Why Dramatic-Science?

I have been looking for a copy of this for ages.  This was my final "thesis" for my undergraduate Ed Degree, and goes a long way to explain the history behind my handle "@dramaticscience".  Just thought I'd share for those who are passionate about the Theatre, or about Science Education.

Link to the original document through HERE

The Most Excellent and Lamentable Tragedy of Teaching

Romeo & Juliet - Ford M Brown

Two classes, both alike in dignity,
In fairest cyber-space we lay our scene:
An ancient failing pedagogy breaks
and from its wounds heuristic theory spills;
A pair of star-cross'd classes lose their life:
Whose misadventured piteous work-attempts
do with their death bury their teacher's strife.
The fearful passage of their work, so brief,
And the continuance of their teacher's angst
which, but the classes end, nought could remove,
Is now the two-page traffic of this stage;
The which if you with patient eyes attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.




My glorious, uncompesated readers I present, for your learning pleasure, this complex and important anecdote so that you may continue seeking enlightenment, satisfaction, and fulfillment from the work you have chosen to do.

Scenario A

A class of grade 9 boys, studying Space.  They begin in conversation simply pouring over the lexicon of work required to fulfill the Alberta Program of Studies, not as a reminder of what MUST be done, but rather what COULD be done.  They meet and express their unique loves, as boys, for things that are mysterious, foreign, to be mastered, and ultimately explode.  They approach me, their teacher, and announce that the most exciting part of learning about Space will be to build themselves a ROCKET.  Their teacher, with pomp and exuberance relays to them that this is exactly what they will do so long as they complete the research necessary to get the rocket to space safely.  He lays out four tasks which rocket-engineers must understand before undertaking any building project and sets them to task fulfilling these requirements as quickly as possible so they can make it to the rocket-building.

Scenario B

Now a class of grade 8 boys and girls, studying Water Systems.  They begin, not in conversation with me, but with a simple task:  To open up a website; http://waterquest.ca to be precise, and begin the drudgery of data-mining information that is barely relevant to their everyday life.  Their teacher is there at times to simply respond to their questions, and construct the space within which they will record their "regurgitated" information.  They are not offered a deadline, they are not offered a rubric.  Nothing is exchanged but a web-address and an assignment.

If you are not an expert in Human Motivation then I ask you to consider the two scenarios (both real) and offer that your gut-instinct is very naturally telling you that scenario A is MUCH MORE appealing than scenario B, and very likely the students are MUCH HAPPIER within scenario A as a result of knowing that they get to build a ROCKET.

And, like I was, you would be wrong.

For the last few days I have been racking my brain as to why I can't motivate 5 boys to use the web to research Space.  Especially since there is an actual tangible reward in it for them.  I am overwhelmed by the creative thought, energy, and efficacy with which the students in Scenario B are turning in work -- and the moxy they are showing solving their own problems and experimenting within the format, but I can't get the grade 9 students to open a website- much less begin the process of real research.

I have
a) considered that maybe it's just a developmental stage for the grade 9 boys that the grade 8's aren't at yet
b) that it's because they're boys and easily distracted by other ventures
c) that it just happens to be a circumstance of being in a classroom environment while the students in 8 are abundantly working from home
d) that they haven't had enough "responsibility" attached to the "learning"

And so I have
a) told them that we will play out a scenario of "World Domination" where they will master Space on route to mastering the world.  I will be their General and over the course of their learning they will earn Rank points to move them up the hierarchy
b) given them an evaluation form for the information I am hoping they will return before we get to BUILD the rocket
c) rewarded them with the very real potential of creating a rocket
d) listened and responded intently to their concerns, issues, and desires, and responded in kind by provided what they appear to be looking for.

And then, because I'm exhausted from having to be so creative (and not being adequately compensated for the immense work that I choose to do) I am lying in bed listening to Drive by Daniel Pink...

For those who have read it you're probably chuckling to yourself right now... else you should be... :)

The SCIENCE does not match the THINKING.

The Grade 8's ARE working intrinsically even though the material itself is not NEARLY as interesting as the Grade 9 Space work.  They have not been told that they HAVE to do anything, and there is not proverbial CARROT hanging near the STICK threatening their work as being anything more than them choosing to do GOOD WORK.  In the class where I felt I was doing everything WRONG it turns out that I was playing to the actual nature of the Grade 8 psyche:  do work for the sake of doing work, and balk at anything that tries to get in the way of that.

Counter to that, though I thought I was onto something AMAZING with the grade 9's I have done everything absolutely bass-ackward.  I have taken something as intrinsically interesting as SPACE and said the only reason we are studying it is because we have some outcomes to achieve and I'm even going to take away the fun of building a ROCKET by making it a REWARD for doing (what should be) inherently interesting work.

Moreover I'm in contact with a group who's essential task is to create a game-ified, badge-based open learning pathway network (that's a mouthful) thinking that this might be an amazing way of opening up students to the potential of defining their own skill-set and making their own map of learning.  AND I believe it will work simply BECAUSE it gets the teacher out of the way of the REWARD.

