Report from the Field – Steven Ordiano

3 thoughts on “Report from the Field – Steven Ordiano”

1. Ben Slavic

   November 9, 2016 at 8:19 am

   The whole premise of the Invisibles is that the kids get so excited about their own drawings that it sets the tone for continued interest throughout the story. My guess and it is only a guess about what is happening is that they sense that you want it to work too much. I remember in India when developing the Invisibles I sent a message like I could really care less about their drawings. So the sixth graders especially would come to class early with their own original – not OWI created which I think is less powerful – drawings and talk about them between classes. It became a competition with the kids in all my classes to see who could draw the best characters on their iPad, with back stories. But I didn’t show any interest. I just made little comments, asked questions, about them. Had I been a cheerleader to “get a good story going” they would have turned into even worse rocks. I slowly shifted from scripts in the first semester there in New Delhi to accepting these characters as premises for the story. This is how I learned about the power of untargeted work, because the stories stood on the backs of those insanely creative characters. Kids are good at creating characters as those in our group now who are using the Invisibles system are finding out every day. So I would start another story and gradually I started picking up their iPads with their drawings and holding them up, but again with not expressed need that we use these characters. So the energy became about them wanting me to do a story about their characters. You can see this on the Pringle Man video if you search that term with my name on YouTube. You can also search Kandy the Korn w my name on YouTube and also we filmed on on Naruto. I just pick up an iPad and they drove it all forward, from the image and without targets. That is the key right there. Pringle Man may have been the first time I ever did an Invisibles story:

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7z8PiA0J814

   You can see I have no idea what I am going to do as that class starts. I am just asking them questions. I don’t really care if it works. You get that way after awhile with TPRS. If you care too much it all just seems to be a big energy drain. Over the years I just said, “Hell, I will just ask them some questions. I don’t care if I circle the questions. I will just ask the next logical question that comes into my mind so I can find out what the answer is.” I just interacted with the kids in that way about Pringle Man. I like him, the art captured my attention so I wasn’t faking the interest. I still like Pringle Man. I like his little stick arms. So I remember in the video really hitting the word batons (sticks). I hadn’t planned on teaching the word stick that day. It just happened. It emerged. But listen on the video to my videographer who repeats it – the microphone next to her on the iPad we are filming with picks up her saying the word stick in the real way – in the real way of language acquisition, on a deep neurological level. It is because she is so focused on the image and the meaning in that moment that it has nothing to do with me wanting her to learn the word, because I need to teach it from some list. That moment happens at 7:19 into the video. As I watch the video again, I can see how hard I am trying to not go out of bounds. I only let absolutely necessary words in and I write them on the board. Very disciplined and challenging but after fifteen years I think I have the part about not going out of bounds down pretty well. Thinking about Pringle Man and then his wife (another story later) was entertaining to me. I don’t know how this is playing out at the high school level – we all know what sixth graders will do with this type of thing (go crazy with it) and the only information I have about the Invisibles at the high school level is from Oregon and I think Mike Peto and Dave Ganahl are having success in the Inland Empire of SoCal. The jury is still out on that. Sorry about the ramble, I don’t think I offered any tips, but in this case I’m not sure there are little things you can do. It may be more of an attitude thing. The fact is, when they seem less than human, and oh boy do I know that scene, you kind of have to just make class an exercise in entertaining yourself with the few kids who will go there with you, and up the level of difficulty of the quizzes you would then have to give because it’s a dead class, and burn them on their grades. As long as we remember that those kids are not devoid of human fun, etc. but that they have been made so by a dead system of education in which we have to try to inject some life into. It certainly isn’t you Steven, you know that. Level 2 is always tough anyway. They are usually sophomores and snarky is the first adjective that comes into my mind when I think of tenth graders.

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2. Steven

   November 10, 2016 at 9:07 am

   “Had I been a cheerleader to “get a good story going” they would have turned into even worse rocks. I slowly shifted from scripts in the first semester there in New Delhi to accepting these characters as premises for the story. ”

   “…I started picking up their iPads with their drawings and holding them up, but again with not expressed need that we use these characters. So the energy became about them wanting me to do a story about their characters.”

   — Creating the need for students to connect seems key. I believe that you mentioned this in the book Ben. However, I havent made time to review. This 3 day weekend seems apt for some Slavic PD.

   ” I don’t really care if it works. You get that way after awhile with TPRS. If you care too much it all just seems to be a big energy drain. Over the years I just said, “Hell, I will just ask them some questions. I don’t care if I circle the questions. I will just ask the next logical question that comes into my mind so I can find out what the answer is.”

   — This is me and me more each day in class. Non-targeted is so liberating but much more focused on the kids especially if you are new to the work. Communication is much more accessible. I am almost certain that is why TPRS Gurus seem to slam this work because rookies can now be comprehensible to kids. Supposedly, it can take “years” to get this down. Of course teaching in general can be challenging but when we come together as a human community, in a language, the kids respond well. We need much more of that now.

   “It may be more of an attitude thing. The fact is, when they seem less than human, and oh boy do I know that scene, you kind of have to just make class an exercise in entertaining yourself with the few kids who will go there with you, and up the level of difficulty of the quizzes you would then have to give because it’s a dead class, and burn them on their grades.”

   — Ben, while I understand this position, I believe that Jillane on FB has helped me out with a powerful sentence frame from restorative justice training. The premise is that we as teachers help resolve conflicts through a reflection of our relationships within the class and the school community/culture. We examine the weight of our actions and how it effects others.
   I tried it. There were problems with the class of functioning within the scope of CI. These are 8th graders by the way, in a rigorous school that champions engineering, technology and heavy memorization and tests. So they have been badly accustomed to these practices that are much different in our work. I will post the results down below.

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3. Steven

   November 11, 2016 at 9:09 am

   So I used the following sentence frame in L1 to understand what was going on in my class. This was provided by Jillane on the FB CI Liftoff group.

   I first modeled and used the sentence. I made sure to remind my students of my RULE 1 of “listen– One person speak only” I also said to not name specific names. No blame. Just how we feel in relation to the situation.

   When ______ I feel ________ Because __________.

   When people are talking over me I feel disrespected because I want to provide the best possible education for my students.

   If students did not want to speak, I allowed them to write it without writing their name.

   Here are some of the biggies from that class:

   When people talk, I feel annoyed or pestered because I’m trying to learn and pass this class.

   When we do free writes, I feel dumb because everyone gets higher word counts.

   When we do the same thing over and over again I get bored because I believe we should do more than just stories.

   When we play games I feel more connected and fluent because it’s more real.

   When we don’t read our [own] stories out loud I feel like I’m not learning as much because I’m not learning how to say the words.

   When we don’t write down vocabulary I feel like I’m not acquiring the language because I might forget the words.

   When I am seen as someone who is too weird to talk to or out of place, I feel angry at myself because I am not good enough.

   After we problem solved together. I heard students suggestions — it’s hard to put my ego aside. They wanted more novelty though some of what was not connected to our work or the research grounded in it.

   Then I remembered, it takes 20,000 hours of motivated learning. Let’s have some fun here. However, the simple fact of being heard was powerful for students. For me, it points to provide students with the tools to continue learning another language but not at the expense of pleasure. Maybe someone else can chime in.

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