I've been thinking about beginnings and endings a lot lately.  The nature of my current assignment is that I only get a semester with my students, then I hand them over to another teacher for the remainder of the year.  I do get to keep some, but they are shuffled into different periods and courses.  I also am teaching three brand new courses - one of which has never existed at Redwood, and perhaps has never been taught in any high school context.

I think about where my students started.  Where Andrew and I started.

We had so many ideas.  So much hope.

And we failed SO much.

When the semester started, we had TECHNOLOGY and MASTERY and CROSS-COUNTRY COLLABORATION...

...but we forgot to build a classroom community that could sustain those major changes.  We forgot that our students needed to know us, not just be in the room with us.  We forgot that our students needed a reason for the technology we were using, rather than just being told it was important.

When things didn't work according to our Master Plan, we had two choices: give up or fight back.

Well, really we had four choices: give up on everything, give up on each other and just go it alone in the classroom, fight back against each other and let that destroy our classroom along with our relationship, or to redouble our efforts and fight side-by-side to fix the problems.  

We chose side-by-side.  And after a lot of hard work - on ourselves, on our partnership, on our friendship, and on our practice in the classroom - we started to turn the corner.

Today I saw evidence of that.

3rd period has been my most challenging class in many ways.  I have 2 sets of identical twins, a 35% SPED rate, 6 girls out of 30 students, and a group who seemed to fight me every step of the way.  But today, we had a final seminar about the nature of humour, on the course and what they learned, and what I should do next semester so my students can get an even better teacher and classroom.

Here's some of what they said:

• You guided us in this course, but we were the ones who were driving the curriculum.  Whatever we needed, you helped us find.  Whatever we were interested in, you used it to help us get better.
• After our "Come to Jesus" talk in October (the one where we established the norms we needed for class to run successfully), we all started to feel like we were responsible for our learning.  We knew what we were supposed to do, but you didn't force us to change. We established the patterns of change for ourselves and you helped us take ownership of those changes.
• We've never had a course in English where we felt like it was relevant to our lives in the way this one was.  Everything we did in here was helpful in a way that we can translate to other classes, to college and to careers.
• We got to decipher what made something funny - and instead of killing the joke, it allowed us to understand it better.  And we got to produce funny stuff - including a pretty epic Socratic Seminar todaysmeet thread from this final discussion, that became a true work of humour in and of itself.
• The writing we did in this class was much more creative than the writing we've done before, but we also get the freedom to try out different styles and voices and see how they fit for us.  We got to take risks, and we didn't have to be afraid that our grades would suffer.
• All that being said, we expected this to be a joke of a class (pun intended, obviously).  We expected it to be sitting around, watching YouTube videos, and not doing much. But this class wasn't an easy A - you had to work really hard and learn a lot to get an A. The pace was really fast, but if you used class time well, you would never have to do any work out of class.

Their message was clear:

This class was successful because WE were successful.  Change a few things to streamline the process.  But we learned, we took ownership, we were inspired, and we wish we could keep going until June.

Me too.

**

I didn't have to stand up and lecture to teach them something of value.  I also didn't have to make them write 10 pages essays to get them to be analytical and critical thinkers.  I didn't have to push them to be creative either - I just had to remove the restrictions that kept them constrained.

I'm not saying that this semester was a complete success.  

There was one more thing that happened today that reminded me of why I teach this way.

It's a student that hadn't talked to me much.  He always did the work, but sometimes it felt like he was a little checked out.  He came in after school today and told me that he wanted to get the chance to tell me personally how much the class had meant to him.  He learned a lot, he appreciated me and the way the class was run, and he really hoped he would be in my class again next semester.  We looked up his schedule and both were pretty excited to see that he was staying with me in San Francisco Stories next semester. 

This all happened while I was on the customary afternoon G+ hangout with Andrew.  Andrew said that he wished he had been faster so he could have recorded it because it crystalised exactly what we wanted:

A student who had been transformed by our class.

And in a few weeks, we start over.  But we start with a few kids just like him, bought in, passionate, and skilled, we will get a pretty good head-start.

A lot of people, much smarter than I am, have been writing what it means to be flipped, and some other people (also smarter than me) have questioned whether or not what we're doing can even be called flipped.

Naming something, defining it, is a way of understanding.  We give things names so we can catagorise, analyse, interpret.  It's natural, and it's helpful.  

But what happens when something changes, expands, grows, and the definition no longer is quite right?  Do we come up with a new term?  Do we become more strict with the definition so as to be more clear?  

Or do we expand that term so that, rather than constricting our understanding, it widens it and allows for more people to come inside and be included.

That, more than anything, defines flipped learning for me: inclusive.

When I happened upon flipped learning at this time last year, I didn't see how I could fit in.  My students were poor, they lacked internet at home, and I had no way of recording video.  Oh yeah, and all the models out there were for math and science, and I taught English.

But there was something about flipped learning that caught my attention.  In a school where direct instruction was mandated and commonplace - almost part of the DNA - it seemed like something that would both please my administrators AND help my students learn.  I could do direct instruction but I could also spend more time helping my students get better at reading, writing, listening and speaking.

It seemed like the perfect solution in many ways.  

So I went looking for a way to make it work.  My district Ed Tech director got me an iPad so I could make my own videos.  I polled my students, and only three of them didn't have a smartphone or a computer with internet access at home (this was in a 90% SED school).  I arranged for those three students to use my devices during break, lunch or before/after school.  So I made some videos with the week's etymology lesson, assigned them as homework, and used the time we would have spent copying the notes practicing with the content, doing real-life examples, and playing memory games.  Test scores on the weekly quizzes went up, and I was confident I was on to something.

