Summer Reading, had me a blast.....

Cheesy headline I know, but I couldn't really resist.  So I wanted to do a quick post on a couple of the books that I read this summer to gear up for this fall.  Usually for the summers, I just read for pleasure as I actually have some free time to do so, but this year I've incorporated a couple others along with my usual Steve Berry thrillers.  The two I've read so far that are Collapse by Jared Diamond and A History of the World in 6 Glasses by Tom Standage.  Both very good reads, although I'll say Standage is a much easier & shorter read.  I'll start with Diamond's book.  For my AP students, they read part of his other well known piece, Guns, Germs, and Steel.  He has some really insightful stuff on the beginnings of agriculture which leads us right into our first unit for the course.  I'll admit, Diamond is very academic and thorough in his writings.  The concepts that he writes about our really interesting, examining how and why certain locations started farming while others still haven't to this day.  Collapse looks to expand on some of Diamond's earlier work, and specifically looks at some ancient and more modern societal collapses and looks into why it happened, and more importantly what should we learn from them.  The book covers several different locations around the world, from examining environmental & societal issues in modern day Montana, to the collapses in some of the Oceanic islands, the Maya, some Native American tribes, and the varying successes and failures of the Viking settlements, along with current day Rwanda, Somalia, and issues facing Haiti vs. the Dominican Republic.  It had a lot of great insights, especially debating the notion of civilized cultures as we see these great societies and civilizations create amazing things even though they're not from the perceived civilized places in the world.  A lot of the stuff on Easter Island and the other Oceanic islands was really helpful as Polynesia is always an area that is overlooked but I have some helpful and insightful stuff to help with Polynesian migration in Unit 3.  The book gets a bit repetitive as he does go very (VERY) in depth about how he's able to determine some of the scientific evidence that he's able to gather.  And I could only read about pollen dating so often.  But as I said, some really good stuff and more importantly, and interesting way to look at things and the world.  Definitely have some supplemental stuff for the year, which is always a good thing.
Standage's is a pretty interesting view of world history, looking at it through the lens of six key beverages; beer, wine, spirits, coffee, tea, and coca-cola.  While the book goes in the history and stories behind the discovery/invention of each of these drinks, but it also how these drinks shaped the societies they came up with and how influential they each were, or are still today.  Some really snippets on the Neolithic Revolution, trade across the Atlantic, the British Empire, and current day globalization.  Since I borrowed this book from the library, I'll need to find a cheap copy somewhere, or keep taking pics of the pieces I liked to use as bell ringers, exit tickets, etc.  Both books are very helpful, and glad I picked them.  I haven't read a lot of actual historical literature, it's not as easy of a read as my thrillers are which I can buzz through in a matter of days, but definitely stuff I need to continue to improve my craft and find good material for my class.

So if you're looking for a couple of good reads, I recommend both, although be forewarned, Diamond is not the easiest of reads.  Thanks for reading

More summer musings & adventures in podcasting

Alright, so back to some teaching stuff.  So I took my first stab at podcasting.  I think the final product turned out alright, but learned quickly that I need a script.  I tried to just wing it, I'd said in my head several times the things I'd wanted to discuss on this topic while out for a run or on the treadmill.  But once I clicked start and began rambling, I quickly realized I was all over the place.  Once the script was written, I got my points laid out, it was a pretty simple process.  Really like podomatic and its simplicity.  Definitely want to make some more now.  Just need to hope for long naps from the twins to get them done.  My first one was breaking down point of view, bias, and motive for my students.  It's so integral for my AP World students, crucial to understand for the DBQ essay as well just understanding any document or picture that we analyze.  Too often students equate point of view is simply restating what someone said in a document, "they spoke out against the church so they're anti-religion"  That unfortunately leaves out the ever-important "so what" Why did they speak out against the church, what's their bias, their motives that shape this view.  What leads them to saying this, what is the context going on in the world around the speaker?  So hopefully this will help a bit.  I figure I'll do one on all of the historical skills that the course stresses as well as one on the 5 themes and the key concepts too.
Also had our school improvement summer retreat today.  Nice to get out of the house and be a part of this group.  But got some good pointers that I think I'm going to add in for next year.  I definitely need to add in formative assessments.  The course goes along so fast and I need to make sure that I'm doing my due diligence and making sure that I'm checking constantly to make sure that my students are understanding the skills and content.  I also need to start using more anticipation guides, again to help my students take what they know and allow them to expand upon it and find out where I need to focus the most moving forward.  I want to be more direct and intentional with what I'm doing and hopefully these will help.  So time to start tweaking my syllabus and calendars around, but it was just the shot in the arm I needed to break up a stale run to summer.  It's late, gonna run, thanks for reading as always.

