I've written about my 6th period class a bit in previous posts.  They've been doing projects on an area of humour that we have not studied together.  

Today, we had a study in contrasts.

The first group started presenting on Friday, but because of some administrative tasks, they weren't able to finish.  Their presentation was about stand-up comedy.  More on them in a minute.

The second presentation group covered ten types of humour, with some examples.  Here is what they did (see if you recognise it):

1. Gave a handout with ten definitions of types of humour (slapstick, parody, satire, etc.).
  
2. Read the definitions off the PowerPoint (exact replica of the handouts).  Around the third slide, they lost the audience.  When the audience started to recognise that the presenters did not fully understand everything they were teaching, the audience responded by asking questions.  It started with factual questions - does that include x? What does y mean? - and progressed to more chatter than actual questions.  The audience actually seemed frustrated to not be learning and resentful of the waste of their class time.

3. At this point, the group rushed through the last few slides so they could get to the videos.  They hadn't made them hyperlinks, so they had to manually copy/paste them into another browser window.  Several members of the audience shouted at them to do control-click.  They either didn't hear or chose not to listen.

4. When they finally had the video ready, they didn't give context.  Just pressed play.

5. Less than half of the audience was paying attention.  They continued regardless.

6. After the first clip, they asked students to write their answer to the comprehension question on the back of the handout.  They had only made enough for each group to have one.  So they told the students to do it as a group.

7. Then they showed a second clip and gave them a second comprehension question.  

8. As class was about to end, they just went back to their seats and told students to "turn in the papers or something."

Is it their fault that their presentation wasn't effective in teaching the students, or engaging their attention?  Not necessarily.  They haven't been trained in how to present information, and have been less than attentive for much of the semester.  

Their presentation was the first one from that class that was anything less than mind-blowing (like producing a comedy video, leading an improv workshop, analysing memes about Marin...all fantastic and very funny).  For a student presentation, it certainly wasn't bad.  Yes, they committed some presentation sins (technical problems, reading off the PowerPoint, not being fully prepared, not keeping the audience engaged, etc.) but they met the requirements set out in the assignment.  They are decent students who are just not terribly engaged in school, and despite having the freedom to choose an elective, ended up in one they enjoyed but didn't really connect to.

**

It had been so different with the first group.  When they finished, I was astonished to realise that they hadn't just learned the tools of humour analysis.

They had learned effective lesson structure.

They had unknowingly used Explore Flip Apply - the same structure I have used to teach them all semester.

I didn't tell them my structure, and so certainly never encouraged them to follow it.

But here's the lesson they presented:

Explore:
Students were directed to a bitly address that took them to a collaborative google doc.  The presentation group asked them to write a joke - any joke.  It didn't even have to be funny.  They watched and laughed as their classmates entered jokes anonymously (since it was a public link, they didn't need to sign in....an intentional move by the group to let people have the freedom to be experimental).

Flip:
The group then presented a few techniques used by stand-up comedians, such as timing, exaggeration, and exploration of the unexpected.  They solicited feedback from the audience to clarify their misconceptions, and posed a few questions to check their understanding.  They showed several clips (since they ran out of time, they assigned one as homework - the "Hot Pockets" Jim Gaffigan routine - best. homework. ever.) and asked the students to identify some of the elements used, as well as analyse their effectiveness as humour tools.

Apply:
Finally, they had students go back to the google doc and look at their own joke again.  They asked them to revise their joke to add some of the elements.  Then they asked students to come up to the front and tell their joke as a stand-up routine, and then asked the audience to analyse the techniques used.  Four students volunteered and shared, and several more would have shared had there been time.

Finally, we did our Seminar Assessment reflection questions (which they had helpfully included in their presentation, even without it being required), where the group listened to the feedback respectfully.  They even offered some additional materials to let advanced learners find out more.

**

They Explore-Flip-Applied a presentation, on their own.  And it was as (if not more) effective than what I've taught them.

So how is it that one group was so successful, and the other group wasn't?  

Was it because of the strength of the relationship built with their classmates through discussions, seminars, and collaborative group work?  Sure.  The second group spent more time checking Facebook on their phone than participating in class.

Was it having clear passion for the subject and an intense desire to communicate that to their peers?  Absolutely.  The second group were far less attached to their topic than the first.

Was it having the necessary toolkit of skills?  Yes.  The second group struggles to think critically and write effectively.

Or was it because the first group took responsibility for their learning, and had ownership, and the second group didn't?

