Journal Post #11 - August 4, 2015

This is my final journal post, in the form of an original rap song called "Questions? Answers. Answers? Questions!"
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SPELUNKERS!  EXPLORING PLATO'S CAVE!

Questions? Answers.

Answers? Questions!

Questions? Answers.

Answers? Questions!

Yeah, every question generates more

like a garden where you don't pull the weeds any more

follow the messy trail of vines up to the door

where you open it up and you just find four more

my introspective research gives me a conceptual framework

I use it to honestly assess if my practice is a lame work

I have to change up my work so that I don't do the same work

Is it hack work? Do I lack work? As I stack work do I make work?

Recursive cursive serve a volley till you swerve it

and it recurs and recurs as you write it down in cursive

subversive universive recursion spitting verses

practitioner versus practice until revision reverses

I took a mirror and I held it to a mirror

and the mirror reflected the mirror at the mirror

and the mirror reflected a mirror in the mirror

which reflected the mirror reflected by the mirror

Questions? Answers.

Answers? Questions!

Questions? Answers.

Answers? Questions!

Epistemology -- what does it mean to know?

How do I know or don't know if I know?

The thing that I know, what does it mean to say I know it?

I don't know if I know or if I don't know if I know it!

(What just happened?)

(What was the question? Is it a different question now?)

Every road of inquiry leads to intersections

where the nature of your research isn't safe from redirection.  Peace.

Journal Post #10 - August 4, 2015

"Making it (teacher research) visible" is not only important so that others can benefit. My opinion is that it is important in helping to repair this profession's image.

Teaching = Art

Except the problem is that it is largely an invisible art. You can't have invisible art.

Invisible art commands no respect.

Journal Post #9 - August 2, 2015

Today my wife and I took our son to see the new Pixar movie Inside Out. For anyone not familiar with the basic premise, it entertainingly depicts the emotional processes of an eleven-year-old girl who moves from Minnesota to San Francisco with her family. Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear and Disgust were all entertaining cartoon characters who collaborated in helping the girl, Riley, navigate her complex emotional landscape in the middle of a stressful time of big changes.

I do not wish to spoil the film for anybody. But as a teacher researcher I will say that this film entertainingly reminded me of the necessity of emotions that are not happiness. The others are all vital, and sadness is capable of saving the day.

Also, I had previously volunteered to work for Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign. Today was my day to serve. I was given a list of 25 phone numbers. My task was to invite them all to a national conference call taking place in two days, and to solicit more donations and/or volunteers for the campaign.

I was provided a script, but for those who picked up when I called, the script did not provide for the myriad unpredictable responses I might get to my questions. I was easily flustered and very uncomfortable. I thought of the teachers in "Leaving the Script Behind," one of our journal review group readings. Like the researchers in that piece, I found myself dynamically adapting. I adjusted some text of my script and texted information to recipients at their request. I returned all my data to the campaign staffer who gave me the list, including my findings on my personal phone canvassing experience. Call it "canvasser research."

Journal Post #8 - August 1, 2015

I'm journaling today from the stage in the main room of Cipriani Wall Street, a former mercantile exchange space with imposing granite pillars and an extraordinarily high ceiling. A trading floor of the Guilded Age, it has since been converted into a posh downtown catering hall in which the aristocracy can have their weddings and special parties. I've played lavish bar mitzvahs here. I played P. Diddy's 35th birthday party here. 

As a venue for plying my craft, it is terrible. The acoustics are a cavernous nightmare of reflections off of hard, smooth surfaces.

Also, I'm a substitute tonight. This particular bandleader requests me to fill in when his normal bassist is not available. I was emailed a half-dozen requests to prepare for tonight but I am being trusted to know whatever other tunes he calls. I hope I do.

Rehearsal is practically unheard of in this business. I'm expected to show up and help the entire band sound like they were born knowing what to do.

I'll be on my feet a total of 7.5 hours between the 2-hour cocktail, 4-hour reception, and 1.5 hour after party. Bathroom breaks will be at the bandleader's discretion, not mine.

Sound familiar, teachers?

Two major differences: politicians don't make a regular practice of insulting me in the mainstream media, and I'll get paid far, far better for my work today than what I figure would be my per diem teacher pay.

