Excellence

8th graders are finishing up their trial of the US government for possible genocide and violations of the UN Declarations of the rights of indigenous people. Students are doing excellent jobs of creating argument founded in sources, usually primary sources, and the supreme court members are citing the type of argument they hear(logos, pathos, ethos) and are cutting out any non-logic based argument.

7th Grader will begin their essays on the efficacy and morality of enhanced interrogation. The prompt will simply be to take a stance on the torture issue and write a persuasive essay. This activity will require defining the line between enhanced interrogation and torture, citing primary sources and then developing a stance on the subject.

11th Grade is completing their study of river valley civilizations on monday and will be assessed over the break. They will construct compare and contrast(most effective practice) essays and then will move on to debating philosophical questions from around the world after the turn of the first millennium BC.

Return from the grave

The blog is back! Thanks blogger app for the iPhone! Should make managing things on here much much easier...

This school year is going well and the students are really opening up academically and socially... I don't feel like I am as good as I was last year... Let me rephrase-- I keep needing to refocus back to fundamentals and keep myself away from much else.

Having 170 students is taking it's toll, especially because they are in three classes; at the same time it's a fabulous opportunity to have an impact. I just wish data came out more frequently so I would how we measure compared to others.

Teach THROUGH the Test

When I was in high school I was lucky enough to be a part of a state championship track & field team. As the end of our dual meet season came and we prepared for our local conference meet, our coach told us we were going to train through it. In other words we continued to condition very hard and work to improve rather than making the conference meet our goal. The idea was founded in the principle that our performance at the conference meet was not nearly as important as the district and state meets that came later on.

Segue to testing.

Testing must be treated the same way as this conference meet. Currently I have students taking exams and am actively attempting to use this exam as a tool to continue to teach information and skills to those who have not yet mastered them. I can say that out of 90 students I have 3 who I believe are not at the level I would consider proficient and would therefore fail the exam. Rather than allow this, these students will need to use this time to relearn(or learn) the material. It is simply unacceptable to me that students could attempt to leave my class with little or no understanding of ancient history, with limited ability to create arguments or minimal ability to analyze and evaluate using high quality secondary and/or primary sources. With these goals in mind I design my assessments to be a further teaching tool.

In FOCUS by Mike Schmoker I read that OSU's physics dept uses buzzers to formatively assess student learning and they immediately alter instruction to match their results. I do this by having students write responses to in class questions. I do not use percentages to the same extreme but I do immediately clear up student misconceptions. I try to hold the standard to 100% though because if i let any student leave without understanding then I will ultimately fail them. Exams at the end of units can also be this type of teaching tool, if you see a student struggling to write an essay, help, then have them re-write! Why not use this as a summative data-set to improve remedial instruction?

The next question is, how does this alter the meaning of grades?

Panel Discussions

Today we are doing panel discussions regarding the way we view Greeks in history. The debate centers around whether we should see their contributions as positive, negative or something else entirely. Students have produced the best discussion, showed tremendous motivation and are absolutely making this the finest day of my career. They have incorporated contemporary history, current events, philosophy, morality and life lessons into their discussions. IT IS UNBELIEVABLE!!!

What a day

What a meaningful day, as I shared with students, I heard back from an author who has shaped quite a bit of what I do as a teacher, I saw fantastic work coming from my 7th graders extended essays AND was treated to some fantastic debate over the stability of the Athenian and Spartan states. All in all the streak continues as I continue to have the best and most meaningful days of my career! I cant wait for tomorrow's debates, final revisions of our collapsing government essays in geography and of course for Wednesday (Don't forget) and our 6:40 AM morning meeting to discuss our enrichment journal that Dr. Fleck and Hanssen sent us! Listen folks, I need you to understand how special what you are doing is... you have 3 college professors recognizing your work in class right now, not many 17 year olds put in that kind of work! From here, we need to work harder to solidify our fundamentals and polish up our language while continuing to just have fun with academics...

Side note, I am working on getting patches or wristbands for our movement... FREE YOUR INNER NERD!!!

I AM TIRED... SICK AND TIRED!

