Mumbleypeg

Got about to some "mumbling of the peg" yesterday and today with some friends and fellow Social Studies teachers at our Pacific Slope Consortium retreat at Purden Lake.

Mumbling the peg, you say? It's a variation on an old game where some folks stand around and flip a pocketknife into a stump using a variety of techniques: off the elbow, off the tip of the thumb, off the top of the head, and so on. Mumbleypeg. In the original game the loser has to pull a peg out the ground with his teeth, but we don't usually get that far. In fact, we didn't even get to the knife-tossing bit this year.

We did however, mumble the peg in the more pedagogic sense. The "socratic circle" version involves revery by the fire combined with no-holds barred conversation on the educational issues that are on our minds. We hold ourselves and ideas open to intense scrutiny, four lakeside inquirists tossing notions up to be deconstructed, laughed at/with, and cheered. Some ideas missed the mark, some landed with grace and perfect balance, others stuck to the mark through fierce rhetoric and chance accuracy. In some ways it was like chucking knives about, but in a softer, "mumbley" way we also were free to trade barbs and challenge each others' thinking because of a large amount of trust and good humour.

Here are sample of the big and small ideas that we set in play and sent to the stump one way or another, midst the feast and fire:

• teacher mediocrity - can we expect system change when we are often our own worst enemies? What can we do to improve our lot? Failing that, what can we do to step around the dysfunction and do some stuff that is not mediocre?
• admin mediocrity - is it even reasonable to expect more from our admin? do we actually want the best teachers to become the best admin, like in the olden days? would teacher self-reliance allow admin to focus on more important roles than the mall-cop ones we've made for them? and maybe require less of them? what can we do to model leadership for our leaders?
• student mediocrity - what are the long term implications of the way our system ignores (and even rewards) poor performance, how can we tastefully let our students know we care and will also hold them to high standards?
• if you want to send the message that it matters, don't brush off the activity, e.g. the critical thinking value of a research essay and work necessary to get students to take it seriously, being persistent about skills and seeing the content as a way to successively develop skills, importance of an ongoing teacher narrative to explain that to students that this is what is actually happening
• pros and cons of PD on twitter - some things we've learned, some repetitive jargon-filled stuff we're tired of learning about, laughed at some apparent dorkiness, wondered whether it justified the time invested, compared our district leaders' use of social media and blogs to what we see in other districts
• technology comedies - looked at recent attempts to coax a dialogue on tech with district decision-makers, agreed that if leaders (of any kind) ignore teacher passion and planning regarding "learning enhanced by technology" they might want to wear bags on their heads when promoting 21st Century Learning and the BC Edplan
• celebrated the timeless possibilities of low-tech teaching - give us 11x17 paper, some pencils, internet connection, a heated & well-lit room and we'll figure out the rest, if anyone wants to actually talk tech or figure out why smartboards are not all they're cracked up to be, they know where to find us in our hobbit holes
• grad requirement changes - digested some of the implications for our craft, and cranked up the settings on our respective crap detectors, debated use of letter grades in Gr 8 and 9, imagined alternatives, speculated on what a two-tiered education system would look like
• deconstructing competencies - what do we actually want our SS students to demonstrate to us? how can we get this without bogus mark-counting and what do we value re skills/processes vs big themes vs content?
• debunk the effort/learning myth - why do educators still engage in the bizarro debate about "no zeros" assuming that learning is some pure measurable product (deserving a %) and that everything else is behaviour (not deserving a %). The most painful suggestion is that learning = content familiarity or work completion. If Marcy and Liam both work on maps, and Marcy never turns in her map, but Liam does and gets a mark, we are essentially rewarding Liam for good work habits, it may not even matter what he learned from the map. 
• from effort/learning split to wholistic assessment - how does this change when we base assessment on performance, on what students can actually demonstrate of what they learned? this is obviously not new, but (remarkably) teachers drift away from this far too often, and allow the "just assess the learning" tagline to push student responsibility and skill-buidling off the assessment radar
• performance based assessment - worked through what a matrix might look like that matched up competencies with focus questions, beyond averaging and assigning percentages, how can we produce an evaluation that students can be real clear about
• ways of communicating student performance to parents - some old tricks (the folder full of exemplars) and new ones like the video clip of students' binders, which teacher shares with parents, or have student take a pic of an impromptu portfolio (e.g. spread out on desk) showing what they're working on and text it to parents
• intervention models and "getting kids through" - are we doing more harm than good, shared some models that appear to be working, compared models and asked whether LIF funds were being squandered
• blended learning and what do we do for the gifted - planted some seeds here, more than that wondered about little ways to build in our own intrinsic rewards because hell will freeze over before we actually get paid to be good at our jobs
• deconstructing decolonization - what we observe in/from our First Nations students, some challenges to the notion that our FN kids come knowledgeable about their own supposed ways of approaching learning (although they come with many other challenges to overcome), and that we already place a high value on the notion that learning is embedded in memory, history, and story; still, we would like to learn more about how our FN kids can dial in
• field trip to Vimy Ridge 2017 - light a bit of a fire here to talk about who and how big

Did I miss any?

