Habits of Work

With several classes now down, things are settling in a bit. We are still dealing with tagging students for Focus time and figuring out issues that arise around that. In all my classes, we spent a little bit of time reflecting on the anniversary of the attack on 9/11 and how that day still affects us. Our class rosters have firmed up, especially in the elective classes which tend to see a good deal of change. In History vs. Hollywood we have been discussing Film as an art form and how it can be used to teach about history. We have also delved into the basic of the Civil War and finally this week started to watch the film Glory. The students are very quiet in this class! The class is meant to be a lot of discussion around the things we see in the film and our analysis, but this has proven difficult with this class so far. I'm hopeful that after a few more classes they will want to talk more.

In Honors U.S. History this week we had our first Pop Quiz! We started the week introducing the online textbook for the class and we talked about how to read from it and take notes. I warned them we might have a quiz over the reading. I tagged as many as I could before the class when it was due and reviewed the highlights with them. Then we had a quiz! There was much panic, but I told them not to overreact and that it was all part of the learning process. In addition, we talked about the Puritans a bit, and the idea of Democracy and Democratic Ideals.

(tongue in cheek depiction of the first Thanksgiving)

In AP U.S. History class we talked about historical thinking skills and did an activity to illustrate each skill. We also started talking about the outcome of the French and Indian War and the events that led to the Revolution. I asked students if the Revolution was inevitable, or at what point did it become inevitable. We did some investigation, debate, and discussion. It feels like many students had always assumed there was no choice, but now they wonder. They also wonder about the motives of those rebel leaders. It was a great discussion!

(Paul Revere's depiction of the Boston Massacre

In Ethics we just got into some philosophy about how people make ethical decisions. Students were given thought experiments that led them to discover the idea of consequential or Utilitarian thinking, The Categorical Imperative or rules-based thinking, and the Golden Rule or care-based thinking. We talked about how most dilemmas are analyzed from one of these 3 perspectives (or a combination of them). Soon we will be looking at universal values and the ramifications for ethical dilemmas.

In my VHS class, students finally got into the content. I have 23 students from Virginia, Massachusetts, Michigan, Connecticut, Ohio, and Switzerland. They seem very enthusiastic and energized to learn about U.S. Foreign Policy. Online classes pose a different set of challenges and rewards compared to face to face classes. In some ways I really enjoy the class, in others I grow weary of it. Because of the need from VHS to have every section of a class the same, I do not have much freedom to change to content of the course. I t would be great to make edits on the fly, instead I have to wait until Summer and propose changes. By then, my mind is not in it and its more difficult to make those proposals. Also, it goes through a process and so it may not be allowed, so what's my motivation to take time to propose changes if the likelihood of being approved is unknown? At any rate, I am pleased with student progress so far.

I am teaching a new class this year, Sacrifice for Freedom, which I am co-teaching with a Foreign Language teacher who just happens to be able to speak German, French, and Spanish. The idea is that students will focus on the World War Two era, and create a website for educational purposes to document people and their stories who were involved in the war, resistance, collaboration, etc. Students must make use of a target language for resources, either French, German, or Spanish. At this moment, the students have been tasked with creating 40 minute presentations about the basic events of the war within their country. We have some great guest speakers lined up and still working on more! It is a seminar style class, students self assess themselves and my co-teacher and I meet with each individual every two weeks to talk with them about their grade and then issue our official grade based mostly on the self assessment. I have enjoyed the class so far. We have pushed the students in some ways (our presentation requirements are more in depth and demand more of them than they have done in High School) and yet given them lots of freedom and opportunity to do the work of real historians in areas of interest without having to worry about memorizing things for a test. It is just the beginning, but we are all very excited!

Something else I thought a lot about this week is a new initiative we have at school this year. A group of teachers met last school year to discuss the State mandate that incoming 9th graders graduate with a Proficiency based diploma. During these discussions to support those students, they proposed that the school implement a standards based Habits of work rubric to help support the work habits that lead to success. This is the HOW rubric they came up with:

The idea is that each student will be assessed on the three areas of the HOW rubric in each class every 2 weeks. To remain eligible for privileges and co-curricular activities, they must average a 2.25 or higher on the HOW rubric in each class with no "1"'s (average the three habits together for each class). Other than that, it does not affect a student's GPA or the grade in that class. Very likely the HOW score and the grade will correlate, however. I think this HOW rubric will help students see the connection between effort, work ethic, and success. We are struggling currently to find a way to keep track of these scores as our grading program does not work well with standards based stuff. Aside from these technical difficulties that we are working on fixing, I think it will have a positive impact on students and be great vehicle for conversation about work ethic.

Next week I being plans for the first Cross Discipline Literacy Network Webinar and really start getting into the foundations of Government in the U.S., it should be fun!