#WeirdEd Week 31- Narwhal

 Last week's #WeirdEd was amazing. A smart moderator would take that popularity and momentum and parlay it into another Big Important Topic*. A smart moderator would see the credibility having a NASA engineer on gained his chat and write more of that, because the audience gained from that single chat would love more of that.
But that's so not what #WeirdEd is. #WeirdEd is my baby. It's the anti-chat. Our format might be the same as many other chats but that is where the similarities end. #WeirdEd should be a chat that people who take edchats way too seriously scoff at. #WeirdEd should turn some people off. I'm fine with that. At some point being too Big Tent means losing all connection to reality and specificity and the real audience. I love our ability to tackle all sorts of subjects, from serious to ridiculous. I love that all of you come play with me when I want to take us to Mars or Ferguson.
But #WeirdEd is founded on being goofy. Making education fun and silly and, well, weird. We are at a place in the school year where everything is looking bleak and long and tough. Classrooms are dragging. Students are dragging. Chats are dragging. It's time to mix things up. It's time to challenge ourselves.
I need a challenge.
How does a moderator challenge him/herself? By picking the dopiest topic possible and figuring out how to make it work in an educational context. I love the challenge. #WeirdEdE moderator Lauren (@LTaylorELA) tossed off what might have been a joke when we were talking about this week's chat. "Narwhals."

Narwhals...
Narwhals. Narwhals have nothing to do with education. There is no obvious connection a normal person could draw from the narwhal to the classroom which makes it a perfect #WeirdEd topic. What a fun writing game for me! What a fun thought game for you. There will be no obvious answers this week. Bumper sticker edutweets will be impossible because no one (as far as I know) has ever tried to make narwhals an educational topic.
How well will this go? I have no idea. This might be the #WeirdEd that crashes and burns. I might be skewered on my own horn**. But I know if I can generate good questions the #WeirdEd family will bring your A game and give answers that surprise everyone.
Let's do this.

*seriously, this week was going to be Military Families and School, which is a Big Important Topic I want to do, and is even timely with Veteran's Day, but when I sat down to write it I had nothing. It'll happen, just not today.

**I know it's a tooth. It looks like a horn. It's a horn.

(BTW- You can buy that amazing Shark v Narwhal thing at the top for me for my birthday here)

Took Your Chair- An Experiment in Seating

I needed a change.

My kids needed a change.

Those who follow me on twitter (@TheWeirdTeacher) know that I've been having more trouble than normal this year. Yes, this is the time for the Mid Year Slump (aka The October Blues, aka ISN'T IT CHRISTMAS YET/IT'S ALREADY NOVEMBER HOLY CRAP) so mayhap that's all I'm feeling.
But it really isn't. This is a hard year. I've got the lowest class I've ever had and I have the data (test and anecdotal) to prove it. We are struggling academically and sometimes that means my bag o' tricks doesn't work as well because many of them depend on the kids having better listening/direction following/comprehension/responsibility/responsibility skills. Yes, I can adjust the fun and games. Yes, I'm teaching them all of those things. But still, certain adjustments mean there has been head-into-the-tree moments. We are ok sometimes but we're also having waaaaay too many Let's Correct This Group Behavior conversations. Much more than I normally have to do. All the student factors, the chemical mix of the classroom, is challenging my relationship building like never before. I welcome challenge, I can handle it, but I could really do with maybe just a smidgen less? A touch?

On top of that there have been...frustrations with my district and my school. Very few of us work in a district we are 100% happy with and what kind of a moron would I be to take to the internet with specific complaints about the way things are run? So let's leave it at I like my principal very much and I feel bad that she has so much on her plate and so little help from those directly above and directly below her. But administration problems become teacher problems and so big rock frustrations up above crash down on my little sand castle all the time.

I react to problems with aggression and change. I'm not good at passive. I must affect my environment. I have to find ways, even small ways, to take control. If I had more money there would be a new tattoo from this school year. This is why my hair is blue. It's one of the reasons why I don't live in Hawaii any more. It's why Courson teaches so much and my tiny dragon Spark teaches the mandated section of the day I dislike the most. I find ways to make problems my own.

