Small Group Research--Stuff sociologists never tell us

Probably my last blog of this year but who knows. I've been thinking of one of my favorite students and as usual the story gets confused. Do you remember Alister?....the kid that turned in a messy order form which I threw out because I couldn't read it. Alister did have a lousy turn of the pen and pencil. His penmanship was the worst I even encountered. But that wasn't all with Alister--his dress was always messed up, shirt half out or miss-buttoned. Shoes untied and socks that fell around his ankles. And hair every which way before that style became popular. He was a walking disaster. And no, his mother didn't send him off to school that way because I drove past his house going to school. There would be Alister and his younger sister waiting for the bus. Hair combed, socks pulled up, shoes tied, jacket on and he would be looking very presentable. But what ever walked off the bus was a total disaster.

Now a diversion for the moment. Yes, grade school teachers do notice how the kids dress for school. Some children come to school with hand-me-downs and some not dressed warm enough for the season. More then once I've taken a child down to the Principals office back storeroom and picked out some clothing from last year's heap of clothes that the kids leave behind. Sort of restock some of the poorer kids from our grab bag of clothing.

Another problem I faced was what the girls wore to class. My first year as a fifth grade teacher I was upset that moms were letting their daughters come to school with fairly short skirts. I finally mentioned this to a couple of mothers of girls that were in my class and they looked at each other and sighed. A bit exasperated but with me! "Oh just tell the girls to unroll their skirts." Male teachers do have their problems with the girls in their classrooms. Apparently many of the girls were rolling their skirts up until they were short AFTER they got on the bus. From then on I would tell some of the girls to unroll their skirts and with a sigh and a grimace, they would comply. I don't think the boys ever noticed--it was something that girls of that age just did.

Don't forget Alister, however, I want to talk about sociological research for the moment. At the time I had Alister in class, my wife was working on an advanced degree and was teaching a course about "Small Groups." Apparently the research showed that if people were put into small groups and given a task to do, they would do it "better' then if they had to do that task by themselves. To make her point in the class Lynn had divided the class into pairs and told them they had to present their material together. I found this interesting and read much of what she brought home for her lectures. Small group research is interesting stuff. I pondered, "could I do this in a fifth grade class?" The research showed college age students learning more and quicker in a group then by themselves. Would it work as well with grade school kids.

Finally we come to my main point for today. It was between Christmas and New Years and I went up to my classroom and moved the kid's desks all around. I normally did this to their desks to break up little cliques, to give the room a new flavor, to let some kids in the back get closer to the front, a lot of different reasons for changing the desks in a room. But this time I did it a bit differently. I took my grade book which had all the children's names in it and then I took my statistics book with a table of random numbers and I started through it. Every time I got a number in the range of my class I moved a desk. After four numbers I placed the desks in a square with the kids facing each other. I kept doing this until I had the room in groups of four or five students. Probably about eight groups of desks. It was different. And then when I looked at the names of the kids at each group of desks I almost lost my resolve. At one group I had four of my liveliest boys--all loud talkers. Another group was composed of two girls and two boys both of which despised the other sex. There were other combinations I don't think I would have done had I made the choices. One group was comprised of three girls and Alister. Interesting. So the scene was set. Monday when the kids came back to school I would try a new learning style--that of each group having to agree on the assignment and turning one assignment in for the whole group at that group of desks. The students would have to decide who would write it down and they would ALL have to sign it. I could hear some parents already picking up the phone.

To be truthful it did what the research said it would do even at the fifth grade. I'd give some sort of a reading assignment and they would read it and argue at their desks what some words meant. The learning of my kids IMPROVED. And we COVERED MORE MATERIAL in less time. But it was harder work for me. I had to be on my toes to move around the room a lot seeing what was going on. My four lively boys--much less talk. They seemed to neutralize each other. They worked well together. The whole girl groups also did excellent work. Years later I read an excellent book on how women learn and in groups was a preferred style.

But I need to tell you about Alister and his three girls. Or was it the three girls and Alister. He would do some work on paper and they would make him do it over until it was halfway neat. I think each day they had him clean his desk. And they straighten him up every chance they got. "Tuck in your shirt." "Tie your left shoe lace." "Fix your belt loop." I give Alister much credit--he never came to me and asked to be switched to another group. He was smart as a whip, just messy and the girls made him toe the line. I felt sorry for him but his mother told me a bit later that she thought it was good for him--he was working on improving. We just didn't know what he was improving on. I still have an image of Alister and his desk turned over to dump out all his books and things with the three girls making him put things back "properly." Poor Alister.

