Back at school

I hypothesize that there is a correlation between my lack of posts, and the speed with which I’ve hit the ground running since the school year begun. Sorry for the lack of updates! Here’s the quick and dirty, so far:

We are doing a Hip Hop project with our students, partnering with the local University. We go out two mornings a week for the students to work in two studio labs – one with turntables and one with Imacs and MPCs (machines that musicians use to make electronic music from hip hop beats to drums to, well, basically, anything you can record and import.) As well, future dance teachers from the University are working with us, exploring the role of dance in society, and giving workshops on break dancing (or B-Boying or B-Girling, depending on how cool you are.) In addition, while at school, students are learning about the history and aspects of hip hop culture. We are integrating only two curricula, offering two credits – grade 11 English and grade 11 Arts Ed. We’re finding this much more manageable than the Dinner Theatre.

In addition to this project, I’m sitting on a committee working to develop a structure for the learning model for the new shared facility being built in the core of our city. This is fascinating work, as we’re being given lots of freedom to be creative. I feel so lucky to have landed back here when I did, and in the school that I did – I could have just as well landed in another school, or another city, and wouldn’t be learning as much as I am now!

In other education related news, I finished my literature review this summer. 55 pages of glory — a draft of what will be included in my thesis. Now I have some work to do around finding a theoretical framework, as well as completing my final 2 classes. I am taking one this fall — however, the final class may have to wait, as I am not keen to take it in January, with our first born coming some time near the end of that month. We are quickly preparing for his or her arrival, and working to ensure her or his entrance is as natural as possible – but more on that in a later post.

Feedback on Dinner Theatre

Emails have been pouring in from people who attended the show. We’re putting together a display to share the comments with our students, but you get a sneak peek. The first three are from people from the community with no direct tie to the school — the last is from a parent of a student involved:

May I add my voice of praise to the many that have no doubt flooded your school in response to the dinner theatre project, “Eat Your Words” last evening. From the moment I stepped in the door until I left several hours later, I had to remind myself that the gracious young women and men who where guiding, serving, organizing and performing were in grade ten. What did I experience? I was moved to tears, laughed heartily, ate a fabulous meal and enjoyed the company of equally enthralled audience members. Congratulations to everyone involved!

Just wanted to let you know that the evening was absolutely fabulous! It was very evident that you all put in a lot of work and from the ‘guest’ perspective – it was smooth as silk. All of the details were noticed and appreciated!!! Everyone praised the event as “excellent”!! Just wanted to let you know that….

Just wanted to congratulate all of you on the great job you did on Thursday night. The evening was amazing…top notch production values, swanky and classy dinner, a very thought provoking play. The kids were all so professional and were justifiably proud of themselves. The close bond between students and teachers is evident. I was so happy to be part of it and look forward to it again next year. Congrats, again!

Hello, this message is for the staff and students who worked on the dinner theatre project that I had the very immense pleasure of seeing April 10th. I sincerely enjoyed the evening. I was extremely impressed by the work of the children. The talent was amazing (but we know they are very talented anyway), and the devotion to the project was evident. It really came across how much effort, work and enjoyment the kids put into this dinner theatre. Please let the kids know how wonderful they were and I hope they receive many more accolades that they so rightfully deserve. And to the teachers supporting this project–wow–what a lot of work on your part as well–thank you for the time and effort. The writing, acting and singing was wonderful, it brought tears to my eyes. The food was delicious. The mc’s, servers, and entertainment were great. The artwork for the silent auction beautiful. I hope everyone is very proud of themselves–thank you for such an awesome experience!!!
Sincerely,
Proud parent

Dinner Theatre: The Night

Well, if you’re a regular reader, you probably know that our Dinner Theatre Project came to an end on Thursday night. By 11:00 the five main staff involved were sitting in the cooking lab, eating left-overs, feeling a sense of great satisfaction, but also great loss at the end of such an amazing, engaging, enraging, tiring, exhilarating ride. We had a great time working together with the students, and aren’t too anxious to return to our separate, isolated classrooms, which we will the week after next. I’d imagine the students feel the same.

Wednesday was the dress rehearsal for the collective, entitled “Looking In, Looking Out.” The show was a compilation of the students stories and reflections on life in their neighbourhood, one that is regularly vilified by local and national media outlets – but more on the show later. The students were very nervous, and it showed at times. The audience wasn’t hostile, but they weren’t particularly supportive – Middle Years students are notoriously hard to please. One student videotaped the show, and students were quite proud, spending time after school watching the show on the little viewfinder on the camera.

