Ten Questions To Measure a Wonderful Life

While I was clearing out data folders files, my life fell into place so to speak. I came across this short January 2012 article by Geoffrey James writing in Inc. Magazine. James argued that success and happiness are not measured by your bank account, length of yacht or number of awards on your CV. Happiness, he said, is measured by your day-to-day relationships and memory-making.

In order to gauge your success/happiness, James suggested you ask yourself ten questions each day. Your answers determine the advance or decline in your own DowJones Intentional Happiness Average. James's questions are:

1. Have I made certain that those I love feel loved?
2. Have I done something today that improved the world?
3. Have I conditioned my body to be more strong, flexible and resilient?
4. Have I reviewed and honed my plans for the future?
5. Have I acted in private with the same integrity I exhibit in public?
6. Have I avoided unkind words and deeds?
7. Have I accomplished something worthwhile?
8. Have I helped someone less fortunate?
9. Have I collected some wonderful memories?
10. Have I felt grateful for the incredible gift of being alive?

These sound like something the angel Clarence might ask George in "It's a Wonderful Life". James not Clarence writes, "These questions force you to focus on what's really important (pictures of dead presidents have never made anybody happy). Take heed of them and the rest of your life, -- especially your work -- will quickly fall into place."

I don't know why I haven't used this list of questions before or why the article was stored five folders down on my flash drive -- hey Clarence, ask Joseph about that. Perhaps, I was just waiting for the right moment or the right season or the right reason. Perhaps I was just waiting for right now. Today is a good day to make a change.

The Day After 0-59

My Badger flag flies at half mast after Wisconsin's 2014 football dreams were mashed into the seams of the artificial turf at the Indianapolis Dome by the Ohio State Buckeyes. Pre-game prognosticators thought that the Big 10/14 Championship between Ohio State and Wisconsin would be a classically close match between two midwest football powers. The prognosticators were wrong. Dead wrong. After three tough wins against Nebraska, Iowa and Minnesota, Wisconsin had nothing left against a suffocating defense and 6'5" third-string quarterback.

The only good outcome of the night was surprise selection of Ohio State over TCU into the four team college playoff. A close win over Wisconsin and the Urban Meyer would be kicking the sidelines of the Inconsequential Bowl. Now the league has a player in football's final four. Baylor had a better argument over TCU anyway.

Sure there will be one more Wisconsin game. The Badgers will be selected for a bowl game somewhere because Badgers travel well with a large alumni following, the band is awesome, and everyone wants to see one more 200-yard game from the phenomenal Melvin Gordon III. It will be a nice curtain call and final season polls may adjust. But the season is over.

To those who hang their heads longer than this weekend, I say, "Hey folks, this is college football, Saturday afternoon entertainment, an colorful expression of loyalty to your alma mater, not something really important, like, say, a Packer game." I and other Wisconsin alumni had a good season following the team. It was fun, but it was just entertainment and doesn't have much lasting importance win or lose.

I will take the Badger flag down tomorrow and replace it with something representing the holiday season, I suppose. It's that time of the year I am told. Good will toward men, even Buckeyes, and stuff like that.

Life does go on, even though the Badgers won't.

Winter is Coming

Snow covered the back deck. It wasn't snowing at the time (the time was about 3 a.m. -- no, don't ask), so all that remained of a passing flurry was a light, even, undisturbed layer of pearly white snow reflecting an overcast city-lit sky. It looked like beach sand after the tide receded or sugar crystals sifted onto a floured surface. I thought of the verse from the Christmas carol, Silent Night, "Sleep in heavenly peace, slee-eep in heavenly peace..."

A week ago, I had spent a happy though short afternoon on the deck enjoying the last golden colors of a delightful autumn. Many of us commented to each other how nice the fall had been. Temperatures had been mild, colors were vivid and even the curmudgeonly oak leaves turned to deep burgundy rather than nut brown. Maybe, we rationalized, if we kept complimenting the fall, it would stay with us a little longer.

But as sure as All Souls Day follows All Hallows Eve, the midnight snow on the back deck forecast a change of season. As a native-born Wisconsinite, I understand we need the cold to prepare the land for the coming spring. I really do. Winter has a lot going for it: the holidays, snow skiing and ice fishing, snowmobiling, peppermint mocha, crackling fireplaces, and blue sky days dawning crisp and clear. All seasons are important in their place.

But what if, as in George R.R. Martin's Game of Thrones, a winter season lasts and lasts and lasts? What if it overstays its welcome like an unwelcome guest? Not just adding a few extra weeks of cold weather, like this year, but even more. New England poet Robert Frost, seventy-five years before Mr. Martin, wrote, "Some say the world will end in fire,/Some say in ice." A world encased in ice and snow is just as silent as one scorched by fire. Frost ends his poem saying that destruction by ice "would suffice."

Don't get me wrong, I don't mind winter as a visitor, but this year it seems a little too eager. Sure, the gardens and house are winter-ready, but now I hear that 6-12-inches of snow are expected tomorrow just north of the city and, later in the week, the forecast predicts highs only in the 20s and lows in the teens -- January temperatures and conditions about two months early. Rather than looking forward to winter, the premature forecast brings a feeling of dread, and, as I look out over the walls of my Winterfell kingdom of the north, I am not sure why.

Ron Johnson and Tammy Baldwin

"Who are our two Wisconsin senators?"

This question always stumps my class. Students answer with blank looks, shuffling feet, and checking the sky outside the classroom windows for contrails from an imperial galactic invasion. Keep in mind that these are adults I'm speaking of not fourth graders. Bright, intelligent, responsible adults with families and jobs draw a uniform blank stare when you ask them who represents them in the United States Senate. I have never had a class at any level who was able to name both. One senator perhaps, but not both.

Sad, very sad.

These students come to mind when I watch the biannual blitz to persuade people to vote on the first Tuesday in November. The founding fathers count on you, an earnest voice proclaims in public service announcements, an informed, dedicated citizenry, to wisely guide our representative democracy through your individual vote. Of course, the founding fathers were really counting on an informed, dedicated white male land-owning elite citizenry, but that's another column.

Cynical commentators say the 10-15 percent voting attendance by citizens shows the decline of American democracy. They say that vicious partisan battles have worn down the collective citizenry to such a point that most would rather not dirty their hands in this unpleasant business. Cynical commentators say that that the low-level interest in politics is a direct result of our unhappines with the antics we hear about in city hall, the Madison statehouse and Washington, D.C. Cynical commentators say we get the politicians we deserve through our indifference to the process. Perhaps the cynics are right.

Yet, perhaps they are not. George Eliot once said, "It is never too late to be what you might have been." Giving up is not American.

After my students fail the quiz about their senators, we talk about the series of unlikely events that led to the founding of this nation, to the extraordinary promise of the Declaration of Independence, to the first flawed treaty between the new states called the Articles of Confederation, and to our uniquely American expression of political compromise, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Students learn that our nation's history has not been an unbroken string of successes. Cynics of every generation have written this country off, but, somehow, what we agreed to in 1787 has survived and prospered.

Most of us do not have more than a back of the cereal box knowledge of the history of the United States. With discussion, and assignments, and projects, I hope to show my students how remarkable this country is and how the exercise of citizenship is not just a November obligation but a lifetime responsibility (I also hope that they pass the GED Social Studies test, but that is also another column).

Each year at about this time I remind the students to vote on Tuesday. I don't care who they vote for. That's not my job. I just want to remind them to get their butts to the polls while I show them how voting does matter. US history is full of such examples. Some of them do vote for the first time in many years. Others still don't. But, perhaps, I planted a seed of guilt that will grow to participation on a later Tuesday. I would consider that a success.

At the least, I hope these students remember who their two senators are.

A Bridge over Academic Troubles

Next Friday at midnight ends a first half-of-a-semester class for fifteen fledgling Medical Assistant students. Their next seven-week class, Health Care Customer Service, begins the following morning at 8 a.m.. That gives them, I reminded them in class yesterday, a whole eight-hours to kick back and take it easy until we meet again.

They smiled, but did not complain.

This group of students, a mix of ELL and Adult Basic Education students, are enrolled in a Career Pathways Bridge program. The Bridge is a class that offers low-level students supplemental instruction concurrent with a real-live program course. While I don't teach the content of the class, I do team teach with a state-certified Medical Assistant instructor who does do content. My job is to stay out of her way, assist when I can, and help Bridge students work on basic skills such as reading, writing, computer fundamentals, study skills and motivation. In some courses, I even teach a little math.

Low level students and English language learners struggle in a traditional classroom because they have not had the academic background of traditional college-bound students. So Bridge planners, curriculum writers, and faculty -- like me-- try to adjust the traditional schedule and give the students little extra help -- like me -- to give them the chance to be successful. Most of the time, that is all they need. My college has successfully implemented this pathway strategy in nine separate programs and dozens of courses in business, trades and health sciences. The curriculum is not changed in these courses. That is an important point. There is no difference in course competencies between a Bridge Health Care Customer Service class and traditional Health Care Customer Service class; we just help out a bit.