I am a walking contradiction with an alarming alacrity.

Working in reverse:

The last solution is simple, and I mirror it in my job right now
a) I abused an incredible amount of hours creating an online course that I offer for free, simply because I love teaching about stuff, I feel like I have something to offer, and I REALLY LOVE designing things.  http://sites.google.com/site/artistsoftheigeneration-- there was a little carrot in that the Public Library offered me a forum, but no compensation really other than the joy of getting to "perform" a little.
b) I have quit my job as a high-paid geologist, to become a well-paid teacher, only to quit to become a part-time employee of a private-school start-up... the more experienced I get, the better my work gets and the LESS I am compensated to do it AND the MORE I feel fulfilled.
c) I don't need a badge, an honour-roll, or a reward to do it - BUT because the work is good people keep dropping by and OFFERING it to me, UNEXPECTED... so....

Solution 2 (Badge-Based Learning):

Let the students create and map their own learning path.  Then share the immeasurable creativity and uniqueness of their work, and carefully and intentionally support them with words of praise, and informative feedback.

Solution 1 (Cold Dead Space):

Drop the rank points (no one cares anyway)
Drop the facade, space is interesting -- very little motivation required
Let them build the rocket because building a rocket is the learning, unlink it from the project and they will bring it back around -- because inevitably it does
Start looking for the parts of the learning that ARE algorithmic (and VERY LITTLE of science is algorithmic) and put those rewards where they should be.

Conclusion:

Learning is NOT algorithmic, but there are things that MUST be done in order to create a safe place for learning.  In the absence of GAMIFYING those mundane tasks use other EXTRINSIC motivators, but for the love of teaching, and the love of PEDAGOGY...


HEY, TEACHER, LEAVE THOSE KIDS ALONE. 

21st Century Education - The Same as it Ever Was

Tonight I uncovered this gem which looks at the mighty issue of a Grand-Unifying Theory of Education.  It comes from a 73 page treatise that I have gone to great effort to condense and, where necessary, clarify because I have been properly encouraged to remember that as much as things change... or rather... There is nothing new under the sun.

The Public Domain Review. (2017). Leo Tolstoy´s Fables for Children (1904). [online] Available at: http://publicdomainreview.org/collections/leo-tolstoys-fables-for-children-1904/ [Accessed 19 Sep. 2017].

Anyone who considers themselves a purveyor of a 21st Century Education Philosophy should have, at the very least, considered the following.   For those who enjoy a good skim, I have italicized and bolded the quips I think are crucial.

I hope that you will find, like I have, several modern analogues in a school district near you, and again, I make another shout out to The Sydney Centre for Innovation in Learning (SCIL) who could very well be represented by the school the author below longs to create.

All human knowledge is subdivided for the purpose that it may more conveniently be gathered, united, and transmitted, and those subdivisions are called sciences.  But outside their scientific classifications you may talk about objects anything you please, and you may say all the nonsense imaginable, as we actually see.  In any case, the result of the conversation will be that the children are either made to learn by heart the teacher’s words about the [Squirrel], or to change their own words, place them in a certain order (not always a correct order), and to memorize and repeat them.  For this reason all the manuals of this kind, in general all the exercises of development, suffer on the one hand from absolute arbitrariness, and on the other from superfluity.

The character of this instruction is everywhere one and the same.  The whole attention is directed toward teaching the pupil what he already knows.  And since the pupil knows what he is being taught, and easily recites in any order desired what he is asked to recite by the teacher, the teacher thinks that he is really teaching something, and the pupil’s progress is great, and the teacher, paying no attention to what forms the really difficulty of teaching, that 
is, to teaching something new, most comfortably stumps about in one spot.

Pedagogy is in the same condition in which a science would be that would teach how a man ought to walk; and people would try to discover rules about how to teach the children, how to enjoin them to contract this muscle, stretch that muscle, and so forth.  This condition of the new pedagogy results directly from its two fundamental principles: (1) that the aim of the school is development and not science, and (2) that development and the means for attaining it may be theoretically defined.  From this has consistently resulted that miserable and frequently ridiculous condition in which the whole matter of the schools now is.  Forces are wasted in vain, and the masses, who at the present moment are thirsting for education, as the dried-up grass thirsts for rain, and are ready to receive it, and beg for it, -- instead of a loaf receive a a stone , and are perplexed to understand whether they were mistaken in regarding education as something good, or whether something is wrong in what is being offered to them.  That matters are really so there cannot be the least doubt for any man who becomes acquainted with the present theory of teaching and knows the actual condition of the school among the masses.  Involuntarily there arises the question: how could honest, cultured people, who sincerely love their work and wish to do good, -- for such I regard the majority of my opponents to be, -- have arrived at such a strange condition and be in such deep error?

