High School Cross Country Runners Take Shelter Dogs on Their Practice Runs.

I love everything about this. We can do so much more to help others and make an impact.

Thanks to my dear friend and colleague, Kelsey Johnson, I discovered principal Hamish Brewer and his rebellious attitude to not just turning around schools but to turning around communities! If you're burned out on all the top-down structure in districts and do-as-you're-told-or-else standards and policies, this book is for you.

Week #3 - September 16-20

Teaching Thought #10 - Late work? How do you handle it?

Since I teach mostly College in the High School classes, I accept late work, but it’s for partial credit. In fact, I wish those of us who teaching College in the High School, Honors, and AP classes could sit down and figure out a blanket policy for late work.

The bottom line for me always comes back to this: Professors don’t accept late work (for the most part). Or, at least that’s why my former students who are now in college tell me. And that too is one of the things they wish now that I would have been harder on them about.

Yet, this teacher not only accepts late work, but he offers full credit for it!

Blasphemy!

Or is it?

The author, Dr. O’Malley, explains -

My goal is for my students to learn the material. My goal is for them to learn the value of keeping up with a course. Some students even ask if they can redo an assignment and turn it in for more points. There is great educational value to reviewing your own work, and I usually allow this (particularly for daily work and notebook checks, but not for quizzes.)

So what have I gained? I have students who sometimes take an extra day on an assignment because they want to do a better job. Students who are busting their butts at the middle and end of each quarter before grades are due. Students who know I’m there for the material and to teach them to learn, rather than deduct points for technicalities. I have students who might fall behind but still try to catch up. My students will learn a lot, and they won’t fail for making mistakes that children make.

Teaching Thought #11 - Handling an Upset Parent

There is little that terrifies teachers as much as these two words: Upset parent.

This is a short blog post about one teacher/principal thinks about dealing with upset parents.

His main point is that it took him awhile to realize that usually the parents are upset with him not because they hate him or think he’s doing a lousy job. They are upset because they care.

Really? I’m not totally buying that, but that’s his argument.

I would agree that they certainly care. But about what? Do they care about the learning process? About their daughter or son taking ownership of their effort? Just about the grade and the ‘damage’ it will do to their precious GPAs or scholarships? Or do they just care about themselves (maybe they see their son or daughter’s success or failure as a reflection of their parenting abilities)?

I don’t know.

But I do like how one principal chose to deal with angry parents. She always waited a day to invite them in to her office. She also made sure that the disgruntled parent brought in their son or daughter too to be part of the meeting.

This was ballsy. But when she explained it, I thought it was brilliant.

Her entire goal has little to do with the parent and everything to do with the student. You see, she already knows that Mom or Dad (or both) have already thrown her under the bus and likely backed over her several times at home. She probably has been ripped to shreds and called every name in the book.

But, by having the Mom or Dad come in with the students allows the principal the chance to not lash out or even defend herself. What it does (and this is the brilliant part) is that it shows the student how a reasonable and rational adult (that would be the principal) goes about resolving conflict.

The principal said that usually, though not always, the student ends up seeing their upset parent in a totally different light. They usually see the principal calmly listening and explaining and trying to offer alternatives for the conflict while the parent tends to just be upset. The principal said that often the student will see how embarrassing their parent is acting. That is the real lesson. The principal went on to say that more often than not the student will actually come in to see her later to apologize for how her parent acted.

That’s the real way to deal with anyone who is upset.

Teaching Thought #12 - Are you willing to die on a hill for your cause?

Once I was facing a serious issue. So I sought out our former leader for some advice. I knew something was going on that I thought was wrong and that I was going to have to stand up and speak my mind. If you know me, you know this isn’t something that comes naturally to me.

Our former leader gave me this advice: Are you willing to die on a hill for it? If you are, dig in your heels and don’t relent. If you win, great. If not, that’s okay too. At least everyone else will know where you stand.

That advice has stuck with me all these years. This Tweet I saw recently, adds more food for thought to our former leader’s advice.

What hill (or hills) are you willing to die on? I’d love to hear.

Teaching Thought #13 - Submitting Lessons Plans

Coach Mumm shared this article with me last summer: It’s Time to Stop Requiring Lesson Plan Submission.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve been through a couple different incantations of lesson plan submission.

When I first began teaching, our principal demanded that we turn in our typed lessons plans to the week to a bin in the office by Monday morning. At the end of the year, I received all of my lesson plans stapled together. I thought it was a neat way to look back at all that we did that year. And, truth be told, I wish I still had that copy of my lesson plans. I’d like to look back at it to see just how far I’ve come in 20 years. But, as is the case with a lot of what we do in education, I didn’t think of it that way. I saw it as just a hoop to jump through. So I put them in a cabinet somewhere, and I haven’t seen them since!

Then under a different principal, we were encouraged to still develop lesson plans, but I can’t remember if we submitted them or not. I did a lot of flying by the seat of my pants here. And, full disclosure here, that is how I tend to teach the best.

Finally, we got to a point where our third principal wanted us to post our lessons on our teacher websites and then we progressed to developing specific types of lessons plans, replete with learning targets, classroom activities, home work, and evidence of learning. This helped me focus my content. Though I think the real purpose of this was so that a student could look at my lessons and know specifically what they missed (I often phrased my learning targets from the actual point of view of my students). But I don’t know that I’ve ever had more than a handful of students ever really look at my lesson plans (at least the way they were intended).

So the shift in lesson plan submission has been from a tool that allowed the principal to check on just what the heck I was doing in my class to a tool that helped me organize my lessons and curriculum to a guide for students who wanted to take ownership of their learning.

