Month: March 2022

Root For Chaos

I’ve been told I have a high tolerance for chaos. Maybe that’s why March Madness hits just right in my world. That, and I am a hoops junkie from way back, because Indiana.

I’m still trying to adjust my planning to an A/B block schedule. I know that any one day is the equivalent of two, but there are still some hands-on discovery type of activities that I’m willing to sacrifice for. Plus, we had just quizzed on the Monday before spring break, and with two blocks for each of my Red and Grey day classes, starting a new half-unit that I’d just have to re-teach in 10 or 12 days didn’t seem like my best move. I had an Amnesty Day scheduled for the final block before break so I just needed something for Tuesday/Wednesday.

The Tuesday/Wednesday before the greatest two days in sports.

March Madness.

I’ve done this activity during (or close enough to) the probability unit in Algebra II for a few years now. It was a little out of sequence in my geometry class this year, but after 18 months of remote/hybrid learning I could justify it as a way to review some linear concepts and probability as well.

Basic story is, I have my students make a tourney bracket strictly by coin flip. My kids who know hoops always laugh when they have two 16 seeds winning in the first round or a double-digit seed winning the whole thing. That of course is part of the hook.

Then I point them to the Washington Post’s NCAA Tourney app where they research the first-round win percentage for each of the 16 seeds. (Hint: it’s somewhat linear).

Then I direct them to a Desmos graph I set up for them to fill in a table with their findings. Then they use sliders to try to make a line of best fit for the data.

I follow up with DePaul University professor Jeff Bergen breaking down the math behind picking winners, and the numbers that work against the likelihood of a perfect bracket.

Now they see there is some benefit to using strategy to picking winners, even if they don’t know the game it’s gotta turn out better than a 50-50 chance for each game.

So they make a “for real this time” bracket with their new-found knowledge. Among the reflection questions I ask them is to predict how much better they will do compared to their coin-flip bracket. I hold on to all the brackets and track their progress through the tournament.

Allowing for my 80-minute time limit I had to condense the project a little this year, but here’s the slide deck for 2022.

Now when a 15-seed makes the Sweet Sixteen and I drop that knowledge on them during a bellringer, we’re speaking the same language.

So, that Amnesty Day we were talking about up near the top of this post? The geometry team decided from jump that if quizzes would be 70% of the overall grade (by school policy) then we would offer our students retakes on any quiz (up to three attempts) and we keep only the highest score. It takes a lot of pressure off and keeps kids in the game who otherwise might check out when they see their grade nosedive.

Originally the plan was to offer the retakes after school, but we quickly found that after school does not work for a lot of our students. So we decided as a group to build in “makeup days” where students could do the retakes/corrections or turn in late work during their regular classtime. I also build in a small extra credit opportunity on our Amnesty Day. And it’s been paying off in terms of results.

I’m not sure I’ve ever had a class average 80% for a quarter before. I think that’s what the TFA people would call “significant gains”. They’ve earned it tho, by going back and re-learning and re-testing. Is there some answer-sharing going on when kids are taking quizzes over and over, at different times? Absolutely. But I’d bet no more than in a one-and-done quizzing scenario where the stakes are much higher. And do I still have students check out? Oh for real. See those averages in the 40s? Those classes have a half-dozen or so kids each with like a 5% for the semester. I have airballed all my attempts to motivate them.

All this has me thinking about real human stuff. When we build in second chances, my students don’t see me as an enemy to be conquered but a partner in their school journey. I think that more than anything has to do with their success. The mindset comes first, the improvement follows.

When a student comes in after school to see if I’ve graded his re-take yet, finds out he overshot his target by a whole letter grade, then shakes my hand and says,”Thank you”…. whoooo.

We’re doing something right. Both of us.

Miss Riley lives in my head. (Source).

Then there’s the email I got from a student on Thursday night:

We’re clicking here.