At the same time, the gym was being converted into a dining space for 260 people. Thirty-two round eight person tables were crammed in, leaving just enough room for the two stainless steel bars, silent auction tables, podium, and buffet lines. It was tight. Table settings were picked up (donated by a local performance/banquet venue) as well as a deep fryer, heat lamps, and linens, to name just a few things. The Commercial Cooking students were cooking up potato lasagna, and preparing to take it to a different high school to be chilled, as we didn’t have space. When the five staff left the school at 6:00, we were tired, but excited for the next day. (*note: I chose Wednesday as the first day I’d ride my bike to school. What was I thinking? It was +2 in the morning, and the 8km ride was brisk. On the return ride, it was +5 but I was pushing a headwind. It wasn’t a particularly fast ride home, but I made it. I drove on Thursday and Friday.)

Thursday was a go-go-go day. Silent auction items were arranged, lamps set up in the gym so we wouldn’t have to use the overpowering fluorescent lighting, tables set and double-checked (saucers look remarkably like bread plates to grade 10 students, we learned), hand-written thank-you cards were placed on each plate, chocolates lined up on each table, waiting for the guests, tables numbered, and hosts and hostesses changed into tuxes. And probably 39 things I forgot. The drama students watched the show from the day before, did a quick run-through, and a thorough sound check. Next thing we knew, people were piling into the gym, and the actors were waiting nervously in the basement green room.

The show begins (began, I suppose) with the theme music from Mr. Rogers (minus the station identification, and plus random gunfire and dogs barking.) Our Mr. Rogers entered from the door beside the stage, unfazed by the gunfire, gladhanded with the audience, waved, smiled, and made his way onstage to a coat rack and chair, where he changed from a buttoned jacket into a zippered sweater, and from his outside shoes to inside slippers. The audience laughed at his antics, and this just spurned him on more. He welcomed everyone to his neighbourhood, and with a sweep of his arms, the curtains opened as he said, “Let’s show you around!”

Upstage right was a 8′ by 8′ flat with a map of the neighbourhood painted on it. The name of the neighbourhood was graffitied around the map. Students came out and introduced the audience to parts of the neighbourhood. For example, “This is Bonanza, where I work to help my mom pay bills.” or “This is the library, where I use the computer.”

After a few minutes of this, Mr. Rogers returned, saying “Now that you know a bit about my neighbourhood, let’s see what the evening news has to say about it.” From here, the newscasters took over. Two brilliant young women read found poems created from newspaper articles about the neighbourhood. They told the stories in a factual manner at first. After one about a youth who committed many arsons, the lights dimmed and an actor stepped forward and spoke from the point of view of the young man. This was in an effort to give a voice to someone whose voice went unheard in the local media. The show continued like this, monologues offered in response to the stark facts presented by the media. As they went along, the newscasters became more and more animated, and, well, almost ridiculous in their reading of the news. For example, when telling a story about the increase in break and enters and property crimes, the newscasters stand up, and dance, singing, “Break and enters, property crimes! Break and enters, property crimes!” They then sing “Robberies, robberies, robberies!” each word being an octave higher than the one before, and the final being sung in unison. For a particularly graphic description of the living conditions in the neighbourhood, there is a blackout, and the newscasters pull out flashlights, as if telling a ghost story. The audience, those from the neighbourhood and those not, responded with laughter in some spots, and stunned silence in others. There was some more mapping, but this time with more stories attached to the locations: “This is B’s Convenience Store, where my friend was attacked by the clerk. He still works there.” or “This is where I wanted a better bond with my dad, and sometimes no bond at all.” From here, the newscasters returned and bemoaned the lack of positives about the neighbourhood in the news. They then highlighted some positive things that are going on, but aren’t in the news. The show ended with three of the actors performing a rap song they wrote addressing the attitudes people have about their neighbourhood. They got a standing ovation, which continued through Mr. Rogers final words: “Remember, we don’t get to choose where we were born or where we grow up, but we get to choose where we’re going.” All in all, the show was a blur of laughter, applause, sighs, and stunned silence. I couldn’t be more proud. I’m working on editing the video of the show, and will hopefully at some point put it on youtube.

We received very positive comments on the show — many people told me they cried the whole time. Two parents were being interviewed by a University who is doing a documentary on changing education in the 21st century, and they were so proud as they described their child’s role in the show. The response was moving.

