How "Real" Is Your Classroom?

"But how will I ever use this in the 'real world'?" I remember questioning my teachers as a student. I didn't always think what they were teaching me was important or useful. However, I was the type of student who wanted to succeed, who trusted my teachers despite those seeds of skepticism and doubt. For me, the assurance that things would be covered on the test or that they would be required to move on to the next stage or course in my education was enough. But I was probably the exception to most students in the late 1990s, and I would certainly be an anomaly today. In the age of Google search, Youtube, and global connections, "because I said so" doesn't cut it.

As a teacher now myself, I want to make sure my students never have to ask me when they'll use what I'm teaching them; I strive to make the relevance of the topic and the connections to their own lives crystal clear. If it's not important to them, then they won't give me the effort (and hopefully the enthusiasm!) I'm seeking. If I can't make Shakespeare, Dickens, and argumentative writing applicable to my 21st learners, then I should find something else to teach. Instead, I use Romeo and Juliet as a catalyst for conversations about teenagers, love, brain development, and decision-making; Great Expectations gets us discussing what character traits are truly important and how much we should be willing to change ourselves for someone else; and argumentative writing helps us defend our favorite athletes, musicians, and movies. Check out my "trailer" for my class below!



School should be the "real world," but our students don't often see it that way. Our students see us create an artificial environment of rules and regulations that have been in place for as long as we can remember, yet they are nothing like the "real world" they experience every day outside our school's walls. If we truly want our students to be successful, happy, life-long learners, here are a few things we can do to help them.

Stop Pretending Cell Phones Don't Exist

Devices exist in the "real world"

I'll admit it; I was guilty of this one my first couple years in the classroom. Our school had a policy against cell phones, and I would confiscate them if I saw them (as the rule stated), even when they weren't in use. Despite my feelings of guilt, I followed along. But if we want to be "real" we need to acknowledge that our students have their cell phones everywhere else. Instead of putting phones on lockdown, we need to teach our students how to handle the distraction they can be and to harness their power for the forces of good. My students and I discuss when appropriate times are for using phones in class--we even role-play some scenarios! We also share times a cell phone could help us with learning or sharing our learning. I have my phone out to snap quick pictures of what we're doing and to share on social media. We share new apps we like and whether or not we can find an equivalent web-based program to use on our Chromebooks. Sure, students sometimes get distracted by their phones or try to use them at inappropriate times, but when they do we talk about it. They are allowed to learn, grow, and make mistakes here like anywhere else, and they can do it with my guidance. Allowing students the freedom to have their phones or other devices out shows them that the classroom doesn't have to be an artificial environment where we have to pretend personal devices don't exist.

Allow For Choice

Teachers, you don't always have to tell students every detail of how to do things. I used to be guilty of this. I had a vision for the content, the process, and the product, and I would clearly outline each step for my students. It's not that I didn't ask for feedback or change up the projects, or even that I didn't sometimes offer what I though of as choice (you can choose option A or option B!) to students. I just never truly allowed for student choice that wasn't initially my choice. It is comfortable that way, both for teachers and for students. But a few years back I taught the same class six times each day for the first time, and I was bored. One of the changes I made was to deliberately allow for student choice. I let them choose books to read or how to make a visual representation of their thoughts with any tool they could access. I let them generate ideas for projects and allowed them to teach each other new web tools. Because in the "real world" they get to make some decisions for themselves. Their interests and strengths matter, and our classrooms should reflect the influence of our students. It can be scary for us; teachers like to be in control. It can also be scary for students who have never been offered the opportunity to choose for their own learning and don't know where to start!

Stop Raising Hands

This has been a tough one for my students, but I asked them to stop raising their hands and simply to discuss with one another. When I inquired if they had to raise their hands anywhere else or if they could recall their parents ever raising their hands, they couldn't come up with any examples from the "real world." So with a few ground rules (only one person talking at a time, respectful conversation, and no one student dominating the discussion) we have tried to eliminate raising our hands and to simply talk to one another. We are about one-third of the way through the school year, and I still often have students begin a discussion with raising their hands. I wave the "come on" signal, though, and the students relax and the conversation flows much more smoothly than any contrived or disjointed discussion of hand raising! Students feel more relaxed and are more willing to participate when they know we're truly having a conversation!

Stop Assigning Mountains of Homework

My first few years in the classroom, I taught French ful time, and I never "assigned" homework. I did ask my students to spend 5-10 minutes a night looking over their words and conjugations, but I never assigned writing compositions or worksheets. My philosophy was that French was new to everyone and that students would do more harm than good to themselves making mistakes that I couldn't help them correct in a timely fashion. I also knew the amount of work other classes were assigning, and I knew they simply didn't have time for it all. But that changed when I started teaching English full time. I felt pressure that first year to assign homework each night; English is a core class, a tested area, after all! But I was miserable, and so were my students. I had more work to do to keep up with their assignments, and I was disappointed when they either didn't do them or didn't do them well. So I changed. I make sure never to assign work over the weekend or a break, and I always give multiple days to complete any assignments that may need to be wrapped up outside of class. Students are happier, and so am I. Test scores didn't sink, and my students could still demonstarte their learning and growth. This is the "real world." How many adults do you know (besides teachers) who worry about their work away from work or take their work home with them?