Being creative in the classroom, connecting with students, sharing their joys and frustrations on the daily, helping them learn math, it’s what I do. And it’s re-energizing me for the final quarter.

Also: it’s hard to not love this from St. Peter’s head coach Shaheen Holloway.

My Region people felt that.

As hard as it would have been to believe at the start of the year (so much everything), there’s joy back in teaching again. Like the newest darling of Cubs Twitter says, when that’s gone, I’m gone.

Spring Break is here. I brought my kids in for a safe landing at the end of the third quarter. Got some quizzes to grade and quarter grades to post, but it’s also going to be 70F here tomorrow and that seems like a good excuse to put air in my bike tires and go for a long ride. And my youngest wants to go see Bulls-Raptors at the UC and I think we can do that too. Walk my dogs. There’ll be plenty of rainy crappy days to stay inside and do school stuff this week.

I like chaos as much as the next guy. Maybe more. But I also appreciate the time for peace and rest and recharging. Happy Spring Break, teacher friends.

One-Man Book Club: Let Them Lead

There’s quite a few things I’m reasonably sure of about teaching. But in almost 20 years now I’ve got only one black-and-white, take-it-to-the-bank, incontrovertible fact: There is no one-size-fits-all solution to anything.

That book you read, the workshop you went to, the teacher you watched that one time – grab their idea. Try it out. But make damn sure you keep the needs of your kids in mind when you do.

Even Herb Brooks, the architect of the greatest coaching accomplishment of my lifetime, got his deeply-held (and demonstrably successful) beliefs challenged and rejected within a year of his stunning success:

So he became the coach of the Swiss League team in Davos, working with players who held 9-to-5 jobs and then skated for the town club at night. It was a different world from Olympic hockey. When Brooks tried to get his Davos players to do off-ice conditioning and adopt his innovative hybrid style of play, they balked. They told him they weren’t trying to beat the Soviets. They wanted to stick to a system they knew.

E. M. Swift, Sports Illustrated, February 9, 2004

The story gets better though. Before his untimely death in a 2003 car accident, Brooks coached several NHL teams among stints guiding the US Olympic team (by then composed of professional players). And he knew how to handle each of those assignments.

It had been a long, lonely year for Brooks. After the Olympics no one seemed to understand that it wasn’t the only way he knew to coach–that he’d be different with NHL players (as he would prove when he took over the New York Rangers in June 1981) because he’d have to be different to sell them on his ideas. He wasn’t a bad cop by nature. He was an innovator who knew that to motivate and win he had to adapt to each situation as it came.

E. M. Swift, Sports Illustrated, February 9, 2004

It was through this lens that I read John Bacon’s Let Them Lead, part coaching memoir, part leadership manual, recounting the lessons he learned as coach of the hockey team at his alma mater in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Bacon took over a team that had gone winless the previous year, graduated most of the best players off a team that was literally ranked last in the nation by some high school hockey publication. He told them on day one of off-season condition his first year that they started playing for a state championship that very day.

My kind of guy.

He had me nodding my head throughout the 228 pages, making mental (and later digital) notes of things I could use, or already do use, in my classroom. Everyone loves having their priors verified, right?

I’ve said before that when you are a teacher, every book is a teacher book. I’m always looking for ideas, tactics, that I can use or modify for my classroom. But the thing I always need to keep in mind when trying to apply anything from the coaching or business world is that sports are a voluntary activity. A coach holds all the power over a kid trying to make a team or stay on a team. A teacher gets a room and a roster and a “good luck”. Kids don’t have to be there, and a misstep in trying to motivate them to do what they need to do to have success risks them checking out altogether. In the business world, that’s a plus. As Bacon says, you don’t want just any warm body. You need the people who will help the team achieve its goals. But my job in the classroom is to meet them where they are at and get them as far along as they can possibly go.

That said, I took away several building blocks of Bacon’s coaching philosophy that fit well in my classroom.