I have grown completely and utterly sick of hearing about a decline in academic standards and student work... that overused, over-abused and utterly false statement is something I simply cannot tolerate anymore. I just got sent e-mail to the author of the Concord Review to see if some of my students work could be published in his journal. I like the fact that the review is dedicated to students producing high level academic work and I really value his contribution to academics (clearly a BUT is coming); at the same time, on his blog he references a the "decline" in student work. Educators since Socrates have made this claim. I cannot speak to the reality of these words in any other classroom or at any other period in history but I can say that my students do more work at a much, much, much (muchness anyone) higher level than I EVER did in high school and quite frankly at many times in college. I can say that half the courses I took in college had required reading (but did not require that you read it), had one major written work (if you can call 5 pages major) and gave two to three tests based entirely on notes from lecture. These tests were the most academically challenging, as they required on the spot generation of blue book essays. Rarely was I presented with reviewed, academic journal articles or primary sources outside of those I used independently for term papers. Now, I had a great college experience and am by no means complaining; as difficulty goes, my college experience was far more academically challenging and engaging than my high school experience. I graduated a mere (can I still say mere 10 years later?) DECADE ago and can say with certainty that my students work harder, are more motivated and possess greater skills than I ever did. I have gone back and looked at high school writing that I produced via emails from my parents and you know what? My students are doing more and they are doing it better. I recall writing one or two three page, five paragraph papers in all of high school; I wrote one as a junior and one as a senior and only in English class. (How dare I write in History!) Our students are better than we were, do they need to get better? Yes. Do they need pushed to do so? Yes. Do they need encouragement to make it? Yes. But they are not falling behind, they are in the lead and as far as I can see, they are pulling away from the pack.

Extra sessions

I just decided in the past week to finally begin offering a extra sessions of my world history course for juniors before school. On Monday mornings we will be doing a more fun oriented set of projects focused on getting anyone behind caught up and giving motivation and further, less academic more "just for fun" type activities for those who just want to do the work. Right now we are working on lyrics for re-worded songs made to cover the history we have gone through in class. On Wednesdays we will be doing high level enrichment-- we will be focusing on a variety of reviewed scholarly journal articles. currently there are about 20 students signed up for the monday reviews and 30 signed up for wednesdays... If everyone shows that will require setting up a different room for the classes or multiple sessions. I cant wait to get this started. At this point, we can squeeze in an extra 24 full hrs of instruction before the end of the year.

Article reading

Students are currently reading an article put out by Montana State University's Department of Economics. The ARTICLE attempts to convey a cause and effect relationship between landforms, available crop production and levels of democracy. I see students sitting in a classroom in January taking on something written for an audience with reading skills and historical and economic awareness far beyond their own. This shows a level of motivation I could only dream of! So far 100% of students are taking it on and they are experiencing different levels of success. My developing readers are reading to pick out descriptions of Sparta and Athens. My proficient readers are trying to pick out how exactly the relationship between agriculture and government system occurs and my advanced readers are reading it from the economics standpoint can you understand the factors that drive this formula. I am quite happy with the way things are going.

Why I am not a deadline guy...

I hear quite often from teachers about how students just don't get their homework done. I completely agree with them. I think my homework is ridiculous - I mean, think about it, once or twice a week I ask them to do writings at home that go for a couple pages and must take quite a few of them two hours to get written. When they come back I would say that overnight homework assignments have a 50-70% completion rate. Today the over the holiday assignment is due and I believe it is pulling about a 60% completion rate. I will collect most of the leftovers tomorrow and will have to put in some serious legwork running down the last 3-4 of them over the next week.

Now, I am a monster for common ground. I completely understand and fully appreciate the views of colleagues who would argue that I make a bad problem worse. However, I also recognize the importance of getting work done. You see, students are kids, the ones I deal with are adolescents, and the nagging thing about adolescents is they are notorious for not being long term and big picture thinkers. They invariable will lack discipline on some level and have this tendency to do things that are contrary to their own self-interest. They have some growing up to do... literally! I guess I am just a believer that they will make mistakes and have to. Now, is that an excuse to not do work? NO! What I mean is that they will take zeros to avoid work. My system at least results in EVERYONE having to do the work. Is it flawed? Yes.

Why else Mr. Warner?

How about this one... 42.8% of our students qualify for free/reduced lunch. That means a strikingly high number of students are living in some form of poverty. If I were to list traits of people in poverty it would once again point to the tendency to not get work done when there are other forms of instant gratification available. As my father says, "It shows a lack of self-discipline." He is right. I need to work in their game because what we are doing is important. They need to do the work I assign because it is important... what is the alternative? Not doing it at all? Okay, then I give you a bad grade and you still don’t get it done. You perform worse on the exam, don't build any skills and perform worse on state testing... Clearly a recipe for success! How about your teacher chases you down and you do the work and yeah, it’s late, BUT it requires you to think critically, problem solve and learn. Now the exam comes and you do a little better.

I look at teaching like throwing a ladder down so someone can climb a tree. The ladder doesn’t start from the ground, you need to start from the top and work to the student. I build my goals first and then design my exam for the unit first. What goes on the test is what I want to be able to guarantee my students know. Then, I build assignments that fit the skills and knowledge necessary to pass the exam. Following this, lessons come out- the purpose of each lesson is to ensure students possess skills and knowledge to accomplish the assignments, which tier them to success on the exam. Am I teaching to my test? YES! I should be because the test matches my big ideas, state standards and my unit goals.

