"Socratic Seminar is life: Dialogue vs. Debate"

Dialogue: to be open to other people’s ideas

Debate: to convince others your argument is the only argument.

The best thing about starting a new school year is the hope that comes with it.  Last year was difficult, but paradoxically so. It was truly the best year I’ve had as a classroom teacher, but it was one of my most challenging because of the politics and debates surrounding the thing I love the most--teaching kids. I just felt helpless, even hopeless because the conversations impacting teaching the most excluded teachers and students.

Then it hit me. 

Learning doesn’t truly happen unless all parties involved are willing to open themselves to new ideas, ones that even contradict their current perceptions. Okay, I know, that’s not anything new.  Common sense, right?  But think about it.  So many educators, administrators, politicians, (everyone really), have forgotten how to have a dialogue because we’ve gotten sidetracked by our emotions, our passions, and our best intentions. We’ve forgotten the importance of trying to understand where the “others” are coming from and so we only have debate, not dialogue.

No wonder we’re not getting anywhere.  No wonder students feel they have no voice; no wonder teachers are willing to strike during school hours instead of teach; no wonder administrators and politicians would sell their souls for funding rather than take a stand against the tyranny of capitalism.  Everyone’s just talking, but no one’s listening. So emotions heighten, screaming begins and debate is sparked.  But still, no one is listening and an overwhelming sense of hopelessness spreads.

I was first taught Socratic Seminar eight or nine years ago by David Stickrod, one of the most effective principals I’ve ever had.  He understood and valued the importance of shared inquiry, which is dialogue (the foundation of Socratic Seminar), and the power of allowing students to make meaning from the text rather than being bestowed the knowledge by the teacher. More importantly, he taught me that controlling my classroom with leading questions, canned conversations and worksheets would result in little if any long-term retention because that is more or less "pretend teaching."

If students are allowed to create meaning and participate in creating a new living text, they’re going to feel valued and invested not only in their own learning, but in the pursuit of knowledge through dialogue, which is Socratic Seminar’s purpose.  And what’s more exciting, we’ve taught our students how to communicate critical issues effectively with the willingness to change their own perceptions because ego has no place in the conversation. 

Imagine, shaping a society of young leaders whose mission is to understand the other side’s perspective first so that their own understanding is enhanced.  If everyone was trained in seminar, there would be very little if any gridlock in congress like we’ve seen recently; there would be dialogue without spite and a sense of community in all decisions being made because people’s primary focus would be on learning, not defending; on dialogue, not debate.

Now imagine…

What if I was to apply the principles behind Socratic Seminar to my life?  Let me explain, but bear with me because it’s going to feel like tangent at first.  Just the other night my husband came home after working his typical eleven-hour day. All day I had been stewing about the fact he left the ironing board out, tossed my nicely folded clean laundry all over the place and, to top it all off, he didn’t get the recycling out.  Well, needless to say, I launched and went off about how careless, even thoughtless he was and we just started yelling…about laundry.  Duh.  Rather than taking the time to first ask myself, “What would happen that would cause Jim to make such an enormous mess?” I instead reverted to emotion and prepared for battle because I was going to prove he was the one at fault.  It wasn’t even about laundry anymore, it was about being right; it was a debate and so dialogue was impossible and all that resulted were hurt feelings. 

And so why does this even matter?  Why is this relevant to education, to our classrooms, to our world?

We have to get a grip on our own emotions and egos so we can listen, because listening is the cornerstone of dialogue. Let’s go back to the idea that there may be an overwhelming feeling of helplessness or lack of control in some aspect of our lives (professional or personal).  That helplessness comes from a lack of control and not feeling valued on a personal, intellectual and/or professional level.  It’s the same feeling we’ve all had one time or another in a department meeting, district meeting, while reading the newspaper or even in the middle of a fight with a spouse. It’s the same feeling our students have in our classrooms when we’re teaching our students what to think rather than letting them come to their own meaning through dialogue.  Helplessness then turns into fear, and fear metamorphoses into anger and debate is all that remains. Debate feeds and crushes egos. It doesn’t promote change.

Just a few days ago I was given a second opportunity to be trained in Seminar by my current district and the experience was amazing; however, by the second day the principal had allowed all faculty to excuse themselves from the training except for the English and Communicative Arts departments. The word was he had received complaints it wasn’t relevant to other content areas such as Science, Social Studies, Math, World Languages, etc.

