Pausing to Worship

One of the things that I love about teaching at Dordt is that we deliberately pause, right in the middle of our week, to spend time together in worship.

Chapel is not mandatory. No one compels students to attend. And yet, most weeks 600-800 people (or more) gather at 11:00 a.m. to spend time together in song, in the Word, in reflection, in worship. No classes are scheduled for this time. All the offices on campus close. The Library closes. And so we gather.

Our institution is not a church, and we do not seek to replicate churchiness, really. Chapel is not intended to be a church service either. But, as members of the Church, Christ's Body here on earth, students, faculty, staff, and even friends from off campus come together to focus on the Author and Perfecter of our faith in a communal-yet-personal way.

It's Advent season as I write this, the season of the liturgical year when we consider the lead up to Christ's first coming, and experience the longing for Christ's second coming. It's an appropriate time for reflection on just who Jesus is. Today's chapel time was an excellent example of this, and perhaps best exemplified through one of the songs that was part of the worship time today: "Is He Worthy?" by Andrew Peterson. The worship team was joined by members of the chamber orchestra and the choir to lead us into God's presence today as they played and sang this song.

If you're unfamiliar with the song, or with Peterson's music in general, I urge you to take five minutes to listen to it, to reflect, and--I hope--to worship.

True confessions: this is one of my favorite songs anyway (the whole album Resurrection Songs is fantastic, in my humble opinion) but hearing it played and sung live today got me all choked up, and literally brought tears to my eyes. And I've continued humming it throughout the rest of my day ever since chapel.

And that's the gift that chapel at Dordt is to me: the opportunity to pause to worship, to refocus, to get re-centered in the midst of the busyness of a work week, and to carry that on throughout my day. Pausing to worship shapes the rest of my work as well.

Thoughts on Seriousness

I had the opportunity to see Rend Collective in concert last night. I love this group! After the show my daughter said something like, "It's like we went to a concert and it turned into church, but in the best way." She's right about that--these folks are out to worship, and invite those gathered for the show to shift from "watchers" into "participants." You can't hardly help yourself when you see their infectious joy and celebration!

I don't know what my favorite part of the evening was. We talked about it on our drive home. Here are a few things I love about this group:

Running on Empty

My lack of writing over the past couple of weeks tells at least part of the story: it's been hectic.

Two weeks ago I was at a conference, which was a fantastic opportunity for professional development and networking with colleagues. But there is preparation for being away from campus for several days. My students know, "Mulder never cancels class!--if I'm away, we meet online instead, or they have workdays for ongoing projects. And then there is the catching up once I'm back. (Email has become the bane of my existence.) As it happened, all of my classes had some sort of project or test scheduled for that same week as well. And of course, along with this pile of marking, it was also advising season, which means lots of extra meetings with advisees. I truly enjoy the work of advising students, but it's busy, and every situation is unique, which means individual planning, preparation, and problem-solving. And, in the midst of all of this, my dear aunt passed away, and so I was off and away for several days for a funeral, including hurried plans for online class meetings for the time I'd be away.

It's been hectic.

I'm tired.

Exhausted, really.

I'm running on empty.

Your Classroom: Collecting Wood? Or Longing for the Sea?

A Twitterfriend shared this one last week...

"If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea." - Antoine de Saint-Exupery

— Lynn Swaner (@LynnSwaner1) October 23, 2018

I love this word picture.

And doesn't it just capture teaching? Both the good parts, as well as the struggles?

There are some lessons that just feel like collecting wood. (I've had a couple of those in my Geography class lately, to be honest.) The discussions are halting and stilted. The students are going through the motions, doing the tasks and work assigned to them. But it feels like just drumming up people to show up and do it.

And then, there are lessons that feel like longing for the sea. (Thankfully, I've had a few of these this semester too!) The joy of learning is so obvious, so real...it's like you can smell the salt air and feel the wind in your face! And when we shove off from shore, we have a real sense of the immensity of the ocean of content we can explore!

What ships are you building in your classroom? And how are you approaching the shipbuilding? Do students feel that sense of longing, wonder, and excitement for the voyage? Or are they just looking for the next log to drag toward the beach?

