Sometimes I feel like a lazy teacher in this student-centered world at Anastasis Academy… but that’s only because the majority of my teacher training in undergraduate (and most of my graduate) classes prepared me for a TEACHER-centered classroom.

You are the teacher. You are the deliverer of information, knowledge, skills.

As a music teacher, some of the workshops I attended helped me realize that the kids have to experience learning to gain knowledge and skills. Very few undergrad or grad classes did this.

So what does this student-centered classroom REALLY look like?

Some days, it looks pretty chaotic from an outsider’s point-of-view (actual statement from a visitor to our school).

Some days, it looks like kids working together on a project they have designed themselves.

Some days, it looks like a child excitedly running up to me, saying, “Mrs. Baldwin! Look at this! I found this really cool information about…” x,y, z.

But most of the time, it looks like kids satisfying their own curiosity without much interference from me.

I’m on the sidelines, and I love that.

Honest disclosure: it took us a while to get to this point, because even at 8-10 years of age (those are the ages of the kids I have), these kids have been programmed to look to an adult for answers. And questions. And direction. And time management. And so on. Some days are better than others. Recently, I feel like they have regressed a little bit in independence, and I have to force myself NOT to step in.

What I know in my heart, though, is these kids are developing skills that will serve them well throughout their entire lives. They are not memorizing facts provided through notes or worksheets from me. They discover… they experiment… they reflect… and they are learning to hold themselves accountable for their own learning.

The student-centered classroom is about the STUDENTS. It’s my job as their teacher to help provide an environment in which they can learn, experience, problem-solve… and then get out of their way.

Lately, in education networks, I’ve noticed a lot of advertising for tools to catch students plagiarizing. It’s a pretty big business. A quick Google search for the terms “plagiarism detector” results in 1, 350,000 returns. Many school districts, including the one I left this past year, have spent a lot of funds on tools such as Turnitin.com.

I’m always skeptical of businesses who make a lot of profits on tools designed to catch students (or anyone for that matter) doing something wrong, unethical, etc. Internet filters, monitoring systems to, for lack of a better term, spy on kids’ online– I’ve seen the vendors for many of these companies at ed tech conferences, and it amazes me that school districts spend SO much money on something that, in my opinion, is not worth the expenditure. Reactive products, especially those that generate a lot of profits, have no interest in resolving the issue in the first place.  Turnitin, and others like it, don’t benefit from teaching students NOT to plagiarize. In fact, advertisements for internet filtering tools and plagiarizing detectors sensationalize the problems to ensure that those with budget authority feel the need to spend massive amounts of money to catch those in the wrong.

Plagiarism is obviously something we need to help our students learn about. WE know it’s wrong to plagiarize, and it’s our duty as educators to ensure students know that it’s wrong. But this is where I think we fail… by implementing tools to catch them doing something wrong instead of educating WHY it’s wrong seems like a setup.

The other issue is that I think that a lot of plagiarism could be easily avoided by changing the activities we ask kids to do.

Yesterday, I tweeted this:

There is such a huge focus on secondary research for kids as early as primary grades, and that lasts throughout post-secondary education. Why?

Yes, knowing how to research is a skill we all need, and learning to properly cite sources is important, too. But I think the emphasis on secondary research instead of primary research is completely unbalanced. Don’t we WANT our students to discover and inquire about things that haven’t already been researched?

What about activities where kids create and produce their own works? I would much rather have my students create new, original works than spend their entire school career ONLY reading the research of others. If we want our students to become problem-solvers, that balance has to change. We can’t always find new answers or new solutions to problems if we only look at the work that has already been done.

Additionally, when kids are creating and producing their own work, they will then begin to understand ownership of work– and this will help them learn more organically why plagiarism is wrong. I’m planning an experiment with my students where I will have them create something original– a drawing, a story, a song… whatever they choose, and then I’m going to post it as MY work (temporarily, of course) without giving them credit. This activity will help them understand ownership of work and how important it is to ensure credit is given where credit is due.

I teach mostly 3 and 4th graders now, but I’ve taught every age of child in K-12 schools. This activity can be used with any age student, not just younger kids. I know this, because I’ve done it before… and it WORKS. The more my students created and produced their own work, the more likely they were to remember to cite sources in secondary research of the works of others. Balancing secondary research with primary research and creating original works is key.

