Mrvaudrey

Category: Teacher Improvement

  • Teacher Report Card – Ms. Taormina

    The following is a guest post from Brittany Taormina, who gave the Teacher Report Card to her students during 2021 distance learning. She tweeted me about it, and her grand risk deserves some celebration. Check it out below!

    8:10am the morning bell rings, students slowly begin making their way down the 4th grade hallway into our classroom. The routine each and every morning is the same, day after day. Students read the board and follow the instructions to get their morning going.

    Untilb&

    They walked into the room on the day they got to, bgrade the teacher,b the whispers, the murmurs were happening all around the room.
    bWe get to grade the teacher for once! Wait, what?! We get to give the teacher grades?! YES!b They were beyond excited and got right to work.

    I was shocked at how serious these fourth graders took filling out this google form. In all honesty, I wasnbt expecting them to take it very seriously, but they surprised me! The information that I was able to gather was amazing.

    I learned spots in which I need to continue to grow as a teacher, I learned that my kids donbt think I have bad breath (phew!), and I learned spots in which my kids think I am doing very well.

    One huge takeaway I had was from the written responses the students filled out. So many of them wrote about our special little activities we do that have nothing to do with the curriculum but so much to do with our classroom community.

    Which leads me to a whole another tangent.

    Classroom community is one of my biggest focuses, year after year. I want each and every student in my room to feel welcome. I received responses like, bMy teacher makes me feel like I belongb, bMy teacher makes me feel like a million bucks!b, and bMy teacher makes me feel good and ready to learn and excited to go to school and I never experienced that beforeb. These are all statements written by 4th graders; who knew they had such big feelings and such awareness of how an adult can make them feel?

    This was eye opening to me. Needless to say, my kiddos feel loved and that made my heart happy.

    Now for the growthb& we all have to continue to grow. No one is ever the bperfectb teacher. I learned that sometimes my kids feel like I donbt use clear language to explain a lesson (awesome information). I need to work on explaining things in a way that all of my learners can understand.

    Had I not taken this risk and given this teacher report card a shot, I would have never learned this about myself.

    The teacher report card was definitely a scary thing to post in my google classroom for my kids to fill out, it was completely out of my comfort zone and something I wasnbt sure if I was ready to see the results of.

    Why? I’m not sure.

    I know I do my job and I love each and everyone of my kids, but you just never know how honest and harsh a kid’s criticism might be. But I took a risk, I was brave, and the kids continued to talk about that teacher report card all day long because they felt like they had a say and a true voice in our classroom.

    This was a first for me this yearb& but definitely not a last! Thank you Mr. Vaudrey for inspiring me to be brave, take a risk, and continue to grow myself as an educator for the better of my students.

    ~Brittany

    Picture of Brittany, smiling and giving a thumbs-up
    Follow @btaorminad10 on Twitter

    If you’re interested in giving the Teacher Report Card to your class, see the tweet below!

    (Admin and Instructional Coaches, there are links for y’all there, too.)

  • Better Mullets

    When I go back in time to read journal entries in blog posts from that first year teaching, chuckle, sigh, and cringe.

    Most often, though, itbs cringe.

    a girl wincing, like she stepped on something painful or squishy

    A few years back, I crossed paths with Eli Luberoff, CEO of the graphing calculator and activity builder called Desmos. As we crossed the lobby and took the escalator together, he gave me the short version of the workshop he was set to give later that day. He said something like,

    Itbs difficult to predict the face of technology or education 10 years from now, and in my hubris, I submitted a workshop that does both. Even in the last eight months, those predictions have changed. When I look back on myself five years ago, I think, ‘Man, I didn’t know anything! And Ibm sure that five years from now, I will look back on my views today and say the same thing. We have to grow so quickly.

    Since that lobby at a math conference, Eli and the Desmos team have dug even deeper into making graphs more accessible for students with visual and auditory disabilities, making their staff practices more inclusive, and taking a stand on difficult social issues that frighten some teachers.

    Bravery in the face of vulnerability has been a theme for the last couple years of my professional growth. Ibve been a school administrator for a little over a month, and every day is full of new challenges and new ideas.

    So when I was tagged in a tweet last week, I wasnbt very surprised. Like everything else in education, The Mullet Ratio requires evolution, modification, and critique. I’ve seen colleagues who are too invested in something to see issues with it, and I want to build stamina with hard topics.