Fortunately, motivation is usually not a problem for Bridge students. They know that hard work and overcoming academic and personal obstacles are the pathway toward success. Their hunger for education is inspirational and reminds me of a story reported by NY Times columnist, David Brooks, some years back about a speech given by Florida Sen. Marco Rubio at the Jack Kemp Foundation's Leadership Award dinner.

First a little background: Sen. Rubio's parents came from Cuba in 1956 and worked their way up to a middle class life: his mother as a maid, cashier and retail clerk; and his father as a convention banquet bartender. The night of 2012 Kemp speech, the service staff, remembering those stories, gave Sen. Rubio an honorary hotel name tag which said, "Rubio, Banquet Bartender."

Success and dreams, Sen. Rubio later told the dinner crowd while applauding the work of the service staff, "starts with our people: in the kitchens of our hotels, in the landscaping crews that work in our neighborhoods, in the late-night janitorial shifts that clean our offices. There you will find the dreams American was based on. There you will find the promise of tomorrow. Their journey is our nation's destiny. And if they can give their children what our parents gave us, the 21st-century America will be the single greatest nation that man has ever know."

For my Bridge students, their success and dreams articulated by Rubio, continues at 8 a.m. next Saturday morning. I expect to see them there early, eager and ready to work hard.

Average White Bread Definition of Equity

I have lived a Joe Average life: an ethnic mix of German and French grandparents, Caucasian with a bit of Menominee, blue-collar from my Green Bay west-side upbringing, raised Catholic, more cousins than I can count, public school graduate, Packer fan since forever, married to one lady for many happy years, home-owner, two cars, two televisions and four computers. Just an average white bread guy, a bit puffed in the center, found on the middle shelves of any local bakery.

Thinking about this, I realize I have been living an idyllic Northeast Wisconsin version of midwestern life described in the Saturday-night narratives of Garrison Keillor. I am very fortunate to have found a comfortable place and, until recently, I had not given my ethnic, racial, economic or cultural privileges much thought. Why should I? Everywhere I looked, I saw people who looked like me and lived in a place where, as Keillor famously says, "All the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average." And all our faces are white.

What could change?

During an Equity 101 session in our 2014 Fall Inservice Days, Jennifer Higgs, Green Bay Area Public School District Equity Coordinator, burst my self-satisfied bubble. She reported that people like me (that is, white) are still in the majority in the local schools, but not by much: 51-percent of public school students are white, while 49-percent are not. The mix of non-white populations is 26-percent Hispanic, 8-percent Black, 7-percent Asian, and 4-percent American Indian.

Breaking down the figures by grades shows a steady advance of students of color through the grades. In Green Bay Area elementary schools, 49-percent of the students are students of color; in middle schools, 49.5-percent; and in high schools, 43.5-percent. Compare that to the classrooms where I work: according to 2014 NWTC demographics only 12-percent of students self-report as students of color. This gap between the K-12 system and my college rosters predicts a steady increase in the number of students of color enrolling in our classrooms. Change is coming. Am I ready for it?

My college, obviously, is preparing me for the changes in the student population coming from the Green Bay Public Schools. Diversity/Inclusivity classes have been put in place in order to help everyone understand and work with the minority/majority who will be seeking our services in the coming years. And, to guide our staffing and student planning, the college drafted its own definition of "equity" this summer that asks all staff (support, faculty and leadership) to meet "all students where they are and remove barriers to student success so they can achieve course and program completion and attain a career."

In past semesters, my students have been a mix of white faces and students of color. This year, while teaching supplemental instruction in entry-level Medical Assistant and Electrical Systems classes, I find that I am one of very few white faces in the classroom. Before the Equity 101 presentation, I had not given that much thought: a student was just a student to me. Now, I wonder if that is still a valid instructional point of view?

Should I treat students of color different than I treat white students? I could be wrong, but I don't think the college is asking me to do that. What it asks is that I acknowledge that the world that these student come from is not the Wobegon-world that I have grown up in. Students of color face barriers that I know nothing about and shouldn't pretend to understand. I can't know what it is like to grow up and live in a community dominated by people different from you and your family. White pretense around diversity issues seems a little insulting to me. I think all I can do is re-double my efforts to treat each student as valued customer with unique needs, wants and abilities.

While working toward student dreams for program and career success, differences in race and ethnicity are not forgotten -- how can they be -- but can be set to one side during school time. My students, white and of color, hope for the things that every student hopes for: fairness, honesty, inspiration, knowledge, understanding, patience, rigor, professionalism and the chance to succeed. We have that bond in common if nothing else. When I look into the faces of my students, what I see are not others who are a different color than me, but a reflection of myself not that many years ago, as an aspiring student in the classroom. That, I do understand.

The Autumn Colchicum

We moved the petunia pot a little to the right in order to see the star spray of petals beneath it. Oops: we forgot that we planted the bulbs in that spot. A half dozen rosy purple Colchicum, a sort of fall crocus on steroids, hovered only six inches above the ground among the leaves. It didn't care that we had forgotten it. It was just happy to appear during the early hours of a glorious fall morning.

It's always a surprise when the Colchicum blooms because the flower emerges quickly and in full force suspended from a single, almost translucent stalk. I've seen the flower grace late season gardens and pop up in the middle of lawns where a corner garden once lived. Once established, the bulb will stubbornly return year after year. Because the Colchicum flower is not clothed in supporting leaves, a common name for the plant is the Naked Lady and so she is. Surrounded by a carpet of Kentucky Bluegrass, the bloom boldly shows her charms to new homeowners who wonder where the botanical Godiva came from.

Colchicum autumnale (its official botanical name), a member of the order Liliales (thus the slender leaf shape), is said to be the only species of its genus native to Great Britain. I wonder how they know that, though demeanor of the species does seem to be in sync with the Brits' national temper. Most of the time, the Colchicum quietly builds up strength beneath the surface, hidden from the limelight, and bides its time before the spectacular day that it chooses to appear. Then, it's as subtle as a ribald Christmas pantomime.

I learned in my herbaceous classes that all parts of the plant are as deadly as arsenic, so it's not the sort of plant you choose for the garden of a young family. The toxic chemical of the plant, called colchicine, was once used, I assume guardedly, as a herbal remedy for inflammation. That caught the attention of a group of cancer researches at the University of Bradford in West Yorkshire, UK, a few years ago who were looking for a "smart bomb" to destroy cancer tumors. After an initial flurry of publicity and notes in the Cancer Journal, I have not heard much more about their progress.

Perhaps the researchers were not able to make the flower palatable to the human body, its toxicity overwhelming its usefulness. Perhaps it was not as effective against the deadly cancer as it was once hoped. Or perhaps, it is just too early to judge the effects of research or clinical trials. Perhaps the autumn lady is just waiting, quietly, patiently to reveal her benefits to medicine in her own time. We should never underestimate, overlook or dismiss the benefits that lay all about us in the natural world. One never knows when a forgotten treasure will pop up.

RLCs: Start Small. Go Anywhere.

I pity the poor NWTC delivery van driver. His weekly route is east and north, west and north and then, north and north, and north. The NWTC District is large, ungainly and spread out over the rural and wooded northeast corner of Wisconsin with the cities of Green Bay and De Pere anchoring the bottom of the map. Think of the thumb and first two fingers of your right hand, palm up. That's our District.

The main Green Bay campus sprawls over the old Larson Orchard site on the southwest side of the city, just north of West Mason St. There are satellite mini-campuses in Marinette an hour north of Green Bay, up the first finger, and in Sturgeon Bay about 45-minutes north north-east just over the Bayview Bridge on the thumb of the Door Peninsula. Regional Learning Centers fill in some of the spaces between: Luxemburg-Casco, Niagara, Crivitz, Oconto Falls, and Shawano. In addition, NWTC regional managers and central planners extend our classes into local high schools and community and job centers. We've got the District covered.

Up to now, I have split my time between the West Regional Center in Shawano and the Northwest Regional Center in Oconto Falls (thus the name of this blog playing on the title of the 1959 Hitchcock movie: North by Northwest). Either center building could fit inside the gymnasium of the Green Bay campus with parking spaces to spare. But size does not indicate amount of learning that's happening at each of these small sites every day.

Though the buildings are modest, both of  "my" sites schedule full-grown programs in business, health science, ag and general studies. On any day (or night or weekend) in-person and video-conference classrooms at either site run concurrent classes in Nursing Assistant and Healthcare Business Services as well as Accounting, Leadership Development and Human Resources and other courses. This is in addition to a full schedule of General Studies courses transferable to 28 other four-year colleges, including the UW-system.

Our students, especially those in trades and other lab-intensive courses know they will eventually have to travel to take some of their classes in Green Bay, Marinette or Sturgeon Bay. Car detailing and phlebotomy just don't work on VC. Until that time, however, students at the Regional Learning Centers experience college on a small scale, but with no less rigor. I give credit to the leadership who has spread a strong network of student success west, northwest, north, east and central. I may be a tad biased, but I give even more credit to the RLC staff and part-time faculty (formerly called adjuncts) who are key to the success of the regional centers. They are the front-line faces of post-secondary education for many students of the district.