Project Semicolon

So about a week ago, my brother posted the following "A semicolon represents a sentence the author could have ended, but chose not to. The sentence is your life and the author is you." I'd never seen this before but it certainly has a very profound meaning and impact to me and my family.  I mentioned this a bit in a previous post of mine, but five years ago my mother took her own life after struggling with depression.  I knew how my mother struggled, I watched her go through a painful divorce and become a shell of her former self.  She did her best to put on the brave face but ultimately she didn't feel that she could fight any longer.  Suicide leaves those around to go through a plethora of emotions.  There's the obvious pain and sadness that centers around death, but it's not that simple.  There's such conflict as you want to blame someone or something like a disease but that isn't available, you're left blaming that person, and it's hard to pile onto the woman who was my role model and strongest supporter.  And these feelings endure, five years later, I still feel the wide array of emotions as my mother never got to see me become a teacher even though we talked about me changing careers, wasn't there for my wedding, never got to meet her grandkids.  It's something that I live with, and have tried to learn from those lessons.
I bring all this up as I stumbled upon the hashtag #semicolonedu which looks at bringing awareness to teachers & educators that suffer from mental health issues and hopes to eliminate the stigma behind MHI.  There have been great posts, particularly by @thenerdyteacher and @Joe_Mazza about their own struggles and I think one of the great things is you have several other educators that have the courage to speak up about their own demons.  I'm no different, for the better part of a decade I've fought my own battles with depression.  I've thankfully never gotten to the point that my mother did, but it's something that constantly is present.  For me, it's a general apathy and anxiety that I fight.  So many times when I could be doing something productive or necessary, I end up sitting around doing nothing, wasting time on mindless games on my phone or doing the same sporcle quiz I've done a dozen times to avoid the task ahead of me.  Now I've gotten better and learned to cope and fight this as time as gone on, but it's still a struggle.  It's something that led me to the complacency that caused my failures as a college coach and my firing ultimately.  But because of that, I found my way to teaching, something I feel I was always meant to do, it just took me too long to find the courage to go back to school and get it done.  And oddly enough, that anxiety and apathy disappears when I'm in the classroom.  I've found my element, I'm not worried about failing as I was before, I'm no longer afraid to talk to people I don't know all that well, worrying about the impressions that I'll make.  I have a confidence and an activity level that help me fight through it, which I can't say I ever really had.  It's still funny, and probably odd, that I'm still such an introvert in "real" life while I'm loud and engaging when I'm teaching and at work.  But everyday I try to stay sharp, I've gotten a passion back for reading and for running (although getting out the door some days is near impossible), I spend time playing with my kids taking care of them over the summer.  At times, it's tough since I have little contact with anyone other than the twins during the summer, but they help give me perspective.  They need the best Dad, I can't slack for them.  And so I try to learn from the unfortunate and tragic lessons of my mother, and keep a focus going forward each day.  I mentioned previously the quote that my mother and I found and used it to try and inspire us as we struggled together with our issues.  I've since gotten it permanently done as a reminder to me around the tree of life.  I'm excited for my next tattoo as well; a semicolon.  Life could've stopped with my mother's death, I was out of work and as the one living closest to her, the executor of her will.  Life appeared to be in several different pieces and I know I had no clue what the future held for me.  I'm proud that rather than fall into the pits and traps that she did, I've used it more as motivation to live life to my potential, and enjoy everything about it.  It's so much easier said than done, as there are still days, weeks, months that are difficult and I feel myself slide into that creature that wasted away as life passed him by.  And I know that every day will continue to be a test.  I think I was once foolish enough to believe that I'd "beaten" my depression.  I know that's never going to happen, but hopefully I'll have the strength and confidence in my life to push through the down times.  It's a battle and challenge that I know I have to win, for my story is far from finished.