Journal Entry #7 - July 30, 2015

Besides carrying nine graduate credits and continuing to work at my second job (bassist for Hank Lane Music), I've been obsessing over a personal music project which also shows parallels with the concept of reflective teaching practice.
I recorded an album of nine songs last summer.  I played all the instruments and sang all the voice parts, and engineered the recording myself with equipment I own and keep in the basement.  Once I had all my parts recorded and had selected takes and edited together performances for each part of each tune, I sent five of the nine to an outstanding drummer I've had the pleasure to know and work with for many years.  He recorded drum parts to my five tracks in his house and sent me back audio files with at least two takes for each tune, with a separate audio file for each microphone's audio capture.  So, for each tune, he recorded into two mics positioned above the whole drumkit, a third one aimed at the snare drum, and a fourth aimed at the bass drum.  I paid him for his considerable trouble but certainly not what he's worth.  He's a very nice guy in addition to being a fabulous musician.
The performances he turned in on all five of the songs were stellar.  Now my job was to blend those drum tracks in with the rest of my multi-track file for each song.  I record into my computer using digital audio workstation (DAW) software called Logic.  It's like having a virtual recording console and tape machine all inside your computer, without the hassle of aligning tape heads or spooling tape. It allows the kind of audio quality that was once financially prohibitive for almost everyone.
But enough about that as I try to get to my point.  I received all my drum tracks from Dave back in late August of 2014.  The school year began, and I did my best to find an hour here and two hours there, staying up too late, to mix down the multi-track files.  If you have never done any audio engineering, you have no idea how deep and complex a craft this is.  Good mixes require hours upon hours of critical listening, revision, research on audio techniques, second opinions, listening on different systems, taking notes on mixes for future revisions, referencing against commercial recordings and other mixes previously completed, and on and on.
It's nearly a whole year after that last note went in the can, and only TODAY did I finally send nine mixes to the gentleman who will master them for release.  I'll spare you the details of what mastering is, but it's just as deep and complicated an art as mixing is.
In short, it's very much the same as the introspective, non-linear, artist approach I see this course taking toward the work of teaching.

Journal Entry #6 - July 29, 2015

In Chapter One of Living the Questions I read an extended "jazz" analogy for teaching.  I think I mentioned this in either my reaction paper or my last journal entry or both.
I've heard or read things like it in the past.  The jazz analogy is actually pretty good for describing anything that requires working within a framework or context or accepted set of conventions but yet responding, reacting and adapting in the moment in order to express something unique.
The thing I hate about that kind of descriptive writing, though, are the adjectives that are attached to what we do as musicians or the sounds of our instruments.  All this "mellow," "smooth," "swinging," "cool," "carefree" type nonsense makes us sound like either we don't approach our art seriously as the product of years of practice and refinement, or that we are just curiosities, like zoo animals.  "Look at the cool jazz players over there playing their jazz; aren't they something?"
I practiced and studied for twenty years easy to be a musician.  I have studied far longer to be a musician than I have studied to be a teacher.  I studied longer to be a musician than an attorney studies to get a law degree and pass the bar exam.  I studied longer to be a musician than a medical doctor studies to be a licensed practitioner of his/her craft.
So I'm not a curiosity or a zoo animal who is born into my behavior.  It is not something I do naturally for other people to regard as "cool."
Serious practitioners of jazz know the melodies and chord changes to thousands of tunes in what might be called a commonly accepted canon.  If I walk into a jam session right now with my bass, and the player running the session calls "All the Things You Are" in Ab, I know that the first chord is F minor 7, I know to ask if we're doing that common intro to the tune using Db7#9 and C7#9 or if we're starting "right on it," I know how to construct and play a walking bass line for the tune that will spell out the harmonic framework for everybody but still be fresh each 32 bars, I know how to listen to the drummer and know whether it's more appropriate to play a "2" or "4" feel, I know how to create a solid timekeeping function by landing each beat of my walking bass line concurrently with the drummer's stick contacting the ride cymbal.  I know when this is appropriate and not appropriate, and no, I can't explain it; it's something you know when you bring your experience to bear on what you are hearing that moment.  I know how to listen to a soloist play several choruses and musically support a sense of compositional development in their solo by the way I play. I know how to watch and listen for cues that a soloist is concluding their solo and another soloist will step in.  When I hear a soloist improvising over a tune, I can hear and understand the nature of harmonic and melodic devices that soloist may be exploiting and can respond accordingly by the way I play.  All of these skills and many, many more are the result of thousands and thousands of hours over years and years, of listening, practicing, playing, studying, and evaluating.
When it comes to the highly refined skill of extemporaneously composing on an existing musical structure (and I will use this as a practitioner's definition of jazz), there is an undeniable need for the serious player to consistently examine and re-examine his/her relationship to the music, to practice persistently and diligently so that technical limitations don't hamper expressive ability, to listen to other great players and absorb deeply the approaches that personally resonate and make sense, to study with great masters of the art, and to synthesize and transform these experiences into new expression by channeling them through one's own vital, creative, ongoing effort.
I'm not a cool zoo animal with some fascinating inborn talent.  I worked for this.
Maybe this is why the idea of "teacher research" seems kind of obvious to me.  As a musician I have lived in that world most of my life already.