So… Is my class easy? I hope so… If you put in the legwork by doing the work right and doing it well, then you should learn. That is, if I am qualified to do my job… and I certainly hope I am.

Short

Today we are finishing up comparisons between the office of Pharaoh in Egypt and Hobbes' Leviathan. Students are looking for the shared characteristics of the two as political offices. Today we will briefly *discuss* the role of a citizen in these two systems and will then move on to Locke, Jefferson, the Declaration and Mandate of Heaven; students will once again search for common themes.


* I feel compelled to asterisk the discuss because I find it to be an overused word. Often teachers say we will discuss ________. In reality, is it a discussion or a lecture? Discussion means conversation and conversation means give and take. In order for students to discuss they have to come up with ideas and they will be wrong. Being wrong isnt a bad thing as it leaves grounds for comparison and growth. The only error is if you leave without recognizing the difference between wrong information and right information. Is it WRONG of me to think that i would rather see a student create wrong information than LEARN right information? At least using the former we get to build the connections to strengthen their logic and make them right more often.

Handshake

I shook the hand of a holocaust survivor today, it was a moment in my life that I will never forget.

Posting

I dont know an appropriate post for today... I am just going to put this and leave it--

It isnt time yet but when it is we need to be stronger together, we need to be better for each other and we need to come together. The greatest struggles are the biggest opportunities, we cant replace what we lost and we cant make the hole go away. What we can do is heap in love for each other and bond as a community. Staff, students, faculty, community members, religious affiliations, I dont care who... we need to make this community one and be there for the people who need us when they need us. I can think of one family that should be the center of our community right now, not that we should be in their faces or in their lives but we should be there for them every instant they need us when they are ready for us. Most of that piece of advice came from a 7th grader today...

6 Goals

We came up with 6 big goals during the last two inservice days and i must say... I LOVE them! Furthermore we have discussed converting our grade 7-8 history courses into a broad based exploration in the social studies and making it about skills as opposed to purely content. Students would do a survey of things like how to units on critical thinking and studying history, anthropology, economics, political science and geography. Building these skills would make them more successful in later years and would facilitate growth in the big 6 we came up with.

If you are wondering the 6 skills are listed below. This is the way they are written for seniors leaving KHS. We tiered them back through kindergarten and are hoping to improve and adapt them throughout the rest of our training. I think these are a great start. Of course this list must be infinitely adaptable and remain a living document.

A Senior leaving KHS WILL be able to...

- Make logical decisions based on individual research.
- Evaluate the purpose of bias.
- Judge the causes and impact of personal and group decisions on worldwide issues and events.
- Evaluate the cause and effect of changes in society based on historical events.
- Make logical decisions based on primary source documents.
- Evaluate the impact of worldwide cooperation and conflict on historical and current events.

Learning... With a purpose

I was glancing at a colleagues blog regarding relevance and thought, since I do not blog regularly enough anymore... why cant I steal his topic?

In the social studies I feel that we are often thought of as a content course. The concern is generally centered around whether or not students know the material as opposed to the skills they use in order to analyze, interpret, apply and connect it... even more infrequently do I hear discussion about students ability to CREATE or EVALUATE using it. What do I mean?

Students in my classes often inform me that when we study material they shouldn't form opinions on it-- they seem to feel that information needs to be studied entirely objectively. As our own history, I am of the belief that we MUST have a deep emotional as well as logical connection to material in order to truly consider it. Is it wrong to judge a people or an action and feel it is wrong? No, as long as you support it with material and show your opinions make sense. In the end, isnt that a big part of why we are here? Think of the real world implications of social studies in a democratic system-- Voting thats the big one. Your vote is a means of voicing your opinion... we need to be sure students know how to develop opinions that can combine their emotional feelings and apply logical thought. Combine the reptilian and the mammalian, use more of the full capacity of the brain, develop meaningful personal connections with a basis in deep understandings; if we can do this in class and in life i think we are doing something valid.

How? Well, make students develop connections, rather than a 1 day lesson in which they are presented the 7 similarities of river valley civilizations, spend weeks covering them and allow students to create... less knowledge? Quite the opposite (the knowledge is deeper) -- More creating? Absolutely.

The traditional answer?
History repeats itself-- I know a lot of history and yet I am hardly Nostradamus... For some reason that answer just isnt good enough any more...

Im Baaaa-aaaack!

Hello World!

Well, yes, I have slacked terribly on the blogging; its been a tremendously busy past few weeks. The team taught unit with Mrs. Coursen went tremendously well. Students made connections between the material in both our classes and spent several days discussing how to solve poverty in our community. Not only did this benefit them in terms of higher order thinking skills, it also opened students eyes to the fact that poverty is a large problem in our area. Students tend not to recognize that we HAVE homeless students, we HAVE students whose families aren't able to put food on the table, we NEED to recognize the diversity in our school and work to make sure everyone succeeds.

