Some Districts Learn Motivation from Alec Baldwin

June 25, 2008 in Personal Reflection, Reading Response
Tags: alec, baldwin, cadillac, classroom, edublog, edublogosphere, education, film, fired, glen, glengarry, jack, knives, lemmon, metaphor, motivation, movie, not safe for work, nsfw, rant, ross, speech, steak, teacher, teachers, you're, youtube

Technically, the following video is not safe for work. Personally, I think it’s perfect for work.

During Alec Baldwin’s tirade against the failing quality of this particular office, salesman Jack Lemmon responds with excuses.

The leads are weak, Lemmon says.

You’re weak, Baldwin says.

In this short clip from Glengarry Glen Ross — spoilers ahead — this exchange describes much of the working world, and most professions.

Let’s use education.

So many educators make excuses, as they try to make do with the alleged students in their classes. Some favorite excuses: It’s the family life at home; it’s the socioeconomic level; it’s that they’re learning English as a second language. Alec Baldwin character, transposed to education, could care less about these excuses.

In the movie, it’s Lemmon’s job to sell real estate. In education, it’s your job to teach children content, at the very least. but you’re having trouble with the group of kids you have, over at that urban school district. In this transposition, you are Lemmon.

Baldwin comes from downtown. He doesn’t care. Why aren’t your kids passing? You are a teacher: Teach. It isn’t that hard. They’re showing up, and are just waiting to learn. He knows: He has years of experience in education.

In the movie, when Lemmon gets a lead, he is paid to sell property to that investor. When you get children — sometimes you even get students — you are paid to teach them, whoever they are. That’s the bottom line, says Superintendent Baldwin.

Professionals can do it easily. If you can’t do it, you aren’t a professional.

No ifs. No ands. No buts.

Even late in his rant, Baldwin’s mentality easily translates to the teaching profession: I do have some positions at Glen Ross Unified, that golden, trouble-free district in a wealthy part of Florida — but you can’t have even interview for them. That district is for teachers, and you peons aren’t very good teachers at all if you can’t teach who you have, already. If your students right now aren’t learning, you can’t teach anyone.

There are a lot of Baldwin characters angry at education in this country. They don’t care about your excuses. They care about your results. If you don’t have results, you’re worthless. Excuses just prove it, and so Lemmon does himself a disservice by offering up his excuses.

Yet some excuses are legitimate. Sometimes, just sometimes, the cards are as stacked against you as you claim they are. That students have a rocky home life is important, and does affect the effectiveness of your teaching. That students can’t speak much less read English, yet, will affect their score on the test. When the cards are stacked against you, you really can’t do anything about it.

As Lemmon finds out at the end of the movie, this was exactly the case. The cards were almost purposefully stacked against him, and Baldwin isn’t his enemy. He had been all-but doomed even before Baldwin showed up and made all that noise.

To wit: In both the movie and the field of education, Baldwin’s appearance didn’t raise the difficulty of success. It raised the stakes of failure.

First prize: Cadillac. Second prize: steak knives. Third prize: you’re fired.

That’s motivation.

Foolishly Trying to Change the World

June 7, 2008 in Interview an Elder
Tags: after school, anecdote, best, change, committed, edublog, edublogosphere, end, escalante, exasperation, foolish, frustration, grading, hollywood, hypothesis, jaime, joke, master, mock, movies, other, stupid, teacher, world, year

As a student teacher, I’ve heard a lot about ambition, and changing the world. I’ve heard a lot of my fellow student teachers talk about wanting to make a difference. I’ve heard a lot of full-time teachers relate glowingly their stories of having made a difference, and being engaged.

As I finished up my grading after school, my master teacher and another teacher talked shop talk. I paid attention only intermittently, more intent on the 10s, the 7s and the many, many 0s throughout the PowerSchool grading program.

The other teacher is just as committed as my master teacher, and she would do anything for her students within reason — any action or strategy that teaches them to fish rather than just giving them a fish right off the bat, that is. Upbeat, positive, model teacher.

Eventually, she said something about wanting to shut down and just give up, in a moment of end-of-the-year exasperation.

I joked: Whatever happened to changing the world? Giving up already?

I gave up changing the world a long time ago. That’s the first thing I learned as a teacher, that changing the world can’t be my goal.

Laughing, my master teacher asked:

Why do we think that? Why do you think we try to change the world? What’s up with that?

In mock frustration, she offered her hypothesis.

It’s those movies, those stupid movies, where the teacher changes the world and is awesome.

But if you actually watch the movies, the Jamie Escalantes don’t change the world. They don’t even change the school. They just change their class of 20 students.

Twenty students per class? Now that’s something out of Hollywood.

Multiple-Choice Index Cards

May 29, 2008 in Darndest Things, The Way It Were
Tags: awesome, blog, cards, choice, classroom, create, database, easy, edublog, edublogosphere, education, exam, excellent, free, good, government, history, index, list, master, method, multiple, questions, senior, student, teacher, text, way, write, writing

Memorial Day was my day of work. I didn’t get much work done.

However much I racked my brains, I had tried and failed to brainstorm good multiple-choice questions. However long I stared at Microsoft Word, satisfactory test items just didn’t come. Then, an idea.

Inspired by a faint memory of one of my high school teachers, I decided to let my seniors write their own test questions for this semester’s pass-the-class-in-order-to-graduate cumulative final. Having students write hypothetical questions about course content is an excellent review activity — that’s the main impetus behind a local iteration of Cornell Notes, at least.

I gave them a short primer on effective test questions — make the question a complete sentence, have all the answers about the same length, no silly answers — and a list of a few topics I’d like questions written about. I warned that only the very best questions would make the cut.

At the very least, it was an excellent way to gauge which students needed help understanding the content, and who was doing just fine. I could then intercede on their behalf and give them a little nudge in the right direction.

There was a range of questions, including fact-recall:

22. What are the names of three major Federalists?
a. Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, Thomas Jefferson.
b. Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, Patrick Henry.
c. John Jay, James Madison, George Washington.
d. James Madison, John Jay, Alexander Hamilton.

There were some questions with a little bit of higher thinking:

5. In which system of government do states have more power than a national government?
a. Unitary.
b. Confederacy.
c. Federal.
d. Communist.

I rewrote most of the rest to make them a little bit more challenging, or edited them for style errors.

Of course, I had a few questions that certainly didn’t make the cut.

xii. What are names of the two houses of Congress?
a. Executive, judicial.
b. Legislative, Supreme Court.
c. Judicial, executive.
d. White House, Pentagon.

In case you don’t know American government, this doesn’t even include the correct answers. Considering who giggled as I read that question, it’s safe to say that this was a joke, but just to be sure, I walked that whole section of the class through the names of each house in our bicameral duplex of a legislature.

Just plain silly made an appearance, also.

vi. Why am I so sexy?
a. My style.
b. My looks.
c. My hair.
d. The way I talk.

Seniors. Sheesh.

The student who wrote this question made sure to ask me the next day what I thought of it. I hesitated a bit, and then told him, jokingly.

I’m not going to put it on the test. It had a false premise.

After two minutes with a dictionary, he laughed out loud.