But back to the groupings. Yes, I would do it again and earlier on in the school year. What I saw was many instances where one child would help another. "Here, let me show you how to diagram that sentence." OR, "read the picture--does it say anything about what we're reading?" Many of what I saw were things I might have done in a normal single desk setting as I went around the room but in this instance a desk mate did it for me.....and without the wait time for me to get around to each child. Learning did speed up. And I only had to grade eight or nine papers but I had to work harder at the evaluation. I had to know what each child did in that group--that was my responsibility. But as the groups continued their work got better and I believe my slower kids learned the most. Some of them learned how the smarter kids studied and they emulated them.

Another surprise was that after a month or two into this grouping arrangement the kids themselves said they really enjoy this way of learning. They could see themselves learning more then under the more traditional single desk system. They would "nag" each other so they could turn in the work on time. I was surprised when my wife's class at the university said they really didn't like being in pairs. It limited their independence when they HAD to study with another person. So the college students learned more like my kids and both groups really got better grades but the college students didn't like the constraints while the grade school kids thought the process was "cool."

And Alister? He endured and the girls were on him for neatness the entire time. I don't remember if he improved in that department--I don't think neatness was in his genes. But I still remember him--one of my favorite kids.

Did a teacher ever make you do a paper over for neatness? Better say a silent prayer of thanks for teaching you some culture.... Hhmmmmm, I wonder if any of those three girls ever became teachers.

"Twas the day before.....

By now school is out for the holidays before starting again in January of the new year. The last couple of weeks is hard on all teachers no matter what grade they teach. Just last Saturday, a high school show group from the music department showed up at my yacht club. An outstanding group, the come by every year and do a short presentation of song and dance. Called the Show Stoppers they prepare some holiday songs in the manner of a Broadway show and sing and dance around the city at a number of presentations. The music teacher was there along with an intern from my local university.....learning the ropes so to speak. The music teacher does a good job with about twenty young adults. Who knows maybe one or two will actually make it to Broadway in New York. I hope so.

Some years ago I was teaching fifth grade between bouts of teaching grade school music. I had a good class and wondered what I might do for the kids in my room as a gift. There were some district wide regulations as to what teachers could do, primarily limiting the amount of money one could spend. Most teachers in my school did nothing, perhaps a Christmas card to each child so I didn't want to rock the boat.

So my wife and I and some neighbors made gingerbread boys and girls for my kids. I hadn't realized how heavy gingerbread dough was--very hard to roll out and to mix. I needed all the muscle of several of my male neighbors to mix the dough. However, it became a party and we baked gingerbread kids until there were cooling in the kitchen, dining room and living room. We had gingerbread boys and girls all over the place. The I added some icing for facial and design and wrote each child's name on a gingerbread cookie. Hey, it was a lot of work. Near the end, someone asked what would happen if a new child arrived on that last day before the holidays. Ain't gonna happen. But it worried me enough that I decorated two cookies and wrote "favorite" on each of them. I figured I could eat them.

Then all the cookies were wrapped in cellophane and carefully placed in a box.

The last day of class arrived and I had let the students in my class exchange holiday cards. And surprise, one of my girls brought her little sister from home. A special treat. It was fine with me and the mother had sent a little note saying if it was not okay, please call her and she would come to pick her up. Not a problem Some of the children brought cookies and I would be forced to admit that little learning really got done that day. Some house keeping chores like cleaning out their desks and making folders to take home all the finished homework.....things like that. We cleaned off the bulletin boards and got them ready for the new year by putting up big numbers for the year--probably 1967 or 1968. Near the end, I got my boxes out and handed each child their Gingerbread boy or girl. The class was delighted. Everyone enjoy showing them off--a few wanted to eat them but their peers really stopped them. "Take it home and put it on the tree!" And I am glad I had made a gingerbread cookie with favorite on it and could give it to the little sister. You have to hang loose when you are a grade school teacher.

There was a district wide policy that parents were not suppose to give gifts to the teachers. Probably a wise move. But in spite of that policy I did receive a number of gifts, mostly ties. We male teachers were still required to wear ties and jackets......although most of us hung our suit coats and jackets up once we got into our classroom. So ties were a popular gift. I'm sorry I didn't save any of them--it was obvious that the kids did the choosing. And I can guarantee they did not come from the Bon Marche or Nordstroms. I did in the coming year wear each tie at least once. You had too. Women teachers mostly got perfume. Some of the kids would say, "Look how much I got for a dollar!" Right. I wonder if the women teachers wore the perfume like we guys wore the ties.