Understandably, they wanted time in their classrooms (so did I), time to get ready for the first day, but it worries me to consider what was lost because of system issues.  Seminar isn’t just for English teachers.  Seminar teaches people how to communicate civilly, with open minds and through reflection. 


As explained above, it applies to life, every content area and every classroom because dialogue is the foundation of any productive relationship, business, and society.  So, I’ll leave you with a quote Socratic Seminar Guru Oscar Graybill said during our training that stuck with me. Its simplicity calmed me when I started worrying about everything I wasn’t getting done,

“If you don’t have time to reflect then you don’t have time to learn.” 

And if you don’t have time to learn, then how can you teach? 

I’d love your thoughts, insights and comments!

Parents need to take back their right to parent

If I had one wish it would be to slow down time.  It’s approaching the middle of summer, I have a graduate class beginning next week, another one after that and I’m finding myself wishing the world would just take a breather.  I’m loving getting to know my own kids again (even though they fight about the dumbest things) without the distraction of a mound of papers waiting to be graded on my dinning room table.  I’m loving chatting with friends on the deck without the clutter of school politics clouding our conversations and I’m loving the laughter.

Like so many other teachers, summer gives me (as well as my children) a chance to breathe, clear my mind, work on curriculum and gather the strength to create a momentum that has to last 10 months straight, because teaching isn’t just about throwing content into a crowd, hoping some of the kids will catch it.  You’ve always got to be “on” and ready for the emotional and intellectual roller coaster that every school year brings.

Teaching comes from the heart and so every single day during the school year I take 120 plus students home with me, along with their grading, student/parent correspondence, lesson plan writing and rewriting; let’s not forget the constant political and social battles we’ve been forced to contend with and the overwhelmingly negative press that has come to define education.  I’ve never been able to master “just turning it off” when I come home; so once May comes, it’s my turn to be a mom and a full-time one at that, which brings me to a point of serious internal conflict: extending the school year. 

Extending the school year makes sense. Our children will become more competitive globally because the gap will be lessened between educational periods; thus, our nation will thrive and everything—including the economy—will turn around…right? This is where I’m stuck, because I’m not so sure extending the time our kids are in school is the answer. 

When did it become the government’s job to provide babysitters, to act as our children’s parents and to potentially take away so many precious hours from families who hardly see each other as it is? Again, I’m stuck, but I think a solution may exist in reclaiming our families and our time. I understand that most families have dual incomes and some are struggling to even make it, but as a nation, have we sold out our families in pursuit of what has become the materialistic nature of the American Dream?  Even writing about this fills me with conflict, but my instincts are telling me it may be time, at least for me, to re-prioritize.  

As parents we should be actively teaching our kids by picking up where their teachers left off at the end of the school year.  As it stands the government is sending the message that parents can’t be trusted with their own children’s education and consequently, America’s children must spend more and more time in the classroom.  There are so many levels to this conversation that I’m simply skimming over and even over-simplifying (because there's too much content for one blog), I know; however, before we know it the government will be raising our children, not us, and that terrifies me.

Teachers should not be expected to raise our children and the government should not be allowed to assume the role as parent.  The only way we’re going to fix our “educational crisis” is by starting at home, carving out more family time and by making learning fun and a part of our children’s everyday lives.  

I’d love to hear your ideas, concerns and start a discussion.  

The parent is not always right

Yesterday a colleague told me he's been researching administrative techniques that revolve around the idea that parents are customers, that they're always right and that we (teachers and administrators) need to do everything we can to make them feel good and happy about all in the world. Okay, so maybe the last part might have included a bit of hyperbole, but seriously, this approach is, in one word: destructive.

I understand how important it is to do everything we can do to help set a student up for success, but my experience has been that this philosophy translates into an excuse to not address the true issues that parents bring to the table.  I am also a parent of a second grader and a soon-to-be kindergartner and let me tell you, I've been told "no" by the administration at  his school many times.

My son had a terrible kindergarten year, so bad in fact that I went in demanding he be moved out of that teacher's class because she had told my son that he made her not want to come to work everyday. Highly unprofessional, yes, but the principal explained she'd personally address the situation and keep an eye on things, that moving kids was the last resort because there are so many life lessons to be learned and running away from them hurts all involved that early in the game.

