In late July, I called my ELA besties around the country to weigh in on some ideas for American Lit. There is an existing district scope and sequence, and from what I’ve gathered, there have been some needed tweaks and adjustments to the common assessments: mostly scheduling and cohesion, but some adjustments nonetheless.
One of my skill sets is backward planning, and I am forever a fan of UBD (Wiggins/McTighe), so I put together, with their help, a curated list of materials, and planned to incorporate the district’s scope and assessment focus/questions. I mention UBD because I can absolutely plan the beast out of PLC work and common assessments. This is going to be my 19th time at the rodeo.
I love working with my department head on these ideas; she’s receptive and collaborative and helps add focus. We both laughed when we met and agreed we are verbal processors, and she is skilled at listening to my processing. She understands the notion of “work in progress” and how my drafts are designed. We will interweave the skills necessary and develop assessments that are authentic and hopefully, engaging.
And here is the thing: if I could really get new and veteran ELA teachers to understand one important concept, the text is somewhat immaterial. What matters is the combination of skills, strategies, and standards working cogently and effectively for students’ growth and learning. These must be transferable, quantifiable, and reflective processes for students to make learning stick. Whether or not one spends six weeks on “The Crucible” or one week on The Great Gatsby isn’t the priority: when developing continuity and robust instruction in curriculum, always circle back to the three S’s.
I’m currently listening to (and then checking back in with the text) of How to Hide an Empire by Daniel Immerwahr. Chapter 17 which discusses measurements and standards. And while the United States is still not on the metric system, part of that global domination plan (colonization is so 1700s) is to make the world standardized. For better or worse, the CCSS did make an attempt to standardized instruction. Many states didn’t adopt the Common Core, and many parents and school boards unfortunately conflated the Core with standardized testing. TL:DR high-stakes testing sucks. The standards aren’t bad. They’re vague enough so that educators can put their spin and instructional design on them but clear enough to give focus and direction. His writing reminded me of educational standards, the Science of Reading debacle, and how research can support or defame just about any topic in education. It’s messy.
If we want to clear up this mess, we focus on the skills, strategies and standards in our content areas and create these as our framework.
That’s it. Make the bolts fit the nuts. Or something like that.
My burning question: What does living with constant, unrelenting lies do to the human brain/learner?
John Brennan’s tweet made me consider this from an educator’s point of view.
Take away the incredulous, dangerous propaganda machine this current administration is, and any political leanings, it is well documented that he is a liar. And while I am not capable of diagnosing his narcissistic, pathological and malignant personality traits, I can objectively do some research into how lies affect students.
On Thursday, the Washington Post published a remarkable story on its front page revealing a recent spike in the number of “false and misleading claims” made by President Trump. In his first year as President, Trump made 2,140 false claims, according to the Post. In just the last six months, he has nearly doubled that total to 4,229. In June and July, he averaged sixteen false claims a day. On July 5th, the Post found what appears to be Trump’s most untruthful day yet: seventy-six percent of the ninety-eight factual assertions he made in a campaign-style rally in Great Falls, Montana, were “false, misleading or unsupported by evidence.” Trump’s rallies have become the signature events of his Presidency, and it is there that the President most often plays fast and loose with the facts, in service to his political priorities and to telling his fervent supporters what they want and expect to hear from him. At another rally this week, in Tampa, Trump made thirty-five false and misleading claims, on subjects ranging from trade with China to the size of his tax cut.
What responsible & right-thinking adult can point to @realDonaldTrump as a role model for our youth? Whenever he spews lies, insults, and polarizing hate speech against fellow Americans, think of its harmful impact on our young people and the way they talk, act, & treat others. https://t.co/S8sPpydvt9
And though I am not entirely sure why this particular lie triggered me. Perhaps it’s because I like the Queen. My biased opinion. But she is a woman in her 90s who’s seen some stuff, fought Nazis, and likes dogs. And there is part of me who still believes in decorum and protocols.And one does not keep the Queen waiting.