I think that's the key point.  All of the other things were essential to getting them there - relationships, passion, skills - but when they took ownership and had pride in their work, they naturally gravitated to the instructional technique they had learned first-hand from me.  And while the second group learned something, it was the first group that had really been transformed.

This presentation wasn't just something they did.  It became who they are.

And they don't need a grade to prove they learned something.

Nor do I need a test to prove that I taught something.

And now that I have a fresh start coming in a few weeks, I'm afraid that I won't be able to repeat this kind of awesomeness.  It's daunting to see the final product and think about starting over.

But maybe next semester, there won't be a second group.

"But, I just don't understand how you're grading them."

My mentor teacher (all employees new to the district gets one, regardless of experience) had just visited my class unannounced to watch my Language of Humour students present their final projects.  They had selected a text (this group chose a Brian Regan standup clip over which someone had done stick-figure animations), developed a discussion around audience and purpose, and created a writing assignment.  The group that presented engaged the audience and had well-developed activities.

They had some flaws - a few times, the presenters got into a conversation about what they liked about the video instead of paying attention to what the rest of the students in the room were doing.  I LOVED that they were so passionate about it, although I would have loved for them to channel that more into the discussion.  But what came shining through is their passion, their analytical ability, and their willingness to bring their classmates into discussion.  It was pretty cool to watch.

Before their presentation started, one group had a question about the writing activity - I asked each group to collect and grade the work completed during their presentation.  That's all the guidelines I gave them.  Most groups did full credit or no credit (a reflection of how most things are graded when I am doing the grading) without asking what/how they were supposed to do.  But a student in the group who had presented the previous class period wanted to know HOW he was to grade the work.  I told him to grade it however he liked - five points, a million points, whatever.  I trusted him and his group to be fair.

And as I was talking to my mentor teacher, he just couldn't understand two things:

1. How they were grading each other
2. How I was grading them

As I listened to his questions, I realised something:

My students never asked how (or even if) this would be graded.  In the two weeks they had been working on it, grades had never come up once.


My mentor just couldn't comprehend how that was possible.  How students could be motivated to do their work without some kind of accountability grade-wise.  How I didn't have a plan for how I would translate their performance into grades.

So I thought quickly: what would I want if I were a student presenting this information?

I would want to know my successes and failures.  I would want to know how effective the teacher believed my presentation to be at delivering the learning objectives.  

I would want a narrative.  Not a letter grade.  Not a rubric.

So I decided I would give them a narrative.  I'm a little obsessed with this right now, and I'm going to write some narratives in that style for my students.  Depending on how it goes, I may post a few of them here.  

I know some people will question what I'll actually put in the gradebook, as we still live in a point-based, letter grade world.  To be perfectly honest, most of them will probably get full credit.  The only ones who will receive less than full credit and the presentations that didn't include all required elements.  So far, every presentation has met all the requirements.  I don't feel like playing a game of "well, you lost two points for not looking up when you spoke" or "I know you chose a writing topic, but it could have been better so I'm taking off five points."  

They will still get feedback on their areas of strengths and weaknesses.  But their grade will reflect that they learned a lot, and helped their classmates learn something new. 

This is as close to a letter-grade-free world as I can get.

**

My mentor teacher didn't like my answer.  He wanted me to have a rubric.  Assign points.  Do something that was quantifiable.  

But what is going to make my students grow more?  What is going to develop their ability to own their learning?  

What will they remember more: a letter grade or a personal letter?

I know what I would want.

And what I am MOST proud of: the fact that the grade doesn't matter.  It doesn't matter to them, it doesn't matter to me.

So why should it matter to anyone else?

I keep expecting this project to fail.  Turning over the final month of class to my students is something that scares me.  I actually have had a few mini-panic attacks about planning for that class - until I remember that I'm not planning for them anymore.  My job is just to show up, guide, and get out of the way.

Right now, I have a full class in the computer lab.  They are all working.  Every one of them.  Considering what text to use, preparing presentation notes, writing questions that will engage discussion, and preparing the assessment that will judge whether or not they presented effectively.

And that's the issue that came up at the start of class.  

One of my students asked: "Do we have to make this about humour?"

My immediate reaction was no, because humour can be drawn from nearly every subject.  But then I realised: I shouldn't be the one answering the questions.

If the students are truly taking responsibility, they need to decide on the answer to that question.  It sparked a debate, where they finally decided that, so long as it was different enough from what we've done so far, they could have a broad mandate as to potential topics.

Then I reminded them that they would be the ones assessing each other.  So the discussion transitioned into being about how they would do that in a fair and equitable way.  At first, they were scared.  

