Bird Droppings September 7, 2024

Teach to where the learning will be, not to where it is

I got a text from my middle son a couple of years ago that a package was coming from my granddaughter and was very fragile. My box came; I thought I should open it while videotaping. I carefully opened it as per instructions from my granddaughter. I pulled out the stuffing and padding and found a handmade piece of pottery. It was an ugly face jug. My son told my granddaughter I used to collect them, and she made me one. On the back side was the crucial piece. She made some red flowers. I received a text explaining the flowers, referring to a favorite song of mine by Harry Chapin, “Flowers Are Red.” I highly recommend teachers and parents listen to this song. A boy goes to school and colors with crayons, and the teacher corrects him.

“And she said…Flowers are red, young man, and Green leaves are green. There’s no need to see flowers any other way Than the way they always have been seen, But the little boy said…There are so many colors in the rainbow, So many colors in the morning sun, So many colors in a flower, and I see everyone.” Harry Chapin

The pressure of old age has weighed on my mind lately. Today is the first day out of several days that I have felt relatively good. It could be the ugly face jug I received from my granddaughter sitting beside my computer. It could be that I wasn’t paying attention to losing weight and blood pressure medicine, and my blood pressure was dropping. I will definitely go with my granddaughter’s pottery, which is sitting on the shelf beside me.

It was last year, and on the spur of the moment, while grocery shopping, I bought two pumpkins for my grandkids to paint. That was a great success, along with a herbed pork loin I recall cooking that evening. With the chills setting in my days of getting flower pictures, spiders are numbered. I hopefully will be gathering in my plants that do not enjoy the cold this weekend. I hope to have time for the mountaineering festival in North Georgia coming up. I missed last year because my wife and I were incapacitated. I may have a conflict again this year; we may visit Pawleys Island for a few days.

I am a National Association of Educators member and receive their weekly publication. An article caught my attention in a past issue. In Georgia, we have standards that drive the curriculum throughout the state and are in line with federal and state mandates. Essentially, the article was about teaching to the test. Teachers are literally being trained to do this.

“Preferring concrete guidance, teachers make what is tested their de facto focus. The unfortunate result is that tests become the curriculum. And because tests are filled with multiply choice items that do not adequately reflect important higher levels of cognitive demand, instruction becomes less rich than it should be.” Susan H. Fuhrman, Lauren Resnick, and Lorrie Shepard, Standards are not enough.

As I thought, I recalled a quote that was hanging on my principal’s door in 2001 when I started back to public school teaching. I have used it many times before, and I know how it applies to education.

“I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it is.” Wayne Gretzky

Last night, as I was pulling some files together and books for my ideas, this Wayne Gretzky quote popped up again. It was excellent, considering I had played ice hockey in college and most of my life. Gretzky is a hero to hockey kids, just like Michael Jordan is to basketball players. Gretzky’s records cover several pages of HHL record books; he holds or shares 61 NHL records. For example, a recent ESPN top twenty-five sports record that will never be broken had Gretzky’s feat of 2857 points (goals and assists) right near the top since number three player Gordie Howe at 1850 holds the longevity record as well, and number two is 1887 points. But what does this have to do with beans’ price or education?

“There is a growing recognition of the importance of the view of the classroom community in developing respect for human dignity as well as preparing students to be active participants in their learning and democratic communities. The theme around which programs in the School of Education are built is Preparing Proactive Educators to Improve the Lives of Children. Our students learn to be reflective, scholarly, and proactive educators.” Dr. Jane McFerrin, retired Dean, School of Education, Piedmont College

Proactive is a good word, and the word “Acting in advance to deal with an expected difficulty” is explained by Dictionary.com. A good friend has the Gretzky quote up on his wall. I gave him a copy nearly twenty years ago, which is still in use. I first used this quote twenty-plus nine years ago when my friend was principal at our high school. He has moved on, but Gretzky’s words ring true, whether in Ice Hockey, teaching, or life. I expect a key element in this quote to be where the puck will be, not just where it is. Be thinking ahead rather than thinking in stagnation.

