Cupid Shuffle, Robots, Teamwork

To the right, to the right, to the right, to the right, 
to the left, to the left, to the left, to the left, 
now kick, now kick, now kick, now kick, 
now walk it by yourself . . ..”  

The music started jammin’; the dancers in their pastel tutus started groovin’; kids started clappin'.  No, this was not last month’s middle school dance, rather it was seventh-grade science class on Friday at 9:50 AM, rooms five and six.  The dancers involved, while directed by the seventh graders, were actually Lego Mindstorm robots.  The routines, expertly choreographed and programmed, were the culmination of a week’s worth or teamwork.  While programming is a valued skill that involves logical sequencing, problem solving, and some discreet knowledge about the language involved, the real value of last week’s “dance off” was in the work and lessons learned about collaboration and communication.  

About a week ago, I was touring the mother of a fifth-grade boy who was interested in how the middle school had changed in the short time that had passed since her daughter, a current ninth grader, first entered Stephens Hall.  We spent some time in my office talking about educational theory and then moved down the hall to see what was happening.  I love to give tours because it is a chance for me to show off what we do and who we are, something that is sometimes difficult to describe with words or numbers.  We entered Mr. McManus’s room at the end of the hall and found Meghan and Anna Kate standing in front of their seventh-grade classmates.  While the following is paraphrased, it is pretty close to what we heard:

Okay, everyone be quiet.  We've got to get rid of the chaos, so we decided to give everybody jobs.  If you don’t like your job, it doesn’t matter ‘cause you can switch.  We think Sydney should be leader.

As this was going on, Mr. McManus was sitting off to the side pretending to be disinterested.  The mom and I looked at each other, and I got a big smile on my face.  

Now I wasn’t in the classroom the previous day, but from what the girls told me, it was pretty ugly: people talking, no one listening, raised voices, frustration, nothing getting done -- sounds a little like Congress.  Mr. McManus, being a wise, experienced sage, let the situation play out. He trusted the process and didn’t jump in to fix things. This empowered the girls to take matters into their own hands and work it out.  Some girls became programmers, some costume designers, some DJ’s, some choreographers, and one a leader.  Some girls changed jobs as it became apparent that more work was needed in different areas.  They worked together.  They solved their own problems.

I spent a few minutes talking to Anna Kate and Meghan who had stood in front of their peers to attempt to make order out of chaos, and asked them what I thought was going to be a tough question:  “Why didn’t appoint yourselves leaders?”  They didn’t miss a beat and said that they chose Sydney because she is really good at being a leader.  They said that she listens well and can organize things.  Nice!  

The three other seventh-grade core groups also struggled through the process of how to get a large group to work together to reach a goal. Some were not particularly pleased with the outcome; however, if each groups' performance didn't come off perfectly, they all persevered and brought something worthwhile to the dance floor. So, as Cupid says, ". . . do your dance, do your dance."

Understanding Boy World

Between raking a couple of million leaves, spatchcocking and roasting a turkey, and running until my plantar fasciitis has left me hobbling, I have been plowing through Rosalind Wiseman’s newest book, Masterminds and Wingmen, which focuses on helping adults to understand teenage boys.  Through her research and interviews with hundreds of boys, Wiseman gives us (you should read this book) a portrait of boys and a glimpse into their psyche, motivation, and daily struggles.  Although I’m only half way done with the book, I’m beginning to question how any of us guys have managed to reach adulthood.

I’ll give Wiseman credit; she wrote this book from a place of love for boys not because she wants to change or slam them.  As a man, it is pretty tough reading the book and thinking about all the stupid and dangerous things that I did as a boy, and, from reading the anecdotes of boys growing up now, that most boys do today.  Wiseman uncovers the reasons why boys sneak out at night, why they turn silent or lie when questioned, and why their anger can dominate them.  However, she doesn’t stop there.  She gives parenting advice on all these topics and more -- even the really tough ones involving social media, video games, sex, and porn.

Masterminds and Wingmen should really be used as a resource, not just for information.  When you question what you are doing in reaction to something your son has done, it would be great to go back and read a specific chapter in the book to get some perspective.  You may not follow Wiseman’s advice to the letter, but at least you will have considered an alternative, which is bound to help you make a better decision.  

Delayed Gratification: Marshmallows, Minecraft, and Control

This morning was monumental, much better than A’s on a report card or 99th percentiles on standardized tests.  This morning my eight-year-old boy got up and said that he wanted to finish all his work first thing in the morning.  Walter Mischel, make way for Charlie Douglas who just passed the marshmallow test on a grand scale.