Each year at least one of my room mothers would come up to me and ask for my car keys. Being a native New Yorker I always locked my car frustrating some of my kids' parents. And after school, I would return to my car (yes, my little bug) and there would be a pie or cake--homemade and wonderful. As I said earlier, I really loved my parents.

Well, the gingerbread cookies were a hit. A couple of the parents talked to me and said how much their child enjoyed getting that cookie. It was probably near the end of March of that next year and I was watching one of my boy's looking into his desk and then putting his hand in. I just watched but couldn't figure out what was going on. He was still doing his work, writing or reading with his hand in the desk. Odd behavior. I had learned not to move too quickly when strange behavior became apparent....but after several days I had to ask Bobby, "Is there something wrong with your left hand? You tend to rest it in your desk." Bobby looked embarrassed and then pulled out his cellophane wrapped gingerbread boy. He then told me that he liked holding it when he did his homework--it make him feel good. I told him to put it back in his desk and don't worry. You can hold him all you want. I was sort of surprised to note that it was still looking good. But Bobby had his teddy bear so to speak.

Happy holidays to all and to all a good night. May the dreams of some of your best teachers keep you warm and happy in the coming year.

How Kids Surprise You...

I was going to rant about how a newspaper in this state hasn't the foggiest idea of how the K-12 educational system works. You know the old saying, "Keep your mouth shut so that no one will know you're a fool." They wrote an editorial that shows they have no idea of what the problems facing public (and private for that matter) education in this state. Sloppy work, editorial board.

But instead, given the fact that this is the holiday season, I decided to write about some efforts on my part to teach fifth graders how arithmetic was important to them personally......and how I learned about giving.

My school at the time probably would have been classified as a low economics area school. People were struggling to make ends meet. Hard workers, many of them working at Boeings in various jobs but not management. But good people all. I really admired and had a lot of respect for my kids' parents. So with that in the back of my head, I wanted my class to understand the use of money as well as the importance of being accurate. Most of my kids could add, subtract, divide and multiply but there were times when they got lazy. I wanted to increase their perfection ratio. More "A's" thank you.

So how could I show the importance of accuracy, money and numbers--let's throw in neatness as well. One afternoon in October I came home after school was out to find the latest Sears, Roebuck and Company catalog at my door. Back in those days this massive catalog would be delivered and families would pour over it making a wish list for Christmas. You could still fill out forms in the middle of the catalog and with a check send in your order....and within weeks your order would arrive. Kids in my class were always talking about something in the Sears catalog.

Well, if we were getting the newest catalogs, old ones must be surplused. On a whim I called the Sears main office in our state and asked if I could have 35 of the old catalogs for use in my classroom. "Hey, not a problem--just come over to South Seattle and pick them up. Happy to help out." So I did. One slight problem. I at that time drove a Volkswagen Bug--one of the early ones in my neighborhood. It didn't have a big engine in those days and when we put 35 plus Sears large catalogs in the Bug, it took a while to get up to speed and it looked like it was about to break an axle or two. People pointed at me as I drove slowly by. I did get all those catalogs to the school the next day and the kids enjoyed unloading my car. I never did know if I had done it any damage.

So now everyone had a catalog and I could give out the assignment. I wanted them to fill out an order form and attach the correct amount of money to the top of the form. WHAT MONEY? Aha! I had that figured out. I had designed on a ditto "Blackwell Money, Room 6. I had one's, five's and ten's on the sheet. I think there must of been maybe twenty five dollars on a sheet and I cranked out two sheets of money for each student. I had drawn a boarder around the money and a circle in the center with what I though was a drawing of a person. Much discussion as to what was in the center of the circle on the money. Anyway, every student in my class got a certain amount of money so they could "buy" something in the catalog. I was proud of myself. Great assignment--concret teaching going on here.

I think it was Alister who first turn in his order form--he always wanted to be first. I looked at it and took the "money" off and chucked the form into the waste paper can. "Why did you do that? Mr. Blackwell." "I can't read it. This is so sloppy that the Sears office would just put it in a lost file." My how that got the rest of the class' attention. I could see erasers flying all over the place. Suddenly neat handwriting and printing became important. Hot damn. Those that were neat but didn't have the correct amount of money (we had all agreed to round off which was a skill I wanted to work on anyway) I put the entire form in the lost file. Accuracy shot up. To say I had a big head might be an understatement.

