Yes, And...Embracing the Awkward: Some thoughts on what rigor in school actually means

Improvisation is an edgy, spontaneous art form – and completely unscripted.  This means that you don’t know what will happen next, or what your co-players will do or come up with.  Unscripted is the key word.  When you engage with this, you’re offering yourself up to be thrown off and disoriented, uncertain, and inescapably awkward.

A while ago, I started an Improv Club with some energetic high school students at their exurban high school. The school was surrounded by what were once cow pastures in the furthest reaches of bucolic Westchester County, where kids have to make their own fun.

The club’s numbers grew as kids found they could let off steam in this after-school venue.  Kids who had sat numbly in class all day got to bring their most daring and “outlier” selves into room L207. But, with the exception of the two self-appointed “presidents”, none of the kids had any experience with improv, and had no clue as to how to play without a script.

I enlisted the help of my son, Zack, who is a professional improviser.  This sounds like an oxymoron, but he does earn a living improvising and making people laugh. He introduced the club to the most important principle:  Yes, and… This is the phrase you keep in your head while your co-players verbally lob something at you. 

The basic Yes, and…game might go like this:  Two students stand up:

Student 1 might say: I just got back from Mars.

And Student 2 says Yes and…is that how come you have green skin? …

Student 1 says Yes and…their spaceship is right over there…

Student 2: Yes, and…Can I go too?

At this point two more students may join in.

Student 3: Yes, and…This is my Mom and I would like to send her to Mars. 

Student 4: Yes, and I’m his Mom. I packed a lunch and weapons in case they’re not friendly…

There’s an emphasis on speed: Too much “think” time, and the game falls flat.  And, the second you think or say “No”, the improv dies on the spot. 

Frequently kids would get tongue-tied and go blank, flail around, and occasionally fall on the floor and groan – When it doesn’t fly, you blow your cover and everybody sees that.  But isn’t that the true nature of learning something new?  It’s messy and unpredictable.  The members soon changed the club's name from “The Waxed Beans” to “Embrace the Awkward.” 

Awkwardness? In our school?

In spite of its omniscience, we don’t like to associate Awkward with School.  We’re surrounded by the shrill rhetoric: Succeed! Achieve! Score High!... Stumbling and falling? Not in Our School. 

In reality, school is infused with awkwardness at every turn. Growing bodies are awkward, teachers are awkward, technology does weird things; the day is packed with socially confusing situations. Everybody did the math wrong today and it’s only first period.

As students reach to learn something new, they hear Wrong. Not it. You didn’t get it. Nope:  The daylong incantations of bad news.  “No” stops the learning in its tracks and shuts the door, like a failed improv.  

Yet, we are improvising as we learn.  Zack describes how an improviser approaches the unknown:  He or she is somebody who is willing to commit to a choice – If, say, I were to go onstage and do something funny with my body. The audience might just stare for a bit. But I make a commitment to keep doing that funny body thing.  They start to get it. They laugh. I then make it even more specific and do it harder.  Then I get past the fear of not knowing what will happen next.

All tangled up essays, sciatica, and finding the snakes 

This changed the way I taught writing because I wanted to help my students get over their fear of writing something wrong, and to open up what had been shut down over the years. But here of course, students aren’t doing something funny with their bodies.  They’re doing something “funny” with their writing.  

Aside from a few exceptions, on the whole, my students’ essays are filled with fragments, strange spelling, inconsistent paragraph spacing, disconnected ideas, missing citations. They get all tangled up in words used incorrectly and in the wrong context: It is a festival of awkward writing.  Yet, the effort that students put into a labored-over essay is evident – and the sheer energy of their effort activates my sciatica and fires up foot cramps.    There is something committed about their awkwardness.  

According to Zack’s earlier description, this kind of commitment is needed in order to push further into the unknown.  I began to see writing in a new light, and realized that my students were actually going way out on a limb to show me the insides of their minds, and their thinking processes.  