While I’m off for a few weeks during the summer, my two boys enjoy the pleasures of Papa Camp, which shares a few of the same attributes of their traditional “sleep-away camps,” like regular meal service, swimming at the lake, and poopy-sleepy time.  However, unlike most “sleep-away camps,” Papa Camp has some work involved. (I refer to work here in the purest Mark Twain sense as being something that you have to do rather than something that you choose to do.)  The work involved is daily reading, writing, math, exercise, piano and chores.  This summer, rather than working out an intricate schedule of these activities for the boys, I gave them a spreadsheet with the activities listed and told them that they needed to do all of them each day.  They also have a limit on screen time each day, and they must keep track of this as well.  I have refrained from nagging, and let them figure out the how and when of getting the work done, when to play MInecraft (more tempting than a marshmallow for my boys), and when to loll around trying to deal with summer boredom.  

This morning, one of the first things out of Charlie’s mouth was, “I’m going to do all my work first thing this morning.”  When I asked him why, he said that he wanted to get it done first thing because he didn’t do all his work yesterday.  When I prodded a little deeper and asked him how it made him feel not to finish his work, he said that he didn’t have the “word” to describe it.  I really could care less about the word that he might have chosen; maybe he will be able to name it later, but what is important is that he displayed a huge amount of self control, a large amount of grit that I have not seen exhibited before in his work.  The motivation to get his work done first came totally from inside, which is more important to me than almost anything.

Charlie has always had the ability to persevere to do things that he wants to do -- to play.  He can and does spend hours designing and making intricate Lego structures.  He figured out, by himself, over many, many hours how to use I Movie to make a video about his Dream Team of Lego heroes.  However, up to this point in time, he has not displayed the same stick-to-it quality in things that other people, like his parents and teachers, require him to do.  It is amazing to me to see this transference of grit from the things that he wants to do to the things that he is asked to do, and I wonder how and why this blossomed within him.  

I know that this quality, possibly more than anything else, will help Charlie to be successful and happy. The self-control to postpone gratification, in eight-year-old Charlie’s case, the power to choose to do his work before designing worlds in Minecraft, will reduce negative stress in his life and give him control over his world.

On Relationships and Success

I come from a long line of salesmen, and all salesmen know that the best way to make a sale is to build a relationship.  My paternal grandfather spent the early part of his career buying mineral rights all over Texas, Oklahoma, and the South.  While the job could be viewed as buying something, my grandfather was actually selling the dream of riches to poor farmers during the 1920’s and 30’s.  I can imagine him driving the dusty, caliche roads, stopping every few miles to open the ranch gates that that crossed public highways then.  I feel certain that he kept a bottle of bourbon in his car to act as a lubricant to ensure the success of the negotiation.  My grandfather was successful because he could hold a conversation with anyone from the poorest dirt farmer to Lyndon Johnson.  

My maternal grandfather was a sales manager at a Buick dealership for most of his life until he mortgaged his house when he was in his sixties to buy the dealership.  He was also successful.  He knew almost everyone in San Antonio who might have the ability to buy a Buick over his sixty-year career.  He, too, knew how to ask questions and pay attention to the responses.  

While many probably thought that both my grandfathers had some charisma that made people want to do business with them, I don’t think that was the case.  I think they both recognized as young men that they could form relationships that were important to their business by listening.  My father knew this also, as one of the only pieces of advice that he ever gave me was that the key to success is listening.  It has taken me a long time to truly understand what he meant and that the success that he described was not necessarily financial.

I was having a casual chat with a parent today, and she told me that her daughter said that I must study information about students because I always ask them about things going on in their lives.  I admit that she is correct.  I do spend time asking students questions and remembering their answers.  Before the school year starts, I study photos of incoming sixth graders to make sure that I can place a name with a face.  It takes intention and purposeful actions to form and maintain relationships.  

I am rewarded every day with the success of having relationships with students and faculty.  The questions that I ask students and the comments that I make that appear to be casual sometimes take work.  They take the work of me getting out of my own brain and focusing my attention on someone else -- of attempting to see the world from a student’s twelve-year-old perspective, which is every bit as important as my fifty-four-year-old point of view.  I know that the success of these relationships will not show up in mineral rights or the gross profit made by selling a car; the success comes from knowing that my efforts help to create a place where young people can feel that someone is interested in them at a time in their lives when they sometimes feel vulnerable and alone.  

Charette - Learning Through Process

                                     -  video created by Julie Daughtry

As a part of the Future of Learning (FOL) Institute at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, a small number of the 200-plus institute participants volunteered and were selected to participate in a charette.  When asked to volunteer for this experience, we were told little about the process other than the fact that it would involve designing an artifact to represent the learner of the future.

While others may define a charette to fit their own needs, our experience in charette could be defined as a small group working together over multiple, intense sessions to design and construct a product through collaboration.  The process was valued equally, or perhaps more, than the product.

The success of the charette was achieved by the intentional and thoughtful planning of our facilitators, Justin Reich and Arzu Mistry, along with several FOL Fellows.  The sessions were an outstanding example of excellent teaching and reinforced my belief that great teaching occurs as a result of great planning.  While what happens in a classroom has been referred to as art, that art only occurs when the teacher is constantly engaged in the creation of the experience.

