Author: Kelly Love

Are you going to answer that call (to adventure)? Seeking the Epic Win Face.

This author has quite a thesis: Want to save the world? Play video games:

http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2011/02/07/tech-report-good-news-society-needs-you/

This is link to her TED talk: http://www.ted.com/talks/jane_mcgonigal_gaming_can_make_a_better_world.html

Her thesis, that in the game world, we achieve, we overcome, we are better than our “real” selves, is a premise that may take me weeks to untangle. However you may understand, validate, approach, appreciate, endorse, discredit, repudiate, or just laugh at her findings and beliefs, (anecdotal, personal, or data-based), you must admit, this is defining a collective borg of the population. They/we do learn differently, they/we do problem solve with different pathways than perhaps they/we are used to.

Consider: I heard this story on the radio driving to work on Monday morning. Admittedly, was awake, but not in a place to write down much information. Her name and the story flew by so fast, that all I could do was remember to make a mental note of it, that it would be something interesting to listen to later.

When I had time, I went to the local radio station’s website, used every search word I could – nada. It linked me to NPR, again, all the search words, time of day, everything – nothing. I have had frustrating issues with NPR’s search engine before; I would say it’s user error, but I know how to find information. (Turns out it wasn’t an NPR program, but the local radio station that played it should have turned it up.)

Couldn’t find it anywhere.

So, I went old school on it. I called the radio station.

And having been so trained, so institutionalized, that when a real person answered the phone saying it was the business line, I immediately thought I should apologize and try another number. The kind woman said she could probably help — I told her my dilemma, gave her my name and phone number, and she said she would do some research, and give me a call back.

She did.

A human called me back. With information.

Why I find this astonishing I am not sure. We all need epic wins, real world and virtual world. How do we bridge the two so we are not working for the virtual world?

I have a lot more to think and say about this. But I am going to see some real faces here soon, so better get my game face on.

How cool is this?

Several months ago, we watched the short film, Descendants, on Vimeo. My classes watched this last year as well. This little film possesses a rich display of symbolism, inference, and deep meaning. This year, again inspired, I wrote some comments for the filmmakers. On Saturday, I received this response:

Sent: Saturday, February 5, 2011 9:28:02 AM
Subject: Heiko van der Scherm sent you a message on Vimeo!

Hi K. Love!

Heiko van der Scherm just sent you a message on Vimeo:

“Hello Mr./Mrs. K.Love,
thanks a lot for your comment on my film “Descendants”. I rarely find a person who dicovers everything that is hidden in this short. It took about 9 Months of work and over 40 Drafts to finish this 6 page script to put all of those subtle hints into it. So i appechiate very much if there is a person who digs deeper and deeper and even shares it with students. If my small film could contribute something then i am very honored.

feel free to contact me anytime. my email is: (deleted)
all the best
Heiko”

Thank you, Heiko. The honor is mine! (Squee!)

Praiseworthy.

Taking son to school: How’d your grades end up? (Yes, I am that “bad” parent who has kind of put a kabash on checking up on Skyward like some monitoring Terminator checking for signs of human life within the grade book.)

He reports grades. They are more than satisfactory.

I consider this child of mine. Nature? Nurture? I don’t know. I know he is driven, like his father. He is artistic, like both of us. He looks a lot like his father, but with a strong influence of my good looking maternal side (sorry Dad, you are very handsome, but those Irish genes are pretty cute). He has big plans.

While I’m doing the semester grades, I look at the data and see so much more than numbers. I see where a child was suspended for fighting. I see an uncharged laptop, or one left at home (repeatedly). I see worry about parents’ health and financial issues. I see true intelligence but lack of intrinsic motivation. I see struggling learners who want to know more, do more, but get fuzzy about the details, or struggle to simply focus for five minutes because of genuine ADHD or some other masked learning obstacle. I even see drug use and gang activity. Yup. All that is there in the data.

I don’t have all the answers. And that is, well, unnerving. Analyzing this “data” is daunting.

But I will see over the hill to the other side, and ask you all again, my young charges, “what is it you want to do with your one wild and precious life (Mary Oliver), and moreover: how can I help you?”

Monitor: Idiot proof.