Then that same Ed Tech director pitched Twitter to us.  And I was Not Interested.  At all.

For a few days.  Finally, I just asked my students to teach me Twitter and help me get started.  They were happy to oblige.

Very quickly, I was hooked.  And that's also when I discovered that there was so much more to flipped learning than I had ever expected.  

I joined the #flipclass Monday chats (which now I help moderate semi-regularly).

I started blogging and sharing my posts on Twitter (which may be where you found this post).

I had conversations with some of the people I had read about - Brian Bennett, Crystal Kirch, Troy Cockrum, Jon Bergmann, Aaron Sams - and they all helped to push my thinking on various issues.  Many have now become my close friends.

That's how, within six weeks of flipping, I transitioned from "Flip 101" (assigning videos as HW and former homework as classwork) to something that I still saw as flipped, but wasn't the same as how many of my colleagues flipped their class.

My classroom quickly became mastery-based, paperless, self-paced and homework free.  I still made videos, I still used many of the same tools as my Flip 101 colleagues...

...and I still tweeted to the same hashtag.

Flipping my class no longer was my goal.  I was flipped.  Instead, my goal was to make my flipped class the best possible place for MY students, in MY context.  I started to view flipped learning as a place where students had ownership (responsibility was flipped to them from me) and where I used technology to help them learn best.   Later, I moved to defining flipped learning by the Flipped Mindset - a definition developed by several collaborators on Twitter.

Now, a year into my flipped journey, my classroom looks different than it did last fall, last spring, or even at the beginning of this school year.  

I have what I like to call my CoLab partner, Andrew Thomasson.  He helps me plan all of my instruction, prepares for and films video lessons with me, and encourages me to be a reflective practitioner, a good flipped teacher, and a better friend.  I'm at a new school and operate with a BYOD policy and open wifi network.  My students are much higher skilled, and require far less direct instruction (almost none).  I don't assign homework, and don't always use video.  I've stepped away from self-pacing and paperless (without 1:1 netbooks, that's a lot harder) and embraced a far more student-centred pedagogy that focuses on higher-order thinking skills and real-life application of concepts.

There are many people who would say I'm not flipped.

And I would argue, just as vehemently, that I am.

**

When Romeo asked himself, "what's in a name?" I doubt he was thinking about its application to the flipped class community.  Nevertheless, it's a good question.

So, flipped class community, what's in a name?

For me, this is what's in a name:

• a method by which I started to listen more to my students, and work to meet their individual needs.  I learned most of those things from my community on Twitter and Edmodo.
• a move to a more reflective practice - one I never imagined.  I didn't know that to be reflective, you need someone who will help you process.  That is what happens in the flipclass community on a daily basis.
• a return to my writing - something I had always thought of, but never had inspiration to sustain.  This blog is the most meaningful writing I've done since I graduated from college.  And I am now writing more than just blog entries, which has helped me work through a lot, personally and professionally.
• a transformational experience - one that not only changed me, but changed how my students experience me as their teacher.  That was only possible by moving over the bridge that flipclass built.
• a group of people - my Cheesebuckets - who listen to me, protect me, question me, challenge me, and keep insisting that I should not stay where I am, but keep moving forward, getting better.  These people would not be in my life without flipclass.  And my life would be far less rich without them.
• and most importantly: a collaborative partner, a new BFF, someone to listen to me, help me channel my crazy ideas (and sometimes, add more craziness until they actually start to make sense), doesn't let me stay frustrated or resentful, but insists that we work things out, and most importantly, someone I can trust and who I know cares about me, both as a teacher and as a person, and about my work in the classroom.

So what's in a name?  A change that has given my students a better teacher and a better education.  A community where I am inspired, engaged in conversation, and often, challenged so that I don't grow stagnant.  

And most importantly, I now have friends.  Friends who share the family name - flipped class - and unites us around a common goal: making our classroom the best possible place for our individual and corporate student body, and for us as teachers.  

And even though some of us may start to grow into more distant cousins, if we give up the family name, it would mean denying where we came from.  This is the kind of family that doesn't disown a brother who shies away from family gatherings; it's the kind of family that expands, becomes more inclusive as more and more distant relations show up on our doorstep, needing our help, our acceptance, our love.  It's also the kind of family that still welcomes you, even when you don't need it anymore.

This family name is where our roots are.  

This family name is who our people are.  

This family name - flipped class - is who WE are.  Together.

That is what's in THIS name.  

And I'm proud to be in this family.  No Matter What.

I have (along with every educator on Twitter) been thinking about homework.  Its role in my classroom and in school in general.  Its function and purpose.  Its value, especially in how it fits into flipped learning.

Here is what I have observed in the eight years I spent teaching before Redwood:

• The only kids who do homework are the ones who are A) scared their grade will drop or B) have parents pushing them (and usually both are true).
• Homework is generally worksheet-y, even in English and Social Studies. 
• Teachers are frustrated that students don't do homework.  They continue to assign it and deal with non-completers in disciplinary ways.
• Students hate homework.  No matter the value or purpose or length or subject.
• Many students give up on a course when their zeros keep mounting from incomplete homework assignments.
• Teachers assign homework if students fail to complete the assignment in class.  Teachers assign homework to cover concepts they don't have time to cover in class but are in the standards.  

This last one is more controversial:

•  Teachers assign homework because they are more concerned about teaching Responsibility than teaching the student.  

Some teachers assign homework as an exercise in values.  They argue that in The Real World, we all have deadlines and we all need to learn how to manage our time.  We compare it to chores - something no one wants to do, but just as it is necessary to maintain order in your physical world, it's necessary to maintain order in your academic world.

