Say no to "more details."

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Parents and teachers often tell students to "add more details" when commenting on student writing. 

It's one of the least helpful things that you can say to a writer. 

Have you ever finished a novel or essay or memoir and wished that the author had included "more details?"

Teachers and parents say this to students because so many of them are not writers and do not seriously engage in the writing process. As a result, they simply don't know what to say in the same way I could say nothing to a apprentice carpenter or a beginning skier.

If you don't engage in the craft, you will have little to say about the craft. 

So rather than talking about craft, parents and teachers see quantity as quality. They believe - with all their heart - that an argument that be effectively made in 250 words is automatically made more effective if written with 500 or 1,000 words. 

It makes me insane.  

To this end, young writers should remember this:

Don't seek quantity. Seek quality. Rather than waxing on for paragraphs about a person or place, find the two or three words or phrases that capture the essence of the person or place, and leave it at that.

The best writers don't choose the most words. They choose the right words.  

Before you criticize the Superintendent for a snow day decision, consider this.

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One of the most criticized decision that any Superintendent can make is the decision to declare a snow day or a delay in the school day due to inclement weather. 

I have made it a policy to never criticize a Superintendent - as both a parent and a teacher - for these decisions for a number of reasons:

  1. I believe that every Superintendent is making what he or she believes to be the right call when it comes to inclement weather. No Superintendent in the world wants a child harmed on the way to school. In other words, these difficult decisions are made with the best possible intentions, which is all we can ask of leaders when making decisions involving enormous uncertainty. Complaining about the decision after the fact serves absolutely no purpose. Your complaints will not cause a Superintendent to make a better decision next time. He or she  are already trying to make the best possible decision every time already.    
     
  2. This is a decision involving the weather. Any decision regarding the weather is an incredibly difficult one to make. It's impossible to predict. Thinking that a school official knows what the weather conditions will be with any degree of certainty when the meteorologists are often uncertain is absurd.  
     
  3. Just as important as the actual road conditions are the sidewalks. Many children walk to school. The roads might look pristine, but if the sidewalks around the schools have not been cleared, a delay may need to be called. Too often people decide if a Superintendent has made a good decision based upon their own limited set of information.
     
  4. Superintendents know that for many students, the breakfast and lunch they eat at school are the best and most complete meals of their day. This was the case for me as a child. A snow day often means that children will go hungry that day. This weighs heavily on a Superintendent's mind when making the decision. Even a two hour delay will wipe out breakfast at most schools. 
     
  5. Snow days and and delays throw families into chaos. Childcare must often be found at the last minute. When it can't be found, children far too young to be left home alone often are. Adults arrive at work late and risk losing their jobs if it happens too often. All of this also weighs heavily on the mind of a Superintendent.   

None of this is to imply that safety should be first and foremost in the mind of a Superintendent when making the decision, but he or she must also bring all of these factors to bear when making the call. It's a much more complex decision than I think most people realize. 

Here are two more factors that are so often forgotten:

  1. Parents and colleagues will complain that the roads were unsafe on a given day and that a delay or cancellation was in order, yet when I check at the end of the day, all children across the district have arrived to school safely. No accidents or injuries whatsoever. If every child in the district has arrived to school safely, the right call was apparently made, regardless of how slippery you thought the roads were earlier in the day. 
     
  2. Teachers should never complain about their drive to school during inclement weather. Snow days and delays are not meant for the safety of adults. My friends who work as lawyers, custodians, IT professionals. doctors, cashiers, and cooks do not get snow days. My buddy who works at ESPN goes to work regardless of the weather. My friend who works as an attorney in Hartford doesn't get the morning off if the roads are slippery. When I worked in banking and in restaurants, I went to work regardless of road conditions. Teachers are professionals and have no business complaining about their drive to work. Snow days are not meant for them.

 I recently wrote a piece about the snow days of my youth in my humor column in Seasons magazine. You can check it out here on page 49.

Got kids? Here's how to turn them into writers.

