The Red Balloon

 

       Its potential is always there.

       In with hundreds of others, the red balloon waited its turn.  Its neighbors were selected, maybe three or four every minute.  The noise of the world outside was exciting, mysterious, and thrilling.  The opportunity to see what it could hear was more than it could bear.  "Pick me; pick me" it pleaded--if it could talk.  It wanted to explore; it wanted adventure; it wanted everything.

       Little by little its world got less and less crowded.  Others continued to be taken.  There goes a blue one.  There goes two yellow ones.  Its turn must be coming soon.  "Pick me; pick me."  Another blue, then a pink, then another pink.  Waiting, waiting...always waiting.

       Suddenly it was out of the bag.  Everything happening very fast.  Hot.  Light.  Breeze.  Noise, lots of noise.  Something dark and smooth and ...Hey!  What's happening?  It got bigger and bigger and bigger.  In seconds it grew to a hundred times it original size.  Dark thing goes away and it doesn't grow any more.  But something better is happening..."I can fly!"

       With little control--really no control--it flies straight up, but only a few feet.  It wants to go higher but something is keeping it from flying higher.  It feels a tug from below and then another tug.  Now it is moving again, but not up.  Its moving sideways.  Every once in a while it is tugged down hard and then it flies sideways again.  This continues for about an hour.

       The balloon sees trees and people and flowers.  It sees the sun and feels its warmth.  It sees the blue sky with few fluffy white clouds.  It imagines how far the sky expands.  Sometimes the red balloon is relatively still except for slight swaying caused by the breeze.  The balloon continues to view the immensity of the sky.  Its imagination builds on the wonders and adventures that await beyond the bonds of the tugging force below.  It pulls and pulls, trying to break free, trying to go up, trying to explore.

       The red balloon hears a scream and then some crying.  This noise becomes more and more faint as seconds go by.  It notices all sounds becoming less forceful and less distinct.  The tugging has stopped completely.  In fact, to the red balloon's great surprise, it is once again flying up.  Though at the mercy of the wind, the balloon is definitely flying up.  It imagines the great experiences about to be entered into.  Oh, the places it will go!  The journey is just beginning.  The path is unknown.  The balloon is filled with the excitement of every future second.

       And then, the upward journey suddenly slows.  The noise is still minimal, the wind is still pushing; but the tugging has begun once again.  The balloon is now bumping against something.  It moves up a small amount, bumps something, moves to the side a little, bumps something else, more tugging, harder tugging.  The balloon yearns to break free and continue its journey up, but the tugging is more forceful than its ability to go up.  Eventually the balloon is no longing bumping anything.  It is once again swaying in the breeze and (once again) relatively still--certainly not going up.  Why?

       This stillness is different from the last time.  Minutes past.  No sideways movement.  No up.  More minutes; an hour.  Stillness.  Another hour; this is different.  Once again the balloon views the sky and imagines and dreams.  Its getting cooler now.  Its getting darker too.  What happened to the sun?  Where's the light?  More stillness.  Maybe endless stillness?  But now the sky looks different.

       The sky is dark with tiny points of light very far away.  The balloon's desire to explore the sky remains.  What's out there?  I've got to go; I've got to break free.  I've got to start moving up again.  I want to see what there is to see.  The stillness removes all distractions and allows the balloon, once again, to dream of the unknown possibilities; the excitement that awaits the balloon once its journey continues.


       But its journey didn't continue.  Night turned to day and the balloon barely moved all day.  The wind seemed to only tighten the balloon's string to the tree branch.  Day turned to night again and back to day; again and again and again. The balloon's dreams continued, but as time went on it started to wonder if it might be better to be secure to the tree that was firmly planted so close to where its journey began.  A part of the balloon still wanted to explore the vastness of everything while another part appreciated the safeness of staying and not moving.

       More time passed and the strength of the balloon to pull away diminished along with its ability to actually make the decision to stay or to go (if it were ever to be given the chance to make that choice.)  There's still a chance.  It could, possibly, break free.  It might have a chance.  But now it wasn't so sure of its decision.


       Suddenly the balloon feels a lack of tugging.  It's long-awaited opportunity may be near.  It is permitted to make its own choice.  The balloon considers the options that has filled its thoughts since its beginning--and it decides to...

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       Each of us has the red balloon's decision to make:  

• take the risk of venturing into the unknown and open yourself to incredible excitement or amazing failure
• play it safe; stay close to home--close to the "known".  Avoid the scary unknown and risk missing out on attaining your true potential.

Every Day is Important

       Occasionally I would have a student who needed to miss my class because of some other event taking place during the school day; a guest speaker, a pep rally, an AP test, extra help in another class, ... all sorts of reasons.  Being the good student that she is, she would come to me a day or two before the event to find out what she is missing and to be aware of lesson and/or assignment for that day.  This never bothered me.  I never considered my class to be the center of universe; and I knew that school offered my students a range of experiences and I wanted them to have these experiences.

       What DID bother me is when the student would ask, "Are we doing anything important on that day?"

