What Kind of Work?

So.

It's time to have a difficult conversation, teacher friends.

Here goes...

We have to think about what students are doing in your class, and why they are doing it.

Bad Advice from Yoda and the Power of "Yet"

I love Star Wars. (Waving my geek flag proudly here...) One of my favorite scenes from The Empire Strikes Back is a moment between the aged Jedi master, Yoda, and his young apprentice, Luke Skywalker. Luke is training, doing his best, struggling to get it figured out. He is faced with a tremendously difficult task--lifting his huge spacecraft out of the swamp where it is crashed--and expresses his willingness to give it a try, his diminutive-but-powerful teacher makes this audacious statement:

Image by Blacren CC BY 2.0

Do, or do not. 

There is no try.

I love that line. It sounds so truthy, and it's so quotable. It speaks of resolve, and determination, and not settling for less than your best. I think it's likely that teachers might be tempted to follow Master Yoda's lead and challenge their own students this way.

But I'm afraid that might be a mistake.

When It All Just...Works

I just had what may have been the single best class of my college teaching career so far. There are times when it all just...works.

I work with future teachers, and one of my big goals is to always try and connect theory and practice--if I say it's "good teaching," they should be able to observe it in my own teaching practice. I recognize that I will never be able to do this perfectly. But sometimes it all just...works.

Today's lesson in my Middle School Curriculum and Instruction course was like that.

The Story of Carl: Are You Too Comfortable?

This is Carl.

Carl is a weird bird who has decided that living on our deck (under my chair) is a really good idea. My kids named him Carl after a long discussion. (Don't ask.)

You can tell by the amount of bird droppings in the picture that Carl has lived under my chair for quite a while now. It's odd, he seems perfectly content to hang out there, even when people come out onto the deck. He even kept me company while I was grilling burgers the other night.

Carl prefers to walk than to fly. It's not that he can't fly. One of the first days I saw him there I half-heartedly tried to scare him off, and he flew into a tree in the yard. But he came back as soon as he could. And he tends to just waddle around. It makes me wonder if he's sick, or just too comfortable.

---

I'm thinking about Carl because I think he might be an object lesson for us.

Often, we prefer to hang out where we are comfortable, places we know are safe. It can be scary to fly off into the unknown!

But...if you only stay waddling around in the same area all the time, what opportunities are you missing?

I wonder about teachers who keep doing the same thing, year after year after year. Sure it's comfortable. But do you ever feel like you're missing out on things?

Sure, it might be comfortable for Carl to hang out among his own mess on the deck. But if he was meant to soar...he's missing out by staying too comfortable.

Teacher, you were meant to soar! Get out of your comfort zone! Try something new! Maybe you'll find a new flock heading in a direction you've never considered traveling before.

Why Students Don't Read

I saw this online yesterday (thanks to @jedipadmaster for sharing!) and I thought it was interesting. It's worth the five minutes to watch it, I think...

Interesting points these kids raise, don't you think?