Question 265 of 365: How many pieces am I playing with?

Chess has a certain amount of pieces, as does every other game that I can think of. If you put too many pieces on the board it doesn’t look right and you can’t play. Having too many pawns makes moving around the board more difficult and having two queens on one side would be a most cruel advantage. Games are set up so that each person has an equal chance to win, so long as they have the skills. We don’t put more pieces on the board just because we want to. We don’t take them off just because it makes the space look prettier. We have to earn each piece that we take. The winning moves are precise and exacting. The right amount of pieces is required to pull off any kind of upset or comeback. These are just givens.

And yet, I can never seem to keep track of all of them. I sacrifice valuable pieces just so I can see the board better. I trade them because it makes sense at the time and I think it is moving me ahead, but later I regret it. I can’t do 15 possible moves in my head because I don’t know what the other person is going to do with their pieces. I can’t keep track of the relationships and the distance between the pieces. They all seem to jumble together into these fits of excitement that lead to their own destruction, without strategy of coherence. I am not orchestrating a win so much as I am hoping that my positioning and outward confidence is somehow hiding my complete lack of experience or research.

I am lining my pieces up for the game that will ultimately decide what my future looks like. They all look good right now, and I’m hoping it holds. I am reading the instructions for the hundredth time, but with each conversation I have about the way this game is supposed to be played, I notice that I need specific techniques and to think through every move before I make it. Others can see the board too, and I am looking to them for advice. It is my responsibility to set it up, but I feel like each move is being crowd sourced.

That is how I am going to keep track of all these pieces. That is how I am going to make sure that I am playing the right ones at the right time. I won’t bring my queen out too early, because she is one piece that I will never sacrifice. I have to send out my pawns as scouts to see just what is out there. I will castle at the right time, moving myself away from danger. I will strike and set up gambits that are too enticing not to take advantage of. And my faceless opponent will have little choice but to confront all of the pieces that I have set up. They will have to engage my contributions and they will have to give something up in order to get access to anything else I have to offer.

In short: I will win.

I will win because I have all of my pieces in place. I will win because of everyone giving me resources and knowledge and knowhow. And, I will win because there is no alternative for me. It can’t shirk away and I can’t come back later. The game is happening now, and the game clock has started.

Question 235 of 365: What is the real nightmare of testing?

I don’t put much stock in dreams, at least not the kind that you can have when you sleep. Most of the time, I like to think that my subconscious just has a little more room to roam. I have an off switch and nighttime is when I flip it. My dreams do not require deep analysis because most of the time I don’t remember them, and when I do, there is nothing even remotely interesting in them. Sure, I have an odd dream that will amplify something going on in my daily life or reveal a desire that I have internalized. Most of the time, though, I don’t have to worry about those kinds of things. My dreaming life mostly leaves my waking life well enough alone.

Last night was an exception to the rule.

I had a nightmare about testing. The weirdest part was that it wasn’t the kind of nightmare that I feel testing presents in a very real sense. It wasn’t about sharpening number 2 pencils or in standardizing the world into easily photocopied and graded booklets. It was about an entirely new approach to testing, which I think presents an even grimmer look into the future if the current trend continues.

The real nightmare of testing isn’t in prescribing a certain brand of English and Math for every student. It is in trying to prescribe everything else too.

In my dream, I was the one being tested and I had little to no idea of what the goals were in mind. I was looking all over the place for a path to the end of the test. Instead, all I could find were a series of tasks that were being monitored and assigned, which had little bearing on whether or not I knew anything.

For example, I was tested on how fast I could text. I was given a cell phone that was connected to an oversized monitor and I was asked to text a message quickly. I wasn’t given a person to text to or a purpose for doing the text. I was just being asked to text. All of my errors were being shown up on the screen for everyone to see and I didn’t know if I was really doing right by the test or myself.

This is what we do with our testing now.

We remove all semblance of purpose and audience from the act of writing or reading or doing any kind of problem solving. And in this case, it was being applied to a task that is obviously forthcoming in the curriculum. Many students all over the country are now being given their tests on computers, and what is to stop us from taking their temperature on their method of input? What is to stop us from asking them to do a simple typing or texting test?

In my dream, we were asked to perform video game like sequences in order to reach predetermined goals. We didn’t know whether we were doing it right (as in real video game dynamics where you have constant feedback), but we had to perform anyway. The isolation within the gaming environment was intense, just as all testing experiences I have had to date have been isolationist exercises.