       Of course I always responded, "We always do something important."  But this question (also) always made me think of my students' perceptions of my class.  Unfortunately, I think they viewed a "test day" as an important day.  Students would sometimes try to reschedule their other event if they were going to miss a test (sometimes not).  But, I think, that students also perceived the basic lesson day as a less important day; perhaps as just a typical day.  These days are viewed as the days that can be missed without any penalty--you can make up the work; you won't fall behind in any way.

       It is this perception of less-important days that leads some students to skip school for a day.  It leads parents and families to take their children out of school for a day or more for a family vacation or for baseball tryouts or for a scouting trip.

       How do we convince students that every school day is important?  As teachers, we know that the time we have with students in class is valuable time.  Often, we struggle to complete everything that needs to be completed in a school year (or in a course).  But how do we help students to understand that what goes on in class cannot be easily replicated or made-up outside of class?

       It is for this reason that I would always begin teaching on the very first day of school.  I didn't want my students to go home on the first day of school and say, "We didn't do anything in school today.  All we did in every class was introduce ourselves (six times)."  It is for this reason that every time we had an early-closing day or a late-openning day, I would always make the best use of the time I had with my students.  Why come to school if every teacher were to say, "We only have short periods today due to ________ so we are just going to do nothing in class."?

       Every day of school is an important day.  Every class, every minute in class.  Teachers should not ever give their students any reason to believe that any class is a waste of time or is unnecessary.  School is important.  Learning is important.  Every day counts.  We have to show our students that this is true by our actions in class.  We want students who want to go to school every day, because every day of school is important.

Higher Rates of Women in Engineering

     

       Are we doing enough to encourage girls to pursue careers in Engineering?

       It isn't enough (anymore) to say that there are more women in Engineering today then there were 10 and 20 and 30 years ago.  The numbers of women in Engineering in these past years was so low that (one would hope) those numbers have gone up.  But recently, the percentage of females earning bachelor degrees in engineering has stubbornly remained only steady.

       Lots of data suggest that the number of female engineers should be increasing.  More high school women are taking Statistics, Calculus, and Physics.  More women than men have been enrolled in college since 1978.  Women have been earning more college degrees than men since 1981.  And the prospects for jobs in engineering is growing.  

       Opportunities abound; so if you're a middle or high school teacher or principal, or you're a parent of girl, be sure they get the message that they can do anything.  Don't feed the stereotype that says men are engineers.  Help them to be proud of their abilities and to pursue their dreams.  

       We need more women to be engineers.

Top Five Posts of 2015

       As I finish my second full year of blogging, I'd like to take a look back at 2015 and the five posts that got the biggest response from my readers.  But first I'd like to thank some of the many fellow bloggers that I've read and (sometimes) responded to over this year.  These professionals have caused me to pause and think about the various issues in public education that (perhaps) need to be changed; or that need to at least be debated.  I've also read many, many inspiring stories about teachers who work very hard--with little recognition--to help their students to succeed.

       Thank you to Alice Keeler, Starr Sackstein, Justin Tarte, Annie Murphy Paul, and Daisy Dyer Duerr.  I used to think that these were Super-Hero People who had some special gift or ability in the area of education.  But I've come to understand that they are just regular people like you and me who are eager to share their thoughts and ideas with the rest of us.  I, for one, am extremely grateful to include them among my professional learning community.  (And so are tens of thousands of other educators who follow these folks!)  I am continually inspired by your words; you keep me going and keep me writing.  Thank you.

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       Here are my top five posts from 2015:

#5) Open Letter to Teachers

       This was the second (and most popular) of a three-part series of Open Letters to the three most important stakeholders in our educational system: Students, Teachers, and Parents.  I wrote this "letter" to teachers on the eve of the 2015 - 2016 school year.  It was published on August 19th.  In it, I talked about how excited teachers are when a new school year begins--something, I bet, a lot of students don't realize.  I wrote about the tough job of teaching and I applauded the men and women who accept this responsibility.    Sometimes being a teacher involves difficult conversations with students about the need to continually struggle to learn something that isn't easy at first. Teachers shape the minds that shape the future of our country.  Teachers' influence over student achievement is well documented.  We always need great teachers.

#4) Learning vs. The Appearance of Learning

       Published on March 28th, this is an issue in which I feel very deeply.  The issue of the best way to measure learning and the problem (at times) of students appearing to be learning well (i.e. - getting good grades) but its only an appearance and it isn't real learning.
       I feel that P-12 education is the time when we have to be honest with students and their parents.  We don't want students to believe that they are achieving at a high level only to learn later in life (perhaps while sitting in a college class) that the grades they earned in high school did not represent their true ability.  The job of schools is to help students to learn.  We need to use multiple measures to get a true picture of their level of learning.  "Getting-a-good-grade" is not the job of schools.

#3) We Should Value Good Thinking More Than We Value Good Memorizing

       This post, from May 29th, quotes from Dr. Jo Boaler and Cathy Seeley.  In it, I talk about how our students'  thinking should be rewarded more than their ability to memorize math facts.  Sometimes elementary children who are very good at memorizing their multiplication facts (and recited them quickly) are viewed as being more able than students who cannot do this.  But we really don't students who can merely memorize facts.  What we really want is students who can think and reason and build on known facts to gain further knowledge.  Sometimes students memorize facts without knowing why the facts are true.  Later in their P-12 education they struggle because of this lack of understanding.  The goal isn't speed; the goal is learning.