What a gift to reframe my role in this way:  It was my job to identify the mistakes, in the same way it’s a herpetologist’s job to go up to the mountain and find snakes.  Couldn’t we play with this?  Instead of no, wrong, you have a run-on sentence here, I learned to work with Yes, and - you have three thoughts going on here.  Yes, and- let’s separate those with commas.  Yes, and- this idea is ready for more development…Yes, and- this essay is ready to be organized now…

This became an energizing way to teach.  Students were writing more.  Teaching and writing became more interactive, and more filled with possibilities – like a game.  The principle of improv had opened up the playing field.  Kids were allowed to commit to the “wrong kind” of writing, yes, and – I could guide them toward more clarity.  It opened up our book discussions too – Beginning with the obvious and uninspired student statement: Jay Gatsby was a rich guy… Yes, and – why was it important to him to be a rich guy?  Odysseus took a long time to get back home. Yes, and – what was Penelope doing that whole while? 

If we’re willing to commit to putting it out there, even if it’s wrong and awkward, we’re in a far better position to learn something new.  The opposite would mean to stay cautious, shut down, and “safe.”  Being willing to commit to the unknown and play it harder is the rigor part.  Rigor can’t be thought of as an outcome.  It is a process. Even though it’s a noun, we should think of it as a highly active verb.  Instead of setting rigid and narrow specific outcomes, a rigorous curriculum should invite audacity, uncertainty and mistake making.  The latter is a far more sustainable kind of learning in terms of student and teacher energy.

Without the awkwardness that accompanies new learning there’s no forward movement.

We’re probably engaged with rigor if part of our brain wishes that we were doing something else that will provide some escape from the present task.

What if teachers applied Yes, and…to solving math equations, the narrative of history, and science labs? In what ways would teaching shift?

To become a better coach, I had to become a more patient teacher, even though patience is not included in the criteria on the evaluation forms that administrators fill out during Formal Observations.  Also, in conferences, I rarely hear parents or teachers say – Yes, and – if we’re more patient, we’re going to see Kevin understand this or that concept…Let’s give him more room and time to play with this. 

“Real life” messing up

Not too long ago, I chatted with a friend who has been an insurance attorney for years, but has decided to broaden her career in learning about courtroom law. Similar to my Embrace the Awkward club students, she is deliberately throwing herself into an unscripted situation – or rather – it has a script, but she doesn’t know what it is yet.  And, similar to the improv students, she has to field verbal lobs from other players, including the Judge, on the courtroom floor.   “I don’t know what I’m doing!” She told me. “I think the concepts are similar to insurance law – but the language and terms are so different!  I’m shadowing another attorney, but he had to leave the courtroom and when I approached the bench, I was scrambling for the right terms.  I’m standing there just sort of stammering… looking for my notes."

I commented that learning new things, no matter how old we are, is so uncomfortable. 

“I so get my fourth grader now –“ She nodded. “I get what my son goes through when he’s struggling in school, trying to get something like the math.  Based on what I went through this week, I understand now how hard school may be for him.”   

If we adults are willing enough to stay in-tune with our own awkward learning, like my attorney friend, we become sensitized to the peak and valley experiences that our kids are having throughout their school day.

Recently, I chatted with my lawyer friend again. "How’s it going?" She broke into a smile. "Much better!  I’m finding my way around…its making sense now."

When we watch toddlers who are powered by the commitment to take those first awkward steps, we cheer the falling down as well.  The falling down is part of the rigor in learning how to walk. We praise, we snap pictures, and instantly zip them off to everybody we know.  We shove the furniture out of the way to give him more room to step forward and to fall down.

Can parents and teachers cheer on, with the same kind of enthusiasm, our older kids as they sweat over essays and wrestle with math equations and science labs? Are we courageous and open minded enough to push aside our own “preferred learning outcomes” and instead, embrace the awkward in learning? 

Let’s clear the space so they can play with whatever is in front of them, and follow Zack’s suggestions-- 

Make the commitment, forget about what scares you and throw yourself into it.

