“So, now what do we do?” The second half of a journey designed to tax the mind and elevate the heart and soul

It has been said that the 1970s represented the “Golden Age” of American Cinema. It was a time period where a representative sample of “the great ones” emerged. If one was to look at the American Film Institute’s compilation of the 100 greatest films, there would be a stellar sampling of American films in the 1970s. A small budget film that was groundbreaking (or what our writers of the traditional essay set of prompts would deem, “radical”) was The Candidate. Starring Robert Redford as a California gubernatorial candidate and Peter Boyle as the chief campaign advisory, the film foreshadowed what the modern realm of American politics had become: realpolitik, spin control, and the dreaded exit poll. In the film’s pivotal last scene, when it had become evident that Redford’s character had won the office of California governor, he looks back at his advisor and asks a haunting question amidst the celebratory sounds of a political victory:

“So, now what do we do?”

Not to categorize our students as a collection of Redfords, I believe that some are uttering the same question. We have completed our study of the American Revolution. This examination encompassed text- based reading and analysis, preparation on an exam, and intense writing tasks on aspects of the time period. Students will have the chance to use the break to regroup and reload for what lies ahead.

When we return from break on January 7, 2008 (please accept my apologies for the mistake on the syllabus), we will begin our study of the formation of the United States Constitution. I have always believed that three documents guide the seventh grade Social Studies curriculum: Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence, The Constitution of the United States, and Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. When we return from the break we engage upon the analysis of the second leg of this triad. We open our study of the post- Revolution America in a vein of philosophy. We will be receiving visitors in the form of Philosophy students from Mr. Goldberg’s class at Oak Park and River Forest High School. They will be facilitating philosophical discussions about a variety of topics ranging from ethics, social obligation of the individual, and justice. Our emerging scholars will learn how to “argue philosophy” utilizing active learning and listening techniques. Students will engage in a variety of discussions and then report out their findings to the larger group. This entry into the domain of philosophical discussion and inquiry is an excellent stepping stone to our discussion of the Constitution. As we assemble our understanding about how the Constitution was formed, we will engage in a serious study of its varied and multiple components. Capping this intense analysis will be an introduction to thinkers of political philosophy and Constitutional philosophy in action. This will allow students to read primary and secondary sources in the domain of ideology and intellectual history. This will be a zealous and arduous undertaking, as I have never attempted any study in this amount of depth and breadth. One of the hopes of having the high school students visit our students is to allow them to envision where they can be on their journeys. The idea of engaging within an intellectual discussion where ideas and concepts matter is a worthy vision, a Parthenon of academia where few even dare to tread. In stressing philosophy in American historical development, I believe we will allow all of our students to make another bold step into the arena of scholarship. By now, students have learned to take this arena extremely seriously, as all are invited, but few have the courage to “walk the line” into it.
More pedagogical tools will be divulged to students in the next couple of weeks. The employment of speak/ write lectures, outcome sentences, as well as other tools to help increase student understanding shall find greater presence into the classroom setting. Our assessments will range from the standard multiple choice exam, as well writing tasks which compel students to access all four primary learning styles in order to find greater success. Students should be vigilant about their second trimester final exam, which is to take place in February. The best advice I could give all of our students is to invest in a good, durable two pocketed folder, as well as a series of good pens and paper. These will be needed as they face what lies ahead.

I guess Redford's question of “What do we do now” is a rather loaded one. The songs in our garden may take a small respite, but their sonorous notes will resonate quite clearly and distinctly in the months of January and February. Students will have a clear idea of “what to do now” and what shall be done.