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As a teacher and a writer, I often give parents advice on helping their children to become effective writers who (more importantly) love to write.

My advice is simple:

Be the best audience possible for your child’s work. If he or she wants to read something to you, drop everything. Allow the chicken to burn in the frying pan. Allow the phone to ring off the hook. Give your child your full and complete attention. When a child reads something that they have written to someone who they love and respect, it is the most important thing happening in the world at that moment. Treat is as such.  

Don’t look at the piece. Don’t even touch the piece. Any comment made about the piece should never be about handwriting, spelling, punctuation, and the like. By never seeing the actual text, you innate, insatiable parental need to comment on these things will be properly stifled. Your child does not want to hear about your thoughts on punctuation or the neatness of their printing. No writer does. Your child has given birth to something from the heart and mind. Treat it with reverence. Speak about how it makes you feel. Rave about the ideas and images. Talk about the word choices that you loved. Compliment the title. Ask for more. Forget the rest.

Remember: Rough drafts are supposed to be rough. Even final drafts are not meant to be perfect. That’s why editors exist. Go online and look at the rough drafts of EB White’s Charlotte’s Web. They’re almost illegible. Who cares? Writing is messy.  

Once your child has finished reading the piece, offer three positive statements about the writing. Compliments. Nothing more. Only after you have said three positive things may you offer a suggestion. Maintain this 3:1 compliment/criticism ratio always. Use the word “could” instead of “should” when commenting.

If your child asks how to spell a word, spell it. Sending a child to the dictionary to find the spelling of a word is an act of cruelty and a surefire way to make writing less fun. You probably so this because it was the way that your parents and teachers treated you, but it didn’t help you one bit. It only turned writing into a chore. If you were to ask a colleague how to spell a word, you wouldn’t expect to be sent to the dictionary. That would be rude, The same holds true for your child.

Also, the dictionary was not designed for this purpose. It’s an alphabetical list of definitions and other information about words, but is wasn’t meant for spelling. Just watch a first grader look for the word “phone” in the F section of the dictionary and you will quickly realize how inefficient and pointless this process is.

When it comes to writing, the most important job for parents and teachers is to ensure that kids learn to love to write. If a child enjoys putting words on a page, even if those words are poorly spelled, slightly illegible, and not entirely comprehensible, that’s okay. The skills and strategies for effective writing will come in time, though direct instruction, lots of practice, and a little osmosis. The challenge – the mountain to climb – is getting a child to love writing. Make that your primary objective. Make that your only objective. Do everything you can to ensure that your child loves the writing process. Once you and your child achieve that summit, the rest will fall into place.

I promise.

Except for the handwriting. Sometimes there’s nothing we can do about that. Just be grateful that we live in a world where most of the writing is done on a computer. 

I might know more about education than Trump's nominee for Education Secretary.

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Betsy DeVos is Donald Trump's nominee for Education Secretary. Here are some facts that emerged from yesterday's Senate confirmation hearing:

  • She called the public school systems a "dead end" even though she did not attend a public school, did not send her children to public schools, and never taught in a public school. 
  • She has no experience with college financial aid- either from the personal or administrative side.
  • She does not understand the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.
  • She doesn't know the difference between proficiency and growth as it relates to student learning (an important distinction and a major debate in education today).
  • She supports Trump's plan to rescind gun-free school zones and refuses to say that guns do not belong in schools.
  • She refuses to say that she will enforce the gainful employment rule - a law that prevents fake institutions of higher learning like Trump University from receiving federal dollars.
  • She claimed that her 14 year position as Vice President of family.org, an anti-LGTB organization, was a "clerical error."

I think we deserve a whole lot better than this.  

To her credit, she also acknowledged that the behavior described by Donald Trump on that bus with Billy Bush constitutes sexual assault. I'm sure that if pressed, she would attribute his bragging as "locker room talk" or some other nonsense, but at least she acknowledged that if it actually happened, Trump would be labeled as sex offender. 

The again, we all knew that already.