    So.

    If you find content on this blog or my Twitter feed or my speaking arrangements that is problematic, insensitive, or just weird, this serves as an open license to offer your input and be heard.

    This is how we get better: by looking back on our practice and exclaiming,

    ‘Man, I didn’t know anything!’

    ~Matt bI know a little more today than I did yesterdayb Vaudrey

    P.S. – Attendees at the CMC-South Conference next month will get a front row seat for Mullet Ratio and just how serious I’m taking this claim. Join us on Saturday at 9:30 in Mojave!

  • Other Stuff I Do

    For years, I had a classroom. It was Vaudrey’s Room, even when I wasn’t in it; the space was tied to me as the main person.

    Then I had a desk that was most-often unoccupied, as I traveled my district supporting teachers in their spaces.

    Now there’s an office with my name on it. That hasn’t happened before, and it’s taking some adjusting, but I like it.

    Running parallel to that progression is my side-hustle; consulting with teachers and districts across the country, sharing resources and ideas with them.

    The space is someone else’s class, or an auditorium, gym, Multi-Purpose Room, or board room, and I’m just a visitor.

    “Visitor” is a good description for these gigs. I’m sitting on the airport floor in Bozeman, Montana, after two days of working with every teacher in the rural district of Belgrade, MT.

    Since most of my day-job (Dean of Students at Lone Hill Middle School) deals with private stuff I can’t discuss here, this post will focus on a key moment from the last couple days spent 1000 miles away.

    Julie 1

    “Will this lecture have anything for us? We teach Reading.” Julie and her teammate had unfolded a cafeteria table in the back of the room instead of sitting near to the front, where I had laid out paper and markers.

    “Maybe!” I replied, ever the optimist and looking to make an ally right away. “What brings you here?”

    “Our principal sent us. We… (she looked back and forth) … didn’t really have a choice.”

    Big smile. “Well, I’m glad you’re here! We’re focusing mostly on math activities and practices to support them, and your voice is definitely welcome. Feel free to keep to yourself here and participate if you want.”

    Julie visibly relaxed, “Oh, thank God. We really don’t like math.”

    I stood with a sneaky smile, “Not yet, but we’re just getting started.”

    Julie was quickly won over by the Estimation tasks and discussion-based prompts of Would You Rather, Fraction Talks, and Which One Doesn’t Belong? I caught her setting aside her chapter books and jotting notes and ideas down on paper. Soon, she was chatting animatedly with her seatmates and venturing to other tables.

    It probably helped that I was explicit in my prompt to, “Stand when you hear the music and share with someone you haven’t yet spoken to.”

    As they packed up to leave, she handed me a sketch. “We think there’s a place for these in our class, too.”

    Soon, the morning was over and everyone packed up to leave. As usual, there were some follow-up questions about the book and my promise of lifetime tech-support. I managed to catch Julie before she left and coach her aside from her partner.

    “Julie! Lemme talk to you for a sec.”

    She looked cautious, but joined me on the side of the cafeteria, away from the earshot of her teammates.

    “Julie, you started the day declaring that you had nothing to offer, but you were an active participant today, and your insights were very helpful.
    I think… and you may not agree… I think you have a lot to offer the math classroom.”

    She rolled her eyes, “Yeah, okay. You’ve never seen me teach.”

    I made super-strong eye contact and lowered my voice. “Julie, I don’t mean to tout my resume here, but I’ve taught this stuff all over the country. Not all teachers are as brave as you, willing to take a risk where they don’t feel comfortable.”

    Her eyes went wide. “Uh-oh. You’re recruiting me, aren’t you?” She turned and pretended to walk away.

    “Yep! There’s a lot of promise for your math class, and to prove that I believe in you, here’s a copy of my book. Well done today.” I handed her the book and she paused.

    I wonder how many people have told her that she could be a “mathy” person.

    ~Matt “Youth Pastor” Vaudrey

    *Of course that’s not her real name.

  • NCTM 2019

    …Since brevity is the soul of wit,
    And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes,
    I will be brief…

    Hamlet, Act II, Scene II

    About three hours ago, I arrived home from the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics annual conference. For less than 48 hours, I accumulated more experiences than would be wise to replay here, so I’ll pick a few standouts.

