by Heather M. F. Lyke

A simple Google Search or a scroll through a social media feed from an educator, and it’s easy to confirm that this is a hard year—a hard year that follows two previously hard years. This is a truth that has not alluded us here at Third Eye Education: simply explore some of our articles from this past year to confirm:

• "Rethinking Education: Using the Pandemic as Inspiration for Innovation," May 2021
• "My First Year of Teaching, Again and Again," August 2021
• "Saving Students & Saving Ourselves," December 2021
• "Meandering Through the Messy Middle, Searching for Solid Ground," January 2022​

In the past year—particularly, over the past few months—there is one phrase we hear over and over from educators: We just don’t have enough time.
 
Yep. That tracks. Over the course of a school day, teachers have classes to prep for, labs to set up, emails to answer, students to follow-up with, make-up assessments to give, test scores to analyze, poor student choices/behaviors to address, copies to make, coffee to drink, emails to answers, bathroom needs to attend to, parents to call, papers to grade, meetings to attend, assignments to create, messes to clean up, referrals to follow up on, chapters to preview, grades to update online, club meetings to facilitate… and those are only the basics. Not to mention what happens when the classroom phone rings: Can you cover __ class during your prep hour? Could you attend this IEP meeting in place of __ since he is out ill today? FYI, there will now be a mandatory after school meeting.

​So the day finishes with work undone; which means that teachers take the work home with them, or they stay late to finish it, or they feel guilty that they did neither of the two. Little of this refuels the soul, little of this is why teachers went into the field, and none of this is sustainable for the long term.

While too much to do in too little time may be a truth universally acknowledged in our field, it’s not one to embrace. In Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World by Cal Newport, readers learn that you must “treat your time with respect” (227) and ensure there are many opportunities to do deep work, or “professional activities performed in a state of distraction-free concentration” (3).

​Considering how little time educators have, the likelihood is low that most Third Eye Education readers will have time to complete Newport’s book in the near future (maybe once summer arrives), I bring you the following key reasons and applications for educators:

It increases job satisfaction.
Counterintuitive though it may be, “jobs are actually easier to enjoy than free time, because…they have built-in goals, feedback rules, and challenges, all of which encourage one to become involved in one’s work, to concentrate and lose oneself in it” according to the work of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (Newport 84).

​Hungarian psychologist Csikszentmihalyi is perhaps most famous for his work on flow states, which is outlined here along with how educators can utilize this concept in classrooms:

Newport notes that a state of “flow generates happiness” and that “deep work is…well suited to generate a flow state” (85). Therefore, to increase satisfaction with work, educators may wish to find more opportunities for deep work, just as educational leaders may wish to remove/limit the many barriers that can get in the way. 

It increases the ability to learn new things.
It is not uncommon to hear that “the educational system is broken” nor that someone would like to lead a new initiative but they “just don’t have the energy.” If we want to try new things, if we want to fix broken systems, then we have to have a capacity to learn new and hard things.
 
Newport notes that “to learn requires intense concentration” (34); yet, we often try to squish it into 10 minutes at the start of a staff meeting, 30 minutes of table conversation in a room where other groups are also talking, or 45 minutes of PLC session that is filled with interruptions by emails or visitors. But learning requires “deliberate practice”: attention “focused tightly on a specific skill you’re trying to improve or idea you’re trying to master” (35) for long periods of time.
 
The educational system we are working in right now needs change, but to learn and apply what is needed to make that change, we first must ensure there is time for deep work. 

It increases productivity.
Deep work pushes past that concept that being busy is being productive. “Doing lots of stuff in a viable manner” isn’t the aim (64). Instead, when deep work is embraced one identifies what tasks are most important and ensures they can be completed during periods of high concentration.
 
If one has “clarity about what matters” it then “provides clarity about what does not” (62), and knowing the difference allows one to focus on the work that will have the greatest impact. In turn, productivity—at least the productivity around what matters most—is enhanced.