Donna Gosk stepped off the aircraft carrier. Nothing has been the same ever since.

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For 17 years, I worked alongside Mrs. Gosk, the real life version of the teacher from Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend. Donna retired from teaching last June, and not a day has gone by this year that I haven't walked in the direction of her old classroom, anxious to ask her a question or tell her some new idea.

Then I remember that she's gone - probably playing golf - and a part of me dies all over again.

Donna was old enough to be my mother. In fact, I'm the same age as her middle daughter. Yet throughout my teacher career, I counted Donna as my best friend and closest confidant. The 30 years that separated us in age felt more like 30 minutes.  

Donna taught me how to stay out of trouble early in my career, and then she and I got into lots of trouble together later on. Like me, Donna was not a rule follower. Not afraid of a little trouble. She was a nonconformist. A teacher who knew what needed to be done and did it regardless of the current swing of the academic pendulum or latest administrative whim. 

Donna taught children to love to read. This was her greatest gift. Her super power. The thing she did that changed the future for so many kids. Changed the world, really.

Then she taught me how to get my kids to love reading.

Donna taught children to be good citizens. She taught them about John and Abigail Adams and quoted both often. She read then The Witch of Blackbird Pond and beseeched her colleagues to do the same. She insisted that students sit up straight and speak in a clear voice. She marched through her classroom with a meter stick, claiming it was her "meter beater" and threatening children who did not behave. 

Adult occasionally cringed at these antics, but these were adults who didn't understand children. Students loved Mrs. Gosk. They revered her. They never thought for a minute that she would strike them with her stick. They understood and appreciated the value of theater, bluster, and outrageous humor. 

Donna and I taught poetry together for years. We took children on field trips and into the woods for days at a time. We golfed together. Read books together. Laughed together.

We stood together on 9/11. We propped each other up on the morning of Newtown. We held each other when each of us lost parents. Donna stood beside me like a rock when evil people tried to take away my teaching career. We watched so many good friends come and go, leaving to raise babies, take on new challenges, or breathe easy in retirement.

We mourned the loss of these dear friends and marshaled on.  

Donna used to call teaching "life on the aircraft carrier." It was a good analogy. A school is like a universe to the people who work within its walls. It possesses its own culture. Its own norms. Its own way of being. In many ways, the brick and stone of the schoolhouse wall insulates its occupants from the rest of the world. Buildings fall and the world changes forever, but on the aircraft carrier, subtraction lessons and science experiments continue like nothing has happened. Colorful books are read to small children in cheery voices. The recess bell rings. Lunches are served. Allegiance is pledged to the flag. As the world outside flails and wails and sometimes falters, the hallways of a school continue to ring with the sound of laughter and learning.

Donna stepped off the aircraft carrier last June, and it hasn't been the same for me ever since. She is one of a growing list of teachers who I have loved who are no longer sailing with me. The list includes my wife and some of my closest, dearest, most respected friends, but the one who I worked with on a constant, daily basis for 17 years was Donna.    

Donna was one of the best teachers who I have ever known. This is not to say she was not without her flaws. She was never on time for anything. She spent most of field day in a lawn chair. She could not be bothered to learn new technologies. She has a hard time not laughing when she was being scolded. She had little time for parents. She sometimes misjudged the sharpness of her tongue. She may have smacked a principal once in a angry fit.  

But she was one of the finest teachers in the land. She was a teacher who children clamored to have and parents prayed to get. She earned every bit of her retirement, but children have suffered with the loss of Donna from the teaching ranks. 

I suffer. 

Teachers like Donna are irreplaceable. Their loss is a goddamn tragedy. They move onto a life of ease and leisure and leave us behind a little less whole. A little less prepared for each day. A little bewildered by the idea that someone so good at teaching little children will no longer be teaching anymore.

I miss my friend. I have a picture of her on my desk. She is standing in a field, her fist raised defiantly. I look at it many times during the day. I speak to it. Raise my fist in return. Move on because that is what Donna would tell me to do.