                   

                                                                     ***************

Transforming the School Experience for Students

So much energy is invested in Standards and Tests -- There's a better way to introduce our children to the art of higher level thinking.   Parents and Educators need to remember that school can actually be a place of joy and creativity.  What?...Yes - School can be joyful.  Creativity opens the door to higher level and abstract thinking in a way that no standardized curriculum can.

I wish that instead of taking State exams today, that our children were engaged with Imogene Drummond's Divine Sparks program, as these San Miguel students are in the photo above.   She's my guest blogger today - and here she shares her experience working with at-risk students at San Miguel Academy in Newburgh, New York.

She demonstrates how Literacy and Creativity cultivate thinking and creative students.

DIVINE SPARKS ARRIVES AT SAN MIGUEL ACADEMY

Sparking Empowerment through Creativity

by Imogene Drummond

My Divine Sparks journey just got a little more exciting.  Recently, I offered the first of ten Divine Sparks sessions to seventeen fifth graders at San Miguel Academy of Newburgh, NY.  Why is this exciting?  Two reasons:  because San Miguel is a visionary school, and because we share the same goal--to empower young people. 

To understand my recent experience, it’s important to understand San Miguel’s location.  As the fourth most impoverished urban center in the U.S., and the ninth most violent, Newburgh was dubbed the “murder capital of NY State” by New York Magazine.  San Miguel Academy, an independent, faith-based, fifth to eighth grade middle school for boys from under-served families in the City of Newburgh, uses education--and a thoughtful, nurturing, safe environment--to break the pervasive cycle of poverty and violence in which these boys are raised.  Basically, San Miguel Academy is trying to keep these children from being used as drug mules, and to give them the skills and opportunities for a totally different kind of life. This is big picture stuff. 

To me, San Miguel is special because its vision remains intact throughout its multi-layered implementation.  Its president, board, and faculty clearly are doing a lot of things right.  Their sharply-etched thoughtfulness shows.  For example, surrounding the front door is printed in large, yellow and blue, capital letters “The Street Stops Here.”  To an artist who believes in the ability of art, symbols, and design to create change, this signage is powerful.  That these words are written on the “open” transparent medium of glass versus the opaque material of a barrier, adds to the transformative experience of walking through the entrance.

Prior to my presentation (during the lunch hour), I chatted in the hall with Fr. Mark Connell and Mrs. Kerry DiMeo, San Miguel’s president and fifth grade teacher, respectively.  An unusual thing happened.  On three separate occasions, a boy walked up to me, reached out his right hand, looked me in the eye, and confidently said, “Hello.  My name is [Angel, R. N.].  Welcome to San Miguel.” and briefly joined us three adults in conversation. Well!  I was surprised and impressed  by these students’ politeness, confidence, and assertiveness.  Being from the plug-and-play generation, I was taught as a child not to speak to adults unless spoken to. That San Miguel teaches its boys to speak up, be polite, positive, and proactively welcoming, struck me--like the sign surrounding the door--as significant.  

So, now you have an idea of where Divine Sparks will be the next ten weeks!  Let me briefly introduce this innovative multimedia that I wrote, directed, and produced.  Divine Sparks Film + Book sparks empowerment through creativity.  Three components combine in this holistic project to ignite and nurture the child’s creative spark.  The award-winning 30-minute film offers inspiring visual prompts.  The colorful, interactive book delivers an exciting toolkit with stimulating ideas, fun art activities, and delightful exercises that help students access their inner artist.  The project employs an innovative approach often using one’s own story/history/personal mythology as source material.  Each session involves three activities:  View, Do, and Discuss.  

In introducing Divine Sparks to the students, I shared my goal to help them develop their individual creativity, versus teach them art.  First, we discussed what they think “creativity” is.  Their ideas ranged from “being about line and shape,” to “thinking outside the box,” to “being about imagination.”  I was impressed by their ability to think abstractly.  This led to a discussion about how creativity can help us be happier, more satisfied with our lives, learn better, and sometimes even heal physically.  In discussing how creativity can help us become empowered and what “empowered” means, one boy said it means “helping us develop as whole people.”  Now, I was even more impressed with their abstract thinking!  