And thus it was found that the old methods of instruction were not good for anything, and, without building any new foundation, they began to look for new methods.  I say “without building any new foundation,” because there are only two permanent foundations of pedagogy:

(1) The determination of the criterion of what ought to be taught, and (2) the criterion of how it has to be taught, that is, the determination that the chosen subjects are most necessary, and that the chosen method is the best.

The real, peremptory question of pedagogy, which fifteen years ago I vainly tried to put in all its significance, “Why ought we to know this or that, and how shall we teach it?” has not even been touched.  The result of this has been that as soon as it became apparent that the old method was not good, they did not try to find out what the best method would be, but immediately set out to discover a new method which would be the very opposite of the old one.  They did as a man may do who finds his house to be cold in the winter and does not trouble himself about learning why it is cold, or how to help matters, but at once tries to find another house which will as little as possible resemble the one he is living in.

The moment parents or simply sensible people, who busy themselves with the question of education, express their doubt about the efficacy of these methods, they are told: “And what about Pestalozzi, and Diesterweg, and Denzel, and Wurst, and methodies, heuristics, didactics, concentrism?” and the bold people wave their hands, and say : “God be with them, -- they know better.”  In these [methods] there also lay this other advantage, that with it the teacher does not need to try too much, does not need to go on studying, does not need to work over himself and the methods of instruction.  For the greater part of the time the teacher teaches by this method what the children know, and, besides, teaches it from a text-book, and that is convenient.  And unconsciously, in accordance with an innate human weakness, the teacher is fond of this convenience.  It is very pleasant for me, with my firm conviction that I am teaching and doing an important and very modern work, to tell the children from the book about the [squirrel], or about a horse’s having four legs, or to transpose the cubes by twos and by threes and ask the children how much two and two is; but if, instead of telling them about the [squirrel] the teacher had to tell or read something interesting, to give the foundations of grammar, geography, sacred history, and of the four operations, he would at once be led to working over himself, to reading much, and to refreshing his knowledge.

It has been observed -- quite correctly -- that there is no greater aid for a pupil, when he is puzzled by a problem with large numbers, than to give him the same problem with smaller numbers.  The pupil, who in life learns to grope through problems with small numbers, is conscious of the process of solving, and transfers this process to the problem with large numbers.  Having observed this, the new pedagogues try to teach only the solving of puzzles with small numbers, that is, what can not form the subject of instruction and is only the work of life.

To sum up, the new school has removed certain disadvantages... and in this it is superior to the old method, and in reading and writing sometimes gives better results; but, on the other hand, it has introduced new defects, which are that the contents of the reading are most senseless and that arithmetic is no longer taught as a study.

The chief causes which have led us into such error are: (1) the ignorance about the masses; (2) the involuntarily seductive ease of teaching the children what they already know; (3) our proneness to imitate [other cultures], and (4) the criticism of the old, without putting down a new foundation.  This last cause has led the pedagogues of the new school to this, that, in spite of the extreme external difference of the new method from the old, it is identical with it in its foundation, and , consequently, in the methods of instruction and in the results.  In either method the essential principle consists in the teacher’s firm and absolute knowledge of what to teach and how to teach, and this knowledge of his he does not draw from the demands of the masses and from experience, but simply decides theoretically once for all that he must teach this or that and in such a way, and so he teaches.  The pedagogue of the ancient school, which... I shall call the church school, knows firmly and absolutely that he must teach from the prayer-book and the psalter by making the children learn by rote, and he admits no alterations in his methods; in the same manner the teacher of the new... school knows firmly and absolutely that he must teach according to [new methods] and he admits no alterations... Both of them base their opinion on the firm conviction that they know the best methods.

I assume that without [coercion] it is impossible to get along even in the new... school, because, like the church school, it teaches without asking what the pupil finds interesting to know, but what, in the teacher’s opinion, seems necessary, and so the school can be based only on compulsion.  Compulsion is attained with children generally by means of blows.  The church and the new... school, starting from the same principles and arriving at the same results, are absolutely identical.  But, if it came to choosing one of the two, I should still prefer the church school.  The defects are the same, but on the side of the church school is the custom of a thousand years and the authority of the church, which is so powerful with the masses.

When I entered at once into the closest direct relations with those forty tiny peasants that formed my school (I call them tiny peasants because I found in them the same characteristics of perspicacity, the same immense store of information from practical life, of jocularity, simplicity, and loathing for everything false...) when I saw that susceptibility, that readiness to acquire the information which they needed, I felt at once that the antiquated church method of instruction had outlived its usefulness and was not good for them.  I began to experiment on other proposed methods of instruction; but, because compulsion in education, both by my conviction and by my character, are repulsive to me, I did not exercise any pressure, and, the moment I noticed that something was not readily received, I did not compel them, and looked for something else.  From these experiments it appeared to me and to those teachers who instructed with me... that nearly everything which in the pedagogical world was written about schools was separated by an immeasurable abyss from reality, and that many of the proposed methods, such as object-lessons, the natural sciences, the sound method, and others, called forth contempt and ridicule, and were not accepted by those pupils.  We began to look for those contents and those methods which were readily taken up by the pupils, and struck that which forms my my method of instruction.

