Take that Mark Bauerlein (author of The Dumbest Generation)!

I knew Willink was an amazing speaker after watching his TED Talk and listening to his interviews via podcasts.

This is not for the faint of heart as Willink is intense like no one I've ever read before. But his thoughts on being a leadership by owning your mission and what you do is incredible.

Week #10 – November 10-13

Teaching Thought #41 - How 9th Grade English Was My Gateway Drug

Mrs. Christianson told my freshman English class, "I will grade these and read my three favorites on Friday."

I froze. What if she reads mine? What will my classmates think? Nah, she won't read it. What do I care if she reads it anyway? Secretly I wanted her to read it and like it, but I never admitted that to myself.

The day before in class we finished reading the short horror story, “August Heat.” Not bad, I Thought. It wasn’t as good as “The Monkey’s Paw” or “The Lottery,” but not bad. The only problem was the ending. The author left us with a cliff-hanger. We weren’t sure what happened to our main character. That was where Mrs. Christianson, a first year English teacher, changed my life forever.

In every other English class I ever had, we always read a story and either took a quiz on it or answered the questions at the end of it.

Not this time.

Mrs. Christianson gave us a much different assignment. "I want you to write a better ending to the story. to the story. What do you think really happened to Mr. Withencroft?” she said.

This stopped me in my tracks. This was the first interesting assignment I recall ever having. I also recall the raised eyebrows and open mouths on my friends, who were bolting for the door, as they saw me stop, open my tablet, and begin writing the assignment down.

That night was the first night since grade school that I actually did homework. Only it wasn't like homework at all. I sat at my desk rapidly writing my own ending until my hand ached and the Tonight Show was on.

The next day I proudly passed up my four-page (front and back) response. My prelude dwarfed the others in my row. My classmates turned their bewildered heads at me as they felt my paper in their hands. And that was when Mrs. Christianson uttered the words that changed my life: "I will grade these and read my three favorites on Friday."

Friday finally arrived. I was standing outside Mrs. Christianson's door waiting to get in. That was another first.

As everyone found their seats, Mrs. Christianson said that she enjoyed reading all the responses, and on each she commented on our strengths as writers. Usually whenever I got a paper back, my spelling errors were emblazoned in red ink. I had more than enough of those comments. I just wanted her to read the stories, especially mine.

She began the first one. Nope, not mine. So I examined my tablet, feigning disinterest while I secretly analyzed it and compared it to mine. Unoriginal, was my verdict. If she had chosen this one, there was no way she would like mine.

She began the second one. Strike two. Not mine. Oh well, I Thought. At least I liked my story.

Finally, Mrs. Christianson lifted up the third paper. I looked down at my tablet, not wanting to look up and see if I could recognize the paper. Plus, no one would see my disappointment. Then she said, "And now I am going to read my personal favorite. This is incredibly original. It should be an example for all of your creative writing. This piece actually scared me since I was reading it late Wednesday night."

Then she read . . . my words.

I couldn’t believe it. I tried to act nonchalant, but I beamed. She reveled in my narrator's twisted logic and morbid sense of humor. She delighted in the gore and carnage I created.

When she finished, she walked over to me and set her personal favorite response on my desk. All of the blood in my entire body rocketed to my head. I felt like a thermometer in boiling water. My classmates were astounded. I had never done anything worthwhile in my classes before. Let alone anything worthy of praise. In her comments, which were scrawled all over my paper, she noted how I used great suspense to build up to the story's climax. At the very bottom was the comment, “Keep writing. Seriously. Years from now I’ll look for your name in bookstores.”

Those words changed my life. I knew what I wanted to do with my life. I wanted to make students feel the way Mrs. Christianson made me feel. From that moment on, I was an English teacher.

Teaching Thought #42 We have to be Interpreters

It used to be that teachers were asked to guide and help students access information. But that’s not enough anymore.

Students have access to information 24/7. The real issue is that we have to help them learn how to break it down, decode it, and, ultimately, interpret it.

That doesn’t mean “Teach them what to think.” Rather it’s more like “Teach them how to think.”

This is needed more today than ever before. Want an example? Just open up Facebook and look around for five minutes. You’ll have plenty of adults trying to solve complex problems with succinctly phrased and pithy quotes or memes.

But where is the critical thinking? Where is the questioning? Where are the alternatives?

Those ways of thinking have been lost in a world saturated thanks to social media.

Take this phrase that I’ve begun seeing crop up again and again on social media: “America. Love it or leave it.”

It has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it? It sounds just. It makes sense.

Until you dig deeper, question, and think critically about it. In other words, you start to interpret it.

What do those six words really mean?

I get that we should all love our country. But it goes beyond patriotism. It demands that if we don’t like it, we have to leave.

I mean it’s right there in those last two words.

Yet, I can’t think of a more un-American idea. When you start decoding it and applying it to the past and what it really means to be an American, you see the hypocritical nature of that phrase.

Is that what our Founding Fathers did? Did they hate the way the King was taxing and seeking to control them? Did they up and leave?