When you serve a District that spans half a hand, and a couple of tanks of gas, it's important for both economic and political reasons to provide equal opportunities for certificate, vocational diploma and associate degree programs across the entire area. NWTC students, all 42,000 by last count, are confident that wherever they go -- main campus in Green Bay or auto tech classes in Wausaukee -- they will receive consistent, quality education. Your zip code shouldn't limit your dreams. As our billboards put it, "Start Here, Go Anywhere."

Talking Them Down from the Ledge

The chilled reality of the new fall semester settles in when students (especially adult students in school for the first time in many years) turn to the back pages of the syllabus and see a long list of readings, exercises, worksheets, papers, presentations and projects they will have to complete in order to successfully complete the course. Vision blurs and their eyes take on a vacant look as they look up at you but through you, the whiteboard and out past classroom walls toward a dread of failure. It's a kind of academic shock.

The problem is that these students base their fear on the totality of the course as one unpalatable slab that has to be digested before breakfast coffee in the morning. Then, to escalate alarm, they realize that they have four other course schedules just as daunting. "Do I belong in a college classroom?" they ask themselves.

Students need instructors to provide context and support in those first moments. Students have 15-weeks not one day to plan and work and complete all the assessments of the semester. Sure, instructors will make students work a bit -- you need to earn the learn -- but we are not going to make college impossible. What would be the point of that?  Sometimes, I wonder if we shouldn't hide our expectations a little to ease the shock and then issue a new 2.0 version of the syllabus a month in: "Surprise! There are four papers due in this course not two." Well, maybe not.

So, many instructors, like me, spend quite a bit of time that first week in the classroom, through emails and during office hours, talking students down from the ledge, as one of my colleagues puts it. We help students plan a study schedule that makes college doable whether it's through a planning app, a student planner or a week-by-week email reminder. Planning is important, but during the initial days of the semester, I just want students to start breathing again.

I look for determination, dedication and discipline from students during those first weeks, not despair. I need them to trust that I will get them through the first days, weeks and months. Past that, they need to drive. Planning is critical to carving the semester into reasonable chunks. But so is common sense. How do you eat the elephant that is a semester of work, the parable asks? One bite at a time -- after you climb down from the ledge.

Happy: Back Home in the Classroom

I got the keys from the front desk envelope after two weeks too many days of well-meaning but soul-draining in-service meetings. It's good to be home again -- back in the classroom. This is where a teacher belongs.

It doesn't matter that bookcase cabinets of the classroom had been emptied, moved and reshuffled again or that the color of the classroom flipped from a neutral beige to an edgy palette of dark maroon and the kind of fluorescent green you usually pick up off the floor of a calf pen. It didn't matter that no one seemed to know where the attendance sheets from summer classes were or that some of the students on the roster only existed in the imagination of PeopleSoft. It didn't matter that all the summer projects that had been planned and promised in April had not been delivered. Most had. The rest don't matter. Life is good.

None of that matters when you flip on the lights in the classroom for the first time in the fall and see rows of stacked chairs, polished tables and an unopened package of markers on a whiteboard tray. Heaven. There's nothing quite like the promise, hope, anticipation of the first days of a new school year. It's part busman's holiday and part New Year's Day. It's a clean marker board for everyone. For the instructor, the students, the staff and leadership, a brand new school year is the best sort of gift that summer can give you.

When I don't have this feeling come some September, I'll know that it is time to make that appointment with HR to talk about Wisconsin Retirement System benefits. Some day I know that will happen.

But now. Not today. It's good to be back in the classroom.

A Yellow Tablet Surrounded by Laptops

My colleague to my right sat down and pulled out a silver HP laptop.

Then another sat across from me. "Ready for another meeting?" she said and opened up another HP laptop. A third, pulled out a chair at the long nondescript conference table, laughed at the comment and opened up her HP. Triplets. After she keyed her password, she pulled a smartphone out of her purse and placed it alongside the laptop. Multi-tasking, As I looked around, I noted there was more raw computer power in the room than all of NASA during the Apollo 11 mission. We were working on a PowerPoint presentation for the next day's inservice meeting. Apollo 11 landed Armstrong and Aldrin on the moon.

I pulled out my yellow tablet.

To be honest, I bring a laptop to meetings when I think I need to do a lot of writing, but I'd rather not. I'm a quick typist, so too often when I am in typing cruise mode the words go in the ears and out the fingers without engaging the brain. Laptop-induced notes go on for pages and pages and have been prescribed as a natural sleep aid. Afterwards, if I do look at the notes, it's as if I wasn't at the meeting at all: "We agreed to do what?"

My meeting recording device of is the Pilot G2 retractable rollerball pen (blue, not black, green or purple). I love that pen. I use it to scribble notes, record main ideas, recall people to contact, and connect disparate parts of the meeting with a shorthand of circles, arrows, stars and checks that make sense to me and mystifies my HP neighbors. Because the notes are cryptic and, ok, sometimes a little messy, I transfer them to other sheets and notes by the end of the day. That's a newspaper reporter habit: review the notes while they are still fresh. When that's done, I staple the translation to the original. Mission accomplished.

I find that handwritten notes engage the brain at a deeper level than do typed notes. The action of picking up a pen and decoding information into the hieroglyphics we call letters creates active neural pathways where learning and retention circle about. The best, most effective learning travels through active neurons, not those who have put up their toes for the night. This summer, I read that players of the Cleveland Browns were given e-tablets in training camp for play books and for film study, but those e-fads were banned from meeting rooms by first-year head coach Mike Pettine. Instead at each seat lay the old-fashioned pencil and paper. Pettine told the Wall Street Journal, "To write is to learn. When you write stuff down, you have a much higher chance of it getting imprinted on your brain"

Coaches know this. Teachers know this. Even those in my meeting of the day knew this if they gave the notion an unplugged moment of thought. That is why a best practice is to encourage and plan for notebooks and notetaking in the classroom rather than passive input through a keyboard. Technology works in many classroom activities, but note taking is not one of them. Not if the purpose of the presentation is to actually learn something. Of course in meetings, it's usually just toes up.

Flipping the Accommodations Lecture

Most of us are able to move about freely without a thought and get those things done that need to be done. But what if our lives were different? What if, in one moment, everything changed?

Those questions were explored by a "flipped" in-service project at my college this past week called "A Day in the Life." The idea was simple. Rather than present a 500-slide PowerPoint about accommodations services available for students and staff, we placed limitations on selected staff and let them report back to the college.

So on Tuesday morning, the first time that we gathered together for the fall term, six volunteers (three in leadership and three faculty) agreed to be "limited" during the opening eight-hour day. To their credit, they agreed to this project blindly without knowing the limitations (three physical and three cognitive) or who would be assigned to what. They spent the entire day (welcoming speech, keynote, breakfast, lunch, break-out sessions, department meetings and mingling with the masses) in some sort of restraint and then reported back during a Thursday in-service session.

Everyone we asked was an active, self-assured and well-known member of our campus community. That was the point. None of them had a speed less than full-throttle, and at first they accepted the limitations in good spirits. Those spirits were drawn down after they realized how much of their energy would be spent coping with the limitation. The limitation changed everything. By noon, only half-way through the day, most of them were looking at us organizers with sad-eyes, hoping to released early. Rather than enjoying the energy of the first day of the term, they were just focusing on survival.

Those with physical limitations (a temporary leg cast with crutches, an immobilized arm and impaired vision) reported they were annoyed by their loss of independence. The limitations slowed them down and forced them to concentrate on just moving about without bumping into things. This group talked of unexpected physical obstacles around the college. The school is ADA accessible of course, but extended tripod legs from hallway easels can still trip the unwary.

Colleagues tried to help them, but the help seemed an annoyance rather than beneficence. The physical restrictions caused physical aches and pains in otherwise healthy bodies. A male colleague fitted with the shoulder harness talked about unexpected challenges in the restroom and while trying to one-hand type email replies to a slew of messages. His support staff wanted to be supportive, but he said just wanted the freedom to be on his own like always.

Most of the students who come to the Accommodations Office need help with cognitive issues, so those of us who organized the day tried to duplicate those problems in volunteers. Those were the most difficult but interesting limitations to come up with. In order to replicate (sort of) a student who can't concentrate, we asked the volunteer to tune in to talk radio all day long and listen through an ear bud. We asked a second volunteer to repeat everything she said three times. The third cognitive volunteer was allowed one word ("Thank you" he decided upon) but could not make eye contact. The panel feedback from these volunteers was the most interesting.

The talk-radio volunteer said not surprisingly he was distracted by voices through the earphones. It never turned into "white noise" that he could tune out. He found he often asked others to repeat themselves, to his annoyance and theirs. Even normal one-on-one lunch conversations were blocked because the real people around him were competing with voices through the ear piece. "What did I miss?" he asked about the day.

The repeater volunteer complained that she was not able to take part in conversations because of the repetition obstacle. Like all the volunteers, the limitation forced her to drastically slow down. After she had answered questions three time, the conversation was already two or three subjects away. Though normally quite talkative, she said she was forced to listen because she didn't want to three-peat. She admitted that she dropped character during a 30-minute departmental meeting. What would have happened if she had not "cheated" during the meeting? She said she would have not been able to do her job.