Image by Alberto Jaspe [CC BY-NC-SA 2.0]

How to Make Homework that is Not Crappy

In a recent post I shared about a presentation I gave at a recent teachers' convention held on our campus. The title of my session was "Homework is Broken...But We Can Fix It!" If you've been reading the blog for some time, it probably isn't news to you that I think we can do better when it comes to homework in K-12 schools today. (If you want to read more, check out my #nomorecrappyhomework posts...)

Today, I got an email from a friend who was in that session. He raises some really thoughtful points about how he (and his colleagues) are wrestling with homework. Here's what he wrote (slightly edited for anonymity):

Reconsidering Learning Styles in Light of Research

Ah, Learning Styles...

This is one of those topics I have to approach with grace and truth, because there was a significant chunk of my own teaching practice in K-12 where I emphasized the idea that different students learn differently, and that we should tailor our teaching based on these learning styles.

And appealing as that idea is...the research just doesn't bear it out.

Aiming for Messy?

I follow an Instagram account called TeachersThings that often has funny or inspiring posts for those who serve as educators. This morning in my Instafeed, I saw this one:

A screenshot from TeachersThings on Instragram.

My immediate reaction was, "YES!"

But the more I thought about this, I'm not so sure that is the right response.

Homework Is Broken...But We Can Fix It!

This past week I had the privilege of presenting at the Heartland Christian Teachers' Convention. It's a group of some 500+ teachers from Christian schools in Iowa, Minnesota, South Dakota, and Nebraska, and they gather on the Dordt College campus each October for a few days for professional development and mutual encouragement. It was always something I looked forward to in my years teaching in K-12 in Iowa, and since joining the faculty at Dordt seven years ago, I still regularly attend. While I was in grad school, I took a few years off from presenting, but this year, the planning committee asked, and I agreed.

My topic? Homework, of course! Over the past few years, I've blogged a fair amount in response to my research on the topic of homework. (If you'd like to read, here's over a dozen posts for your consideration...) I've had many K-12 teachers mention to me over the years that they would like me to meet with their faculty and share this research. So I figured it's still a hot enough topic that I might have things to share.

I knew I would have about 60 people coming to my session, which I ambitiously titled "Homework is Broken...But We Can Fix It!" I decided I would begin by surveying them--just to get a handle on who was in the room, and their initial beliefs about homework.

You, like me, might find these results interesting...

I Just Love Being a Teacher!

You know what? I love being a teacher. Seriously, I love it!

My bio on our institution's website even starts off this way: "I love to teach! ..." I figure I might as well let people know right from the get-go. I believe I'm called to this work, and that I've been equipped for it, and as a vocation teaching gives me deep joy.

Don't get me wrong...there are definitely joys and concerns. There are very real challenges in this profession. And the demands and expectations always seem to be growing, year-by-year. But overall, the joys outweigh the concerns, for me at least.

Sometimes I need a reminder about this though. I have my moments when the work starts to pile up, and the meetings start adding up, and the stack of things to read starts towering...and the distraction of this gets to me.

And then, somehow, I always seem to get a moment of encouragement, a word from a student, an affirmation from a colleague, something that reminds me, "I get to do this!"

I had one of those moments recently. I was up to my eyebrows in the thick of planning and grading and keeping up with email, and--honestly--losing some of the joy that I typically feel in my work.

I took a Twitter break.

How to Learn from a Textbook

I'm thinking today about textbooks.

Probably this is because today I gave my Middle School Curriculum & Instruction students an assignment to review curriculum materials. It might also be because I have a textbook that I love that I'm using for teaching World Regional Geography. Okay, and it might also be because I was helping one of my kids take reading notes on a textbook-based reading assignment tonight.

Textbooks are a really great resource for teachers. I remember feeling as an undergraduate Education major a sense of pressure that if I ever relied on a textbook I would somehow be failing my students. But I've definitely come around: textbooks can be an extremely helpful resource to support teaching.

Getting Derailed (So Will I)

Nothing too profound to share here today. My school year is off and running--I have one class section I haven't met up with yet, but that will happen tomorrow morning. All is humming along well so far! I posted this on Instagram yesterday, truly reflecting on how well things have started off for me this year...

It was a good first day of classes at @dordtcollege! Time for a little reflection on what worked on day one, and what needs more work...

A post shared by Dave Mulder (@d_mulder) on Aug 28, 2018 at 2:34pm PDT

I was not expecting my day today--despite all the good things happening as the new school year was beginning--to get derailed.

