"Is this for us too?"

Rather than start last Thursday’s class with my typical overview of the writing lesson, I asked students to follow me out of the classroom. We walked down the hall, around the corner, where a turkey lunch was set up for them outside the canteen: shredded turkey on white rolls, dressing with brown gravy, chopped vegetable salad, and a choice of deserts: cupcakes or squares of a thanksgiving carrot cake, in addition to the student drink staple, Sierra Mist. 

While I am often narrowly focused on student lesson plans and activities for the day, I know school is only a small part of a student’s life. College students often struggle financially, emotionally as well as academically. Instructors know students thrive in a classroom that encourages socialization, enhances self-confidence, and promotes self-respect. Respect is, I think, key to the advance of learning. A student needs to respect himself or herself, as well as the school, instructor, and course work.  

If a student does not respect himself or herself, however, how do they learn it? Thursday’s meal was an model of how the Shawano Regional Learning Center shows that it respects all its students, even those in basic education.

My students work hard during the College Writing Prep and the open lab and often skip or skrimp on lunch in order to attend my noon-2 p.m. class and then continue the open lab afterwards. A hot turkey meal, the week before Thanksgiving, a traditional time for us to gather, did three things: it provided fuel for an afternoon of work, it allowed them to breakdown classmate to classmate barriers and eat sociably together, and it demonstrated, in a simple but concrete way, that they are respected members of the Shawano Center.

Basic education students sometimes have a crisis of confidence; they can’t believe that they are actually college students. As my students joined more than 70 other students from nursing, medical records, non-credit, and general studies courses in Thursday’s free hot meal, they asked, “Is this food for us too?” Of course it was. This gesture showed them that we respect their work. This gives them permission to respect themselves in turn. The meal showed they are as important as any other student within the college.

Kudos to the center for showing respect by action, not just words.

A Little Like Christmas Eve

Two days before open enrollment, it seems a little like Christmas Eve in the Basic Education Lab: the anticipation, the wonder, the magic of a gift too perfect to open. Students are freely chatting with each other, ignoring the algebraic order of operations (Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally) for the moment, talking about their expectations and plans, and what courses they are planning to sign up for in the spring college term.

I’ll admit that doesn’t sound like a marketable sequel to “The Christmas Story,” but it is inspiring. When the students started in August, they were blocked from enrolling in college classes because their entry scores were below college minimum standards. About one in ten college candidates fall short of the grade levels needed for success in the college classroom. They are disappointed, of course, and sometimes doubt their own ability, but they can’t let that doubt get the best of them.

So, the students get to work. They attend the open Basic Education lab when they can, sign up for College Prep courses in Reading/Writing and Mathematics, and work against odds to raise up their scores so that when they do sit in a college class, they have the best possible chance of success. Unprepared, their failure doesn’t help them or help us as an institution. 

During the past week, a group of my students have now retested, and they have exceeded, equaled or come within a few worksheets of hitting the college standards that beyond their best efforts just a few months ago. Most have achieved minimum college standards. Some have even reached the much higher program standards. Now, rather than facing remedial exercise, they are ready to take their place in a college classroom.

Within the superficial wrapping of college benchmarks and standardized scores, the students will uncover a greater gift: the dream of a college education. And, because of the work that they have put in this semester, they have started to develop the discipline and self-confidence to see this dream through to the end.

The anticipation of Christmas Eve is fun, but Christmas morning is even better.

Mistakes can be Profited By

I just finished the classic SF story, Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury. I remember reading the story the first time in college as a warning against censorship. Books and the written words are poison in protagonist Montag's world and firemen, like Montag, set fires to books, rather than put them out. It's a reversed view of the world that is prevalent in much of Bradbury's work: take a common idea and twist it 180-degrees to reveal another logical reality.

While the criticism of censorship is still the initial rage for the book, during this reading (it's probably my third or fourth time), the wisdom or folly of our choices seems a more clear underlying theme. Who of us would not like to have an unwise choice brought back? Who of us would not prefer to be braver, stronger, more confident, than we have been in the past? Who of us have not played life safe because we were worried about consequences of bad choices, of mistakes?

