The Wall
This blogging thing is working. Students who don't write are writing. Students who have spent years of their life avoiding are engaging. Students are beginning to flex writing muscles that haven't been used for a long time.
This doesn't mean, however, that there haven't been issues. I'm not talking about technology hiccups. I'm talking about how to appropriately engage with another human being kind-of-hiccups.
I've been extremely honest with my students about my hopes and fears with this experiment. My hopes are simple - that a new writing culture would be sparked and we would learn to write with purpose. I've also shared my fear that blogging could be used as a tool to spark drama, intentionally or unintentionally.
The unintentional drama has begun.
I'm sure it's hard to believe that a group of completely mature, intelligent and well-mannered 8th graders would use this as an opportunity to act like adults on Twitter, but they did. Honestly, when I say 'they', I don't mean all - I'm only talking about a few. But it only takes a few.
Before we get to the drama, let me give you a little background. Students first blog post could be about anything. This was wonderfully naive, and exactly how I wanted to begin. First, it must be said, I was not bored reading student work. This is the first time that's happened in years. Students wrote about everything from gaming, to dress code, to camels, to travel, to Spongebob, to relationships, to the environment, and you guessed it - the wall. (Read my blog The Importance of Mission to gain background about where I teach).
Not surprisingly, it was student leaders at school who wrote about this polarizing issue. What was surprising, was that it was also the student leaders of our school who commented on one another's blog posts by personally attacking one another - calling each other 'uneducated' and 'ignorant.' And, even after a public apology, the apology was not accepted! In fact, it was more or less rejected, "There are better ways to relay your opinion, the way you did so was unacceptable." And this was for all to see! Yikes. And YES!!!
Teaching is not telling.
I knew that no matter how often I told them the do's and don'ts of blogging and commenting, it would not sink in unless they experienced failure themselves. As teachers, these are the moments we desperately want to avoid and desperately want to occur. This is where our teaching is given life.
My response to this exchange was to ask students in all classes, "How do we add value to other blog posts with our comments?" (Thank you, Jeff) Each class came up with ideas, we charted their responses, and ended the day commenting on one another's posts. I highlighted the amazing work they were doing throughout each class - providing immediate feedback by showing their comments on the board - encouraging a culture where adding value to one another's posts was the norm.
I really want to show my students the countless examples of adults being Trolls on Twitter or on Facebook Community pages to illustrate the negative impact comments that don't add value can have. At the same time, it is clear why students are quick to call others names and shame one another behind a screen - it's modeled for them daily. I am proud (and nervous) my students are experiencing this under my watch. And I am beginning to believe teachers must allow students to experience this micro-culture within our schools in order to bring these teachable moments to light.
If students leave my classroom with the ability to meaningfully interact with others and comment in a way that adds value to other blogs, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, friendships, the workplace, etc., I'm moving students in the right direction.
I know this won't be the last hiccup or burp or belch in this journey, but if these moments can be leveraged in a way that helps us have constructive conversations about the wall and everything else controversial, then I'm in.
Today's media is so polarizing and self-serving that it makes sense students excel at drama. We need to teach students how to add value to the world around them.
So I'm curious, how are you empowering students to add value to the world around them in your classroom? I'd love to know.
Until next time.
This doesn't mean, however, that there haven't been issues. I'm not talking about technology hiccups. I'm talking about how to appropriately engage with another human being kind-of-hiccups.
I've been extremely honest with my students about my hopes and fears with this experiment. My hopes are simple - that a new writing culture would be sparked and we would learn to write with purpose. I've also shared my fear that blogging could be used as a tool to spark drama, intentionally or unintentionally.
The unintentional drama has begun.
I'm sure it's hard to believe that a group of completely mature, intelligent and well-mannered 8th graders would use this as an opportunity to act like adults on Twitter, but they did. Honestly, when I say 'they', I don't mean all - I'm only talking about a few. But it only takes a few.
Before we get to the drama, let me give you a little background. Students first blog post could be about anything. This was wonderfully naive, and exactly how I wanted to begin. First, it must be said, I was not bored reading student work. This is the first time that's happened in years. Students wrote about everything from gaming, to dress code, to camels, to travel, to Spongebob, to relationships, to the environment, and you guessed it - the wall. (Read my blog The Importance of Mission to gain background about where I teach).
Not surprisingly, it was student leaders at school who wrote about this polarizing issue. What was surprising, was that it was also the student leaders of our school who commented on one another's blog posts by personally attacking one another - calling each other 'uneducated' and 'ignorant.' And, even after a public apology, the apology was not accepted! In fact, it was more or less rejected, "There are better ways to relay your opinion, the way you did so was unacceptable." And this was for all to see! Yikes. And YES!!!