At Redwood, most of those answers are still true.  The only one that's different is the first bullet point.  At Redwood, 90% of students do homework.  That's in a general class, not an AP or Honours level class.  They expect to get between 2-5 hours of homework a night.

But everything else is the same.  They hate homework, teachers assign it, and it's primarily about teaching Responsibility.  There is an added element of You Need To Be Ready For College (and I can't fit everything into our face-to-face time).

I stopped giving homework when I started working at San Lorenzo.  They wouldn't do it, and I started doing research on the effectiveness of homework as a pedagogical tool.

So when I went to Redwood, I spent some time reconsidering that perspective for one major reason:
        Students would do it, and all teachers expected it to be assigned.

I didn't stop believing the research that said homework was not helpful for learning retention, and often was more harmful than it was beneficial.  I didn't stop believing that students needed the evening to unwind, spend time with family and friends, and pursue hobbies or other interests.  

No.  I started to consider assigning homework because I was afraid of the consequences if I didn't.  The same reason most of my students completed their homework.

I got scared.  What if my colleagues thought my class was "too easy" without homework?  What if my principal accused me of subverting the culture of the school?  What if my students thought my class wasn't rigorous enough?

That is the world of fear many of my colleagues inhabit, and the world of fear that my students pass though, hoping that they will escape when they get to college.  It's the world of fear that keeps them up until 3 AM doing college application because they had so much homework they couldn't start it until 1 AM...and they are so afraid that they won't get in that it makes them angry, depressed, and more afraid.

It's the world of fear that causes good teachers to go against their pedagogy and pretend that they are just "fitting into the school culture."

And it's bullshit.

A classroom built on fear is a classroom that denigrates the importance of community.  A classroom built on fear lives in the reality of reward and punishment.  A classroom built on fear cannot produce students who are responsible for their own learning and who pursue learning from passion and not pressure.

And it's not the kind of classroom I want.

**

There has been a lot of talk on Twitter about how flipped classrooms without homework can't really call themselves flipped. 

Now, I have written about our definition of the Flipped Mindset before.  So you know that I'm not a Flip 101 adherent - instead of flipping lecture onto video and off-loading it from class time, I don't lecture.  Instead of using class time to do the kinds of practice (let's be honest: worksheets) many of the English teachers I know assign, I try to build interesting discussions, engaging projects, and close reading of texts.

So when you ask me if homework is required for a flipped classroom, my answer is an Emphatic No.  The REAL flip in my class is that I have flipped the responsibility for learning to my students, and made the place where my students seek knowledge much more broad and no longer confined to my ten pound inadequate dyslexic brain.

I used to spend a tremendous amount of time rewarding good behaviour and punishing bad behaviour.  I had charts and systems.  I had Good Students and Bad Students, and that was largely down to who could most closely match the definition of "good" I had in my head and tried to superimpose on them.  

But why were the Good Students doing the homework?  Did they see the relevance to their lives?  Did they genuinely want the knowledge?  Were they doing it because they liked me and believed in me enough to do what I asked of them?  

Or were they doing it because they didn't want the consequences if they didn't?

The whole point of the flipped class Andrew and I run is to get students to the point where they pursue learning for the love of it and work towards becoming an educated person.  Where they believe in us and know that we believe in them.  Where they see the work we assign is relevant, purposeful, and not excessive.

Where assignments are about mastery, and not a number or a letter.  Where responsibility is developed over time, not as the result of turning in an assignment on time.  Where the Good Students are the ones actively engaged to the best of their ability at that time.

Where there are no Bad Students.  Only students who haven't Got It Yet.

**

So we don't give much homework.  The only major exception is that we have assigned students reading homework for the novel we're reading.  Now, we read parts in class, and often give them class time for the purpose of reading.  But many students prefer to read at home, as they have done their entire educational career.  And it's my job to be flexible and listen to my students.  If they use class time well, and want to read at home, I can deal.  After all, it is all about them.

However, I work really hard to make the reading "homework" not be about Teaching Responsibility or about reward and punishment. 

I work on igniting their passion for the story by creating engaging activities that draw them in, rather than punish them with zeros on reading quiz after reading quiz.  We're reading Indian Country by Philip Caputo right now, and this is what seems to be working:

• I give them assignments that make meaning from the text in a way that gives every student a way of completing it, regardless of where they are in the novel.  
• Every day, I spend a little bit of time talking about something in the section they read or the section they will soon read.  Today, I told my kids that there were two...disturbing...scenes with a woman and a bear.  And it doesn't end well...for either of them.  The one kid in class who had read ahead laughed knowingly.  And ten kids tried to read the book instead of watching the video about the Vietnam War.  
• At the start of class, I ask who made progress in the reading the night before, regardless of where they are in the novel.
• I gave them the power to control when the reading is due.  They named the Final Deadline, which is when we take that section's quiz.
• The quizzes I give are revisable and low stakes.  On the last one, I asked students to trade with someone who was roughly in the same place they were in the novel (so if they were on page 100, they shouldn't pair up with someone on page 3).  Then I had them add to or correct their partner's answer.  That gave them the time to critically think about each question, figure out if their partner answered correctly, and then add to their thoughts.  Many of the questions were opinion questions, so I had them add a personal note to their partner to encourage community.  
• The grade they get on the quiz isn't really important, because it's all formative assessment.  So there's nothing punitive - in fact, the only score they get is a point in the gradebook for completion. They will have to have read to complete the essay and project, and they will need to know enough to participate in discussions.
• The quizzes I give are often verbal.  That way, they can actually hear their classmates answer the questions, and they get to clarify misconceptions.  More repetitions=more practice.  

That list is how I justify asking students to do reading at home.