Would I override the students, should their grade not be fair?
What if their presentation was intended to be funny but wasn't - would they fail?
What if they aren't confident presenters?  Would that matter?

So I just kept turning the conversation over to them.  I told them I had no intention of overriding grades, unless something went really, really wrong.  And that I didn't expect that to happen.

As we continued to talk about how they should assess each other, I realised something I should have done from the beginning: 

They need to write the rubric.

Here's what they said about how to assess these activities:

• Grades can't be based on whether or not it's funny. 
• Grades should in part be about authentic passion towards and effort to clearly communicate the subject
• Grades should measure what the audience learned, not what the group thought they were teaching

It was one of those moments you don't believe actually happened.  Did my students just articulate clearly the philosophy that Andrew and I set out to implement?  Where the letter grade was far less important than the amount they learned, and where the motivation for learning would be student-driven, not teacher-driven.  Where they were graded on mastery, not completion.

On Thursday, they will write their rubric and we'll make final decisions about how that all works.  

I know a lot of good teachers who would have realised all of this a lot sooner - they would have immediately asked students to develop a rubric, manage discussion, sign up for presentations, etc.  But I'm new at this.  I ran a more traditional teacher-centred classroom for a long time, and the times I tried to get my students to take responsibility for their learning were spectacular failures.  

Flipping my class gave me the tools, the equation, the alchemy of collaboration - and that allowed me to change my class entirely, to the point that my students can run nearly a month's worth of class sessions on their own.

My job is to sit back and get out of their way.  

And you know what's most exciting?  

I get to learn from them.

Last week, I wrote about the struggles Andrew and I are having with our Flipped Classes.  We have several plans underway to deal with those issues.

One is to talk to people smarter than us.  There's a great chance that some of that conversation will end up being in a video we can share publicly. 

One was to start, or prepare to start, new units, none of which we had ready beyond a vague description and texts.   The overwhelming nature of the number of preps we have that are totally brand new, along with the sheer number of students (I have 155! I've never had that many! I now know all their names...after six weeks!) means that grading and planning are really overwhelming.  More on that in a bit.

But the Real Change needed to happen with us.

For Andrew, we instituted more structure.  Instead of giving students self-paced work time, we put routines in place and drew it back to only semi-self-paced.  The desk arrangement changed.  The new unit was put on hold until we could make sure students had learned all the things they needed to learn in the first unit.

But my Special Skillz are in implementing routine, structure, lesson planning, and classroom management.  So we worked to get those in place.

For my students, it was mostly about me and the personality I wasn't allowing to show in the classroom.  I realised just how little the kids knew about me.  That may not seem like a big deal, but in a flipped class built on collaboration, it was killing everything I was trying to do.

Just how much that was affecting my students became clear when I did a simple activity with them.

I wrote a short memoir this summer, and part of it was based on describing photographs in a way that built a narrative.  So I pulled a piece of that as a model for an activity my Essay Ex class was doing.  I didn't tell them it was mine at first.  I was shaking I was so nervous about it.  If it hadn't been for Andrew, I would have never shared it.

And they had nothing bad to say.  They said it was beautifully written and the imagery was great, and that it showed depth of emotion.  And I was scared to death to tell them it was mine.  It felt...weird.  When I told them it was mine, they were taken aback.  I could tell that even that small thing raised my ethos as a writer, and made me a Real Person instead of a benevolent taskmaster.  Several students, for the first time ever, stayed behind to talk to me after class and ask about the picture I had written about.

*****

For many reasons, sharing my personality with my students is not something I do much of anymore.  Sure, I joke with them and show genuine interest in them and give them advice when they ask for it.  But they don't know much about my personal life.  I love them, and they like and respect me.  But they don't know where I went to college, why there are posters and art from South Africa covering the walls of my room, or why I occasionally wear an migratory engagement ring on various fingers. 

And that's not good enough.

That's not how I started my career.  I'm not saying I told them everything in my personal life, but I did tell them stories, and shared my own hopes, dreams, aspirations, etc. with them.  

And when that didn't go down well with certain people at my first school, I was forced to reevaluate how much I told students about myself; as a result, I retreated into a persona I didn't much like - a Sage on the Stage, who could answer any question...as long as it wasn't personal.

And now that I've reevaluated again, I can see just how much all of that was really hiding - people told me I was "too close" to my students and I was so afraid of that being true that I made it Not True. 

I'm not saying that our job is to air our issues in front of our students (nothing bothers me as much as a teacher who forces their stories on bored kids who are pretending to listen intently so they can check Facebook instead of doing class), but they need to know us and invest in us personally.