Best wishes to you this holiday season.
Mr. Kannan

“If your mother says she loves you, check it out!” Validation of content through external and internal analysis

It sounds odd to me to begin any message with the following phrase, “When I was a younger teacher.” Yet, I find myself having to do that in this particular instance.
When I infact was a younger teacher, I detested the notion of professional development. I felt that I had reached a particular point in my life where learning had reached its natural end. It is worthy to note that I experienced this when I was working at schools that were not middle schools. I have experienced the diametric opposite during my time at a middle school that stresses the whole development of the child and the notion of the “lifelong learner.” It would be a contradiction if I were to zealously advocate this to my middle school students and then not follow the same premises myself. Over the last seven years, professional development has helped to take my curriculum to new levels and broaden the reach of my instruction, students’ learning, as well as the methodology inherent within both domains. One element of this evolution has been the notion of validating one’s experience through internal reflection and external criteria. Simply put, it suggests that a middle level educator must constantly scrutinize their practices through their own eyes as well as the multiple gazes of “the other.” This postmodern web of analysis provides a prism where student learning can be maximized for one is constantly in search of how to enhance pedagogy and understanding, another essential component of the independent learner.
Bearing all of this in mind, I thought I would turn the “high powered laser” of reflection upon the chapter 6 writing assessments, our latest foray into the harrowing world of scholarship. Simply put, I used my own observation of student experiences as well as The National Middle School’s “14 Characteristics” of successful middle schools to examine my own curriculum. The results proved illuminating in terms of content, student learning, and pedagogical enhancement.
One of “The 14 Characteristics” centers on the idea that curriculum must be relevant, challenging, integrative and exploratory. Within this domain, the assertion is that successful learning activities “create opportunities for students to pose and answer questions that are important to them… Such a curriculum provides direction for what young adolescents should know and be able to do and help them achieve the attitudes and behaviors for a full, productive, and satisfying life.” Over the last week, I have witnessed students engage in thoughtful analysis as to which of the five writing tasks would best suit them and which would be the best to complete. In this vein, I had a moment of illumination on Monday. After divulging the writing tasks to students, I was approached by three students, who asked me to spend my lunch with them. I had little idea as to why these particular students would want to spend their lunch period with me and when I asked them, I was surprised to find out. After a period of brief silence, one of them spoke: “We want you to help us pick which of the writing assignments to do. This is like really big, and we want you to help us choose- whatever you think we can do, we’ll do.” I pretended not to be excited, thrilled, and completely overwhelmed. I have had some great moments in teaching, and at that moment, I could tell that this was working its way up that list: Three students that had never volunteered a lunch period throughout the year were approaching me about counsel on a writing assignment that was due three weeks in advance. We worked out a plan, developed a prewrite, and talked out a particular writing task. The discourse was intellectual, academic, and collegial. Naturally, whenever students take an active role in what they should do, it is inspiring. Yet, when middle school students take steps that will reveal hopeful patterns of success in life, one is awed. In another experience, a student said, “My mom wants you to listen to me explain why I should choose the ABC summaries over the letter.” In other instances, different levels of students have struggled with the element of choice and made peace with their decision, or found what could yield the best level of success for them. To witness these behaviors and attitudes enhanced through this particular task has been most gratifying.
The notion of dialogue with students is another characteristic of the successful middle school. I believe that the conferencing format with students over the next week will continue what has already been started: A work- based discourse between students and teachers. Engaging in dialogue with students about their work, their choices, their concerns, and their possibilities is a benchmark of my instruction. It has become more valid with the writing tasks on chapter 6, as students have understood how difficult the problem of choice is and how challenging it can be to navigate. A component of “The 14 Characteristics” is that “Since young adolescents learn best through engagement and interaction, learning strategies involve students in dialogue with teachers and one another.” Hearing students talk with me, and infinitely more important, themselves, has solidified my belief that learning at this particular age is a social construct. The idea of solidarity cannot be vitiated when one conceives of the best ways for a middle school student to learn. This social aspect is rooted in the idea of talking about the work, centering a dialogue on academics, and transforming a traditional school climate of opposition and boundary to one of collaboration and partnership.
A final component of “The 14 Characteristics” helps to articulate the best conditions to maximize student learning. This notion of assessment is critical in understanding quality instruction and learning at this age. It stresses that “continuous, authentic and appropriate assessment and evaluation measures provide evidence about every student’s learning progress” are primary components of a valuable middle school education. When I examine how students are encountering challenges and difficulties each day with the completion of this task, how the level of questioning is becoming more specifically intellectual, and how students are attempting to develop a level of greater understanding about their particular task in how it is linked to American history, I can sense that students are becoming stronger about the content of the American Revolution. This is an ongoing process that seems to develop momentum with each day of in class work. When the NMSA argues that “grades alone are inadequate expressions for assessing the many goals of a middle school education,” I understood this as a description of what we best do as a Middle School. In trying to address the needs, promises, and possibilities of all children, we create a setting that stresses academic importance, but does not do so at the cost of the understanding of a specific child. This notion of creating an experience that represents the “whole child” in all children is an absolute. In these writing tasks, their process of composition and their intrinsic dialogues, I believe that meaningful relationships between students, content, and teacher emerge. Within this cocoon of safety, the NMSA suggests that “intellectual risks can be taken.”
Journalists live by the doctrine of examination and reexamination. I am reminded of the veteran Chicago journalist slogan that opens this missive. In this connective thread, I believe that “checking out” what one does in the eyes of the inescapable “other” can yield a great deal of meaning. “Checking out” what we do as a Middle School can help to validate our practices and remind us of “those things that are best”. In the final analysis, the element of risk taking becomes an essential component of the Middle School conception of education. When placed in the context of this past year’s experiences, it is a logical component. Graduated difficulty, Don Quixote, Sancho, multiple learning styles, the metaphors of inevitability and midnight in conjunction with writing tasks and assessments have all formed the setting where risks can be taken. When I examine what we have done and what we will do, I understand that the Parthenon of greatness, to which I hope all of our students and emerging scholars aspire, will be within reach. The garden is still brimming with songs being sung and those waiting to be sung.

