At some point this summer, I ran across this Brilliant or Insane piece called “14 Things Teachers Should Never Do on the First Day of School.” Some of what it says is positively counter-intuitive, and as I was pondering it, a teacher at another school tweeted the link and added “yeah, um, definitely doing some of those things on Day 1.” I decided to run the article past the Teaching Collaborative (what is that!?), some of whom had already seen it, to see how they felt.

The consensus of the group is that relationship / rapport building is an important aspect of the first day of class (as it is throughout the year) and that introductions, icebreakers, and some goal-setting are important aspects of getting under way. Many in the Collaborative, though, are not willing to forgo handing out a syllabus or assigning homework; people generally feel that our time with the students is too limited for that. It is fair to say that the group agrees with the tone and tenor of the piece – if not with each of the fourteen items on the list.

In that context, here is a Faculty Focus piece aimed at college professors that, while more content-focused – gets at some of the same themes of tone setting and rapport building.

What will (did) you do on Day One?

Emerging from its summer hiatus, this blog has taken on a new name and a slightly new look. The reason for that is not hard to fathom. The blog is named for my office/classroom, which also serves as a resource area / teaching & learning workshop for the faculty, and during the summer it has moved from Eagle 32 to The Clark Room.

The Clark Room, of course, is named for Sid Clark, beloved teacher of English for so many Men of Avon.

Sid Clark

During the Pierpont and Trautman eras, Sid was a colossus of the faculty; his senior lectures were the highlight of his students’ week. It is entirely appropriate that a space devoted to excellence in teaching be associated with – and take inspiration from – Sid Clark.

Personally, I know I will find Sid’s legacy both inspiring and imposing. To paraphrase Lloyd Bentsen, I worked with Sid Clark. I knew Sid Clark. Sid Clark was a friend of mine, and I know only too well that I am no Sid Clark.  That is why, colleagues, I need you to come to The Clark Room and help make it a place where vibrant, vital conversation about teaching and learning is the order of the day. When we spent some of our recent professional development time discussing what works in class, Michael Thompson asked us if there was a regular place or time for that sort of conversation at school. The answer is yes; the place is now The Clark Room, and the time is as much as possible.

Let this serve as a standing invitation to come to The Clark Room to discuss teaching and learning generally, your classes specifically, or anything else related to our work at school. There will usually be coffee and tea available for those who bring their own (coffee) mug. Beyond just dropping by for the occasional witty banter about teaching and learning, watch for programs in the Come to The Clark Room series – a series of voluntary small group conversations and workshops about various aspects of teaching and learning. You can help create the program by taking this short survey, which asks about things you might be interested in discussing and also for your thoughts on the curriculum.

Thanks for your help. I look forward to seeing you in The Clark Room.

During Spring Break, Ken shared with all of us an article about the stresses faced by our students and the impact that stress can have on them. Shortly after the break, Youngjun Song asked if I would be faculty advisor to an AOF chapter of Active Minds, a student organization that was formed “to combat the stigma of mental illness and encourage students who needed help to seek it early.” (more here) This is generally an organization of college students (there are over 400 campus chapters), but Youngjun is convinced it would serve a purpose here.

It is in this context that I propose we establish at least one device-free zone for the campus. I would submit it should be either the Refectory or the Chapel or both. The idea is simple: when in that room, one leaves one’s phone – and other distracting devices – out of sight. For that short time, you do not check email, you do not surf the web, you do not indulge in an app; instead, you give an added measure of attention to the actual, rather than virtual, world around you. Indeed, if we were to limit this idea to one space, I would argue for the Refectory, as it is, or could be, more of a social space. Without our phones to distract us, we would be more inclined to savor both the meal we are eating and the people with whom we are sharing it.

A single device-free zone (or even two) is not by itself going to de-stress our students’ lives or have a profound impact on their mental health, but it might introduce a modicum of Mindfulness into their (and our) whirlwind lives and encourage them occasionally to slow down and take notice of what is going on around them. In that way, perhaps it will be the proverbial flap of a butterfly’s wings…

This morning saw the culmination of our school’s Poetry Recitation Contest, and when the winner, who is the son of a faculty member, was announced an hour or so later via email, one student hit “reply all” and responded with a single word: “rigged.”

Here is my response to the young man:

With a single word you have impugned the integrity of eleven faculty members and called into question the time, thought and effort that went into the winner’s recitation. What evidence would you present for such a drastic claim? Were you not at the contest finals this morning? If you were, you must recognize that the winner’s recitation was excellent; the other three were superb as well, but it would be absurd to argue that one of them was so clearly superior to the winner’s as to constitute evidence the contest was rigged. You are left, then, with the simple fact that the winner is the son of a faculty member – indeed, the chair of the department which sponsors the event. To stand on that evidence is to say that a) the chair is more interested in handing plaudits to his son than he is in the integrity of the contest, and b) his ten colleagues are willing to go along with him on that miscarriage of justice. If you seriously believe that either of these things is – or even could be – true, then you simply are not paying attention.

I am not sure what you sought to accomplish, and I wonder if you understand what you in fact have accomplished. Words hurt – even single words perhaps fired off in a moment of thoughtlessness. To be maligned publicly – make no mistake; you have publicly maligned at least a dozen people – is painful. Even if you are confident, as these good people should be, that the person doing the maligning does not have a leg to stand on, it is painful to be pilloried in front of one’s friends and colleagues.