The Power of Looking Silly (and Not Caring that You Do)

Today is my 21st first day of school as a teacher.

This is the first time--to my memory--that I didn't have the back-to-school nightmares. I mentioned this to my wife this morning, and she (jokingly) said that means that things will go awful today. (She was joking...but we'll see, I guess. Not that I'm superstitious or anything...)

The truth is, I do worry about my teaching practice. I want to be the best that I can be! I want my students to learn, and to even enjoy my classes. And, seriously, I want to enjoy my classes too. And I usually do, even though I recognize my tendencies toward worrying.

And it's in those worrying times that I sometimes need some encouragement, some recognition that I'm doing all right.

Your Favorite Class? Your Best Class? Both?

Saw this gem on Twitter this morning...

A3. I start every year with a simple statement:

“They say your favorite class is the one that you like the most, and your best class is the one where you learn the most. If we both do our jobs, this class will be both.”

We don’t teach content. We teach people. #satchat pic.twitter.com/5hQ3kDEU53

— John Meehan (@MeehanEDU) August 25, 2018

I love, love, love the idea of your favorite class (the one you like) and your best class (where you learn the most) being one and the same. I know that in my own experience in school this was not always the case, and I'm sure it hasn't always been the case for the students I've taught over the past 20 years.

But, what if...?

Facebook Update

About 5 months ago, I wrote this rambling post about my complicated relationship with Facebook, which included a mention that I was removing the Facebook app from my phone.

A weird thing happened right after that. As I often do, I shared the link to that post on Facebook...

Camp Was (Great/Awful)...Thanks for Asking

Earlier this month I again had the privilege to serve at Royal Family Kids Camp for a fourth year. RFKC is a camp specifically for kids in the foster care system, and it always brings up a variety of emotions for me. I've written reflection each year upon returning home from my week at camp to work out my thoughts (you can read them here, if you like) but this year I've had a hard time writing. I actually started two other posts and abandoned them, because they seemed trite and hollow.

I'm not sure why I'm having a harder time working out my thoughts this year. I think it might be partly that I'm now on the leadership team for our camp, and so it feels a little closer to home to think out loud about how the week was--because I had a hand in helping to plan for it, in training the staff, in some of the decision-making during the week, etc. The week went quite well, I think, but that's coming from my biased perspective as one of the people who helped put things together for camp this year.

My role during the week was the same as it has been the past few years. Officially, my role is being part of the chapel team. Unofficially, I'm pretty much the camp clown...

Post Talent Show...which it's been my pleasure to emcee for the past 4 years...

Supporting New Teachers: What Can We Do?

This one came to my inbox the other day: an article from Education Week entitled "In U.S. Schools, New Teachers Are Hardly a Novelty." If you are involved in education in some way, whether as a teacher, an administrator, or even as a parent, I think it's worth reading.

One quote that jumped out and bit me:

Nationally, 12 percent of all public school teachers are in their first or second year, according to an Education Week analysis of new data from the U.S. Department of Education’s office for civil rights. And in some states, that figure may be higher than 15 percent.

What's Your Brand?

Let's do a little free-association.

What pops to mind when you hear the word "brand?"

Are you picturing a cowboy, marking a cow as belonging to a certain ranch?

Or maybe you have in mind the logo for a specific company?

Or perhaps you're thinking of a celebrity who endorses a particular product?

Or...maybe you are picturing a person, and the way s/he portrays her/himself on social media?

I've been thinking about that last definition for "brand" lately. I recently have seen quite a few people on Twitter responding to this tweet, sharing their own stories of foolishness...

What's the most On Brand™️ story you have from your early childhood.

Mine is when my mom told me not to touch the electric stove when it was red, because that meant it was hot, so I made direct eye contact with her and slapped my hand down on the stove top.

— mu✨ (@prinxeMu) July 8, 2018

Teaching Science: Argument and Evidence

This tweet showed up in my Twitterfeed today...

A science classroom should be filled with the noise of students collecting evidence and arguing.

— Jennifer Weibert (@ngssfresno) July 9, 2018

I love this so much, and it sums up so much of the philosophy for teaching science that I tried to embody as a middle school science teacher, and now as I teach future science teachers as well.

Patriotism and Privilege

This past spring, I attended a conference in Washington DC.  It was my first time visiting, so I made arrangements to be able to spend half a day exploring the city and the landmarks. Public transit in DC is great with the Metro system, and even though I was staying in Alexandria for my conference, it was just a quick trip via train to the Mall.