“The only criterion of pedagogy is freedom, the only method -- experience.”

After fifteen years I have not changed my opinion one hair’s breadth; but I consider it necessary to define with greater precision what I understand by these words, not only in respect to education in general, but also in respect to the particular question of popular education in a primary school.  [Two hundred] years ago the question what to teach and how to teach could have had no place either in Europe or with us.  Education was inseparably connected with religion.  To learn reading meant to learn Holy Writ..  But the moment religion ceased to be the criterion of what ought to be taught, and the school became independent of it, this question had to arise.  But it did not arise because the school was suddenly freed from its dependence on religion, but by imperceptible steps.  Now it is accepted by everybody that religion cannot serve as the contents, nor as an indication of the method of education, and that education has different demands for its basis.

In the popular school the right to determine what the children shall learn, no matter from what standpoint we may consider this question, belongs just as much to the masses, that is, either to the pupils themselves, or to the parents who send the children to school, and so the answer to the question what the children are to be taught in a popular school can be got only from the masses.  But, perhaps, we shall say that we, as highly cultured people, must not submit to the demands of the rude masses and that we must teach the masses what to wish.  Thus many think, but to that I can give this one answer: give us a firm, incontrovertible foundation why this or that is chosen by you, show me a society in which the two diametrically opposed views on education do not exist among the highly cultured people; where it is not eternally repeated that if education falls into the hands of the clergy, the masses are educated in one sense, and if education falls into the hands of the progressists, the people are educated in another sense, -- show me a state of society where that does not exist, and I will agree with you.  So long as that does not exist, there is no criterion except the freedom of the learner, where, in matters of the popular school, the place of the learning children is taken by their parents, that is, by the needs of the masses.

Thus, if we admit freedom as the criterion of what is to be taught, the program of the popular schools is clearly and firmly defined, until the time when the masses shall express some new demands.

Education and instruction are generally considered in the abstract, that is, the question is discussed how in the best and easiest manner to produce a certain act of instruction on a certain subject (whether it be one child or a mass of children).  This view is quite faulty.  All education and instruction can be viewed only as a certain relation of two persons or of two groups of persons having for their aim education or instruction.  This definition, more general than all the other definitions, has special reference to popular education, where the question is the education of an immense number of persons, and where there can be no question about an ideal education.  IN general, with the popular education we cannot put the question, “How is the best education to be give?” just as with the question of nutrition of the masses we cannot ask how the most nutrition and best loaf is to be baked.  The question has to be put like this: “How is the best relation to be established between given people who want to learn and others who want to teach?” or, “How is the best bread to be made from given bolted flour?”  Consequently the question of how to teach and what is the best method is a question of what will be the best relation between teacher and pupil.

Everybody is agreed that just as in hygiene the use of any food, medicine, exercise, that provokes loathing or pain, cannot be useful, so also in instruction can there be no necessity of compelling children to learn anything that is tiresome and repulsive to them, and that, if necessity demands that children be compelled, it only proves the imperfection of the method...  I consider the rousing of the pupil’s interest, the greatest possible ease, and, therefore, the non-compulsion and naturalness of instruction as the fundamental and only measure of good and bad instruction.

The objection was formerly made and, I know, is made even now that it is hard to find the limit of freedom which shall be permitted in school.  To this I will reply that this limit is naturally determined by the teacher, his knowledge, his ability to manage the school; that is freedom cannot be prescribed; the measure of this freedom is only the result of the greater or lesser knowledge and talent of the teacher.  This freedom is not a rule, but serves as a check in comparing schools between themselves, and as a check in comparing new methods which are introduced into the school curriculum.  The school in which there is less compulsion is better than the one in which there is more.  The method which at its introduction into the school does not demand an increase of discipline is good; but the one which demands greater severity is certainly bad.  Take, for example, a more or less free school, such as mine was, and try to start a conversation in it about the table and the ceiling, or to transpose cubes -- you will see what a hubbub will arise in the school and how you will feel the necessity of restoring order by means of severity; try to tell them an interesting story, or give them problems, or make one write on the board and let the others correct his mistakes, and allow them to leave the benches, and you will find them all occupied and there will be no naughtiness, and you will not have to increase your severity, -- and you may safely say that the method is good.

If, from a first, external impression of the school, we were to determine the difference between the church, the [new school] and my own school, it would be this:  in a church school you hear a peculiar, unnatural, monotonous shouting of all the pupils and now and then the stern cries of the teacher; in the [new school] you hear only the teacher’s voice and now and then the timid voices of the pupils; in mine you hear the loud voices of the teachers and the pupils, almost simultaneously.