This stream in my Reading Rockets’ feed caught my attention today:

Sound It Out

Monitoring self-monitoring

I recently read a post about recognizing, teaching, and supporting self-monitoring behaviors in young readers. The post describes two readers: David, who asks questions and self corrects word errors as he reads, and Frannie, who plows through text regardless of errors that either change the meaning of the text, include nonsense words, or don’t make any sense at all. The author stresses how important it is for readers to think about what they are saying as they read. “From the very earliest reading experiences that we have with children, we need to send the message that reading is supposed to make sense and that it’s their job to be checking that their reading IS making sense.” See more at Catching Readers Before They Fall.

This post resonated with me because of Becca, a first grader I just started tutoring. She’s an on-grade level reader (Rigby 7/8, Guided Reading E) but she REALLY wants to be reading chapter books like some of her classmates. Her reading speed (about 60 words per minute) suggests that her fluency is still developing. She’s still a choppy, word-by-word reader. So, although she’s a bit slow, it’s partially because she does a great job monitoring her reading. She frequently stops and self corrects herself. She questions when her decoding attempt results in a non-word. She listens to herself and expects what she reads to make sense. This is great, but it does slow her down.

As her tutor, I’m thrilled with her reading behavior. Moving forward, we’re going to focus on strategies to increase her fluency while maintaining the expectation that reading makes sense. Last week I introduced a re-reading chart (165 KB PDF)* from the Book Buddies manual on which Becca is using tally marks to track how many times she’s read the three books I sent her home with. This week, we’ll add new books to her rereading bag and try a timed repeated reading. I think she’ll like that strategy, although not every child does!

What do you do to help a child monitor their comprehension while developing their fluency at the same time?

“Begged questions:”

I have no issues or concerns with the author or article. What I’m digging into is this: why read at all?

When I pose this to students, I can gauge their level of maturity in their responses:

Immature: Because the teacher made me.

Mature: “Oh, Mrs. Love, The Hunger Games is SO GOOD – I read it all weekend and couldn’t put it down (this comes from both girls and boys). Do you have the next book? The next book? The next book?

I worked as a barista at a well-known world-dominating coffee establishment while I was working on my master’s. The cash register went to a symbol system, with codes, etc., and most instructions for the layout of the shop were “idiot proof.”

Be cautious, people: are we making the world so ‘idiot proof” that we marginalize ourselves even further.

I”ll just keep talking away – telling students that everything, and I mean darn near everything, is improved in my life because of my rich reading life: food, experiences, travel, time with family, conversations, know-how, confidence, friendships, choices, and any social interaction, writing, creating, crafting, developing, and breathing – it’s all better.

Perhaps I just answered my own question.

"The character of me."

From the episode, Contents Unknown, the last act relates the story of a man who, because he got a horrible illness and some bad medicine, he lost his memory.

Excerpt: 

Act Three. The Answer To The Riddle Is Me.

On October 13, 2002, David MacLean woke up in India with no memory of who he was or how he got there. He had no choice but to let the people who recognized him—and even strangers—fill in his identity. David co-directs the Poison Pen Reading Series in Houston. He is working on a book about the experience of losing his memory. (20 minutes) 

We are all writing the story of our lives as we live it. We edit memories, revise the past, crop and dodge those areas that are too stark and painful. I look in the mirror now and through my mind’s eyes expect someone different – but there I am. Now.

The holidays are past for this season. Ground-hog’s Day doesn’t count, but oh, is its timing perfect. Collectively, seasonally, we must feel this repeatable urge for diminished shadows and spring…spring…spring…something to jump out, be brave, and stay.

And with groundhogs, and their repeatable patterns, I have this question popping up and finding its shadow:

My current creative burning question is: How do writers write? How do they create narratives that are not them? This omniscient, omnipotent ego must be essential for writers to bravely spring characters and narratives that are independent and separate: break them free from their own internal dialogue, narratives, relationships, etc. Is this what actors and actress do when they are in character? Is this why they sometimes (!) have trouble maintaining personal relationships, or do they feel they always have to be “on?”

It is this: writing independently of one’s own ego takes maturity and responsibility. And more importantly: No Apologies.

Adolescent students are often shocked at the epiphany that most writers are NOT their characters in disguise; this is probably due to the fact that students are in the flux of creating their personas, and  cannot imagine that a writer would not BE the character(s) they are creating.