As I was leaving my hotel, I texted my wife...

I'm going on an adventure!

Who it excited for an adventure in the City? 

Social Glue: Celebrating TodaysMeet

Today I deleted a bookmark from my browser that has been there since the fall of 2013. It looked like this:

This was a shortcut to a (semi-)private chatroom hosted by TodaysMeet.com, which I used regularly from 2013 up to the present. But TodaysMeet is no more. If you head to the site, you'll find this message:

TodaysMeet was a communication tool that allowed users to create private (or semi-private) chatrooms that anyone could join if they knew the URL. There are lots of ways such a tool could be used, and many educators used it to get students sharing their best thinking. I used it myself in both online and face-to-face courses from time to time.

Calling Final Exams into Question

Oh. Snap.

A tweet from one of the people I've been following on Twitter since almost the beginning, Dan Meyer:

For real, tho: what are we gaining from final exams?

❌New insights into student learning.
✅Crazy amounts of student stress.

— Dan Meyer (@ddmeyer) May 22, 2018

Calling the grand tradition of final exams into question seems...almost heretical.

But does he have a point?

I guess I'm now thinking about what the real point of final exams might actually be. Are they intended to provide new insights into student learning? Or are they a way to help students summarize and synthesize everything they had the opportunity to learn over the term? Or...maybe...they are a mechanism for compliance, a way to keep the kids (fearfully, stressfully) "engaged" (not sure that this is the right word for it...) until the end?

Is there value in in continuing the practice of final examinations?

Or is this an outdated vestige of educational practice from days of yore?

What do you think?

Image by Shannan Muskopf [CC BY-NC 2.0]

Enthusiasm: Teaching with My Strengths

It has recently come to my attention that my reputation precedes me: students talk about their instructors, and I am known for being an active (perhaps hyperactive) presence in the classroom. Those of you who know me well will probably not be surprised to hear this. I talk with my whole body, and it's only worse when I'm properly caffeinated.

Knowing this, I try to use it to my advantage: I know that when my own teachers were excited about the content, it piqued my interest in a different way--particularly if it was a topic that seemed like it could otherwise be dry or uninteresting.

Since my natural tendency is towards the energetic and enthusiastic, I leverage this in the classroom. Never fear a little change in vocal dynamics, gesturing, animated facial expressions, clear interest in students' contributions, and genuine enthusiasm towards the content of the lesson...that might be just what "gets" them, or at least hooks them in to following you down the path you've planned for your lesson.

And so, it is probably not surprising that students in pedagogy-oriented classes (like the ones I tend to teach) take note of this, and even comment on it.

Breaking Out at the End of the Semester

I had to check my math because I could hardly believe it myself, but this spring was the NINETEENTH TIME I've taught science methods! This course is officially titled "Teaching Science Pre-K through Middle School"--which is pretty audacious--and it is, as they say, in my wheelhouse. I started adjuncting this course in 2007, and have basically taught it 3 semesters out of four since that time. That's a crazy thought!

I've found that when you teach a course that many times, there are three dangers to watch for, and keep in mind:

1. It's easy to assume that students know what you are talking about, because YOU (as the instructor) definitely know what you are talking about.
2. It's easy to accidentally tell the same stories over and over...or to think you've already told a story, because it can be hard to keep track.
3. It's easy to feel like you've got this one in your back pocket, since you've practiced it so much.

I'm continually working against these. It happened a few semesters ago in this course...I was a little too complacent, and because I had other, newer courses I was giving more focus, time, and attention, I fell into all three of these dangers all at the same time. Since then, I've tried to prioritize keeping science methods fresh, because--obviously--while it might be old hat to me, it is new for this group of students.

But one of the fun things about having a course that you feel very confident in teaching is that keeping it fresh means you can continuously tinker and experiment with things that you've never done before. Through out this semester, I tinkered with several lessons, trying new activities or different approaches to my lecturing/storytelling. I reworked parts of several lessons dedicated to teaching controversial topics in science, and invited colleagues to sit in--that keeps you on your toes! And, I decided I really wanted to try something completely new (for me) for a summative lesson at the end of the semester.

Being Appreciated

Today marks the beginning of Teacher Appreciation Week. This is both wonderful and weird.

My day began with one of my students dropping off this envelope at my office, right after I arrived...