Journal Entry #5 - July 27, 2015

I can’t read Chapter 2 of Inside/Outside without feeling my chronic exhaustion as a teacher.  I do not exaggerate.  I am the only music faculty at a high school of 650.  Each school year is a 10-month marathon of engaging students to deliver curriculum (mostly as musical repertoire), and pulling off a string of concerts and extra-curricular music events, and attending to the maintenance of an entire school music program.  Central administration and the Board of Education have taken good care of me as an employee in most respects but one: getting me some help!

I’ll be watching closely to see what suggestions arise in the various pieces of literature we read here to address my situation.  I am sure it is not a situation I suffer alone; with the continued cutbacks in the arts we see in education, so many committed teachers shoulder a heavy burden.  How are we to read about these in-depth examples of teacher research and wonder how we will even begin to implement them?

Carrying nine graduate credits while continuing to work my second job in the summertime is a walk in the park compared to what I do each and every school year.  It’s actually hard to not be offended at the idea that there is still more I can do.  Yet I recognize this is true.

I do grant that the reading also does touch on this point: that teacher research should be a means of imparting sanity to a teacher’s chaotic world.  I would go further.  My own ambition to improve my practice has largely come from an instinct to want to make my hard work as meaningful as possible.  Better practices mean that student experience and my experience are better.  To me this just seems like common sense.  Why wouldn’t I want to be the best teacher I could be?

Collaborative work, and research, among teachers is problematic and has been problematic for me.  The reason is obvious.  As an institution we’re set up to work mostly in isolation from each other.  With the increased paperwork demands on me and all public school teachers in recent years, I get out of my own classroom less and less.

It might be useful to compare the reflective practices of my two professions: teaching and professional performing.

Frankly, I find it astounding that teacher research, that these various means of being introspective and critical of one’s own work as a teacher, is something that any of us need a specific invitation to do.  This seems like common sense to me.  Why wouldn’t I do this to the best of my ability each day?  I’m astounded to be introduced to all of this literature on the topic.  I had the same reaction when I was given Charlotte Danielson’s book as well.  The whole thing just seemed to be a long-winded expansion, with charts and graphs and rubrics, of  “keep caring about your job and trying to improve.”  Have so many of us been this asleep?  Or are we just battling a poor public image as a profession?

Journal Entry #4 -- July 26, 2015

Yesterday and today my wife were primarily involved in hauling everything out of our son's room to then prep and repaint it.  He's ten years old and shouldn't have to sleep in a room we designed for a baby.
Painting and home improvement are not my particular areas of expertise.  The knowledge I gain doesn't so much make me effective as it makes me dangerous.

When applied to my teaching practice, how much of this phenomenon, of knowledge making me dangerous, happen?
Just because I know to spackle over nail holes and then sand the surface once it's dry doesn't mean I'm going to know that I should indent the first coat of spackle, sand that, and then reapply spackle and sand a second time.  Where have I improperly spackled as a teacher because I knew enough to spackle but not enough to do it with the experience-based expertise of a true professional?  I came to teaching via NJ Alternate Route in 2002.  I had a music performance degree and got a 10-month course in Gardner's intelligences, classroom management, planning, and behavioral issues.

At the conclusion of that, and the satisfactory completion of Praxis, the State of New Jersey officially declared me a professional.

The kind of professional who still needed to find out from hard won experience to spackle, indent, sand, spackle again and sand, metaphorically speaking.

Journal Entry #3 -- July 24, 2015

It pains me to finish a project for another course -- an extensive description and explanation of a proposed classroom practice relating to temperament and learning style -- and strongly suspect it stands little chance of actually being effective were it to be carried out.

But due dates and obligations are what they are. I keep trying to remind myself it's the honest attempt that's important. A due date is a due date and I have many more academic and non-academic obligations to which I must attend.

It's hard to know I'm about to put something out into the universe that I've already decided just wouldn't be successful in its application.

Journal Entry #2 -- July 22, 2015

In class yesterday, a distinction was drawn between Quantitative and Qualitative research.

Under the Qualitiative column, we identified the following:

This kind of research begins with a hypothesis.

The researcher may ask, is it generalizeable?

Does it have internal validity?

Is it observable? Measurable? Replicable?

Under the Quantitative column, we identified the following:

Instead of a hypothesis, a question is explored.

The researcher seeks recognizeability and/or relatability in the phoenomenon observed (speaking specifically about teacher research wherein a teacher researches/reflects on his/her own practice).

The additional term I'd include here, because I like it, is resonance.

Does the researcher establish trustworthiness of observations made?

Are the practices observed revealed to have catalytic authenticity, i.e. does it create something that changes lives for the better?

What did I take from this?

What we traditionally recognize as research (Quanitative) leads to clear answers and data.  This is the activity of science.

This other thread of exploration we do not traditionally recognize as research (Qualitative) and can generate more questions without conclusively answering any.