#2)  No More Worksheets

       I began this post (from April 3rd) with a simple question:

Does you your child's mathematics teacher assign a lot of worksheets for homework and classwork?

If the answer is YES - Not a very effective teacher.
If the answer is NO - Likely to be a more effective teachers.


       Of course, this is an exaggeration, but the point is that this staple of P-12 education (the worksheet) should be a thing of the past.  They are boring; they are very un-engaging; and they de-emphasize thinking over mere "following steps".  They represent the opposite of what we want to see in our classrooms today.  Students should be spending class time reasoning and thinking and debating; they should be sharing ideas and thoughts.  They should hear from other students.  By the response I got from my readers, I'm thinking that this idea is not as radical as it may sound to some.

#1)  Growth Mindset Teachers

       This post had the most views of any post I've written since I started blogging more than two years ago (142 posts).  I talked about the idea of Growth Mindsets as created by Carol Dweck.  Specifically I talked about teachers who have the mindset that says anyone can learn.  These teachers help their students to understand that learning is always possible; productive struggle is a good thing; and their past negative learning experiences does not predict their future learning.

       Thank you to everyone who have shared this journey of learning and thinking with me in 2015.  The best of us are always trying to improve and to learn more.  Continue on and find your way to be the best educator you can be.

       All the best!

Peter Cincotta

Students Remember the Fun Stuff

       I remember my Algebra 1 teacher taking off his shoes and socks in class one day.  He did it to demonstrate the need to do certain things in a proper order--otherwise, it just doesn't work.  The Algebra lesson probably had something to do with Order of Operations, but the real lesson was to complete each step in a process in the correct order.

       That lesson happened over 30 years ago and I still remember it because it was a little silly; a little goofy.  It wasn't a lecture; it wasn't a worksheet; it wasn't the normal classroom.  It was strange and odd and that it probably why I remember it.  As an educator (now), I think I also remember this event in class because it showed me that my teacher was willing to be a little silly to make a point.  He didn't have to be the Big Formal Authority in the classroom at every second of the class.  He was allowed to have some fun with his class--and still be a great teacher.

       I often tell teachers that it is not our job to entertain.  But it is part of our responsibility to motivate students to do their best.  Students don't think in educational terms such as "student engagement", "participatory learning", and "stations".  Most students just this fun.  It's not a show; it's not entertainment.  "Fun" to students is when the math class or the English class involves the students in the learning.  Its when students are not forced to stay seated for the whole period; to listen and not talk for the whole period; to take notes and learn on their own for the whole period.

      What students call "fun", teachers call "good teaching".  You don't have to be an entertainer to be a good, engaging teacher.  Chances are most teachers are already excited about the content that they teach.  The job is to convey that excitement to your students.  Involve them in the learning.  Allow for time out of their seats; time to talk and argue with other students; time to think and create and share their thoughts and ideas.

       Students don't just "like" the class better when they are involved, they actually "learn" better.  And isn't that the whole point of school in the first place?

A Passion to Make Education Better

       I often say to my children, "It takes less time to do the thing I'm asking you to do than it takes to argue about it."  Am I allowed to say this to adults who are critical of public education?

       Of course, I don't mind if people disagree with decisions made about their child's school or school district.  But mere negative comments don't usually help to make our schools better.  If everyone who disagreed with a school-level decision, instead, were to offer a possible solution, or make an effort to understand the reasons behind the decision, or step up to make things better we could accomplish a lot.  We can help to improve attitudes about public schools AND we can help to improve our schools.

       We want people to be passionate about their local schools and we want people to be partners with their schools.  Education is important.  It's more important than sports; it's more important than grades; it's more important than social status.  Education helps everyone: students, businesses, society.  The effort to improve schools has to be a group effort.

       Be passionate about education.  We need you.

Teachers That Inspire Students

       Who is your hero?

       Who do you look up to?

       This is a very common essay question for students at all levels.  The list of people who fill the pages of these essays is long: parents, athletes, friends, teachers, grandparents, historical figures, authors, poets, leaders,....  The world is full of inspiring people.  It is easy to think of such a person and maybe difficult to think of only one such person.

       These people make us believe that we can do anything.  They help us to overcome obstacles, to work harder, and to be better people.  They ask for very little in return--usually nothing.  They come to mind during the times in our lives when we think that we can't go on or we can't achieve.  They are our own, personnel superheroes.

       Most people can think of a teacher who has inspired them.  Usually a teacher who demanded high performance and worked hard to help you to achieve.  Our favorite teacher(s) were the people who believed we can do more than we believed we ourselves could do.

       Teachers that inspire students to do their best are the teachers that every parents wants their children to have.  They make learning adventurous, exciting, and thrilling.  They give their students the tools to tackle difficult problems and the self confidence to keep trying when they don't "get it" the first time.

       Be the teacher that inspires your students.