What I'm Thankful For

The world seems lit in a different kind of light this time of the year. The sun travels lower in the sky, the moon brighter in the cold dark night, but what is different is the star-stuff that glows about us. There are still moments, like now, in which I have the time to pause and consider everything I am thankful for.

As the end of the series approaches, I am thankful for GED 2002. The fabled, tested credential opened career and academic doors for hundreds of thousands of students. GED 2002 will be a hard act to follow.

I am thankful for the staff of our Assessment Center. They work behind the scenes with little acclaim but lead the state in preparing our school and students for the new GED 2014 credential. We are in very good shape because of their work.

I am thankful for clever quotations that inspire me each day from Facebook friends, Sunrise Inspirations, and Runner's World -- running, I have found, is a lot like working in a classroom. And, I am thankful for the supply of inspirational cards from The Attic Coffee and Books on Bodart Street in downtown Green Bay: next year, I promise to buy envelopes to go with them so I don't unbalance the stock.

I am thankful for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and, my newfound article-source favorite, Zite: it's much easier keeping up with news, trends and ideas than it was in the past. In a busy world, one hundred forty-words updates are not a bad thing.

I am thankful for technology and for succinct, informative emails which allow me to stay in touch everyone all the time. For those emails that are not succinct and informative, I am thankful for the delete key.

I am thankful for whiteboards.

I am thankful for the STAR Reading Program and ANI (Adult Numeracy Instruction), both promulgated and promoted by the Wisconsin Technical College System. This instruction has changed the way I think about teaching adults.

And, while I am thanking those who have formed my teaching, I am thankful for the IPA (Instructor Preparation Academy); my mentor, Tom Bice-Allen; and the Talent Development folks of NWTC. I hope they like their new offices.

I am thankful for this blog. It helps me compare my craft against the lessons of others. I am thankful for the readers who point out my typos.

I am thankful for bosses who are patient with my impatience and for my PASS team members. We share the same passion for the success of our students, which is more important than sharing similar political views. And, some day, I will share a ride with the group.

I am thankful for my students. They may think that I am the instructor, but often our roles are reversed. I think I learn much deeper life lessons from them than the lessons in subject-verb agreement they get from me. Persistent gradual steps can change a life and can overcome any obstacle. 

And, I am humbly thankful for the teaching opportunity I have been given by the school. I am thankful for the dual assignments at Shawano and Oconto Falls. Two plus years in and I am still wowed by the talent, dedication and student service of both of those staffs. They don't realize how good they are.

A recent Prudential television commercial asks viewers what would you do with your life if money was not an object? What would I do? Exactly what I am doing right now and exactly where I am doing it. For that, I am truly thankful. Have a good holiday.

Failing Forward

Uncomfortable and unprepared. That's understandable. The typical new GED student would rather be almost anywhere except in a classroom. Most of them are forced by circumstances -- and the reality of needing the credential to find a job today -- to reenter a place (the classroom) with bad memories. In their eyes, classroom work is a slog through an incomprehensible mire, lectures drone on far too long, PowerPoint projects seem pointless, and the idea of actually passing test, much less a course, a semester or a program, seems a fantasy just left of the turn toward Neverland.

Yet here they sit. Askew in the seats, rarely facing you head on, their body language screams "Let me out of here!" Yet, something directed them here and keeps them in their seats. I give them a world of credit for that kind of courage. As they sit, a little more attentive if you can get their attention and trust, the GED orientation moves deliberately, mixing information about the test sequence with guides for student success. Most of them can attain the GED and move on to better job opportunities or college courses. They can succeed if they believe in that success and put in the time and the effort.

However, I know everything is not suddenly changed in their lives as if by a sprinkle of pixie dust. Disappointments and mistakes of the past need to be addressed. We owe the students that bit of reality. Everyone, absolutely everyone, makes mistakes and suffers the consequences. What's important is what happens next.

A few years ago, a colleague recommended I read John C. Maxwell, best-selling author and motivator, who says even positive, upbeat, successful people, the kind of people we admire for their resoluteness, have "a tough time learning how to see failure positively." Even the best of us, he says, fail at what we do. In his 2000 book, Failing Forward: Turning Mistakes into Stepping Stones for Success, Maxwell prescribes a Cinderella-like transformation of discouragement, mistakes, and failure into success. He calls that process "failing forward."