The product of this enterprise yields some insight that we recognize as true, and we relate to it.  The insight resonates with us.

This is the activity of art.

So, if the act of teaching and reflecting/researching our teaching follows this more qualtitative thread, what we're doing is art, and we are artists.

I think one of the problems in earning the same kind of recognized legitimacy for the teaching profession that medicine or law enjoys, is that we are artists trying to earn legitimacy playing by science's (or academia's at any rate) rules.  This is because science has more societal value in the Western world than art does.  Science prepares young minds for College and Careers -- what does Art prepare them for?

This is what we're up against.

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Other random thoughts I had during class yesterday:

In the education marketplace of ideas, do we want, or can we afford, to allow WalMart and Target to drive out the Mom and Pop stores?

Speaking of which, look at this dystopian nightmare which is unfortunately actually a real thing I just found: https://seattleducation2010.wordpress.com/2015/07/22/kipp-and-the-behavior-modification-of-teachers/

The cord to the pendulum ball might have snapped (this to those who "hope the pendulum will swing back").

Teachers to professional superiors & those outside the profession: "Let me show you how my teaching works."

Students to teachers: "Let us show you how we learn."

Profession of nursing comes up against medical science much like teaching comes up against higher academia.  This is the clash of art vs. science.

Is the problem of defining teacher research the problem of trying to make art play by science's rules?
(My big question of the day)

It's no wonder we don't fare well in an art-hostile environment.

Danielson: Be Reflective™

Part of our problem is simply the symptoms of bureaucracy.

Let's capture lightning in a bottle!  Best practices imposed on all (Good luck with that).

Chapter 1 of Inside/Outside says teacher research is "systematic and intentional inquiry carried out by teachers."  Why systematic and what system? Who decides?

Today's topic is important.  No one needs to make that case to me.  As a community we need to make that case to the public at large.  Reflecting on my practice has been intuitive to me since day one as a teacher.  I've gotten a whole lot better in thirteen years and reflection is why.

Seems to me the real reason to undertake this as an academic exercise is to legitimize what we do by giving it academic language.  Do doctors and lawyers undertake reflective practice and self-research as continued academic development?  Does academia expect that of them?  I don't know, I'm asking.

Journal Entry #1 -- July 20, 2015

Monday, July 20, 2015

In my EDUC 510 class on teacher research, which met for the first time today, our instructor informed us that we would be making regular journal entries during the course of our study.  

I figured it's the 21st century now, and what we do is blog.  It's easier to read, I can always find it, and no writer's cramp!  With that, welcome to my obscure EDUC 510 journal blog.

Today focused on an introduction to the concept of teacher research vis a vis some journaling prompts in class and an activity where we each had to ask questions of a fellow student.  The result of that exercise said much about the kinds of subjectivity we bring to any interaction -- how do we choose our questions, how do we interpret answers, how deeply do we probe on a given topic, etc.

I think subjectivity is part of the public relations problem from which our profession currently suffers.  No one can define good teaching the way you might define good auctioneering or good furniture manufacturing or even good medical care.  I'd venture to suggest there's far less subjectivity in the question of what is a good sandwich or a good cup of coffee than in what is good teaching.

Two of our journal prompts today dealt with describing the worst teacher we experienced and the best teacher we experienced.  What I took from that exercise, and probably others too, is that somewhere, I may be and probably am on somebody's "worst" list and someone else's "best" list.  I have not ministered to all students equally well or served all needs fairly.

My note for this in my chicken scratched "journal ideas for later" read, "I am on a great teacher and a bad teacher list: parallel universes of teacher influence."

Other random (or not so random) things I thought today:

I have done what I admire and what I despise.

A former student from many years ago passed, I learned this morning.  I am heartbroken by the news and touched that her friend (also a former student of mine) thought to reach out to me.

I never daydreamed about growing up to tell kids to stop daydreaming.

I spend too much of my professional energy reacting to propaganda (specifically "teachers are lazy and untrustworthy" propaganda legislated into educational mandates).

This job will never get easier.  Only harder.

Hello, & a quick word about the web address

Hi, this is my blog I am starting for use as a journal for one of my graduate education courses, a course in teacher research I started today.  I chose the handle "subversivecompliance" not because I am subversively complying to the journal requirement, but that I am alluding to my personal doctrine of subversively complying to certain legally mandated portions of my job as a public school teacher.  I don't believe that SGOs are even remotely valid measures of any teacher, and even though I am fortunate to fall on the "good side" of those figures, I feel morally compelled to at least speak up about their unfairness.  Same with No Child Left Untested and Race To The Bottom yearly testing mandates. I'd bore you with it in words but maybe it will save time to just drop a link here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwKqHHpARmE

With that, I give you my humble blog.

Andy