As for the methods of instruction the consequences were that not one method of instruction was adopted or rejected because it was liked or not, but only because it was accepted or not by the pupils without compulsion.  But in addition to the good results which were always obtained without fail from the application of my method by myself and by everybody else... who taught according to my method... the application of the principles of which I have spoken had the effect that during these fifteen years all the various modifications, to which my method was subjected, not only did not remove it from the needs of the masses, but, on the contrary, brought it near and nearer to them.  The masses, at least in our parts, know the method itself and discuss it, and prefer it...  In the schools which are conducted according to my method the teacher cannot remain motionless in his knowledge... On the contrary, in my school, where the subjects of instruction, language and mathematics, demand positive knowledge, every teacher, in advancing his pupils, feels the need of learning himself, which was constantly the case with all the teachers I had.

As I wish to remain true to my rule that criticism should point out how that which is not good ought to be, I shall try to show how the whole school business ought to be arranged, if it is not to be a plaything, and is to have a future.  The answer is the same as the first two questions, -- freedom.  The masses must be given the freedom to arrange their schools as they wish, and as little as possible should any one interfere in their arrangement.

The essential difference between the view of the people and of the ministerial department consists in the following: (1) in the opinion of the masses there is no one definite norm and form of the school, outside and below which the school is not recognized, as it is assumed by the ministerial department; a school may be of any kind, either a very good and expensive one, or a very poor and cheap one, but even in a very poor one reading and writing may be learned... Just as one can pray equally well in a poor or in a rich parish, even so it is with learning. (2) The masses regard as the first condition of their education an even, equal distribution of this education, though it be in its lowest stage, and then only they propose a further, again an even, raising of the level of education... (3)... The masses... see as clear as daylight that those expensive schools... may be good indeed, but are not what they need, and try in every way possible to diminish the expenses for their schools.

If what I have pointed out does not convince anybody that will mean that I did not express clearly what I wanted to say, and do not wish to enter into any disputes with anybody.  I know that no deaf people are so hopeless as those who do not want to hear.  I know how it is with farmers.  A new threshing-machine has been bought at a great expense, and it is put up and started threshing.  It threshes miserably, no matter how you set the screw; this threshes badly, and the grain falls into the straw.  There is a loss, and it is as clear as can be that the machine ought to be abandoned and another means be employed for threshing, but the money has been spent and the threshing-machine is put up.  “Let her thresh,” says the master.  Precisely the same thing will happen with this matter.  I know that for a long time to come there will flourish the object instruction, and cubes, and buttons instead of arithmetic, and hissing and sputtering in teaching the letters, and twenty expensive schools of the [new] pattern, instead of the needed four hundred, popular, cheap schools...

The masses are the chief interested person and the judge, and now do not pay a particle of attention to our more or less ingenious discussions about the manner in which the spiritual food of education is best to be prepared for them.  They do not care, because they are firmly convinced that in the great business of their mental development they will not make a false step, and will not accept what is bad, -- and it would be like making pease stick to the wall to attempt to educate, direct, and teach them in the [new] fashion.

From:  Leo Tolstoy’s Fables for Children published in 1904, now available in the public domain

The Velveteen Teacher

For those teachers that once loved or despised the classic (public domain) story of The Velveteen Rabbit, I dedicate this to you.

Download the original file here.

The Velveteen Teacher by T.C. Andrew is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

FIVE School Designs for Now, not "The Future"

My conclusion:  The school of the NOW will trump the best school of the future.

...and in the future I hope to look back and see how my thinking has changed!

Look, the internet has taught me nothing.  There's a statement for you.  Except I would argue that it hasn't taught you anything either.  It's what people are willing to share on the internet that has made all the difference and it's that single fact that leads me to believe that the future of schools is less important than what we can do right now.

I've spent more than enough time thinking, and reading, and dreaming.  Haven't you?  Don't you find sometimes that what tires you out most at work is not the politics, but the fact that if you take that risk you've been thinking of you're going to fail in front of a number of stake-holders who have a pretty low tolerance for failure?  I want to take some risks!

I'm part of a hive-community of innovative and academic education researchers who all appear to agree (because I choose to follow people that think like I do) that education has a problem.  I haven't yet come across a succinct 140 character summary of what that problem is though.  What is it about the current education system that is broken?  What is it that is driving us to a major system overhaul over the next thirty years?

My thought: the fact that we think we might one day do better.  Only I got to thinking that doing better now is what the problem is, and the biggest single problem I face from day to day is that you can't really think about education from a scientific point of view when you're actively engaged in the process doing it professionally.  Moreover, the analysis can not be done instantaneously, but must be measured over a significant number of years.  So how are we ever supposed to know that what we are doing now is going to be better for the future?

Besides, who has that kind of time when students are competing for schools, and jobs, now!?

If I were to set up a brand new system tomorrow within the confines of a universal education system in the Alberta region this is what I would be thinking:

1.  The school of now is socio-collaborative.

No teacher can provide enough instant feedback to meet the needs of a diverse and growing student body in their classroom.  A social network can, and does.  If students are publishing and choosing those they trust to embed into their "circles" then they can and will get feedback that is important and more frequent then they currently do.