The faculty member who had could only speak one word and could not make eye contact seemed the most agitated. He spotted me at the end of an in-service session just before his 3:30 p.m. release time. He tugged on the sleeve of my shirt without looking up and I had pity on him and released him a few minutes early. He burst forward with a variety of surprising stories about the day.

At first he said he thought this would be just a game. But determined to play his part, he soon realized the limitation would be much more difficult than he thought. He particularly said the inability to make eye contact was a massive barrier to communications. To his surprise, after his faculty friends were unable to talk with him in the usual way, they walked away saying they would talk to him the next day when he was able. He was shocked by that rejection. Without the ability to communicate, he said he felt like a "broken person." The next day he did confront his friends, and they told him that they were embarrassed by their reaction and regretted turning away. "Yet they did," he said.

So, what did we learn? First of all, each of the volunteers had the option of receiving help from the Accommodations Office to make it through the day. None of them chose to take advantage of that. They said they wanted to make it on their own, much like our students who also do not self-disclose their limitations. Without that self-disclosure, the Accommodations Office cannot help. It's true that this was just one day, but we learned the independent instinct of the volunteers was not much different than that of our students.

Second, we learned that simple obstacles seemed to change the way we see ourselves. I was surprised by that. The volunteers said the limitations don't just impact outward appearance, but reach down into the core of who we are, even when we know we are "playing" at accommodations. Physical and cognitive barriers changed the best our staff into a shell of their former selves. The energy they usually freely applied to problems within the college was held back in order to help them cope with daily activities.

The volunteers stayed in character because they knew this project would end at the end of the day. What would it be like, we all asked ourselves, if these limitations could not "released" at 3:30? What would it be like, we all asked ourselves, if we had to live with these limitations every single day?

Mathematical Uncertainty in Classroom Assessments

In simple math, an answer is either right or it is wrong, right? If the problem is 2+3, then the answer is "5", end of question. If the student answers "6", then you probe a little and find out what the student was thinking. In either case, the question is a straight-forward measurement of the student's ability to count.

Let's say the student moves to simple Algebra and is asked to solve the problem, 2+x=5. The traditional answer, of course, is "3" assuming "x" is a positive integer. Yet just stating the answer, that is grading the assessment without review and reflection, may not correctly evaluate a student's ability to handle the material. The student may have remembered the previous questions, may have had a lucky guess or may be able to handle positive numbers and be blown away by negative integers. Can you tell if a student understands Algebra from the answers to one question? Probably not.

So, we move to multiple questions with multiple answers. I know this drives students crazy (especially the ones who just want me to tell them what is the right or wrong answer), but I don't care about the answer as much as I do for the process and discovery leading up to the answer. That's where learning takes place. If we want facts regurgitated, we google them. We don't need students to sub as smart phones.

A common gripe I hear from GED students is that the questions on the credentialed test are not the same as those in class or on the practice tests -- well, yeahhh. Novice students expect a 1:1 alignment of study questions to test questions, which is not going to happen. There's an Urban Legend in teaching circles that after a GED math test a student complained bitterly to a teacher that the class did not teach the algebra material that was on the GED test.

"What do you mean?" the teacher asked.

"In class we learned that if x+2=5, then x=3. And if x-2=1, then x=3," the student said.

"Yeah?" said the the teacher, not understanding the crisis.

"But, the test asked what was the answer to a+2=5 and n-2=1," said the student. "You didn't teach us about 'a' and 'n'. You only taught us about 'x'."

As a colleague once told me, the classroom curriculum is the map and the assessments are the compass. Sure, we teach the facts, the topography of the course, the scale of the region and annual migration routes of indigenous inhabitants, but more important we teach how to use the compass when you find yourself in unfamiliar territory. Assessments are as much a learning tool as are Power Points and study time.

Problems on the GED test, in college classrooms and in job situations are rarely as simple as 2+3=5 whether the variable "x", "a" or "n".  More often a problem is x+y=z, where 0<x<100 and y is a squared multiple of z depending the latitude of the inverse proposition.  Not only don't you know what the initial quantities are, you may not even know what the answer is supposed to be. Keying in on answers alone assumes that right answers or wrong answers are the most important thing in learning. They aren't. What's most important is the process students use to divine the answer. The best assessments that discover that process are as creative, varied and reflective as is the problem. The answer key to those assessments is rarely in the back of the book.

Green Bay Readers Notch No. 1

The Green Bay area is No. 1 in gorgeous summer weather and City Deck entertainers, No. 1 in Kansas wide receivers and pro-shop baseball cap displays, and No. 1 as an Integrated Newspaper Audience. The first two are in my humble opinion, and the last is supported by a national media and consumer study. 

Last Sunday (July 20, 2014, D1), the Press-Gazette’s business writer, Richard Ryman, wrote about a Scarborough Research study that measured media impact from April 2013 to March 2014 over more than 150 DMAs (Designated Market Areas) across the nation. Green Bay newspaper readers ranked No. 1. I guess the No. 1 shouldn’t have been a surprise since Gannett Wisconsin print and digital products in the Green Bay area had been No. 1 during the previous year and No. 2 the year before. Our area understands the importance of a newspaper.

To climb to the top of the newspaper pile, the Press-Gazette recorded a market "reach" of 62-percent. This means 62-percent of our local adults read the printed newspaper, the newspaper’s website, or a mix of both during a typical week. In comparison, according to Ryman, the big dog of journalism in the state, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, ranked a respectable seventh with a 52.6 percent overall weekly reach. Considering how newspapers are getting pounded by other media, neither ranking is bad -- though ours is better. Scott Johnson, president and publisher of Press-Gazette Media, was naturally pleased, “Our readers continue to value and appreciate our content and we are grateful to them…”

All this is to the good. I am happy to be part of the No. 1 Integrated Newspaper Audience in the nation. I started the newspaper habit as a journalism student in college and have continued that habit through a variety of careers. Newspaper reading has been a personal and professional advantage. And, I believe, a responsibility of an informed citizenry. If one does not read the newspaper, how will he or she know what is going on? 

I look forward to the morning dose of the world and I expect continued success in media studies in future years since in the past year, the PG has noticeably improved by adding USA Today and other Gannett features to the Press-Gazette. Now the paper takes two cups of coffee in the morning, rather than just one.

Congratulations to Johnson, Ryman and all the other newspaper workers at the Press-Gazette. Together, I think we have the makings for another Green Bay dynasty.

A Better You in Five Years

Self-help lists are a dime a double dozen on the Internet. What do they boil down to? Eat right, get plenty of sleep and exercise each and every day. Right. Been there. Done that. Have the Bellin Run t-shirt -- in fact, I have drawer of Bellin Run t-shirts. But has this advice inspired me to create a new improved version of myself? How about you?

Then I came across a post from Drake Baer of Business Insider who asked a question on behalf of a 23-year-old physics student: “What can I do today to help out my future self in 2019?” Baer compiled the answers from a website called Quora and summarized the 20-something advice into 17 categories. I almost clicked through the post, but was pulled in by the first couple of suggestions. They were easy (see #17) and made a lot of sense even for someone who is a multiple of 20-something.

Now, I don't advocate starting all seventeen ideas right after you read this blog, but there are enough ideas here that if you can make one or two of them a habit (see #17, again) during the days of summer that are left to us you may achieve better personhood in five years. I am borrowing more or less direct from Baer's article so I am crediting the people who came up with the ideas. We do need to know who to award the t-shirts to.

Here are the seventeen ideas.

1 Pick up an athletic hobby that you can do over your lifetime. Coed rugby and mountain skateboarding will only last so long. On the other hand, a sedentary lifestyle will do awful things to you. David Cannon.

2. Write down key points of what you did each day. This may seem trivial and a bit middle-school journal-ish, but Harvard Business School research shows that taking as little as 15-minutes of written reflection at the end of the day can make you more productive. Stan Hayward.

3. Talk to one stranger every day. Strangers = opportunities. Opportunities = more opportunities. And, more +++ opportunities are better than fewer :-<<. Who you know (in other eras this was called networking) can accelerate your career, happiness and health. Ashraf Sobli.

4. Learn to listen well. People love to talk about themselves. Listening allows you to build #3 and gives you something to #2 about. Charles Tips.

5. Waste less time. Zig Ziglar (my quotation, not Baer's) points out that each of us have twenty-four hours each day. Lack of direction, not lack of time is the problem of those who waste time. Anonymous.

6. Find happiness in the process of accomplishing your dreams. Avoid a "deferred life plan." Find a way to do what you like to do today, or, like what you have to do. Attitude is always key. Dan Lowenthal.

7. Build strong friendships and be kind to people. See #3 and #4. That will also help #6. Edina Dizharevic.

8. Diversify your experiences. See #3. Dan Lowenthal.

9. Save money. Put a little bit away with each paycheck. Do it automatically so you don't miss it. This is called the miracle of compound interest. India L.J. Mitchell.

