November 2013 – wmarkhall

I was able to attend Fall Cue this year again. It was, as usual, a great experience. It was a little different this year in that I didn’t come home with a great new tool. Usually I learn of a great tool that is new to me; an app, a web site, or a gadget. This year there was no such discovery for me. The learning for me seemed to center on attitude. Mostly my own. I really wanted to refine my thinking about the maker concept and design thinking, and I was able to do that, but it wasn’t really new.

The opening keynote by Ramsey Mussalum, which can be seen here, was great. Does Ramsey do anything not great? (Why do they call it the opening keynote when it is delivered at the midway point of the conference? But that is an aside.) Ramsey talked about why so many kids hate school, and to combat that we, as teachers, need to love our jobs. If you don’t love your job it shows, and you make it all the more likely that your students will #hateschool. Fortunately, #Ilovemyjob.

The closing keynote by Angela Maiers was equally powerful. She talked about how kids just want to be acknowledged and valued. Call them by their name Angela said. All of them. Make them know you notice them. In a good way.

One of the reasons #Ilovemyjob is because I work at a small school where I can know every kid’s name. We have less than 250 kids. I need to do better about knowing all of their names, even those who don’t hang out in Awesomnesity Central, or for those who don’t know, Room 17. I came back to school with the plan that I was going to seek out those kids who think #Ihateschool and say hello to them, by name. It seemed simple enough, and sounded like a pretty good idea.

It was Tuesday afternoon, the last period of the day. I spent most of the day honestly amazed at the work my students were doing. We were doing some pretty complicated GIS stuff on a school network that doesn’t like GIS stuff. We had lots of issues, and the kids were just plowing right through them. They were almost finished with a project and I was just beaming with pride. I said it.

“You guys are really doing amazing work, sticking to it, working through problems. Its amazing to watch. I am proud of you.”

One girl turned around and asked “Me? You are proud of me too?

“Yea, you. Everyone in here. You guys are doing amazing stuff.”

“But you mean me? You are proud of me?”

“Yea. Of course. Your data was gone, you got it back, like it was no big deal. You have been doing great work. Why are you acting surprised?”

“Because no one has ever said that to me.” Long pause. “No, no one. No one has ever said they were proud of me.”

I am glad I went to Fall Cue.

Something different is happening in my classroom this year. To start with my students are moving along faster, doing much more complicated work than I have ever had happen before. They are working through difficult technical issues with good, positive attitudes. Lots of “well that didn’t work, lets try this” types of things are happening. One afternoon a kid yelled out, with his arms raised in triumph “Yes, our point data is displaying right, we did it!” As he finished the sentence the bell rang and he said “Dang, I still need to make a layer package!” It was fun to watch. In past years many kids would have given up, and I would spend lots of time trying to coax them into continuing. But its different this year.

I think part of the reason for the difference is I have made a deliberate effort this year to “encourage kids to fail.” Not fail as in flunk, but to take risks. I tell them they are supposed to mess up- that’s why we call it school. I dare them to break the software. I remind them to save often, but don’t be afraid to push buttons and see what happens. If something breaks don’t push that button next time. And if you figure it out (we even have a song “figure it out”) don’t be stingy, show someone else. If you can’t figure it out, ask someone who did.

I find myself sitting in the corner of the room many days just watching and smiling. Its busy. Its noisy. And its a bit messy. Often times every student is working on something different, no two screens look alike. Its awesome. Lately kids have been asking if they can do a project over because “mine came out boo boo. I need to fix this and that.” In years past they would have just said it was “good enough.” But my favorite comment so far this year was the girl who said “Hey Mr. Hall, come over here. Its time you learned how to do this too. Sit down right here, I am going to teach you how.”