I do remember going down to the teachers room during recess and spouting off how good the arithmetic assignment was going. Smirk, smirk. But on my way back to my room I came around the corner to see some of the kids with the ditto machine cranking out more money. Whoa up here. You just don't print money when you need it. Still it just made sense to the kids that if you didn't have enough money to get more..... "Someone took money off my desk, Mr. Blackwell!" Another problem. Suddenly, I was teaching things I hadn't planned on like you can't steal money--it's wrong and you can't just print money. It's also wrong. We did have some good discussions about right and wrong that was never in the state curriculum guide.

I solved the printing of money by getting an out of date embossing device from the school library. Then I embossed all the money. Soon we had so much money going around that I decided to teach the kids how to write checks. So we printed out checks for each person. They could write a check as long as they had enough money in their desk. I was surprised how much this excited my kids. Not sure why, but they enjoyed and took an effort to write a proper check. We also had a discussion about banks and savings. Overall I was pleased with them and myself.

But there was a surprise in the works for me. The assignment was to fill out an order form, attached the correct amount of money (or check during the latter part of the project) and turn it in to me--the big kahuna of the ordering department. It was either approved, or put in the lost box and sent back. Pretty soon they had the assignment down pat.

And I was in for a surprise as I read the forms. I had suspected that the kids would order toys, air rifles, go carts, dolls, toy stoves, etc. all from the children's section of the catalog. But no, that is not what they ordered. There were forms fill out for new refrigerators, new couches or a recliner chair for Mom or Dad. New dishes were on a couple of the orders. Tools for Dad was also popular. By and large those kids ordered things for the family. I was surprised and to some degree humbled. I had underestimated those children. Ten to twelve year olds with a maturity much older. They and I knew that this was a big make believe assignment but I wished so much that I could have been like Oprah and make their dreams come true. That would have been fun.

Some of the kids never wanted to get rid of their catalogs when we moved on to other arithmetic assignments. But I will admit their penmanship improved. I was pleased with that result especially, except for Alister. Alister's penmanship was always terrible. I never knew why. Someday I'll tell you what I did to that poor kid.

Did you have a teacher that encourage you to be better? In your penmanship? Or with money? If so, you need to thank that teacher for going beyond the state and local curriculum guidelines.

Happy holidays to you all. And to Mr. Fransham. Thanks for encouraging me in music.

Ideas of gifts for students for the holidays.....

Everyone seems to be talking about what to get for......you fill in the name. Be it the mail delivery person, your niece or nephew (s), your sons or daughters or perhaps a colleague or friend. No, I don't have the magical list but I do have some suggestions for children to young adults--grade school to high school. After that, you are your own.

So here is my list, not necessarily in any order of importance. I think for any student, a mini camcorder would be exciting to have. These are small camcorders that can record just about anything. I think it is time for kids to learn how to put together clips to make movies. In fact, many kids already know how to do this--the evidence is on YouTube. What we teachers need to do much like we teach writing is to give the kids assignments that show the student how they can take advantage of this new medium. [for those not normally involved with technology, the word medium (means to come between) is singular while the word media is plural--you okay with that?] For example, if I were once again a fifth grade teacher I might assign to those who have mini camcorders to video someone or someones doing something nice. Then we might talk about...."did you get that person permission or release?" "Did they know you were filming them?" A host of discussion questions come to mind. Fun stuff. If I were an upper level teacher, perhaps saying to students in a civics class, video a problem in our community and write a one page paper as to how the problem can be solved. A stop sign being blocked by trees or a cross walk not easily seen. So--a mini camcorder would be a good gift.

What you say you don't want your kids to be able to sexting--showing themselves naked on the web. I agree but what a chance now to talk to your children and say what is acceptable behavior, perhaps what consequences might happen if they did. As usual, I think talking to them is a good form of educating your child. They will love you for it at some point in their lives.

Cell phones are another gift suggestion. I think the cell phone has changed our society in a quantum leap. Instant communications. If I were a parent today I would want to know I could reach my child whenever it was necessary. Yes, I know this is going to be hard on the teachers. We can't have ringing going on throughout the class day but I think we can say to put all the phones on vibrate and solve that problem. "And no texting except at lunch time!" I think the cell phone is a good device for kids to have.

I have a quandary with my next suggestion. I think an e-reader would be a great idea except there several are still being developed. The Kindle has been out and it is an excellent device. You can put over a thousand books on it. This may get some children to increase their reading. And here is a weird idea--if the child (no matter what age) has dyslexia, they MAY be able to read "better" on a e-reader. I've had a number of students (including myself) who read better of an electronic screen then with ink on paper. No we haven't figured out why yet. But I think the e-readers are a great innovation. Amazon.com has the Kindle, Sony has one on the market and so does Barnes and Noble. Apple is supposed to have a device the first of the year (2010). There is the quandary. Which one?