I was still upset, but I understood where she was coming from, and as an educator I appreciated the fact that she was supporting her teacher, and the parent while actively seeking out a solution.  What she was doing made sense and while my son had to be moved because the teacher's negative behaviors continued (and they were bad), we left knowing we did all we could. More importantly, though, a paper trail following that teacher was started because of her refusal to learn from her mistakes, (which ties into my last post).  Was I upset that we had such an emotional mess to clean up with my son? Oh my gosh, you have no idea!  But, did we all learn and grow from the situation? For sure.

The principal and I didn't always see eye to eye, but I truly respected and continue to respect her administrative style. Because of her, my son had an incredible first grade teacher and continues to excel in second grade. So that brings me back to looking at the parents as "clients" and the primary goal of "making them happy." None of what I just explained would have been as successful if I (the parent in this case) would have been allowed to call the shots, which is precisely why we have to deal with the issues the parents bring in (i.e. excessive absences, apathy, poverty, whatever) and be active with finding solutions that may be difficult, but necessary. Regardless of how hard the conversation might have to be, it has to be done.

Taking the easy way out by just "making them happy" will perpetuate an environment in which parents continue to have very little accountability because it's easier to just go with the flow, while teachers continue to bear the brunt of society's woes.  Parents are not the experts when it comes to education, we are. And because of that, we can help them in so many ways.  Keeping that information to ourselves just further cripples everyone involved and creates more helicopter parents who scream instead of communicate.

Do teachers make mistakes? Hell yeah!  Do parents have a hard time taking off their parenting hat and seeing the truth for what it really is, and do they make mistakes? You bettchya.  Do administrators need to value their teachers as much as the parents and do they make mistakes? Holy cow, do I even need to answer that?  So what does it all mean? If we are truly going to start turning this terrible educational environment around and rethink the educational system as it stands then we have to work as a team, listen to each other's voices and stop looking at schools as corporations, because our commodity is way too fragile and our purpose is not a capitalistic one.

As a parent and a teacher I have been forced to walk on both sides of the path and I only wish everyone could have the fortune (or misfortune) of living out both sides of this conundrum.  It's no longer a matter of No Child Left Behind as we know it; it's becoming a matter of No Common sense Left Behind.  Life is not about taking the easy path because it's often too narrow and too short-sighted, leading nowhere; it's about finding a path big enough for everyone to walk down that leads to change.

Tell me what you think!

Tenure's dirty little secret

It may be my eleventh year of teaching, but this is probably the first year I've really given tenure a second thought. Sure I've worried about RIFing in the past, but I've always been somewhat safeguarded by the fact I was the only journalism teacher.  However, I have since left my "department of one" and entered into the English department. With the threat of massive budget cuts, the buzz about the potential for pink slips is beginning, which brings me back to my initial topic: tenure.

In one of our discussions, one of the teachers brought up the "last in, first out" policy, which was something I was aware of but never really considered.   (In Time's article Beyond Unions: Five New Rules for Teachers, Andrew J. Rotherham explains it briefly.)  And when we started weighing teachers who could potentially lose their jobs because of budget cuts against those who would be guaranteed to keep theirs, disgruntlement and even a little panic ensued. 

A motivated, hard-working, student-centered teacher could be lost to another that admittedly has "given-up" on students because it's "just not worth the fight" all because the latter has more experience in the district.  It has nothing to do with evaluations, nothing to do with the rigor or relevance of their classroom instruction and everything to do with who has been breathing the longest in that district.  If it sounds crazy, it is and that's precisely why we need a voice of reason (I'm not sure who that is yet) and to use some common sense.  

While I'm not currently an active member of my school's union, I am a union advocate.  In fact, I was on the negotiations team at my previous school, but the playground has become so muddied by manipulation (just as it has been in everything political locally, nationally and even globally) that the union is forced to stand up for "good" and "bad" teachers because those teachers, regardless of their skill level or moral inclinations,  are paying dues and are thus promised legal protection. But when it comes down to it unions are essential in protecting teachers from what can be the tyranny of upper-management, which is eloquently explained by the blog, Don't Get Me Started: Why Have Tenure? 

What ceases to amaze me again and again about the coverage swirling around education, especially unions and educational reform, is the assumption that tenure is this relentless force that can't be tamed when, if fact, it all comes down to the tedious task of creating a paper trail and the lack of follow through from the administrators to do just that.  