One of the arguments about the necessity of secondary research is the amount of secondary research required of students in post-secondary education. This argument is ridiculous in my opinion. We should continue practices that are not in the best interests of our K-12 students’ learning because of continued practices in post-secondary that are not in the best interests of undergraduate and graduate students?

Please note that I am NOT advocating that we discontinue all secondary research in the K-12 level. Rather, my point is let’s do a little less secondary research and focus more on creating and producing original work. Balancing between these two will do more to overcome the issue of plagiarism than punishing a student after he is caught. Assuming that students will intentionally plagiarize is yet another example of how little we trust students to do the right thing… and also how little we value children and their learning.

I welcome you to share your thoughts with me in the comments and tell me if I’m way off base here. Thanks.

The Reform SymposiumWorldwide E-Conference.

I highly recommend you check the schedule and plan to attend!

[cc licensed photo by mtsofan]

• Students will face competition at every level of their lives. They need to learn to compete early and often.
• K-12 students will graduate and compete for a prime spot in a college or university.
• University students will graduate and compete globally for their own spots in a global economy.
• We have to prepare them to compete. Period.

I’ve taught in both the secondary and elementary levels in public K-12 education. I’ve witnessed kids competing for spots on athletic teams, music performing groups, art awards, National Honor Society and other honoraries… for grades, for representing the class as valedictorian, for speaker at graduation… to be first in line for lunch, first in line for recess, for the fastest time at Field Day, for a solo at the 4th grade program…

… for the biggest helping of lunch (because it’s probably the only meal of the day)… for that coat in the lost and found (because there isn’t enough money at home to buy one)… for the attention of the teacher (because attention from an adult is rare and precious outside of school)…

It seems to me that kids live and breathe competition every day of their lives.

When do they learn to work toward the good of all?

Maybe I’m just getting old and sentimental, but watching the news out of Japan after the horror they’ve experienced in the last month has me really thinking… if we spend so much time on competition and racing to be the best, that leaves a LOT of people in our dust. What if people need our help? What about those people left behind? Should we sit and smugly congratulate ourselves on being the best and beating everyone else? How does that help us as a society in the long-term?

Don’t get me wrong… I’m not advocating that we give out “participation” trophies or ribbons for just showing up and not putting forth any effort. It just feels like we’ve cultivated a culture of competition at any cost, and that’s where I see so many problems.

In my music classroom, my students and I often discuss that our goals are very different than they are in other classrooms. No matter what we’re doing, whether it’s preparing for a concert/performance, or simply learning a song for the sake of the music, we’re learning together. “In math class, it’s all about YOU. In music class, it’s all about US.” They probably tire of hearing me say that, but it sticks with them. I heard one of my students explaining the concept to a new student one day.

When we learn something new- a new recorder song, for example- there are going to be some kids who learn more quickly than others. In our environment, those “advanced” kids now have a special responsibility: help those students who haven’t yet learned the song. We do a lot of peer group work, and I am either walking around as a guide or am working with those who need the most help. With shared responsibility in the class, we see improvement in all. More importantly, I see my students building skills in patience, empathy, and caring, as well as their own musical skills.

Now for a little disclosure: I’m a highly competitive person; but I think as I’ve grown up, it’s become more about competing with myself and less about competing with others.

At what point does competition, whether it’s in the market place or in the classroom, do more harm than good? When corporations throw ethics under the bus to eke out higher profits, everyone suffers except for the people at the top. When we push kids to compete against each other in everything they do, they learn that the SELF is more important than the collective GROUP.

And in the end, nobody wins… especially not kids.

I know there are a lot of people who disagree with me on this subject, so let’s have it. Debate me in the comments, please.

Will their education provide them with the skills and knowledge they need to succeed in their world? Is that how one becomes successful? Is it about attending a post-secondary institution?  Is it about a paycheck? Is it about contributing and giving back to society?

[cc licensed photo by RambergMediaImages]

The other day, I had a conversation with some friends about the push to send more kids to college. I brought up the fact that, perhaps, not everyone needs or should go to college. There was a hushed silence right after I finished my sentence… imagine a teacher saying that maybe college isn’t for everyone?!?!

I quickly followed up with an explanation- my point isn’t that some kids aren’t worthy of a college degree. In fact, it’s quite the contrary. For some kids, college isn’t worthy of them. Not everyone needs to spend exorbitant tuition fees (and dormitory costs, and textbooks, and…) to find their niche in life.