  • Let them lead: Bacon points out “If it’s me against them, I’ll lose. Because there’s 25 of them and one of me.” Sounds a lot like teaching. Head coach gets the final word, but he also relies on and defers to the judgement of his captains and his veteran players. When they come to him saying the team needs a day off of practice, he considers their case, realizes they are right, and acts accordingly. He lets his captains know that their teammates follow them, and lets them create accountability in the locker room, during off-season workouts, and on the ice. What does that look like in my class? I’ve done almost exactly the same thing, realizing when we needed a day for “recreational math” or an extra day of review before a quiz. You can see it as well when students will turn and shush or refocus their classmates when we need to do a whole-class instruction or review. I could be better at handing over aspects of my classroom, for sure. That’s been a focus of the Chris Emdin and Zaretta Hammond books, creating a collaborative learning environment where students have a chance to share their learning and to own their learning, taking on a more independent role.
  • Sometimes rah-rah isn’t bullshit, it’s being brave enough to care: As you can imagine, a team that went 0-22-3 a few months before was somehat lacking in endurance and fitness. Bacon started his offseason workouts with some basic stretches and lifts and asked his seniors and captains to lead a call and response. They were, uh, less than enthusiastic. Eventually he was able to get buy-in from his team, partly because he and his staff joined in and did each rep right along side the players. One of his team mottos was “It’s Huron (High School). It’s harder here”. Once the players started to see gains in conditioning, their enthusiasm leveled up. They could see the value in the hard work. “I ruined your summer. That other team on the ice, tonight you’re going to ruin their night”. What does this look like in my class? “This is stupid. I don’t know why we need to learn this”. Many times, that translates as “Mr. Dull, you need to convince me why I should do this assignment of yours before you are going to get my effort”. And when I’m side-by-side with them helping them get through a tough problem, they know I care too. And, I meet them where they are at. We build in the scaffolding and spiral review that is required, especially after 18 months of remote/hybrid learning. And a goofy sense of humor and a Friday playlist they built doesn’t hurt either.
  • I work hard for you, you work hard for me: Bacon didn’t just show up and go through the motions. His players saw how hard he worked on scouting, on designing off-season workouts and in-season practices, on maintaining lines of communications with players and families, with game preparation. When he asked them to dig deep, they knew he was going to model what that looked like. What does that look like in my class? Another 1-to-1 analogue. If I say I’m going to have their quizzes graded by Sunday night, they will be. When they see a grade show up in their Power School at 11:00 or midnight, they know my level of committment. They see the slides or Desmos activities I make for them and they know I’m not just showing up and faking it for seven classes.
  • You can’t lead people you don’t know: It’s the topic of my action research project and a year-long point of emphasis for me. We are back in a face-to-face classroom this year for the first time since 2020. We’re on an A/B block schedule meaning I see my kids 5 times in any two-week period. Snow days and intermittent returns to remote learning (for Covid and other reasons) have meant that this has been by far my most challenging year to learn names and faces. So I just have to work harder at it. And I have. You’d be stunned at how many kids betray a look of surprise when they see I know their name. They have an idea what a challenge it has been too. My research project was spurred by their responses to the statement “Mr. Dull knows my strengths and weaknesses in this class”. I’ve implemented some changes in my practice and emphasized some others to try to improve their perception of me in that area. And I believe it is working.
  • I’d rather be a fool than a jerk: Part and parcel of knowing his players is that when Bacon was faced with a diciplinary decision, he could assess things on a case-by-case basis. He took a player’s previous actions into consideration. He listened to his captains and seniors. Then he made his call. More often that not, because of the culture he and his team had built, they player took responsibility for the misstep and moved on. Could he have been played sometimes? You bet. Is it possible players might have felt like the rules were enforced in an inconsistent basis? I think the opposite. Everyone wants mercy for their own situation and in a locker room or classroom situation they want to know that the coach or teacher will also be willing to hear out the facts. What does this look like in my classroom? I write every bathroom pass. No questions asked. If the same student ends up disappearing for a half-hour with that pass, we might have a discussion about why. And based on that discussion, I might be a little less likely to write one next time. And honestly, kids know when they’ve been caught ditching. Most won’t ask a second time. Academically, we offer retake/corrections opportunities on quizzes and do a make-up day for missing work once or twice a quarter. Could a kids sleepwalk through class and blow off quizzes and then turn around and try to pull off a miracle in the last week? Sure. Do they get the grade their point total earns? You bet. You learn it, you earn it. Would my life be easier if I didn’t allow for those “second chances”? Absolutely. But my kids know it’s never too late to put in the work in geometry.
  • When in doubt, bet on the kid: In a related story, Bacon tells of guiding a troubled student through a disciplinary situation that could have cost him most of a season and perhaps adversely affected the student’s academic performance as well. Bacon stuck his neck out, and the player affirmed that decision by cleaning up his act. What does that look like in my classroom? I don’t get to make disciplinary decisions, but I do get to design opportunities for kids who are willing to try to turn things around grade-wise. And the longer I do this job, the more I am willing to let a student show me they can and will do what they need to do to get the grade they want or need to get.
  • Don’t tell them what they can’t do, give them chances to show you what they can do: Each year of his career Bacon’s teams seemed to feature a player who scudded along in a reserve role, only to shine when they got their Big Chance. It served to reinforce his belief that everyone who made the team could contribute to the team’s success. What does that look like in my class? A big part of my job is cheerleader. At least once a week my classes hear me tell them they have the skills to have success in geometry. And in one of the areas where my role as a classroom teacher vs. a coach is much different, one student’s success does not come at the expense of another – no one is robbing anyone of playing time or taking away a starting role. Let them all shine.