During the GED orientation, I list the many successful people who failed before they succeeded (Edison, Disney, J.K.Rowling -- the list goes on and on): persistence not brilliance is the key to success. Then, I pass out a list of the book's 15 stepping stones and ask students to chose which of those steps seem to make the most sense to them. Maxwell's steps include "Learn a new definition of failure," "Change yourself and your world changes," and "Manage the weakness that manages you." I write the steps students choose on the board and we talk about why the particular steps seemed relevant to them. It's a valuable discussion. These students know about failure and disappointment. They need to know what they need to do to right their academic ship.

Every time I present this exercise, I notice many students favor the last of Maxwell's 15 steps: "Get up, get over it, get going." To my students this means they can't rely on their past, on others, or on best wishes to succeed. I think they know that. That's why they are sitting in front of me starting work on their GED. I can help guide them, but they need to provide the motive power themselves.

Maxwell's book was probably written for self-help and business audiences, but I think his ideas also line up well for students. I tell my GED students there will be times when they feel discouraged, disheartened and want to give up. These feelings are natural for anyone who wants to push the boundaries of where they are into new unknown challenges. They will make mistakes. They will be discouraged. They will fail. There is nothing wrong with that.

The key point is what do they do after they pick themselves up and brush themselves off? How do they turn mistakes into success? How will they decide to "fail forward?"

Books Every Man Should Read

"These are the books the Internet says every man should read, and it's pretty disappointing," read the Huffington Post article title (Nov. 6, 2013). Aside from asking who exactly is Mr. Internet? (an unnamed conglomeration of digital sources), I wondered how many real guys voted for the list and if the vote was before or after their team's QB was injured: yes, that would make a difference. Huffington opined, "It's not that these are bad books individually... it's just that, taken together and put in these lists, they seem to showcase an infantile, reductive version of what our culture sees as 'masculinity.'"

Mr. Internet divided the thirty-some man books into five categories (war, brothers, politics, sex, and adventure). I didn't have a problem with the general divisions, though I would substitute science fiction/horror for sex because if a guy really wants to read about sex, he's not going to consult this list. I agreed with some of the books from Mr. Internet's list though not many. Others (such as Don Quixote by Cervantes) quietly should be allowed to quietly recede into English major optional reading lists. 

It's time to stand up, say I'm a man. I read, and I think I can do better. Here's my list.

1. Books about War. The Internet correctly chose two classic guy books to front this category: Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut and Catch 22 by Joseph Heller. Billy Pilgrim and Yossarian are atypical protagonists caught in the tragedy of their times as are most guys. Both novels are as chaotic as the conflict they describe, a perfect example of form following message. No problem there. I substituted the Internet's choice of War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy (I really need to read that some day), with The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkein. LOTR combines a buddy trip along with a manly, magical struggle between light and dark, plus the character names are easier to remember even in Elvish. And then, to replace predictable Internet selections from Hemingway and Mailer that no one reads any more, I chose another book no one reads any more (but should), Instant Replay: The Green Bay Diary of Jerry Kramer by Jerry Kramer. If a guy wants to read about the modern equivalent of war, there is nothing better than a book about Lombardi and the NFL.

2. Books about Brothers. The Internet's category parameters are a little fuzzy here. Sure, Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyesky is an obvious choice, though I prefer Crime and Punishment. No to the collected stories of John Cheever and how did Corman McCarthy end here with The Road? Push that to another category. I'll agree to the Internet's choice of Hamlet by William Shakespeare, so long as I can add another play to modernize and fantacize the bard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard. And, I would include two-non fiction books of brothers bonding through creation: The Making of the Atomic Bomb, by Richard Rhodes, and Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder. Nothing binds guys together more than puttering with incomprehensilbe tools in a undisclosed workshop somewhere. Los Alamos and Data General are the ultimate man caves.

3. Books about Politics. Kudos to the Internet choices of The Autobiography of Malcom X by Malcom X, Lord of the Flies by William Golding (though why not George Orwell's Animal Farm -- guys like bacon), and All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren. I'll pass on Phillip Roth and George Saunders. My substitute choices for the theme, "Politics are a Man's Business," are The Best and the Brightest by David Halberstam, the excellent, continuing Lyndon Johnson biography by Robert Caro, and Lincoln's masterful maneuvering chronicled in Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin. And, just for fun, I would add the politics of our souls in The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis.