They say every journey begins with a single step. When people talk about this cliche they tend to focus on taking on challenges a piece at a time. While this is a worthwhile statement, I think its imperative that we note that no journey(barring the shortest journey ever) has been completed in a single step. Classes in the first quarter went well but we have a LONG way to go together. The first quarter is just that, a quarter. No sport has ever been won in the first quarter and no challenge has over been overcome just by starting a solution. We need to keep it up. As the year goes on the level of difficulty will increase, the skills we have worked on will be applied to more complex solutions and the knowledge we have gained will be applied to everything else we study. It is necessary that we approach these coming challenge with the same vigor we have shown thus far. I believe we can and will do it.

Doing "Hard" Things

Do hard things is a book. I know this to be true. I haven't read it yet, but I absolutely cant wait to. --Dear Amazon, please hurry my kindle here-- I know this isnt normally how I start a blog but I feel it will make a point later.

I had a fabulous discussion with a colleague at the end of the day today about what students consider "hard" work in a class. She told me about a students comments regarding what he thought was a difficult class and his views that all classes should be hard like the class he mentioned. Now, I say this not to offend anyone, and i feel safe discussing it as I can say the course was not taught by a teacher at our school, but what the students considered hard was having to make work "perfect" in terms of grammar and spelling, having to "know so many things" and the importance of remembering "details" from readings. As we discussed this we talked about how easy students tend to think our classes are.

According to the student's definition value, I could make class harder and better if I simply made them know more. In other words If i adjust ID paragraphs to require 18-20 pieces of information instead of 16-18 I am now a better teacher. In that case... 24-26! More students would fail, exceptional students would continue to succeed. This may seem hard and would make the extremely successful feel better than in a class where many students achieve highly buy let me be honest... It wouldn't be better. I am a believer that difficulty is not equal to value. Rigor isnt achieved by adding more. Knowing isnt the same as thinking... I can know what a book is about, know events from history, know definitions but it isnt the same as thinking about them. I guess the point I am making is don't necessarily do hard things, do valuable things. Grow.

What I would ask of students is, demand to think. If there is ever a day at which I haven't forced you to consider things, make connections, assess value, create, pick apart, problem solve or answer why then I haven't gotten my job done. Now, I don't think I "know it all" and I most certainly don't look at myself as a good teacher; I think I am a work in progress but I certainly want to get there. I see myself as a learner and a thinker, at least thats what I want to be and its all I ask of students.

Today was one of, what I would consider, the best days of my young career because I saw top to bottom, left to right critical, detailed, creative, connective thinking. Got to see discussion and writing that gave me evidence of the high level of thought, AND got data that students had analyzed a primary source in 2 different class periods yesterday and today. Four periods on one paragraph? GREAT!

So students, do things that matter, make yourself think, assess value on what really matters. Don't be a quantitative being, be qualitative.

Team Teach

What a fantastic day! I really think the lesson Mrs. Coursen and I have put together, really the unit as a whole, will be the best of my career. Today students read a primary source by William Bradford. Following their analysis and the completion of a graphic organizer detailing what they know as concrete fact, what they think they know through reasoning and any conclusions they feel they can draw. Students also are listing any data they lack that prevents them from making conclusions they want to make. They are now comparing social changes made by puritans in a time of distress with Marxist ideals. Tomorrow they will discuss and write as they analyze a new source they will receive. The ultimate goal of the unit is that Mrs. Coursen and I make ourselves unnecessary in students analysis of primary sources. In other words, students ought to be capable of analysis of sources without our guidance. I cannot elaborate more as students following the blog need to make discoveries themselves. Needless to say I am quite excited about the direction we are going.

Review

Free Writing, Examination Station and Kashmir

Decent free writing- Students, higher order thinking is ultimately the one trait that will make or break you as a student.  If you develop it, everything is do-able.  How????? Where do i get this?????  Reading, responding, THINKING!  So far I am seeing it, i really am; at the same time I have to say the extended free-writes so far have been average-ish, not the quality I am hoping to see in your writing this year.  I mean they are good... just not great!  REDO!!!! We wont have class time for it but please-please-please take advantage of ABC Not Yet! Im collecting them today, should grade them within 2 days and have them back to you.

Tomorrow is the exam, I expect 100% across the board.

Kashmir - We begin discussion of Kashmir, we will research, write and get deep... I cant wait to see how they do.

Questions???

World History-- Any questions comments or concerns regarding your essays?  Post them here for responses.  They seem to be getting started very well and i am extremely excited to read them!