Take control of your tasks.
Newport notes that the “key to developing a deep work habit is to move beyond good intentions and to add routines and rituals into your working life,” to “minimize the amount of your limited willpower necessary to transition into and maintain a state of unbroken concentration” (100).
 
Some routines to try:

• Batching your work, or scheduling like tasks together, can help with concentration. Batching “hard but important intellectual work into long, uninterrupted stretches” (39) allows focus to be sustained when it’s needed most. Likewise, batching together smaller tasks, like replying to emails or phone messages, allows those smaller, distracting items to be checked off so they will not pull attention away from more important tasks.
• Schedule your day. “Divide the hours of your workday into blocks and assign activities” to each block (223). By using Newport’s recommendations, but altering them to work for educators, such a schedule might look something like this:

• Shutdown work at the end of the day. Newport notes that “a strict shutdown ritual that you use at the end of the workday” is beneficial and that those interested in doing more deep work should craft “a series of steps you always conduct one after the other” (151). This might look like, at the end of every workday, (1) doing a final check of email, (2) straightening up your desktop, (3) grabbing your empty lunch bag, (4) verbally saying “done” and then (5) shutting off the classroom lights and locking the door. This creates an opportunity for your work-brain to turn off since incomplete tasks can dominate our attention, but “we don’t need to complete a task to get it off our minds;” rather, we simply need to “make a plan” for how it will be completed later (152-153).

Limit distractions.
Some of what Newport suggests when it comes to limiting distractions doesn’t fit in education. For instance, as much as I would love to try his “Don’t Respond” method for dealing with email, I don’t think that would go over well with the staff, parents, students, and community members who email me frequently. Nonetheless, here are some ideas to do work in the education field:

• Turn off email notifications during prep hours. For me, it’s the *da-ding* noise of each email hitting my inbox that distracts me, so I mute my computer when I’m doing deep work. I also turn my cellphone on to its “do not disturb” setting during the workday.
• Come in early/stay late a few days a week. Since school days are filled with distractions, consider batching tasks that need focus into times when students and colleagues are less likely to interrupt. This could also look like a half-day that you work from home on the weekends. However, be careful not to do this too often: you need down time too (see “Build capacity for future focus” below).
• Work outside of your classroom/office: make yourself harder to find. Personally, I love that “coffeehouse feel” I can get in the secondary Media Center, so if I need to really dig into a task, I simply leave my office and make it harder for interruptions to find me, while still knowing if it’s an emergency someone will track me down. 
• Lock your door, maybe even add a note that says something like, “from 'X' time to 'Y' time I am unavailable because I am focusing intently on providing students with quality feedback, planning engaging lessons built on best practices, or doing a deep dive into what research says will make my students learning experiences more valuable. If this is an emergency, please    ; otherwise, please stop by later or send me an email.”

 
I know there are those who might scoff at some of these suggestions, usually with the argument that we need to be available for our students at all times. While that may be true in some cases, for most of us setting and sharing boundaries like these is a way to teach students time management as well as a way to model the importance of focused work. Setting boundaries lets us become even more available for students in those times when we are not engaged in deep work: these boundaries allow us to be more focused while working with students, as we know our other tasks have already been, or are scheduled to be, completed.

Build capacity for future focus.
Perhaps this is the most counterintuitive of the ways to reclaim time and embrace deep work. To focus deeply, one must also have time allotted for boredom, reflection, meditation, and creativity: this is the yin that balances out the yang of deep work.
 
In Deep Work, Newport notes that he doesn’t “work at night and rarely on weekends;” yet, during the fall of 2011 to the fall of 2014 he published 20 peer-reviewed articles, won two highly competitive grants, published a book and wrote the bulk of another all while being a full-time professor at Georgetown. His ability to sequester work to Monday through Friday, and to finish each day by 5:30 PM, actually provided him with stronger focus; knowing he had limited time enhanced his productivity and allowed him, upon getting home, to be more present as a spouse and father.