Still, nothing has been the same without her. 

Sometimes a job is more than a job.

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I have been teaching at the same elementary school in West Hartford, CT since the fall of 1999. The way that this school and its people have become intertwined in my life astounds me.  

Just over the course of the Columbus Day weekend:

  1. I went to a Moth StorySLAM in Boston with a former colleague.
  2. I went apple picking with two colleagues and their children.
  3. I played golf with two former colleagues and the parent of former students.
  4. I exchanged a lengthy set of amusing text messages with the parent of former students. 
  5. I had lunch with two colleagues. 
  6. One of my former students babysat my children, as she does quite often. 
  7. I spent a great deal of time with my wife, who is also a former colleague. 

Eleven different people in all over the course of four days.

Sometimes a job is just a job. You come and go. Make a friend, perhaps. Eat lunch with coworkers. Share cake in break rooms to celebrate birthdays. You might go home and tell your spouse about so-and-so at work, but the relationships rarely extend beyond the walls of the workplace.  

But sometimes a job becomes a part of you. The people who you work with become a part of your life and your soul. They become embedded in all that you do. 

They are some of the most important people in your life.

I'm not sure if it's the nature of teaching or the length of time that I have spent in one place or simply the extraordinary people with whom I have worked and whose children I have taught, but many of the most important people in my life were met under the roof of my school.

Teachers. Parents. Students.

I often marvel at how different my life would be today had I not been hired for a teaching job at my school on a morning in May almost 20 years ago. 

Best insult ever

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In my 18 years of teaching, I have been insulted by students in countless times in countless ways. Playful banter, of course, never meant to hurt and often in response to my own purposefully amusing hubris and declarations of supremacy,

Basically, I walk around, telling the kids how great and powerful I am and allow them to respond accordingly. 

It's actually an ideal strategy for bringing the more introverted students out of their shells. These are kids who have so much to say and are often funnier and more clever than their classmates have ever seen because they have such difficulty finding doorways into conversations, discussions, and debate. 

In an attempt to open one of those doorways, I offer these kids a large target and permission to fire away. They often charge right through. I cannot tell you how many formerly "quiet" students have opened up and become leaders in the classroom by first finding ways to tease me, mock me, and insult me in the spirit of humor and friendship.    

It's also an effective way of bringing a class of students together by providing them with a common enemy. The enemy happens to love them and want them to succeed, and my bluster is meant to be more entertaining than sincere, but the kids quickly see me as someone who must be defeated, and they rally around each other as a result.

In eighteen years, you can imagine that I have heard a great many things from students as a result. One of the best pranks ever played on my by a student became a story that I told on This American Life. Others have become stories that I have told on stages for The Moth, including stories involving an endless supply of raisins and a betrayal under the stars that will never be forgotten. 

But last week, I think I heard the greatest insult of all time from a student.

With the utmost of sincerity, this young lady looked up at me and said, "Mr. Dicks, I'm just curious."

I leaned in. Curiosity. A quality I want every student to possess. How exciting.

"When you wash your face, how do you know when to transition from face soap to shampoo, since you have so little hair left and it's hard to see where your forehead ends and the top of your begins. It's all one big patch of skin.?"

She pulled me in with her expression of curiosity and her dripping sincerity, and just as I was open and ready to respond, she stabbed me in the heart with her words.

I was so impressed.  

The first person to listen to my nonsense and predict that I would be a writer has passed away

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My former high school vice principal and Toll Gate principal Stephen Chrabaszcz passed away unexpectedly on Wednesday.

I am so saddened over this news.

From the Providence Journal:

“Those who knew him said Chrabaszcz, who became a principal in 2006, shared his cellphone number with students, parents and staff, and would work weekends to meet with parents who could not meet with him during the week.

“He was fixated on Toll Gate pride,” Tober said, adding that Chrabaszcz was at every school-related event, from parent-teacher conferences to an away game in Burrillville.