Large envelopes are always wonderfully mysterious, aren't they?

Transition Time: Celebrating our Student Teachers

Tonight we had a special event for our Teacher Preparation Program. Our club for pre-service teachers, the Future Active Christian Teacher (FACT) Club put on a banquet. This was a first time event, but I hope that we'll continue to have this in the future! The FACT Club leadership is pretty incredible, and a few months ago they proposed hosting all of the cooperating mentor teachers, the student teachers, the Education faculty, and--of course--all of the FACT Club members for an evening of celebration.

Wow, this was fun! Good food, good conversation, good opportunities to get future teachers, practicing teachers, and Education faculty together in a "not school" setting. Dessert was delicious too, of course...

Thank you, Dordt Dining, for always having my favorite chocolate lava cake...

And we had an inspiring speaker--the superintendent from a Christian school in our area--and several of the students offered words of thanks to the different groups represented there tonight.

I was asked to give a share some words of congratulations for our seniors who are in a time of transition: wrapping up this stage of their journey, and preparing to move into the next adventure...a classroom of their own!

Knowing I'm likely to go off the rails if I just ad lib, I wrote out my thoughts. What follows is what I shared as a blessing and send off for our seniors. This is one of those times when I feel like, "I get to do this!"

The People are the Work

It's a crazy week for me.

I was out of town last week, so I'm playing catch up on marking papers.

I've had a bunch of extra meetings for different committees and commitments.

It's registration season for the next semester, and advisees are coming out of the woodwork to ask me to weigh in.

Visiting student teachers, keeping up with my two students working on independent study projects, and--oh yeah--I have classes to teach(!) means it's a full, full week.

And then, a student stops by, and just asks if I have a few minutes to talk.

So, with a bit of an internal sigh, I put a smile on my face and turn away from my laptop, gesture toward the ramshackle little couch I have in my office, and turn in my chair to give her my full attention, even as I think to myself, "I have things to do..."

This junky little couch moved in to this office the same day I did.

Facebook is Weird

I.

A month or so ago, I presented a session at the annual Day of Encouragement held here on our campus. The session was entitled "Ministering to 'Digital Natives'" and I was pleased that quite a few people showed up. As folks were coming in the room, I was surprised and amazed how many of them I knew: one of my best friends in the world, a couple of colleagues from here at the college, several of my former students (both from my days teaching middle school, and my current prof life), a young woman who used to babysit our kids when they were little, church friends, and even my former youth pastor from my high school days in southern California. It was a weird mash-up of different parts of my life, all in the same room. I joked that this was a little bit like Facebook.

Image by Jo Alcock [CC BY-SA-NC 2.0]

So I Was On a Podcast...

My friend and colleague in education, Erik Ellefsen, recently started a podcast, and he asked if I would be a guest. It took a little time for us to get our schedules in sync so we could actually have a chat, but we finally did, and the episode was just released this week.

Erik and I first met up on Twitter several years ago, mostly as a result of my original #nomorecrappyhomework blog post, which I posted back in 2015, and has had over 3500 views as of this writing. We've kept in touch regularly via Twitter since then, and when he gets to NW Iowa we've been been able to hang out. I always appreciate his thoughtfulness about the role of innovation in education, and the way he challenges other educators to be the best that they can possibly be. If you're on Twitter, give Erik a follow. You won't be sorry!

In this episode, he shares a bit of the story of how we met up, and then we visited about the impetus for my research into homework--including my own dissatisfaction with the crappy homework I used to assign as a middle school teacher. If you're interested, you can listen in here...

Teachers Defending Schools?

It's been a bit since my last post, but I have continued thinking a lot about school shootings, and gun control, and all of the craziness in the media from the left and the right on the topic.

In particular, I've been thinking about everything that teachers are expected to do. It's pretty amazing, really. When I was trained as a teacher...I was trained, well, to teach. I was trained to write lesson plans. I was trained to understand different pedagogical approaches, and how to choose appropriate methods for the content I was to teach. I was trained to assess my students' learning. In my student teaching experience, I had the opportunity to practice these skills, and to learn firsthand about connecting with students, about managing a classroom, and about all sorts of pragmatic requirements of being a teacher...like navigating the line at the copier in the morning, and how to ensure that the custodian remains your friend.