All best, happy hunting, and even merrier writing.

Mr. Kannan

Bollywood, Middle School Philosophy, and the Chapter 6 Writing Assessment

There is a new Bollywood film slated for release the same week the writing assessments on Chapter 6 are to be submitted. While I don’t think this was conceived by design, there are some parallels. The film is the Aamir Khan work “Taare Zameen Par” and literally translated it means “Stars on Earth.” Contrary to most topics of Bollywood films, this film centers on teaching and learning. It is almost a certainty that the film will continue the current discourse about education in India. This is a vibrant conversation in a culture that places a primacy on education, yet struggles to understand its multi faceted nature in the modern setting. I was struck by the title’s implication of how human beings find themselves inexplicable trapped by a consciousness that is eternally earth bound, but a psyche that strives to achieve other worldly status. Perhaps, placing education in this philosophical conundrum makes what we do as teachers and learners even more provocative a topic for discussion as it seeks to provide a respite from a restless condition.
When I tried to conceptualize how to discuss the writing tasks on chapter 6 in this week’s blog, the great Aamir Khan’s film helped to clarify my focus and that of 7-1 students. The exam on chapter 6 has been written and will be taken this week (Tuesday.) Students designed it, wrote it, and taught its content to their colleagues. The second phase of the assessment on chapter 6, the American Revolution, commences. This phase will be centered on writing, but will also force students to address several issues. With the writing assessment valued at 500 points, this moment of reckoning will have strong repercussions. Students will have to select one of five tasks to account for such a major component of their grade. Moreover, they will have to select from a field of tasks that will comprise some of the hardest yet faced by our scholars, now a trimester old in this schematic. Some of the tasks offered are new to students (Point of View Guides and A-B-C Summaries), while others are familiar but feature a wider scope of focus (Traditional Essays and Identifications and Pictures), and some are plain bizarre and could only come from the mind of an equally odd Social Studies teacher (Sam Adams’ Letter.) The tasks are demanding in both quality and quantity, as they will take two weeks to complete. Students of all levels will be pushed to their maximum level. Then, they will rest for two weeks, only to repeat the process of challenge again as they commence with the study of the formation of the Constitution, the document itself, and its implications in the modern setting.
I have always given a writing task to complement the study of the Revolution, yet I felt this one was different. I wanted to create a task that would match the value of the content, develop the conditions of a difficult choice within students, and also mirror the drive of what it means to be a middle school student. I feel confident that the tasks represent a solid conclusion note to our study of the Revolution. I believe that the meaning that will emerge will be the meaning that our students place to this formative event in American History. They will take ownership of the content and apply meaning to it, a component of the definition of the independent learner. In a larger sense, I believe that the tasks represent the essence of a middle school experience. Over the last few weeks, we, as professionals of Percy Julian Middle School, have had to do a great deal of soul searching about what it means to be middle level educator and how do we best carry such a powerful burden on our already broad shoulders. I believe that writing assessment on chapter 6 can serve as my answer to these questions. An examination of the writing tasks reveals how they can reach the elusive domain of “the middle school child.” These prompts are designed with different learning styles in mind, to the