They will protect themselves against those they know will seek to harm, and will seek out those they know will be honest while maintaining a large community of those that will simply remind them how beautiful and awesome they are.  They will also find people who will push them forward and provide them with the missing details.

Look at your social community... the place where you publish what is important to you.  You've already created it for yourself.  And sorry... you created it yourself.

2.  The school of now is diverse.

First thing that you do when you adopt a new technology is personalize.  Not a single one of you reading this does not have access to a computer which you yourself have determined the layout, organization and work-flow for doing what you do best.  It has been influenced largely by what you've seen others do, but bares a mark of your unique and important learning style and value system and should not be tampered with.

So quit trying to market the "one product for all" attitude we've put in in computer rooms and libraries across our nations and by gum move away from creating PROFILES on public computers.

3.  The school of now is portfolio based.

Information is no longer the limiter in our system.  The time it took to go to the card catalogue, look up the two books on sharks that are not yet checked out, read them for a report and then regurgitate the information is now being used watching YouTube videos of cats -- being eaten by sharks.

Students are already becoming CURATORS of their own libraries.  They are creating YouTube channels in their names, they are flooding Instagr.am with THEIR visions, and frankly, I WANT IN ON IT.  As their teacher I want to know what it is they're thinking and seeing, and watching and learning and by publishing it publicly I'd argue that they WANT me to know too.

Why are they doing this?  Because we want people to recognize what it is we know, we don't want them to TEST us on it.  We want to say:  I'm ready for you to see this now that I've tuned it to what it is I want to say... that's why we look so good on our profile pictures!

And HOW was it we all learned how to do it?  Well, I did it by pushing buttons, and my Dad does it by scanning eHow's and my students do it with a YouTube video and frankly I don't really care how they do it because the final project reveals a great proficiency at getting it done and if the Facebook Timeline has shown me anything:  it can be measured as growing and changing at a rate that is significant and on par with my peers.

4.  The school of now is open-sourced

If I can't change it, adopt it, innovate or create... I don't want it.  And it had better be free.  No wonder we all freak out when an app costs more than 99 cents... forget that... when an app is not free.  We will give up our rights to our information so long as we have the right to design, create and improve the software/hardware we are purchasing.

There is a long history of the glorification of hacking and piracy.  Not only is it mainstream in our current schools, it's the norm.  Being from a highly affluent school population the first question I field from middle schoolers interested in the new technology I employ is not, "what does it do" but "did you jail break it?"

People want to be disruptive.  It's that fascination with celebrity.  It's why we personalize, and if it's not open-sourced then I can't experiment with it...

I am not one to promote copyright infringement, purposeful or unintentional.  Which is why I am so incredibly for sharing, flipping, public-archiving, the collective commons, and any software that allows teachers and students to say, "here is what I'm doing, reading, liking, loving.... and frankly you should see it too."

5.  The school of now is time independent.

I've said it already.  Even in the best situations, you put 25 middle schoolers in a room together with the most engaging lesson and you're going to lose valuable time to hearing about what they love the most in life right NOW.  Themselves, or celebrity.  So why force those minutes to be anything else?

Like us, students need their coffee breaks, their afternoon jogs, their naps, their snacks, and their mediation.  More-so if they're not working towards things that they themselves understand as moving them forward.

Our job is to guide them forward, not to judge whether the path they take will be lucrative, because -- seriously -- no teacher can possibly know the future and what's going to be lucrative.  We have one job:  Communicate the gov't mandated curriculum and create a space where the resources that allow students to show proficiency are readily available and accessible.

And in the school of now, that's already been done.




So, given you agree with these 5 postulates I ask only this:

A)  Admit you're not an expert and stop worrying if others will see you as such if you start sharing your work.  The reason people like the internet is because people put stuff on it, if they're going to love learning, stop being so selfish and start publishing!

B)  Find a way to open up the curriculum as a hand-book for your students.  They'll ask you for directions.  Since you've already been there, at least you'll know the way.

C)  Let them socialize.  It's the only way they'll develop trust and resiliency.  Which is far more important for their success than proficiency; that comes with time, trust may never.

D)  Trash the schedule (okay this isn't a small thing, but it's so necessary) -- when that structure is gone you'll be reminded just how much of a non-expert you are and how much your colleagues can gain from your expertise, and how much you can gain from theirs.

E)  Take a good improv class.  Seriously.  It's the best way to become aware of how great it is to FAIL.

So I come back to it.  We're already in the school of the future... only no one has bothered to bring it all together in one place...  They're trying... just look at Kahn Academy, Edmodo, Discovery Learning, et cetera, et cetera, et al, ad nauseum...

Imagine with me then what would happen if all that time on a social network was spent by people sharing, liking, publishing and creating ways of doing learning better.  A place where a student can say, "I need to learn about Dalton's Law and I need at least three different options for how to do it, and 9567 people have already viewed, vetted, and selected the top 5 choices for that lesson.

And all you had to do as a teacher was to encourage, assess, and respond...