But, what if we do make a mistake? Montag's compatriot and conscience, Faber, chided Montag's preference to blend back into the collective rather than risk individuality: "I know, I know. You're afraid of making mistakes. Don't be. Mistakes can be profited by."

The Montag's choices unveil a hidden beautiful world to him. The consequences of the choices are hard and brutal, this is not a sugar plum fairy-tale, but, Bradbury seems to say, are well worth the pain. After Montag uses a river to escape,  he dramatically rises from the water:

"He (Montag) stood breathing, and the more he breathed the land in, the more he was filled up with all the details of the land. He was not empty. There was more than enough here to fill him. There would always be more than enough."

In the broad strokes of typical Bradbury symbolism, Montag is reborn into a new world and a new purpose. His mistakes opened him up to a world full of hope, even though he knows the world can still be a hurtful, cynical place, and he knows he can still make mistakes. But isn't that a wonderful choice to have?

Habits of Highly Unsuccessful Students

An article from Inc.com caught my eye this morning: "Three Habits of Highly Unsuccessful Businesses." The article, written by Karl Stark and Bill Stewart, managing directors of the strategic advisory firm, Avondale (Chicago, IL), suggested that rather than look at the Successful Habits of businesses, it might also be useful to look at the unsuccessful, so as to tack away from harm. The deadly three are, according to Start and Stewart:

1. Unsuccessful businesses believe that their circumstances are unchangeable and therefore don't act.
2. Unsuccessful businesses do not set milestones for their journey.
3. Unsuccessful businesses do no re-evaluate along the way.

I agree with these observations. I have had quite a bit of business experience, and recognize that these three mind games trap well-meaning managers and owners. As I thought more about the unsuccessful three, I recognized that they are also the habits of unsuccessful students. Let me explain.

1. Unsuccessful students believe their circumstances are unchangeable and therefore don't act. Too often, students have come to believe the negative things that others say about them. You are too young (or old), you can't study, you can't write, you can't read, you can't concentrate, and, finally, you are not college-material. Students hear these voices so often that they believe them and remain stuck in one place. Henry Ford once said, "Whether you believe you can, or whether you believe you can't, you're right." Successful teachers work to persuade student that their circumstances can change, but only if they believe in themselves. Students need to act in order to have change.

2. Unsuccessful students do not set milestones. We try to celebrate every victory in the Basic Skills lab: a good score on a math pre-test, breaking 500 on the GED Social Studies predictor, grasping the idea of factoring fractions. These are mini-steps taken every day. Each student also needs to have a larger goal in mind in order to drive them through the days when they don't want to be studying. A student who does not have an end in mind, soon drifts away from the lab and from the promise that he or she might have in their future. As someone once said, "If you don't have a goal, how will you know when you get there."

3. Unsuccessful students do not re-evaluate. When I went to college, I changed my mind on majors at least a half-dozen times in the first couple years. After taking a class, I would decide economics is not for me, philosophy is not for me, biology is not for me. Since I seemed to be more of a generalist than a specialist, journalism seemed the best option and the choice has done well for me. When my students begin their study, they have one goal in mind. Too, too often when that goal becomes unlikely, they give up rather than reassess what they have learned about themselves. Goals change in life.

Usually, like colleagues, I promote the good habits of successful students, but, as the Inc.com article suggests, it is useful to examine what might not be working, as well as what is. Keeping the habits of unsuccessful students in mind, keeps a critical eye on the curriculum and direction that students are taking. It makes teachers more aware of course corrections that we can suggest along the way.

This Young Trio Believes in You

We walked through the art/craft tents on Green Bay's Broadway this morning after coffee at Kavarna, one of our favorite places. We saw button jewelry, pencil sketches of Marilyn Monroe and James Dean, funnel cakes, coffee can lawn art, and other hometown miscellanea in tents scattered on either side of the street. We crossed from the Kavarna side of the street to the east side and stopped at a booth with inspirational messages ("I Believe Me") printed across T-shirts. The designs were original art and very nicely done.

A young lady manning the booth walked right up to us and explained that the shirts were made to spread the message that kids had to believe in themselves She finished her 60-second elevator speech, dropped a card in our shopping bag, and wished us a good day. That was an impressive young lady.

