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This week I have a metric crapload* of classes coming to the computer lab to do an online assessment for the Symphony Math program. On the scale of online assessments I’ve seen over the past 14 months since I started as a Technology Specialist, I award it the highest praise yet: it’s quick. It takes about 20 minutes.

Before the students started in the assessment, their teacher gave some of the standard boilerplate about trying their best to show off what they really know. She told them to take their time answering each question to make sure they got it right.

Diligent students being diligent students, they did.

Here’s the interesting part, though: at one point in the assessment, students receive the instructions to answer the following questions as quick as you can.

This, of course, provides a fascinating bit of cognitive dissonance to watch play out. Fully 1/4 of the class raised their hand when they got to that point to clarify the teacher’s expectations of them.

Is it wrong that this really worries me?

*as opposed to an imperial crapload, naturally

Teachers don’t trust research, and understandably so. There’s a lot of shoddy research that supports fads. Experienced teachers remember that “this year’s method” directly contradicts the approach from three years ago. So they’d rather go it alone. Newer teachers pick up on the skepticism about research from the veterans.

Unlike medical research, teacher research rarely examines possible side effects, and whether they are short-term aggravations or can be expected to persist.

via Studying Teacher Moves : Education Next.

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The demand for technology in classrooms has given rise to a slick and fast-growing sales force. Makers of computers and other gear vigorously court educators as they vie for billions of dollars in school financing. Sometimes inviting criticism of their zealous marketing, they pitch via e-mail, make cold calls, arrange luncheons and hold community meetings.

via Silicon Valley Wows Educators, and Woos Them – NYtimes.com.

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I had a brief window of time to breathe today, so I stopped by a fourth grade classroom. Some of the students would be coming to see me immediately afterward to finish some work in the computer lab, so it was nice to meet them in their classroom.

The real reason that I stopped by, though, was because the teacher had told me that her students were giving their speeches as they ran for class representatives on the Student Council. This meant that in one 20 minute block of time, I’d get to see some of my favorite things in action:

• speechifying
• Student Council
• democracy in action

Some of the students gave some very good speeches. But only one of them touched my heart.

This 10-year-old boy started off smartly by confronting the biggest issue standing in the way of his election, which is that he is a bit of a class clown. He stated that when something is important, he can focus on it.

Then he did something immensely brave.

Opening his heart, he explained about a time that he had felt abandoned by some friends. Then he started to weep openly in front of his classmates. After taking a moment to recover, he then went on to explain that because he knows what that feels like, he wanted all of the students to know that, regardless of whether or not he wins the election, he has their backs, and he won’t let them down.

I nearly started to cry myself, and am pretty close to tears again in the retelling.

I also saw an amazing act of caring and respect today.

Each and every single one of the students in the audience seeing this boy crying in front of them waited patiently and respectfully listened to what he had to say. Not one student laughed or made a snarky comment. Not one restlessly moved around. The look on faces that I saw was one of concern and caring.

To me, this says a lot about those kids.

But it says just as much, if not more, about the teacher.

Do you know many teachers who run a classroom where students feel so safe, valued, and cared for that a 10-year-old boy can open up honestly about his feelings in a speech before the class, cry about it, and not have a single kid make light of it? I know teachers concerned about crunching numbers in multiple standardized assessment measures. I know teachers that start complaining about the kids when they enter the teacher’s lounge. I know teachers who refuse to collaborate because it’s a change in working conditions. I know teachers that play politics.

Fortunately, I also know teachers who show the kids that they’re valued every day. I know teachers who spend their own time learning. I know teachers that want to share everything about their program to any and all interested parties. I know teachers looking to create amazing new experiences for their students, not sticking to what they’ve done countless times before. I wish I knew more of these teachers.

I saw an amazing classroom today.

Hahahahahaha. Thinking that online surveys mean anything. Hahahahaha.

Seriously, did you really just compare your national survey with a substantial Methodology section to an online survey where the Methodology was basically, “hey, you’re here, feel like taking our survey?” Even your terribly weak conclusions at the end don’t actually mean anything.

Without even getting into the actual survey itself, and any inherent biases in the presentation of your actual survey, you’ve done a lot to discredit it with this nonsense.

via Views of EdNext Readers In Line With Those of General Public (except on Teachers Unions).