It goes without saying that I would recommend computers for students. Yes, we have them at school but it is a necessary item for doing homework these days. Many teachers will give assignments that include web addresses. Learning how to search on the web is a present day skill--sorta like looking up words in the dictionary. It was one of my students who taught me how to look up the spelling of a word on Google--she typed a misspelled word in the search box and Google came back and said, "Did you mean" and then spelled the word correctly. I never thought of doing that...now I do it all the time.

However, if you have all the computers that you need in your family, do you have back-up devices for those computers? Hhhhmmmmm? It may not be the most exciting gift but having your computer back up your work every fifteen minutes or so is.....wonderful, particularly if you just erased something and didn't mean to do it. Back up storage devices have come down in price--look them up.

For the youngest child I would want to get them some CDs and DVDs of stories of yore. Yes, there are plenty of the same stuff on television these days but the ability to put in a disc and play it over and over is important in the development of a small child. Along with such discs I would want to get small children books of all types. Even books that may be a bit advance for them--like clothing, they will grow into them.

I wish you all the best for the coming holidays. May you find everything that you want to give and may your stress level remain stable. And don't forget to send a card to your child's teacher....it let's them know you appreciate them. At the high school level, pick your child's favorite and thank them. We teachers will really appreciate your thoughts.

More on Educational Reform...

One of the sub themes of this blog is to support the improvement of our school systems. Notice I didn't say to reform education. Just to improve what we are doing. The main theme of this blog is to support and tell what the classroom teachers are doing right now in teaching our education population from pre-school to graduate school. My last blog was a short story on how my major professor got me to learn about computers in the investigative mode. Remember, there are only three ways to learn: 1) Expository mode in which the message is transmitted primarily by voice or print by the learner or the teacher, 2) Investigative mode in which the learner tries things out and makes decisions as to what is important (in my case playing with an IBM-360-40), and finally the performance mode in which the learner performs in front of an audience and learns an insight into the message. Remember all that from a previous blog? Test on the modes this Friday, eh?

One of the stressful buttons you can push on me is the Educational Reform button. Tell me that some major company has been hired to lead some school district and I'll blow a cork. Tell me that some school district is going to eliminate summer vacations and increase the time that kids have to spend in class and you will view steam coming from my ears. But the worst thing that I can't stand is when someone places non-education administrators who have never spent a day in the classroom in charge of school districts. It really frosts my cupcakes! Well, it appears the latter has happened. Or will happen.

In a well written editorial piece for the New York Times, (December 5th, 2009) Bob Herbert has written an article, entitled, In Search of Education Leaders. He reports that Harvard University is planning a new doctoral degree in "Leadership in Education." While I applaud Harvard for this step (it is the first new doctoral degree in 74 years) it should be noted that there are a number of schools that have this type of degree already in their curriculum. For example Seattle University has had this degree for almost twenty-five years--an excellent program (a disclosure: My wife is a graduate of this program and I have participated by sending students to the program and serving on doctoral committees) I think Seattle University does an excellent job of providing educators with leadership capabilities.

But still, one needs to keep in mind what Harvard is up to. My big disappointment with the Harvard news as reported by Bob Herbert is that the faculty for this new doctoral program will be staff by faculty from the Harvard Business School and the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. Oh dear, here we go again. And because it will be coming from Harvard, many folks will believe this will produce top school administrators.

I do wish some university would gather it's resources and do a large scale survey of teachers from across the nation and have them list the things they see that would promote better education. What do our teachers need? Less kids in a classroom? More books or more up to date textbooks? More Smart Boards or White Boards? Clearer objectives for each grade or subject matter? More computers? More or less time with the kids? I suspect but am not sure that some teachers would want their students to have a good breakfast in the morning, or a safe place to go after school is done for the day. I don't think anyone has ever done a large scale study of what teachers think. What would improve their teaching from the teachers' point of view?

I do think that many teachers--it doesn't matter which level or grade--would ask for a clearer curriculum. Most teachers want to know what is it you want me to teach your chid or teenager. But our school curriculum has become chaotic with many different requirements. The American Legion wants the schools to patriotism, the legislature has passed a law requiring all students to study the holocaust. There are literally hundreds of different learning objectives now required in our school curriculum. To some degree I understand why some teachers prefer to teach to the test--at least the test questions are clear and insightful. But still, I suspect many teachers become burdened with curricular requirements. [an aside to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation: Here is a worthy cause for you to consider--compile a curriculum for a K-12 school district and make it available to all districts.] What should the modern curriculum be? Here we are once again, "What knowledge is of most worth?"