There’s a young man I know, about 22 years old, who attended a trade school and learned about auto mechanics. He LOVES cars. He can tell you nearly anything you want to know about an engine. He can fix nearly any vehicle. At this time, he is employed by a very large company in our city, and he makes a very nice living. More importantly, he’s very happy doing what he does. A typical four-year institution was not in his master plan.

I told his story, and instantly, a friend replied, “Oh, and he will probably make more money than most of us will in our lifetime and not have the same amount of debt from all those college loans!”  A few others replied with more statements about how much money this kid would go on to make.  As I asked them a few questions, it became very evident to me that their measure of success was the amount of money he would make.

Is that what we’re supposed to be preparing kids to do after they leave school? Make a lot of money? Is that the measure of “success?”

Silly me, but I thought it was something as simple as this:

• find your strengths
• find your passion
• find a way to make the world around you a little better than how you found it

That’s MY definition of being successful. What’s yours?

We wrote a reflection, along with Andrew Garcia (who attended our EduCon session virtually) about our experience collaboratively in Google Docs. Elizabeth has posted the “finished product” on her blog. Please take some time to visit and read about the continuing conversation (#artsint on Twitter)!

The EduCon Experience- A Collaborative Reflection

Why anyone decided that it would be best to teach kids to learn subjects in isolation is beyond me. When my oldest daughter was a freshman in high school, her freshman history teacher told me at parent/teacher conferences that he was amazed at how well my daughter was able to make connections. He explained that, when they discussed a certain topic in class, she was able to quickly draw an example from a seemingly unrelated event and make comparisons. He said that the majority of freshmen in his classes were nowhere near to having that ability.

This is the same child that struggled miserably on standardized tests, yet still did very well in school. Would you be surprised, however, to learn that she is very gifted in music and has been surrounded by music and  musicians her entire life? When she was in Kindergarten, she came home singing the Queen of the Night’s Aria from Mozart’s The Magic Flute.  She then explained the entire plot to me, from her 5 year old perspective and then told me how much it was like a story she had read about people falling in love. What??? And she was actually spot on.

Okay, so this post didn’t start out to be a synopsis of how brilliant my child is. She is brilliant, but that’s another story. (ahem, proud mom)

I don’t think it’s any coincidence that she is able to make connections so easily. She was introduced to the piano literally days after birth. As a toddler, she sang along with the voice students who used to come to our home on Saturday mornings. We played every type of music for her- classical, pop, jazz, country, rock. She began dancing at the age of 3. To say that music was a huge part of her life would be a gigantic understatement. We talked all the time about music – what the music was about, where it came from, etc. I could cite research about how music helps brains to for connections, but that’s really not where I’m going with this.

Back to the classroom examples: in my classes, if we learn a new song, we learn about the song’s origins. Where did it come from? What language is this? How do we sing it in this language? Why was it written? What is the subject? If it’s about butterflies, let’s talk about the life cycle of butterflies. Can we find someone to Skype with us about this song? Let’s write our OWN song about butterflies. What should that sound like? Through the music, we can see that LEARNING isn’t reserved for those topics listed in the syllabus or title of the class.

In my classroom, I have the luxury of no state testing for which to prepare my students. We don’t have to practice for tests. We get to spend more time learning about our world and how connected we really are. When you give children the tools to help them see connections for the first time, they get better and better in making connections on their own. They realize we are not the only ones on this planet– and though we have differences, we also have a lot in common with other people around the world. Our music might be different-sounding than the music in Ghana or Tibet or Indonesia or Iceland… but it’s still music. It is still created by people about themselves and their surroundings.

My job is to teach children to LEARN. The fact that I do that job in a music classroom is secondary to that at all times. And yes… I am lucky that I have the opportunity to use music as the tool to make those connections.

I’m fairly certain the majority of the attendees today will leave feeling that they have 1) learned something new, 2) reinforced a previously held philosophy, and 3) thought of a different way to teach when they return to school. I know I have already, and I’m only just now sitting in session 2 of 6.

This is great professional development. How are you facilitating opportunities like this for your school?

After I read Deven’s post, I thought about the children in my classroom. I teach Kindergarten through 5th grade music. I try to ask as many open-ended questions as possible to help my students really think. Sometimes, it’s successful… but mostly, it’s the same kids raising their hands every day.

For a while, I countered with, “I need to see some new hands,” and encouraging smiles at those who did not raise their hands. Sometimes, that worked, but mostly I still have those eager ones who always want to try.