This is where we are headed. We will make each task of our modern upbringing into inauthentic shells of their current selves. And we won’t stop there. Even as we are testing students in new ways that have the appearance of real life, we will push the boundaries of inauthentic tasks in the business world as well. I can see the effects of such actions even now:

We ask for one another to “blog” in internal systems (mostly in corporate settings) without the ability to comment, syndicate, or permalink. We create entire systems of accountability that offer nothing but check boxes and filling out forms with hollow goals and meetings that would be generously be described as formalities. We send e-mails just to send e-mails, cc’ing everyone that could even casually be interested. We ensnare one another in the busywork that are our little ways of testing one another to make sure that we are still buying into the same illusion of authentic relationships.

So, in that way, the culture of testing does match up with our real life counterparts. The only problem is that I want better for all of us. I want better for our kids in their stuffy testing rooms and I want better for our adults in their cramped cubicles. It isn’t enough just to change the ways in which we test. It isn’t enough to add gaming or texting as another way for each of us to feel better about how much summative information we get from those whose entire existence up until this point is formative.  It isn’t enough to change the ways in which we do business to have the illusion of transparency and collaboration. We can’t just introduce social media or networks into our businesses and say that we have done right by consumers and employees.

None of us want to life inauthentic lives, and yet that is the direction we are headed.

When testing becomes a part of the every day data of learning, we will be doing right by our children

When community is a part of every transaction in business, we will be doing right by our corporate interests.

Nothing less is worth our time.

Question 200 of 365: Are we on a roll, taking roll, role models, rolling the dice or just rolls of toilet paper?

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We worry about being fathers. We worry about being sons. About being employees and entrepreneurs. We worry about the things that we are and what we will never be. But I don’t care abut the roles we are prescribed or the ones that we take on over time.

Perhaps it is more important to be on a roll. It so happens that I am on one so that makes sense that I would hold it in higher esteem. In 200 days, I have asked questions and sought guidance. I have commented and collected. Not being done is the best part about being on a roll, too.

Taking roll was never my favorite part of teaching, but I do find it convenient now to see exactly when all of the people I have become are present. Every once in a while, I just look around the room to see if I am still here. As it turns out, I am.

And the role models: The ones I actually look up to are the ones that surprise me. I want those that do not fit into any role at all, other than that of interesting and passionate. For in those two things, I find that we are all fodder for progress.

I’m betting on consistency winning everyone over. I’m putting my future on the line because I promised myself that nothing would be too sacred to not let it ride one more time. This roll of the dice is special, even beautiful.

It is okay that people wipe themselves with what I care about. So long as they find it useful, I have done much of my work well. Now, only if I could get people to see just how clean these ideas will get you.

I am most a roll of toilet paper because everything else is too removed from the truth. If we do nothing else except for wipe away the worst excrement, then we will have fulfilled our role perfectly. The other rolls and roles don’t matter.

Question 106 of 365: How can we find unique comfort?

I sometimes have a hard time relating to those who have never played bumper pool.

While most people don’t come right out and say it, there is a look in their eye that questions the very notion of another type of pool game. In this look they are giving themselves away. They are declaring, bright as a Colorado morning in the mountains, that a cue ball is required for them to take their shots. And that is okay. I respect those who have never experienced the joy of putting in all five balls into their opponents pocket, one after the other. I get that not everyone has shot through the forest of bumpers in the middle or banked perfectly to block a shot. I believe that there is something to be said for only having played a single type of pool. However, I have a hard time relating to those folks.

Bumper pool is the kind of game that is only played at camps, over at odd friends’ houses (exclusively in half-finished or unfinished basements), or in the back corners of bars without the funds to buy a proper pool table. It is a tool of last resort or of idiosyncrasy. On the other hand, regular pool tables can be found anywhere. They are the subject of entire businesses (both the pool hall and the pool table store). They are a reason to go out or to stay in. Traditional pool is a game of finesse. You can look cool playing it, whereas it is impossible to look truly cool at a bumper pool table. Even as much as I would like to claim that my streak of 14 consecutive wins at summer camp made me cool, I know that it made me untouchable in a different way.

But it is those things that make it so hard to relate to those without a strong bumper pool background. When they have never seen a ball spin around in the pocket, they may never be able to fully express their point of view to me. For it is that combination of the unique and ridiculous, the familiar and foreign, that propels me to be able to say anything and know that it is okay. It is the ability to be one degree off of normal and feel comfortable in being there that has let me feel satisfied with my geekdom. I know that there is nothing someone can criticize about the way I create or play or work because I have played bumper pool. I know that looking silly and standing out is most of the fun. I know that seeking out the one table that everyone else avoids is going to be more fulfilling. And the people that follow me there, will experience the same kind of enjoyment from the knowledge that we didn’t want to share the same kind of experience as everyone else. We wanted to play a different kind of game. And that is where our unique comfort comes from.