Instead of simply not commenting on his mistake, Trump’s manic compulsion is incapable of having any story or misstep make him out to be wrong.
The president’s visit to Britain was broadcast live, including footage of the queen waiting for him for 12 minutes.
U.S. President Donald Trump told supporters that Queen Elizabeth II kept him waiting during his first official visit to the United Kingdom, blaming the media for reporting he’d been the one who was late for their meeting.
Speaking at a rally in Pennsylvania on Thursday, Trump claimed he had actually arrived 15 minutes early for his meeting with the “incredible” queen, slamming the “fake, fake, disgusting news” media reports that noted he had been the one who was late.
The moral of the story, if I may use that term, is that when people in positions of power lie, you not only become disaffected with them, but you become disaffected with the institutions they represent. Each time this happens, your identity and well-being takes a new hit. Identification with our jobs and our government are crucial to our self-concepts. As we lose faith in them, we lose faith in ourselves.
The underlying model that Griffith and her team tested bears strong connections to the way that people feel about their political leaders. The leader-member exchange (LMX) model proposes that, as the name implies, the quality of the relationships between members and leaders works in two directions. The more that members feel connected to their leaders, the better the system works. Members feel better about their leaders when they see them as ethical, honest, good at interpersonal relationships, consistent, and fair. If members and leaders don’t have mutual respect and trust, the workers will ultimately be turned off from feeling committed both to their leaders and their organizations.
Her list continues:
Find someone you can admire. OK, so this person let you down. The LMX model says that respect is a key part of your ability to identify with your superiors. You’ll feel better and become more productive in life if you can find someone else to latch onto whose integrity is without question.
Look for people who make you feel good. Positive affect (“feeling good”) is a second dimension of the LMX model. Hanging around people who broke their vows to you can only build resentment. The liar may be someone you can’t avoid, but don’t let that person make you feel miserable. Seek out people you not only admire but who you actually like.
Give your trust to those who will actually defend you. The Griffith et al. study showed that employees who are lied to lose their sense of trust. A good supervisor, politician, friend, and lover inspire your loyalty. Minimize your dealings with the dishonest ones because when push comes to shove, they’ll put their interests over yours.
Seek out those you respect. We want to work harder for people who we believe are competent, knowledgeable, and professional. You maximize your own productivity and success when you have faith that your leaders know what they’re doing.
You see the problem, right? What if a political leader has captured and brainwashed followers to the point they are incapable of not only detecting lies but wallowing and savoring the lies? Their own identities are fraught with self-deception and self-loathing?
: a theory holding that the self can know nothing but its own modifications and that the self is the only existent thing; also: extreme egocentrism
Before I fall into despair, time to pivot back to my original question: there is no doubt that living with a political leader who constantly lies is going to do some to a lot of damage to our nation’s psyche.
I’ll use Krauss Whitbourne’s guide and shape one of my own for the classroom:
Self-respect: Understand what self-respect means in your life. Then, look to others who value you, and share a mutual respect.
Reciprocal: Look for people who lift you up, and never ask a cost to be their friend or leader.
Trust Yourself: Trust those who support you and your family, with deeds and not just words. Do not be afraid to disengage from a relationship that is not living up to your beliefs.
Stay or Walk Away: Recognize those you respect, and gauge your alignment with your own beliefs and values.
I can’t do much for those children whose parents have decided to be hateful, explore and grow their racism and align themselves with Trump. I am struggling with this, and I think if many of us were honest we would have a hard conversation about this. I am conflicted: the bond between parent and child is one I hold sacred, and while children are being sexually assaulted, harmed beyond repair emotionally and physically, I am wondering how we will begin to heal and move forward from one of the most shameful moments in our history. It’s one of the most because we know better. We should have learned. The majority of us saw it coming but had no plan on how to stop it.
I am struggling with finding empathy for Trump followers’ children. Rather, struggling to find a way to the path to forgiving the parents.
When they realize they’ve been lied to and digging in will result in further humiliation, it’s going to be disastrous. Trump is incapable of saying he’s wrong, and since they identify with him they will be, too.