    There are no proper nouns in this post, so if you and I hugged, shook hands, did math together, or chatted in the last couple days, then just assume I’m writing about you.

    image: tsvsu

    Within a few minutes of arriving in San Diego on Thursday night, a half-dozen friends gave me hugs and invited me to sit with them. Now, “friends” is an unusual term to use here, since we only see each other once a year or so. But this small, unruly cohort (affectionately called the Math-Twitter-Blogosphere or #MTBOS) attempts to be inclusive, inviting, and loyal all at the same time.

    So to define “a peer in the field of math education who is interested in sharing their practice, learning from other, and contributing to the field as a whole,” let’s use the term math-friend throughout here.

    Peak Moments

    Read the next two sentences together before having any feelings about them, please.

    More than once this weekend, I met a new math-friend who said, “I saw you speak before,” or “I have your book,” or “I follow you on Twitter.” Invariably, I try to turn that recognition into camaraderie, to lower the perceived podium and sit alongside these new math-friends to learn together.

    The NCTM conference is full of teachers who fill big rooms at conference centers and get lots of notifications on their phone. Whatever word you wanna use to describe that group, they are only math-friends if they uplift and encourage others from the stage.

    The type of math-friend I want to be is a curious consumer of fresh ideas, an earnest listener of shared experience, and a good hugger.

    I hugged a lot this weekend.

    image: tzvsu

    Those hugs, those fresh ideas, and those shared experiences gave me life and encouragement and the strength to dig my fingers back into my local school system like it’s fresh pizza dough, shaping and molding with renewed vigor.

    The conference was full of Peak Moments (I think that’s the term), where things felt great and I was inspired.

    Valley Moments

    For some, the conference had its share of valley moments, too.
    (That’s … probably a term I just made up.)
    A sewage pipe burst at the Hilton, so I was roused from slumber after 4 hours with the smell of untreated shit wafting through the drains in my hotel. Not my favorite way to begin a day of learning, but I rallied.

    Years ago, when I first went to college, I was brought low by the newly raised bar of academic achievement. Suddenly, everybody in my classes was capable and hard-working, and sliding through class without breaking a sweat was no longer an option for me. It was humbling.

    That’s how some of us feel at these events; some of the top math educators in the world converge on one spot and share their favorite ideas. Compared to those folk, what I did in class last week wasn’t so special.

    “I feel mediocre!”
    image: rawpixel

    You’re a Great Teacher

    If you’ll indulge a food analogy:

    Of course.

    Defining a “great” chef is a challenge.

    Cooking (like teaching) is relative, prone to interpretation, and tough to nail down. Throughout the last couple days, I had a Cuban sandwich, a breakfast buffet, and a bacon burger, all of which were “great” in their own way.

    Teachers, it’s easy to glance sideways at your fellow chefs and compare. What’s “great” for your classroom is always going to be different from your neighbor, and you can be great at dozens of things, all of which combine to make you a great teacher.

    You’re a great teacher.
    NCTM and Twitter and math-friends all combine to us more great.

    More tools, more ideas, more resources, more support, and more hugs.

    ~Matt “More Hugs” Vaudrey

    NOTE: Hilton responded really well. They got me a fresh room in the morning and 50,000 Hilton points towards a future stay.
    If I weren’t so exhausted, I would have asked for the points/dollars conversion and compared it against nightly rates.
    Instead, I just said, “Thanks,” and went to get dressed.

  • It sure felt like getting fired

    I found this buried in my Google Drive this week. It’s a journal entry from 2008.

    Nowbeleven years laterbI love teaching and there are some teachers appreciate my commentary on stuff. As our teammates and friends are getting their March 15th letters, it may help to remember where we’ve come and how powerless it feels to be a bad teacher.

    It gets better, y’all.

    Okay, both my in-laws, my wife, and both parents said that I wasnbt technically bfiredb. I was told that my bprobationary contract wasnbt renewed for the following yearb.

    It sure felt a lot like getting fired.

    As you may have gathered from my references to my first year teaching, it was rough. On a good day, I had a little bit of control over the class, until a student wanted to do something out of the ordinary, like talk about anything unrelated to math. Then my lack of boundaries and authority skills made a 53-minute dog turd sandwich out of the class period. My class was out of control four and a half days a week and I was out of my element.

