Blog

Today I looked at open teaching positions in King County. There were close to a thousand unfilled jobs.

I’m trying to return to blogging more, especially as I start making my journey back into education this year.

One endeavor I’ll be rebooting is my Teachers Who Game stream, which will happen Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 10 AM – 12 PM.

I’m speaking on a panel about games in education at PAX on Monday; I’m not sure of the time.

It seems I’ve forgotten how to write.

I reached the end of the first chapter in Mathematics in Civilization only to be greeted by a practice set at the end. I know practice sets are used inappropriately in many contexts, often only seeking level 1 information from kids, but in this case this practice set served as a formative assessment of my comprehension.

This is interesting for me as a teacher, because as adults, we don’t often encounted what we refer to as “instructional level text.” I might even be willing to wager that, given the idea that instructional texts are supposed to be read with 95% fluency, that this book is a frustrational book for me.

So what am I doing for myself so I can have a deeper understanding of this text? Well, in class we often encourage kids to draw from a bank of resources (in ELA, this often includes a teacher-or-team-vetted stack of books at a variety of levels on the same topic).

Unfortunately, part of the struggle I had in teaching math is that for many years I didn’t feel like I had access to resources that could help **me** in my elementary math **instruction,** so this text is really instructional or frustrational level for me. Deeply understanding this book and its concepts are partly hampered by my lack of experience in reading dense // technical texts.

I know it’s difficult to picture my work without seeing the book, but here are my notes for the first section of the first chapter and the practice set (which is really enough for me to chew on for basically the past week). For context, this is considered pre-algebra and is explored in 5th grade Eureka math curriculum.

I got stuck on base 2 and base 8 expression, and so I went to Khan Academy. I was fairly sure that I’d find a video that would fit my specific needs. I discovered that the Khan Academy was great for specific skills, and this one featured a history lesson before jumping straight into the binary lesson system.

Some relevant quotes that I think show good direct instructional practice:

“And to solve this, (finding a way to move on from primitive counting methods such as using tally marks, etc) human beings have invented number systems. And it’s something that we take for granted. You might say, ‘Oh, isn’t that the way you’ve always counted?’, but hopefully over the course of this video you’ll start to appreciate the beauty of a number system and to realize that our number system isn’t the only number system that’s around.”

There, the instructor shares his learning outcomes so students will know the teacher’s goal for this lesson, which will provide students with historical context to broaden understanding of number sense, and will hopefully help them manage numbers in base 10.

The thing that’s interesting to me is that the learning goal ISN’T “learn how to write in base 2.” The learning goal is broader, and it reaches out to work in other disciplines civilization, economics, language standards here), but it’s still grounded in one specific aspect of mathematics: being able to “see” numbers in both base 10 and base 2.

This video was enough for me to better understand what I needed to do that I didn’t need too look at other number systems videos (there were a great number at first glance), and these additional videos could provide both extension support as well as RTI.

It took me perseverance to make it through the whole video, because honestly, a part of me thought it wasn’t going to deliver. So here’s an example of the next video I had lined up in case this video didn’t meet my needs.

This video is more of a practice set. I had it going in the background while I returned to my practice set and finished it. I appreciated that the faceless Khan Academy voice spoke to me using an informal tone to invite me into the learning, saying things like, “I’m assuming you have at least tried, and we can work on it together.”

Upon reflection of my own work, I realized the biggest stumbling block in my way of learning mathematics is that often times I can’t “see” how numbers fit together. You know how in your brain you can just KNOW that 1+4 = 5 AND that 2+3 also equals five? I don’t yet have that kind of automaticity in this kind of number sense practice.

I’ve had enough “we do it” practice, so it’s time for me to try again on my own.

None of the characters on their own have a great book report.

Lucy’s

Chris Turnham is a great artist. We have three of his screenprints in our bedroom, and another one in our family room.* I wish teachers could afford his pieces to display in their classrooms. That’s his work to the left there, a print I’d love to use during our plant growth and development unit.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about how many schools have outdated, cliched books that don’t facilitate pushing students’ thinking. So I wondered what we could do to turn these stereotypical texts on their head and make totally standards-aligned lessons and units of study that view issues through a critical, social justice-minded lens. My goal is to create un-bannable lesson plans that explicitly address past widely-held beliefs.

My first introduction to Chris’ work coincided with discovering a great show in LA that highlighted RetroFuturist designs. This, combined with multiple conversations with picture book author and illustrator Julian Hector about the futurist movement, has led me to an exciting announcement for our class website.

Each week, in celebration of Throwback Thursday, I will be posting what I am calling:

Aesthetically pleasing retro futurist lesson planning for social justice.

We’ll be looking at how vintage documents and books give us a chance to reflect on our past as a nation, as well as looking into the future to see how we can help make the world a better place.

You’re invited to join in! You can e-mail our design team right here. If you’re looking to get a sense of the kind of documents we’re seeking, troll around the Library of Congress digital collection.

This whole endeavor is also inspired by Bellevue teacher leader Kristin Leong, whose Mostly Appropriate Resources push the envelope as to what’s an acceptable “text” for our students. I love her work and would give just about anything to coteach with her.

I’m looking for not only ELA or social studies lessons; I think STEAM lessons can be an amazing way to develop cross-curricular learning experiences.

Here’s my tentative sweet header as well as a preview of what’s to come next Thursday, where we tackle a GLAD-aligned lesson.

*I know. We’re fortunate. Insanely #blessed fortunate. And I’m aware this privilege shapes the work I do in the classroom. I’m knowing better, doing better, and still learning.

“It’s a Southside revival, put your hands high
Let your arms be the pillars that be holding up the sky
I heard a few heads say that hip hop is dead?
No it’s not, it’s just malnourished and underfed.”