The role of any typical high school administrator far exceeds simply overseeing his teachers and school-wide events, and so administrators are often spread too thinly, rendering them ineffective as leaders for the teachers and adversely, the students.  Out of desperation some may simply ask teachers to "sign-off" on their observations knowing an actual observation was never completed while others may drop in for ten minutes, only to write up a "fill-in-the-blank" observation when they get back to the office. As a result, no paper trail is created and another uninspired or maybe even incompetent teacher slips through the cracks.  So, what do we do?  

Administrators need to actually observe their teachers on a regular basis, provide feedback and expect change. If the teacher is offered remediation and change still doesn't take place?  Well, then fire them. Yes, it's that easy. The union will provide legal services because they HAVE to.  They're representing one of its paying members and such services are expected; however, if the union can't prove the teacher has met the district's requirements because the administration has done its legwork honestly and with integrity, the teacher's contract should be and will be terminated.   Teachers are not the enemy, the system is and it needs to be fixed.  

Teachers need to be valued enough by the system to actually be given thoughtful observations that provide an open forum for improvement, not punishment.  Doesn't it seem ridiculous that in education, educators aren't provided the very feedback they're expected to constantly provide to students to insure classroom success? What's good for the goose is good for gander, which is precisely what Time's article,  "Better Teachers: More Questions than Answers" addresses when discussing the importance of observations (even though it seems like common sense to me),  

 "They found that not only did performance (as measured by math achievement of students) increase during the evaluation year, but the gains were sustained in subsequent years. That's a big deal—it means teachers were not just responding to being evaluated but using the feedback to improve their work."

In actuality, tenure's dirty little secret is that it has nothing to do with tenure or even unions.  It has everything to do with a broken system and a broken community of learners, educators and community members. It's time to stop passing the buck and just start making change and rethinking inane policies like the "last in, first out" approach that de-professionalize teaching. Unions are necessary because they create a forum in which conversations like these need to take place, where all parties can have a voice. The promising, the good and the great need to get even better while the bad need to be documented and kicked out of the system. It's as simple as picking up a pencil and paper.  


Let me know what you think!  

Final Reflection for Social Learning Grad Class

How has social networking made a difference 

in your classroom?

Being able to read and being given the time to read a variety of blogs has probably been most beneficial to my classroom instruction. It's opened up an entirely new perspective when it comes to controversial topics, raw commentary and better yet, I stumbled on communities of like-minded people.  Consequently, I've been able to take the information and use it as a springboard for discussion and I continue to draw from different blogs and videos with hopes of adding even more dimensions to my curriculum.

For example, we were shown a video by Will Richardson that mentioned a Mississippi school that is piloting a program in which teachers are being coached from the back of the room or in an entirely different location while wearing ear buds. Besides making me even more distressed about the state of education than I already was, the video and article made me ponder our basic freedoms, our rights and the responsibility of maintaining those rights -- not to mention the willingness of teachers, community members, administrators to become life-size bobble heads and actually agree to participate in such madness. So, I put it out there for my students to discuss while making connections to the assigned reading. The conversations were amazing and the epiphanies had by many of my students gave me hope.

What plans do you have to continue developing your online personal learning network (PLN)? How do you see an online education community changing education?

I plan on rewriting most of my English 10 units this summer to create a more solution-based approach to learning. I want to create summative assessments that revolve around case studies that stem from social and political issues highlighted in our assigned readings. For example, After reading The Grapes of Wrath, I would love to actually have my students research current jobless rates, distribution of wealth, etc. and research why it's happening while paralleling it to the social/economic status and times that were illustrated in the book. 

While my ideas are still in their infancy, I would also love for them to focus on one key parallel and research a solution for the problem their discovery uncovered. But one requirement would have to be for them to actually go to the bank, or business or whatever and test their theories. Wouldn't it be wonderful for them to be able to feel the power of being an active problem-solver? Again, this is just a thought bubble right now and it needs a lot of work. 

An online community is imperative so my students and I can get a global perspective. Once they see their world compared to others', I'm pretty sure they're going to change their perceptions. For example, wouldn't it be interesting to have a European interpretation of the American Dream? Skype could and will make it happen. That is of course if our internet works at school. It's always a crap shoot, but a little perspective goes a long way. We've just got to keep the conversation going.

How social media can make history: A blur of green, pink, white and brown

"I sometimes think drivers don't know what grass is, or flowers, because they never see them slowly," she said. "If you showed a driver a green blur. Oh yes! He'd say, that's grass! A pink blur! That's a rose garden! White blurs are houses. 
Brown blurs are cows" (8).  

--Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451. 