    So out of my element and out of control was I, that when called for a 7:45 meeting in February, I blissfully ignorant to its nature.

    Present with me at the meeting was Rich, the Assistant Principal and friend from church who got me the job, and Jim Mandala.

    I use his full name instead of an alias because I have nothing bad to possibly say about the man. His skills at commanding the respect and control of a room were god-like to me, a 22-year-old first-year teacher with no skills. His salt-and-pepper hair wasnbt the first thing people saw, nor was his crooked nose, likely broken in younger days (perhaps ten or twenty times).

    No, the first thing people noticed about Mr. Mandala was his chest, which was eye level for most people, including me. Standing about 6b6b, peering down a crooked nose and inclining his charcoal-colored head to boom, bCan I help you?b he cast quite an intimidating figure. With that said, he was a delightfully pleasant and competent administrator, for whom I would immediately work again.

    So, I was worried, but not threatened, to see him share the table at my meeting.

    bMatt, what do you think your strengths are in the classroom?b Jimbs tone was light as he hunched over his folded arms.  

    I was stunned. Strengths? Like, those things that good teachers have? bUh, I think that Ibm relatable. Students feel safe to share their problems with meb& for the most part.b

    bI can see that,b Jim smiled. bI also see that you have good content, you know the math, and youbre a great communicator. Other teachers have said so, as well.b I started to perk up. This meeting is going great!

    bWhat are some areas where you can grow in the classroom?b Rich asked, more uncomfortable than Ibve seen him. Rich is a delightful man who wears his heart on his sleeve. Ibm sure he makes a great husband; chicks dig honesty and openness. And it made me nervous to see him squirming in this meeting.

    bWell, obviously, my classroom management needs some work. I think Ibve learned a lot this year and Ibm ready to start fresh with next yearbs class and reallyb& really take control.b

    I reiterate, this was in February.

    bDo you think you are doing a satisfactory job this year?b Jim again, asking with total sincerity and politeness. Coming from him, this question would make most grown men soil their knickers.

    Even grown teachers, whose capacity for surprise is somewhere between EMTs and Jack-in-the-Box repairmen.

    bUhhb& no.b I stammered, looking at my shoes. bI donbt think that I am a good teacher yet.b I started to see where the meeting was going. Why Rich was so uncomfortable, why Jim made so much eye contact and spoke so softly. I was getting fired.

    bMatt, webre confident that you will someday be a great teacher, but we canbt wait for you to become one. We need somebody now who can bring our scores up for the ELD students. We will not be renewing your contract for next year.b

    bb&okay.b I was crushed.

    bThis isnbt getting fired; when you apply for jobs, you just say byour contract was not renewedb. You should write up a letter of resignation, have it on my desk by the end of the week, and webll both write up letters of recommendation for you to apply for jobs. Thank you for working so hard; itbs clear that youbre a team player and you really wanted to do well.b

    bb&thank you.b My voice was about an inch tall. I just wanted the meeting to end, but I knew a full day of work awaited me. Jim stood, shook my hand, and left.

    Rich sheepishly asked, bAre you okay?b Tears were already lining up just behind my nose, and that question called them out. bYeah, Ibll be fine.b I sniffed wetly with a smile. bIbll be fine. Ibve just never been fired before.b

    bYoubre not getting fired. Itbs just the end of a one-year contract.b I feel for him now; he got me this job, and now he had to be there while it was taken away. Rich gave me a hug and I went to work. I called Andrea during my break period and cried behind my desk.

    It sure felt like getting fired.

    In the process of prepping this post, I found this one from a few weeks after the above was written.

    If you read that one, just… remember that I like my job now. And I’m much better with kids.

    ~Matt “Not Fired” Vaudrey

  • Focusing Impact

    My kids love to play with the hose in the backyard.

    We live in the semi-desert of Southern California, so it’s too hot to play without a sprinkler for about 8 weeks during the summer, but they’re even thrilled to dance in the rain yesterday, as the rest of the country is grappling with record snows.

    Anyway. They really like the nozzle below.

    image: elitza

    My daughter likes the mist setting, she can spray a little bit of water all over the place without soaking anything.