Seating has been an issue. I have a very talkative bunch. They made me make good on a threat to put them in rows a few weeks ago. In rows! I hate hate hate rows. They are antithetical to everything I do in my room. But the kids needed to know Mr. Robertson meant even this promise. We got our groups back but still we have constant off task and talking.

Last night I was a peripheral part of a twitter conversation where Shawna (@nolagirlfromtx and part-time #WeirdEdE moderator) was talking about the inventive ways she has her kids seated. I don't remember if she brought this specific thing up or if she was talking about using balance balls and it got me thinking of things I could do, but in the end I decided I was done with chairs in my class. At least for a while.

Today I went in and I gave my kids three choices, which they were allowed to chose individually. No peer pressure, I don't need the whole class to be exactly the same.

Choice A- No change. They stay in their desks exactly as the desk is now.

Choice B- Standing desk. I raise the desk up as high as it will go and the majority of the student's day will be spent standing and working. If I were able to adjust the teacher desk I have (no, I'm not getting rid of it, I need it) this is what I'd do to it. I will allow the students who chose this to have a chair for rests. I'm not a monster. That's Courson.

Choice C- On the floor. I take the legs completely off the desk and the student sits on the floor sans chair. I will allow the student to bring in a small pillow to sit on because otherwise their bottoms will come off.

I had a sample of the standing and floor choices and every student cycled past them as a test run, having a few minutes to see how working that way felt. Then I went around the room and took note of who wanted what type of desk. How it turned out was only surprising in one respect-

They all went low. Except one. One girl chose a standing desk. After I got everyone's choice I went back to her and said, "I'm fine with you being the only one standing. I want you to be comfortable. But I will let you know that you are the only one. So if that's going to make you feel uncomfortable you can change your mind." To her credit she stuck to her choice. She didn't even hesitate. Will she change her mind after a day? We'll see. But she did not allow passive peer pressure to sway her. I love that.

I adjusted all the desks after school today (Friday). Monday is a no student teacher work day.
Tuesday is a no student holiday for Veteran's Day. Which means I need to wait four days to even begin the actual experiment. I'm very excited. The students are very excited. I have no idea how this will work at all. It might fail completely. I told the kids that some of them might be ending up with their legs back on Thursday afternoon. But probably not. I'll give it at least three days before I do anything drastic. I'll give it more. Because I want it to work. I want this to mix things up and wake them up and get their attention. I want it to mess up my routine and get me thinking in new ways.

I'm seriously concerned about teaching to them like this. In seats I'm teaching down, but not too much. Now I'll be teaching way down at them. I don't know if I'll like that. I don't know how that will change my instruction delivery. 

view from the floor

But at least it's something new. It's different. As I was taking apart the desks four teachers came in to talk about teaching stuff or ask Drive questions and all of them a) thought I was preparing to teach a unit on Japan and b) thought it was an interesting idea. In my perfect world this isn't my solution, balance balls are. But I don't have those funds. So I'll try this first.

In a week or two I'll write another blog checking in with progress, student reactions, and my own feeling about this new set up. But for now I'm excited.

Change is good.

Follow-up Number 1
Donors Choose Follow-Up

#WeirdEd Week 30- Bobak Ferdowsi, Space, NASA, and Mars!

I have to be honest, I'm kind of freaking out here. Like many people I pulled myself away from the Olympics to watch the Curiosity land on Mars in August of 2012. Thanks to the interwebs I was able to get a live feed from inside mission control and experience the landing in a way that was possible during no other landing. I saw realtime data, lightspeed delayed Mars data, and a dude at a computer with...a mohawk? A NASA engineer with a painted mohawk? And, like thousands of other people, I immediately became a fan of the guy known simply as Mohawk Guy. Here was someone I could relate to. Not to say I'm as smart as he is, not even a little, but here's a guy who takes Science and Cool and mashes them together in an interesting engaging way. Like landing a car on Mars wasn't cool enough, one of the guys doing it looked like he thought it was as fun as I thought it was. A man after my own weird heart.

