The Hoggatteer Experience - THE HOGGATTEER REVOLUTION

Rigor is not a 4-Letter Word

11/15/2018

I had the privilege of listening to John Antonetti, last Friday morning. His keynote speech was titled Rigor is not a 4-Letter Word. I didn't know much about Antonetti, but I was pleasantly surprised with his approach to education.

For a few years now, the words rigor and engagement have been tossed around as a best practice in teaching, but Mr. Antonetti put some sense to the words. Finally, someone put the two words together to give them meaning (Or mayhaps this has always been the case and I missed it.).

Engagement is when the work has meaning.

That has not always been the way engagement has been presented. Further, he added:

That affirms some of the approaches I have developed and discovered on my own in the past few years. For me, this approach began with Three-Act Math, the developers of which emphasized two questions: What do you notice? and What do you wonder? I soon found myself applying these two questions in every subject. Whether I was teaching reading comprehension, American history, or strength of character, those questions allow students to approach a problem, a situation, or an image, and bring their own meaning to each before I "teach" them something true. That, says Antonetti, it is cognitive rigor when students enter a task. I have to say, I felt pretty good about my own conclusions when I heard him explain.

He said:

Cognitive engagement (rigor) is when the learners make meaning.

Rigor is not hard; it is new.
Rigor is not more; it is me.
Rigor is not long; it is learning.

A lot of the things I try to do with my students involve the idea that, not only do I not provide the answers, but sometimes I don't provide the problems or the questions either. It's agonizing to students at first, but after a while they learn to stick their necks out, be right, be wrong, and enter the conversation. Once they step up to the starting line, they can better run the race.

Thank You, Veterans

11/14/2018

Another Veterans Day Salute in behind us. This is the third year the program has been in fourth grade hands (and voices), as we continue to make the effort to make the holiday mean something more - something personal - to our students and to the veterans who attend. Our continued effort has been to choose songs and narration that send a message of empathy and appreciation to the men and women who serve in the United States military. For three years, we have seen grown men cry and smile at our programs. We've also heard several comment about how our program is the best they have seen.

I love my country, and I am patriotic, but the Veterans Day program is about more than listening to patriotic songs about purple mountains majesty. Those songs could be presented at several times of the year. We have always made it a point to find songs that speak directly to veterans. We want them to know that our fourth graders understand their sacrifice of time and sweat to serve their nation. Yes, we wave flags, but our message to them is one of resilience and strength.

Thank you to all who attended either of yesterday's two performances. It was a joy and honor to prepare, practice, and present this message.

Feedback on Thursday's Sessions

11/13/2018

They say you shouldn't read the reviews, but I should consider the little evaluations participants fill out after a session of professional development if I want to understand and improve. They (whoever they are) also say you can't please 'em all, and boy, ain't that the truth!

The two sessions I directed on Thursday (See the Convention and Workshops post for descriptions and copies of the handouts.) appeared to be well-received, and I certainly thought I looked and sounded like I knew what I was talking about. All of my technology agreed with me, and the wifi connection cooperated. People were smiling and laughing, taking notes and asking questions, and they sure found me in the halls and in the general session the next day to say good morning or to tell how much they appreciated my presentation.

But those little evaluations can be quite different. You see, they don't have to put their names on the paper, and they can score you on a scale from poor to excellent, and they can describe how useful your presentation will be to them, and they can rate you from 1 to 10 (Technically the rating is for the overall quality of all the workshops MSTA provides during the convention, but those scores must reflect on the current workshop being evaluated.). Here is the place they are more likely to tell you what they really think.

Participants ranked the session on four categories: presenter knowledge, presentation skills, alignment to the session description, and usefulness. The results follow:

Stop Not Reinventing the Wheel

With 27 evaluations returned:

Poor

Fair

Average

Good

Excellent

Most of the comments were positive and indicated that participants were eager to take the ideas I presented back to their own classrooms. They seemed to recognize the value in the materials and were quite appreciative of the different approach. The overall average rating for this session was 9.2.

Give and Take

With 32 evaluations returned:

Poor

Fair

Average

Good

Excellent

A smaller, more intimate, group for this session would have been preferable, but we worked with what we had. A couple of the evaluations indicated that they had not correctly understood what the session was about, so they were marked lower for that reason. The overall rating for this session was 9.3.

I'm pleased with these results, and I think organizers will be, as well. The sessions were energetic, engaging, and useful. Not only that, but many of my ideas and compilations will be used in classrooms across the state; I don't doubt that some will be put into place on Monday.

Benjamin Franklin Meets Modern Technology

11/12/2018

When Benjamin Franklin made the electricity connection with lightning in the 1750s, he probably had no real vision about where his discovery would take us. Time travel to 2018, and we're using a form of direct current to recharge our little Ozobot robots, and students in our classroom are using the Ozobots to follow their timelines of important events Benjamin Franklin's life. This was a quick introduction to the Ozobots, followed by some troubleshooting. The next time we use the robots, we will make more elaborate routes for them to follow.