    That’s a lot of how I feel about my job as a coach: spreading a tiny bit of water all over.

    (Astute readers will note this is the second recent reference between water and instructional coaching. Yep. Keep reading.)

    In the last few years, getting a bird’s-eye view of capital-E-Education has made me awaken more to the world outside the four walls of my classroom. Public education must be effective for all students, and my Equity bone has been aching more and more.

    So I want to focus my impact, twisting the top of this nozzle, to be less spread-out and more focused.

    image: nomadswe.co

    As noted in recent posts, a job focused on relationships is more likely to produce growth. A site-level administrator would have more concentrated impact, more time to build relationships with staff, and more authority to produce equitable conditions for students and staff.

    All the chatter about becoming an Administrator is due to something I learned in August: My job as Ed/Tech Coach expires in June.

    Now, I’m not upset about this; like many TOSA jobs, my position was designed to have a shelf-life, and five years ain’t a bad run for an Instructional Coach.

    And b if I’m honest b it’s probably time.

    Of all the teachers I supported last year, 51% of them were classes I visited only once during the year, and never saw again.

    Nearly three out of every four classrooms I visit are people I only see once or twice a year. It’s hardly hyperbole to guess that I’m not improving the instruction of those teachers, which begs the question,

    Do we need a full-time instructional coach if I’m only driving change in 25% of my visits?

    Now, there’s a much larger conversation to be had about effective instructional coaching and an ideal staff-to-coach ratio (It’s probably not 1,000:1), but the conversation I want to have is about impact.

    I want to focus my impact on a smaller group, and it’s becoming clearer that site-level administration is a good next step in that direction.

    So as the 2018-19 school year wraps up and I clean out my desk, I’ll be looking that direction.

    More to come.

    ~Matt “Ready to be Mr. Vaudrey again” Vaudrey

  • Seat at the Table

    My favorite math lessons are the ones that end with more questions than they answered.

    Relatedly, my favorite conversations leave me more interested in learning, not satisfied with the learning Ibve done already.

    CMC has been the professional highlight of my year for the past few years, and this year was no exception.


    In her blog post,* Claire offers thanks to “Big names” in Math Education (her terms) for the encouragement and advocacy given in loud voices:

    Your work has gotten me through a difficult time professionally and I am so grateful.

    John and I will be the first to tell you that we haven’t sought notoriety within the Math Education community (and are both uncomfortable with it), so we regularly check to see that our compasses still point toward North, toward students first and always.

    But if taking a selfie, signing a book, and speaking encouragement into a microphone makes teachers stand a little taller, then it’s worth it.

    As Patricia mentions in her blog,* it’s time to start bringing more ideas to the table:

    I realized during this conference that there are so many talented teachers doing great things in their classrooms that make a big difference in the lives of their students. We need to hear from them too; their voices, their stories, their strategies so that we can all be better.

    Yeah. The comments section of this blog has been pushing on that for years.

    So that’s where I am. I want to use my medium amount of influence to make more seats at the table, to celebrate more ideas, and to pass the mic more often (even though I love the mic).

    Sunil wrote about the CMC workshop he attended, given by Chris Shore. Both parties are nudging people like me (white males with a microphone) to nudge b okay, push b the pace of education toward more students, eventually toward all.

    ~Matt “Change is a-comin’ ” Vaudrey

    *These two mention me, and Ibm sending yball there to read despite my discomfort with their praise. Thatbs how good they are.

  • Jack of All Trades, Master of One

     

    There’s not much for me to offer the field of Education.

    This isn’t a call for affirmation or compliments; I’m not looking for commentary below to list the things I do well.

    What I mean is this:

     

     

    The field of Education is vast and encompasses a lot of disparate b yet related b topics. At any education conference, one can find strands where colleagues will speak about:

    • Equity and Access
    • Educational Technology
    • Leadership
    • Effective Coaching
    • Classroom Management
    • Online/Blended Learning
    • STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics)
    • STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering,B Art, and Mathematics)
    • STREAM (Science, Technology, Reading,B Engineering,B Art, and Mathematics)
    • HAMSTER (Humanities,B Art, Mathematics…)*

    You get the idea; there’s a lot of sub-fields in which people are fixated, enthused, or even experts.