UPDATE 11/4/2011: My comment does not appear on that page. It’s either in never going to be approved limbo or has been deleted.

Some of this sounds like pretty good advice for teachers, too. I like this one in particular:

Be inquisitive. Ask questions about everything, and encourage them to do the same. Kids are naturally inquisitive … they can ask a million questions, because everything is new to them. Learn to see the world through their eyes — it’s amazing. Why the hell IS the sky blue? Why do leaves change color? How does a bird fly? These are brilliant questions, and you should explore them with the kids — don’t just give them answers, but show them how to find out.

via » The Rules of Effortless Parenting.

It got me thinking about the nonverbal messages that we send in our day to day interactions with students and other teachers. What are the implicit perspectives you’re pushing out to the world?

I started thinking about this because of a couple of really nice sessions that I chose to go to, somebody pointing out ways that I modeled for others in my own presentation, and interacting with my colleagues during downtime.

At the first session I attended on Media Literacy in the Elementary School, Katya Vigil‘s modeling of thoughtful reflection on her own practice really impressed me. At so many of the sessions you go to at a conference, the person presenting their work feels a need to put on an air of authority. Everything is wonderful, and that’s why I’m here in front of you today! In contrast, the presenter actively discussed throughout the presentation what she liked or didn’t like about the units that she planned. She told us explicitly what she felt did not work, improvements that she would make the next time, and research that she still needed to do before deciding on other improvements. I don’t know about you, but I respect that a whole lot more than the person pushing their own perfection. I’m glad that she had a few minutes of commenting and questioning in the end so that I could tell her that I felt that way.

At the other session I attended (more on that in a moment), Suzy Brooks ran a fabulous, fast-paced session where she modeled the value of choice for people. Instead of body-slamming through a ton of topics in the order of her own choosing (like I did in my presentation, of course), she had a list up on the screen and encouraged people to call out the topic they wanted to hear about. It kept audience engagement high through the presentation, people heard what they wanted to hear about, and yet she still somehow hit almost every point that she wanted to. I’ve already assured Suzy through Twitter that I plan on stealing her format at some point.*

At my own sessions, I’m fortunate that I had Jeremy Angoff** there to point out my own modeling for me. With some technical issues popping up, during the presentation, he pointed out to me afterwards that I modeled how to handle that well. I did my best to make light of the situation, and to just keep on moving. If something didn’t display right, I’d do my best to describe what it should be.

Before my second session, a woman politely told me that she would be leaving it early, and assured me that I should not be offended. Jeremy was sitting right behind her, so I asked him if I, a person who runs unconferences in my free time, would be offended in the slightest by somebody leaving my session. In the funniest moment of the whole two days, he replied, “He invented leaving sessions. Wait! I didn’t mean it like that!”

Of course, I did skip a whole bunch of sessions. I took the time to gather my thoughts and have meaningful discussions with my colleagues. I know many people who left sessions multiple times to find something more useful to them. When a bunch of us realized one session had slim pickings for us, we decided to meet up together and run a mini-edcamp in the middle of the conference. We’ve had enough unconference experiences at this point that we just ended up modeling the most basic principles of it just by second nature.

So when you get back to school after reading this, think about those messages that you send out. It may be easier at first to observe others and think about the messages they send. Do they model collaboration or do they send the message that working together with you is a waste of their precious prep time? Do they value student voices, or do they insist on compliance at all times? Do they demonstrate that learning happens constantly by sharing their own learning, or do they represent themselves as the authority at all times? Is learning messy student-driven or perfection and teacher-driven? Look at these things, find the ones modeling the things you value, and try to pick up on ways you too can send those kinds of messages. It takes purposeful effort at first, but the more you practice the modeling, the less you have to think about it. At some point, if you keep acting like the teacher that values collaboration, student voice, and honest sharing, you actually become the teacher that implicitly and naturally demonstrates those values.

*I swear to God that my blog series on remix teaching is coming! When a big idea rattles around in my brain, it can take ages of me wrestling with it to form some sort of coherent thoughts. If you don’t believe me, talk to my wife sometime about how long it was obvious that we would get married before I actually proposed to her. Fortunately, I make up for it by acting rapidly once I know exactly what I’m going to do.

**Jeremy is also totally my hero for coming over during my presentation to troubleshoot a display issue so I didn’t have to bring my presentation to an extended dead stop while trying to figure it out myself.