After the show, the students knew they had nailed it. They were so excited in the green room. Later that night, one actress confided that she didn’t know she could do it – and actually asked a teacher, “Is it alright that I feel so proud of myself right now?” I didn’t hear the comment, but as I related the story, a friend came up with the perfect response: “What isn’t right, is that you’ve never had the chance to feel proud of yourself like this before.” I basically have been on a permanent high since the show – we still have four more days with our students to wrap up their classes, and I can’t wait to see them tomorrow. I think we’ll all go through some withdrawl come the end of the project. Hence, we spent lunch of Friday planning what projects to begin next year with. We’ll do something to re-engage these grade 10s (who’ll be 11s by then!) I can’t wait.

Sharing Experiences

As part of the creative process for our collective (The Theatre part of the Dinner Theatre I’m working on) students wrote found poems using newspaper articles about their neighbourhood. Due to poverty and all the various isms that are alive in our world (racism/classism/ageism, etc.) almost all of the articles portray the neighbourhood negatively. To give you a sense, here are a few of the headlines: Break and Enters Rise; Trial Set for Teenager Accused of Lighting 80 Fires; 20 Years for Double Slaying; Twelve Sub-standard Homes Shut Down — I think you get the point.

One young woman in my class chose the article entitled Pit Bull Used as Weapon Against Officers, Police Claim. When explaining her poem to me, she asked if it was alright that she called the dog Champ, since that was his name. She told me that she knew the dog, and was so sad when it was shot by the Police. This led into a discussion about the stories we were reading. The students noted that only one side of the story was told, and it never included anything positive. We decided that part of our show will tell those stories to add some humanity to the negative daily (it really is daily!) press the neighbourhood receives.

Another activity students did was to list confessions about things they did. These were then reworded to begin with “we” in order to reflect the universality of their experiences amongst students their age. I used this activity to try to help the students understand that their realities are not all that different from those of other students. One confession was “We drink too much.” I related a story from years ago when some friends and I rented a house near one of the cities most prestigious high schools. Coming home from a night out, I passed hundreds, literally hundreds, of teenagers walking down the street. As I got closer to my place, teens were pouring out of the neighbour’s house, and a police car was there. However, there was no media coverage the next day. I asked my students if they thought that it would be in the paper if there was a party of teens that had to be broken up by the police in their neighbourhood, and they thought it would for sure. This led us to another discussion on the media, and what they choose to report, or not report.

So, it was a very satisfying week – however, we are running short on time. We have nine days until Easter (2.5 days of which we are on field trips touring theatres or watching plays) and after Easter, we have a week to pull it together. Oh my.

Project – One Month Down

Time is flying in the project. We have 3 weeks until Easter vacation. Following our 10 day holiday (where I will be visiting my mom in Hawaii – poor me!) we have 9 days to finish the production. So, 23 days. Oh my.

So far, it has been challenging to build a sense of community and safety when the composition of the class varies every day. Now that we’re getting down to the crunch, I should have most of my students during all drama classes. Up until this point, they have been taking Entrepreneurship/English/Information Processing classes during some of my drama offerings. However, starting this week we’ve backed Commercial Cooking and Drama classes, so that I’ll have the majority of my students all the time.

Last week we worked on brainstorming ideas relating to the English themes. The idea was to give us a place to start when we look at building scenes for the collective. This process offered many insights into my students’ lives. They are so honest – it is refreshing.

I find the level of staff engagement to be very invigorating — we are all running at full speed, but we’re running the same direction. The professional dialogue is wonderful. Teaching is usually an isolating profession, each teacher working independently for 5 hours a day in their classrooms. However, the collaborative nature of the project has facilitated discussion about big educational questions, and enabled lots of collaborative problem solving. Also, our twice daily homerooms where we work with students to schedule themselves has enabled us to really get to know the students. After spending the first part of the year teaching grade 9, and now working with the grade 10s, I know almost all of the students in the school.

Life continues to march onward outside of the work day, and I have two assignments due coming up in my grad class — one is a “metaphor for teaching” where my wife and I will wow the class with the similarities between good improvisational theatre and good teaching. Also, I have an assignment on assessing using documentation, which involves a bunch of picture taking. I’ve also put the finishing touches on my ethics application, so I can use data from the project for my thesis. It’s a very tight timeline to get it approved, and I’m not sure if it will come back in time to use the students from the project, but I figured it couldn’t hurt to try.  I also had my second interview for an admin position for next year on Tuesday and I think it went well. I’ll hear within a week or so whether or not I made it to the next level – a panel interview. Alright, this should assuage the guilt I’ve felt about not updating the blog — now I’m off to metaphorize!