    In most of those fields, I’m a novice. And here’s the thing I realized twice today;

    Academic achievement b how well students perform on tests b holds very little appeal to me.

    First, after the Tech Committee meeting this morning, I was hanging out with a couple leadership-types talking about school setups. They were both emphatic that teacher microphone systems areB proven to raise student achievement.

     

    “Boys and girls, take out your pencils!”
    image:pixabay

     

    I remained mostly quiet, only pointing out that b even in the video we saw b the teacher used the microphone sparingly, only during the lecture. Most of the time, it was turned off as she meandered the class and talked to students.

    For me, I didn’t care about the studies, I didn’t like the way a teacher microphone made me feel. It separates my voice from the student voices, and it’s important to me that they feel free to share.

    Later, when I had gotten home and had time to look through the resources on a Twitter-stream from that morning, I found myself staring apathetically at the studies supporting a focus onB content expertise when naming teachers as “highly-trained.” I wasB even mumbling to myself:

    Okay, there’s research. Whatever; I still don’t like it.

    If you’re interested in super-wordy-and-thus-readable-online slides about highly effective teacher preparedness programs, here are copiously well-researched slides from Linda Darling-Hammond. That’s what got me thinking this morning, and not just because the study found that one-shot trainings didn’t improve teacher effectiveness.

     

    Instead of reading math manuals, pedagogy treatises, and doctoral research on the most effective ways to teach [some topic], I’ve leaned into what I do best, which is building a class culture where teachers enjoy teaching and students enjoy learning, and vice versa.

     

    image: starmanseries

     

    Now, to be clear, I still seek to learn more about topics outside my immediate interest, and I greatly respect people like the aforementioned Stanford professor who has published a dozen books and over 300 articles in pursuit of effective practices.

    What I mean is…

    You’ve heard the phrase “Jack of all trades,” referring to someone who knows a little about a bunch. Some etymologists think the phrase continues:

    Jack of all trades,
    master of none,
    though oftentimes better
    than master of one.

    We can’t be fluent in everything.
    We can’t return from a conference and implement everything we learned.
    We can’t earn a Master’s or Doctoral degree and apply every bit of research we’ve read or studied.

    There aren’t enough hours in the day to be an expert in everything.

    So I chose to focus my efforts, not on academic achievement, but on building motivated learners.

    “Vaudrey… you’re aware that yourB job is to teach, right?”

    Yes. And I think I have been.

    Students will almostB definitelyB forget how to factor a trinomial, graph a linear expression, or add fractions with unlike denominators. I know this because my wife (who was an obnoxiously excellent student in school) has no idea how to do any of those things.

    And has forgotten a lot of her times tables.

    But my wife is interested in finding more efficient ways to solve problems, down to learn new skills, and perseveres when her life gets hard.B Those are the skills she uses as an adult, andB those are the skills that I want my students to practice in class.

    Have I sacrificed academic achievement to build better citizens? Probably.

    And I care deeply about training the next generation of citizens to be confident, motivated problem-solvers and risk-takers. My strongest muscle is classroom culture, so I’m blogging, speaking, and interested mostly in that.

     

     

    But that other stuff at the top of this page is important, too.

    ~Matt “the HAMSTER” Vaudrey*

     

    *Joke stolen from Cathy Seeley

  • Growth and Humility

    Arrogance sits at the core of traditionalB education. The idea thatB the teacherB knows something andB the studentB needs to understand it.

    One sees this arrogance in many traditional classrooms; an authoritarian adult keeps children in an orderly array and provides tasks for them to complete. Dispensing knowledge like food from his/her vast coffers, teachers areB benevolent dictators at best and draconian Supreme Leaders at worst.

    A new teacher’s understanding of this idea is betrayed by their language, with phrases like,B “I struggle with keeping the classB under control.”

    Veteran teachers’ language shows that same ego, however: “I’m not giving you an A unless youB show me you deserve it.”

    In contrast, modern education isB [becoming] an environmentB of questioning and collaboration, where the ego of knowledge is dispersed among the students.

    Inward-facing desks is a start, but humility in a position of authority is tough to fake. The teacher must actually feel that students have value to add to learning, and that they can lead and follow each other, not just the adult in the room.

    Since humility requires practice,B I do my level best to find rooms where I ain’t the sharpest one.