Because if I can't make a list like that, I shouldn't be assigning homework.  Here are my questions for you to consider in relation to your homework policy:

1. Is this something they absolutely must do or they will not be able to pass my course?  If it is, isn't it important enough to make sure they have the time, space, and assistance in class that they need to complete it?
2. Is this something that I value so much that I would complete it myself? If it isn't, do I really need to assign it?  If it is, am I willing to do it on the same schedule as my students?
3. Am I giving this assignment because I'm afraid?  Am I afraid of what people will think if I don't give homework?  Am I afraid that my students won't take me seriously if I don't?  
4. Am I giving this assignment because I failed to teach something adequately?  Is it fair to punish my students for my failure?
5. Am I giving this assignment to teach something other than the content?  Is it fair to be teaching values rather than content?

**

So that's a really convoluted way of saying that I think carefully about any assignment I give students that requires work outside of class.  I think about what my goals are, what my students need, how to make the work relevant for them, and how to show them what being responsible for their learning looks like.

And if, once in a blue moon, homework is required, I give it.  

I urge you to have the same conversation with your colleagues, your students, and with yourself.  Don't let the culture of fear push you to do something that is not good for your classroom community.

And if you have more suggestions for how to make reading homework (or any homework really) work in a flipped class, or other thoughts about the Great Homework Debate, please comment.  I love the dialogue that has already come from this subject.  And it's good for all of us to examine our practice, be reflective, and adjust when necessary.

And yes, leaving a comment is your homework assignment.  Don't make me put you on the Bad Blog Reader list.

This wasn't planned.

In fact, I'm still not convinced it's an amazing idea.

But this week, I handed gave the reins to my 6th period class....for content, instruction and assessment.

I realise that I may be completely insane.

It started with some collaborative brainstorming on topics, questions, methods, and texts they wanted to study.  Then each student chose a group and topic and started planning their own content to teach their peers.

I didn't even constrain it to humourous topics. But they are so invested in the course themes that the topics they chose were nearly all comedic; they ranged from writing original comedy, stand-comedy techniques, political satire, musical comedy, and improvisation workshops.  Half the class will be producing comedy films and then having the class analyse it closely.

Here were the requirements:
1. Choose a topic/question to cover and choose a group
2. Research and/or create the content/text to be shared
3. Prepare to lead a class discussion (in any format that we've used or practiced)
4. Give students a writing assignment of some kind (in any format)
5. Assess learning
6. Reflect on the effectiveness of their lesson

These units start next Friday.  I can't call them presentations.  A presentation means a bad powerpoint, nervous students, lack of engagement.  These already have a hell of a lot of passion behind them. 

Today I couldn't get the computer lab, so I just said:

This class period is yours.  If you need something from me, I'll be here.  But you guys are in charge.

I expected an argument, or at least a wasted period.  But here's what happened:
They all looked at each other, silently. Then,
Cipriana: Let's watch Workaholics!  It's an hour before Thanksgiving break.
Alexander: No, that's not the best use of our time right now. We need group time to work some stuff out.
Pierre: Wait guys, can we go around and say what we're going to be covering so there's no repeats?  Okay, Chelsea, what are you guys doing, and who is in your group?

They then went around - while the rest of the room was silent - and talked about their concept.  After every group gave their idea, other students expressed how excited they were for the ideas. There was not one group that didn't get a "wow, that sounds cool!" at some point.  The two groups that were a little similar had a quick negotiation to figure out how close their proposals were.  Then they checked in with me about it.

There was one undecided group - they came up and talked to me about their ideas, and with VERY little prompting from me, they came up with a great (slightly scary) question: When it comes to humour about race, where is the line, and why is that the line?  

We talked about how to frame it so it would make the best possible discussion.  And they left really excited.

**

I gave them the keys to the car, then I got in the backseat.  And instead of crashing into a pole, they immediately navigated hairpin turns with dexterity.

I do think they'll run into issues at some point, and will struggle to present their lesson effectively.  But they'll figure it out.  All of us need to make mistakes to learn how to be better.

**

And here's the meta part...or maybe just the uncomfortable part of all of this. 

This week has been overshadowed by a friend of mine being attacked for something she wrote on her blog.  In an entry devoted to asking for help to deal with a frustrating issue common to all of us who teach in a public school - unmotivated students - she was attacked with more logical fallacies than the cable news networks had during the election coverage.

The issue?  Her statement that her students don't know how to learn math.

They don't.  And I think the person most capable of making that judgement - their math teacher - is the one who should make that assessment.  Not some strangers on the internet.

Students DO, however, know how to learn in general, but learning academically and learning in general are different.  We are always learning.  But not everything we try to teach our students is something to which they will connect and in which they are interested.

There are lots of things that I didn't find interesting, but that I'm glad someone pushed me to learn at some point.  Here are a few of those things:

• How to solve for variables in Algebra
• Techniques for creating different effects in painting 
• French vocabulary
• Word derivations/roots/etymology
• Names and locations of every country (and its capital) in the world
• Hundreds of Bible verses 
• Medieval literature and how to analyse the sources that compose a text
• How to actively listen
• How to take notes and make note cards for an essay/presentation

And you know what?  I still know how to do those things.  Even though I wasn't passionate about any of them, because I had the academic ability to learn, I had the skills needed to transfer that knowledge into my memory.

I also have a freakish ability to find something interesting in ANYTHING I study.  My friends in college were absolutely shocked when I gave them the advice I used: Find an angle that is interesting and use that for your essay topics.  They looked at me like I was smoking crack.

That's when I realised that what I do naturally is not what everyone does naturally.

Learning is innate.  But academic learning?  That's acquired.  Some of us are lucky to have acquired it young.  I did.  And I am the exception, not the rule.