Project Week 1 – A retrospective

What a week! When I left at 4:15 this afternoon to get to a 5:00 inservice, the other project teachers were still hashing out the timetable for next week. This characterizes the week, I think – we were flying by the seat of our pants. However, we sure flew. We have 110 students enrolled, and we’ve had 100 of them come through the door (This is a ridiculously high rate for our school). We’ve had to photocopy more copies of everything, find more chairs, add shelving, and deal with way more students than we ever imagined. Now, the challenge will be to keep them coming.

So far students are engaged. In my drama class, we laugh a lot. Each class has a different composition. Since my class backs different classes in Commercial Cooking, Information Processing, English or Entrepreneurship every time, the students who come are never exactly the same. In spite of this, we’re building some rapport, and students are getting more comfortable with each other. We have a guest teacher (a local actor) coming in for 2 days next week, which I’m looking forward to.
Today students finished the week with a journal entry about their experiences thus far in the project. I read a few, and was very happy with what students are saying. There is one boy in particular who is easily distracted (and distracting) in class, and often gripes about being held accountable – however, in his journal, he said that he was enjoying school much more than last quarter. Another young woman wrote that she actually wanted to come to school now. These are the comments that make all the hard work worthwhile.

Next week should be calmer, because we’ve worked some things out. This week, we were spending an hour at the end of each day compiling 6 periods of attendance for 100 students. Starting Monday, we’ll be using a card with check-boxes for each class over the next 2 weeks that students will carry in their yellow duotang/hall pass, and get stamped at each class. This will make tracking individual attendance much easier, and result in less collating at the end of the day. Also, our admin has given us more staff — we have a teacher who spends the first hour of the day calling students who were absent the day before. To track this calling, the board office tech folks have created a secure online database that all staff can access, where he enters information. Click on a student’s name, and up pops all communication made with the family. Invaluable, and it will save us from what happened this morning – I called a young man who was absent, only to be informed that he was ill, and that I was the third person to call home within the hour. Also, we have another time teacher assigned to us every second day for 2 hours. This will allow for some team teaching, as well as enable us to take an hour of prep a day, which no one has had thus far. Our preps this week were spent in “The Pit” (our home base) tracking students, calling home, or dealing with an influx of late students.

There has been some stress on staff caused by the influx of students. We only have 2 classrooms in addition to The Pit, and, as such, are constantly needing to use the library and computer lab. So far, the Info Pro 20 class has moved to a classroom, and are using a cart of laptops, which frees up a room for a couple hours in the morning. However, any time you’re sharing space, it is stressful. The Pit is also much too small — we meet at the beginning and end of the day, and it is standing room only. Now, if only we had a new building with adequate space

We are tracking student perceptions of learning and school in this project, but I think that the project will have a profound effect  on staff as well. So far we are working our butts off – and really enjoying it. We are connected to each other, and having a great time in spite of the stress (we laugh a lot). Also, we are connected to students (and a lot of students!) and the project enables us to feel accomplishment. To Control Theory it, our power, belonging, freedom, and fun needs are through the roof! To Circle of Courage it, we’re experiencing Mastery, Belonging, Independence, and Generosity in spades.

At the Response Abilities Pathway Training I took tonight (and take tomorrow and next Saturday) I was reminded that we retain things in our mind that are emotionally significant — and this project is definitely emotionally significant for us. Now, the challenge will be to ensure it is for our students, as well.

Drama Class

Today we had our first real drama classes, and there is much to tell, but I’ll stick to one story:

Student A – we’ll call him Harold – is doing an exercise with me on Accepting, one of the fundamentals of improvisation. In the exercise, Harold is to enter with an offer, or an idea, and I am to respond with “Yes” accepting his offer and building on it. Perhaps you know the game. Here’s how it played out:

Harold <enters petting a fake cat> My cat is sick. Can you look at him?
Teachingchris: Yes, I am a vet. What’s the problem seem to be?
Harold: <motioning below the cat> Well, the shit. There’s shit everywhere.
Teachingchris : <motioning to Harold’s white sneaker> Even on your shoe. Gross.
Harold: So can you fix him or what?
Teachingchris: Well, I suppose. Leave him here and I’ll look at him.
Harold: How do I know I’ll get him back?
Teachingchris: Why would I want a cat covered in crap?

I am not sure that this translates well to the blog, but as I said before, that isn’t too important — what is important to me is documenting these quick interactions, for they are the stuff that teaching is made of. Moments of brilliance, moments of humor, moments that make you shake your head.  More moments to come…

Project Day 1 – A Retrospective

It is 6:01 and I am ready for bed. If only I didn’t have so much work left to do. Oh, and supper to eat. And clothes to iron.