We then watched the 30-minute film, a whimsical story of transformation and wonder, followed by a Q & A.  I asked my usual questions: What were their favorite parts of the film?  What did they think the film was about?  What did they think the sparks meant?  A dozen or more hands shot up after each question.  Though the term is never used in the film, when one boy said he thought the film was about “the creative spark in us,” I just about levitated!  

Inspired by the film, the boys then did an art activity, “Visualize Words.”  Each student chose two favorite words (from a page in the book--see photo), and painted one word as the background and one as the subject.  A vigorous explosion of activity ensued with lots of paint being drawn, brushed, swooshed, smeared, and sponged.  One child said woefully “I messed up.”  That was my clue to share my mantra: “There is no bad art, you can’t mess up.”  “But,” I quickly added, “you can start over.”  To which he immediately said, “Can I start over?”  

Several boys painted outer space, making their backgrounds black--always a strong color!  Others depicted snakes flying over waves, a dark moon hanging above the ocean, and lyrical stars that look like lilies in front of the sun.  When discussing each boy’s art work, one boy said he chose his two images because they were the only two things he knew how to draw.  Hopefully, ten weeks from now, he won’t think that!  I hope he, and his fellow students, will come to feel increasingly equipped to embark on new paths that are their life, as they leave the street in their rear view mirror. 

****************************************

Imogene Drummond is an award-winning filmmaker, painter, futurist, author of articles on cultural transformation, world traveler, and former psychotherapist. Her experience, talent, and vision converge in Divine Sparks. She has an M.F.A. from MICA (the Maryland Institute College of Art )—one of the country’s premier art schools, and an M.S.W. from The Catholic University of America. Due to her many painting expeditions around the world, she was invited to join The Society of Woman Geographers.

Find her on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/divinesparksbookfilm

And her Divine Sparks Website:

divinesparks.com.
And her Divine Sparks Trailer...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VCDr0Ej1_I

Who are these new educational data companies really serving?

                                            The Carrot Seed by Ruth Krauss, picture by Crockett Johnson. Harper&Row 1945


Remember when you were a kid and you first discovered that you could buy stuff? And your Mom or Dad would look at the thing you wanted to buy, and he or she would say "Sweetie, I don't think you really need that. You should spend your allowance on something you really need and want." 

It seems like the biggest growing industry in our country now is the selling of data packages - and it's linked arms with the education "reform" movement. And as school begins to imitate science fiction,
here's something that resembles a Ray Bradbury invention: "Knewton" (How about that name? Catchy title? Calculated?...) calls itself "the world's leading adaptive learning company" ("Mom, do schools really need this?") They design and sell data systems to the education industry, so educators
can "better measure student achievement." 

This chart or graph or thing shows "granular understanding of knowledge." The purveyors would like us to believe that this is the answer to everything.  I don't understand how this chart shows how a human student is doing in class, but it does looks like something jokey from a Monty Python sketch that we would laugh really hard at.

Who would benefit from this data measuring system? Administrators? Teachers? Parents? Kids?

Oh! Right!  Knewton would benefit.

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Helping Students Stay Strong during Standardized Test Time

   
                                     The Carrot Seed by Ruth Krauss, picture by Crockett Johnson. Harper&Row 1945

Unless you’ve opted your child out from taking these - Common Core Standardized Tests loom on the horizon for public and charter school kids. As crocuses and allergies bloom, English Language Arts and Math teachers are expected to fill kids’ heads with strategies for taking the tests. Teachers work diligently, as they are graded on the standardized returns, and with consecutive low scores, careers are at stake.  But, preparing for the content of these mysterious and high stakes tests is always guesswork because students are not being tested specifically on content that has been taught in class. It’s all about thinking like the test maker.  Compassionate teachers try to make prep time less tedious and as commonsensical as they can, but it’s likely that your child may arrive home feeling toasted, stressed out and worried.