We don't go to school to learn how to love playing or eating or sleeping.  Those are things we all can find passion for or joy in.  We go to school to learn how to learn things we wouldn't normally choose to learn.

And we do that because there are some things that are valuable enough to ask everyone to learn them.  That's why the Common Core Standards movement is so important - it cannonises the knowledge we as a culture think is essential for all students to learn.

So what happens when the school system is broken?

You get students who are in 10th grade and have acquired the ability to learn in an academic context.  Students who may master video games, but struggle to write a coherent sentence.  And some people would say use the video game to teach sentence structure, or just don't teach the sentence structure and hope they'll just "get it" over time.

But is that really serving my students well to not teach sentence structure - at least holistically?  Is it a good use of my face-to-face time with my students to use video games to teach sentence structure?  Why would I spend time having them learn something with me that they could do on their own?  Why would I not give them individualised instruction that meets them where they are and them pushes them forward?  And I think that doing that kind of instruction well - where you infuse passion into subjects that aren't natural pairings - is time-consuming and rarely effective.  It just ends up being a little condescending to try and squeeze the names of Pokemon characters into paragraphs that have students practice sentence revision.

I also come from a pretty unique background.  I was homeschooled for 7 years, spanning the late 80's and early 90's, which was the Unit Study era in homeschooling.  We did one on the Pilgrims.  I remember planting a garden, making corn cakes, and creating a replica of the Mayflower.  

And that's it.  I didn't take out of that unit any more knowledge about gardening, cooking, or history than I brought into it.  And I fell years behind in math because math "never fit" with the unit studies, and I wasn't motivated to learn it on my own.  That is one of my biggest regrets.  

Am I saying that it's impossible to do that kind of curriculum well?

Obviously not.  The project my students have started would indicate otherwise.  I believe that student-driven content can be very powerful.

But there are reasons that my project will be successful.  And a lot of it has to do with what we've already learned (not all of which they found interesting), and a lot has to do with what they brought into the course from previous learning.  

This will be successful because my students:

• can research information and find reliable sources
• synthesise and analyse information with depth and clarity
• use technology to compile, organise and present information effectively
• have academic conversations that they run without my help
• can stay on task and focused on the end product

And most importantly, they:

• KNOW HOW TO LEARN

Now, because I have kids at the top of their educational game who are highly skilled and motivated, this wouldn't work with every class.  And it wouldn't even work in some of my other classes.  They don't have the skills they need.  And some of them don't want to build those skills.  They want the grade.  They want to just "get it over with" so they can move on.

So it makes me uncomfortable to, on one hand, turn over a class to a group of students capable of making it a success, and also to acknowledge that they are pretty unique.  For the past eight years, I've worked in schools where this never would have worked.  And yes, I tried.  And it's always been a massive failure.

This is what I think:

Passion + low skills = low effort and/or low quality

Passion + low skills + motivation = variable results (see: Freedom Writers Effect)

Passion + skill + motivation = high effort and high quality

The harsh reality of the state of public education is that not all students come to us prepared or motivated.  Can we help those students?  Absolutely.  That is what my friend wanted: help figuring out how.  And instead of help, she was bullied, harassed, and attacked.  So she is taking her passion and skill and hiding it so she can avoid being attacked further.

One of the meta-lessons of this issue is that passion doesn't make up for a total deficit of skill.  The people attacking her have no lack of passion.  But they also don't seem to understand how to have a respectful dialogue, nor engage in a discussion of the issues and avoid going after her personally.

I sincerely hope that, eventually, everyone will be taught the skills they need to be able to pursue their passion.  And I hope that eventually, every person could be like the students in my 6th period: skilled, motivated, self-directed, responsible, and extremely passionate.

If the world was filled with people like that, it would be a pretty amazing place to live.  It's certainly a pretty amazing place to learn.

I have developed a metaphor for what it's like to work at my current school.

We are all swimming, desperately trying to keep up with the pace of the water, until that crest is almost within reach...so we swim faster, try to keep our head up, barely a breath away from drowning.  Students, teachers, administrators, staff members...all of us, together.

But although it feels like the ocean, when we look up, we realise that we're in a wave pool, not the ocean.  And we're the ones controlling the waves.

So we complain about being exhausted, frantic, unable to keep up, while we dial up the intensity of the waves in the pool.  Worse yet, we look around at our colleagues and see them swimming faster than us, so we turn up the intensity a little bit more just so we don't fall behind them too.

But the end result is that we all drown.  Or we wish that we HAD drowned so we could stop grading papers, get a few more hours of sleep, just BE with our friends and family without thinking about all the prep left to do.

So, to ask my buddy's favourite question, who are we really serving here?

I had two kids burst into tears (unrelated to my class) on Tuesday.  Neither wanted to talk about it.  Neither wanted to ask for anything special - not even a pass to the restroom.  They wanted to tough it out, be strong, keep on going.  

Why?  Because they assume that THEY are the problem.  They assume that everyone else can just handle the load - everyone else can stay up until 4 AM doing homework every night for weeks, participate in sports and extracurriculars, stay awake and engaged in school, make it through the minefield that is high school social life.  

They assume that real life is what happens after high school.  They are there to "pay their dues" before they go on to do what they really love.  They've been told "Be Awesome in Everything OR YOU'RE NOT GOOD ENOUGH."

And when they can't be awesome in everything, the only thing left is the belief that they aren't good enough.  And when we don't replace that erroneous narrative, it only embeds itself more fully into their psyche.  When they believe that they are nothing more than a letter on a report card - a letter that is never, ever good enough - how can we possibly expect them to act as responsible, rational, creative, independent learners?

Because when students have always defined themselves based on what they do (and often, what they fail to do), they have no idea how to work in a class that asks them to somehow engage out of who they are.