4. Books about Horror and Science Fiction. I know that the genre has outstanding female authors such as Ursula LeGuin and James Tiptree, but go to a sci-fi con and 80-percent of the registrants are guys so I'll be guy-centric here. Start this list with the classics: The Tell Tale Heart by Edgar Allen Poe and Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (OK, yes, I did make an exception for this extraordinary fireside story). Horror doesn't get any better. Add Ray Bradbury's "I love to burn" Fahrenheit 451, Frank Herbert's Dune, and anything else by Harlan Ellison and Phillip K. Dick. The Road by Cormac McCarthy should have been here along with a dose of hard sci-fi; the three volume Mars series (Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars) by Kim Stanley Robinson would work well. And the category could not be complete without Stephen King. For my taste, I would add The Stand and Pet Sematary, but you really can't make a wrong man-choice with King.

5. Books about Adventure. I kept five Internet selections here, after all what guy could argue with Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, The Call of the Wild by Jack London, Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad and Moby Dick by Herman Melville. Most guys cut their reading teeth on these books in addition to stories about Arthur, Robin and the Arabian Nights. I did cull Internet picks from Cervantes, Hunter S. Thompson, Patrick O'Brien (though my wife disagreed with this one), Don Delillo, Jack Kerovac, Robert Pirsig, James Joyce (who would pick Ulysses as an adventure book -- no wonder the original list was criticized as a "reductive version" of masculinity), and another Cormac McCarthy (a Western would have been good, but, sorry, I don't read them and this is my list). If other books need to be added -- and I'm not sure they need to be -- I would add The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe, and something by Robert Ludlum and Tom Clancy.

Five categories and thirty-four books. Are there more? Indeed there are. Would others pick other books? Well, yeah, that's what guys do: we argue about inconsequential things (see category #3), but, I think, these selections up the macho level of Mr. Internet's list. From my man cave La-Z-Boy, these books provide more backbone to male literacy. Excuse my reach but pass the buffalo wings.

Ardor Erase Dry

I like whiteboards quite a bit.

Let me restate that in Yoda-speak for artificial emphasis: whiteboards like I a lot lot.

I like their open, friendly looks a lot lot on classroom walls, how they border and organize the room. Their size, their oddly pleasing elongated shape, the sheen as the morning sun angles off their pearlescent surface. I like the brown cork tack-strip on the top of the board for poster presentations and the metal marker tray below. Sure, the markers on those trays are usually uncapped and dry but the prepared instructor brings his or her own markers -- just buy the dry erase kind. Permanent markers are really hard to get off -- a lot lot.

Some traditionalists dream of grade school blackboards, or greenboards, or grey boards or another color-never-found-in-nature boards, but I never warmed up to them. Their cold dark surfaces create gaps on classroom walls: blackholes of classroom disappointment. Not only that, but blackboards are messy and hard to read. Erasing them leave a residue that lasts practically the entire semester. Unlike the smooth arc of a chisel-head dry-erase, chalk makes an uneven, irregular line that flakes off, usually on your pants. You don't want to lean against a blackboard. And, don't even think about letting your untrimmed fingernails strike chalk board surface. Ewww.

I have never really warmed up to the Smartboards either. Nice techy try, but they are way too expensive and too small to be useful. My neighbor's Big Screen TV is larger than most classroom Smartboards. Write a just couple of lines and you have to move to the next virtual page. In comparison, writing on a whiteboard can go on, and on, and on, circling the room in ideas. Inspiration until the class files out. In contrast, the image on the Smartboard ends when the room times out.

Another problem with Smartboard is the photo marker is often off center so the writing suffers from a geographic lag. The ceiling projector image looks nice on the Smartboard, but a 1920s pull-down projector screen works just as well, and is larger and cheaper. OK yes, the touch screen feature is magical, so long as the center mark is, again, aligned. And, Smartboard graphics are nice though primitive, no better than those in found Microsoft Word. Need to advance the PowerPoint slide? Don't tap Morse Code on the board, use the laser pointer. You should unplug yourself from the front and move around the classroom anyway.

So box up the blackboards, stash the Smartboards, and spend the material budget on circling the school (classrooms, meeting rooms, hallways, cubicles, and coffee shop walls) with whiteboards. Better yet, follow the lead of the ultra-tech note-taking app company, Evernote, which painted almost every surface of their California headquarters with ideaPaint that accepts and encourages dry-erase marker inspiration. I vote for that: floor to ceiling whiteboards. Throw in a couple of pull-down screens, invent a wireless, all-in-one mobile smart-station that doesn't lumber about like a 19th-century Victorian sideboard and one happy puppy am I a lot lot.