“He brought that level of commitment and pride to what it meant being part of Toll Gate,” Tober said.”
— Providence Journal

As a vice principal, Mr. Chrabaszcz was one of the first adults in my life who was willing to listen to my nonconformist, occasionally subversive ideas and debate me in a real and sometimes heated way. Rather than dismissing my complaints or ignoring my explanations, Mr. Chrabaszcz engaged with me. We went toe-to-toe on many issues. We raised our voices and stood our ground. 

I loved every minute of it. 

When I argued, for example, that I should not be required to type my term papers because I didn't own a typewriter and was denied access to the machines at school because I had chosen to take a geography class rather than a typing class, he listened. He pushed back. He probed my thinking. He investigated my claims. Ultimately, he agreed with me, and as a result, teachers were no longer permitted to require students to type their term papers unless those students were guaranteed access to the school machines for a reasonable amount of time.

I didn't type another paper that year. 

I wrote about this debate and his decision in the school newspaper in a piece called "The Right to Write." It was in many ways my first real piece of writing. It was the first time I had expressed my opinion in a voice that sounded like my own. It was argumentative. Nonconformist. Unconventional. Angry, even. It represented a challenge to authority. It argued in defense of the have-nots.   

The morning that the piece was published, Mr. Chrabaszcz pulled me out of my English class. Standing just outside the door to the classroom, he held the newspaper up in front of me, shook it, and said, "You need to learn to type, dummy. You're going to be a writer someday."

This was an enormous moment for me. Mr. Chrabaszcz was the first and only adult from my childhood who spoke to me about my future and my potential. Parents, teachers, and guidance counselors would abandon me, but Mr. Chrabaszcz believed in me. There were moments on my long and seemingly impossible journey to college when those words outside that classroom kept me going.   

 Three years ago, after befriending a Toll Gate High School student who read my books and initiated a long, ongoing exchange of emails of me, I visited Toll Gate High School to talk with students about writing, and during the visit, I met with Mr. Chrabaszcz, who was the principal. He remembered me well from my high school days, and from what I could see, he hadn't changed much. Energetic, enthusiastic, and always quick to the point, he was thrilled to hear that I had become the writer he predicted I would be, but he was even more excited about my teaching career. 

Since that visit, we have been exchanging emails with Mr. Chrabaszcz about education, writing, leadership, and our lives. I treasure every one of our exchanges.

Stephen Chrabaszcz was a great leader and a better friend who helped to shape my life.

He will be missed.    

If you want to have a say in education, become an educator

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Attention politicians, policy wonks, educational advocates, professors of education, and anyone else who wants to have a say in education:

"Every human being who wants to have an opinion of American education ought to spend some time as a substitute teacher."

- Nicholson Baker, the author of Substitute, who served as a substitute teacher for a year in order to write his book and understand the challenges and rewards of teaching

Every time I tie my shoes...

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Here's a little secret about me that I've never shared with anyone before:

Every time I tie my shoes, I think of Mrs. Carroll, the teaching assistant who sat at a table in the hallway between Mrs. Dubois and Mrs. Roberge's kindergarten classroom at John F. Kennedy Elementary School in Blackstone, MA.

Mrs. Carroll taught children like me a myriad of life skills like zipping up your own coat, memorizing your phone number, and tying your own shoes.

I can remember sitting in that hallway like it was yesterday, learning to cross and loop laces until I could tie my own shoes without any instruction. Without even looking. 

I was five years-old when Mrs. Carroll taught me a skill that I still use today. 

Every time I tie my shoes, without exception, I think about Mrs. Carroll. I can see her sitting across from me, glasses perched on her nose, determined and unwavering, insisting that I master this skill before first grade. 

Teachers never know how long their lessons will live in the hearts of their students.

Teachers must stop assigning problems to students in math class, but apparently they need to stop assigning equations, too.

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About a week ago I vowed to stop using the word "problem" when asking a question in math, and for good reason, I think.

I proposed using the word "equation" when asking a student to add, subtract, multiply, or divide. 