All the things we flipclass'er believe in creating in our classroom: an emphasis on higher order thinking, self-directed learners who have a choice about content and product, students who value their education and work towards mastery of a concept instead of engaging the prevalent tendency towards point prostitution*...

...all those things are impossible when our students are fighting the pace of the waves that threaten to drown all of us.

And you know what?  We can't be the kind of teachers we want when we live at that pace either.  

Okay, here's my mea culpa: I am not the kind of teacher I want to be right now.  I got scared.  I bought into the culture of fear - when enough people tell you you're going to drown just like them, you eventually sigh in resignation, then try to push your tired arms into sprinting for just a few more lengths.

Like every other story I write on this blog, part of the answer is having someone to stand on the shore, waving a giant handmade sign that both encourages me to keep swimming, and reminds me that the power to turn down the wave is in my control.  

Someone who reminds me that who I am is good enough, even when I feel like I'm barely mustering a C.  Someone who burns my report card because what we're trying to do is not something that is measured in letters.  

No.  What we're doing is measured more in the number of students for whom an hour a day in my room is more of a refuge than a deluge.  It's measured in visible improvement in writing.  It's measured in academic conversations that take on a life of their own.  It's measured in the students who stop asking about their grade, and stop defining themselves by the letter that appears on their report card.

It's measured in transformation.  

And there's not a standardised test in transformation.

But nothing and no one can be transformed when the wave pool is drowning us all.

So for now, I'm turning down the speed and inviting my students to do the same.  Some people probably think they'll start floating and take advantage of it, or without me to push them, they'll just abdicate responsibility for swimming and they'll drown.  

But you know what?  I think that who they are is good enough.  

And I hope that who I am, and who we are, is good enough to help them when they forget that they are not defined by a letters: the ones that appear on a report card or ones that arrive in the mail from their dream school, their safety school, their last chance school.  

And maybe someday, we will all finally decide to leave the false safety of the wave pool for good, and head to the Real Ocean.  

The Real Ocean is where Real Life happens, and the waves can't be controlled.  

It's where our students will try to swim on their own, probably for the first time.   Where letters don't matter.  

And where Who They Are is all there is.

I'm ready.  

Who is with me?


*thanks to my flipclass friend, GS Arnold, who coined the term in a recent #flipclass chat 

Here's what they don't tell you when you're flipping in a highly-student centred environment:

It doesn't feel like you're teaching them anything.

For me, that's incredibly off-putting.

Even when I was doing video more often (the very short-lived Flip 101 days), I felt like I was teaching something.  But changing over to a classroom where I do very little "sit up front and talk" or even very little "watch this video and take notes" means that I often go for days without delivering information.

For the last few weeks, I've been doing the following things:

--helping students curate their work (14 writing assignments in Essay Exposition, 10 in Language of Humour) on playlists on MentorMob.  I wish we had thought of this early.

--individual writing conferences with my Essay Exposition (SAX) students, where they choose one assignment from their portfolios and we discuss what their purpose, audience, tone, and intended effect.  It's been great to work with them so individually and really talk in-depth about their writing.  I think my Language of Humour class will be next.  I just wish they didn't take quite so long...

--analysing a text (The Crucible) through a variety of lenses: psychological, historical, and thematic, through Socratic Seminar, and essay and a project (recreating the Crucible in the modern day)

--evaluating texts that are not typically thought of as narratives (like Derren Brown's amazing work) through discussion and essay

--working on a project that will not only teach my SAX students how to do research and write persuasively, but will help them take action to fix a problem in their own community.  Pretty excited about how it'll turn out.

None of that really involves direct instruction.  Other than giving tasks and having conversations, I'm not "teaching."

I guess it's time to re-define what we mean by teaching.

An exchange on Twitter with another teacher facing an impending observation reminded me that at some schools, the list of activities above is actually much more what they're looking for than the old definition of teaching. 

While I have so many amazing things happening in my classroom, my evaluation still includes a piece on direct instruction; in that, I feel like I'm taking a small step backwards.

And maybe that's why I still don't feel like I'm teaching: my school (and students) still define teaching as "what teachers do at the front of the room, talking constantly, as students take notes."

So how do we redefine teaching in the post-flipped world?

How many of us put conscious thought into our teaching persona?  

Last year, when I had a student teacher for the first time, I had to seriously reflect on who I am as a teacher and what influences have forged that persona over the last nine years.  

Some are good influences:

--team teaching with my (at the time) best-friend who taught the same course in the adjoining classroom for the same period.  Stealing her mannerisms for comedic effect, then never un-stealing them.

--sharing a room with a beautiful, wise, collected veteren teacher my first year.  Watching the way she pushed her students and yet communicated how much she valued them as human beings.  Taking her way of fielding questions - "hmm", thoughtful pause, eyes to the ceiling, rock back onto the other foot, finger to mouth, gather thoughts, smile, respond (usually with a question, instead of an answer).

--being young, inexperienced, and scared because I had no training and little classroom experience.  Seeking help from everyone who would listen so I could do better for my students, and stealing their best ideas.

Some were not so good:
--moving from a school where students loved me and valued what I had to offer, to a school where students were suspicious of me because of my colour and vocabulary.  Shutting part of myself down so they wouldn't hurt me any more than they already had.

--finding wonderful teachers who were talented and far more structured than I ever had wanted to be...and stealing their structures to hide behind when I couldn't make my students care, either about me or the curriculum.

--adopting a brand new mindset where I wouldn't have to show them who I was or of what I was capable, intellectually or pedagogically.  Hiding behind "every student every day" because if I did little whole class instruction, I wouldn't have to prove myself publicly.

**

As I write out that list, I see that all the things about my teaching persona that I see as positive, were in my first three years.  And all the negatives are in the last six.

