A Week of #EdJoy

At last week's #sunchat about having fun, I floated the idea of tweeting around the hashtag #edjoy. For the two weeks prior to the chat, I had discussed the need for and meaning of the hashtag with some very insightful people in my PLN. You can read an older blogpost about that here. While there seemed to be unanimous support for getting the hashtag circulating, I still wasn't sure if people would be drawn to it.

Fortunately, my uncertainty proved to be unfounded.

By mid-week, a number of people were using #edjoy to share the classroom experiences that make teaching so incredible and rewarding. Some tweets identified big collaborative moments between students, while others highlighted the smaller, quieter one-to-one experiences.









Regardless of the specific situation referred to in the tweet, one thing was clear: Learning can not happen without a genuine sense of trust and caring. While these feelings get established in a number of ways, foremost among them is the belief that learning becomes meaningful when it becomes deeply personal. And some laughter and fun helps.












On a personal level, this was one of those weeks: long hours, including a night of parent conferences; a lot of grading; and a number of "misses." You know what I am talking about. Those classes where nothing really goes wrong; however, something feels off. Like there's a lack of connection. In any case, I ended a couple of the days in a funk. My wife refers to this as "impending doom." Maybe that's taking it too far. Still, anybody who has spent time in the classroom should know what I mean: a nagging, indefinable suspicion that things could have been better.

But then, each day, as I scanned Twitter, I saw the moments of #edjoy. All I can say is, they truly helped. I look forward to more, and to hopefully getting more educators involved. A sincere thank you to all who contributed ideas this week. I know there are far more than I've included here.

I'll give the final word to one of my favorite tweeps:

My brain and heart got a jolt this week as well. I'm ready for more. How about you?

Shadows and Stars

One man with his guitar after what sounds like a long night of the soul. At its most basic, that's how I would describe Joe Strummer's meditation on individuality in his song "Long Shadow." Does it matter that his voice is raspy, possibly even out of tune? No. In fact, there is an authenticity present in his voice. It is the sound of experience. As he rasps through lyrics about struggles, about "grabbing [your] demons and wrestling them to the ground," his voice becomes the real instrument. "I've been there," it assures the listener, and I am still here now.

The key sonic moment comes a little over halfway through the song, when Strummer implores us to "listen to the country/listen to the Night Streamliner." The verse starts off low, almost in a whisper, but quickly rises in volume and intensity. This is the sonic moment.  Listen to the way he growls the word "rock," and enunciates the words "prayers" and "road." He adds texture to these lyrics. When I listen, I can feel it. When I listen, I ask myself "what is he talking about?" Who is "she?" What does he mean that "Beale street didn't have no prayer"?

When I listen, I am not sure. But this is part of the sonic moment. There is a desperation in Strummer's tone, even as there is ambiguity in the lyrics. There is a nod to great American poets like Woody Guthrie and Walt Whitman as well. Especially in these lines. Both of those men sang of the common people, of the desire to explore, of radical democracy and the importance of accepting all because all struggled equally for their share of existence.

Perhaps this is a purpose of art. Not the purpose, of course. But one reason people grapple with aesthetics and form, be it music, or painting, or film. It is one person's attempt to share with others the struggle of being alive and the need to persevere. After all, here it is again: in a much different kind of song by Adam Levine. But the same sonic moment is present. "Yes," both songs say, we are small, perhaps even insignificant. Yet we are here." 

We have our identities, our songs, our art to prove it.

Spread the #edjoy

One of my favorite Twitter chats is #sunchat. It never fails to motivate me for the upcoming week. Even when conversations revolve around potentially depressing topics, like the move towards more standardization and high stakes testing, ultimately I still feel hopeful. There are just too many thoughtful people out there fighting for what is right in education. 

Two weeks ago was no exception. The initial question asked us to discuss the ways we help struggling colleagues. A thread evolved regarding the need to laugh. Perhaps, some of us wondered, the time had come to establish a new hashtag: #edjoy? Yes, we decided. It was. In order to articulate the need for this hashtag, a number of people helped create the Joy in Education Manifesto.

Lets face it, teaching is a tough, high-stress job, especially in the current climate when so many educators feel besieged. It is easy to forget to laugh with our students and colleagues, to chuckle when things go off the rails, to emphasize joy. 

#Edjoy is about reconnecting with what attracted us to teaching in the first place: the desire to keep learning while helping others reach their potential. #Edjoy is about reasserting ourselves in the conversation regarding what empowered learning looks like. #Edjoy is about reminding ourselves that it's one thing for those on the outside to enumerate the shortcomings in our education system, but quite another to dedicate oneself to offering solutions from within.

In short, #Edjoy is about educators sharing what they love about their profession and, in so doing, providing uplift for themselves and others.

So what's the upshot, you might be wondering? What am I supposed to do with this hashtag? There are ideas for a more organized, concerted effort at making #edjoy known. One possibility: a daily #edjoy tweet challenge for the month of November (the month of giving thanks). Another possibility: an #edjoy flash mob at some arranged day and time. Maybe we could even get the hashtag to trend.

For now, however, the point is to USE IT! Spread the #edjoy.