The test days arrive. Regular instruction is suspended. Kids are shuffled around to any available rooms for testing. (Last year, my ELA students were delegated to the tech room, -an unfamiliar setting - where they sat on backless stools for 1½ hours at a time.) Walls are emptied.  Guides to solving equations or writing a paragraph are taken down or covered. Conference rooms are stacked with teacher packets and bulky bundled tests that many trees gave their lives for, and where many tax dollars are spent.  I think back to the cupboard of dog-eared class novels, many of them falling apart, even with best efforts to tape them back together.  The tests, in comparison, are fresh off the press, in pristine condition.  A monastic silence in the halls is maintained, the regular schedules are disrupted, and the effect is disorienting for everybody – even teachers and students who are normally cheerful.  These days are about getting through these days. 

What you can do to help your child

Here are the emotional settings that (specifically younger) students tend verbalize as they get ready to while take these tests.  Students in upper grades tend to internalize these concerns more.   

I’m not smart. I’m a “1” or a “2”.

I can’t remember everything we did to prepare.

I won’t do as well as everybody else in class.

I’m afraid I’ll disappoint my parents if I don’t do well.

I’m afraid I’ll let (you) my teacher down if I don’t do well. 

Occasionally a student will say: I’m just going to do my best:  That’s all I can do.

It’s pretty clear that a parent has proactively cultivated that mind set. That student already has an advantage before coloring in the first bubble with his number two pencil:  His parents have done the footwork in helping this child put the test into perspective.  He’s more relaxed and is going to have more mental energy while taking the test.  And he’s probably not going to spend time worrying about how he did when he completes it.  His parents have given him a valuable life skill tool with this mantra, and he gets to practice using it. 

Keeping a Broad Perspective:

Before distributing the test materials while looking out at both sleepy and worried faces, I’d think through what I wished I could say: a disclaimer. The test I am about to give you does not reflect your performance in my class. But then I’d need a disclaimer for my disclaimer:  In fact, even though I’m a public school teacher standing here administering them, I don’t buy into these tests at all, hang in there, and we’ll get back to what we were doing in class.  

What I’d actually tell students:

This test has nothing to do with how smart a person you are.

This test doesn’t show all the talents that you may have. 

It doesn’t show that you are a good friend.

It doesn’t show the kind of learning style you have.

It also doesn’t show how hard you may work as a student.

If you want to know how you’re really doing, look at the assignments that we’ve done together over the school year.

This test is about just doing your best, just for today.

For all involved, it’s like spending a sweaty day down at the quarry chipping rocks.

So, when your child comes home from school after prepping and testing, remember that lots of energy (and funding) is being spent on something that is not the culmination of what he has learned from his teacher’s lessons.  He might appreciate your invitation for him to decompress from the intensity of the day by inviting him to talk about it. Or, he may not want to, and who would blame him?

These unsolicited questions are not helpful:

How’d you do? (He probably doesn’t know or doesn’t want to think about that right now.)

Did you get a “3” or a “4”? (This is a reductive way to look at the work a kid has put into something.)

Did you finish on time? (The test is a done deal.  Is this really that important?)

Did you answer all the questions?  (The test is a done deal. Is this really that important?)

Did you check your work? (The test is a done deal. Teachers have already reminded students to do this.)

Shouldn’t you spend time on review for tomorrow’s test? (…Really?....)

If anything, these kinds of questions reveal a parent’s anxiety, so now there are two stressed out people sitting at the kitchen table. In showing your own anxiety, you also may be inadvertently showing your child that you place value on this impersonal and inaccurate measuring device – over the teacher’s day-to-day classroom assessments of your child’s progress. Which is a better indicator? Which form of assessment do you actually take stock in?

These tests in no way determine how successful a child will be in the future. But, layered as they are, they can eat away at a child’s self value, and make her question her capabilities, and that does sabotage future success.  The most helpful comment that will reverberate with your child during tomorrow’s test:  I’m sure that you’re doing the best that you can.  

Instead of spending time on a post-mortem--examining the now dead body of the test, this is the time when it’s most beneficial to invite kids to let their brains breathe and to encourage them relax and replenish.