Reaction after the Seven Minutes of Terror and a safe Touchdown
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ki_Af_o9Q9s

Bobak Ferdowsi, the Mohawk Guy, quickly became a star in his own right, including getting a shout-out from the president. He did tons of interviews and made science cool and exciting for the masses. What a great hook for a science lesson or a space lesson! Want to get your kids' attention? Just put up a picture of Bobak and say "Rocket Scientist" (close enough) and they will be on board with whatever you have to say.
A few months ago I got a wild hair to ask Bobak to help with #WeirdEd one week. He's on twitter, he probably won't answer, but it couldn't hurt to ask. I noticed he was active one night and sent him a tweet explaining #WeirdEd and asking for his help (not easy in 140). He DMed me back (no, he wasn't following me. He saw the tweet, followed long enough to DM me, then unfollowed) that he was interested and to email him more information.
I've never been through more drafts of an email.
We began an email back-and-forth, trying to figure out the best time for him to come on and talk with teachers and the best way to run the chat. I didn't want to do an hour-long Q&A because that's too unfocused and splintered and not what #WeirdEd is about. And I didn't want him to just ask us questions for an hour either because that isn't the best use of access to such an incredible mind. So we're compromising.
There will be three mostly traditional #WeirdEd question, asked by Bobak (@tweetsoutloud), and then we'll turn it over to you all to ask him questions. His specialties are, obviously, space, science, and engineering, and I think getting a look at education from someone who has been through a few different education systems (check his wiki, no I won't link to a wiki) will be invaluable to us all.
I know I can count on the #WeirdEd family to come up with some amazing questions. Let's impress Bobak with what kind of teachers we all are and what good hands our future NASA engineers are in.

My #WeirdEdE brothers and sisters- I'm sorry, but I can't ask him to do two chats. That feels like stretching his goodwill. Instead, #WeirdEdE will have three planned questions and I encourage you all to stay up late and join us at #WeirdEd.

If you need more reason to come, or aren't sure he is right for the chat, or want to know more about him personally, he went on Chris Hardwick's (@nerdist) All Star Celebrity Bowling YouTube show, and you should check that out below.(warning- video contains some language and many dick jokes)

#WeirdEd Week 29- Trick or Treat

 **Note: I tied a long topper on to this so if you want to get right to the explanation of the Game for #WeirdEdE/#WeirdEd skip to the next time you see the double asterisk.**

Ah, the final Halloween-themed #WeirdEd of 2014! How quickly it all goes by. I don't know about you but I'm a HUGE fan of Halloween. Not so much for the scares, I'm a big scardy pants and don't like scary stuff (will make exceptions for some King books and well made horror comedies like Shawn of the Dead), but because it's an excuse to dress up in costumes. I know, with cosplay culture growing it's more and more acceptable for grown adults to dress up and head out whenever (and don't think that I don't), but Halloween is The Night. It's special. It's fun. Festive. Everyone plays along.

I am a firm believer in Halloween at school. I see no reason to take that away from kids. I know the reasons people give, I just don't agree with them. It's unsafe. No it isn't, that's just to go-to excuse to keep kids from doing something. I'm an adult now and I see through your scheme. It's a distraction. Only if your kids are distracted anyway. You should be able to teach in a clown suit and get your lesson's point across. Children might associate school with fun and we can't have that. You're right there. Can't be having the children enjoy the play they spend 180 days of their year. Nope nope nope, there are tests to prep for and there is data to collect. No time to make school a lighter, happier place. (To make this paragraph make a little more sense you should know that my school voted NOT to have Halloween Friday be a Dress in Your Halloween Costume Day. HOWEVER, we, as a staff, DID vote for it to be Superhero Day! Yep. So I got to say the words, "You can't wear your Halloween costumes to school Friday. But you can dress like a superhero or wear superhero stuff on Friday. So if your costume is superhero you can wear your Halloween costume," to my kids. At which point I started feeling really dumb so I had to add, "However, there have been superheroes about all sorts of things. Who's to say there wasn't a Football Man, or a Vampira. They could be superheroes if you name them right. You know, if you wanted to be creative." So I'll probably be in a little trouble on Friday when a bunch of my kids come to school as off-brand heroes because a bunch of teachers are pieces of wood lodged firmly in wet dirt.)

