Beyond School

It’s almost 3 a.m., I just watched the excellent Wimbledon men’s championship match (on Star Sports Asia, with Chinese/Mandarin commentary, which is weird since I’m in Korea, but nice because it reminds me of my favorite people and five years in Shanghai), and I’m zonked. But also caffeinated. Lots of thoughts swirling. Let’s see if I can get them out.

Scott Schwister, in response to my cry to end our infantilization of adolescents by welcoming them into the edublogosphere, saw my bid and raised me one. He’s on to something. Here’s a clip from his post, which is, as per usual with Scott, worth a full read on his blog:

I’m tempted to tinker with the mechanics of Clay’s assertion that the blogosphere is the playing field we should aim to level. I’m not convinced that blogging, narrowly defined, is where kids want to spend their time. For reflective, discursive writing, yes. But privileging the relative formality of blogging to the exclusion of more immediate, micro-expressions like Twitter seems like falling into the adulthood trap all over again—legitimizing what we’re most comfortable with. Broadening the definition feels closer to the mark. But, overall, Clay’s thesis—that we’re needlessly infantilizing our youth, to our detriment —carries considerable weight.

I’m not sure where I stand on this one. First, I don’t see blogging as formal - probably because I inflict formal, school-y essay assignments on students out of obligation (despite my inner voice that says this is the most inauthentic form of writing imaginable, and of value only to academics read only by a handful of other academics). Blogging, to me, is primarily a very informal place to explore ideas and extend thinking. And while I know that others insist on the “connectivity” of blogging as its essential value, for me this isn’t the case. I blog because I want to develop my own ideas - and don’t get me wrong, they’re definitely influenced by what I read - and I like the possibilities that blogging offers of finding kindred readers to create relationships and new educational experiences. All of my best ideas for the past year came in the process of writing “teacher think-alouds” on my blog. Like somebody said, “I don’t know what I think until I’ve written it.”

Another reason I don’t know what I think about Scott’s thinking is that I haven’t taken the Twitter plunge. I just followed some links on my Aussie Flat World Tales colleague Cindy Barnsley’s (very nice) new blog, Thinking 2.0, to a discussion between Darren Kuropatwa and somebody else about using Twitter in the classroom, and that made me want to look into it. But until then, seeing Twitter chatter on other people’s blogs has done nothing to entice me. I don’t deal well with distraction, can’t even tolerate music when I’m reading or writing. So to see a constant tickertape of chat would drive me bonkers. And as a writing / critical thinking teacher, I mistrust the sound-bitten fragmentation that seems to be at the heart of the Twit genre (or is it Tweet? Jargon, jargon.).

So this is why blogging is preferable to me: informal, authentic, extended thinking. Real writing, and to blazes with the school-y essay form, the grammar police, and all of that.

But there’s no reason to exclude one when encouraging both is possible, anyway.

But Scott hits his stride and leaves me in the dust in the close of that post. He writes,

Central to all of this is the idea that educators have much to learn from students, and that we start by listening to what students have to say. Accept this premise, and then comes the straightforward task of creating spaces for speaking, listening, and dialogue; and after that the infinitely more complex task of figuring out what to do with what we’ve learned.

So, what examples and models are out there for elevating student voices? For inviting them into our own ongoing conversations and reinforcing their engagement? Some simple ones come to mind right away:

• Profiling and plugging “new voices”—if it’s good for adults, it’s probably good for kids, too.
• Comment genuinely and profusely on a student blog near you. Heck, even add it to your reader.
• Add to the Individual Student Bloggers category on Support Blogging. While you’re there, check out the Classroom Blogs section.
• Initiate 1:1 mentoring relationships between adult and student edubloggers. Or even a looser group mentoring relationship between networks of students and adults. Again, Clay already put a version of this idea out there back in May: “What would happen if we educators encouraged volunteer students to create a niche of learner edubloggers?” What would happen? What about inviting those articulate, gifted learner edubloggers to contribute to a group blog along the lines of Scott McLeod’s LeaderTalk? LearnerTalk. . . a panel of must-hear student voices that would be a mandatory touchstone for any conversation in the edublogosphere. Any takers? I’ll host, but could use some pointers from Scott.
• Let’s get higher ed and professional development practice into the picture. How about a “Student Perspective” Ning group where professional developers and teacher ed folks and their educator-students can meet up with groups of students for frank dialogue about specific issues of theory and practice. And if the educator-students are the bridge, the common connector, shining their own students’ perspective on their own professional growth, how authentic and transparent is that? What better way to model lifelong learning, learning in community, and professional responsibility?
• Sometimes the best ideas are found closest to home. Encourage and participate in forums like Students Speak Out, a Ning-powered project by Minnesota’s Citizens League that brings together youth and adult voices to address education-related issues—on a level playing field.
• Your ideas?

Dana Huff of huffenglish seems sympathetic to these ideas, judging from her comment on my earlier post against continuing the infantilization of young adults in our schools. Here’s her take on why including students in our discussions of their education is a challenge to teachers:

It can be complicated if parents are squeamish about seeing their child reveal anything about themselves online. A lot of parents are unrealistically scared about online predators. I tried having my students blog about Huck Finn last year, and it was great except for one parent who misinterpreted something I said in a comment, flew off the handle, and prevented her child from further participation. What do you do with a case like that? I see great possibilities for student voices being part of the discussion, but I also see we have some battles to fight.

Battles to fight, indeed. And until we start the fight, we’ll make no headway. So why not this year? For every par(anoid)ent who refuses to let his/her child blog, there will be others who see the value in it. So what’s to stop us - genuine question - from simply having them sign a form consenting to their child becoming, in Scott’s phrase, a “learnerblogger,” and letting these students serve as examples to the holdouts of the value of this experience? As I replied to Dana, every parent whose permission I have asked to feature his or her child’s work on my blog, and even to link to their child’s blog to promote world readership, has responded not only favorably, but enthusiastically. Invariably they remark that they’ve noticed a new attitude toward writing in their children, and they’re delighted to discover that their children write well enough to attract readers from across the Clustrmap. So, short version: let the star student-writers with forward-thinking parents be the first members of the types of LearnerVoices Scott Schwister is envisioning. And make it pay off, for both the students and the edublogosphere, by inviting those young writers into the dialogue and not only commenting on their blogs, but asking them to comment on ours. That’s a reality check worth inviting.

It’s nice to see Scott going beyond talk and actually volunteering to take a lead on this. It would be nice to see others support him in this attempt. And maybe, since the sticking point seems to be primarily an American issue, the place to look for these learnerbloggers is outside of the US - Canada, Australia, New Zealand, England, India, S. Africa, international schools? As in many other things, it seems the rest of the world needs to teach America a lesson?

Because we need to get beyond this stage of adult-centered edutalk. It’s time to bring in the silent - and silenced - majority: our students.

If you like this post, please spread it:

1. “Uninspired” Tom’s Laugh-Out-Loud End-of-School Year Post
2. Our Student Bloggers Ready to Connect: An Invitation
3. From “LeaderTalk” to “LearnerTalk”: Global Student Edublog Coming Soon, Seeks Your Input

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