Paris of the North

Saw this on the CBC News website story on the big plywood plant fire and subsequent fires in the BCR industrial site in Prince George. The interesting part comes in the comments, where PG's industrial zone is elegantly slandered and someone rebuts... a good case study in heartland/hinterland dynamics!

Punchinello's comment #1 "Yes, Prince George is the Paris of northern BC. This cultural icon, the industrial district is the Champs d'Elysée of the Cariboo with it's famous neo-baroque second empire poured concrete cinder block truck stop. I think it was about to be designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site too. What a loss."

kristahuot's response: "To Punchinello: I see a Vancouverite has seen fit to grace us all with their perspective on Prince George. Congratulations on knowing the main street in Paris, how extremely worldly and cultured of you. It is industrial cities like Prince George who provide BC's economy with most of its revenue, so this fire is actually more devastating than your comment implies. Many of those hardworking people will be out of jobs, and they are already suffering enough due to the pine beetle infestation and the softwood lumber crisis. I grew up in Prince George, and I lived in Vancouver for 5 years. I've also lived in Toronto and Montreal which are both 5 times the city Vancouver will ever be. Call Prince George whatever you like, but Vancouver as a city is nothing but a cultural black hole, with the artistic merit of a condo developer's sales model made out of used syringes. The beauty in that city is its natural surroundings, not the city itself. The poverty and addiction in Vancouver are an absolute disgrace, something that most Vancouverites turn a blind eye to, while they hang out in Yaletown sipping lattes and toting around tiny dogs. Maybe Main and Hastings can be declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site too?"

Finn

Finn, our son,
born 4:55 am, Tuesday, April 17th

weighed 8 lbs 7 oz (3.83 kg)
length 20.7" (52.5 cm)
head circumference 13.8" (35 cm)

Of our daughter Luthien I said she came from one place of wonder to another, slowly, with great pain, and many scientific interventions. With Finn, the story is quicker and more connected with the elements. Following building contractions for days, Kate entered active labour at about 1:00 a.m. on the 17th. After a check-in at the hospital at 3:30 a.m., a rushed ride home brought Kate (with the midwife and the doula) in at 4:30 a.m. to make noise and bear down, waiting for the big black watering trough to fill. Someone cranked the heat and I dimmed the lights (pleasant to some, but I found it rather spectral). At about 4:50 Kate slid into the tub and pushed a few times as the baby and her body led themselves to "outness" and Finn came rushing out. The midwife Ruth (not my mom) caught him in the water and placed him on Kate's breast, where, after some gurgles and squawks, he fed and we all started to breathe deeper.

Finn's eyes dark blue-grey, some dark hair, red skin and white wrinkled hands and feet. Digits long and ears close to his round head. Cry is soft, but his neck is strong. He has slept well, some 4+ hour stretches, and is latching with relish. Peeling now less red, no white, skin and hair becoming fair.

The name Finn comes from Gaelic or Old German meaning fair. In Scandinavian languages, it would refer to Laplander. The story of Finn and Hengest (a version of which has been written by Tolkien) in Beowulf and the FIght at Finnsburg has Finn as a Frisian king. Now there is also Twain's Huck Finn and the Irish hero Finn and the giant Finn who built the cathedral in Lund.

Fin is also a root word in Tolkien's mythology meaning skill in Quenyan. It is found in Finwë, his sons Curufinwë, Fingolfin, and Finarfin, and many others. They were a powerful family of Noldorin elves, and none were more skilled and beautiful than Finwe's eldest son who was named Fëanor by his mother (Sindarin for spirit of fire). Fëanor wrote alphabets, crafted three powerful gems called Silmarils, led a rebellion against the gods, and was exiled with many of the Noldor to Middle Earth, thus setting up much of the history that Tolkien described in his books.

Some of these strands have resonated with us, and may make more sense as our children grow. Perhaps our Luthien has more of the charactersitcs of a Fëanor, and maybe Finn will have more of the grace and calm of a Luthien Tinuviel than his Noldor namesake. The name Finn appeals to us for many of the same reasons that Lu does, something easy shout as you watch your child run towards the edge of ravine or what not, but their longer names speak of our hopes for our children in some ways, which are probably our dreams for ourselves. Like many of Tolkien's characters, there is much grief to balance joy, but hope also comes from strange places. For our fiery and talkative daughter, we bless her with peace and patience, and for our (so far) gentle son, we bless him with bold words and deeds.