**
ANYWAY, this week's #WeirdEd/#WeirdEdE is a Game! And you'll have to pay attention. Because I think you should have to pay attention to our chat. Full attention. A chat should be interesting enough that you a) don't want to double chat and b) can't double chat because you're too invested in the hour's conversation. But that's a different blog post.

This chat will be a Trick or Treat Chat. Here's how it's going to work. The moderator (Shawna @nolagirlfromtx for #WeirdEdE and me @TheWeirdTeacher) will tag someone in the chat and tweet at them "#WeirdEd @BlahBlah Trick or Treat?" The tagged person will need to quickly respond with "Trick" or "Treat". This choice dictates which question will be asked next. Yes, I really have a Trick Q and a Treat Q for each Q.

TRICK Qs are a little more serious (as far as #WeirdEd goes). They are straighter forward. Think of a TRICK as a Teaching Tip/Trick/or Skill question. Still with the #WeirdEd flair.

TREAT Qs are much sillier and more off the wall. They are all educationally relevant but a few of the TREAT Qs are me indulging my goofy side while still honoring your time.

Enjoy the chat. Points for coming in costume.

#WeirdEd Week 28- Monsters PLUS Edchat Soapboxing

Welcome to Week Two of Three* of Halloween themes here at #WeirdEd. This week we are going to talk about the Monsters of Education. We know they are out there, what can we do about them? What are their weaknesses? What calls to them and creates them? Why do we fear them?

Are classrooms like Frankenstein's monster? Bunch of kids stitched together into one whole, hit with electricity, and brought to life?

*gets soapbox out*

Last week's chat about fear was so amazing and honest and I want to thank everyone again for that. I know you come to #WeirdEd looking for a good time and an interesting chat and I try very hard to deliver that, but without your willingness to go places you might not go elsewhere we'd have nothing. We'd be normal, like every other chat. No disrespect to the other mods out there, but are we still talking about being connected educators? Come on, you guys. We have all of education at our fingertips and we're going to stick to one specific topic for an entire month**? That would be like having 25k twitter followers and only tweeting bumper sticker platitudes. What a waste of an opportunity and of your audience's valuable time. We can do better. Look to #LBGTeach for an easy example of doing more. Jess only runs her chat once a month (not often enough in my opinion, because I love it so much), but every month she takes aim at important topics that are relevant to not only her, but all of us. Anyone who works with kids. #TotallyRossome took on gender issues a few weeks ago. A topic that pissed me off because I didn't get to it first. I LOVE that Ross went there and trusted his teachers to go there. When #InnoEd was running Lauren regularly went to interesting places not many other chats would touch.

How many chats covered Ferguson? Want to get on that? It's not over. It's not an #educolor issue. It's an education issue. Take it seriously. I think I need to write a chat on #GamerGate, but I need the teachers involved to have context, so I need to frame the chat in such a way that everyone knows what we're talking about and why. Why do I need to write a chat on #GamerGate? Because it's an educational issue that is actually happening and edtech should be tackling it but won't for some reason. This is real life stuff, folks. Stuff we need to be talking about. Use twitter as a tool. A flexible, living tool. Talking about being connected is just words if you don't take advantage of those connections.

We can do better or edchats are going to die on the vine. We must dig deeper. We must see the world as an educational opportunity and we must see each other as true learners. How many times can we have the same chats about the same things? Mods, if you see a chat that covers a topic you wanted to cover change your topic. Or at least take note of the questions and change your doubles. So many of us won't give kids homework that is meaningless but we're more than happy to parrot the same As to the same Qs over and over and over. Stop writing leading questions to answers you already know. That's safe and boring. Stop being bumper stickers and platitudes. Come up with your own memes.

I'm tired of the same old chats about the same old topics. I don't want to play in that pool when we have the entire ocean of education open to us.

Let's get creative. Let's get deeper. Let's actually use the experience and expertise of those around us in a meaningful and impactful way.


*I know last week I said it was two weeks long, but that's because I didn't actually look at a calendar, I just guessed when Halloween was.

**says the guy doing three weeks of Halloween-themed chats

#WeirdEd Week 27- Fear

Welcome to the October sessions of #WeirdEd! (Yes, I know last week was October too but I just thought of this so leave me alone). This week and next we will be talking spooooOOooOooOooky topics in honor of my favorite holiday which has been eaten by Hot Topic- Halloween!