One of the things I am most grateful to have learned from Andrew is that relationship is the centre of everything we do.  Our work together is built on a solid foundation of friendship, and without that friendship, we wouldn't be attempting something as crazy as team-teaching from a continent apart.  And one of Andrew's many Special Skillz is that relationship is the heart of his classroom.  He is an amazing creator of classroom community.  His students love him, and you can feel that in his classroom, even just through Google hangout.  He makes them feel valued, cared about, and respected.  And he doesn't do it by becoming their BFF or talking about his personal life ad nauseum.  

He is just himself.

And his encouragement (both to share my writing with my students and in general) and friendship has taught me so much about how to build community in my flipped class.  It's not the same as when I first started: at 21, I didn't know exactly what was over-sharing and what was under-sharing.  I didn't know how to be myself and be their teacher.  So I just stopped being myself just in case I accidentally "did it wrong."

And Andrew has taught me how to do it right.

And you know what?  When I changed, my class changed.  

Now, my students have always been intrinsically-motivated, high-achieving, genuinely fun kids.  Which just proves how much I am the problem.

And here's the most amazing thing:  I just so happened to find someone who had all the Special Skillz I lacked, and who lacked many of my Special Skillz.  And we just so happened to both have the same educational goals.  And we just so happened to decide to throw in our lots together before we knew just how much we needed each other to become better teachers and better people.

And we just so happened to start to model in our own lives exactly what we want for our students: a collegial partnership that gives you what you need, even when you didn't know you needed it.  A collaborator who is good at everything you're not.  A friend who is not scared to tell you the truth, even when you really don't want to hear it.

I had no idea how isolated and lonely teaching had been until it just wasn't anymore.  

****

Now, I'm not saying we have things figured out.  It's a long road, but I feel like we've finally stopped searching for the trail and have found purchase, not only on A trail, but on the RIGHT trail.

And we had some absolutely amazing days in class.  Here's a brief description of what we're doing in each class, with some links.  As always, take and use, but please credit Andrew and I if you do.


SAX Playlist
(that's what is sounds like when you say Essay Ex too many times, short for Essay Exposition)
Students read three atypical narratives: 1) How to Become a Writer (fiction), 2) Under Water (creative non-fiction), and 3) In the Ruins of the Future (expository).  They found repeated words, which we developed into pattern groups, and used those to analyse the features of a narrative.  They are now preparing for a seminar on the questions (available on the playlist in the documents that go with each text).  Then they will look at some descriptive/observation narratives and do the same.  It will culminate in them writing their own atypical narratives.

Language of Humour Playlist
We finished reading most of David Sedaris' book Me Talk Pretty One Day, and watching several episodes of South Park to determine how comedians take something that is Not Funny and turn it into Very Funny.  We watched Monty Python's Search for the Holy Grail and blogged about how they used the toolkit we developed.  Each class did an inquiry unit to figure out what made something funny. (3rd period 6th period)

Now, we're reading Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and comparing it to the Radio Drama to figure out how characters are created in different mediums.  We will also read Good Country People and figure out how to create vivid, funny characters.  They will end the unit by writing a narrative with vivid, funny characters, and will translate it into two different genres to show how genre shapes a text.


American Literature Playlist
We just started Their Eyes Were Watching God.  A book I had never read before.  Or taught.  But that Andrew LOVES.  So far, we have been focusing on two things: literal plot and the role of women in the novel.  Andrew and I did our first close reading on video, where he talks intelligently and I smile and nod a lot.  I love teaching this book because it's something that Andrew is genuinely passionate about and that came out in the video for sure.

I also have recorded myself reading (not that I'm great at it) so students can get used to the dialect used.  All those videos are in the playlist.   At the end of the unit, students will be analysing characters in the novel in a full-length literary analysis essay.  We will also be doing a Socratic Seminar fairly soon to discuss the view on love and marriage and sex in the text,


If you made it this far, well done!  I'm not sure how I end up writing so much every time, but there's just so much to talk about.  I really, really love what I do.

Other cool stuff I'll write about eventually:

• all the guest blog posts we've written lately and have coming up
• visiting the Twitter HQ and working with a committee to help the local PBS affiliate come up with best practices for using technology in the classroom
• the webinar we're doing for Mentor Mob about collaboration
• the upcoming Flipped Class Open House
• presenting about Blank White Page at CVCUE with Karl Lindgren-Streicher and Andrew (Andrew virtually, of course)
• getting to go to NCTE's national conference in Vegas with 5 members of my department
• ideas for flipping novel units, now that we've actually started doing it
• profit?