This charette experience focused on the process of creation.  Daily elements of scaffolding were put into place before we began our design work.  The intention of the scaffolding was to prepare us for the process that we would undertake during that specific class period.  The best example of this scaffolding was prior to the session when we were asked to develop our design elements.  We were asked to create something in five minutes given a concept and a medium.  We all randomly chose slips of paper from two piles; my medium was a sculpture and my concept was “tension between old and new.”  I had five minutes to think of an idea and make something.  The limited time forced me just to do something without thinking.  Most of the time this is the exact opposite of what teachers try to get students to do, but in this case the purpose was for us to generate ideas.  It was freeing not to have to think about whether the idea was good or bad and just do something with it.

The other effect of this small exercise was that it lowered tension and stress for me.  Justin told us that we didn’t have time for good ideas, we just needed to jump in and do it.  This removed the expectation of judgement by others.  We were all in the same boat, individuals creating something under impossible constraints with little or no expectations.  Many of the products of this brief exercise were creative because the exercise forced us to get out of our normal analytical minds and access the creative parts of our mind.  One of my partners stated that before the charette she thought she was not an artist and after it she thought that she was an artist.  I had the same feeling as I accessed and employed my “creative mind.”

There were many other short scaffolding sessions before and during our work.  All of them were purposeful, and, for me, effective.

The other element that focused us on the process was forced reflection.  At different points of our work session, we were asked to reflect on how we felt or what we were doing in front of a camera.  This was done in two different ways, one was in the “confessional booth” where we responded in front of a camera to a written question without anyone else present.  The other method occurred when we were filmed responding to oral questions in the middle of our design work.  Perhaps Arzu and Justin were really interested in documenting the process, but the effect for me was that it forced me to look inside myself frequently throughout the process.  The filming was essential to this process as it made my reply spontaneous.  I didn’t have time to craft a response.  While I don’t remember specific revelations in design that occurred as a result of this process, I do remember feeling less stress and more focused afterwards.  I was never asked to look at my recorded reflections, and I don’t know if anyone ever looked at them.  This made and makes no difference to me as the value gained was in the moment.

The final essential element in process was getting outside input into our design.  There were a couple of formal review periods where people outside of the charette were invited to question us about our process and design.  There were also informal reviews done by Justin, Arzu, and the Fellows.  The reviews were always done by questioning:  Have you thought about this?  Why did you do it that way? What are you trying to express?  What about the use of color?  Why did you choose wood as a medium? Getting input was crucial to the process.  Nearly every time someone interacted with us it changed our design to some degree.  At the very least it forced us to think in deeper and broader ways about the design.


While I have believed in Constructivist learning for years, participating in this charette gave me a personal understanding of the process that I previously lacked. To be a student in a classroom where process was central to learning deepened my appreciation for this model and will give me a framework to build upon.

Parallel Thinking

Two months ago conditions changed in my personal life that made me realize that I needed to shore up my credentials in order to be ready for the future.  I applied to and was accepted into an online Masters in School Administration program at Western Carolina University.  This masters program is designed primarily for public school educators who wish to work as administrators within the North Carolina State school systems -- a different path than I'm traveling.  As the start of the summer session came closer and closer, I kept feeling more and more apprehensive, not the type of nervous excitement that I got when I was driving to Sewanee from San Antonio in 1976, but more of a nervous anxiety driven by dread.  Something clearly was not right.  So, I had an informal meeting with two trusted friends, and they both told me to punt.  I punted, long and deep.  I think that I may have punted out of the stadium altogether.

My friend and colleague, Sam, made a podcast that focused on my situation and what he saw as the solution.  It will take you about twenty minutes to listen to, but it will be worthwhile.

How Should You Go to School?

At about the same time that Sam was making this podcast, I was typing this email to him:

Hi Sam,

I started extending the idea that I talked about in Missy's office to be an "experiment in higher education."

I am going to design my own masters program (maybe I will not use this term), using a template of courses derived from the best schools in the country.  I will create a blog to document my course work and reflections.  My coursework will be self-study, intensive workshops, on-line classes, collaboration with others who find their way to me from my blog, and ongoing dialogue with selected mentors.  I will ask my mentor/advisers to accredit and validate my coursework.  In the process, I hope to explore from the inside the new type of education that we know is going to influence the future world of education. 

I think we were both a little shocked when we read/listened to each others' ideas.  Parallel thinking with Sam Harrelson is pretty scary for me, and I'm sure it must have been scary for him to be thinking like me (but in an altogether different way).

This summer I will start my experiment in higher education, and I hope that you will be a part of it by reading my blog, offering suggestions, asking questions, and being a fellow traveler in pursuit of learning.