Once again, the New York Times article that set me off was, "In Search of Education Leaders," by Bob Herbert. A well written article: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/05/opinion/05herbert.html?emc=eta1 I thank Mr. Herbert for writing it. And you should be thanking your teachers for giving you the knowledge to be able to read all this and make your own decisions as to what is a good education. Thank a teacher today.

How I learned to live with a Computer.....

There are two distinctions that I have that I think about from time to time. First, I can remember traveling across Snoqualmie Pass (major mountain pass between Seattle and the east side of the State of Washington) BEFORE there were freeways. It was a two lane road quite often blocked in the winter by either rocks and boulders or just heaps of snow. Hours of long waits while they cleared the road. In todays world it is rare to be held up going over the pass.

But my second distinction that I claim is that I taught before there were computers. In fact for much of my younger life, there were no computers. Zip. Nada. Zero. With the advent of the resistor, all sorts of change was initiated in the world. What a wonderful invention--the resistor.

But early computers did not use resistors....they used tubes. The United States began to invent and build computers during World War II primarily to figure out the trajectory of shells shot from large guns. Battle ships needed to know how high to raise their turrets in order to lob the shells on the enemy. These early computers were large affairs which you could walk through--indeed you had to from time to time to replace tubes that were burnt out.

One of my favorite early computer gurus was Commander Grace Hopper, USN. She started her professional career at a small New England university as a Mathematics professor. That in itself was interesting since that was at a time when women were not considered very good at mathematics. But the Navy "drafted her out of the college" and she took over the computer to do trajectory calculations.

Here is a story that I really treasure. After WWII, Commander Hopper felt that she should be promoted to being an Admiral. Other male Commanders were being promoted--why not her? It turns out that the Navy had a policy that no female would be promoted to the rank of Admiral. So they told her "No." Fine with her, she would turn in her commission and resign from the Navy. As she told the story to me, she went to her home in Washington, DC to do some needed reading and some house cleaning. She figured it would take the Navy about three days to see the error of their ways. She was right. It took an emergency act of congress to promote Commander Hopper to Admiral and the reason? No one knew how to operate the computer. And that is the story of how Grace Hopper became the first woman admiral in the U.S. Navy.

But this was the beginning of the era of large computers--ones that took up entire floors of buildings and mandated air conditioning. About this time IBM executives said that they were pretty positive that only seven of these large computers would ever be needed in the world. They have long regretted that statement. Another aside: Did you know that in 1939 World's Fair in New York, IBM passed out letter openers that said IBM would cut your expenses and that they were the purveyors of "...meat choppers and slicers, coffee mills and electric tabulating and accounting machines." Interesting, eh?

It was shortly after the infamous seven computer statement that large universities started to acquire these large computers for scientific research. Indeed, my own Western Washington University built a multi story brick building just to house an IBM 360-40 computer. This would be in the early to mid 1960s.

It was at that time I was a doctoral student working in the new area of Instructional Technology. The name had not solidified as yet--College of Education with a Technology department. Heaven forbid. I think it was then called Instructional Media. We had lots of technology like 16 mm projectors, cameras, opaque projectors, and the ubiquitous Kodak carousel slide projector. We also had a variety of tape recorders. Did I mention the overhead projector? Of course if you had all these projectors, recorders and such you had to be able to teach how to make the media that went along. That was our job in the department--to teach undergraduate education students how to use all these equipment. I can remember more then one student muttering as they left the learning laboratory of all this stuff, that once they passed the test they would never touch this equipment again. I suspect some teachers-to-be never did.

Remember my three objectives? Cognition or knowledge of technology was one area. Another objective was Psychomotor or muscular skills such as threading a 16 mm film projector. Our students were good at these objectives....it was the affective domain that we did not do a good job at; getting students to see the value of using this technology in the classroom.

One day my department head and major professor told me he was going to put a computer in my office and would I study it and give a report to the department at a future date. A computer in my office? I had the smallest office of anybody on that floor--no one was going to put a computer in THAT office. It only had one wall outlet and I was using half of that one for my desk lamp.