But we are doing better at exposing lies, helping students become critical thinkers, and even if it’s painful and causes Richter-scale brain spasms of cognitive dissonance, we educators must keep pressing forward, objectively and with clarity.
Ultimately though, treating politics and other controversial topics as taboo does a disservice to kids and to our future democracy. But facilitating these conversations isn’t easy. “Schools need to model and facilitate those discussions but there aren’t any hard and fast rules,” Dr. Levinson said. Teaching young people to engage in, rather than avoid, critical conversations may be a way schools can truly navigate today’s polarized national ecosystem.
Um, gee, I don’t know! Not sure where writing fits in with the reading skills focus our district has taken. Intended to be transferable, skills hold the place of being the ‘how to learn’ idea. They are the workhorses of education: many educators feel once a skill is taught, it can be liberally applied to cure any ill. Alas, they are not a panacea, but the good intentions are there. If skills are too much the focus, they become the leech or bleeding, and knowledge building misdiagnoses may occur. Point being: many good ELA teachers are confused by a skills-only focus. But that’s a conversation for another time.
If third-grade students can figure out how to be nice to one another, then it is my hope that we can learn how to again, as well. Maybe on October 20 we can have a classroom discussion on what comments do to us emotionally and psychologically. Stay tuned.
Someday, maybe, I’ll work on my Doctorate, and I am fairly certain what my focus will be the power of storytelling. It’s been a subject I’ve researched for years. We are all narrative learners. I struggle with putting things in tidy boxes of informational versus narrative. I could make a case that all learning is information, or all learning is narrative. But it’s both.
And what makes us human, to me, is our need for a story. Perhaps elephants, dolphins, and whales tell their babies stories, and I know experience is certainly passed down. Unless of course, you’re an octopus–incredibly intelligent, but have no means of passing it along to the next generation. “Their knowledge dies with them.”
In Newkirk’s book, Minds Made for Stories, he explores the question of how knowledge is developed. It’s a fantastic read and supports my own instincts about the power of storytelling when it comes to any content area.
But why is this–in the vernacular of our times–even a thing? I detect a bias here, and ‘us versus them’ in the content area arenas.
Recently Wells Fargo caused outrage because of this ad campaign:
Because of public outcry, artists and actors protested and the ad campaign has been pulled. (Why can’t we do that to a certain presidential nominee?) Clearly, Wells Fargo jumped on the STEM bandwagon and forgot to add the rogue branch of the acronym, “A” — for Arts. This push toward only mathematics and science is dangerous, but I don’t think it’s a cause for outrage necessarily. But it is a place for a conversation: what do we value? What do we support — financially, socially, and emotionally? And what do we want to be when we grow up? Is there a bias of brains? Why do we constantly misdirect the topic, continually focused on the myth of left versus right brains? These fallacious and hollow debates about skills versus content, lecture versus ‘guide on the side.’ Enough. This is not the conversation to focus on, and it’s a waste of everyone’s time.
This simple fact — that knowing stuff is inseparable from being able to read stuff — is why great teaching will always be concerned with both skills and content. Sadly, since the majority of educators who implemented the Common Core State Standards did not read and reflect upon their introductory matter, it became popular (and fallacious) to declare that content isn’t what counts — skills are. In the CCSS era, there are no distinctions between science and social studies and English teachers anymore; we’re all reading teachers, right? And thus was won a great victory by champions of literacy everywhere!
Skills are important. But they are only one side of the story.
Here is the other side:
All we do as humans is based on a story we must tell. An adventure we seek, a problem to solve, our heart is breaking and we want to fix it. Someone is lost and we want to find them. Something or someone attacks our humanity and we want to slay the monster.
As you’re planning units, I urge you to look at your content through the lens of storytelling: what motivated the person to learn? What motivates you? What are your burning questions?
Remember this is not a zero-sum game. We can be ballerina scientists and athletic botanists. If you want to talk more about ideas you have or thinking about doing something amazing with stories and science/math, I’m here.
