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Blog To Watch: Awaiting Tenure

By • January 30, 2008 • 7 Comments

Damn but it’s the rare ed-blogger who can write the classroom anecdote well. TMAO’s got it. Jackie’s got it. Granted it’s something of a disgraceful genre (cousin to the airport paperback thriller) but I don’t know many bloggers on my reading list who can put me there, who don’t default to the overly-familiar indicators of happiness and frustration.

Awaiting Tenure’s got it.

“It can’t be 7:14 a.m.,” I thought to myself. “It’s too light outside.” I re-read the clock, correctly this time. 7:44 a.m.

Stupor over. I threw on yesterday’s shirt, socks and pants, and rushed out the door.

As I told a friend of mine this story, she looked at me with a look on her face that said, “I’m polite and pretending to pay attention. This is boring, but I don’t want to hurt your feelings.”

I gave her an out. She took it.

It’s kinda disappointing once you realize that the excitingest, heart-thumpingest part of your day is realizing you didn’t set your alarm the previous night.

Dunno if this month-old blogger’s ready for the big show but he’s worth reading, certainly, and, depending on your tolerance for airport paperback thrillers, a subscription, maybe.

Other Awaiting Tenure Posts:

Unexamined Idolatry

By • January 29, 2008 • 6 Comments

Dina Strasser on Jeff’s voluntary withdrawl of tech from his classroom:

He has the right to refuse ill-supported tech; or obtuse tech; or irrelevant tech; or redundant tech; or tech whose outcomes have not been measured sufficiently enough to warrant its judicious use in a classroom by a thoughtful teacher.

And let me tell you: blogger and Twitterer and 1:1 lab-er and Goggle Doc-er and Webinar-er and Voicethreader and Skyper and nascent info designer though I may be, I’m beginning to suspect that the ed tech world is rife with the stuff enumerated in [the paragraph quoted here]. I’ve never in my life seen a phrase like “but it’s the 21st century” get more unexamined idolatry.

Albums To Be Ashamed Of

By • January 29, 2008 • 5 Comments

I’d been compiling a post over the course of this school year entitled “Albums I’ve Played For My Classes (And Not Pissed Them Off)” which would cover ground you can probably predict. But then my first semester surveys came back and, like, five kids, responding to the question, “What about this class would you change for next semester?” wrote:

Don’t play lame music.

And I scrapped the post.

Second Semester Seating Chart

By • January 29, 2008 • 10 Comments

Though I’ve maintained an entirely lax seating policy this year, I told them I was bored with the configuration, which had been constant since August. I told them to pack up, go outside, and wait near the door.

I walked outside and tossed out some mental arithmetic:

  • What’s 5 + 4 + 3 + 2 + 1?
  • What’s 5 – 4 – 3 – 2 – 1?
  • How many quarters are in $7.50?
  • What is the only state that grows coffee?

As students tossed hands up and answered questions correctly, I let them grab a friend and pick any seat inside.

As far as meaningful assessment goes, I doubt Bloom would approve. As far as seating selection goes, it’s my favorite.

[meekly pickpocketing my high school math teacher, Sid Bishop]

No Country For Old Teachers

By • January 29, 2008 • 24 Comments

No Country For Old Men recently opened a bag full of Oscar nominations, all deserved. Not only is it the most suspenseful movie American cinema has produced in years but Joel & Ethan Coen tightened their movie down without the usual horror soundtrack schlock – loud scratches, loud shrieks, and loud strings – deploying nothing more than this low, resonant murmur.

Their rationale, followed by its application to teaching:

“Suspense thrillers in Hollywood are traditionally done almost entirely with music,” [sound editor Skip Lievsay] said. “The idea here was to remove the safety net that lets the audience feel like they know what’s going to happen. I think it makes the movie much more suspenseful. You’re not guided by the score and so you lose that comfort zone.” [emph. added]

When you remove some scaffolding from your routine, you determine quickly if it was a) essential or b) a low-cost substitution for the essential. I’m noticing this everywhere lately.

  • slide animations (wipes, fly-ins, checkerboards, etc.) are a cheap sub for arresting visuals;
  • classroom rules are a cheap sub for a classroom well-managed;
  • jargon is a cheap sub for authority;
  • profanity is a cheap sub for articulated emotion;
  • sophisticated words are a cheap sub for sophisticated ideas;
  • machismo is a cheap sub for masculinity;
  • “i love you” is a cheap sub for a ride to the airport and a note in the bag;
  • technology used is a cheap sub for technology used well;
  • meaningless assessment is a cheap sub for meaningful assessment;
  • years and units is a cheap sub for a teacher’s worth;
  • supervision is a cheap sub for mentoring (submitted by jethro);
  • group work is a cheap sub for collaboration (submitted by TheInfamousJ);

These cheap substitutes (cansophisticated words and sophisticated ideas (eg.) can coexist. obviously these examples are highly situation-dependent.) lead us to believe we’ve filled a difficult prescription and performed our due diligence when in fact we are nowhere close.

Contributions and exceptions to this list are (as ever) welcome in the comments.

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