THERE IS NOTHING LIKE….

by B.Keller

There’s nothing like

taking over a room,

every eye glued on you,

nothing like owning that space,

holding their attention,

every thought

becoming another thought

or some question no one had ever bothered

to ask before.

 

Nothing like making their certainties

just a little bit less certain,

nothing like lighting

a mind’s fuse,

nothing like watching

eyes widen

and worlds unfold.

Nothing like

capturing a room

without tricks

and theories

or scripts

and high def.

 

There is nothing

like changing the world

one class at a time.

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TEACHING

by B. Keller

People keep trying

to computerize teaching,

remove the human factors,

take out the human elements,

but you cannot mechanize lives

or reduce humans

to robots.

Anger

uncertainty

effort

pride

fear-

each one

plays its part.

 

Teaching is not

an hermetically sealed

vacuum

or a push button console.

It cannot be measured

like a batting average

or arrived at through the machinations

of a scientific calculator.

 

Teaching is a hands on

touch and go

give and take thing.

 

It is a sometimes you win

sometimes you lose proposition

in which all the parts are not equal

and not everyone is working

at the same speed

or in the same time frame.

 

The human element

defies time and logic

and perfectly matched pieces.

It defies one-size-fits-all,

lock step formats,

(and creativity cannot be

programmed).

 

Teaching is not theoretical

or mechanical,

nor can it be entered

like some function on a

computer.

 

Teaching is still what happens

when you join the desire

to know more

with the willingness to free

what you know,

still the interaction of the

human element,

of lives

acting upon the lives

of others.

I think I got it.

I think I got it.

I think I’ve finally figured out

why the only thing that matters

is the numbers.

 

I’ve finally figured out

the numbers don’t have faces

or souls,

that the numbers can’t speak out

or speak up,

that they are easy to twist

and change

or make lies easier to believe.

 

I’ve finally figured out

that numbers can’t lose a home

or a life’s savings,

that numbers are oblivious

and obsequious,

that numbers neither raise questions

nor objections

 

I’ve finally figured out

that numbers don’t celebrate birthdays

or take the family out to ballgames,

that numbers only scratch the surface

and offer shadow

but no substance.

 

think I’ve finally figured out

why the only thing that matters

is the numbers,

(and I don’t think I like it

one damned bit).

 

 

1. Keller

Get on any train, or bus, or walk any street

by B. Keller

Get on any train, or bus, or walk any street and you’ll see most of the people looking at their cellphone screens, and I’d argue that most of them are tweeting or emailing, and I’d argue that most of those tweets and emails are mundane, inane, irrelevant, mindless, shoot-from-the-hip-without any thought fifty or sixty character “statements”.

The recent presidential campaign and its accompanying polarization are excellent examples of how tweets and technology have “dumbed us down”. For one thing, nobody speaks to anyone say more- they speak “at” them. This is not only evident in the rise of bullying in which people make horribly mean-spirited statements, with no concern for the rights or feelings of others or the consequences of their tweets, (usually opinion anonymity)- but in the inappropriate, often disrespectful tweets of a certain president-elect.

It is clear to me that for all of the talk about “ critical thinking” and making students “critical thinkers”, there’s not a whole lot of thinking going on. Thinking is not just some magical word, it is a process that must be taught, developed, practiced and honed.

It is a process that is present when students read Hamlet and are asked to why he was right or wrong not to kill Claudius as he kneels, or whether or not George’s actions at the end of “Of Mice and Men” is correct. In many schools the aforementioned pieces of literature, as well as other pieces of literature that challenge students to think and take a stand and defend it, are not taught. They have been replaced instead with assignments that do not compel students to take one side or another and defend their sides with evidence from those pieces of literature.

When I listen to members of congress other people who dissent with people who don’t see the world the way they do but who cannot defend their disagreement with facts or evidence, or when I listen to students tell teachers the grade they received was unfair but cannot provide any proof that the grade should have been different, it’s clear that the thinking process is not being taught, (and even if it is, it’s not being taught successfully).

I teach students not to just yell at the tops of their voices and claim they are right, but to be able to prove what they are saying is true, using verifiable evidence and facts to support their points, as opposed to just throwing out their feelings and opinions or relying on “Fake News”.

If we are to maintain a working democracy, one that will create citizens who can think and analyze, not just hear and accept, we are going to have to bring thinking back, and I’d argue that needs to happen in a hurry.

“You can call a dog a pig, but you can’t get no bacon from a dog.”

by B. Keller

Bertrand Russell said. “We have, in fact, two kinds of morality side by side; one in which we preach but do not practice, and one in which we practice, but do not preach.” This quote speaks to the current education issues nationwide and to New York City in particular. The powers that be preach that no child is being left behind and that the changes they are making are ensuring that students are receiving “a world class education”, but what they are practicing is another matter entirely.