    NCTM_R_LogoandName4C_L

    A month ago, I traveled halfway across the country to learn from other math teachers whoB also traveled halfway across the country; we all converged on Texas forB the largest gathering of math teachers on the continent. I watched from an enormousB crowd as speakers explained books that I had never readB and instructional strategies that I had never tried.

    I appreciate these chances to realize how big the world of education is. How exciting that there are new things to learn and new methods to try and new people to meet!

    In the face of such overwhelming ignorance, one’s ownB arrogance can’t survive; weB must replace it with humility and get to work.

    While I can certainly point to my favorite moments from the week, the general feeling of pre-enlightenment is my favorite part; not so much that I learned new things (I did), but that I learned how much more there is to learn.

    That is an exciting proposition.

    As our circle of knowledge expands, so does the circumference of darkness surrounding it. (Albert Einstein)

    ~Matt “I’ve never heard of that, can you show me?” Vaudrey

     

  • Channel Your Inner Jeremiah

    Today was day 1 of CUE Rockstar Math, where 120 of my fellow nerds descended on Dana Middle School in Arcadia to discuss math education with me and some Twitter friends.

     

    Thankfully, CUE starts these events at 9:00, which gave me time toB rinse diarrhea crumbs off my baby (not an idiom; actual baby, actual poo) and make it there in time to give hugs and high-fives to a room full of people who are just like me: math teachers who want to become better at their job.

    Class Culture of Critical Questions

    As with all Rockstar events, I gave two 2-hour workshops on the same topic, separated by lunch. The second round ran pretty well off of my phone, because I tripped on my cord and…

    That’s not the point of this post, but it was one of the moreB eventful parts of the day.

    The workshop starts with a demo lesson, modeling the 3-Act lesson from Graham Fletcher called Krispy Kreme Me. After the lesson, we make some notes about what phrases and procedures got everyone interested in sharing.

    It was pleasant, fun, and not a great representation of an actual classroom.
    Let’s turn it up a notch.

    “In my hand are a stack of yellow cards,” I say to the room. “Half of the cards say General Ed Student, and the rest have some kind of instructional challenge for the teacher. I’m going to pass them out to each of you. Keep them to yourselves.”

    As I walked around b grinning like my daughter before Gramma comes over b I went a step further.
    “In order to make this more like a real class, I want you to channel a student that you have currently or had in the past. When you saw the card, you thought of a kid. Be that kid during this next lesson.”

    Invariably, teachers begin to tilt their heads, smirk, and ask, “Really? You want Jeremiah in this room?”

    And I grin right back and say, “Yep! Let’s go!”

    Then a room full of adults get to make silly jokes about cheese, ask to go to the bathroom, bring up YouTube videos on their devices.

    They also hesitate with big words they don’t know (EL Student), get distracted easily (Quick Finisher), or cry out, “I can’t see!” (Vision Disability). It’s one of my favorite things to do; flex my teaching muscles and be vulnerable.

    BecauseB afterB that…


    We make a list of culture-building stuff they saw me do with the “real class” and things they would add, subtract, or change.

    It’s powerful to hear a grown adult say, “I was the English Learner and you went way too fast for me.”

    “That sounds awful.”

    Yeah. Before the “channel your inner Jeremiah” part of the workshop, I’m honest with everybody: “This might go horribly wrong, but I’m gonna do it anyway.”

    It’s my hope that, even if overzealous or skeptical teachers channel Jeremiah on a no-meds, skipped-breakfast, mom-yelled-at-me-on-the-drive-to-school day, all of the attendees still get to see the teacherB take a risk and be vulnerable, maybe even look silly.

    That’s kinda the last few chapters of Classroom Chef.

    I want y’all to see me reach for something ambitious, even if I fall on my face afterward (which happened in Salinas).

    Resources

    If you want to take a bold risk with your staff, click here to get your own copy of my yellow cards, which I printed twice and laminated, so I have 40 cards.*

    The quick lesson that we did together was Day 28 from Estimation 180.

    Also, special thanks to Josie forB really going for the gusto. I’m almost sorry I sent you out of class on an “errand.”

    ~Matt “Josie, can you take these Post-Its next door?” Vaudrey

    *Dang, that means we had 36 people channeling Jeremiah today. Cool.