But a few days later a large teletype machines was set up next to my desk. Teletype machines were used mostly in news rooms by the AP (Associated Press) to transmit news from around the country. You can see one once in awhile in an old movie either in a newsroom or a police station. Noisy critters--they chatter away banging out print on a roll of cheap paper. A day or so after this was established in my office someone from the local IBM office joined me for a lesson on how this worked. He showed me how to load paper, how to turn the machine on and off and then told me it was connected by phone to an IBM 360-40 computer in Palo Alto. Then he said "have fun" and left. Oh yes, he also said it was programmed in BASIC. I had no idea what BASIC was but some phone calls and I had a general drift of what I should do. I really think that the IBM guy had no idea was this teletype was for. He could turn it on and off--that was it.

After turning it on, I would manually type: MENU and it would clatter to life and type out of fairly long menu of programs it could do. I don't remember most of them and if memory serves me correctly I think many were Mathematics programs designed for engineering students. But one program caught my eye--it was called, "Statpak." It would do statistics. I was taking an advanced stat course--could I use this program to do some of my homework assignments? Ah, let's give it a try.

By now I had a little understanding of BASIC . It only had at that time twelve commands. I could handle that. So I typed, "Load Statpak" and the teletype machine started clattering right away. It was a noisy machine--very much so. The first thing it would print was, "Are you an Expert?" There was no welcoming paragraph like welcome to IBM, or "we're glad you are using our machine." Just, "Are you an Expert?" I typed, "NO." and then it came to life. Explaining this was a computer statistical program able to do the following things and then it printed up another menu of statistical procedures. Holy Sh*t! I couldn't believe it. I happened to have a Chi Square problem to do and decided to try it out. Load Chi Square. And then it typed for awhile telling me what Chi Square could do, how to interpret the data and how to enter the data. I did that and within seconds the teletype was printing out my Chi Square program with my numbers in the correct spaces and at the end it even suggested that this conclusion was not reliable and that I ought to do some other calculation. "Would I like the program to do that?"

I sat back stunned. What I expected me to do in several hours with an electric Marchant calculator was completed in about three seconds. I didn't even have to go to my textbook to figure out what those numbers meant. To say I was overwhelmed would probably be the understatement of the year. In the following weeks each time I received a statistical project in class to formulate, I would amble back to my office, then excitedly type in the new data and say "RUN." It would and it did--the work for me. I probably was the only one in that stat class that was not stressed.

But now I had an ethical problem. Do I tell my statistical professor about the device (computer) I was using? Do I tell the rest of my colleagues in class? There was no question in my mind that this computer in Palo Alto would change the way we teach statistics. As it turned out, I decided to tell the professor. He was new (some of you will remember the overhead transparencies that I did for his class--snow job) and I though I should let him know what I was doing. He made it easy on me by brushing me off so to speak, saying, "I don't care how you do it as long as you complete the assignment." I really don't think I conveyed to him what the computer was doing. I don't think his concept of a computer had even been composed in his brain.

But the computer was my friend--dearly beloved. I'd pat it as I came to my desk in the morning. And yes, I did finally give a report to the rest of the department on what it could do. We spent several departmental meetings discussing what the future would hold with computers and I am afraid we were all off of the mark. Predicting the future is difficult at best and making decisions today is probably the best way to ascertain the future. In this case I have to give all the credit to my department head for getting us into the computer life early on.

So thanks, Dr. T. for providing me with my own IBM main frame computer to play with. What a way to learn. And thanks to all those teachers who help their students learn.

A Potpourri of Thoughts on Teaching before Thanksgiving

The time from just before Thanksgiving to after the first of the new year is inescapably one of the hardest to teach children. I don't know about high school--perhaps the older children can keep it in check better but the elementary school child begins to get excited about the coming holidays. I don't want to get into a discussion as to what the holiday season should mean but just deal with the reality that the kids are getting excited and looking forward to something different in their lives for the moment.

It is rather hard to keep their attention at times and if a few, and I do mean just a few snow flakes fall outside the window of the classroom, learning breaks down entirely. More then once I've had to let my class go to the window and watch and get excited. Only then could I get them back to their seats and back to what we were studying. My school was in an area that rarely got snow--I wonder what it is like to have a pile of the white stuff outside your school, like in Boston or Sugar Hill, NH. Do you say, "NO snowballs!" That must be an unenforceable rule at best.

But back to the holiday season. If you can't keep the excitement down then you might as well go with the flow. Each year I would teach my class some popular holiday song for us to sing as a class. One year I did " 'Twas the Night Before Christmas," arranged by Fred Wearing. I re-arranged it for my kids and found a mom who would play piano for us. It was fun and I still remember with great fondness the bright eyes, the happiness, and the enthusiasm of the kids. That year I went up to the high school and retrieved some risers that they were not using and brought them back to my school. The kids helped me set them up and it added to the atmosphere when they could stand three deep with all the kids being able to see me. I dearly loved those children.