I’ve read some of Bacon’s other works. Knowing he is a lecturer at University of Michigan I kind of half-expected a soft-spoken academic. Then I stumbled across the video of a TED talk he gave in Traverse City that turned out to be the seeds of the book.

And yeah, he’s a coach alright. Got the look and the sound and the fire and the passion. The video is worth a minute (OK, 25 minutes) of your time and Let Them Lead is worth a read. (Note: click pause after Bacon runs the power point to avoid spoiling the epilogue of the book).

One last Bacon axiom: “All the credit goes to your people, not you”. Once you’ve let them lead, they deserve to reap all the accolades of their accomplishments. He was working on a book with Herb Brooks in spring 2003. If you know the background, Brooks was the last player cut from the 1960 US Olympic hockey team, a team which won the gold medal. Brooks famously made it his goal to coach the 1980 US team and defeat the Soviets. After the victory, as his players celebrated on the ice, Brooks retreated to the locker room, alone, and broke into tears.

Bacon asked Brooks why he didn’t join the delirious celebration on the rink. Brooks said, “They did all the work, so they get all the credit.”

I’m down with that too. Especially for my kids who have struggled with math. They deserve to savor every minute.

Looking At The Right Numbers

I’m as big a meatball as anybody when it comes to in-state basketball rivalries. (My Twitter bio doesn’t say “hoops junkie” for nothing). As Bob Knight once famously ranted (NSFW, obvi), “I am sick and f’n tired of losing to Purdue.”

But, real talk? I love Matt Painter. The dude can just flat-out coach. And he’s got the attitude down. Not the attitude of a trophy-chasing, one-and-done recruiter who has an image and brand to maintain, but the attitude of a coach who’s in it for the long haul and realizes the place he works is more than a basketball factory.

(And yes, every coach has blistered the paint off the locker room walls at halftime, even the ones who carefully cultivate a public “good-guy” persona. But the coach who talks publicly about his players the way Painter did in that clip up there, well, I bet his guys feel the same way about him. And like he said, all they do is win basketball games).

That’s a leader.