Andrew and I have worked incredibly hard this year to make our team-teaching a success.  We spend hours planning over G+ Hangout, or in Google Drive documents, and we are pretty proud of what we've accomplished.  None of the material in our first unit was anything we had ever taught (with the exception of one of the short texts each).

We also believe in open source, free materials for teachers.  We do not intend to ever sell our materials.  We want to give them away for free with the caveat that you give us credit for the work.  We, by no means, want to present the material as if we think it's perfect - it's not.  There are lots of changes we will make when we teach it next (since we both have new students at the semester, it will be January-February when we teach it again).

But for now, here is the unit - complete with planning documents and links to every assignment, text, grading rubric, and warm-up.  If something is listed but doesn't appear, let us know and we'll fix it right away!  Almost all of the links are through Mentor Mob, since that's where we store our student playlists.

I hope you find it useful.  It's been amazing to plan and teach, and we hope that others can use some of the ideas we have developed here.

Here is the information from the document linked above:


The Master List of Unit 1 Resources
Andrew Thomasson and Cheryl Morris

Planning Documents:
Original Unit Plan (with full assignment descriptions, although a bit different from what we ended up teaching)
Skills Map (Thomasson’s iteration)  
Morris’ iterations: 1 2 (Morris modified her maps from the main document)

Playlists:
Weeks 1-3 (Morris)   
Weeks 1-2 (Thomasson)    
Smoke in Our Lights (both)    
Weeks 3-6 (both)

Unit Goals:

1. Introducing students to the technical processes they need for the class
2. Easing them into the flipped class part - how to watch video, how asynchronous instruction works, how mastery grading works, etc.
3. Familiarise them with the patterning strategy and why we use it
4. Making inferences based on evidence
5. Constructing a definition, both in narrative and informational writing
6. Collaborate with peers on a variety of tasks, and differentiate that from doing Group Work.

Essential questions:

• What is a flipped class, and how does OUR flipped class work?
• What goes into a good definition, and how does that differ based on genre and purpose?
• What is the best way to collaborate, and how is that different from cooperative learning/group work?
• What is a pattern and how do those patterns build meaning in a text?
• How do you access meaning beyond the literal/surface level?

Since our classes are asynchronous much of the time, this is mostly a suggested pacing, and is close to our actual pacing.  It took Morris six weeks, with about 240 minutes per week (11th-12th graders), and it took Thomasson four and a half weeks, with about 450 minutes per week (10th graders).  Please use any resources freely, so long as you give us credit for our work.

Every year, I have the same anticipation leading up to the school year.  There are unlimited ideas and possibilities.

And then we hit week 4.

And I'm suddenly aware of how much less I can actually do than I wanted and planned to do.  And that silences me. 

So I stop blogging, just in case someone can read in between the lines at how much I'm failing.  

I stop going on Twitter, just in case someone asks me how things are going and I have to tell the truth.

Colleagues stop me in the hallway, and I tell them that "I'm fine" - which is a total lie.  Because I can't tell them the truth:  I'm afraid that what I'm doing isn't good enough.

I start hiding.

I ignore the evidence that learning is happening and that students are making connections between what we're doing and what I want them to learn.  I ignore the opinion of the person who knows my classroom and curriculum better than I do and believes in me far more than I believe in me.  I ignore the parents who left my room on Back to School Night telling me how "inspired" they felt and how "exciting" it was to hear about flipped class and blank white page and all the other amazing things we're doing.

I ignore all of that.  Because the voice in my head keeps telling me it's Not. Good. Enough.  And that voice turns into a chorus of every bad experience from my eight previous years in the classroom - from overbearing principals, to judgemental colleagues, to critical students.

That's The Narrative.  The voice in my head that repeats every negative thing anyone has said about me, my classroom, and my educational beliefs.  The voice of colleagues who never ran out of things to complain about.  The voice of administrators who just didn't get what I was doing.

The Narrative says that I'm failing.  And for eight years, I had no idea how to stop it.

But now I do.

****

Now, I don't think a reflective teacher can ever stop believing The Narrative entirely, because it comes with wanting to do a great job and knowing that it is impossible.  The classroom has too many variables, there is too little time, and there is always too much we want to do.  We want to change the lives of our students.  We want to make a difference.

And we do.

But life change doesn't happen overnight.  It's a series of small decisions, small actions, small words.  And when we show up every day and put our heart and effort and time into teaching our students everything we can, we change their lives...in small increments.  Trust and community are not built overnight, and no amount of wishing or planning can make them appear.  

The only thing that can build trust and community is love.  Love for our students, love for our curriculum, and love for our profession.  It is the only thing that can change anything.