It is in finding a set of rules that make more sense and a series of obstacles that resonate. It is about working to narrow down the number of possible angles until there is only one answer and then pushing forward with that. The comfort is in not settling for playing the way that others do or even in accepting the competitive space that others have accepted. When I speak to those who have never held this unique comfort within themselves or who have not tried on a similarly awkward activity, it is as if the speech ricochets off of them. As if my words were hitting a cue ball and then finding their mark on the proper target, trying to guide it into the right spot. But for those who know this comfort, my words are hitting the target straight on. We have connected and transfered our energy toward the same goal of finding a solution. And given the option, I would much rather speak directly with someone who knows this comfort than shoot in the general direction of someone who does not.

The Ripe Environment: Connecting more than two dots.

There is a severe lack of time in the air. It pervaides every conversation I hear on many days:

“No, I don’t have time for that collaboration right now. Maybe after this quarter is over.”
“Are you sure that it has to be due tomorrow. I really think that having the weekend when I don’t have games or practices or school would make more sense.”
“I don’t even have time to think.”

Hyperbole aside, this lacking is palpable. I think it is one of the only times that a lack of something can be more heavily felt and deeply understood than the presence of it. Many people, though, have just gotten used to having no time to connect the disparate parts of their working or waking lives. It has become the film upon our skin that always coats our interactions but can’t be rubbed or cleaned off.

I am not one of those people, however. I believe that connecting the dots and creating time for that process is possible. I believe that it is all about creating a Workflow of Passion (requires a better name, but that’s all I’ve got).

When I say passion, I do not mean that you must be equally in love with every assignment or task that you come across. Instead, I mean that there is something meaningful within each thing that you do. There is some meat there, no matter how hidden it may be in the luke-warm soup of “other stuff.” The only way to craft the time to connect that meat to something else equally meaty is to plunge your spoon in and not be satisfied with the carrot or water chestnut you come up with the first time. (I would like to apologize to both the literary crowd who sees the metaphor being stretched thin and the vegetarian crowd who beleives that no one should be looking for meat within a vegetarian soup.)

So, what does this spoon plunging action look like. Well, I have recently taken to a maxim for resolving the issue of time suckage and distraction in the classroom and out.

“Use the tool that has everything you want, and nothing you don’t.”

Although the different image settings in Photo Booth are cool, the distraction factor is so high that it is nearly impossible to use it as an instructional tool (for kids or adults).

Wikipedia provides a cornocopia of educational resources, but blind searches are still stabs in the soup that lead to less than appetizing results.

The Ripe Environment is anywhere that makes information clickable, that sets the path of least resistance to learning as the norm. The Ripe Environment is a place that doesn’t waste time on stuff that doesn’t matter. It is a place that the workflow always works for the user, according to their needs and passions.

Working with Online Elementary Teachers

Today I am working with elementary teachers who are writing courses for an online school. Whatever your stance on virtual schools, the most resistance is in the elementary sector (a totally subjective statement, by the way). Many of these teachers (who haven’t even started writing their curriculum) have had push-back from colleagues on the issue of kids’ social and developmental needs. But, when I asked the teachers at the beginning of the session why they wanted to be a part of this project, these are the reasons they gave:

• 
• Why should we limit the opportunities? There is no way for all students to benefit if we have a one-size-fits-all model.
• 
• There is something to be said for working with kids who may fall off if we aren’t there. The kids are already on the bleeding edge. We need to meet them there.
• 
• Students are not engaged by redundancy. They are engaged by novelty and by authenticity.
• 
• Survival isn’t for only the fittest, most savvy, or greatest players of the “education game.” It is for all.
• 
• If we aren’t worried about including the curriculum, the students, the pedagogy, the technology, or the authenticity that matters, what are we worried about?

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The Would-Be School 2.0 Advocates

The podcast episode is based upon the idea that teachers will listen to someone who has a lot of experience teaching without technology and then stumbled upon the effectiveness and authenticity of technology and became an advocate for change. They will not listen to someone who grew up with technology, and for who it naturally comes to. They need “one of their own kind” to bring them on board with the School 2.0 movement.

I also decide that we need a School 2.0 plank in the 2008 presidential election. No matter who wins, I want our commander and chief constantly thinking about how technology can influence learning in public schools across the nation.

Show Notes:

• 00:00:00: Introdcution to Anticipation
  The Academy of Discovery

• 00:01:02: Someone that looks like you.
• 00:02:05: West Wing Example
  West Wing Presidential Race

• 00:05:06: Classroom 2.0
  Steve Hargadon’s Classroom 2.0

• 00:05:43: The Would-Be Advocates
• 00:07:04: Kevin Honeycutt’s Ideas
  Kevin Honeycutt’s Webpage

• 00:10:15: Everyone is Doing School 2.0
• 00:12:56: Teacher Grazing
• 00:15:16: Education in ’08

  Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

• 00:18:39: Conclusion to Podcast
  Podcast Blog