10. Drink with old people (see #3, #7, #8). They've been there, done that and have the t-shirts (see #4). Ben Hinks.

11. Start meditating. It trains your brain to be able to deal with the madness of each day (see #6). Anonymous.

12. Learn to work with shame and doubt. Those emotions probably mean your are stretching beyond your comfort zone (see #11). That's a good thing. Diego Mejia.

13. Go outside: hikes, walks, running, that new lifelong sport you are taking up (see #1), anything. Cognitive psychologists prescribe a little "wilderness bathing" to counteract depression and burnout. Non-cognitive sorts say you need a dose of fresh air to chase aways the blues. Stephen Steinberg.

14. Get to know people who are different from you (see #3, #4, #8, #10). You might even meet them during a #13. Judy Tyrer.

15. Date everything (see #2) — no, not that kind of “date.” Whether you're connecting with a person, taking notes during a meeting, or labeling takeout boxes in the fridge, knowing the date when something happened is useful in ways you can't predict. If it could be predicted, we might mention it here as incentive. Dee Vining.

16. Read novels. Fiction is emotional and cognitive stimulation. Novels train you to recognize, understand and model other people's experiences of life. It's almost as good as #3, #8, #10 and #14. It’s even up there with #1 and #13. Anuany Arunav.

17. Set minimum goals. Read 15 pages a day, do 20 push ups each morning (see #1-#16), floss a different tooth each day (???). Starting the habit, even a small habit, is key to changing your life.

Pick only one or two of the group to try for the rest of the summer but don't delay (#6). We’ll check back in five years. T-shirts to the finishers.

The Success Myth: Pick a College, Any College

Flash quiz: What is the best strategy for a high school graduate? 1. Pick a college, any college. 2. Align your talents and strengths with career exploration and the relevant education and skills training you will need to get a job in your first preferred career choice.

If you, or the graduate, are not sure of the answer, watch this excellent 9-minute video from Citrus College, a community college in the Los Angeles, California, suburb of Glendora. The video is written and narrated by Kevin Fleming and directed and animated by Brian Marsh.

Success in the New Economy: how prospective college students can gain a competitive advantage: http://vimeo.com/67277269

OK, now that you have watched it, you can probably answer the first question. Can you answer a few more?

1. What percentage of recent high school graduates enroll in higher education: 22%, 44%, 66% or 88%?
2. What fraction of new university graduates are underemployed: 12.5%, 25%, 50% or 75%?
3. Comparing the job market of 1960 with 2018, what percent of jobs in 2018 will require a four-year university degree?
4. Comparing the job market of 1960 with 2018, what percent of jobs in 2018 will require a one-year certificate or two-year associate degree?
5. What is the ratio of jobs in the economy in 1950 that required a graduate degree compared to a bachelors degree compared to a one-year certificate or two-year degree.
6. What is the ratio of jobs in the economy in 1990 that required a graduate degree compared to a bachelors degree compared to a one-year certificate or two-year degree.
7. What is the ratio of jobs in the economy in 2030 that will require a graduate degree compared to a bachelors degree compared to a one-year certificate or two-year degree.
8. (T/F) "Getting a bachelors degree in Business is always better than getting an industry-based credential as an Electrician."
9. Community colleges are in an ideal position to provide (PICK ONE: 40%, 50%, 60% or 70%) of tomorrow's workforce with the education they need.
10. What two items will be the new currency for the new economy?

ANSWERS: In the video, of course. And, a passing grade is 80%.

A Disadvantage of Auto-Cloud Backup

I was not paying attention to my knitting, as my grandmother might have said.

I was updating a school to-do list in Evernote on my phone: assignment due dates, ideas for new classes, websites that I copied but not had gotten around to viewing yet, and so on. The digital detritus of a modern working guy. The "Cloud" ties the Evernote app into my phone, iPad, home PC and Mac and the various desktops at school offices and labs. I have categories for school, home, and garden; a quote list (I write them down as I see them); a daily to-do list; a list of books I want to read and I list of books I have read during the current year.

At this time of the year, the school list has been pared down to essentials: to-dos I want to complete during the summer and to-dos I want to take up in the fall. Still, there were more than two-dozen items on the note. I was rushed one night, multitasking, and made one too many clicks. The entire file was highlighted (select-all is always a dangerous choice) in a pale blue box with one click, and the next quick key stroke replaced the entire list with the single letter, "r".

Gone. Everything. Was. Gone.

I looked around for the salvation of an "Undo" icon -- no icon. I knew if I closed the file, the information (as little as there was) would be uploaded to the Cloud (handy automatic feature that) and the lower case "r" would replace two years of ideas. And, no, there had been no print-out backup. Instead, I fired up another machine in another room and signed into Evernote from there. As I suspected, the earlier file had not yet been updated across the system (the first computer file was still open), so I forced a sync with the Cloud to keep the file from the second machine rather than the r-file. The sync was complete. All was saved, sort of.

What I had were two competing files with the same name on two different machines. Eventually there was going to be a problem. Rather than hope for the best, never a good idea when working with technology, I renamed the second school file as "School 2014-15" and re-synced. Again, successful. So I had the original school file and the second, renamed file.

I turned back to the phone and when I clicked off the file screen, as I suspected, the "r-file" was uploaded as "School" and populated all devices. The Cloud is very thorough. But, I had my original work, other than some rushed tweaking, under the name of the new file, "School 2014-15." I also had the file, "School" with a lone "r" in it. I think I will keep it as a reminder for a while

Losing the original file would not have been the end of the world. I would have eventually recreated the items. But, an absent-minded slip of attention and errant keystroke would have cost me time and anxiety. In an earlier generation, I would have said this was a lesson about backing up, but it's not really -- backing up is an automatic process today. Instead this a story about slowing down, paying attention to your knitting, and then when digital disaster strikes, trying to stay calm and keep on computing.

Chiseled Words and Broken Footsteps

The statue-less statue of Arsinoe II (285-246 B.C.) stood out from the 75 other more-or-less intact objects in a Chicago Art Institute exhibit titled, "When the Greeks Ruled Egypt,"sponsored by the Jaharis Family Foundation, Inc. One foot of the statue was formally posed ahead of the other in a typical Egyptian portrait stance. The rest of it was broken off at the top of the foot.

Now, a practically destroyed 3,000 year-old statue is not unusual, but these footsteps on an inscribed rectangular base, seemed especially poignant. When the statue was carved, the Greeks were at their height of power: Alexander the Great conquered Egypt in 332 B.C. beginning a 300-year era of Greek-installed Pharaohs. Fascinated by Egyptian practices for immortality, the Greek rulers adapted and amended Egyptian customs especially those promising an afterlife. Who wouldn't want to live forever? According to the museum description of this item, Ptolemy II (309-246 B.C.) "introduced new features into Egypt's traditional religious practices, including the posthumous deification of his sister-wife, Arsinoe II. He decreed that she was to be worshipped in temples throughout Egypt." Immortality by executive fiat.

But the life of a goddess only lasts as long as her disciples and, while some pantheons have been long-lived, none have yet achieved immortality. The Greek-installed Pharaohs of the Ptolemaic Period were replaced by Roman rulers, as were Greek temples with Roman temples and Greek gods with Roman gods. After that, Rome fell to others who fell to still others during subsequent historical epochs. During the chaos that followed, the statue and the memory of Arsinoe II was shattered, buried, and forgotten.

Forgotten? Not quite yet though her memory was not preserved by scripted rituals and carefully constructed chants for the dead. The powerful who relied only on such fantasies lie forgotten beneath the shifting sands of time. Immortality in this case was bestowed by the hammer and chisel of an unknown artist who carved the statue and double-inscribed (just to be safe) Arsinoe II's name in both Greek letters and Egyptian hieroglyphics in its base. Literacy not libations, art not artifice bridged those 2500 years.

This is probably not the immortality that was promised to Ptolemy II by his minions. The mighty pharaoh would not be pleased that he and his sister-wife were of only passing interest to middle school tour groups texting each other in a side exhibit hall in Chicago. What could the young know about the ageless yearning for immortality? To offset their disrespect, I stood quietly before the chiseled words and broken footsteps and wondered.

Seventy GED Students "Walk"

Seventy GED/HSED students "walked" on Wednesday. I don't mean "walked" in a bad way as if the students stormed out of a classroom as a programmed flash mob. I mean "walked" as in "proudly," "momentously," and "at long last" parading across a graduation stage, receiving ovations from college leadership and faculty, and soaking in the tears and cheers of family and friends.

Before the annual GED/HSED graduation at the school, graduates in caps and tassels, royal blue gowns and gold honor cords waited nervously in the Executive Dining room a few doors down from the stage entry. I visited with students I knew, as did other faculty, reminiscing with them and posing for photos. I was very happy to see five of my students from Oconto Falls and three from Shawano make the trip to Green Bay for the ceremony. Most students don't. The 70 students who lined up were just a fraction of more than 400 students who completed the GED/HSED series during the past year. That's too bad. All of the completers did the work. I wish more would allow themselves to enjoy this moment of triumph.