“Southside Revival,” Blue Scholars, 2005

Seattle is changing.

I’m from metro Detroit and I saw what happened to the region in the 1980s and 1990s. Nobody in my circle of friends and family really talked about it, except to express some amount of disappointment and regret.

Now I’m seeing some of the same patterns in Seattle, and again, nobody in the publications I follow seems to be addressing a big, underbelly-style demographic shift, a shift I’m calling the Brown Shove.

The Seattle I moved to in 2005 was a vibrant place with lots of quirky individuals. I worked at Display and Costume and met lots of artists and creative folks who saw their efforts reap great success.

But then they started moving from Seattle. The rent prices are insane here, driven by the influx of tech people (briefly: Amazon) moving into the area. Based on the demographics of my friends who have moved away, I’ve been referring to this as the Brown Shove. I’m acutely aware that the only reason we haven’t been priced out is because my husband is a software engineer. And I’m acutely aware that the reason he’s a software engineer, despite having a background in music, is at least in part because he fits the #seattlestereotypes of a charming technology fellow.

Seattle has a lot of nicknames, but the three that come to mind related to this Brown Shove are as follows:

• The Emerald City
• Jet City
• Rat City

None of these labels are inherently bad; I’m not looking to pick a fight there. And I’m not the first to bring up these nicknames and their relationship to a changing city. In a piece published on February 18, 2014, John Cook, editor and co-founder of Geek Wire, examined these dynamics:

A nickname can say a lot about a community — where it has been and where it is going. There’s a new Seattle emerging — one which is far distant from “Jet City” or “Queen City” or “Emerald City.” None of those really work so much anymore.

Also in February 2014, Knute Berger wrote about Seattle needing a new nickname, and he examined our history of nicknames in an excellent piece:

One hundred and fifty years ago, our sawmill town on Elliott Bay saw events that portended huge changes. In May 1864, a “cargo of brides” called the Mercer Girls arrived as potential mates for the male settlers, so the city could become self-propagating.

In October of that year, Western Union — the Comcast of its time — brought the telegraph to Seattle, connecting us with the newly wired world.

Our city is built on immigration and technology, and rapid changes have regularly turned over our collective identity.

The three names I pulled from Seattle’s nickname history strike me as particularly relevant because taken together, they help break down some of the pigeon-holes that we’ve been putting residents into. Rather than blaming techbros or hipsters, I think it would be useful for us to examine when we can actually fall into different categories at different points in our lives, or even different points in our day.

Emerald City residents: These might include folks who genuinely love Seattle at its core. This could be folks who love the natural wonders the PNWonderland provides, or people who enjoy seeing renewed vitality in the area. It includes people like me, who love the Emerald City, while still acknowledging there are many folks (read: our insanely huge, underserved homeless population, and other people slipping through the cracks) who might claim that this is nobody’s Emerald City.

“What does a town that’s been to hell and back know about the finer things in life?”

Jet City residents: These are folks who move into and out of our city. It could include people traveling a lot for their profession, or people who see Seattle as a stopping point on their travel routes. These folks often help me realize what an exciting, unique place we live in; how lucky I am to be alive right now.

“What does this city know about luxury, hmmm?”

Rat City residents: These are folks who might only see the bad parts of Seattle’s growth and change. This category would also include folks with self-serving interests who are pushing out families and children (have you READ the Seattle Public Schools news lately?) who don’t match up with their views of a new urban paradise. This label could also apply to the erased and marginalized populations that Seattle’s civic policies seem to be working to quash even more. (Ask your friends who have moved to Burien, Tacoma, or Marysville)

“It’s the hottest fires that make the strongest steel.”

For the record, I consider myself as belonging to different groups depending on the day, maybe even on the hour, so this reflection is by no means comprehensive. (TBH I could write a whole book just about the lessons in the Imported from Detroit commercial) (I have written a lesson plan about it, FWIW) (It’s totes Common Core aligned)

So I’ve been thinking a lot about how my background growing up in metro Detroit plays into all this. I’ve been thinking about Ken Jennings’ reflection on being beaten by Watson on Jeopardy, where he said he “felt like a Detroit Auto Worker in the 1980s.”

We need to know who we are and what we value so that we can ensure this city is a vibrant, exciting place for generations to come. We need to approach our residents’ needs from different angles.

I saw what happened in Detroit. I’m sick at the prospect of what things would look like if it happened here.

I’ll end with another quote from the Geekwire piece as well as Chrysler’s now-classic Imported from Detroit ad, which features a shoutout to the Emerald City.

It’s an odd mix of innovation (companies like Tableau, a Stanford University spin out that moved here from Silicon Valley) and progressive thought (legalized marijuana) and outdoorsy and can-do spirit (see the inspiring story of Peruvian Olympic athlete and Seattle resident Roberto Carcelen). There’s some awesome alchemy at work here.

The politics of Seattle haven’t quite caught up with the changing tide, but it will.

“Imported from Detroit,” aired during the Super Bowl and Grammy awards in early 2011.

Did you see how he walked through the darkened theater (“Keep Detroit Beautiful”) to join the gospel choir onstage?

“Add hard work and conviction, and the know-how that runs generations deep in every last one of us.”

This is our city. What will we do?

<3 <3 <3

I’m writing this morning to share a little bit more about my recent hospitalization, my resignation from classroom teaching, and my dancing-around-the-issue label of “chronic health issues”. I hope you’ll understand I’m mainly sharing this because I’m desperate for other folks to be equipped if they ever have to deal with a similar situation.

Back in February, I was briefly hospitalized for a manic episode (props to Siobhan Chan for her kindness). In a diagnosis that is no surprise to anyone, least of all me, it seems I have Bipolar I disorder. I tweaked my meds (I’ve been on Prozac for years, so we added in a mood stabilizer), and thought the worst was over.