But, enough whinging.

Today was a CRAZY BUSY day! We knew this coming in — we planned it this way. The goal was to engage the students right away – have them doing doing doing so that at the end of the day it didn’t even feel like a day has passed, and they had many positive memories from the day.

We began with a pancake breakfast, and an overview of the day. Students received their tracking duotang, and filled in the schedule for the day. Then, we went down to the gym and did two team building activities –gym mat surfing and “walk the line” (similar to what they do on Oprah I’m told.) We were pretty happy with the level of commitment — the students really engaged in the activities. Okay, not all of them, but the majority. I snapped some pics in the poorly lit gym which I will post in the classroom first thing tomorrow.

From here, we went back to the classroom for some reflection — we’re trying to pitch the project as a fresh start for the students: a chance to move on from past behaviours, patterns, and failures. So, they completed an activity where they wrote a “Toast for Change.” We had a 15 minute break, continued with the toasts, and then went back to the gym at 12:00 and students worked in groups through four different initiative tasks. Then, lunch came, and we had an hour to catch our breath. For the afternoon, students completed a pre-survey for us to gather some data to assess where students were at prior to the project in terms of commitment to and satisfaction with school, preconceptions about learning, etc. Then we were back in the gym for mini-activities from each of the classes, to help students decide where they want to focus their energy.  We finished back in the classroom, hoisting plastic wine glasses with sparkling apple juice, finishing the day with a “Toast for Change.”

Now, I know you’re thinking – but Chris, that doesn’t sound so bad. Why are you so tired?

Well, we have students who are used to working independently on modules — there is very little direct instruction in our school. This is because of inconsistent attendance, which results in students being in different places at different times. Thus the need for independent, self-directed work. When working solely on modules, taking a break is common, and teachers are pretty understanding. Since our classes are an hour and 45 minutes, it isn’t unreasonable for a student to go to the bathroom during class, or, well, just go for a walk. However, though they are well intentioned, the teachers have enabled many of our students to develop the undesirable habit of wandering. With the project, nothing is ever longer than an hour, and most things last less than 45 minutes. This is to address the boredom that often occurs in the longer classes.
But our students were edgy today. They felt confined (and this was our fault, too – we had over 50 kids crammed into our room, which, though it is larger, isn’t exactly huge.) Even though we had every minute planned, there was down time — students completed things at different times, and students arrived sporadically all throughout the morning. So, next time, we would run the orientation as a class that students must attend, and rotate them through it, just like the other classes they are taking.

Tomorrow will be a great day – already today I started to see some of the characters we have in our project. I don’t doubt that it will be frustrating at times and tiring most of the time, but I know it will be worth it. What an adventure!

T-minus 1 day

Tomorrow morning at 8:30 we will begin our Grade 10 Dinner Theatre Project with a pancake breakfast for the students. We have 103 enrolled so far, and the first day will provide an orientation to the project – showing them how the project will run, what each class will look like, what spaces we will be using,  and how classwork will be tracked. I have my drama lessons for the week planned – it will be quite the change going from Math 9 to Drama 10, and I’m looking forward to it. My goal for the first week is to get the students comfortable working with each other as well as in the auditorium (a foreign space to most of them.) I have many group building activities planned, and will be sure to make a fool of myself a lot, to make it easier on them as they move out of their comfort zones. Also, on Tuesday, the superintendent is out to watch me teach as part of the interview process for a semi-administrative position I applied for for next year. This will be an adventure, as he’s coming to watch me on the first full day of teaching drama. I’ll keep you posted on how things go!

A new school and an opportunity for change!

The school I teach at is in the core of the city, and has a very diverse student population. Our facility is very old, dating from the 20s, and plans are in the works for a new building. With this new building will come an opportunity to change the way we work with our students. At present, we have three extended classes a day, and students can earn three credits in a quarter of the year — 2.5 months. This is in contrast to the semester system currently favoured by other high schools in the region. It enables students to earn credits more quickly. Still, we struggle with attendance.

To address this lack of engagement with school, we’re going to experiment with project based instruction. The disconnect between curricular areas, as well as the intangible nature of much of what is taught in schools, always bothered me.We’re really excited about the possibilities of joining together curricular areas that are taught in isolation (and often theory as opposed to practice) and making them real for the students. Ideas that have been floated around are a Dinner Theatre (English, Drama, Information Processing and Foods classes) or a House purchase/fix-up (Construction, Math, English, Business Ed.) The Foods teacher and I are in the process of writing up our proposal for the Dinner Theatre. Exciting times!