Another Rewarding Day North of the Missouri River

11/11/2018

Friday brought some hours of "early bird" professional development. Waking up with snow in the trees is always a surreal feeling the first time it happens in a season. Once ready, I went down the elevator to catch the two workshops I planned to see. I picked up some interesting resources that will take some time to review before I can implement them. At the scheduled time, all participants gathered for the keynote speaker - John Antonetti. I was not familiar with Mr. Antonetti, and I didn't know what to expect. With a title like Rigor is not a 4-Letter Word, you never know what you'll get, but I was captivated by this man's voice and parables. Mixing humor with research, Antonetti's speech was rich a sensical and practical message. I can certainly bring what I learned from this man back to our school and my classroom. His hour of speaking made my two-day trip to Columbia, Missouri, worthwhile.

Governor Mike Parson

The Dunmore Proclamation

11/10/2018

Primary Source

Secondary Source

It is ironic that Lord Dunmore offered freedom to any slaves that agreed to fight on the British side, while at the same time, the Colonists were claiming that they were being denied their freedoms.

Not only this, but notice that Lord Dunmore only offered such freedom to the slaves of his enemies! His own slaves and the slaves of Loyalists were not to be offered their own freedom.

A War About Slavery? Hmm.

While our current study is in the 18th century, follow the timeline through the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries.

Why do you suppose the above timeline is three different colors?
What is the difference between the centuries?
What happened in 1865?
What happened in 1954?

You have to see where this is going. People of color were being used for more than slaves during the Revolution: they were also being used as political pawns.

Yesterday's Adventurous Trek to Columbia, Missouri

11/9/2018

The four-hour drive was enjoyable enough.

Crossing over the Lake of the Ozarks and the Missouri River, noticing the scaffolding on the state capitol dome, and finally arriving in Columbia for the annual convention of the Missouri State Teachers Association, I had the chance to listen to Governor Mike Parson speak before presenting two unique hours of professional development to teachers from across the state and then trekking through the snow (yes, snow!) to get some supper.

Tomorrow is another day.

MSTA Convention and Workshops

11/8/2018

I have long been a member of the Missouri State Teachers Association (MSTA) and have served in various officer roles for the local Joplin Teachers Association, holding the office of president on two occasions. MSTA is our state alternative to NEA. It is the oldest teaching association in the United States and is the largest teaching association in Missouri.
This week is the MSTA convention in Columbia, Missouri. I have attended many times in the past, but this is the first in which I will not serve as a voting representative of Joplin teachers. I will still represent Joplin, however, as I focus strictly on the professional development portion of the convention. This will be the second year I have presented professional development workshops to teachers from across the state who are interested in gleaning something - anything - practical to use when they return to their own classes.

Last year, I developed a workshop appropriately titled, Stop Not Reinventing the Wheel, in which I share methods of using media to stimulate and enhance student engagement. I presented the same material to our own teachers in Joplin, this summer. The workshop was quite well-received in both locations, so I proposed to bring it back to the state convention, for 2018.

I will also present Give and Take, a workshop I first delivered at the Summer Institute in Joplin, last summer. In this presentation, I introduce teachers to some improv/theater games that emphasize the importance of focus and respect for students.

Both workshops are described in convention materials as such:

Stop Not Reinventing the Wheel

Last year’s presentation is back. It may not be a music, art, or performance class….but if music soothes the savage beast, and if a picture is worth a thousand words, why aren’t you using visual images, moving pictures, and music to teach? From Air Supply to ZZ Top, from Beethoven to Coldplay, we’re using music in different ways — for ambience, focus, reading, writing, and celebration. From sketches to Youtube videos, we’re using art to teach comprehension, enhance reading fluency, to inspire writing. From beginning to end, this session from a 29-year veteran classroom teacher is chockablock with ideas to add color and rhythm to your classroom.

Stop Not Reinventing the Wheel Handout
File Size:	2182 kb
File Type:	docx

Give and Take

Do you need your students to show more respect and consideration to each other? Are you looking for ways to get more eye contact/tracking from your students? Is it possible to explicitly teach manners and core behaviors in ways your students will understand and love? Beginning with simple improv/theater games, this session from a 29-year master teacher will give you practical ways to develop your classes into taking and giving attention with their peers in turn. They’ll soon yield the floor and build on the comments of their peers naturally. Apply these techniques, and you’ll soon discover new ways to achieve a culture of positive relationships in your classroom.

Give and Take Handout
File Size:	2756 kb
File Type:	docx

These will be presented back-to-back, this afternoon.