Love is the only thing that can stop The Narrative.  

I know that sounds a little like I'm singing Kumbyah while holding hands with fairies and dancing around Stonehenge.  

And frankly, I don't care.  

Love is wanting your friends and colleagues to succeed so much that it's more important than your own success.  And paradoxically, having so many people to root for has made me more successful as a teacher than ever before.  And with that many people cheering for me, I can't hide.  

Having so many people on my team means that it's impossible to let The Narrative win.

I have colleagues at Redwood who check in on me to make sure I'm okay.  Before Back to School Night, I had over half the department come to see me to give me advice and see if I needed any help.

I have students who work hard and make me want to work even harder.  Who write about the tragedies that shaped them in a completely open and honest way.  Who can't quite believe that I really mean what I say about there being "no anxiety" in my classroom.

I have administrators who go out of their way to understand what I'm doing and support me so I can continue to do my job.

I have friends in the #flipclass community who give me advice, send me resources, and offer support when I need it.

And best of all, I'm team-teaching with Andrew Thomasson, and he won't let me fail.  He also knows me well enough to see when I'm letting The Narrative take over a little too much and he Won't Let The Narrative Win.  The impact Andrew has had on my classroom and my life is a little ridiculous.  It's been postulated in the #flipclass community that we may even be the same person.  

I can't help but be overwhelmed to have so much support, especially in a profession where isolation is just the accepted reality.  I have never had so many people cheering for me.  All of those things are small decisions that people make, and that adds up to a transformation in who I am as a teacher, as well as how much power The Narrative has over me.

When you have that many people who care about you, it's impossible to close your door and pray that no one notices how much you're failing.  

So it's time to Flip The Narrative:

You can't do this alone.  And when you're not alone, and you have people who love you and root for you, you can't fail.  And when it feels like you are ready to give up and shut up and admit defeat, you look at all the small decisions people have made to show how much they care.  And that's enough to keep going.

In the Flipped Narrative, we all win:
Our students get the best version of us we have.
Our colleagues get the passion and excitement we have for our classroom.
Our PLN gets more resources, more support, and more of us.
And we get people to help us recognise all the small decisions we make every day, and how those decisions are a far better measure of our success than The Narrative would like us to believe.

So flipping my classroom really has changed my life...in small increments.  

And it's Not Over Yet.

The way Andrew and I have been teaching is new for our students.

It's new for us, for that matter.

It's not the Teacher Lectures and Student Studies the Textbook paradigm.  And our students really struggled with the transition.

So I decided to ask them what they were learning in my class.  We've been working on these three playlists.

I wasn't expecting much because it really seems like they weren't "getting it" and making the right connections.

Here were the results for the topic:

What are you learning in this class?  What do you think we want you to know/be able to do?


Wordle (all classes combined)

Original notes from the 1st period discussion:

Sorry it's not super legible.  The check marks indicate when another group said something that was already up there.

I'm really proud of them.  

They ARE learning! :-)

And if those next 179 days are as amazing as the first two, it's going to be a hell of a year.  

I didn't start off by telling them about the flipped classroom.

I didn't even start off by showing them a video.

We didn't use much technology.

I gave them a Blank White Page, and they wrote questions on one side, answered one question from me (Who are you?) on the other, and took two pictures.

And the coolest thing that happened was that by 3rd period, kids came in talking about how excited their friends had been after leaving my first two classes.  I had numerous colleagues, including several in the SPED department, tell me that kids had raved about how good my class was.

And that was just the first day.

Today we had LOTS of technical difficulties, but we managed to work through most of the playlist I had set up.  I even have some kids done with it entirely.  Like completely done.  With all 10 assignments they've had over two days.  And no one is behind.  Work ahead, but don't get behind is working.  So far.

I will post more thoughts when I have time, but I seriously can't believe that they pay me to work at this school.  Unreal.

I don't know a single teacher who hasn't, deep down, wondered if they were doing a good job.  I don't know a single good teacher who doesn't think that constantly.

Some doubt that more than others.  In fact, some of the best teachers believe that they are failures, and wonder if they even should be in the profession at all.

I stake no claim for being a great teacher; I've never been happy with the job I'm doing in my classroom.  For years, I've masked it with a completely fictitious act of over-confidence or with a tendency towards perfectionism (the socially acceptable form of always feeling not-quite-good-enough).  But deep down, it's there.  Lurking, rearing up whenever I feel most vulnerable.

It's the blessing and curse of the reflective teacher: you are always thinking about how to make your classroom better, but you're always struck by just how far you have to go before you are where you want to be.  It's an exhausting place to be in, emotionally, physically, and professionally.