But the profession has definitely changed in the 20 years since I began teaching. And teachers today are expected to perform many, many more tasks than "just teaching." One of these tasks? Apparently, teachers are now also expected to be prepared to lay down their lives defending their schools. No, seriously.

Schools and Guns and Brokenness

I've started writing this post three or four times in the past few days, and I keep walking away from it. I feel like I have to say something in response to the school shooting in Parkland, FL last week, but I just can't seem to sort out my ideas. Here's my best thinking (summarized) for now...

Our society is so broken, that it seem like people on both sides of this debate are talking past each other, shouting their slogans, not really listening, and missing the nuance of the situation. But we have to actually have a conversation about this, and that's complicated, because people have such strong feelings, brute-force logic is not going to change hearts and minds.

A little more I can say to flesh this out...but recognize that these are my opinions, and I'm thinking out loud here, though pretty sure for now...

Water is Taught by Thirst

(If you're a regular reader of this blog, you may recall my series from last Fall that I entitled "Learning to Teach Again." This post might be in a similar vein...)

I was visiting with my colleague, Abby, this morning. (I should note that she gave me permission to share this story.) This is her first year teaching in higher ed, and while she's an experienced educator, there are some new things to figure out. I remember that feeling so well--while I felt confident in my teaching ability...there are some things that are just a little different than teaching in K-12. One of my favorite differences is the fact that we can take time to think about our teaching practices, and collaborate, and--well, as Abby and I were doing this morning--talk about teaching. It's not that I never did this with my colleagues when I taught in K-12. I did. But it always took a little more arranging.

In our visiting this morning, we were reflecting on how it was for us way back at the beginning of our respective teaching careers. We were thinking together about how it is when you're getting started, and how daunting it is. While I felt well prepared in some ways, I felt woefully inadequate in others. (And...as I recently shared on this blog...I still feel the need to apologize to those former students of mine from way back when...)

In particular, we were thinking of how we started out feeling as if we were somehow "against" our students. Or...at least...that we felt like our students were against us. She shared how it took a few years to realize the difference it makes when we can convince our students that we are, in fact, for them. There are so many things that we can only learn by doing them.

The students I teach now sometimes express to me how they feel a little uncertain about stepping into their own classrooms. I always reassure them that they will be well-prepared to begin their work as professional educators--better than I was, I think! But they will be well-prepared to begin their work...they will learn a lot through the doing!

Abby and I parted ways to get to work on other things. There is always grading to be done; there is always planning for the next lesson.

But a little while later, Abby emailed me a poem. She had come across it while preparing for a lesson for one of her courses, and read it through new eyes in light of our conversation.

The poem is by Emily Dickinson, and it is entitled "Water, Is Taught By Thirst." Give it a read:

Water, is taught by thirst.
Land—by the Oceans passed.
Transport—by throe—
Peace—by its battles told—
Love, by Memorial Mold—
Birds, by the Snow. 

Image by Patrik Nygren [CC BY-SA 2.0]

And maybe teaching is that way too. We learn by doing, by experience, by making mistakes, by the antithesis of what we intended.

Maybe it's a good reminder of how far I've come...and how far I still have to go in my growth towards mastering this arcane art of teaching.

Maybe it's a reminder for my students too...to recognize their false-starts, and missteps, and tentative tries in the classroom as the place where learning really happens--for them, and for their own students as well.

Fasting

It's Ash Wednesday.

The beginning of Lent.

A season of the church year in which we traditionally focus on the sacrifice Christ made on our behalf.

And to help us focus...a tradition in the church has been to fast.

To give something up.

To sacrifice something we hold on to, as a means of recalling Christ's sacrifice for us.

I have fasted before, several times. And not always during Lent. There have been days that I have deliberately, prayerfully fasted--forgoing food, so that when the hunger pangs hit, I am driven to pray. The physical demand becomes a spiritual nudge.

It's an intentional spiritual discipline, fasting.

I've rarely fasted during Lent in a way that is truly "painful" for me--something that I would actually sacrifice.

There was one year, when I was a middle school teacher, that I decided to fast from caffeine during Lent. (Those who know me well will recognize the sacrifice this is for me, the perpetually-over-caffeinated...) It lasted about a week. I had a couple of very sweet 7th grade girls come up to me after class one day and say, "Mr. Mulder, we noticed that you aren't drinking coffee anymore...and we understand that there's a good reason for it...but, well...would you please start drinking coffee again? You're kinda grumpy all the time, and it's getting a little scary for us."