From Deven’s ideas, I decided to have a quick time-out with all of my classes… even Kindergarten. I asked them what was more important: answering correctly or learning from our mistakes. We talked about how our brains learn, and that when we work together and learn from mistakes, we all learn better. I asked them if it was embarrassing to answer a question with the wrong answer. Some of the kids said they were afraid the others in their class would think they were stupid. We all agreed that we can help each other learn by understanding some of us know a few things that others don’t. Wouldn’t it be great if we all shared that knowledge together? We could help each other be smarter!

Wow. What a surprise I had the next day. I thought that, since they all had enthusiastically agreed about our new learning plan, things would be better. Nope. That’s when I thought about the Four Word Education Plan: “I’m not sure, but…”

We took another brief time-out. I modeled how to answer a question with those four words. I asked for other examples from the kids: “What else could we say when we answer a question?” Some proposed, “This is just a guess, but I THINK…”

Glory, Hallelujah! They are thinking. Not just answering easy, rote-learned answers, but thinking!

We talked about how guessing, especially guesses that take into account what we have already learned and what we haven’t yet learned, are GOOD! Without guessing, inventors wouldn’t invent anything. Discoveries would never be discovered.

I still had a few holdouts. There are some of my kids who like to stay tuned out and let others in the class answer all the questions. So I added one more component to my learning plan: “Please raise your hand before answering, but I might call on you even if your hand isn’t raised.”  Guess who likes using the “I’m not sure, but…” option the most?

[Photo credit]
Image by Kevin Dooley under Creative Commons license. http://www.flickr.com/photos/pagedooley/ / CC BY 2.0

Umm… hello? Now kids are “the enemy???” Sylvia calls foul, and so do I.

The longer I’m in education, the more I start to worry about what we’re doing to our kids…. and what we’re doing to our teachers. We’re living in an era of assuming the worst from everyone. In my experience, people give you what you expect them to give you. Kids are no different.

If you haven’t read Engage Me or Enrage Me by Marc Prensky, you should. The article discusses an atmosphere of mutual disrespect between adults and kids. We don’t value what they value and vice versa. That’s how it’s been forever, right? Generation gaps and all that… but I think we’re missing something bigger here.

What if we trusted our students to do the right thing? What if we gave them the rules without any threats, and then empowered them to make choices?

What if we trusted our teachers to be professionals? To make good decisions about what would help a student learn better? To come to work on time and leave when they need to leave. To grow professionally in a manner that is best suited to their own individual learning styles, content areas, and needs.

Will some people disappoint us? Yes. Of course. We’re realistic. I contend, however, that most won’t.

As a learner, I feel empowered in a culture where I am trusted. There is no one standing over my shoulder to ensure I do the work I’m expected to do, because they know I’ll do the work. In fact, it’s insulting to me that anyone would assume I would do less than my best. I’m motivated most when I have choices, guidance, clear expectations, and am trusted to do what I’m asked.

On the other side of that type of culture- put me in a cage, give me a set of restrictive rules,  tell me not to do the wrong thing and then stand there to ensure I don’t– I’m probably going to screw up. It’s insulting, degrading, and not a great learning environment.

Which of those two cultures most resembles school?

I choose to trust my students. Today, we started a blogging exercise. The kids are 5th graders who have not blogged before, so we began with small steps. On my class blog, I wrote a post. They were asked to read the post, and then answer some questions in their comments. The comments should include their opinions. I’m finding 5th graders are not often asked for their opinions, so this is sometimes tough for them!

My  directions before they began were:

1. Read the blog post.
2. Think about the questions.
3. Answer the questions in your comments.
4. When you are finished, read the other comments. If you want to respond to someone else’s comment, please do so.
5. Be responsible and respectful in your comments.

That was it. At first, they looked at me and asked, “Then what?” I said that was all, and that they could start working. If they needed my help, they could flip up the Help card on their computers- otherwise, they were on their own.

One student asked me if he was going to get into trouble if he checked his email during this exercise. I said no, because I knew he was going to work hard on his answers and leave a great response in the comment.

You know what? I received some really great responses from that exercise. The kids were honest, and every single one of them finished the activity without me standing over them to ensure it was done.

That’s a TINY example of trusting kids to do the right thing. I intend to walk into the classroom every day and assume the best will happen.

I’m going to build a culture of trust with my students. What about you?