One of my kids, named Tommy, really wasn't much of a singer. The thought of singing out loud sort of scared him even if he was just part of the thirty eigh or nine kids that I had. He really wasn't up for all of this. So I decided that I would help Tommy out. I got a base drum from the music storeroom and set it up behind the risers. Then I stationed Tommy on the top riser with the drum right behind him. In the song, 'Twas the Night......, there is a passage where the kids are singing about Santa..... "coming down, down, down doooowwwn with a boooouuunnnd." The kids really liked that part and would do it with more enthusiasm then I probably really wanted but..... My idea was that when the class sang that last bound, I would point to Tommy and he would hit the drum. Boom! Santa would be down. Properly.

So it was time for a practice run. My classroom mom came and she did the intro to the song on the piano and off we went. Not bad, there still were a number of things to work out but the class was singing with gusto and having a good time. We sang the part where Santa comes down with a bound and I pointed to where Tommy was--nothing! Not even a little tap on the drum. Absolutely quiet. I stopped the kids and looked at Tommy. The poor guy was in a total sweat--I mean he was dripping. And shaking. If there was ever a kid close to terror it was Tommy. I don't know why but he was totally scared.

Now I am in a quandary--do I give the part to someone else? I remember saying something like, "Hey, Tommy, you did good, but I need it a little louder." I don't think he heard me at all. He was still shaking. Now here is the problem--if I give that part to someone else, I have ruined Tommy's confidence for ever. I can't do that. So I had him practice hitting the drum. "Okay, when I point at you, hit it!" He did but very lightly. And I thought, maybe he doesn't like me to point at him. "Tommy. Would it be better if I just nodded at you?" He nodded--I'm not sure what he wanted but we tried that a couple of times. I felt a little bit like a fool. Nod, boom. Nod, Boom. But it was working. "Okay, class, let's take it from......." and we did the section on coming down the chimney. Tommy came through. It was light but you could hear it. I suggested a bit more umph but I didn't want to push him too far. He just might faint on me. When we got finished with that practice, Tommy was exhausted. And dripping in sweat. I really didn't know what to do for him. The class and I (and Tommy) just went back to our classroom to continue our studies. Maybe that was for the best--I didn't make a scene about Tommy and the drum.

Well, we practiced that song a number of times in the coming weeks and Tommy slowly and I do mean slowly gained some confidence in hitting the bass drum and got a little louder. We were selected by the principal to sing our song at the Christmas PTA meeting just before the holiday vacation. I worried about Tommy. How would he react with a large gym of parents all looking at him. AND the school would get a hundred to two hundred parents for this program.

PTA night came. I had talked to my class that singing the song was just a part of showmanship. How we acted before and after was also part of the song. The kids talked about this and they decided that they would come in their pajamas with coats covering them. Then I decided that they should sit with their parents until it was our time to sing and they would remove their coats and wander up to the risers and get in place. Some would yawn and some would stretch like they might do at home. It was cute and the parents applauded on our "entrance." My home room mom started on the intro and the class started to sing. I still remember how well they did--big mouths like I asked them, say the words carefully so that everyone could understand and listen! Listen to each other! They did. It was good and I was feeling a bit of relief and totally forgot about Tommy. Santa come down with a bound and I remember nodding at Tommy and he really hit that sucker. It was the loudest bound that we had heard throughout our practices. I mean he really walloped that drum. The class and I sort of jumped and I could hear the parents laughing. They thought it was an act. It wasn't. We hadn't expected Tommy to come through with such volume.

We finished the song and it was a big hit. After the meeting I think every parent came up and said what a great delight it was to hear my class sing. Somewhere in the mass of confusion, Tommy came up to me and said, "I did alright, didn't I?" I knelt down and gave him the biggest hug and told him he was perfect. His smile said it all. He must have been practicing in his mind for weeks. And he came through. I know the class really gave him an "attaboy" the next day in class. I think his confidence improved greatly.

Some schools do not have a holiday program--I think it is a bit sad. It is a nice break in the learning year for the kids. But still.....it is also a difficult time for teachers to continue with the lessons. Perhaps just learning in spite of all the excitement is a learning adventure in itself.

So for all my teacher friends who are beginning to work hard at keeping the children at their learning tasks, my thanks to you. May Santa who comes down with a bound bring you happiness and a moment to sit and relax.