No. They revolted. They rioted (the Boston Tea party anyone?). They fought a bloody revolution to stay in this country even though the disliked it.

America is about staying and still staying and having the freedom to try and change it.

In fact, the blind nationalism behind “America, love it or leave it” has more in common with Stalin’s brutal rule over the USSR than it does with America, for if you didn’t like Stalin’s rule, you were likely either liquidated or - if you were lucky - sent to prison camp in Siberia never to be heard from again.

America doesn’t work that way.

How can we help our students learn to think deeply and critically about issues and events in that same way?

Teaching Thought #43 - Give Students Permission

I know that sounds crazy, but it comes from John Maxwell, so it has to carry some weight. What he simply means is that if you want to lead, and if we are teachers, we are all leading, then you have to share your weaknesses and areas of struggle with your students.

Maxwell tells about a time he was saying the same thing at a corporate event. During intermission one of the business executives came up to him to disagree with him. The executive was old school: show no weakness / never let them see you sweat and so on.

This didn’t phase Maxwell one bit when the executive said, “I don’t want my people knowing my weaknesses.”

Maxwell hit him with, “Oh don’t worry. You think they don’t know your weaknesses. Trust me. They already know all of your weaknesses. They talk about them all the time. They just never approached you about them. They’d love to help you. You’ve just never given them permission to help you.”

That’s the key. When we share our weaknesses with others, we can then open up and allow them to try and help us.

Just imagine the power of allowing your students to help you improve! For example, I stink at transitions in class and in ending the class. What if I were to state to my students that these are my weaknesses, and I need them to help me. They need to come up with some ways that can help me transition from one part of my lesson to the next and then how can I better close out my classes?

Not only would they help me teach better, but they’d be empowered by the fact that I gave them permission to help me improve!

Teaching Thought #44 - When Did You “Become” a Teacher?

Here is Frank McCourt’s breakthrough moment when he really became a teacher. This is taken from his excellent book ’Tis.

From 'Tis: A Memoir -

I followed the teacher’s guides. I launched the prefabricated questions at my classes. I hit them with surprise quizzes and tests and destroyed them with the ponderous detailed examinations concocted by college professors who assemble high school text books.

Everyday I’d teach with my guts in a knot, lurking behind my desk at the front of the room playing the teacher game with the chalk, the eraser, the red pen, the teacher guides, the power of the quiz, the test, the exam. I’ll call your father, I’ll call your mother. I’ll report you to the governor, I’ll damage your average so badly kid you’ll be lucky to get into a community college in Mississippi. Weapons of menace and control.

A senior, Jonathan, bangs his forehead on his desk and wales, Why? Why? Why do we have to suffer with this shit? We’ve been in school since kindergarten, thirteen years, and why do we have to know what color shoes Mrs. Dalloway was wearing at her goddam party and what are we supposed to make of Shakespeare troubling deaf heaven with his bootless cries and what the hell is a bootless cry anyway and when did heaven turn deaf?

Around the room rumbles of rebellion and I’m paralyzed. They’re saying Yeah, yeah to Jonathan, who halts his head banging to ask, Mr. McCourt, did you have this stuff in high school? and there’s another chorus of yeah yeah and I don’t know what to say. Should I tell them the truth, that I never set foot in a high school till I began teaching in one or should I feed them a lie about a rigorous secondary school education with the Christian Brothers in Limerick?

I’m saved, or doomed, by another student who calls out, Mr. McCourt, my cousin went to McKee on Staten Island and she said you told them you never went to high school and they said you were an okay teacher anyway because you told stories and talked and never bothered them with these tests.

Smiles around the room. Teacher unmasked. Teacher never even went to high school and look what he’s doing to us, driving us crazy with tests and quizzes. I’m branded forever with the label, teacher who never went to high school.

So, Mr. McCourt, I thought you had to get a license to teach in the city.

You do.

Don’t you have to get a college degree?

You do.

Don’t you have to graduate high school?

You mean graduate from high school, from high school, from from from.

Yeah, yeah. Okay. Don’t you have to graduate from high school to get into college?

I suppose you do.

Tyro lawyer grills teacher, carries the day, and word spreads to my other classes. Wow, Mr. McCourt, you never went to high school and you’re teaching at Stuyvesant? Cool, man.

And into the trash basket I drop my teaching guides, my quizzes, tests, examinations, my teacher-knows-all mask.

I’m naked and starting over and I hardly know where to begin.

There is so much I love about this passage. First, I love how McCourt finally listens to his students. Better than that, he learns from them and adjust his methods. Talk about getting buy in from the students!

Second, he begins to let his freak flag fly (see teaching thought #7) about teaching high school though he never went to one! Notice how the students relate to him when he lowers his guard and is honest with them.

Third, he realizes something very important: we teach students first THEN the curriculum.

Finally, he begins to confront the all-important question - why do we have to learn this? Once a teacher can begin to honestly answer that (and McCourt doesn’t here, but this sets him on the course to answer it), the closer they are to winning over their students.

When was the moment you ‘became’ a teacher? Or are you still waiting for it?