I was trying to daydream, but my mind kept wandering. ~Steven Wright

It’s a healthy practice to help your child cultivate for herself.  As a culture, we don’t seem to value the process of mind emptying.  It’s all about stuffing it with things. Although, many burnt-out adults fork out lots of money to re-learn how to daydream or step back through self help classes; through meditation or hiking classes to lower fight-or-flight cortisol levels, or some class that will help them channel switch from stress and strokes.

When my eldest was a four-year-old in preschool, the mom of one of his classmates wisely introduced to the rest of us new moms the value of ‘stoop settin’ time’.  She had grown up in Brooklyn, and shared that as a kid, when she and her friends got home from school, they’d set on the stoop and hang out without any particular planned or structured activity; they might play tag, or draw chalk people on the sidewalk, they might just chat; the only time constraint being that they needed to go in for dinner in a couple of hours.

We don’t give ourselves much ‘stoop settin’ time’ until we’re old and we can’t move around and we’re forced to sit and air out.   But it is key to mental health – we all need a breather in between.  Although it’s within a young child’s nature to stop and examine an ant colony, or, throw stones into a puddle, kids can be further encouraged to decompress from a packed school day – to daydream, draw pictures, play with the dog, listen to music, or play a simple game. It’s relaxing to set time aside each day to do “nothing.”

Relaxing and replenishing lead to better endurance.

If anything, the tests measure a student’s endurance.  If your child is taught the value of (unplugged) relaxing, and the importance of replenishing her energy, anxiety over the next test will be more manageable, and she’ll have more energy to continuing to sit for the tests, and then move on to more meaningful activities.

The tension-filled rituals of preparing for the tests and the anxiety of everyone involved can skew perspectives.  Sitting outside, looking up at the sky or over at the horizon, playing a game, daydreaming or puttering around are the best therapies for putting the Standardized tests in their place.

Sit in reverie and watch the changing color of the waves that break upon the idle seashore of the mind.  ~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 
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Writing to Reflect Real Life: Why the Personal Narrative is so Important to Students: Pre-K - 12th Grade

As you grow up in this world you realize people really don’t give a sh*t about what you feel or what you think. --David Coleman at NY State Department of Education presentation, April 2011
 

As one of the architects of the Common Core, which now places emphasis on evidence-based writing and the synthesis of other peoples’ ideas (CC Shift 5), Mr. Coleman dismisses personal writing as frivolous.  His comment above is prefaced by his criticism of the teaching of “the presentation of a personal matter” in schools. On the contrary, the personal narrative is a critical and relevant teaching tool for students ranging from Preschool to 12^th grade. To leave massive populations of kids behind in devaluing the written expression of their personal experiences, and to try to divorce public schools from a genre of expression that our culture emulates- -doesn’t make sense. 

The Common Core claims to aim students toward college and employment readiness.  So, what’s additionally peculiar here is that this also architect of the college application process would “forget” that an applying student’s personal narrative is the primary audition piece that Admissions Boards scrutinize.  

Devaluing or eliminating the personal narrative from an English class in any grade runs counter to how students develop as writers and thinkers, and, how our culture  learns and instructs through the personal narrative form.  Let’s remember, Socrates urged all to “Know Thyself.”

For decades, the educational psyche has always encouraged students to use their own lives for writing and communicating.  How many of us remember Show and Tell as a social time to tell something about ourselves which helped us to figure out who we were among those other kids in our first schooling days?   This is the tomato I grew in our garden…  This is my grandfather’s Yankee cap…

Through her Writing Project, educator and writer Lucy Caulkins embraces the personal narrative as a genre to help teachers help students with the writing process.   Caulkins’ program, developed over decades with Columbia’s Teachers College, mandated by the Old Standards and implemented in schools across the country, now appears to be stranded with the onslaught of the New Standards.  Experienced teachers who know the value of working with the personal narrative have been trying to calibrate it among the new demands of more synthetic and evaluative writing.  But it is in danger of being choked out of lesson plans.

There are abundant reasons why the personal narrative resonates with students of all ages and abilities across the socio-economic school scape. 