In the prep school world, students who attend the schools at which their parents teach are lovingly referred to as “faculty brats.” My father was a faculty brat, I was a faculty brat, and Mrs. Custer and I have three faculty brats of our own. Perhaps that is why your single word hit me so hard as well. My father’s accomplishments, my own accomplishments, and our sons’ accomplishments at school were all called into question at one time or another. “Of course you got a good grade, your dad (or mom) is a teacher.” There is a modicum of truth to that, of course, and it lies in the fact that we faculty brats grew up in families and in communities that put a premium on education and the life of the mind. If today’s recitation winner entered the contest with an advantage over some of the other students, it is that he was raised in a house of books where poetry is valued and appreciated. Archie Manning’s sons are good at throwing footballs; have their accomplishments also been “rigged”?

Faculty brats spend their school careers under a microscope, never forgetting that their every step will be measured by their parents’ friends and colleagues and, sadly, knowing full well that their successes will be greeted with cynicism by a certain portion of the community. Today’s recitation contest winner won because of the excellence of his work; to say otherwise is hurtful and disrespectful, and it demeans all of us.

The intersession – though we may well not use that name – is on the calendar for next year. We will return from the holiday break on January 5th (Professional Development on the 4th) and will run intersession through the following Tuesday, January 13th, with a fair/symposium/opportunity to present what classes have done on Wednesday the 14th. For those who wonder how we got from a proposal for a four day program to a week-long certainty (I have been asked), I offer the following thumbnail. At the January Professional Development event, I thought we needed two things to go from proposal to reality: enthusiasm from the faculty and approval of the administrative committee. We achieved the former on that day and in the subsequent survey. Meanwhile, the administrative committee was questioning the timing, indeed the efficacy, of mid-year exams. When they decided to do away with exams, that eliminated the four day segment into which we were going to drop our pilot intersession; since they did approve the intersession idea, they had to find a new slot for it, and January 5-13 is it. These calendar changes were announced at the academic committee meeting on Saturday, January 31st (I was away at son Ben’s graduation), and some, but not all, department heads have since shared them.

With the proposal now a reality, for most faculty the next step is to decide what sort of course you would like to offer. (For some thoughts on that, see last week’s update.) One way to generate an idea is to ask your students what sort of courses they would like to see. Another thing that might help is the preliminary List of Course Ideas already suggested by colleagues (a live document, the list will grow as new ideas come in). Once you have an idea for a course, if you have not already done so, submit it using this form.

In pondering the name for the program, the task force recently hit on the idea of tying it to Mrs. Riddle, whose own writings on education suggest she would have loved a program such as this. To this point, my own thinking runs toward “Founder’s Week;” do let me know if you have an idea for the name.

Part of the reason for this post is to act as a vehicle for this video, which offers some thoughts to people pondering what sort of course to create for intersession. The video is quite short – a bit over three minutes – which is fortunate because it is not very diverse visually; I offer it alongside a request for Avon faculty to begin submitting their ideas for intersession courses. It may seem early, but I do so now for two reasons. First, admissions might want to include a list of proposed intersession courses with the admitted student materials, and, second, I would like to poll the students this spring to get a sense of what sort of courses will be popular.

Some (other) thoughts to keep in mind whilst thinking about an intersession class. 1) Do not over-think it; it should be on something you enjoy or about which you are enthusiastic. 2) You do not have to have every last detail figured out at this point; indeed, you do not even have to have some of them figured out on the first day of intersession – some things you and your students will figure out as you go along. 3) If you do not have something around which you want to create a course, find someone who does and help facilitate that person’s class. We are shooting for around 30 offerings, each of which will need a second teacher.

In other intersession news, with the calendar relatively set for next year, the task force will consider the schedule for the academic day during intersession. We will also consider whether “intersession” will be the formal name of the program (again, it would be good to know for sure by early March).

Example III:

The Class: Introduction to Mindfulness

Some Activities: Sitting Meditation, Walking Meditation, Trip to Yoga Class, Mindful Eating.

Project: Multimedia presentation on the benefits and basics of Mindfulness.

Come to Eagle 32 this Wednesday between 8:00 and 9:00 PM and get in on the #TABSchat fun.  I will be running #TABSchat on the “big screen,” so that people unfamiliar with twitter chats can see how it works.  Refreshments planned.  Scintillating conversation with folks from AOF and other TABS schools.  Come and learn from / exchange ideas with colleagues you have not yet met.  Do join us.

How have you changed as an educator since you first started?

A few years ago, I ran across a quotation I liked; I cannot remember who was being quoted, but he or she said something like this: “When I was young, I went into class knowing exactly what I was going to say; now I go into class wondering what I am going to say.”  This sentiment certainly captures how I have changed.  When I started, it was entirely appropriate for me to attempt to plan every minute of every class and to know exactly how I wanted to present the material, etc.  Thirty-three years on, it is possible and appropriate for me to plan more generally; experience gives me the confidence to “read” a class as it happens and to change course mid-stream if I think it is appropriate.  I am now comfortable allowing classes to pursue tangents I know will be fruitful or slowing down to come at a topic from a different perspective.  

Also, I hope I am approaching a complete inversion of the number of words I speak as opposed to the number the students speak during a class.  In the early days, my classes were teacher-driven, and I did most of the talking.  These days, my classes are still largely teacher-directed, but I try to get out of the way as much as possible.

Some of this reflects a more modern understanding of pedagogy, as opposed to what was (still) in vogue in the early 1980s.  Most of it, though, is about experience.  If I were twenty-two again, my lesson plans would be more diverse now than they were then, but I would still want to go into class knowing what I was going say.