Susan Fedor/00-01/Diary Entry13

Entry # 13:
February is the Cruellest Month

I know. I know. T.S. Eliot said it was April, but he was wrong.

No one should make an irrevocable decision in February. No fast moves and no sudden stops. There is too much conflict: frosty mornings and seductively warm afternoons that slide into frigid nights. It is nearly more than a body can bear.

Christa Compton, South Carolina teacher of the year, speaking to a state meeting last weekend, said: "Every day I want to quit and every day I want to be a teacher forever." That is pure February if I have ever heard it. The normal Sturm und Drang takes more than its fair toll in February, a condition made nearly unbearable by the long weeks of winter that seem to stretch on interminably.

A $120,000 chimera

Relief! A wild letter arrives from Guilford County (NC) Schools, as good as one from Ed McMahon. "Dear Principal, Come to work with us where a high school principal can earn as much as $120,000 a year in addition to many excellent benefits," it reads. And the implausible possibility seems to be in the realm of the real. But, because it is February, I recognize it for the mirage it is, a sure chimera.

Even so, it has a compelling pull, and the attraction is not in the prospect of high pay and not in the promise of no problems. In February, the prospect of merely new problems seems like a kind of educational Promised Land.

By February, we know the lay of the land. Survivor, reality TV, does not scare us. We work in a middle school. We know the parents who are pointing fingers solely at us. These are the accusations and rationalizations for their disappointment. They cast about for scapegoats, and we are the easiest prey there is.

We know which children have mentally packed their bags despite our best efforts to engage them in the learning. PACT dates advance inexorably. Our consolation: three months to go. We keep our eyes on the prize, the children, and trudge ahead.

Walking through the halls in random visits, I encounter teacher after teacher. One says, "I need to talk with you frankly. We are overwhelmed. Grades were due; we have parent conferences; curriculum mapping, a new textbook; standards assurance forms; study skills. it is too much." And then the final stroke, "And if this were not enough, there's the CD Project. I cannot do it all."

I know what she wants me to say

I tell her that I know and I understand and I do. But I do not know which thing I can say let it go. They all have to be done. I shake my head wanting to give her some respite but not knowing how. I know what she wants me to say, "Forget the CD Project" but that is the one thing I cannot say.

It is this work, a yearlong research project shared among all the teachers, which has been the lightening rod all year. The teachers see this work as an add-on; I see it as the essence of learning to learn. And there is the rub. The teachers lament the content and learner standards that must be rolled into their teaching and do not share my deep belief in the need to sacrifice some of the time they would spend on breadth of material to learn a process that could lead to in-depth study and significant, long-term remembering.

It is a tension that is felt in every debate about what learning in schools should look like. Teachers feel a responsibility to cover the content under the threat of next year's teachers saying, "They did not teach you that in sixth grade?" They will always say that. Just the way we say it about the fifth grade teachers. And the way the eighth grade teachers say it about the seventh. And if they do not say it, they think it.

The state's learner standards contain a breadth of content, particularly in social studies, that could only be covered superficially. No wonder teachers are so resistant to one more thing to teach; they cannot get to all that they are accountable for now.

"Their messages make me uneasy..."

I inform my beliefs about the imperative to change the way we teach from my reading and reflecting, from professional dialogues and hearing from such perspectives as those of Alan November and David Thornburg. Their messages make me uneasy as I think about learning currently going on in this school.

I turn over their words in my brain and think about the magnificent future that lies ahead for our students and our teachers because of technology. It is the existence of technology that is a mandate for change. When I do anything that preserves the status quo, their twin specters appear in my mind's eye with the accusation of my work as misguided and shortsighted.

We talk a great deal about the change in teaching and learning mandated by technology, but we have looked at technology as an end rather than a means. A disputed qualification in the job description crafted for the to-be-named president of Harvard was that the successful candidate be conversant in technology and its applications. One critic notes that people who understood these things could be hired. What Harvard needs is an intellectual visionary with sustaining core beliefs. Knowledge of technology is peripheral.

I plan a presentation to teacher leader groups on Monday and I review my notes. These are the points I want to share:

= Transparent technology: Alice through the looking glass better characterizes the role of technology in our schools than does any other metaphor. It is the means to the end. Because of this perspective, the software typified by Inspiration makes more sense than does learning how to create a Power Point program. One is a means to organize thinking with ease, the way word processing replaced typing as a way to work. Power Point is a faster way to prepare overhead transparencies or 3x5 cards for presentation prompts. Easy mapping of ideas, creating illustrations of the relationship of ideas is more significant than e-workbooks which seem to be the model of so many teaching software packages. The notion of automation versus ways to organize information seem to frame the contrasting views of technology integration into instruction.

= Palm Pilots and their clones will be cheap and ubiquitous within five years, rendering the discussion about filters and equal access as obsolete discussions.

= We have had a five-year technology plan that looks quaint after three years or less. We have to be ready to turn on a dime as new technology makes its appearance.

= Kids just "pick it up." We adults are the fearful learners; students know nothing else and are fearless. That is why November says, take a student to all technology training, they will help you keep the perspective.

Prisoners of our metaphors

I soothe my sense of unease with the reminder that I am doing the best I can with I know now. But it is short sighted to ignore these peeks into the future and to ignore this information is to do so at professional peril.

I remember that Thornburg said that we are "Prisoners of our metaphors." He quoted Marshall McLuhan, "We look at the present theory in a rear view mirror and march backward into the future." He used the example of the automobile and how the early models resembled horse carriages because that was the only concept of the kind known then and went on to show the evolution into the "car-ness" that developed from the carriage design.

While "Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds," as Emerson pointed out, it is the best we can do given what we know. After all, our brain is organized in patterns of previous experience.

I had moments of humility as November gently chided me for the design of our CD project, which was based on the best knowledge of the time. He said we had designed a project for individuals which was counterproductive given the work model of the future: collaboration. He said that the "I Search" model was too open and I now know how right he is. He suggested that we limit the scope and make the project more authentic.

He spoke of a Foxfire-like project that had taken on a life of its own: students who did research into the settlers of a town, adding to the data base year after year. The website became so powerful that genealogists from all over the country made use of their research. This gave students a real purpose for their work and a sense of making a lasting contribution.

November spoke of using community members as expert resources in our research, a first step in building our own connection to the global communication center which he sees technology creating in the world. Teachers would post the research questions on their webpages and invite community perusal and involvement.

February is for getting through

I hope that when I share this information with teachers -- what I have come to understand -- I will persuade teachers that authentic research and teaching students how to conduct and report it is the essence of learning. It is my sense that if the learning is sufficiently powerful and well designed, the PACT scores will take care of themselves.

Well, there is so much to re-think and re-design. And there is time to reflect upon the changes that need to be made. So maybe February and is accompanying doldrums has some purpose. But, it is still no time for burning bridges or slamming doors on your way out. March and April are better suited for decisive, well-reasoned change. February is for getting through.

The quiet season of Lent is punctuated by a succession of natural surprises building to a spring crescendo. The camellias, quince, forsythia, winter apricot, Japanese magnolias are all in bloom with ground level bouquets of daffodils in unsuspected places. I am ready to go outside armed with razor sharp shears to brutally cut back the roses (just above a bud) in the certain faith that wonder lies just ahead.

Just as the order of the days unfold so shall the future and the nature of our work. No point in lying awake at night in fearful anticipation. Give in to dreams. And live days to the fullest because February is nearly over and March commences.

Entry # 13: February is the Cruellest Month

Entry # 13:
February is the Cruellest Month