For example, what world-class education reduces the access to challenging, higher order thinking courses such as physics, or AP courses, calculus or trigonometry? What world-class education ensures students a passing grade on state authorized exams for answering only one-fourth of the answers on the exam correctly? What world-class education is more concerned with the number of passing students in a cohort, or the success of a cohort than the actual knowledge those students possess? What world-class education values a lack of experience and wisdom more than the expertise borne of experience and practice? What world class education has a high graduation rate at its high school level, the level responsible for preparing students to have success at the college level, yet has a high drop out rate on the next level which is the college level because the students are simply unable to perform at that level?

These examples all speak to the idea of “preaching without practice. You can preach anything you want, but saying that it’s true, doesn’t make it true. “You can call a dog a pig, but you can’t get no bacon from a dog.” Saying that you care about education, about the children who are being “left behind”, about the poor performance levels of school, doesn’t prove anything. It’s what you do that speaks volumes. In my career, I always made it “difficult” to get a grade of ninety in my classes. I was always demanding and challenging and uncompromising. I preached excellence, especially in one’s effort, (which is the only thing a person can truly control). I preached it and I demanded it of my students because I understood that without the will to demand the best from themselves, to challenge themselves and to demand excellence of themselves, their chances for success, (unless one truly believes in luck or serendipity), would be severely limited. What sense does it make to practice or say one thing, but when it comes time to do that thing, you do something totally different?

While the solutions to this problem may not be easy, it is most certainly obfuscated, exacerbated, and blurred by people who “talk a good game” and sound like they know what they are doing, but who really are merely preaching without practice. Our communities, our society, and our country cannot afford the luxury of preaching without practice. In fact, it just might be just the right time to add another type of morality to Russell’s quote, one in which reformers actually practice what they preach.

“Ain’t Nothin’ New Under The Sun”

by B. Keller

Many  reformers and educrats speak and act as if education and its problems are brand new, as if they have never existed before now. The fact of the matter is, ”Ain’t nothin’ new under the sun.”

Students have always cut classes, failed tests, not done homework and dropped out of school. These things didn’t just start now. As long as there have been schools, these problems have existed. The solutions to these problems are not new. The wheel doesn’t have to be reinvented. All we need to do is to use and apply the solutions that already exist, that have been tested and tried, and in those cases where the older solutions don’t work, you can create newer solutions.

The words and the terms are 20^th and 21^st century, but the ideas that address them are old school and old world. There is nothing that much new under the sun. New ideas are inspired by ideas that already exist. Someone may add a new twist to it or build on it, but even a “brand new” idea isn’t completely brand new.

Which, if any, of these rules would you say would be valuable or vital in the 21^st century?

• The love of learning
• The pursuit of knowledge
• The ability to think for oneself
• The ability to stand alone against the crowd
• The ability to work persistently at a difficult task until it is finished
• The ability to know the consequences of one’s actions on others
• The ability to consider the consequences of actions on one’s own well-being
• The ability to recognition of higher ends than self-interest
• The ability to comport oneself appropriately in all situations
• The willingness to ask questions when puzzled
• The readiness to dream about other ways of doing things
• The ability to believe that one can improve one’s life and the lives of others
• The ability to believe in principles larger than one’s own self-interest
• The ability to speak well and write grammatically, using standard English

I’m just guessing that you picked all of them, and if you did, that’s funny because these rules which you picked as vital for the 21^st century, were actually the rules in a schoolroom in the 19^th century! (Courtesy of Diane Ravitch’s website).

Today so much emphasis is placed on technology when people speak about education. Are they really indispensable if students are to succeed academically? Technology changes almost daily. Unlike truth, technology never remains the same, it always changes- it has to- that’s why I tell students not to depend on it.

Truth be told, not only do many students have access to it, they are even more expert at it. They get technology! Here’s the problem. Their use of technology isn’t academically based. They are expert at it, but how they use it has little or nothing to do with anything they are learning in school. Only if its use as a tool is directed to facilitate or to complement learning can technology have any positive impact on education.

No matter how technology changes, the basic truths are still the same. Schools still must do what schools were created to do which is to provide access to education and knowledge and to afford students the opportunity to obtain the education and the life they are willing to work to achieve. They must still offer their students challenging and competitive subjects and courses of study in order for them to successfully compete in the world in which they live.

The answers for most of the problems that exist in education today are already available. You do not need visible signs of “impact” demonstrated on the classroom walls, or proficiency ratings of 80% for the whole class, or multi-paginated, multi-tiered evaluations and assessments. All you need are the solutions that have been tested and tried since the beginning of time, and the will to put them into practice, even though they are not as sexy or as exciting as the “new”.