It turns out that "equation" is the wrong word, too. My friend, who is a physicist, points this out in his comment to my post. I'm posting his comment hear, broken it into paragraphs to make the reading easier but otherwise unaltered.  

This is the same person who once explained to me that an email actually has physical weight. 

I'm still not sure what word to use in place of "problem" but apparently it won't be equation. 

_________________________

Equation isn't the correct term. An equation is a relationship between numbers (i.e., it doesn't involve missing values).

If you want you could call it a puzzle (as is suggested by Linda): figure out what the missing number is. However, puzzle implies that this requested work is something that will require some type of deductive, inductive or creative thinking. In an addition, subtraction, multiplication or division "problem", though, we are hoping for a more rote response.

Therefore, if problem is unappealing, then I would argue for using "question". At the end of a reading assignment, we already ask them comprehension questions. They get multiple choice and fill in the blank questions in other disciplines.

But math is better than those. Shouldn't it have its own terminology as a meritorious distinction? And, a really good math problem is one that does cause us to think; it is a puzzle, or better yet a game. In actuality, though, is it not that math is nothing more than logical deductions based on the definition of the number line. Shall we then agree to say "Deduce by mathematical inference the answer to the following:"?

Three shows that every married couple should be watching - and why this is dumb advice

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David WIllis - a pastor interested in "encouraging married couples and families" and who founded StrongerMarriages.org and the Marriage app as a way to encourage couples to build stronger marriage - writes in TIME of three types of television shows that every married couple should watch in order to improve their marriage:

  • A show to help you learn together
  • A show to help you dream together
  • A show to help you laugh together 

It's ridiculous advice, of course, because regardless of how troubled or unsatisfying a marriage may be, there is no couple on Earth who is going to read this article and end up changing the television shows that they watch in order to improve their marriage. 

"Honey, we need to find a show to help us dream together. Pastor Willis says that will make us a much stronger couple!"

"Pookie bear, I just read an article that says we should be watching a show that we both find funny. How do you feel about Benny Hill or Tom & Jerry?" 

The article is clickbait, probably promoted in social media by a phrase like "Three must-see television shows to save your marriage" or "Three TV shows that will make your marriage stronger and happier."

People click on these teaser link because it's a list (and people love lists) and because the article seems to promise an instant solution to a serious problem. Instead, you are offered suggestions like "a show to help you dream together" and think, "What the hell does that even mean?"

Then nothing changes. 

He also suggests that less television overall is good for a marriage, but even this suggestion is fairly ridiculous. Less television is good for everyone, regardless of their marital status.

Nothing new or insightful here.  

My wife and I watch very little television - mostly because we don't have the time to watch more but also because we have chosen to fill our lives with things that keep us from staring at the stupid box too much.

We enjoy TV. We just enjoy other things more. 

But the one thing we've done that has been positive in terms of TV watching and our relationship is that in our nearly ten years of marriage and three years of dating, we have almost never watched a television show independently of each other.

We always watch television together.

The only exception to this rule is sports (she doesn't watch every NFL and baseball game with me) and The Walking Dead, a show that Elysha watched for three seasons until the violence and gore became too much for her and she had to quit. I continue to watch but am often multiple episodes behind because there are so few opportunities to watch a television show when she is not around. 

That might be it. The only shows we don't watch together. And I think this is a great thing for our marriage, but it's not something I would recommend because I prefer to recommend strategies that can actually be applied to daily life. 

Telling a couple that they must abandon their own personal tastes and TV watching patterns so they can sit beside each other on the couch every night at the expense of what they really want to watch is unrealistic. 

Just as unrealistic as David Willis' recommendations in TIME.

I hate meetings this much.

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Want to know how much I hate meetings?

In August of 1999, I began my teaching career. Each school year starts off with a series of meetings a couple days before the kids arrive that may be absolutely necessary but are still excruciating because I hate meetings.

As I prepared to attend this first of what has been thousands upon thousands of meetings over the course of my teaching career, I was introduced to Jennifer, a new teacher also beginning her career. But because she was hired just a couple days before the start of school, she was permitted to skip this first meeting in order to prepare her classroom.