They should not take their GED/HSED accomplishment lightly. Given strong representation on Wednesday by college trustees, the college president and vice-president of learning, other vps and leadership, the college certainly takes their graduation seriously. We all know this credential represents an academic milestone for students who had -- to be perfectly honest -- failed the first time around. Each student had his or her own reasons why they dropped out of high school. On Wednesday, those reasons were not really important. What was important and what all of us were celebrating, was that they did come back to school, studied hard, balanced work and family with school, and, finally, finally, achieved their high school credential.

Marathoner, journalist and author, Amby Burfoot, spoke of such dogged perseverance when he wrote, "To get to the finish line, you'll have to try lots of different paths." There was one common goal that all these students achieved as they walked across the stage, a GED/HSED credential, but there were as many different paths to that common goal as there were students who were doing the "walking." These are the first few steps that they will take toward another marathon journey, lifelong learning, but no need to worry about that right now. The graduates have proven that they can succeed when they do the work. On Wednesday, it was time for them to hold their head high and proudly walk.

UWGB's Academic Forgiveness

For many freshmen, college is just too much: non-curricular temptations at college trump home-grown common sense, and others who do put in time on classwork realize that shaky study skills that eeked them through high school are no match for the rigor of the college classroom. Sure, most schools have early-warning signals in place and many are helped by that, but for too many unprepared incoming students, the first semesters of college spiral down from poor grades, to academic probation, and to the embarrassment of dismissal.

So, what happens next? These students move on without college. Life does continue. But after some years, they realize they really do need a degree credential to move forward. Unfortunately, their previous record drags them down even though they may have now learned the life lessons that would allow them to be successful in college if they had a second chance. A low GPA on the transcript can cause all kinds of problems: re-qualifying for program entry, applying for scholarships and loans, and interviewing for program internships. It takes a lot of positive credits to overcome a bad start.

Since 2010, the University of Wisconsin--Green Bay has quietly established an alternative proposal: Academic Forgiveness. I read about the program in the June 2014 issue of the UWGB alumni/community magazine, Inside 360. The basics of the program are if a student has been out of school for at least three years and if the student struggled "because of health issues, motivation, too much on their plates, or something else," the student is given a fresh academic start when he or she re-enrolls. The student keeps whatever credits were earned on the first go-around, but the GPA altimeter is reset at 0.00.

Darrel Renier, director of academic advising at the college, reports the program has been effective. As of the beginning of the last school year (2013-14), Renier said, "We've had 62 requests for forgiveness, and the new average GPA for these students has been a 3.43." That's a huge jump for students who had not been able to maintain a 2.00 GPA in earlier semesters.

The Academic Forgiveness program recognizes that not every student is ready for college at the same time right out of high school. Age is a notoriously poor indicator of post-secondary maturity because some students need a little more seasoning and motivation before they allow themselves to be successful. Kudos to UWGB for eliminating the GPA barrier for returning students and for focusing on what is most important to all of us: student success not the grades.

Reflection: Balancing Our Good to Great Stuff

The Achieving the Dream conference speakers, putting an academic spin on the Jim Collins management classic, Good to Great (2001), explained how pockets of innovation within an organization can lead to larger, organization-wide change, if a culture of intentional institutional redesign has been established. Too opaque? OK, let's quote Collins directly:

"Visionary companies make some of their best moves by experimentation, trial and error, opportunism, and -- quite literally -- accident. What looks in retrospect like brilliant foresight and preplanning was often the result of 'Let's just try a lot of stuff and keep what works.'"

In order to promote such a change culture, you need data to identify and evaluate innovative "stuff," leadership willing to allow stuff to bubble up from below, formal and informal communication promulgating and supporting stuff, and time for reflection about stuff... time for reflection?

The community college audience at the workshop sat a little straighter at this last requirement. Reflection? Didn't Collins, the guru of greatness now not later, say, "A culture of discipline ... is a principle of greatness." Doesn't this drive toward discipline imply moving, moving, moving? 24/7? Who, we asked ourselves while checking the room number for the next session, has time for reflection?

Apparently we should. The speakers said our rush toward innovation has to be balanced with reflection on the data, the goals, and the "stuff." While action to initiate change is encouraged, action for the sake of action becomes unanchored, and possibly counter-productive without planned moments of reflection. We as instructors know that students need moments of reflection to move new information from short term memory to long-term habits. You can't teach, teach, teach without pauses for learning. That's part of any sensible lesson plan. Why would we expect any less for our colleges?

Fortunately for most colleges, the traditional school calendar provides scheduled moments for reflection. Right now, our school has begun a two-week break between the Spring Term and Summer Term. The hallways are quiet without the flow of students walking between classes. Final papers are collected, grades recorded, and schedules set up for the next session. Christian colleges might use the down time to conduct spiritual retreats for staff, faculty, and leadership. That's a great idea to move reflection from an exterior process to an inner core change. Unfortunately, public colleges can't go that route, though they do strongly encourage us --wink wink nudge nudge -- to take time to plan and recharge.

During semester breaks, we need to consciously and methodically step back from classroom activities, regroup our resources, and refocus our thoughts on our shared and personal mission of student success. In a word, it's time to reflect. Quiet still moments of reflection balance the busyness of the innovative stuff we try during the semester. During reflection, the daily detritus is swept clear from our pathways, vistas are opened, and, to quote a fourth-century consultant, Chang Tsu, "the whole universe surrenders." He must have been a teacher reflecting on stuff too.

Students are the Passion of our Data

When those of us in Academia discuss student success, we often narrowly focus on data points that support our favorite programs and initiatives. We know from experience that grant funding agencies and even our own local budget committees respond better to quantitative data sets rather than to stories of individual students. Logos trumps Pathos at budget time.

For example, speakers at an Achieving the Dream workshop this past winter outlined the dismal record we have in this country of converting developmental education students to college students. Speakers promoting the Carnegie Foundation Statway and Quantway developmental education math curriculum used data to show the disaster:

• Consider, they said, that 60 to 70-percent of our incoming students need developmental math courses.
• But, of those who enter the dev-ed courses, 80-percent never make it out.
• That's 500,000 lost students each year.

If you're selling a new, more effective (again according to student data) math curriculum, this is a powerful argument that demonstrates an overwhelming need for a new model. But is that all student success means? Hoping for a ten or twenty-point gain over two years?

I was asked to report on the Achieving the Dream conference to a college committee this past week, which gave me a reason to review and reflect on notes and handouts, such as the Carnegie material. I, and others from my college, attended dozens of workshops over three and a half days. Each presentation was supported by data showing a problem, the implementation of a new idea to solve that problem, and post-data demonstrating incremental success.

That's all to the good, but what stands out from the conference was not the charts and tables of numbers, but the stories I heard of students helped by colleagues in Achieving the Dream colleges. One of the speakers, a data guy, put it best: "Students are the faces of the data; their stories are data with soul."

As instructors, staff and leadership in community colleges, we know that students feel isolated and doubled over by a seemingly uncaring collegiate system. Students of color told the conference attendees that they felt stupid, intimidated, and out of place in a "white people's college". They didn't believe they belonged in college until someone stepped out from behind a desk and worked with them. One former student, now a college administrator with a Ph.D. behind his name, said his success began with one person who persuaded him, "You are able. You have a right to be here. You can succeed, and I will help you."

Data may get us the dollars to run the programs that buy the desks, but one-on-one student engagement gets us the success. We can't overlook the stories of our students as we count their heads. Certainly, we have to use the data to secure funding to create an "infrastructure of opportunity available to every student," as a speaker said. That is the funding game. But while we work at that, we should never overlook the hopeful faces that the data sometimes hides. Students are the real passion that we, as academics, pursue. If the student is not our passion, then what are we doing here?

Me and William: My Brief History with the Bard

There is a post circulating among English teachers this year, the 450th year of the birth of William Shakespeare. The prompt asks, "When did you learn to love Shakespeare?"

Thinking back, I was introduced to him in junior high school when we were given parts to Romeo and Juliet to study. Classmates trudged to the front of the classroom to perform the famous balcony scene (Act II Scene II) to a giggling crowd of classmates. The girls gamely tried to put life into the fair damsel, but most of the boys stood fixed like part of the balcony and recited lines in a hurried sign-song. I gave the exercise a little more effort and somewhere between "But, soft! What light through yonder window breaks?" (line 2) and "Sleep dwell upon thine eyes, peace in thy breast" (line 139), I found my calling and began an extra-curricular love of the Bard and of performing.

In college, I was cast in a production of The Merchant of Venice. I was the lone freshman among juniors, seniors and grad students, energetically playing multiple crowd roles of a Magnifico, Officer of the Court, and Reveler in the streets of Venice. The UW-Madison production at the Union Theater was far above my talent or previous high school experience. The grad students who played Shylock and Portia in particular were amazing. And, during the first dress rehearsal, this small town boy was introduced to an eye-opening lack of modesty as cast members of both sexes changed from one costume to the next just off stage without bothering with a dressing room. The Bard opens many doors.