I truly thank you for reading, it's been very therapeutic to finally write about my mother.  For those looking for more teaching stuff, I'm hoping to do my first podcast Thursday.  I'll try to post something afterwards with it and my initial reflections on it.

More than a number

So periodically throughout the year, I had to stop my AP World class and remind them that the class was more than just a score on an exam or numbers on a GPA.  I teach at a pretty well to do school and have a lot of students that are very driven, and get caught up in these things.  Well, the AP exam scores are out, and......they're alright.  In all honesty, they're probably pretty good (had around 58% at 3 or above) out of my 84 students and most got around what I'd have expected if I was pressed to give predictions with a few pleasant surprises and a couple of disappointments.  But I definitely was hoping to have a little bit higher numbers, and I hate it since so many students came back talking about how "easy" they thought the test and essays were.  But for it being my first year teaching and not really having any real resources (or clue as to what I was doing) until the 2nd quarter it's not bad.  So after some initial disappointment, I had to give myself a similar little pep talk to help me see what really matters.  I survived the year teaching something that definitely wasn't in my wheelhouse in world history, and had to learn on the fly to teach at an AP level.  Most importantly for me, is I've learned to really love this course, the material, the challenge, everything about it.  I'm fired up to start it all again and look to improve my class for next year.  It'll be a challenge again as I'm now getting a fourth class, bumping my numbers up around 110 students.  Some things I've already geared up for next year that I've changed from last year:

• Helps that I know how to pace the course now, so I'm combining Unit 1 and 2 together basically and doing a ton of skills teaching during this first 5 weeks.  Within the first 2 weeks, we'll look at all of the different skills & essays and use bell ringers most days to work on putting these skills to work.  Examples will be doing a personal CCOT, analyzing pics, breaking down DBQ docs, use that beginning time to do a SPICE chart rather than having students fill them out in class (or not fill them out)
• My students may not like this, but they'll have to read a lot more than last year's students.  But it'll be for a purpose, an article or something short and to the point, not pages and pages of the textbook.  I've added a blog portion to my website and my students will have to make quick responses to what they read on the blog page.  I'll probably work it out so not everyone reads the same article at the same time to avoid overload of responses.  But it'll be something that I can use to formatively assess what they students are getting from the readings, textbook, etc.  
• I'll have a lot more discussions in class.  We're doing a Harkness on the second day on the summer reading, and we'll do more things like that throughout the year, whether it be full class or smaller sided ones where students dissect point of view on historical events, issues, etc.  
• One other thing I'm planning to start up this summer, is making some podcasts for my students.  I'm definitely planning on using them to help explain the historical skills, and probably do them for chapter and unit reviews among other things.  

So we'll see how these changes go, I'm sure I'll have others along the way or more things will come to me or I'll find online to help me out.  Now I know where the bar is set for me, time to get working to make my class even better next year.

Thanks as always for reading, any suggestions or thoughts, I'd love to hear them in the comments or find me on twitter @amcrowe5 