“For, he that expects nothing shall not be disappointed, but he that expects much – if he lives and uses that in hand day by day — shall be full to running over.” Edgar Cayce

“Life… It tends to respond to our outlook, to shape itself to meet our expectations.” Richard M. DeVoe

Much of Cayce’s reading can be a bit much, but these are good words, and our daily outlook molds where and how our day will be.

“We advance on our journey only when we face our goal when we are confident and believe we are going to win out.” Orison Swett Marden

Marden founded Success magazine and is considered the founder of the modern Success movement.

“We lift ourselves by our thought, we climb upon our vision of ourselves. If you want to enlarge your life, you must first enlarge your thought of it and of yourself. Hold the ideal of yourself as you long to be, always, everywhere – your ideal of what you long to attain – the ideal of health, efficiency, success.” Orison Swett Marden (1850 – 1924)

I am always amazed at teachers who have few expectations for students. Research has shown time and time again that students live up to the expectations of their teachers. Teachers set the pace by their expectations of a student; if you expect little, that is what you will get, and conversely, expect much, and you will receive. It’s a bit of a paraphrase of Gretsky.

“Teach to where the learning will be, not to where it is” Frank Bird.

As I thought this morning, teaching is much like any other activity: you plan, implement, and have expectations. If we only teach to where learning is, soon you find you are truly going nowhere. For years, I have sometimes used words far beyond the operational vocabulary of students; my response is always, “Look it up and learn a new word.”

“By asking for the impossible, we obtain the best possible.” Giovanni Niccolini

“The world is full of abundance and opportunity, but far too many people come to the fountain of life with a sieve instead of a tank car… a teaspoon instead of a steam shovel. They expect little, and as a result, they get little.” Ben Sweetland

I liked this concept; so often, we teach using a teaspoon. I do it, too, and think that this kid will never learn that or that this kid’s reading level is too low. Sweetland writes about expectations and offers this.

“We cannot hold a torch to light another’s path without brightening our own.” Ben Sweetland

When that difficult student succeeds, you, as a teacher, succeed, and your path is brighter. Years ago, I worked with severely disabled students; a simple movement would often warrant a celebration. So often, I use the quote from Aerosmith’s song, Amazing.

“Life is a journey, not a destination.” Steven Tyler

As I was reading this morning, Ben Sweetland either listens to Aerosmith or Steven Tyler reds Ben Sweetland’s books.

“Success is a journey, not a destination.” Ben Sweetland

After looking up publishing dates, Steven Tyler read Ben Sweetland’s book. Many of these were published in the 1960s. If we as teachers impose parameters on learning, if we set goals far too low and or do not teach the lofty goals we set, we, in effect, are the issue, not the student. Maybe every teacher needs to tack over their door as my dear friend, the now Georgia Principal of the year at Osborne High School, has.

“I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it is.” Wayne Gretzky

Let us now set some records of learning of successful students and children in our communities. As I went out into the chill of the morning a bit earlier to walk my dog as I looked to the southeast, the constellation Orion was clear as a bell over me. I could not help but notice that today was the first day in months; it was silent in the morning: no tree frogs, crickets, or cicadas, absolute silence. I have often wondered about the ambient temperature for silence in the morning. I was reading a small book written between 1953 and 1954 by a Trappist monk, Thoughts in Solitude, and a passage struck a chord in the silence.

“Living is not thinking. Thought is formed and guided by objective reality outside us. Living is the constant adjustment of thought to life and life to thought in such a way we are always growing, always experiencing new things in the old and old things in the new. Thus, life is always new.” Thomas Merton

Perhaps I was not listening closely enough as I went out just a few minutes ago when I said it was silent. I stepped out again with my other dog, and a great horned owl was calling. There is always more if we constantly adjust our thoughts and perceptions. Merton was a prolific writer, and his works have stood the test of time. He died in a small hotel in Southeast Asia in an electrical accident protesting the war in Vietnam back in the late 1960s, and as I ponder this morning, please keep all in harm’s way on your minds and your hearts’ namaste.

My family and friends, I do not say this lightly,
Mitakuye Oyasin
(We are all related)
bird