Teaching is not telling.
I knew that no matter how often I told them the do's and don'ts of blogging and commenting, it would not sink in unless they experienced failure themselves. As teachers, these are the moments we desperately want to avoid and desperately want to occur. This is where our teaching is given life.
My response to this exchange was to ask students in all classes, "How do we add value to other blog posts with our comments?" (Thank you, Jeff) Each class came up with ideas, we charted their responses, and ended the day commenting on one another's posts. I highlighted the amazing work they were doing throughout each class - providing immediate feedback by showing their comments on the board - encouraging a culture where adding value to one another's posts was the norm.
I really want to show my students the countless examples of adults being Trolls on Twitter or on Facebook Community pages to illustrate the negative impact comments that don't add value can have. At the same time, it is clear why students are quick to call others names and shame one another behind a screen - it's modeled for them daily. I am proud (and nervous) my students are experiencing this under my watch. And I am beginning to believe teachers must allow students to experience this micro-culture within our schools in order to bring these teachable moments to light.
If students leave my classroom with the ability to meaningfully interact with others and comment in a way that adds value to other blogs, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, friendships, the workplace, etc., I'm moving students in the right direction.
I know this won't be the last hiccup or burp or belch in this journey, but if these moments can be leveraged in a way that helps us have constructive conversations about the wall and everything else controversial, then I'm in.
Today's media is so polarizing and self-serving that it makes sense students excel at drama. We need to teach students how to add value to the world around them.
So I'm curious, how are you empowering students to add value to the world around them in your classroom? I'd love to know.
Until next time.
My 3rd & 4th graders are blogging too...granted their audience is much smaller (me and each other). However their topics seem to be similar to your 8th graders, although they revolve more around their world versus to global world. I'm working on helping them see there is a bigger community outside that they can care about by engaging them in a community service project. They voted to clean the Black Diamond Cemetery.
ReplyDeleteYes! I love that you're tackling this in 3rd & 4th grade! What a powerful experience for kids to have and how exciting for their future teachers knowing they will have this background. And it's even more exciting that you guys are actually doing something to add value to the community they live in! Thanks for sharing and keep up the great work!
ReplyDeleteThank you for providing this platform for our students! I agree. Students need opportunities to get their feet wet. They need opportunities to learn the right and wrong way to respond to other ideas, and they need to do this in a small community where their words have consequences. So much of social media allows us to say, but not hear. What if every person on the other end of your comment was someone you cared about?
ReplyDeleteHere's what I love....without this opportunity to blog and to leave those comments we'd never have the conversation with them. I mean sure...we say "be nice" starting from a very young age. I so love your approach and your goals of this project. Is the goal to have students write? Sure...but in my heart that is a secondary goal to this project. Learn to be human, learn to be human on the Internet. Learn to add value to our world in public spaces, to move humanity forward. You have so many ways to show how not adding values actually brings us down into the troll waters. It really easy to be negative, especially behind a screen. Thank you for having these conversations with them, for teaching them these valuable life lessons, for understanding that this is the value of blogging. Keep it up!
ReplyDeleteFeeling so proud, humbled, and appreciative for such thoughtful professionals to work alongside Truly authentic, engaging and deep!
ReplyDeleteI applaud your bravery in doing this with your students! As English teachers, we must make writing less about the five-paragraph essay and more about their insights, thoughts, and opinions. I have tried doing this in small ways because I am very nervous about allowing students to blog. With our first unit, my English 9 students were given the opportunity to tweet or Instagram the author of our class novel with their thoughts about the book. It was amazing because she responded to EVERY student! (They were very excited!) It was also disastrous because many of the comments they received were disheartening or, even worse, negative personal attacks. After reading your experiences, I wonder if I did enough to address this very real concern.
ReplyDeleteWhat did the public apology look like? I think about how easy it is to attack someone behind a shield of anonymity, but also how easy it is to say things that we normally wouldn't say when that person is not sitting directly in front of us. What if they each had to go and read their comments word for word to the person they wrote them to? As in, sit down in front of them, look them in the eye, and read it exactly as they wrote it. I think this has more to do with digital citizenship probably, but it might be worthwhile for them to acknowledge that there is a real human person in front of them and it is a lot more difficult to say that directly to them than from the comment section of a blog. A little bit of empathy goes a long way I think, but it is difficult to cultivate with how little we sometimes participate with people in real-time and in real-space.
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