**Thanks for reading. If you would like be part of future action, tweet me at @sglass771 or leave your twitter handle as a comment below or list your twitter handle on the #edjoy activists list on the 2nd page of the Joy in Education Manifesto.

Writing Requires Craftsmanship

What's the problem with this building?

No craftsmanship!

It's strictly utilitarian with no sense of style or attention to detail. It’s built quickly. It’s built cheaply. It’s architecture that nobody cares about. With your writing, you don’t want to build ugly strip malls.

How can you insure that you are not building an ugly strip mall? How can you insure that you are building something meaningful?

Craftsmanship!

When you apply craftsmanship to anything that you are making, you are saying to yourself that what you are building matters--to you and, possibly, others. Craftsmanship requires dedication to, and thoughtful execution of, a plan. With regards to writing, this means:

Slow down: consider what you are saying and how you are saying it. You must reread your work. If you don’t understand what you are saying or are unmoved, your reader will feel the same way. Take time to consider language and sentence construction. At some point, you must be detailed oriented. Little mistakes with commas and apostrophes sneak by the best writers. Perfection is quite possibly unattainable. Still, clarity is key.

Be organized: As mentioned above, you should have a plan and you should stick to it, while allowing for flexibility. The point of writing is to follow ideas. You might find a new direction as you write. If it appears worthwhile, follow it. At the same time, go into a piece of writing with a clear, step-by-step understanding of what you want to build.

Be specific: Move past what is easily known, especially by you. It’s one thing to say “society is corrupt.” It’s another thing to say, “here’s an example of how corruption undermines the relationships upon which society is built.” And then write about something that is taking or has taken place. This is also crucial for the way you start. Make an honest attempt to open with something that gets you and your reader interested.



Writing well is tough. Somewhere along the way, I heard somebody compare writing to conducting an orchestra. Both are among the most difficult activities to pull off because the writer has so much to attend to: the ideas, the organization, the sentence level decisions. But it is also incredibly important to be able to communicate this way. You must want to be successful. You must want to build something worthwhile.

CIO #1: Killer Mike Challenges Us and Himself

I have heard Killer Mike's song "Reagan" a number of times.  But recently I came across the video: it's a definite work of art.  The cartoon lends an immediacy to Mike's rhymes about hypocrisy and the government's history of institutionalized racism.  In both the music and the visuals, this is art that stakes its place in the world and does not shy away from controversy. But this song is not solely about criticizing the government.  It's real potency comes from Mike's willingness to examine his and other rap artist's complicity in the problems plaguing his community:

"So it seems our people starve from lack of understanding/ Cause all we seem to give them is some balling and some dancing/ And some talking about our car and imaginary mansions/ We should be indicted for bullshit we inciting/ Hella children deaf and pretending it's exciting/We are advertisements for agony and pain/ We exploit the youth, we tell them to join a gang"


Of course, hearing people be critical of hip-hop's emphasis on money, violence, and objectification of women is not new. But it bears hearing again, especially by somebody talking from the inside.
Absolutely worth checking out. 

It might even lead people to research what he's talking about.

How Do Students Learn To Be Online?

In my Media Collage class, I have started off by asking students to think about learning. While the class is concerned primarily with understanding how to use our devices and the internet to be confident, creative, generous participants in digital spaces, the early discussions about learning have not necessarily focused on the digital. For example, the first project I assigned challenged them to create a 5 image story in Haiku Deck that focuses on something meaningful they have learned to do. It appears that all of the stories revolve around the decidedly "non-digital": perfecting a tennis serve, playing guitar, riding a surfboard, knowing how to share.

Strings: A learning Story - Created with Haiku Deck, presentation software that inspires

Once the students have finished this project, I plan on extending this discussion about the Haiku Deck narrative. Specifically, I am interested in the "learning constellation" that helped make possible the meaningful activity they learned to do.  For example, after creating my Haiku Deck model, I did a Google Drawing of my "learning constellation":

So here's the question that I am sure my students are wondering: "why is MrG taking all this time to discuss learning, especially when it does not seem to have anything to do with digital technology? What class did I sign up for anyway?"

And here's my answer. 

I want to spend time thinking about something meaningful we each have learned to do as a springboard to consider how we learn to use our devices and be online. Looking back at my constellation, I see that I had some expert guidance, both in the form of friends who were willing to work with me and be role models with whom I could experiment, and professionals who released music that inspired me to pick up the instrument. Additionally, there are some things about my learning experience that I did not include on the constellation, like my passion and motivation to learn how to play, my agency in deciding I wanted to dedicate time to it, and my understanding that getting better requires mistakes. Lots of mistakes.

What it comes down to is my suspicion that our students' learning experiences regarding devices and the internet are woefully lacking. (As are most adults'.) Have they had mentors guiding them? Helping them build their online presence? Illustrating how to be curators of information? Providing opportunities to experiment as creators? Probably not. Instead, learning to navigate the digital world probably has occurred in fits and starts, with some help from peers, parents, teachers. But mostly with a whole lot of stumbling in the dark.

To consider what a true learning experience looks like, including the constellation that makes it possible, is to bring into sharper focus the haphazard way most of us, especially our kids, learn to be online. With this established, hopefully we will all be motivated to make our learning experiences with digital technology more deliberate and purposeful.