Don't Make Learning a Secret; Make Students Responsible for It

This has been a game-changer for me. I read Paul Solarz's Learn Like A Pirate this summer, and he shares how he gives students responsibility for ensuring the class is on task by sharing a daily schedule. With the schedule projected on the monitor, students know exactly what should be accomplished during the class, in which order (if necessary), and they hold each other accountable for making sure the schedule is followed. What the class is doing is not a secret that only the teacher is responsible for following, but becomes a collective responsibility. What is more "real world" than that?!

These are just of few of the measures I have taken to make my classroom a more authentic, relevant place for my students, but I'm always looking to adapt, grow and improve! I'd love to hear some amazing ways you've been able to add more "real world" to your class in the comments!

Five Things We Need to Stop Pretending

Inspired by the recent wave of Five Things We Need to Stop Pretending posts by educators across the country and a crazy April of new initiatives and preparations for state testing, here are my thoughts.

1. The education we received is good enough for our students.
If I hear one more educator say this, I just may scream. What was good enough last year may not be good enough this year! Each group of students is unique, with their own strengths, weaknesses, interests, and ideas.  We should not treat them like they are! Factor in the advances we've made in understanding how the brain functions, the technology available to us, and the way our world is changing, and it's obvious to everyone that the education you received is not good enough for the students in our classrooms today! That doesn't mean it will be easy-change is always difficult! But the evolution of our teaching as we learn and grow should be a top priority for all educators!

2. Banning technology is the answer.
Love it or hate it, tech savvy or novice user, technology is a part of the lives and world of our students. Classrooms should not be isolated islands of tech free space or only-when-the-teacher-oks-it use. Have we been to a staff meeting, a workshop, or a conference lately? In the "real world," we're always using our technology, and sometimes we're even encouraged to use it! Yes, students will use the tech at inappropriate or inconvenient times, but we need to take on the responsibility of modeling, monitoring, and teaching appropriate use of technology. It's a new type of classroom management, but one all of our students need!

We can not pretend our students will learn everything about appropriate tech use at home, or that they won't make mistakes at school with tech, even if we have banned it from our classrooms. Just like every teacher must find the classroom management strategies that work for him or her, educators must find the tech strategy that will work for each of them. But a strategy at work is a vast improvement over pretending we won't have situations to address or that we can pretend the technology doesn't exist.

3. Students aren't capable of big plans and game-changing ideas.
We have the unique opportunity as teachers to work with young people each day, to hear their hopes, dreams, and ideas. We need to take these seriously! Our students need us to be their cheerleaders, their coaches, to put them in touch with the right people, in person and through social media, who can help them transform their ideas into realities. While I've always known this, it was never more apparent to me than it was last weekend as I sat with a tentative group of "tech team" students from my school amongst more than 250 other middle and high school students at the Hoosier Student Digital Leaders Conference. The keynote speaker, Kevin Honeycutt, challenged the room to think of something they were passionate about, and how they could use that passion to change the world and improve the lives of others. After hearing two students share responses, he allowed time for the students to talk among themselves about ideas--and the room was alive with conversation. With the right guidance, how many of those ideas will become realities?

Four young ladies from my school spent their time discussing ways to help bring education to girls in countries where their government or religion does not want them to be educated; nearly a week later, these girls met during our school activity period to brainstorm ideas to make this happen! Our students don't have to be eighteen or have college educations to dream big and want to make a difference!

4. Non-educators should be the major decision makers in education.
As we prepare for state testing (and as I teach freshmen and sophomores, ALL of my students will experience at least one major standardized test this year), my high school students are smart enough to question the need for all of this testing and what is done with the results. These are the most tested students in our history, and I see two types of students that the testing emphasis has manufactured. One type of student is so stressed out by the thought of tests and grades that any minor slip or mention of the word "test" brings about anxiety attacks, hyperventilation, and sometimes tears. These students are the ones who are afraid to be wrong, afraid they won't measure up, and afraid they are the equivalent of that test score. On the other hand, I also see students who no longer see the value in tests or the point in doing their best work--after all, they will just have another test in the future. For this group, a test isn't proving anything and has lost meaning.

I've been rebelling against testing this year in my own classroom. Other than the midterm and final, I rarely give a test as assessment. Instead, I've asked my students to write from a character's perspective through RAFT assignments, to argue a point through an "Epic Rap Battle," to tweet a modern version of Romeo and Juliet, and to write letters to authors. I am much more interested in my students creating things to show me their knowledge, and I can assess their learning just as much, probably even better, from a project that required making something to show evidence of learning as I can from a bubbled-in test answer sheet. My students know that I have recently earned my administrator's license, but they have been urging me to pursue a political career rather than a principalship. Even our students know that those who are not in our schools, with our students, and living the state of public education can't possibly know what things are like or what is best for our students. We need more educators, students, and parents working together with all stakeholders to determine the best decisions for education.

5. A silver bullet exists to fix our problems.
Working in two different school districts and substitute teaching in several others, I've seen so many initiatives billed as the answer to our problems. The truth is, none of these are THE answer. Many of even the best designed and best-intended initiatives don't stick around long enough to make a dent in the problem they were intended to alleviate. Part of this is natural, because sticking with any change is difficult. Just think about how many of your own New Year's resolutions you've made and broken! But another issue here is the inability to prevent new obstacles from getting in our way. Personnel changes, new standards to tech, new evaluation systems, newly elected policy makers--the list is long and in constant flux.

The truth is, no single solution exists and no two situations are the same. All we can do is try to be better than we were yesterday, last week, last year. We need to learn and grow, be accountable for and learn from our mistakes and celebrate and share our victories. If we can do this, we will be the best versions of ourselves, which will mean our schools and our students are the best versions of themselves as well.