Because that's the school of now, and it's way better than worrying about the future.

Flame Out

I've spoken on this blog of moments of success, and shared pictures of good work, but there's always the seedy underbelly of teaching that doesn't get publicized.

It's that classic visual joke:  Here's your best profile picture, and here's the one that others post of you...

So what occurred to me today is that as successful as moments have been, my students are still burned out.  Still ready for summer, and they're disengaging in shocking numbers.  A drama class that has students that check-out is not a drama class.  Can't be.

So what happened?  Why should a student be burned out by June?  Why do they (who have several two week breaks over the course of a year) have to live for their vacation?  What learning are they yearning for that isn't being satiated by the system here?

Climbing the ladder to graduation is tiring I suppose.  Which is why the success now appears to be the independent projects that happen outside of class.  There are a number of extra-curricular things going on that have the students intensely engaged (so much so they'll risk skipping class to work on them).

How do we formatively, or summatively mark when they don't want us around 'interfering'?  Why do they see us as foreign to their personal projects?

As I flush these final questions from my system weeks before my own immanent 'vacation' I realize I too am simply flaming out.

Bed-Time-Lines

The combination of the personal desire to share stories with the ability to host media-based, text-driven, original-content that can all be connected globaly has completely reshaped everything that we are doing within the walls of our schools, and if we're not careful we won't even see it happening.

This timeline shows just how I got to the moment I am in, blogging about the timeline that led to my ability to blog about the social network that I have created so I can share my digital stories using wikis and youtube as a place to flip my classes for enjoyment and enhancement of the students I teach.

*pant *pant

And I've done it with a tool I found searching keywords online that will host my data for free and is user friendly enough that it has only taken me four hours to produce it all.

The world we live in is marveolous though there is nothing new under the sun.

Follow:

• my youtube channel
• my blog
• my tweets

Here's a teaser for you:


or... better yet: start one of your own.

Three Sides to Every Coin

In the recent past our school opened a new wing for our Jr. High students to enjoy.  As we took our fledglings under our new wing we hoped to see development toward a new and innovative approach to the system called "school".

Created on the iPad2 by @dramaticscience with cinemagr.am

My own goals included:
a) the ability of students to modify their space to suit their learning needs
b) the ability for teachers to modify their space to suit their learning needs
c) the ability for all to use technology that was appropriate to them
d) the ability for all to disrupt the status quo to discover new ways of doing age-old things.

...backfire...

It worked well, but it's happening in the wrong places, or for the wrong reasons.

From wikipedia:
A back-fire or backfire is an explosion produced by a running internal combustion engine that occurs in the air intake or exhaust system rather than inside the combustion chamber. The same term is used when unburned fuel or hydrocarbons are ignited somewhere in the exhaust system. A visible flame may momentarily shoot out of the exhaust pipe. Either condition causes an objectionable popping noise, together with possible loss of power and forward motion.

But a coin has two sides doesn't it?  When I sit back to look at this scenario it is easy to see both.

powered by Fotopedia

Side 1 @dramaticscience: This wk stdnts have switched their own scheds around, prioritized work-time over reg class time, & assumed control of learning life.#yay?

Side 2 @dramaticscience:  I.O.W. they skipped drama class to work on science projects last minute. Am I kewl with that? #morethanyoumightexpect

Side 3
But there's a third side, isn't there? The side of the coin that connects the two sides.  The side that circles both, and the side that you can carefully and precariously balance the coin on.  That's the side that we tend to forget about.  That's the side that sometimes we need to look at.

When we don't go together in a unified direction, when we don't support each other as we take risks to innovate, to improve, and to progress then we end up on two sides of the same coin, and that means we will fight to decide which side is up.

The tendency is to want to be on one side or the other.  Why not bring the two sides together and stand together on the third?  Perhaps then we'll prevent the backfires.

Authentic Yearning

Click Here to FF to the Media!

Every year our drama program struggles to create a space for students to use film media to convey their stories, and examine their processes.

Problem 1:  They don't want to film at school.  There's no where good.
Problem 2:  They don't want to story-board.  What's the point?  With digital technology we can just take one long shot and splice them together afterward
Problem 3:  They don't want to tell a story.  It's more fun for us to look at ourselves making silly faces on camera than stick to a script.

Been there?

With the advent of an iPad classroom, and the willingness to open up a project to something beyond getting a mark here is what has happened, and how:

The Story

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Problem 1:  Mandate a project with a note home from parents that no students are allowed to film at home.  That's work to be done in class.

Problem 2:  Create a project where you charge them for the film that they use.  For my students I charge them $0.80 per minute of digital film.  I don't really charge them, but I make them keep track of it in a budget.  At the end of the project their mark is scaled between a ratio of how well they were able to meet the bench-marks (good story telling, coherent story, likeability) and how much it cost.  They are to make 10 minute films.  They can be shorter, but must not be one second longer after editing.