This is not to say that writers don’t genuinly love the characters they create. They have a relationship with them, and explore this third life. If you ever doubt that there are other dimensions and vortexes out there, spend some time developing a character whose life story is far different from your own experiences. You will fall down a groundhog hole.

Benediction.

Do we bless each other enough?

And I’m not speaking from any religious or non-secular view: I mean, do we recognize the need for a kind word, a soothing tone, a hint of hope?

Perhaps I have been dehydrated of warm words of late to take such notice during a customer service phone call the other morning; motivation had withered like crackling crust over my heart. The gentleman on the other end was truly kind and knowing; not only did he answer my quick question (and those who know me know…I rarely have quick anything) but did not dismiss or wave me away once I had the simple answer.

January is almost over. I feel capable of attacking the one final challenge of my Natioanal Boards: I have the rest of late winter to complete this. I will be methodical, purposeful, strategic, and organized. I will remind myself that five points is just that: five points. And having been teaching for only four years says, yup, that’s pretty good to have “only” missed it by five. But as my beneficial benevolent benediction bequeath-er told me, “close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades…” in a slight southern drawl, hubris will get me nowhere either. I am lucky that I can still count on my family’s support, I have encouragement and insight from colleagues, and am in a place and time I can complete this journey.

Onward.

Out of context: Language barriers.

MS2001_DM

Has anyone ever called you “thick” before?

Well, according to more updated slang, it doesn’t mean stupid or dumb.

We (teachers) know there is power in words and word choices. What I think we forget sometimes (and perhaps I am just speaking for myself) is that we adults lose the magic pixie dust power of invented language. Adolescents will always create new uses of words to suit their own time and needs. They have their own codes.  By the time we grown-ups start to use the word in our everyday vernacular,  that word or phrase has disappeared in a puff of smoke.

It’s not attractive or necessary for anyone over the age of 30…35…40…to keep up with current slang, per se. It doesn’t seem natural or dignified; in fact, it’s somewhat dorky and awkward. But if you live in that world, how do you negotiate the language of youth? Think back to when you were a teenager, using slang and code to create a communication barrier between you and your parents, and how quaint and cute you may have thought your own parents to be when they tried to use a word/phrase? I have become that doddering old fool.

In the past week, I have misused or misunderstood the following:

“QQ” – means crying eyes

“Thick” – means a Rubenesque feminine beauty (and kids — if you don’t know what Rubenesque means – look it up — got one on you!)

Zerg: Means a bee-like swarm

One word I have an issue with is students’ use of the “n” word. And now a publisher has sanitized Huckleberry Finn so as not to “offend” and get that book back in the hands of high school students. Slang can be hateful, and isn’t always a barrier. Sometimes it’s crystal clear what someone is saying: the slang is a racial, religious, or ethnic slur. And it’s our job to make those reasons clear, and expose the hate. When a student uses that word as slang, even in an affectionate, friendly context, I ask: 1. Is that even possible, and 2. Does that take the power out of a word, more or less effectively, than a nanny-mother hen publisher?

I don’t have any simple answers – just more questions. In the meantime, I’ll try to swallow my own pride and keep referring to Urban Dictionary or asking my own sons and students. Even if they laugh at me, (which they have) at least I’ll know.

Because ignorance is even less funny.

Losing it.

cup of sunshine

Need to mark my calendar for the days before Winter Break: Do Not Attempt Thinking.

Suffice it to say, my mind left me. I can blame it on stress, age, lack of sleep, vitamins, sunlight, or cream in my coffee, but dang, I have been distracted.

But for some reason, perhaps it’s the increased sunlight in the northern hemisphere, or having a concrete yet plastic, flexible schedule laid out, I am feeling somewhat less tangled.

When I go to my job, career, profession, avocation, passion, and classroom I am cheered and motivated by my students – they want to be here, and I want to, too. And that has definitely filled my cup.

