Lessons from American Idol (aka: “A Pool of Abdul”)

About 30 seconds ago, Ryan Seacrest mentioned something about melting into a “pool of Abdul.”  At about that same moment, I turned to my husband and commented, “Wow – teachers could really take a lesson from Paula Abdul.”  Let me explain…

One of the greatest challenges for teachers is providing meaningful feedback to students that serves as a guide for their continued growth.  ”Great work” or “good job” or even “excellent” scribbled in the margins simply don’t give students what they need – meaningful, actionable feedback.  Even a sentence or two at the end of the page doesn’t seem to be enough.  

The Idol model is truly admirable.  What if students could perform in front of a panel of four mentors?  What if, one by one, each mentor could give the student immediate feedback, SPECIFIC feedback?  What if students could receive personalized, focused, constructive criticism?  After all, they all need a little Simon (the brutally honest cynic).  Equally, they all need a dash of Paula (the positive, gushing, always-encouraging one).  They also need a sprinkle of Randy (the down-to-earth dude who reasons with them).  Sorry… I still don’t know that new woman’s name.  But I like her.  

At my school, we strive to recreate the Idol model (as I apparently now call it) through “Professional Learning Communities” or PLCs.  We gather a handful of times over the year and compare student work.  The theory behind it is great.  But it is no Idol.  What matters is that the KIDS receive meaningful feedback.  Again, we could talk – as adults – until we are blue in the face.  What seems to matter most, however, is our face time with the kids.  

I would love to analyze American Idol from and educational perspective and write a lesson – for our teachers!  Disagree with me if you will.  But I challenge you to read the remarks teachers leave on your children’s lessons or report cards and compare it to the feedback Randy, Paula, Simon and the new woman provide.  

By the way – this is the most talented group of Idol contestants of all time.  It is anyone’s game…

All You Need Is Love, Part 2

An excerpt from a letter to my dear friend Rebekah, on our city’s youth violence:

” …Did you hear about the HUGE party/fight among high school students at the beach on Friday night?  (I hear it was on the news).  Apparently they stole a keg from a wedding reception, and a dozen or so fights broke out, prompting scores of police and even helicopters.  At the heart of the matter, these kids are pyschologically stunted and have no sense of empathy – no sense of other… no sense of consquences.  The violence extends far beyond gangs as well.  Fighting is “cool.”  They wear their black eyes like badges of honor. (Once again, I return to Erikson’s stages of development).

What we need, quite simply, are more adults who can serve as caring mentors and positive role models.  The kids just need face time with kind, understanding, patient people who can simply say “I care about you – and I believe in you.”  I feel like we might be able to brainstorm until we are blue in the face, and the answer all along has been simple – these kids just need love.  How can we provide for that when our social services are so stretched (TD and his mom are about to be kicked out of their shelter, with nowhere to go), and our schools do not have the resources necessary to provide kids with the 1:1 time and care that they deserve?”

I practice something in my classroom that I think of as “relational pedagogy.”  I develop rapport with my students.  I establish trust.  The only “rule” I enforce is: Respect.  And I enforce it warmly and positively.  When the bell rings and a student bursts through the door, a minute late, the LAST thing I want to do is issue a Lunch Detention for their 60-second shortcoming.  Rather, I welcome them to class.  I chose my battles.  The result?  Students show up.  At-risk students who regularly skip school show up.  And they show up in droves.  In fact, when they get kicked out of their other classes for being late or checking the time on their phones, they come “home” to my room.   They stay late into the evening, as I work… as late as 8pm… simply because it is a safe, positive place for them to be.  And they tell me, “If it weren’t for you, I would have already dropped out.”

The results of my “relational pedagogy” are easy to measure: One student isn’t registered in any of my classes.  He was on the brink of dropping out and was failing all of his classes.  Now he is passing all of his classes – he is the first person in 3 generations to be on pace to earn a single high school credit (let alone 6!)  One student, who is failing all of his other classes, has a legitimate, hard-earned 98% in my class.  He is an extremely intelligent, model student! (He also comes from a gang-affiliated family and was, himself, a crip until recently).

I fully believe that EVERY CHILD will not only NOT be left behind (eh hem)… but EVERY CHILD WILL SUCCEED with one important ingredient: love.

Where’s the love?