extent that the dominant learning style is declared at the start of each task. I have always believed that the middle school experience is akin to drawing a square and a smaller square within that one and repeating the process until one cannot do so any longer. A series of squares emerges as well as the presence of a corridor that seems to progress infinitely. I feel that the first square is what our children are like when they enter Julian for the first time in the main spine, desperately seeking their advisory teachers in their initial start to both the school year and their Middle School experience. Then, as they grow within this experience and reveal more of their persona, as more depth is added to their characters and psyches, the corridor gains in length and complexity. In the same way, I believe that the writing tasks on chapter 6 reflect the progression and process of walking through the corridor and adding more dimensions to it. Students will have to make choices as to who they are, in both learner and person, and then have to undergo the process of becoming what they hope to be. I cannot find a better description of the middle school experience. When one understands that this sensation as an experience that all of our 7-1 students will undergo together as a community of emerging scholars, yet on an insightfully meaningful level as individuals, one can only marvel at what will emerge on December 20, the deadline for all submissions.
Philosophers have struggled to articulate the aspect of duality within the human consciousness. This conception understands human existence as something that transpires on this earth, as beings of a planet bound by the needs of oxygen and the reality of gravity. Yet, it seems than an inevitable part of our identities is to split this consciousness with a desire for something more, something outside of the setting in which we are inevitably chained. Whether we are Plato’s children in the cave wondering about the light outside, or whether we are Sartrean offspring who sit in one train and see another one pass on an opposite track, seemingly moving much faster than we move, or whether we are Kunderian creatures trapped between the weight of existence and the unbearable lightness of being, human beings seem to be poised between equally desirable, yet ultimately incompatible courses of action. We understand that this is a part of our state of life, what Cervantes would undoubtedly call “La Mancha,” or “the stain.”
As dour as this might be, have no fear because Bollywood is here!
While this condition is a part of our “La Mancha,” Khan’s film of “Stars on Earth,” reminded me that embracing an education process where teaching and learning for all reign supreme could serve as a temporary respite from this pain of consciousness. We achieve our hopes in our reality. Students are the stars on earth, and our potential salvation to the pain of division inherent in consciousness. We see in our students the chance for them to become stars on earth, to bridge the gap between where we are and where we wish to be, to bring harmony to the dissonant tunes of Quixote and Sancho. When we design learning as contingent on education for all and all for education, we find some reprieve from the pain of our being, the pain of “La Mancha.” In their last writing assessment, many students suggested that we “are both Quixote and Sancho.” Indeed, the triad consisting of Khan’s film title “Taare Zameen Par,” or “Stars on Earth,” his notion of how education can be a liberating answer to the pain of consciousness, and the presence of a middle school environment predicated on the promises and possibilities for all are linked to one another and can provide a sense of hope within a seemingly hopeless condition. This triad, which emerges through the writing tasks of chapter 6, reminds us of how all songs sung in the garden of scholarship hold beauty, harmony, and melody.
We await to see what songs will be sung by our 7-1 nightingales.
Yours in song, wishing you all the best and happy hunting.
Mr. Kannan