I won’t say that I totally agree with the article that we stop submitting lesson plans. I do enjoy my Sunday night ritual of planning out the next week of learning. But I fully acknowledge that usually by Tuesday and no later than Wednesday my original lesson plan has been blown to pieces. Learning happens in unpredictable ways and life happens. That means I will never forgo a rich learning opportunity - even if it tosses us off schedule - just to keep up with my lesson plan.

Teaching Thought #14 - Is your lesson a Grecian Urn?

Speaking of lesson plans, how often do you produce Grecian Urns. Here is a great podcast from Jennifer Gonzalez which asks the question: is that big project you have your students doing really worth all the time and effort? Or is it just a ‘fun’ activity that doesn’t really support any learning? In other words, is it a Grecian Urn.

In listening to this, I’ve been guilty of several Grecian Urns in my time. The first one I recall was in my first year teaching. It was Communications 10 and we were reading Julius Caesar. One of my students, who had transferred in the year before from a larger district, mentioned how one of her former teachers had the students do a Shakespeare booklet where they found images from magazines to go with several key quotes from the play.

This sounds interesting. Kind of trying to connect pop culture with classic lit or at least to re-envision a classic work. But it never really turned out that way. It turned in to a full week of students cutting up old magazines from the media center and going through gallons of glue to paste images that vaguely had anything to do with Shakespeare’s skillful use of language. It was busy work. I knew this after about three days, but students were being ‘good’ (keeping busy and staying quiet), so I let them finish it up.

I never repeated that assignment again. And from then on, I’ve been wary of Grecian Urn assignments.

What I struggle with are those assignments where they seem to have the students using higher order thinking skills, but really, when you drill down, they are using very basic skills and just following format. Sure they are creating something, but it’s not all that creative and it doesn’t really use much in terms of analysis or synthesis.

I used to have students create iMovie trailers for the Edgar Allan Poe stories we read. We spent an entire week in the media center creating these. The students enjoyed them and were eager to watch them in class, but when I look back on it now with this new Grecian Urn knowledge in mind, I see that it was really a busy work activity in the guise of a higher order thinking activity.

What Grecian Urns reside in your classroom?

I received this text from a former student who is on her way to becoming an English teacher via my alma mater, BSU. In fact, she is taking a class right now from my mentor and former advisor! I love the rare moments like this where someone else's impact on me extends to someone else (in this case Josie) and then comes full circle by impacting me. This is what I mean by #livingthedream.

Jennifer Gonzalez is a must listen if you're into podcasts. Her podcast (and website) The Cult of Pedagogy is amazing. I steal so much from her. In fact, I don't know what I look forward to more, a new episode from Gonzalez or a new episode of Entreleadership.

One-Pagers are simple, but effective, ways for students to chronicle and illustrate key concepts that they are learning in class, whether from reading assignments, book reviews, or from lectures.

This is a great reminder for all of us. Just consider some of the time we spend and the figures he presents us with. Man, this has me motivated right now!

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.

The website, Great Big Story, hosts a variety of excellent videos that share great, educational friendly stories. Each video shares a fascinating, relevant story.

Here are but a few of the examples -

Meet the Voice of the Early Internet

What it's like to Literally Skate on Thin Ice

Relive your Childhood with the Museum of Play

Be careful though. You could spend all day on this site.

There are so many interesting snippets to use in class OR to show your students to get them thinking about what videos or stories they may capture in this same type of format.

This section is devoted to former students who are now teachers.

When did you graduate? Where did you attend college?

I graduated from LHS in 2003 and went onto UND for my Bachelor of Music degree, and later graduated from Kent State University with a Master of Music degree, both focusing in Vocal Music Education.

Where are you teaching now? For how long? What subjects?

Currently I am teaching at Kennedy Secondary School in Fergus Falls where I teach 5/6 General Music, 8th grade choir, 9th Grade Men's Choir, and 10-12th Grade Men's Choir. I am starting my 2nd year in Fergus Falls and my 8th year overall. I previously taught in Breckenridge, Moose Lake, and Underwood, MN.

What do you love about teaching?

What I love most about teaching is building relationships with my students. I am lucky that I get to have a lot of the same students for multiple years in choir. Seeing their excitement as they walk in the door everyday ready to make music makes me see how I have the best job in the world. I am fortunate to lead a strong group of young men in developing skills they are able to use for a lifetime.

What made you want to be an educator?

I chose to go into education because I was fortunate to have outstanding teachers at LHS who made everyday exciting, and showed the passion they have for what they do and for their students. Music was always a huge part of my life. I remember sitting as an 8th grader watching the LHS Concert Choir perform and seeing Darcy Reese conduct, and I wanted to be a part of that. Spending 4 years in Darcy's class and having her as a teacher helped shape the person and educator I am today.

I'm a huge fan of American Experience on PBS. I am fascinated by the Manhigh project. I could never have done what Joe Kittingher had the guts to do. Can you imagine from jumping - basically - from outspace and free falling for tens of thousands of feet until your shoot opened and safely delivered you to the ground?

The website below, which focuses on the Manhigh Project, is from PBS but has a wealth of other resources and fascinating stories. Turn your students loose to see what they can discover. Or, better yet, what topics would they cover on their own version of American Experience and have them film and present them.

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

I am about to begin my 22nd year of teaching at Lincoln High School. I graduated from Lafayette High School 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 Chirstensen. 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, and Laura Brickson. 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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Twitter: @teacherscribe