Skip to main content

Less Physics Mo Problems

Why am I writing this personal entry? Well, it is not an attempt to gain any sympathy. It attempts to show what is possible if a clear intention and goal serve the learner's needs.  In May of 2022 just near the end of another fantastic school year, I do not remember what happened. But, I was unable to finish the school year and was unable to teach the following year.  Why? On May 21st, 2022, I fell down a flight of 16 stairs (luckily carpeted) from the 2nd to 1st story of our home.  I was found at the bottom of the stairs. I was found foaming at the mouth. This would lead to a 2-month hospital stay which included an induced coma because my seizures would not stop, several rounds of lumbar punctures, and relearning basic physical movements like something as simple as being able to roll in the hospital bed. Simply put, when I was admitted to the hospital, I was diagnosed as being “critically ill.” Please take a moment and read those words: critically ill. They are not terms that are

Don't Give Your Students Whiplash. Bend Your Curriculum.

Yesterday I saw the movie "Whiplash", and it is probably the best film I've seen this year.  We'll get to why it was probably right up my alley a little later.  The film tells the story of a student's attempt to achieve perfection at a prestigious musical conservatory, and the teacher who sees the potential for greatness within the 19 year old drummer boy.  But, this is not the heartwarming tale of the only teacher who would nurture the brilliance out of the student that no one would take a chance on.  "Whiplash" is the tale of how a teacher who believes he can push his pupils to greatness through intimidation and fear.  The following clip says it all:



I am a teacher but while watching the movie, the lead character of Andrew (played with brutal honesty by Miles Teller) connected with me on a deep level.  Many of our students are seeking affirmation from their teachers and will put themselves through the wringer until they get it.  That was me as a student.  I was the dutiful pupil who would follow instructions unquestioningly. I never gave a second thought to the reasoning why, mine was to do and die.  This push was instilled in me at a young age and was amplified by the nature of the classrooms I found myself in.  The teacher was never to be questioned.  And so it was. I made it through high school just fine and went on to college where I broke away from the path that I seemed to be predestined for by my parents. I pursued my passion and became a teacher.  Alright, enough of that diversion.

J.K. Simmons plays Fletcher, the conductor of the nation's greatest conservatory jazz band (in a furious performance destined to win him Oscar gold.) When he sees talent, he does not nurture it and allow it to bloom in its own time.  He punishes his students until their brilliance is literally bleeding from their hands.  In a quote destined to echo in my head, he says, "There are no two words in the English language more harmful than good job." 

The film led me to the question, "How do we foster the innate talent of students?" Outside of the classroom, we have many extracurricular clubs for those students with specific interests if the are willing to seek them out.  In my AP classroom last term, I didn't feel like I could alter my curriculum to meet the interests of specific students.  The advanced placement curriculum did not feel like it was designed to allow for this form of individualized instruction until I started picking it apart.  Now, it seems like the potential is there to personalize it. There is room to make these adjustments within my curriculum to include more student voice and choice.  I would highly recommend all teachers look for the ways that they could do the same.

I hate to sound like a broken record by returning again to project based learning.  PBL is a framework that allows students the freedom to meet course objectives through coursework which allows for opportunities to express their interests.  Once students find an interest to explore in a physics project, I hope they will begin to see how the curriculum in my class is relevant to their interests and future.  I am not attempting to make all of my students physicists. That is not the audience I am even attempting to preach to.

Student voice and choice, I believe, is even more import for those students who are not expressing an interest in school.  If we can get them to meet the standards via a personal interest, we have done great work. We spend too much time telling students who are not engaged that they need to be engaged in what we are teaching rather than letting them find their own way into our curriculum.  Once we find a student's interest as a teacher, we should be able to nurture this into our curriculum. If we find the correct in, we can hopefully find bridges across curricular areas. This is where the traditional classroom structure fails some of our students.  We separate the content areas rather than finding the bridges between them and focusing the objectives around a students specific interest.  At a recent conference on personalized learning, I witnessed what a middle school in Muskego, WI is doing with breaking down the curricular walls.  They are allowing students to design projects based on learning objectives across content areas.  Students choose the objectives and create their own driving question with the help of their teacher.  This is a powerful process that truly puts voice and choice in the student's hands.

This type of positive nurturing guidance is what we need in our classrooms.  We should not be bending students to the will of the curriculum. We should be bending the curriculum to meet the interests and needs of the student.

Comments

  1. This is great, Michael! I am in agreement about bending curriculum. I had not heard of this movie, but now I think I need to take a look!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Twitter Cards for Blogger

So, I’ve been seeing people with beautiful Twitter Cards in my Twitter Stream. They make it clear that there is a web page to visit and give a quick preview of what would be found. Something like the one below: I’ve been wondering how to get one of the cards to appear when I tweet out a link to my latest blog post.  Since I use Blogger, there is not a simple button to click to turn this on.  I had to find a way to paste new code into the HTML code of my blog.  It took some searching from multiple sites to get a completely functional.   This site though was quite helpful.  But, I’d like to walk you through my process and hopefully it helps a few out. There are a few types of Twitter Cards.  Two that at most frequently see are the basic summary card and the summary card with large image.  Below you can see the layout of each, but realize that they both have the same content pieces. This is going to look like a lot more work than it will actually be

Personalized Learning Tasks and Roles

Yesterday, I read a great post by Jim Rickabaugh dealing with the roles of learner and teacher in a personalized learning environment by looking at tasks . The roles were set up on a continuum. This article timed perfectly with a reflection on part of Students at the Center by Allison Zmuda and Bena Kallick on idea generation and task development I had in mind. These two works are the focus of my reflection here. I think a key misunderstand teachers have when it comes to digging into personalizing learning is that for planning purposes, we no longer begin with standards but with student desires.  I believe like all good instruction, we need to start with the standards.  Think about it, standards are what we want all learners to know and be able to do as a result of passing through our educational system. That is why it is essential that we make sure that standards are representative of what we believe is important for learners to be informed and productive in their futur

Pear Deck 101 + Q&A

  Last week, I presented as a part of Pear Deck’s Pear Fair 2020. My presentation was Pear Deck 101 for Google Slides. During the presentation, there was a live chat. Many people said it went too fast for a 101 Session. Luckily, it was recorded so it can be rewatched.  Also, many said that they wanted to know how to build a Pear Deck first. I structured the presentation to show what Pear Deck was before showing how to make one. Perhaps that wasn’t the best structure. But, I’m going to stick with my philosophy of showing what something is before showing how to make it. The presentation, which can be watched below, was structured in several different sections What is Pear Deck? Providing an overview of the experience from the Teacher and Student perspectives. How do you build a Pear Deck in Google Slides? How do you start a Pear Deck presentation? How do you end a Pear Deck presentation? Here is the Slideshow I shared during the session bit.ly/pearfair101 Time really flew in the sess