After college, I became an audience member, not a performer and was rarely disappointed. Fortunately, I have access each summer to a nationally acclaimed Shakespeare troupe only hours away: American Players Theater in Spring Green, just west of Madison. Last year as a treat, we saw back-to-back same-day productions of first Hamlet and then Rosecrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard using the same cast for both shows. Again, amazing. The juxtaposition of Shakespeare and Stoppard told the story of the Hamlet's tortured soul from shifting front stage and back stage points of view.

Each time I see a new production or return to favorite lines, I am surprised and delighted by the simplicity and complexity of the words and phrases. It is remarkable that a man who wrote 37-plays in a 25-year stage career is still able to touch audiences with a remarkable clarity of human experience. The reason the plays are still relevant is that our central human experience hasn't changed all that much in 450 years. Whether you are a middle school student, a college freshman or a theater-goer with a lifetime of experience, the stories of Shakespeare ring true at whatever level you need at the time. That is the test of artistic genius and that is why we continue to love his words.

A Good Class is like a Good Story

I just finished up two end-of-year curriculum assignments (yeah, I know, I am cutting it pretty close to the end of semester deadline -- sorry Val) and have spent the spring semester working on a new model of GED class from the brand new GED material. So, it seems like I have been writing curriculum nonstop since January because, well, I have.

Writing a curriculum is like very much like writing creative non-fiction. There are certain rules you must abide by (assigned competencies, criteria and objectives deposited in a state online vault called WIDS), but there is also a certain freedom and creativity as you write individual lesson plans. A good lesson, like a good story, requires plot elements familiar to any high school student (exposition, pace, dramatic tension and such). The lesson should have a recognized pattern throughout the semester so students know what to expect from class to class, but the course should also take occasional unexpected turns just to keep things interesting.

And, unlike straight-up writing, curriculum writers have to factor in how the course will be delivered: face-to-face, online or blended (a little more than both), or video-conference (a little less than both). But like any good story, a good lesson needs to have a defined beginning, middle and end that blends into the 15-week term that has its own beginning, middle and end.

Good curriculum, like a good story, has movement, information, flow, humor, improvisation, and expression within the strategic rules of the WIDS outline. It is a narrative, but much much more. A good curriculum builds an academically-tested scaffolding that holds up resources within the classroom, explores resources outside of it, and is willing to roll to the side to showcase the abilities and talent of the students. As a curriculum writer, your goal is to create a consistent, yet evolving collaborative story through which learning emerges.

Handle with Care: A Student's Gift of Trust

"Do you have some time?"

The GED student is half-in and half outside the doorway to my office. Her book bag rests on the floor. Its shoulder strap hanging loosely from one hand. Her other hand clenches her unzipped coat as if she were standing exposed in a cold February farm field rather than an interior school hallway. Instinct and experience tells me the problem she has today is not about a reading assignment.

Of course I have time. I always have time for students, that's my calling: so I invite her to sit in one of the chairs of the office with a buffer zone of a desk between us. The door is open, but my voice is low and won't carry into the hallway. The student will be talking with her back to the door, so her voice won't carry at all and she won't be distracted by the casual glances from other students walking by. We can talk in confidence.

 "What can I do for you?"

Even though meetings like this only happen a few times every semester, I am still uncomfortable in the non-academic academic role. During these meetings I feel like there should be someone sitting in my chair with more wisdom and experience than I and at least three Ph.D.s in counseling. The student deserves better. As she speaks, my mind scrambles to recall active listening techniques that I taught last semester. And then, when the student pauses in her narrative, looking for a response, my mind scrambles to figure out the correct thing to say. I want to be helpful, honest, supportive, understanding but not glib, never glib -- I don't want to demean her problem by being snarky.

On the other hand, I also know my respected position as a faculty member is why the student is sitting here to begin with. I have some authority in her eyes, but also some distance. I am safe. For many of my students, this gift of trust is not easily given out since the trust has too often been mishandled by unworthy partners. She is talking to me because she thinks she has no one else to talk to. A student with a strong network of friends and family does not confide in a GED instructor on a spring day.

For good or ill, I'm the someone she's chosen. I listen, help her explore her problem and her options, and, perhaps, guide her toward suitable resources in the school or out in the community. The meeting might be one-off or might have longer-term consequences. That is yet to be decided and future steps are not very important right now. What's important is that she has someone to talk to: someone who will take the time to listen to her. Time I have.

At the moment, I just try to handle the trust she has given me as if it were a precious crystal carving. Her gift quivers with insecure fragility. A clumsy touch, ill-chosen words, or even the unintended interruption of an instant message chime will shatter the threads that are twining about themselves to form a new image of self-confidence created as she speaks. I dare not drop the gift because when a student hands trust to you, their hopes and dreams are also tied to it. Drop one and all are shattered.

GED 2014 Has Some Bite

Three months into the new GED series, instructors and students are discovering the increased rigor of the tests: reading selections have doubled in length; science and social studies questions requires a basic knowledge science and history; extended answers assume a working knowledge of the structure of an argument; math is liberally sprinkled throughout science and social studies questions; and the math test questions range from decimals, fractions and percent and end with Algebra II: polynomials, linear equations and simplifying quadratic expressions.

I have taken the GED Ready tests and have, retaining some academic pride, scored in the green "Likely To Pass" category on all of them. Unfortunately, I have heard that other instructors have not done as well. I'm not really worried about that right now, because I remember when I started to teach in the Basic Ed classroom, I had forgotten the basics of how to divide fractions. Good instructors know how to fill in deficits and learn new material quickly and efficiently. I am more concerned about my students.

Initial national reports confirm my classroom observations about the increased difficulty of the series. When GED 2014 was given to recent high school graduates as a comparison sample, only two-thirds passed on the first try. In last year's version, the pass rate was, I believe, about 70-78-percent. In other news, the new math test has been extended 25-minutes, from 90-minutes to 115-minutes (almost a 28-percent allowance) because too many students were not completing the test in time. And, I am hearing from colleagues on a local and regional level that more students than last year are not passing tests or the rate of testing has slowed dramatically.

This does not mean I am giving up on GED 2014, and I am certainly not advocating for an easier test. Last year's GED needed to be updated and the update needed some bite in order to maintain its credibility. I believe those who pass the GED 2014 series will be better prepared for career opportunities and post-secondary classrooms than previous graduates. Going easy is not the solution, but everyone -- instructors, students, employers, family and friends -- will have to adjust expectations.

At one time, average to high-level students could expect to complete the series in a good semester of work, about 50 hours. Some could successfully test more quickly. Now, I expect that most of my students will need two or more semesters in order to successfully pass the test. GED students who come to me now will need patience, persistence as well as hard work. The GED has upped its game. Students and instructors will need to do the same.

Students who Step Out from the Center of the Aisle

I am most impressed when high school students at college/career fairs step up, look me straight in the eye and quiz me about programs and procedures at my college. I don't care as much about their question -- those are fairly predictable and easy to answer or redirect -- as I do about their non-verbal declaration of taking responsibility for their future.

Both sides do recognize that the choice of a program/career, first, and college second, are two of the most important decisions that we make. We might make that decision as a high school junior or senior, or much, much later in our life. And, we often repeat that choice throughout our lives as new goals lead to new educational needs and lead to another gauntlet of college/career fairs.

In contrast to my idea fair-goer, gaggles of students wander down the safe center of the aisle during these fairs, unwilling to make eye contact with anyone at any of the tables. Eye contact, even a sideways glance, might mean that they have to talk about their future which scares them more than subordinate clauses. These students are at the fair because it's a day away from school with their BFFs. Walking upright and not bumping into exhibits is their goal for the day. Most manage that.

I let those students pass without trying to draw them in. Why frighten them? The students that I am interested in are those who will step away from the safety of their friends in the aisle. I want to talk with students who use the fair as a deliberate, purposeful pursuit of their future, rather than those who aimlessly wander the aisles distracted by cheap give-aways, flashy banners and vendors that promise more than they can deliver.

To be truthful, even the focused students will not find all their answers during the fair: it's just a first step followed by campus visits, interviews, applications, testing and advising. Nevertheless, taking the first step from the safety of the aisle, making eye contact and asking serious questions show that they are accepting responsibility for what happens to them. I can help these students begin to understand that college and the future is not a place where you find the right answers as much as it is a place where you find the right questions to ask. It's up to them to step out and step up.

Spring Sympathy Card to the Gulf Coast

This is the time of the year when I pity residents of the Gulf Coast.

They have had to endure months of annoyingly green lawns, flowering plants and temperatures in the 60s, 70s, and 80s. Those who live on the ocean coast have it even worse: ocean breezes moving the surf out and back according to the orbital pattern of the moon rather than at the whim of terrestrial forces out of the Canadian prairies.

Boring.

What do residents of the south have to look forward to in March, April and May? More green plants, more orchid colored-petals, more days of room temperature. Same old same old. It's like being stuck on the same channel showing the same episode of "Swamp People" over and over again. Unchanging nice weather is unique the first dozen days but begins to look tired four months later. On the Gulf, Halloween looks like Thanksgiving looks like Christmas looks like President's Day looks like Easter.