And the last six years have all but obliterated the gains from my first three years.

And therein lies the central narrative, the central problem, the central struggle of this year, and in fact in my whole life:  I don't know who I am.

I'm struck by the fact that in the first three years, arguably my most successful years, I was just stealing pieces of other teachers' personas (EXCELLENT teachers though they are).  And yet, that was more me than what I showed in the following six years. 

Frankly, these last six years have been about adding artifice.  Creating layers to make sure that there was always a strong public persona.  I spent six years forgetting that what is important is who I really am, as well as the dignity, value, and worth I have to contribute to my students as their teacher.

That is even why Flipped Class appealed to me.  Video is the perfect medium for me to hide behind.  Hell, collaborating with my new BFF** is a way of hiding - we teach together, so there is less attention on either of us individually.  I find comfort in being part of a team - less risk, less pressure on me individually, and someone to steal from full-time.
 
And yet, paradoxically, it is only as a member of that amazing team that I finally saw myself as I really am.  Part of that is down to having someone there, in the middle of all your mess, stripping away the layers of BS, until what is left is just...you.

And here's the most revolutionary idea yet:

What if the point of collaboration and friendship was NOT to fix each other, but rather to move to the place where nothing needed to be hidden?

Hiding never made me a better teacher, a better collaborator, or a better friend.  And by flipping my class, I was hiding.  So now, all of those problems and that artifice is being purged - the intense pressure we've been under in the past few weeks has burned away everything unnecessary, leaving only what is actually me.  That is a scary place to be, and it has been an extraordinarily painful and revealing process.

And through that process, the alchemy continued: my individuality, once revealed, did not drive Andrew's personality out; instead, finding what it means to be myself leaves much more room for him, both to find what it means to be himself, and for what it means for us as a collaborative partnership.  

So I may not use the Zunin Reflective Pause, or the Genevieve Voice, or the I'm Drowning Please Save Me Colleague! mannerisms, but I've found the part of me contained in each of those positive thefts.  Even the negatives were redeemed through this crucible: I've embraced the structure I learned at San Lorenzo without losing my vulnerability.  I've accepted my own racial and educational background and the ways in which I am shaped by factors within and out of my control.

And I've continued down the flipped path with Andrew.  And I still occasionally steal his quirks and phrasing, and I still regularly defer to him (because he's smarter than me!), and I enjoy being part of the team, rather than standing alone.

But there is a way to be a flipped teacher AND be myself.  There is a way to be a Andrew's collaborative partner AND be myself.  There is a way to embrace the things, both positive and negative, that I've experienced and yet move forward.

Because those things may explain me.  

But I refuse to let them define me.

What defines me is deeper than what I do.  What defines me is deeper than how I teach.  

I am defined not by the experiences, the mistakes, the failures, the successes, the things I've done, the things done to me.  

I am defined by the choices I make.  By the person I am underneath all the artifice.  By the communities and people I love and who love me.

And that is incredibly freeing.





***see tweets below for context.

Every time I meet other educators or start a conversation with a colleague, either face-to-face or over Twitter, I ask the same question at some point:

How do you find balance?  With so much to do, and with so little time, how do you balance the prep and the planning and the grading and the Real Life?

Because I'm not.  There have been weeks where all we do is work.  Andrew and I are literally working 16-17 hour days 5-7 days a week.

But it still isn't enough.  

We are only planned day to day, which goes against our educational principles.  And with other things to talk about and deal with outside of the classroom, there are even days when we're not properly planned.  Where we show up and hope that giving 100% while the kids are in the room will be enough to make up for not being 100% ready for them.

But it's not enough.

If we were all perfect, with perfectly tidy lives that conformed to the shapes we wished they would, and everyone did exactly as we wanted them to, maybe we could handle the rough edges of the job.  Maybe if Real Life didn't get in the way, we could make those lesson plans perfect, reach every student in the way he or she needs, and do all the paperwork and return all the emails and whatever and whatever and whatever.

But life isn't perfect.  And neither are we.

We choose to do this work despite those two things.  And if we're really lucky, someone chooses to do the work with us, to come alongside and help us clean up the mess.  Who will be there when things go wrong.  Or when we just need another voice to drown out the narrative in our head about what a failure we are.  About how much there is to do, and how much we aren't doing, can't do, fail at, ruin.

I don't know how to shut off that narrative.  How to do more than I'm capable of doing.  How to stop feeling like it's never good enough.  That I have to achieve more, do better, try harder.  

What I do know is that with two people, it's possible to counter the narrative's lies with the truth.  That we weren't meant to go it alone.  That it's impossible to be way out on the educational fringe (as we are) without someone holding the safety rope for and with you.

That trusting someone enough to do that is scary.  Really scary.

That the alternative to trusting is failure - either through not taking enough risks, or by taking too many.  By burning out of the profession, either actively or passively.  By choosing to return to the same lectures, the same worksheets, the same control year after year, or by trying every new and shiny thing to cover the fact that you are just bored.  And without trusting others, you will never find balance.

But what if trust is not come by lightly?  

And what happens when everything falls apart?  

When life just gets difficult, and it's a battle to merely show up.  

When the narrative presses down hard and it's impossible to tune it out.

The only answer I have is to trust that the person holding the safety rope will still be there, not only as protection against falling, but as comfort for how difficult it can be to hold on.  To help drown out the narrative that threatens to overwhelm me, and makes me want to let go and fall right off the mountain.  To just be there.

And despite all my attempts to convince him that he'd be better off dropping the safety rope and leaving me to my own devices, he's still there.  Refusing to let me run away, from the mountain, from collaboration and from friendship.