Later on I read the card and brought up the website (www.ibelieveme.org). The young lady was the oldest of three siblings who founded this company to counteract the negative message that kids receive everyday: "Have you ever been told you're not good enough, that you'll never be good enough? Have you been cut from a team, not gotten the part, or been made to feel inferior?"

Rather than give in to the critics, the principals of this kitchen-table company, made up of Callie (our young lady), her brother Leo, and her younger sister Molly, want kids to believe in individual gifts, personal worth, and inspirational dreams. For every T-shirt you, buy the trio with give another T-shirt to a child who would also benefit from promoting the "I Believe Me" message.

Working from a screen printing press in the basement of their grandmother's Allouez, WI, house, the trio know that they can't change the entire world, but are working to do what they can to spread a message of positivity in a very negative world one T-shirt at a time. They write, "We are hear to help, to let you know that you ARE good enough, and that you CAN do whatever you put your mind to."

Impressive indeed.

In Praise of Teaching by Walking Around

The theory of Management by Walking Around (MBWA) is being compared to the notion Teaching by Walking Around (TBWA) in today's teaching blog "Tomorrow's Professor" by Rick Reis of Stanford University. The comparison and study by Shantha P. Yahanpath and Shan Yahanpath of the Sydney (Australia) Business School looked favorably on the idea of moving around a classroom rather than gluing both hands to the lectern in the front of the classroom. Well, yeah.

As a former manager who successfully and purposefully used the MBWA theory when it was first in vogue I won't say how many years ago, I understand that moving among the people you work with inevitably creates relationships that smooth the work process. And, as a manager, how can you tell when something is not working when you are holed up in your office?

Not surprisingly, the Sydney researchers found that when the instructors moved around the classroom working with individual groups of students who were working on directed projects, the learning effectiveness and morale of the students improved.

Agreed, in some classes where the student numbers are well north of 24-30, the lecture may be a tried and true way of conducting a class, but I doubt that it is the most effective. Every teaching study that I have read shows that lecturing is the least effective way of teaching. That begs the obvious question, "Why do we continue to do it?" Probably because it takes less preparation time in a busy teaching schedule. In a pinch, you open the text book and read the chapter of the day. Don't laugh, I once had an instructor do that on a particularly bad day. BTW, I count reading off a text-filled PowerPoint slide as little improvement over reading from the text. The PowerPoint should be a visual, interactive teaching aide, not a teleprompter for the instructor.

My most effective classes are those when I am working directly with the students. In small classes, this many be one-on-one or one-on-two. In larger classes, the students are broken down into larger smaller groups and directed to complete projects. This method takes advantage of the most effective way of teaching, allowing students to teach each other. When I see a student tell a student, "No try it this way," I smile, because I know that a teaching moment is developing. A student will easily accept learning from classmates.

And, just as in management, how can you tell when something is not being learned, when you are attached to the lectern at the front of a traditional classroom? Teaching, as well as managing, is an interactive activity.

My Son is NOT Going to a Technical College

The first time I worked for NWTC, I worked in the marketing department as a minor administrative functionary. A manager I worked with worried about his son who was just graduating from high school. The boy was bright, graduated with good grades, but didn't seem to have focus. He was planning to enter a UW-system campus in the fall, but the dad worried that a campus far from home would be more destructive than instructive.

Ever helpful, I suggested the son try some classes at NWTC first, to get his college legs under him. The dad was shocked by the suggestion, "My son is NOT going to a technical college." You would have thought that I suggested that the dad bankroll him for a career as a professional poker player in Las Vegas. The tech college was suitable for kids from other families, not his.

Times have changed.

It's been almost 20-years since that exchange. I left the college for a time, and now have returned as a member of the faculty. I have seen the stigma of a technical college degree wear away to such a point where now it is sought after by students. Our general education courses are accepted by the UW-system and our graduates in nursing, manufacturing technology, digital wonders, leadership, and the trades are recruited and highly paid by local businesses. The technical college degree is no longer the poor stepchild of the state post-secondary system, but an equal partner with our four-year brethren.

What happened to the son? I believe the boy bounced around, as the father feared, but eventually got a degree in something or other. I would not be surprised if he has found himself back at NWTC at one time or another to get an advanced training to supplement and enhance the baccalaureate degree. It happens all the time.