Problem 3:  Examine the mystery genre.  Split them into groups of four or five and then lead them to these two sites:
a) The 5 Deadly Sins of Amateur Film Making
b) The film techniques of Alfred Hitchcock

Having approached each of the problems in this fashion start them off looking at Problem 3 with the understanding that this is a problem of the past that they are certainly more than talented enough to over come.  Give them time and the resources to investigate these sites in their groups and then create some time to share the more interesting details they discovered.

Then announce the project: "We're going to be hosting the School 10 Minute Film Festival, and your films will be featured just like at an industry Gala Event".  The look on their faces when they realized that this project was something that mimicked the film industry was one of excitement.  As soon as I stopped the pitch the creativity started.

The Yearning

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Quick note:  All media appearing below belongs to and was posted online (without encouragement) by my Grade 9 students.

 What happened in our class is that as soon as they understood there was a budget they started to come up with other things they should charge for.  For instance, several students are excellent editors, but other students have no idea where to begin with film editing.  So they wanted to charge for editing time from the experts in the Career Technology and Society class.  They knew of other actors they'd like to include in their project, but they needed to charge a rate to get them in their movie.

Mostly they wanted this project to mirror the things that actually happen for film-makers. Including and not limited to creating their own movie posters and the following "teaser-trailers". Stay tuned, we plan on streaming their videos!

I can't guarantee that this will happen every time this project is pitched, but for these guys it was working.

Finally, tell them that because this is a festival format they must meet certain deadlines and be able to speak to the work they are doing at the end of the project.

For the last two weeks they kicked me out of class so they could work toward their project goals.  They approached me only for permission to film in certain areas of our school (just like film-makers acquire licences they had to get licences).  And there are posters, trailers, and just a whole lot of excitement surrounding these films, because they want to do something valuable and authentic.

The Man in the Shadows (Teaser) from Grant on Vimeo.

I want you to participate in their film festival too, so I'm inviting you now to follow us on Twitter, keep up to date with this blog, and watch for a date (following Feb 7 when we will live-cast our event).

Peace.

Ancient Greece and the Theatre

Mention "thespian" to a middle schooler and they all crack up. Humor is such an important method to teaching the younglings, especially when it borders on the inappropriate.

Mention teaching theatre history to middle school students to most drama teachers and you might get a very similar response... Still I have decided to give teaching theatre history to Grade 6 a shot to see what happens...

My Grade 6 lab rats seemed like a great place to start particularly because they are studying ancient Athens in their Social Studies Curriculum.

Working with @bar_qu means that I also have a partner in crime allowing me to continue my xcurricular pursuits. This time around though I was sure to Incorporate the Art teacher.

To be clear what I know of ancient Greece is very similar to what most of my students remember about being thespians... It has something or other to do with myths and "phallusies".

So I asked my students directly if they would like to receive a lesson and worksheet based on note collecting from a PowerPoint I found on "Ancient Greece for Kids" or if they would just prefer to research and perform their own Ancient Greek play about "A Day in the Life of an Ancient Athenian". (credit to @bar_qu for that one)

Funny... Only six of forty said they'd prefer me and notes over self-directed research... Currently I'm battling the urge to feel hurt and the urge to feel elated.

I assigned them small groups (SOLE methodology) with one tablet per group. I gave them a Greek letter as a group name for them to look up so they could inscribe it for themselves on their books. Then I asked, "what makes for an Ancient Greek Production?"

All the World's A Stage

They have currently had only 90 minutes to work but already they are telling me about:

• Comedies, Tragedies, and Satyr


• That the Agora was a pretty cool place to gather


• That our school Theatre is actually a lot like a Greek theatre and in fact some of the names are still the same.


• That men were the stage folk, and that if we're going to be doing this we're also going to need some masks.

I am a verbose lecturer at the best of times. They could have listened to me describe these things for an hour, retained less and had less fun. I guess I'm elated after all.

Currently they are taking pictures of our theatre to compare with schematics of a Dionysian Theatre and putting it all together using "Show Me"... But mostly they are eager to to start writing their scripts.

One girl asked if I was going to let the girls act? "Of course" I said, to which she responded: "Even though that wouldn't be authentic?"

Another girl asked if they would be allowed to use the social text to gather information to put in her play.

Folks, I can't make this stuff up... Oh yeah, and THIS (what your are reading) is my lesson plan.

The art teacher agreed ahead of time to give them time to build masks. The SS teacher will use his time to research A Day in the Life... And I will use the drama time to build costumes and scenes for our burgeoning chorus of players.

And I couldn't be more pleased with the learning, engagement, and attention/retention of details. Yes, I had a couple of Spartans vying for attention as they practiced for the Trojan wars. Man were they disappointed when they discovered that the Greeks let all the action occur off-stage; another detail they'll be sure to recall if there happened to be a test on this down the road.

Next up: A blog entry on why I'm making grade 7 students do monologues from Shakespeare's First Folio...

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The App' I discussed above is called Show Me. There are other great apps out there like this for free. This just happened to be available to the kids on the Apple Cart at school.