I have no idea why.  Even though I would (and have) done the same for him in a heartbeat, it doesn't make sense to my weird, twisted brain that anyone would do it for me.

But I do know this: The moments in which I trust him to help me are the moments in which I find balance between Having Too Much To Do and Having Not Enough Time.  Where the mountain suddenly levels out and I can see the sun again.  

Because neither of us can stop all of the Bad Things from happening.  We can't protect each other.  We can't save each other.

But when the storms try to throw us off the mountain, we can hold on tighter, refusing to let go because It's Worth It.  

Because without trust, you will inevitably fall.  Balance is always predicated on trust:

Trust that the ground won't fall away and the sky won't fall down on us.

Trust that what is behind us may be familiar, but isn't worth returning to.

Trust that what is ahead may be dangerous, and it may be scary; it may bring further storms, and larger rocks, and steeper climbs, but the effort to move forward is Always Worth It.

Trust that the person beside us chooses to be there, and won't walk away when things get tough.  Who, even if you tell them to go on without you, will recognise the narrative's hold on you and call out the lies for what they are.  Who reminds you why you started moving forward, and why you need to keep moving.

Trust that when you keep walking, with someone holding the safety rope, you will eventually find balance.  

And the more times you look over, just to see if he's still there, the easier it is to trust that he means it when he says: 

No Matter What.

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.

How do we get students to take responsibility for what they are learning, rather than expecting us to help them every step along the way?

It's a hard question to answer because I believed that I never had to have anyone motivating me to do my schoolwork.  

But that's not entirely true.  There are many times (even now as an adult) that I act much like my students who would be on the "not taking responsibility for learning" list.  So I tried to find patterns.  Here's what I came up with:

1. When I feel as if my time is being wasted, I stop caring.
2. When the instructor proves to be incompetent, either in content knowledge or in adequate preparation, I stop wanting to listen.
3. When there is open disdain or resentment towards me/the class/the audience/the subject/the organisation, it shuts me down.
4. When I don't get enough time to process, I stop "playing school."
5. When I don't see the relevance to my life or practice, I tune out.
6. When I am personally overwhelmed by something wholly unrelated to school, I disengage. 
7. When I am not treated like a respected colleague and peer, I fight back or I give up.

Are those the reasons my students don't take responsibility for their learning?

I had to honestly ask myself these dangerous questions (and I encourage you to as well):

• Do I prepare enough to make it feel like class time is productive, rather than wasted?
• Do I present myself in such a way at to make students think I believe I know everything and am the sole/main source of learning in the classroom?
• Do I treat my students as peers in learning, rather than as passive recipients of knowledge?
• Do I give them enough time to process and reflect, and help them understand how what they're doing is relevant to their lives?
• Do I take good enough care of myself that I'm healthy and able to do my job effectively as much as humanly possible?
• Do I use my authority to shut them down?  Do I make them feel like they aren't as good as me because I am the one with her name on the door?

Sometimes, I do a good job.  Sometimes, I don't.

***

The thing I think Andrew and I haven't done well enough this year is helping students see the relevance of what we're doing, and how it is helping them learn important skills.  

We started this unit with these 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.

And these were our 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?

So those were great goals and essential questions, but none of the instructional design matters if I'm not creating a classroom where students are responsible for their own learning.

***

So I need to change.  These are my answers to my own questions:

• Do I prepare enough to make it feel like class time is productive, rather than wasted?

Most days, I am prepared enough to make it through that day.  But the last few weeks, we haven't been planned far enough ahead that I could LET students work ahead.  Which meant wasted class time.

• Do I present myself in such a way at to make students think I believe I know everything and am the sole/main source of learning in the classroom?

No.  I believe that I've presented myself as someone who is learning alongside them.

• Do I treat my students as peers in learning, rather than as passive recipients of knowledge?

Yes. I've even had days where students suggested doing something related, and we've changed the plan.  Some of those were the best days.  I believe that I have as much to learn from them as they from us.

• Do I give them enough time to process and reflect, and help them understand how what they're doing is relevant to their lives?

This is the one that hurts.  I think I give them time to process, but there have been times when I've cut off a discussion because we needed to move on.  I also haven't let them reflect enough to make meaning of everything we're doing.  I haven't convinced them that learning how to use a blog is useful.  I haven't convinced them that patterning is helpful.  This is the place I need to focus for the next unit.

• Do I take good enough care of myself that I'm healthy and able to do my job effectively as much as humanly possible?

I want to say yes to this.  I'm pretty sure Andrew would say no, that I'm not.  Working on it.

• Do I use my authority to shut them down?  Do I make them feel like they aren't as good as me because I am the one with her name on the door?  Do they feel safe, emotionally and academically in my class?

I think I'm doing okay on this one.  There is always room for improvement.


***

So here's what I've decided on why students not fully taking responsibility:

1. We are not always planned enough to let them work at their own speed.  We need to plan more so students can work ahead.
2. They don't understand why they are learning what they're learning.  We need to show them exactly what they're learning, because they are actually learning a lot.
3. They need more time to process, which means less synchronous work.  The end of this unit has been on collaboration, so a lot of it has been at the same pace.  But not all partners work at the same pace, so one group inevitably finishes early and another is still working after the bell.  This will change in the next unit.
4. They don't see how everything connects, or where it's going.  That was intentional, but I think it was the wrong decision.
5. They aren't reflecting enough on their own learning process and progress.  In the final assessment, there will be a reflection to help address this.

So in the next unit, those are our key focus areas.  If you have ideas that can help, please let us know!

Coming soon: our entire first unit with all the resources we used for six weeks of a high school English flipped class.  We will publish EVERYTHING.  For free.  We're really excited to share it - we're proud of what we've accomplished together in this unit.