Why we need to teach resiliency to students

So I'm on vacation actually,  but during a couple of runs around town I've thought a lot about this topic due to some recent events.  Hopefully this will turn out alright as I'm using my phone to write this.  I think if you were to ask me what's the greatest skill I want my students to gain, it is to become resilient.  For my students, I'm their first experience in an AP level course and most of them are completely out of their element when they first arrive.  A lot of my students have never gotten lower than an A on any assignment and all of the sudden they're getting a D or worse on their first quiz or test.  Many of them are floored and not sure where to turn, and I talk them through the steps they need to take to improve but tell them they're going to have to reflect upon what they're currently doing and figure out how they'll get better.  That self reflection is key.  I wish I could just say day 1 you'll all need to start doing this and everyone would follow suit.  But that self reflection doesn't usually come without some sort of struggle or obstacle first.  This skill is key because learning continues after one steps outside of the classroom.  In retrospect I wish someone had pushed this skill harder to me as a kid.  For most of high school, college, and the rest of my twenties things came relatively easy and I could always get by with fairly minimal effort being put in whether that was with school, sports, work, or relationships.  Well, that didn't really leave me happy with where my life was headed.  Around the time I decided to go back to school to get my teaching certifications, I was fired from my coaching job at the college I worked at (a blessing in disguise really).  But what really caused me to reevaluate myself wasn't the firing, it was a few weeks later finding my mother dead in her condo.  My mother had long struggled with several issues and had taken her life 5 years ago this past May.  Its something I rarely bring up, but after all the craziness slowed down after it happened, I thought a lot in particular about two quotes my mother shared with me.  The first, a tribute to the Hanna Barbera cartoons I loved as a kid and the favorite quote of yogi bear being "smarter than the average bear."  My mom told me and my brothers that there were a lot of average bears in the world and that we were smarter than those average bears and needed to make sure we did something with that. The other was a quote by Ralph waldo Emerson, "make the most of yourself for that is all there is of you."  I hadn't been doing either of those things, and it was time to change that.  A lot's changed in those 5 years, I'm now married, have kids, got a teaching job, earned my masters, and switched up to a high school where I couldn't be happier working.  But I had to learn to take this tragedy and move past it while making sure I took the lessons I needed from it.  I value life more now than I did, and try to make the most out of all things in front of me. 
What got all of these thoughts in my head was the recent passing of one of my high school teammates and friends this past week.  Ricky was one of the best athletes I've had the privilege of playing with and one of the nicest and most sincere person you could know too.  Many of us struggle to understand why he was taken from us all at such a young age.  I know I'll never know and in truth am not meant to understand why.  But I should learn and reflect from his passing.  Ricky was a man who always worked hard, whether it be at soccer, his computer work, even picking up lacrosse and becoming an all conference player in one year.  And despite how great he was, he was always humble, quick to share credit with his teammates.  So while I work to live day in and day out by those words of Emerson my mom shared with me, to truly honor Ricky, I'll work hard, be humble, and be great.  That's what he did and who he was.  And hopefully I can pass a bit of that on to my kids and students too.

Thanks for reading.

What is our role as a teacher with controversial current events?

I was going to write about more of my reflections from this past year and ideas for the upcoming one, but events over the past couple of days changed my mind.  I saw some conversations on the twitterverse that got me thinking.  Obviously a lot has been said and written about the terrorist attack in Charleston (and yes, that's what it is and I'll explain more later why I feel this way) and I'm not sure what all I can add to it.  It's tragic, my heart and prayers go to the victims and all of those influenced by any of the nine men and women that lost their lives.  To me this should be put on the same level as a Timothy McVeigh or a Dzhokhar Tsarnaev as far as domestic terrorism.  Terrorism is defined as "The unlawful use of force and violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives" according to the FBI.  Or as "Criminal acts, including against civilians, committed with the intent to cause death or serious bodily injury, or taking of hostages, with the purpose to provoke a state of terror in the general public or in a group of persons or particular persons, intimidate a population or compel a government or an international organization to do or to abstain from doing any act" according to the UN after the attacks on September 11.  I'm pretty sure what Dylann Roof did constitutes both of those.  I thought it was really well said on the Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore, if this was an attack on Christianity as some claim, Roof probably drove by over a dozen churches before he made it to AME.  This was cold and calculated, as his manifesto apparently is proving as well.  So I just don't buy any of the excuses anyone wants to throw out there when it comes to hiding the key fact, you don't say things like how you want to start a new civil war, unless your intentions are racist.  This isn't about mental illness (which I'm sorry never excuses taking the lives of other people in the fashion we're seeing) or attacks of faith.  This was a racist SOB who deserves the same treatment as Tsarnaev.
Now that I've gotten that off my chest, the conversation that struck with me was not about the shootings but the response (or lack thereof) by the teaching community (social studies especially).  Some were very passionate in what they were posting or saying.  But I didn't really know what to say, what could I possibly add (in 140 characters) to the conversation.  Several people were sharing very eloquently written pieces on race in America, modern problems, the events themselves, and I'll be honest, other than the cliche post about "thoughts and prayers for those in Charleston" what more could I say or add.  I guess the question is, is it my duty as a teacher (particularly a Social Studies teacher) to address these issues.  And this wasn't really a debatable issue.  No one is coming out and defending Roof or trying to rationalize his thought process.  How can one rationalize what to so many is completely irrational?  It reminded me of something a former colleague told me.  I used to work at a very (VERY) liberal college here in North Carolina, and there was an incident on campus involving some athletes and international students that even gained some national attention.  If you didn't know any better, you'd have thought the entire campus was on the brink of conflict with students and faculty having their say on both sides of the issue (which in the end was completely overblown by all involved).  Anyway, my colleague told me our school (and I believe this is true for most situations) that you have about 90% of the population are "normal" and they're concerned about the issues and what to come up with solutions.  The other 10% are the people on the extreme ends of things, and unfortunately they are usually the loudest and most divisive in regards to any issue.  I bring that up not because the people that are outspoken about the shooting are not in the wrong or at some kind of extreme, but because a vast majority of people out there saw what happened and didn't immediately jump to social media doesn't mean that we're not opinionated, outraged, and inspired to use the lessons of this event to share with our classrooms.  When the riots in Ferguson took place, I made a point to discuss with my students even though it didn't tie into any of the content we were focused on in World History.  And although Charleston isn't a place where I used to live like St. Louis, it'll definitely be brought up next year as we talk about any kinds of issues that deal with race, imperialism (with his badges from Rhodesia), apartheid, terrorism, etc.
Twitter is great for sharing ideas and disseminating information, but for highly charged issues, I'm not sure it's the place for discourse just because so much more needs to be said that 140 characters allow.  I thought this too when Arne Duncan went and asked teachers on twitter what they'd fix about education.  Well of course lots of the most vocal on twitter were quick to jump on Duncan and the state of education.  But I feel like many teachers are in that 90% and that while we certainly don't necessarily agree with things in the education world, we realize that our most important focus is our students and helping them.  Outrage on twitter or any other social media is great, but at the end it doesn't solve much.  Ultimately, I think we should use these topics to in the classroom, but perhaps we should have the discussion about how we can use these topics to teach our students rather than just react or give opinions on the world.
At least that's what I think....as always, thanks for reading