Old dog….

old-dog

Okay, kids…this is the first time in about, oh, six years or more I haven’t dug into any new technology over an extended break. Learning to do Deadmines on Heroic mode doesn’t count. (Yes…yes…yes…I play WoW with my family..sorry I brought it up.) My ambitions for the winter break were larger than my motivation; when we get back on Monday, I’ll be interested to see what I actually did accomplish. I’m going to surprise or disappoint myself. My mood swings have swung: I feel like just writing, creating, and cooking right now. But I know that’s not what the New Year holds: it’s gonna be black, white, and red all over. Data are the new royalty; schematics and blueprints of pathways to goals determine all routes. See? I’m doing it again..writing on my blog when I should be developing more curriculum maps and calendars. Now the song “Dear Prudence” by the Beatles is stuck in my head. Trying to weave these random threads into something cohesive and warm may be a challenge. My random/abstract side is sitting on my concrete/abstract self. I have nothing against data, mind you. Good, interpretative analysis is a healthy, cathartic process; but let’s keep in mind, too, even the exalted Chinese reflect on their educational practices: see the NPR article.

ap100222010165

One quote that especially hit a nerve was: “Developed countries like the U.S. shouldn’t be too surprised by these results. They’re just one index, one measure that shows off the good points of Shanghai’s and China’s education system. But the results can’t cover up our problems,” he says.

Why don’t we consider this question, too, but in a slightly different context? Instead of asking why kids succeed in doing well or doing poorly on the standardized test, why aren’t we better at assessment? Why aren’t we better able at asking the essential questions? Why aren’t kids learning the fundamentals, practicing, and then developing their higher-level thinking skills naturally, and developmentally appropriate for them? Why are we insisting on boxing them up, shipping them and their hopes, dreams, and futures overseas when we have some good stuff here? And why, when they don’t “answer it right” aren’t we better able to fix it?!

Oh no. Now I’m riled up again.

Many believe it’s parents. There is a case for this. I have received emails from parents that read as if they’re written at a third grade level. It breaks my heart. I witness the breakdown of our educational system a few generational beats back, and I know we’re forever out of tune.

Many believe it’s the economic policies since the 1980s (yes, pointing a finger at you, trickle-down meanie). There is a case for this. The gap is growing wider between ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots,’ and the adults, all of the adults, in our children’s world, are being stretched to breaking. Meanwhile, others eat cake and wonder why we don’t, too.

Many believe it’s teachers’ unions, teachers, and still others believe it’s a stranglehold of administration systems where the money stays at the top. There’s a case for this, too. Like all public functions, I just wish the public would get more involved and not let corporations have a human vote. This is true for many of our US institutions, and if you don’t know what I’m talking about, shame on you. But I fear it may be too late.

The “results” for better or worse, do not cover up or unmask problems. They are just results. Perhaps we just need to be asking better questions. Watch The Simpsons’ “How the Test Was Won” episode. Laughed and cried.

Dear Prudence…

won’t you come out to play -ah-hey….hey….

Snap.

Oh, snap.
Oh, snap.

Collective  consciousness is a powerful force.

Seems like hallway conversations, emails, and blog postings are all reporting the same news: teachers and students, you have been abandoned. Room in the lifeboat? Left behind? Stranded? Perhaps.

Frequent, constant, and standard assessments are not going away. In fact, they are fairly well entrenched: some feel like a tick on a dog, others see them like the matchhead, burning tired and tenured ideas out. I don’t know if I’m the tick or the match;  but I do imagine most of us are feeling like the dog.

Codes words like “accountability” and “collaboration” sometimes mask managerial speak for “do more with less and be postive about it.” But I am going to focus on this word: empowerment. We are a creative force for change and growth — we have wonderful jobs. (Although with 1500 cuts coming next year, I do wonder if I will have one..?) There are doctors, nurses, and general good-do’ers out there who are truly saving the world. If outside forces, the mega-wealthy, the special interests, want to continue to diminish our children’s futures for their own gain, I’m not sure they know who they’re messin’ with.

 

I’m talking about quiet revolutions, although revolution is too strong of a word. But teachers are dangerous people. We want our students to know why they should care about themselves, and find passions and voice, as much as their teachers and parents do. Not to keep it hidden behind data. Expose the data, use it, and learn from it.

We need…

A snap cup.

From the movie Legally Blonde, Elle uses a Snap Cup to promote sunshine and sparkles in a drab, perfume-free world. Though my own college experience is about as far away from the fluffy sorority girl motifs in the Blonde series, I still played with Barbies.

What would School Teacher Barbie do?

Just celebrate the victories, the growth, the gain; little happy spots that build up, and mortar against the muck, mire, and muddy negativity.

Over the break, I plan on adding a little panache, positivity, and planning power to my New Year. Get some junk out of my system, and try to start fresh. I am going to start a Snap Cup, and snap out of it.