Additionally, I will attend some workshops on my own, early tomorrow morning (if I can drag my keister our bed that early). I am interested in seeing how Eric Langhorst, a teacher in Liberty, Missouri, uses 3D printers and other technology in his history classroom, and I may check out another presentation about technology tools. Dr. Langhorst is the person who first alerted me to the opportunities available at Mount Vernon.

The keynote speaker at 10:30 will wrap up the convention for me. John Antonetti will present Rigor Is Not a Four-Letter Word in the general session, described as follows:

John Antonetti

As he works with schools around the country, John Antonetti is often asked to help teachers plan rigorous instruction. Sadly, we often confuse rigor with difficult, tedious, lengthy or hard. Webster’s Dictionary actually defines rigor as “a condition that makes life difficult, challenging or uncomfortable.” What student would want that? John will help us discover that rigor is not a single entity, but rather a product of three important design facets: personalized thinking...captured by each unique learner...in tasks of engagement. In other words, my thought that comes from the waymy brain works to make sense of this problem. (Shhh! Don’t tell anybody it’s rigor---just thinking, logic and laughter.)

I'm hoping to skim some cream off the top of Antonetti's presentation to enhance my own learning and teaching styles back home.

Book: Nine, Ten: A September 11 Story

11/7/2018

It is an interesting idea: to write a story about the events of the terror attacks on September 11, 2001, from different locations in the United States and from four very different children in four different different personal situations. Sergio is a delinquent of sorts in New York. Aimee is new to California, but her mother is wrapping up business at the World Trade Center in New York City. Naheed is from a Muslim family in Columbus, Ohio. And Will has girl troubles in Pennsylvania.

From the author's website:

Ask anyone: September 11, 2001, was serene and lovely, a perfect day—until a plane struck the World Trade Center.

But right now it is a few days earlier, and four kids in different parts of the country are going about their lives. Sergio, who lives in Brooklyn, is struggling to come to terms with the absentee father he hates and the grandmother he loves. Will’s father is gone, too, killed in a car accident that has left the family reeling. Naheed has never before felt uncomfortable about being Muslim, but at her new school she’s getting funny looks because of the head scarf she wears. Aimee is starting a new school in a new city and missing her mom, who has to fly to New York on business.

These four don’t know one another, but their lives are about to intersect in ways they never could have imagined. Award-winning author Nora Raleigh Baskin weaves together their stories into an unforgettable novel about that seemingly perfect September day—the day our world changed forever.

I really tried to enjoy this book, but it became a bit forced in its delivery. By the time the planes inevitably struck the Twin Towers, I was ready for more emotion, while the characters just seemed to be wrapped up with their own problems. Even when their paths crossed in the end, I felt like the author was working too hard to make her point about tolerance and acceptance.

Switch It Up

11/6/2018

When Mrs. Friend taught the class about opening and closing a circuit (i.e., flipping a switch to the on and off positions), she did so with a little craftiness. Students used some brads, a paperclip, a couple of washers, fahnstock clips, an index card, and tape to create their own switches.

Ripple

11/5/2018

Have you ever thrown a rock into the water and watched the growing circle of ripples that result on the water's surface? This video makes a poignant observation about those ripples. The man in the queue (line) has something to say about kindness and reaching out to others.

Take six minutes to watch this video:

Now for some questions:

What lesson do the children in this video learn from the man in the queue?
How can you recognize when someone needs legitimate help?
Did any of the people in this video ask for help? Why not?
What did the grandma choose to leave the cake and not other items from her shopping?
The cake was not a need, but a want. What is the difference?
How does a simple act of caring create a ripple? How does that ripple come back to you?

Professional Pet Peeve: Stop Building Walls

11/4/2018

When two students aren't getting along, a parent or a teacher often follows instinct. After all, when two chemicals are known to be volatile when combines, we're supposed to store them in separate locations.

Call it logical.

That's all we're doing when we tell Johnnie and Lisa to play on opposite ends of the playground.

Call it avoidance of the real issue.

It's the same thing we do when the bell dings at the end of a boxing round. The athletes are instructed to go to their separate corners.

Call it law and order.

Call it what you want, but it still doesn't teach those children (We're really not talking about chemicals or boxers here.) solve their issues or reach any conclusions.

Yet we keep up the mantra: Today, I will resolve conflicts. Over and over, we say it. We say to a kid, "You need to figure out how to get along!" Yet, we leave out the coaching part of that statement. Is a child really expected to figure out how to get along, or could it be in the parent/teacher job descriptions to teach the skills and/or steps to getting along.

When a child has difficulty with math or reading, a teacher may differentiate instruction to address the deficiency. When a kid is failing to understand an athletic strategy, the coach may pull him aside for some one-on-one conversation. But when the same child has trouble with behavior, our response might be to send her to the hallway, separate him from the issue, get him out of the setting that gives him troubles. We change the seating chart to avoid two feuding syndicates from clashing on neutral ground.