Another year down

Well it's definitely been awhile since I fired up the blog.  And now I feel like I do when I need to go for a run (which coincidentally I need to do after I finish writing) where I just don't know where to start, what to say, and so I procrastinate and find mindless things to do to waste my time and take away my focus.  Gotta trudge through I guess.

First I really enjoyed my first year at my new school and jumping up to high school (and AP).  I work with some good folks, got to coach lacrosse again, and had a blast even though it was quite a whirlwind at times handling all that AP entails.  I'll (hopefully) talk more about all that I'm planning for next year throughout the summer, but it was definitely good and reassuring to hear from many of my students that they thought they were ready for the exam and well prepared.  I've done something right as they're adding another class of APWH next year taking me up to over 110 AP students.  That or I've really pissed someone off as I now have another 27 or so essays and work to grade this upcoming year.  Either way, I'm looking forward to the challenge and to finding new ways to teach the skills and content this year.  I just finished my AP certification this week at the AP Summer Institute and am now in the overwhelmed mode with all that I've gotten and trying to break it all down and process it.  Got two new texts, a whole set of online resources and my own free review book.  I used some of the down time in this week to start mapping out the year and planning my first two units.  I feel I've got a good mix of readings, activities, etc so far, now I just need to figure out how to tweak my notes, which is my big summer project along with surviving daddy daycare.  I got some good feedback from my students, and I need to find a balance between the overload of notes we did at the beginning of the year and minimalist efforts we did in the spring.  The mock AP exam I gave them as a final backed that up too as my students usually did much better on the earlier units as opposed to the recent.  But I've had some good talks with the other AP teachers in my hallway about some similar practices we can all do in our classes, and now the next step is incorporating those, the new resources & information I received this week, and putting all of those things together for the fall.  And also finding time to read a few books and run a lot more.  Daddy daycare will hopefully be easier this year since the twins are nearly 2 and are mobile and more independent.  Of course the downside is they're more mobile and independent.  The playset and fenced in yard should help along with our gym's nursery to keep me sane and allow me for some adult contact here and there.

Will definitely write again next week as nap time will be my work time this summer and I want to get some headway before we head off for our family vacation.  I'll also do a good write up on my final AP tournament project in the next few days as well.  Off to run and find some inspiration, ideas, etc.  Thanks for reading, til next time.