We in the Midwest, however, actually do have seasons. Summers up here are like the best days in Orlando but without the hurricanes. Stunning falls days overwhelm the imagination of even the Disney Imagineers and December holiday decorations in the Midwest actually look appropriate. A Styrofoam snowman wired down to a muddy Georgia front lawn with blinking green and red lights is just wrong. Sure, we have some snow up here (just to clean the landscape up while plants are resting) and the cold can be biting, but those temperatures also bring ice fishing and record sturgeon spearing and once in a generation ice caves off Lake Superior. We may get a little testy toward the end of February, but that's what fireplaces are for.

Spring is the season that really sets us apart from the unfortunates in the Gulf. As snow banks inch back from driveway edges during 40-degree days, the first hints of new life peak out from under last year's leaf cover. Slender, pale green shoots push up under last year's debris unfurling insistent single and double leaves that soak in the sun of longer days and grow. The robins are back searching along the south side of house foundations, and the cardinals never left. Red-wing blackbirds resume their sentry positions along the riverfront trail that links neighboring cities. Tree buds are round with the year's new promise of life.

We are some weeks away from the first sight of crocus, narcissus and tulip, but the corner has been turned even if we occasionally have a single digit night. Highs in 30s and 40s bring new spring to our steps, clear the sidewalks of ice and snow and coax neighbors out onto adjoining driveways to talk about surviving another winter. Spring light brings us out and brings us out smiling.

Without the annual cycles of the seasons, we are no more real than department store spring manikins posing on plastic grass with fabric birds singing in the cutout trees. Pretty to look at, but insubstantial and lacking the depth of connection to natural cycles of the world. Without this seasonal grounding, beginning with the slow rise of spring from winter, we drift untethered through the temporal breezes of the year, sort of like a Gulf Coast breeze.

Zingerman's OMG: Going Above and Beyond

We received a postcard in the mail this week from Zingerman's mail order company. I know receiving a postcard from a mail order company does not usually merit blogability, but stay with me. One side of the card had a Zingerman's signature hand-drawn thank you cartoon; the other side was this hand-addressed handwritten note:

"Hi there! It was a pleasure speaking with you today. I know Brandon and Hannah enjoyed the thoughtful gift box. Thank you for ordering with me! Best, Lukas at Zingerman's Mail Order."

Zingerman's, Ann Arbor, MI, has built its reputation selling quality food products in colorful boxes (you'll want to keep the boxes -- trust me on that) backed by world-class customer service from Lukas and his associates. The postcard followed a routine sale when we ordered the Midnight Feeding Box for our niece and nephew, first-time parents of a brand new baby girl (sourcream coffeecake, hot cocoa cake, black magic brownies and such). Lukas took the order, recognized the names of our niece and nephew from past gifts and congratulated us on the new addition to the family. A week later he sent the postcard.

Good story, but it's not Zingerman's at its best. This company routinely delights customers. In November, we ordered a Christmas gift box of breads and pastry for another niece and nephew. We shipped to an old address -- they had moved and we had not updated our address book. We discovered this a week before Christmas and in a panic called Zingerman's who tracked down the shipment to a shipping center and made the necessary address change. Efficient service. Crisis averted. Christmas is saved. We were very satisfied.

A few hours later, we received a follow-up call from Zingerman's. The sales team member said, "We've been talking about this order here, and you know we like our products to arrive as fresh as possible. Since the order was stopped and rerouted, the box will arrive a day later than we prefer. So, we will send your niece and nephew a new fresh shipment direct from the store."

That's thoughtful, we said, sensing an additional cost. How much more for the second box?

"Oh, there is no charge for that."

No charge? So will the first box be sent back to the store? "Oh no. They will receive that too." Amazing. The company not only corrected a problem that they did not cause, they doubled the resulting gift for no extra charge. Our niece and nephew and the rest of the family was amazed by the story, the service, and the black magic brownies.

How does a company turn good, efficient customer service into OMG stories? By going above and beyond with each and every customer, with each and every contact opportunity. Nothing creates customer loyalty like a personal touch, say an old-fashioned hand-written postcard.

The Annual Employee Review

The annual employee review seems to me a remnant of a mechanistic management style a little out of step with emerging trends of employer-employee collaboration. Relying too much on a once-a-year review always overlooks the fact that our work is evaluated every day by students, staff members, team members, colleagues, outside partners and leadership. If there is something wrong, one would hope that it would not take a year to correct the problem. On the other hand, if something is going well, one would also hope that it would not take a year to say, "Nice job." The best evaluation technique has always been constant, consistent, honest feedback. I don't know why that's hard to do.

Yet, speaking from the employee side of the desk, the exercise is expected especially if no other long-term feedback is given during the year which does happen in some jobs. Once, I remember not receiving an evaluation because the boss was busy: I felt overlooked and under-appreciated. Silly, I know, but the annual ritual does force at least one discussion once a year about expectations and performance. Though, if this happens only once a year, the discussion is seldom honest or productive. It is necessary while at the same time dreaded. Like an annual physical: "Turn your head, cough, and tell me what your goals are for the next year."

Of course sometimes, the evaluation becomes unproductive when it is twisted into non-collaborative sub tones. Another year, another job, another example, I was annoyed when a boss told me at the end of a glowing evaluation that I did not communicate well. "What?" said I communicating rather well at the moment. He shrugged and said he had to put something down for improvement for next year. Since I was a strong communicator, he thought it would be easy to show progress for next year's form. I would show improvement and he would show coaching skills. He thought the idea was a win-win solution.  I thought I needed to update my resume.

This year in a post-Act 10 world in Wisconsin, a new Faculty Progression process is being tried out at my college. The process is thoughtful and innovative since it asks faculty and managers to establish a baseline of expectations and identify specific goals within a four-tier employment structure. Rather than force judgement into 50 check boxes ("Do you strongly agree, disagree, or think the boss has lost his/her mind?") this method seems to encourage more reflection than the usual turn of the head and cough. It takes longer, but so far, I am happy with this process: the goals are relevant, reasonable and achievable, though challenging, and the discussion I had with my associate dean was honest and productive.

Next year, we can evaluate how it is going.

Team Work Makes the Dream Work

"Team work makes the dream work," a phrase coined by Atlanta Technical College student, Terrence Whitehead, was probably the most tweeted phrase that came out of the 10th Annual Achieving the Dream conference last week. The Dream conference is a national conference of community colleges who come together annually to push each other toward innovative and data-supported programs for student success.

Speaker after speaker -- students, faculty, staff and administration -- all reminded us of the lasting impact that just one person can have in the life of another. Of course we know that, though sometimes because of day-to-day struggles, we forget. Student Joshua Ortiz of Kingsborough Community College, New York, lauded those attending who wanted to make that impact and, added, "if that's not why you are here, then I don't know why you are here." Indeed.

One person can make a difference but not, unfortunately, a consistent one. Isolated pockets of innovation do not change the lives of more than a handful of fortunate students. To make a significant impact, innovation needs to be backed by colleagues and institutional support: thus the logic of the Whitehead quote above. So, I was interested in one particular conference session focused on how to start teams.

"Guidelines for Team Building," from Kingsborough Community College, were prefaced with the warning label that innovative change can cause cracks within collegiate ivy walls: "Bear in mind, many of us don't feel comfortable with change and avoid 'rocking the boat' or make every effort to 'maintain the peace.'" That's a natural reaction of self-preservation. Change, by definition, pushes the status quo that then pushes back upon the change agent. It's practically one of Newton's Laws of Science. "However," the guidelines remind us, "our ultimate goal is to serve students and foster their success." In order to do that, Kingsborough recommends these seven team-starting rules.

1. "Check your titles and egos at the door." Teams need to be on an equal footing. Comments should be judged on the merit of the idea not the pay grade of the ideator.
2. "Keep in mind that this working environment should be a safe one. Some teams include both subordinates and their direct reports." See the comments on rule number one.
3. "All team members have a voice deserving of equal respect as each of us brings out own experiences and expertise." One might assume that team members are chosen for the team for a particular reason. If they are not allowed to bring their value to the groups, why have them on the team to begin with?
4. "Do not assign blame. Discuss each issue with tolerance, acceptance and an open mind." Finger pointing is not only impolite, it is unproductive. Find out what the problem is, what changes data supports, and what needs to be done to make the changes. If team meetings during into a blame game, trust within the team will erode its foundational effectiveness.
5. "Solving the problem is everyone's responsibility." A solution will be stronger coming from a team consensus after open, honest discussion. Remember, the goal is "to serve students and foster their success."
6. "The focus should be on the task at hand, not the people in the room." Data-driven evidence places the emphasis on the problem in front of the team. 
7. "Bring a sense of humor." Humor can defuse many tough discussions. When a team loses its sense of humor, it needs to adjourn for the day.

Will the team process be hard to implement and manage? Sure, but that shouldn't stop us from doing it. A final student on the concluding panel, Irving Ledezma, Tarrant Community Community College, put it this way, "Life without challenges will never be meaningful. How you overcome your challenges is how you make it meaningful." Schools need well-functioning, hard-working teams to move individual innovation onto institutional policy. Just keep the sense of humor going.