And so I broke my fast a few weeks early. For the kids, you know?

Image by waferboard. [CC BY 2.0]

But I'm thinking about fasting again today, because it's Ash Wednesday. I haven't committed to fasting this year for Lent. I have friends who are fasting of social media, or chocolate, or eating meat. But I haven't opted in to any of these this year.

And if I had, I probably wouldn't be broadcasting it in a blog post anyway.

But just now, I saw this tweet from one of my very favorite bands, @rendcollective:

Don’t know what to give up for Lent? What about guilt, shame and condemnation? Easter is in many ways the story of how Jesus gave up everything so we could give up those things. #nailedtothecross

— REND COLLECTIVE (@rendcollective) February 13, 2018

Yeah.

Maybe I'll be fasting this year after all.

And I hope you'll join me.

The Tentative Nature of Science

Yesterday in my methods of teaching science class, we took the whole class meeting to wrestle through the nature of science. By "nature of science," I mean trying to understand what makes science...science. How do scientists approach their work? What are the ground rules for doing science? What are the limits of science?

I love this shirt...and, yes...I've worn it to class... [CC BY-SA 2.0]

It's a fun challenge each time I teach this course to try and help the future teachers I serve shift their thinking. So many of them come into this course with strong, pre-conceived ideas about science as a discipline. I'm convinced that partly this is due to a broad cultural (mis)understanding of what science is and how it works...but I think part of it is something that we, teachers, have perpetuated.

Teaching Handwriting?

An experiment: I'm going to make a bold statement here, and I'd like you to notice your gut reaction to it, okay? You'll have to scroll down the page a bit to get to it, because I don't want you to read it immediately. Ready for this? All right, start scrolling...

Reasonable and Realistic Assignments

Hey there, teacher...

That assignment you gave your students today...how much time will it take your students to complete?

I suspect you have an estimate in mind for how long you expect it will take a "typical" student to complete it. But I want to slow you down there a minute... Who is this "typical" student? Does s/he really exist? How many of your real-life students are actually represented by this "typical" student?

An Apology to My Former Students and their Parents

Dear former middle school students (and their parents),

It's high time that I try to make things right with you all. There are quite a few things I did wrong, and I owe you an apology. Here goes...

I'm so sorry for the crappy busywork I assigned as homework--the word finds, crossword puzzles, "comprehension questions," fill-in-the-blank worksheets, and the like--that took up your time but had very little benefit for learning.

I'm sorry for the too-lengthy problem sets that I gave to everyone, regardless of need or ability.

I'm sorry for the head-scratching poorly-framed instructions on some assignments.

I'm sorry for the lack of context for things I expected students to read.

I'm sorry for the poor teaching I did--hopefully rarely, but I'm sure I did occasionally--and then gave the homework anyway, which meant you had to struggle alone (or together with parents?) on the work I assigned.

I'm sorry that I sometimes assigned things punitively, out of frustration for bad behavior of a few students in class as a way of trying to reassert control in the classroom.

I'm sorry that there were sometimes projects that required far too much parent intervention to actually do the work successfully.

I'm sorry for assigning work over breaks from school, which I didn't do often...but often enough that I need to mention it.

I'm sorry that I didn't always consider the gifts, talents, needs, strengths, and weaknesses of the students in the work I asked you to do.

I'm sorry for generally infringing on family time with low-quality, poorly-designed work that was one-size-fits-few.

I regret the times I wasted your time. I regret the times I caused strife between you. I truly regret the fact that I wasn't always aware of the impact of the things I asked--demanded!--of you outside of school hours.

This apology is probably too little, and too late, but it is honest, and heart-felt, and I hope you can forgive me.

Sincerely,

Your teacher, who truly cared about you but was sometimes blind to the effects of his actions

Image by Dave Mulder [CC BY-SA 2.0]

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If you are a former student (or a parent of a former student), please know that this is an honest piece of writing from my heart to you.

If you are a fellow-teacher reading this, I hope it might prompt reflection for you on your own homework practices.

Ensuring Valuable Homework

This one popped up on Instagram for me this morning. Got me thinking, of course...

[Screenshot of my phone this morning...]
You really should follow Bored Teachers on Instagram.

I guess what got me is the fact that I actually really agree with this statement.