Yet the problem is still there during unstructured times.

And we wonder why they can't just grow up or figure it out.

I like to stick those kids right next to each other. Yes, there is value in having a child figure some things out for themselves, but we do so in a structured setting. We get things out into the open. We charge students with the task of doing something together, talking together, and yes, getting along. No one wants to feel angry, and sitting two people together with alternating points of view might just spark the conversation that needs to take place.

We hear about positive relationship building, but how can that ever be achieved when we tell one guy to go left and another to go right. Don't talk to each other. Don't play with each other, we tell them, and we never tell them that we know they can fix their relationship on their own with some thought and practice. It is high time we, as educators, face the traffic head on and stop retreating. How ever one feels about immigration and building a wall on the Mexican border, we must not continue to build walls in our schools by separating kids just because they experience a spat with another.

Liberty Enlightening the World

11/3/2018

Let's take a break from the Revolution to recognize more of France's relationship with the United States. France was our first ally, sending support to defeat the British army and win freedom of the American people. Through the years, the relationship has been strained, but remains firm still today.

In the late 1800s, the statue was finally constructed in New York Harbor. A gift from France, she was called Liberty Enlightening the World, and she commemorates freedom from oppression and tyranny. Learn more below.

The New Collosus

Emma Lazarus wrote the poem below, in 1883, to raise money for the construction of a pedestal for the Statue of Liberty. Twenty years later, the poem was cast onto a bronze plaque and mounted inside the pedestal's lower level.

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, with conquering limbs astride from land to land; Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand a mighty woman with a torch, whose flame is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command the air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame, "Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she with silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore, Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Statue Stats

Plus Size

For those of us who have never seen the Statue of Liberty in person, let's do some measurement on the playground to get some sense of how big she really is. How shall we go about measuring these?

Height of statue 151 ft 1 in
Foundation of pedestal (ground level) to tip of torch
305 ft 1 in
Heel to top of head 111 ft 1 in
Height of hand 16 ft 5 in
Index finger 8 ft 1 in
Circumference at second joint
3 ft 6 in
Chin to cranium 17 ft 3 in
Head thickness from ear to
ear 10 ft
Distance across the eye 2 ft 6
in
Length of nose 4 ft 6 in
Right arm length 42 ft
Right arm greatest thickness
12 ft

Thickness of waist 35 ft
Width of mouth 3 ft
Tablet, length 23 ft 7 in
Tablet, width 13 ft 7 in
Tablet, thickness 2 ft
Height of pedestal 89 ft
Height of foundation 65 ft
Weight of copper in statue
60,000 pounds
Weight of steel in statue
250,000 pounds
Total weight of statue 450,000
pounds
Thickness of copper sheeting
3/32 of an inch

Art Appreciation

Analyze the painting shown below. Check out the details.

What do you notice?
What do you think is happening?
What caused the scene in the painting?
What might happen after the scene shown?
What does this piece make you wonder?

Three Frenchmen

These three frenchmen helped get the statue from concept in France to reality in New York Harbor (taken from Wikipedia).

Édouard René Lefèbvre de Laboulaye was a French jurist, poet, author and anti-slavery activist. In 1865 he originated the idea of a monument presented by the French people to the United States that resulted in the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor. He got the idea thinking that this would help strengthen their relationship with the United States.

Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi was a French sculptor who is best known for designing Liberty Enlightening the World, commonly known as the Statue of Liberty.

Alexandre Gustave Eiffel was a French civil engineer. A graduate of École Centrale Paris, he made his name building various bridges for the French railway network, most famously the Garabit viaduct. He is best known for the world-famous Eiffel Tower, built for the 1889 Universal Exposition in Paris, and his contribution to building the Statue of Liberty in New York. After his retirement from engineering, Eiffel focused on research into meteorology and aerodynamics, making significant contributions in both fields.

While We're On the Subject

Learn more about the Statue of Liberty and the Eiffel Tower:

How Tall Is the Eiffel Tower?
Why Is the Statue of Liberty Green?

Filaments

11/2/2018

Our young scientists were recently introduced to the light bulb's filament. In this lesson, groups used a very thin wire as a filament, and when battery power was introduced, their wire burned with heat and orange light.

Halloween

11/1/2018

Wednesday's party is in the books. Somehow, the weather turned colder during the day as we were watching a movie for our Positive Behavior Celebration, so when it came time to join the long parade of costumes, some of us had goose bumps on our goose bumps.

Back inside, students played a couple of games, ate pizza, cupcakes, and more, before dismissing for the day and whatever festivities waited for them after school.

Hoggatteers were well behaved, and for that we are truly thankful.

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