and choose the conversation(s) I will have with them each day; students need to know that they have the power to choose their attitude toward school, toward the class, toward other students, etc. The power of choice is amazing]
3. Play – enjoy what you do; make the job fun [How in the world did we ever buy into the idea that school ought to be drudgery because life is dull and dreary? Who ever said that life has to be dull and dreary? I have had several jobs in which I have worked incredibly hard – teaching being one of them – but they have never been drudgery. Am I that much of an exception? Is the goal of instruction really supposed to be to prepare students for lives of quiet desperation? I reject that idea.]
4. Make Someone’s Day – Do something to brighten someone else’s life; make a difference; interact with other people in a way that makes their life – at least for that moment – better. [For how many students is my class the bright spot of the day?]
There are other aspects to the success of Pike’s Place Fish Market:
Coach each other – anyone in the company can coach anyone else in the company; even the newest employe can coach the owner. The approach is important. In one of the videos, there is a discussion about how the attitude makes a tough task (talking to someone about behavior or attitude that needs to change) either more palatable or even harder. If we go in with the idea of coaching (I really like this person, and I want to help him or her become better at this), it will make the difficult situation better for everyone. All too often, though, people don’t coach but rather “make wrong”; they simply want to make sure the other person knows what they are doing is wrong.
Empower employees – the owner talks about how hard it was for him to go from being a tyrannical boss to one who let go of control and gave his employes freedom to be creative. [This aspect of success needs to be emphasized in our current climate of educational control. Not only do I as a teacher need to quit trying to control students, but administrations need to give teachers the freedom to be creative, and politicians need to give schools the freedom to educate. Okay, I’ll get off the soapbox now.]
Create the future – the one thing that is true of the future is that we don’t know what it will be, so we can work to create it. People who maintain that the future is predictable simply don’t want to let go of their (illusion of) control. [I think this idea of creating the future is of huge significant for students; we need to encourage them to be creative in their thinking so that they can create a future for themselves that is satisfying, productive, and beneficial to others.]
Being is more important than doing.
Here are a couple of links for anyone who is interested:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZKiJejNRtw – quick introduction
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxQW5xgX8A8 – a longer video
http://www.pikeplacefish.com/about/flying-fish-presentations/ – company’s website
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eY0qjuYeKwA – student production about the philosophy
In other news:
Yesterday I went to a meeting of the Southern California chapter of the Association of Teachers of German. There were three presentations. The first one was definitely a university-level presentation about using film in the classroom. (Some of the example films were things I could never show in my high school.) The second was about teaching Goethe’s Faust, again at the university level but with some application to what you might do in an AP class. The third presentation was by another high school teacher about TPRS. She referred everyone to Ben’s site, including the PLC, and talked about how she uses Anne Matava’s scripts in a two-week sequence. Unfortunately, she was the last presenter and didn’t have a lot of time to present. But it was great to have at least some exposure given to TPRS. Yay for Jennifer Gerlach!