This week I want to talk about fear. Fear is a very real thing and something that can motivate or destroy. It's something that we all can relate to (as opposed to, say, very specific classic science fiction tv shows).

Fear makes us make choices. Unless it shuts us down completely. Fear can be unexpected. Sometimes you have no idea you're scared of a thing until it happens. Fear-based choices can be good but are often poor or at least poorly justified. Fear gets a bad rap. Real men aren't afraid. Bull. Like Gandhi* said "Bravery isn't the absence of fear, it's being afraid and acting anyway."

Teaching, at least for me, has tons to fear. I'm not scared of the kids themselves. I'm not scared of parents. Or my administrators (side note: I refuse to be scared of my school district leadership. That gets you pushed around and mistreated.).

I am scared of failing my kids. I'm scared of lessons that bomb so regularly that there's no way they learned it and why can't I reach them and if I can't help this kid he is sooooo screwed because this thing is the foundation for a thousand other things.

That entire previous paragraph is the real reason why I'm not a kindergarten teacher. It's allll place setting and foundation building. That's freaking terrifying.

There's things we fear that we shouldn't and things we fear that we should but are completely irrational. There's that little voice in our heads that knows if the kids really wanted to they could take over the room because there's a lot of them.

In case you think I've forgotten, we aren't the only ones with fear in school. The kids fear too. And their fear is more important than our fear. That's why we shoo the hornet away even though ahmygawdImgonnagetstungahhhh. Our job is to remove fear and replace it with trust and faith and knowledge.

What scares you?



*on the internet you can attribute any quote to anyone. Just ask Facebook

#WeirdEd Week 26- Star Trek TOS

It's been 26 weeks of #WeirdEd and I haven't written a Star Trek-specific chat. TWENTY-SIX WEEKS! Do you have any idea how many strange, new worlds that is? If George Lucas were writing it, it would be dozens of parsecs!* If JJ Abrams were writing it I'd just copy a chat someone else wrote and change some of the names around and then not admit to anything ever.**

We need some bright future in our lives this week. I'm betting we have all hit that point in the school year where the shine is off, some of the cracks are starting to show, and moods are in need of a boost. What better way than with one of the most hopeful shows in television history?

Trek was about a coming together for a common goal. Creator Gene Roddenberry but white, black, Japanese, Russian, Scot, and alien together on the bridge of the flagship of the United Federation of Planets. This was the crew that would encounter strange, new worlds and seek out new life and new civilizations. One of the most mixed casts in television up to that point (and still much more mixed than anything you'll find on most networks) boldly went where no one had gone before. And let's not forget that Star Trek premiered in 1966, so featuring a Russian and a Japanese man were actually bigger deals than it might seem like today.

From Tribbles to Klingons to Gorn, the crew of the Enterprise always sent their best men and women to deal with the problem, which doesn't really make sense since why are you sending the entire chain of command on every away mission? Someone always got sacrificed to the Television Gods of This Situation Is Serious***. Roddenberry was ahead of the curve on tech as well. Watch early Trek episodes and you'll see Mr. Spock  placing discs into a drive to pull up information. Yeah, Star Trek had floppy discs**** before we all had computers. Cell phones were flip phones for a long time because nerds who grew up watching Kirk call for two to beam up loved the swagger James T. flipped his communicator open with. The first interracial kiss on television was Star Trek's.

It was a show that mixed serious and funny with mixed results, and was occasionally bad, but never unwatchable. Sure, the sets were cheap and every planet looked the same. The uniforms were too tight and some of the dialogue was marble-mouthed. But the ideas were pure. Trek was a smart show with ideals and a conscience (more things I'll never forgive JJ for forgetting). It was the best future. Humanity was over our petty squabbles and were reaching out to the stars. Not to destroy but to find and learn about. 


*let us not forget a parsec is a measure of distance, not time. Star Wars isn't science fiction, it's pure fantasy

**Seriously, JJ sucked at Trek. Good luck, Yoda

***Read Redshirts by John Scalzi for a hilarious take on this

****ask your parents, kids