And while I don't trust teachers who say their class is perfect, I also don't trust teachers who say they are doing a bad job.  Because here's the thing:

Learning is messy.  Teaching is messy.  Life is messy.

When we hide that, we hide the reality of who we are and what we do.  In a weird way, we have to show how much of a mess we are to show what a good job we're actually doing.  And in a flipped class, if your class is not a little chaotic then it's not truly student-centred.

Part of the partnership Andrew and I have built is on the premise that we never "hide the mess" - from each other or from our students.  We believe that it's essential to show students how we fail and then try again and then fail again and then eventually (maybe) succeed.  We want them to see us fail because it shows them how NORMAL it is, and that the acceptable response is not to give up, but to get up.  To slip and not be buried.  To fight and not be defeated.

In any educational movement, including the flipped class movement, there are people held up as "experts," but here's what I have learned: there are no experts.  We are all constantly learning, and if we stop learning, we stagnate.  And if we stagnate, we become irrelevant and ineffective...which is death to the classroom, and certainly does not an expert make.

While I see the value in there being people who are willing to put their information out there (I am a blogger who claims to know something about teaching in a flipped English class, after all), I think it's also vital to stop perpetuating the myth that they are (and I am) doing an amazing job and should be revered and held in awe. 

Put even more bluntly: if you don't show me your mess, I'll assume you're lying or irrelevant.  Because the mess is there, whether I can see it or not.

Some of us have been lucky enough to have had some of the mess cleaned up by years at good schools.  That's where I'm coming from.  I went from being a broken teacher, disillusioned with teaching and with everything that wasn't about the relationship between me and my students, to someone who was suddenly a valued and respected colleague.  It helped me clean up my metaphorical living room, even if the rest of my house was still a mess.

But San Lorenzo was the school that taught me how much I had to give and how much I actually stole from my colleagues by not sharing with them.  It was there that I first learned that in the act of sharing your curriculum, you actually are sharing your mess alongside your ideas.  And when it isn't thrown back in your face, but rather taken and made better just by the act of sharing and collaboration, you start to wonder why you held back for so long.

There is a concept very close to my heart that drives at this same idea.  It derives from the Bantu word, "ubuntu."  It is the South African driving principle that affirms that, "I am who I am because we are." People are people THROUGH other people.  There is no such thing as being alone.  We are all interconnected, and as such, we must act accordingly.  We may not see the ties that bind us together, but that doesn't mean that they are not there.

In America, we've never really had this concept, let alone valued it the way my South African friends do.  In fact, it's so foreign to us that we are genuinely surprised when people make choices that are not in their own self-interest.  And yet, according to ubuntu, acting in the interest of others IS acting in self interest, because when someone else is exalted or esteemed, we all are exalted and esteemed.

On the flip side, when one teacher is disillusioned and broken, we are ALL disillusioned and broken.

And that is the state most of us are in.  Is it any wonder that schools are so broken and students are so disillusioned?

And yet.  By showing all of you the mess underneath my thin veneer of competence, I'm hoping to give you some hope that by embracing the mess that is our lives and profession, we can become something better together than we can alone.

Andrew and I named this blog Ion Lucidity, partially as a joke.  

But we were recording a few nights ago, and suddenly, it didn't feel like a joke anymore.  As weird as this sounds, it became the exact phrase we needed to explain what had happened in a single moment.

I'll back up a little bit.

We had spent hours planning a complicated shoot that included topics on which neither of us are experts.  When we started filming, my physical exhaustion and his mental exhaustion was palpable.  I can hardly watch the footage because of how present that exhaustion is.  

After about 20 minutes, we did our typical stop and check-in to see what else we still needed to cover.  And we did something that we do far more than work:  we just talked as friends.  It was an attempt, for a few minutes at least, to try to hold on to our last bit of sanity.  Through that conversation, it became clear we needed to start the recording over from the beginning (this is something that happens regularly in our partnership...which explains the many, many 13 GB Camtasia files on my hard drive).

So we started over.  And that's when it happened: we reached Ion Lucidity.  The ethereal moment when we went from exhaustion to clarity, solely through the act of conversation and collaboration.

Here is something I know: We are so much better together than we are alone.  By working together, we have ideas that are better than any either of us had alone.  It starts from incoherent rambling and flowers into something neither of us expected or imagined.  

And not only are we lucky enough to work with each other, we have been so fortunate as to find other like-minded educators to share our mess with us. 