I still work with Jennifer. Today we teach fifth grade together.

It's been eighteen years since we began our teaching careers, and I'm still mad about the meeting that she got to skip and I did not.

Nearly two decades later, I still remember it, and I'm still angry about it.

I'm not kidding.

Teachers: Stop assigning word problems. It's a problem.

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My daughter was working on her math homework last night.

Side note: First graders should not have homework. The research is exceedingly clear and unequivocal in this regard. Homework is meaningless and possibly detrimental to students until at least middle school. Many elementary schools have already abandoned homework for this very reason. As a teacher, I assign homework because it is required, but if given the freedom to do what is right, I would not. Instead, I try to find ways to make my homework meaningful and fun whenever possible. 

Anyway...

Clara had completed several problems when she moaned, "Why does math have so many problems? I don't like problems."

And she was right.

Why do we refer to equations as problems?
Why do we teach students to solve word problems?

No one likes problems. Clara is right.

Imagine what might happen if I started handing books to kids and said, "Here. You'll love this problem. Get reading."

Or if I gave my students a map and said, "I have a problem for you today. Label all the countries of Europe on this map."

Or if I told students, "Today we begin our science fair projects. This will be an enormous, high stakes, three-month problem for you and possibly your parents, too, depending on their inability to detach themselves from your long term projects." 

These are not problems.

Mathematical equations are not problems.

  • Bed bugs are a problem. 
  • Drug addiction is a problem.
  • Pretending that your bigotry is based upon Scripture is a problem.
  • The great Pacific garbage patch is a problem.
  • New York Jets fandom is a problem.
  • Designer logos are a problem. 
  • Humble bragging is a problem.
  • My inability to hit the driver more than 175 yards is a problem.
  • Institutions like private schools that perpetuate the achievement economic are a problem. 
  • My daughter's refusal to put away her markers is a problem.

But the addition "problems" that my daughter was solving?

Not problems. Equations. 

Beginning in September, I will cease referring to anything in mathematics as a problem. 

Multiplication problems will become equations. 

Word problems involving trains traveling at different speeds in different directions or boxes filled with varying amounts of widgets will no longer be referred to as problems. They will become mathematical situations (unless I think of something better). 

No longer will my students think of math as a subject filled with problems. They have enough problems in their lives already. They don't need any more.

Will this make my students suddenly love math? Embrace it with enthusiasm and vigor? 

I don't think so. Some will still love math. Others will not. I'll still work like hell to get them all to enjoy solving equations and understanding how numbers work.  

But removing the word "problem" from my vernacular will make me feel better about talking about math, and perhaps over time, their opinions will shift ever so slightly.  

Either way, referring to mathematical equations and mathematical situations as problems is a problem.  

And It only took me 18 years of teaching for me to realize this.

TEDxTheCountrySchool: Speak Less. Expect More.

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This is a TEDx Talk that I delivered in April of 2016 at The Country School in Madison, CT. The conference was run almost exclusively by the students of the school, who were of middle and high school age.

It's a variation of a talk that I have delivered before about the idea that teachers should be speaking less in their classrooms and expecting more from their students. 

Stop it, teachers: 3 things educators must stop doing now.

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As a teacher, I admire the hell out of my colleagues. I've been teaching for almost two decades, and the vast majority of educators with whom I've worked during that time are outstanding professionals who care deeply about their students.

This does not mean that all teachers and school administrators are perfect, and sometimes they can be downright stupid. 

Here are three things that educators do that need to cease immediately:

1. Stop using writing as a form of punishment.

Just last week, a friend told me that her daughter - a middle schooler - was required to write a five page essay as punishment for a recent infraction.

This is backwards and asinine, and it needs to stop. It also flies in the face of all research done on this subject. 