I did something I haven't done in a long, long time. I decided to print out all 23 essays from my College Comp II class on Malcom Gladwell's Outliers. It was only 178 pages of student work, but as I grabbed them all hot off the printer and walked back to my classroom, I was gleeful.

Yes. It was a ton of work, but reading those essays on paper was a subtle reminder of just how fortunate I am to have students who take their work seriously and who were willing to open up and honestly share their ideas.

It was long and difficult, but it reminded me of why I love teaching composition so much.

How to be a Change Agent with Dr. Art McCoy.

This might just be the best podcast I've listened to all year. This school leader is amazing. The real change he institutes in his school is incredible. I would follow this man anywhere. He doesn't shy away from controversy or what is difficult. He embraces it and strives to change not just his school but this entire community!

Why isn't he our secretary of education??????

Never underestimate those around you. You just never, ever know.

This is worth that matters. Period. What are you doing to have this kind of impact? As I always tell my students, you're going to have an impact one way or another. Period. What kind of impact are you going to have?

Twitter is the best PD I've ever had. I learn more in half an hour on Twitter than I did in my first decade of school sponsored PD.

Think about this as you teach. Information with context and value means nothing. I was telling a young teacher who observed me last week how I shape every single lesson around one of those two questions from my students' perspective -

1. What does this have to do with me?

2. When am I ever going to use this in the 'real world'?

Do you 'lead' or do you just 'manage.'

No one has ever been inspired by a manager. We need leaders. And you don't have to have a title or be sitting up front to lead. Do work that matters and share it.

Brilliant. This is what culture looks like.

This is the only kind of work worth devoting your life to.

Regardless of the outcome of the election, this is a damn powerful image.

If you're like me, you struggle to remember what you did from one class to the next. Or due to flex scheduling you might have students miss out on some notes. I love using the application Skitch (both on my iPhone and on my MacBook Air) to help annotate images.

There are just so many uses for Skitch. If a student writes positively about a colleague, I don't hesitate to capture it, annotate it, and send it to the teacher. Likewise, if I see a great idea on social media, I don't hesitate to capture it, write about it, and then store it on my phone or send it to a colleague.

I know Halloween was just a few days ago, but man once Halloween is over, I'm all in on Christmas! We've already broke out the Christmas playlists on our phones as we wait for the bus. In fact, on our day off on Monday, my kids and I will be watching a Christmas marathon of Daddy's Home 2, Home Alone, Jingle All the Way, and Elf!

I am married to the most amazing person in the world, Kristie. It was love at first sight. At least for me. And it still is.

We have four wonderful children, Casey, Koko, Kenzie, and Cash. And now we have been blessed with five grandchildren!

I also happen to have the greatest job in the world: teaching English to high school students.

I am in my 23rd year of teaching at Lincoln High School. I graduated from Lafayette High School in Red Lake Falls in 1992. I decided to enter the field of education because of two amazing teachers, Mr. Mueller, my fourth and sixth grade elementary school teacher and assistant baseball coach, and Mrs. Christianson, my 9th grade English teacher.

I attended Northland Community College, and had my life changed by the amazing Dr. Diane Drake. Then I transferred to Bemidji State University in 1995. There I had amazing professors who further inspired me to teach English (Dr. Helen Bonner, Dr. Mark Christensen, Susan Hauser, and Gerry Schnabel). I graduated with my BS in English Education in 1997.

I student taught with the wonderful Lisa Semanko and then began teaching full-time at LHS in 1998.

I took a year's leave of absence in 2001-02 to return to BSU for my MA in English. There I had the privilege to teach and work closely with my greatest mentor, Dr. Mark Christensen. I earned my MA in English in 2006 and was honored with "Thesis of the Year" for my creative non-fiction, braided, multi-genre memoir, "Meeting Myrtle: A Biography."

In 2013, thanks to my dear friend and mentor, Dr. Jodi Holen, I was offered an adjunct teaching position fall semester at the University of North Dakota. Tuesday nights I teach Intro to Education: Teaching and Learning 250 from 5-8. Those three hours fly by in about ten minutes.

Then in 2016 I was blessed to win a WEM award (thanks to a nomination from a former student (and now an elementary school teacher), Ciera Mooney).

In 2017 I became part of the #pineconepd podcast club along with Brian Loe, Jeff Mumm, Kelsey Johnson, Kelly Weets, Josh Watne, Tevia Strand, Megan Vigen, Mariah Hruby, Laura Brickson, Loren Leake, Katie Hahn, Melora Burgee, and new members all the time. This has been one of the best forms of PD I've ever been a part of. They make me a better teacher every time we meet. Please think about joining us in the summer at the Pine Cone Pub from 6:30 - until we've solved all the world's problems. For that evening anyway.

Thanks to the inspiration of Shane Zutz (our former principal) I devised this as a way to distribute my Teaching Thoughts and add more content to, hopefully, help out and inspire others.

Email: kurt.reynolds@myprowler.org
Website: http://teacherscribe.blogspot.com
Location: 101 South Knight Aver Thief River Falls MN 56701
Phone: 218-686-7395
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