Indiana Department of Education’s Teacher Leader Bootcamp Cohort 3 met again this week, focusing on the topic of “leadership”. I know, it’s right there in the name, but specifically this session was designed to help the 50 of us see where we fit in the big picture and how building-level leadership can build up or tear down their most dedicated, innovative, caring teachers.

It probably comes as no surprise that University of Chicago research shows the most effective schools in terms of student learning outcomes are staffed by teachers who are respected and valued, and led by administrators “who promoted a strong school climate by empowering and coordinating the work of teachers and school staff around shared goals. Improvements in school climate set up all teachers and students to be successful.” (Source)

Part of the challenge lies in how teachers get evaluated – as Painter mentioned in the presser above when talking about recruiting rankings, “I hate the numbers. The numbers stink. Anybody in this room could tell you who the top 20 players in the country are. But from 21 to 500?…. When you recruit guys and spend time with them and see them, that’s the evaluation.” It’s not an exact analogy to teaching but there is a lot of sense that our evaluations might be based on the wrong numbers. Standardized tests have their place, but they don’t tell much about how a teacher has connected with a student.

Don’t get me wrong – I understand the purpose of the evaluation process. Feedback is good. Painter doesn’t just talk up his kids to the writers. He coaches ’em up too.

But especially he knows his job is to support his players, to draw up a game plan, to emphasize their strengths, to put his team in the best position for success.

My action research project is in a million pieces waiting for me to sort and package and put in some kind of form for our presentations to colleagues on May 14. But last week I asked my students for some specific feedback. I have been surveying them on the same 11 questions since October, and tracking responses to the statement “Mr. Dull knows my strengths and weaknesses.” This week I asked them to think about whether I had improved in that area, and if I had, to tell me specifically something I had done to make them feel more like I knew them. And if they felt I had stayed the same or got worse, to provide me one specific thing I could do in class to make them feel more like I knew them.

And they came through.

That’s probably worth more than any evaluation tool any district could create to rate me on my teaching. Very few mentioned changing out the tool I use to make tests, which I did to grade by hand and see for myself what they know. But I know that’s a big reason they think I know them better. Most feel seen because I take time to check in on them, look at their work, answer their questions, and offer retakes on quizzes. Class Motto: One bad day doesn’t define your grade.

And: I hope they become what I think of them.

One other aspect of the session Thursday I’ve been reflecting on: a writing prompt (or actually a set of prompts) that could be called “Who Am I”?

We all did a free write independently, then met in our small groups in breakout rooms for discussion, then shared out as a whole group.

I’ve covered “What Brought Me to Teaching?” and my “West Coast Teacher Brain” (being a connected teacher leader) in this space before. But I had to take a minute to think about “Why Do You Stay in Teaching?” and “What Is Your Gift You Bring To Your Classroom?”

Just looking back at my notes I scratched out “connecting w/people, learning new things, helping others build new skills and confidence” for reasons to stay. My gifts included “life-long learner, enthusiasm, stubborn, sharing is caring”. More of a brain dump than a free write I guess.

Then we all had a chance to flesh out our free writes in a small-group discussion. Why do we stay? In my group the consensus was: Because there’s problems that need fixing and we want to be part of the solution. It really is that simple. That’s why we applied to TLB3, right? Maybe it’s hubris to think we can fix Education (capital-E, the institution). But our individual buildings? Or at least our classrooms? That’s possible. In fact we are counting on it.

There’s a little Rosie’s bar feel to the conversation when you get a bunch of teachers together (in a Zoom meeting or IRL) to talk shop, and other things. The people closest to the kids probably have the best ideas and are in a position to implement them. Then they start dreaming about making those talks reality. Ask the group of Hammond teachers who got together for drinks and pizza after school a couple Fridays ago.

Get you the right leader. The one who knows you are more than a number. Find the place you fit. The place where your strengths serve the mission. Then go be awesome for kids.

And let the numbers they put up tell your story.

That’s the plan.