But what I barely understand is that they care so much that they refuse to leave it that way.  They jump in and help figure out how to make the mess visible, and by doing so, exorcise it for good.  To loosely quote the Avett Brothers,  they love me for the person I'll become, not the person that I am.  That is something beautiful and incomprehensible.

Here is something else I know: the only word other than Ion Lucidity that makes this concept make sense is ubuntu.  

And here is what I believe more than anything: There is a magical quality to collaboration that allows you to be so much greater than the sum of your parts.  It allows you to see what was obscured when you tried to view it alone.  It pushes you beyond where you could ever imagine going.  It supports you when you feel like you will be crushed under the self-doubt and failure.  It reminds you that you are never a failure...it is just your mess becoming visible.

And it is there that we are most powerful: When your mess is visible to the world, people recognise their own mess in the midst of yours and it becomes okay to show theirs too.  And by the simple act of sharing, you are living ubuntu; the ties that bind you to everyone else go from being invisible to being so obvious you wonder how you've missed them for so long.

And you wonder how you ever lived without seeing them, because your life is so much more rich and full than you could have ever imagined.

Call it collaboration, call it Ion Lucidity, call it ubuntu...it doesn't matter.  It replaces that deeply held belief that you're not doing well enough with something even better: the realisation that when you AREN'T good enough, there are people who will love you anyway, and will help you be far better than good enough.

I've been in a frenzy of collaboration in the last few days.  First, I participated in a webinar with other English/Social Studies flippers: Troy Cockrum, Andrew Thomasson, Karl Lindgren-Streicher, and moderator and blogging-flipping-extraordinaire, Math flipper Crystal Kirch.  Kate Petty tried to join us on video, but due to technical difficulties wasn't able to be there the whole time. She did participate in the comments and wrote up some blog posts afterward that were really helpful to clarify and crystalise the thinking behind flipping English. 

We screencasted the entire webinar so anyone could watch it.  Here it is!

I've also been working intensely on a definition for what Flipped Humanities is and should be.  Andrew Thomasson and I will be recording a video about it soon, based on the five page (in-progress) collaborative Google document we developed with Karl Lindgren-Streicher.  

It's one of the coolest things I've done.  Karl and I started it with nothing, and within an hour, we had argued (in different colour text, obviously) back and forth and clarified our thinking and come to something that I think is the most clear and well-composed definition I've seen.  It's about 90% there, and still needs some work, but you'll hear more from Andrew and me about that soon.

It also came out of the debrief we had after the webinar and a conversation that started on Twitter the day after the webinar, and included Kate Baker, as well as the others mentioned above.  

Working with the people I've been blessed enough to meet through Twitter and the Flipped community is making me a better teacher, and giving me SO many great ideas and projects that it's just staggering.  I want to publicly thank everyone I've mentioned so far, for making me a more reflective teacher and helping me bring my ideas to life.  I also credit you guys for most of those ideas because they wouldn't exist without the collaboration we've shared.

More than anyone else though, I want to thank Andrew for the role he's played in my life the past few weeks.  It is an intense privilege to have him as a collaborative partner, and I have learned so much from him, both professionally and personally.  I can't say thank you to him enough, really.  None of this would be possible without you, homie.

Something else Andrew and I have been working on all week is the video Jon Bergmann asked us to make describing our collaborative video process.  We shot the original footage on Monday.  On Wednesday, after spending about 15 hours editing, not to mention the original 3 hour shoot, we decided it wasn't good enough and started over...even though it was VERY late in North Carolina.  That footage can't even compare to the original.  It's so much better, probably because we did what we do best: make an explicit plan, then ignore that plan and just talk to each other candidly. 

Then, with a TON of help from Crystal and Karl, we edited it into two videos:

1. The basics of what we're doing:

As well as the longer and more complete video that covers 

2. The applications and pedagogical underpinnings of what we're doing:

*******

I'm looking forward to the next series Andrew and I have planned: writing an analytical essay.  We will also start making some flipped reading videos as we start to plan our year of curriculum.  

So that was my week.  

Spending it with the Cheesebucket Posse makes it pretty much the best week ever.

And if I haven't convinced you that you need to be on Twitter, go back and read every entry tagged with Andrew Thomasson.  Then tell me why you want to miss out on potentially creating this kind of awesome collaborative partnership.  

If Twitter scares you, let me know WHY and Andrew and I will make a video that addresses those concerns.  Seriously. 

ETA: here's what Jon Bergmann thought of the video.  He was the one who asked us to make it, so it's totally relevant.

Can Jon Bergmann write a blog entry about our video?  Seriously?

I don't know if I can handle how awesome that is.