After School Movie Club

Over the weekend, I broke down and purchased a small collection of Flip Video Cameras.  My curriculum calls for Windows Movie Maker, but until now, I had no way to upload photos.  I asked a number of people for help… and no one had a solution.  I brought in my super old school camcorder and bought a UBS cable from Radio Shack, but I didn’t have the requisite administrative rights to log in and have the computer recognize the device… or whatever.  In short, it didn’t work.  So my donation to the district this year (in addition to the dozen pairs of scissors that have since walked out of my classroom and the freezer from my parents’ garage) – 3 Flip Video Cameras. 

The silver lining in this story is… Gustavo!!!  Pardon the exclaimation points.  That is how he writes his name.  And nothing describes his personality better than that punctuation.  Oh! Where to begin…?

Let me start with this – imagine Gustavo bursting into my room the other day, demanding that I type in my password because he NEEDS to get onto YouTube immediately – he has “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” stuck in his head and he needs to hear it.  Now!   I few days later, I’ve probably heard every version of the song – Judy Garland’s, Katherine McPhee’s, little 6 year old Connie’s, that big Hawaiian guy named “IZ”, Jason Mraz… and a host of others.  Don’t worry – Gustavo sings along to every version.  (He was also recently a back up dancer in our school’s production of Grease).

So enter the Flip Cams, and Gustavo!!! is now a producer.  Today I glanced up from my grading project to realize that “After School Movie Club” had spontaneously developed.  The set – PowerPoint and Google Earth.  The actors – two students, Brayan and Kelsy.  The costume – Brayan wore a big sheet of red butcher paper like a cape.   He was, of course, the “hero.”  The stage – all of my Computer Applications text books, piled in neat rows on the floor.  Wind machine (fan) – check!  Taylor plugged in a speaker and found a website of sound affects, so I heard the sound of rain, applause, laughter, even the sound of someone peeing (followed by bursts of laughter).  Gustavo, behind the camera, bossed the kids around and created his movie.  It was HILARIOUS!  I can’t wait until he posts it to YouTube.

Thank you, After School Movie Club, for making my donation feel so worthwhile.

Spring has… Sprung?

Today I tackled a massive after-school project:  posting quarter grades.  It requires becoming current on your grading (after chasing down overdue assignments, digging through kids’ network folders to find the stuff they forgot to turn in and sorting through stacks of papers).   Our grade book doesn’t sync with the system that we post our grades to, so, class by class I comb through students’ scores and post them.  Then I add comments – “A pleasure to have in class” is number 101.  The numbers go into the 500’s.  I am frustrated that I cannot customize the messages, and it takes a while to scroll through them to find the appropriate message for each kid.  (To parents who wonder why their teachers don’t post comments on report cards – this is why!)  But the very least I can give my kids are short phrases of feedback and recognition.   Yes… it is somewhat pathetic.

By 8:00pm, the job was done.  My room had been tidied.  And I had changed over the date on my white board.  I left the building and… ah ha!  It was still somewhat light out!

Driving home I noticed that spring has sprung – I hadn’t noticed!  I hadn’t seen all the blossoms on the trees or the flowers poking up through the earth.  What?!? The tulips are out?  Where have I been? 

Oh yes… I’ve been living in a windowless classroom since September.

The ELL Perspective

I cannot imagine taking a class in a language other than my primary language.  I commend my English Language Learners (ELL) for all of their extra hard work.  Wow – they amaze me!  The following examples really demonstrate the challenges they face in translating their work…

The Assignment:  “Dear Mrs Z” – What is your dream job?

“I write this letter to tell you about my dream job.  Everyone knows technology is developing. There are thousands of invention were invented every day. If you don’t know how to use the new machine or new technology, you will be  a backward one. One important, smart machine is computer.  They are upgrade and upgrade, until you don’t think that it is a machine.  That more likes a real person.  The computers can give the answer from the hardest problem for about half of second that you can’t do with by yourself or if you can do that, it may take hundreds of year. The computers also have a lot of useful information about every branch such as: space, music, Literature, math or so on. Website is a tool to show the information on the internet, like google’s or yahoo’s site.  They are big website. I was curious about how to make a website like that, so I find information about the language to design website like HTML, JavaScript, php, or so on. That why I choose to become a designer website of my dreaming job.”

“My dream job is a horse designer, because I love the horse design by Europe so much.  When I first saw the beautiful horse in a movie, I just can’t move my eyes from the design.  And I just started to find about the horse design.  They have used different style to make the horse, like the one first saw, they used the nature for theme.  They set each floor have some different flowers.  They used a best wood for making the stairway, and they used the brick for wall, and used nature stone for the bathtub. Also they have design garden around the horse. The whole design is around the nature, like you’re already into a forest of your own horse. I want to design one of my dream horses.  So I want to become a horse designer.  Sincere! Ivan.”