In working with urban middle school students living in poverty or learning English, as well as with more affluent students, this type of writing is developmentally appropriate because it solicits the grist of a young student’s life as writing material. 

Children at this age are appropriately egocentric: They organize the world according where they are in relationship to it.  A child who is just learning English, or a child with learning differences can first orally tell about an event in his life.  A partner transcribes the story.  Once on paper, the writer can further develop language and organize the story, as per Caulkins’ drafting process. Other students can more directly deliver their story straight to the page.  The most enduring message that teachers of writing can deliver to students:  A writer’s thought process is as individual as s/he is.  As a writing template, the personal narrative provides differentiation and invites diversity. 

Next:  As they gather the facts around their own story, students are engaged with concrete thinking. These, they categorize, as ideas are organized and developed around this chosen life event. A student’s process is also scaffolded to more formal thinking as students move from ‘this or that happened to me’ – to – ‘what this means to me today’, for reflective and contemplative writing.

Another way that the personal narrative form works is that students without previous opportunities to obtain knowledge of novels, or a strong background in reading, are first invited to look at their organically grown story, which is a solid way to establish experiential knowledge of narrative structure before being asked to analyze other narratives in novels or informational texts.  More privileged students who have been exposed to books are perhaps able to run more speedily with this kind of writing assignment, and can be directed to aim for greater scope and depth. Yet, ask any professional writer: The process is ongoing.

Moving to high school:  Again, we have young individuals developing on the spectrum of egocentricity.  Some of them are still concrete thinkers; others have developed into more formal thinkers.  All of them have even more stories to tell. With critical life choices looming closer, this narrative form becomes even more relevant to teach: College-bound high school juniors attack it with clear intent: This is their audition piece for college applications.  For students moving directly into employment, it is a narrative that reflects and promotes their experience and values.  Sharing personal narratives creates inclusion and builds community:  We listen to the student who reads his story about when, as a camp counselor, he ferried a boatload of children across a lake when the motor suddenly died… The BOCES student on a vocational path relates how he scaled a 60-foot tree…  Another student shares how she learned to navigate Celiac disease, and how it has piqued her interest in studying nutrition.
  

Students who have been encouraged to explore the landscape of their own lives have a stronger foundation in thinking and writing from which to approach, when it is developmentally appropriate in higher grades, more synthetic writing with its quest for, and, examination of, evidence in informational or fictional narratives. Pushing students prematurely via the demands of the Common Core toward this kind of writing with an “agenda” will make writing seem even more difficult and inaccessible to kids.  It’s an oddly Victorian approach to treat children as miniature adults, and to ignore all of the research and studies that reveal all of the complexity with which children actually learn. 

As teachers, we continuously ask ourselves: What are we teaching that will actually prepare our kids for the adult world?  

Let’s look at the bigger picture: Our culture is saturated with what Coleman refers to as personal matters.  The personal narrative is everywhere, in long and short forms.  It’s on the last page of every New York Times Magazine section, and in medicine, it is becoming more widely used as a way to give doctors greater holistic knowledge of their patients.  It is a treatment tool in the Recovery field.  It won this year’s Academy Award:  12 Years a Slave. The shelves in physical and virtual bookstores are filled with memoirs.  People with a story can now self-publish. The scientific story slam, where scientists relate their own stories of set backs and discoveries is breaking new ground as an entertainment and instructional venue. (See TED Talks.) Think of the impact if schools more fully embrace the personal in the narrative for aspiring STEM students. 

Personal narratives enlighten, instruct and reflect.  They invite identification with pain, joy, hope, absurdity, determination and uncertainty.  They offer escape into someone else’s world. It’s a form that began with every ancient community and still creates bridges over perceived differences. It mirrors the health of a culture that values memory, reflection, diversity, and individuality.

To eliminate this humane writing genre as a primary teaching tool would be an attempt to sever schools from the real world, and make them scarily Orwellian; narrow, colorless, and all pent up.

-------------UPDATE-----------------

David Greene writes about how the Reform movement is endangering creativity in teaching.  Read the article here.