It's hard enough to get students excited about writing today. With so few teachers of writing actually engaging in the writing process in an authentic and meaningful way, writing instruction is often boiled down to a simplistic, uninspired, unrealistic, formulaic approach. Add to this the idea that writing is also a viable means of punishment, and we have all but guaranteed that students will stop all meaningful and expressive writing once they are done with school.

Writing is not punishment. Writing is a glorious means of self expression. Writing represents the ability to exist beyond the moment. It's a means by which to process thoughts and feelings on the page. It's a way to create something new and remarkable in this world. 

When it is allowed to be just that, students will learn to love to write. 

When you turn writing into a form of punishment, you're an idiot who doesn't understand writing. Or kids. Or education in general. 

2. Stop telling kids what they can't be.

It seems like every other week, I hear some highly accomplished person in an interview or as a part of their memoir tell the story of an idiotic teacher who said they didn't have the talent to succeed in their chosen field.

"You'll never make it in the music industry."

"You just don't have the talent to compete in the literary world."

"You should think about a more reasonable career. Maybe in sales or marketing?"   

A teacher has no business telling student what he or she can't do. Even if every fiber of your being says that the kid will never play the French horn in the New York Symphony or doesn't stand a chance in the world of investment banking, shut the hell up. It's not your business to squash dreams. Teachers are in the business of creating as many possibilities as possible for their students through education, inspiration, and enlightenment.

If the kid will never play the French horn professionally, let him discover that for himself.

If your struggling math student won't ever be hired by even the shadiest of investment banks, let that happen in its own time. 

While we don't want students putting all their eggs in one basket, we have no business stomping on any eggs, either. It is only through incredible arrogance and ridiculous hubris that we should even begin to think that we can predict the future of a 15-year old kid.   

Had you asked my high school teachers if I would ever become a novelist, storyteller, wedding DJ, business owner, or even a teacher, I suspect few would have seen any of those careers in my future.

Thankfully, none of them told me what I couldn't do. Instead, they tried to fill me with the knowledge and skills required to do whatever I damn well pleased. 

3. Stop acting like bigots.

Last week a high school in Pennsylvania barred a student from attending her prom because she chose to wear a tuxedo rather than a dress.  The school says the student, Aniya Wolf, failed to follow a clear dress code for the prom that was laid out months in advance. “The dress code for the prom specified girls must wear formal dresses,” the school said in a statement. “It also stated that students who failed to follow the dress code would not be admitted.”

Even if that's true - and there is some evidence that this dress code was only imposed after learning that Wolf would be wearing a tuxedo - this is a bigoted, ass-backward policy that can only be described as homophobic and stupid. 

Two weeks ago a North Carolina school banned transgender students from using their preferred restroom, even though the student in question had been doing so for years without incident. 

Another North Carolina school system has adopted a policy allowing high school students to carry pepper spray this fall, a policy one board member said may be useful for students who encounter transgender classmates in the bathroom.

This is insanity. Schools are supposed to be places of enlightenment. They should be looking to make this world better for all students regardless of their gender or sexual preference. Instead, these school systems and others like it are standing in opposition to reform that has already been accepted by much of the country and the world.

If the White House or IBM or Disney or Apple or Ford Motor Company was hosting a black tie gala, do we think for a moment that they would bar a woman from attending the event because she chose to wear a tuxedo?

Of course not. 

If a transgender person at one of these same black tie galas chose to use the restroom that matched his or her gender, do we think that President Obama or Ginni Rometty or Michael Eisner or Tim Cook or Mark Fields would require their guest to use the restroom that best matched their genitals?

Of course not.

The world is moving on and changing rapidly. We have begun to accept differences in gender identity and sexual preference at a remarkably rapid rate, but in certain corners of the world, educators are taking ass-backward stances and clinging to ancient values that only serve to marginalize students who don't quite fit their 1950's paradigm of appropriate behavior. 

It's an embarrassment. It's a disgrace. It's a black eye on an otherwise noble profession. Teachers, administrators, and school boards must stop it now or otherwise be forever be remember as people who were on the wrong side of history when so many people were moving so quickly to the right side.