A discussion with Ray Bradbury

It has been an interesting juxtaposition, attending my graduate "Social Learning" class while teaching Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 and dealing with the contradiction the two create.  On one end, we celebrate the technological advances offered by social media and the internet, the speed and ease of being able to connect with thousands, even millions of people globally, resulting in the proverbial "flattening" of the world.  We welcome opportunities to share our thoughts, like I've done in this very blog, while hopefully stirring hearts and minds into making change when it comes to anything from a local food drive to fundraising for Japanese earthquake and tsunami survivors. So many opportunities for change, for learning and for reflection.

On the other end, Bradbury leads his reader through a path of intellectual destruction, a place where speed is the necessity and where characters become extensions of technology rather than technology being an extension of the people.  He speaks about a world, much like the one Clay Shirky is talking about in his video "How Social Media can make History." A world in which governments shut down things like Twitter, Facebook and Google to prevent their own citizens from communicating with people because the rate of communication and lack of control frightens the powers that rely so heavily on regulation. As a result, the very medium used to exercise their freedoms is manipulated to bastardize it. 

With the freedoms associated with social media so comes the responsibilities and the consequences Bradbury prophetically warns us about in his novel. The more "progress" made technologically, the more likely communities might become overstimulated (constant barrage of world news, reality television, online gaming, computer-based learning rather than face-to-face instruction), overwhelmed and apathetic because they can't cope with the amount and types of information being delivered from every direction.  I have students who never turn off their phones, who sleep by them and wake up to answer texts and calls throughout the entire night.  So the question isn't whether or not social media can make history. It's more a matter of when does it become our history and how will we manage it so it will remain a useful tool and not become a weapon or an excuse to "Cha-Cha" the answers rather than come up with an original idea?

I embrace technology and I love social media and its potential, but I'm terrified that its very existence will dismantle the critical thinking skills that have evolved through real-time, real-life, face-to-face conversations unless we teach the limited nature of these freedoms and the art of balancing so much information. Otherwise, we will find ourselves living amongst millions of people online without really knowing anyone,  and life will become a blur of green, pink, white and brown. Just remember, stay ahead of the social media monster and remember to tame it rather than be tamed by it.

It's all Greek to me! But it doesn't have to be -- Ethos, Pathos and Logos

High School sophomores throughout the U.S. know that being in tenth grade means another year of Shakespeare and another chance to crack his code.

More often than not students come to my class expecting to listen to a recording while they follow along (like they did freshman year), grabbing tidbits of information here and there; oftentimes, missing the big picture altogether. Well, first of all, we don't sit. We act.  Second of all, we revolve all our discussions around the appeals to ethos, pathos and logos, the corner stones of persuasive rhetoric. What I always find most enjoyable is watching the light bulbs go off and the simple fact that teaching them how to examine author's purpose (by looking closely at ethos, pathos and logos) allows students to see why Shakespeare is writing Julius Caesar while forcing them to look at themselves and their own use of the different appeals in day-to-day life.

Examining Antony's monologues, Cassius' asides and the plebians' flippancy makes students see Shakespeare as a real person who is trying to desperately affect social change safely, a bit beyond arm's reach of the Crown. Yes, Antony is criticizing the commoners for flip-flopping their allegiance from Pompey, to Caesar, to Brutus and then back to Caesar again; but more importantly, my students are able to figure out Shakespeare is criticizing his audience for doing the very same thing Antony was enraged by in the play, being a lemming. Then, naturally, reflection begins and they apply the lessons to their own worlds.

It's vital to teach ethos, pathos and logos alongside Julius Caesar because it demystifies the past and the present.  Students see metaphor in action and consider, sometimes for the first time, the power of rhetoric not only in Caesar, but in conversations with Moms, Dads and even their best friends.  While it's pretty goofy, I used the video, Persuasive Appeals Ethos Logos Pathos that somewhat oversimplifies ethos, pathos and logos but manages to put them on a level nearly anyone can understand. So have fun and remember that the most important lesson we have to teach to our students is that they have a mind of their own and to find it, they have to be critical thinkers and critical consumers.  

Putting a modern day spin on Julius
When teaching any subject, I think it's important to make modern-day connections, which is precisely why I'm planning on incorporating "Tribal Ties, Long Qaddafi’s Strength, May Be His Undoing"
into my lessons at the end of Julius Caesar. I'll ask students to read the article in pairs and discuss the connections to Caesar.