Some ideas for reclaiming the downtown needed to do deep work while at work:

• Say no to requests that don’t align with the deep work you are already doing or planning to do.
• Do work at work by using some of the strategies outlined above. Leave your to-be-graded pile on your desk, keep your laptop at school, and end your day with a clear plan for tomorrow. This allows downtime to begin the moment you leave work until the moment you return.
• Stay off Social Media, which can pull you back into thoughts of work. A simple post by a coworker, or a shared article about teaching, can have your brain back at work in no time. Instead, allow yourself a small window to engage on social media, if you must engage at all.
• Schedule downtime by taking an art class, signing up for a yoga class, or meeting a friend for coffee.

By putting into practice some of what Cal Newport recommends, we might be able to make educational change happen faster and achieve more ideal outcomes. Whereas, as Henry Ford is attributed with saying: "if we keep doing what we have always done, we will always get what we have always gotten."

Now, with all of that said, I have just spent two hours doing deep work by focusing on this article (awesome!)—but I did it on a weekend (not so awesome​)… So, that is a change I will need to make going forward.

​In honor of my own suggestions above, I am now going to turn off this laptop and take a nice long soak in a warm bath so I can better focus on work when I arrive back at school on Monday.

by Jean Prokott

I've been thinking about self-portrait poems lately. Not writing them, because I can never get a turn to work, more about what they can offer to students who don't need to worry about a turn.
 
For Valentine's Day, my creative writing students made self-portrait valentines along the lines of "Self-Portrait as Conversation Heart Trapped between Couch Cushions" or "Self-Portrait with ½-off Valentine's Day Candy." They halved cardstock, cut heart-shaped cards, opened the wings, and wrote poems on the stretch marks inside.

The students weren't overly jazzed about the activity—only a few meandered up front for a red marker—but they wrote little poems and shared with each other, or tried to anti-valentine if that was their vibe for the day (e.g., a persona poem about raccoon roadkill that ends with a smooshed striped tail), and we were able to put a little checkmark next to a cold February Monday, which is harder than it seems. 

On day one of that class, we'd modeled Dean Rader's "Self-Portrait as Wikipedia Entry" as a more interesting version of "two truths and a lie." Last fall, we wrote "Self-Portrait as [insert Halloween costume here]," based on Sandra Beasley's poem "Halloween." The students love that poem, and I love the irony that they have to dress themselves up in order to understand what's happening underneath.

For context, a self-portrait poem is not much different than a self-portrait in art. In an essay featured on Silver Birch Press, poet Lisa Russ Spaar notes the poems took off in the mid-20th century with John Ashberry's "Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror" (1975), inspired by the Parmigianino painting of the same name (1524). Spaar observes that all poems are self-portraits—consider Whitman's "Song of Myself"—but the title "self-portrait" itself suggests retrospection thematically and "That the use of 'self-portrait' is an overt nod to its long, fascinating, and complex tradition in art history."

​A self-portrait is or is not an ekphrastic poem. (An ekphrastic poem is a description or narrative inspired by a work of art. One of my favorites is Anne Sexton's interpretation of Van Gogh, "The Starry Night," in which the tree is a woman drowning.) Ekphrastic poems are also wonderful, and they serve as a wonderful transition out of this tangent:

Where I'm going is that a "self-portrait" assignment could serve a number of purposes if you need a last-minute lesson plan on Those Winter Mondays™ when we get up early. Some of our professional development meetings this year have started with ekphrastics of sorts as ice breakers, if you've seen the model—a teacher shows four paintings, the students identify which best represents them or their mood, and they share why or journal about that personal reflection. This is one of few ice breakers I actually enjoy, because humanities lessons should always be snuck into our day—like one might sneak spinach into a strawberry smoothie for hidden nutrients.

Some ideas for self-portrait journals or assignments might look like:

• an ice-breaker, of course.
• a mental-health break or reflection, of course.
• a cross-discipline activity ("Self-portrait as Mitochondria," "Self-portrait as Quadratic Equation," "Self-portrait as Magna Carta").
• everything in an English class, if you are lucky enough in this life to be an English teacher (writing our own to learn clarity, "Self-Portrait as Green Light at the End of a Dock").
  • I did a "literal" self-portrait journal earlier this year, where my students had to close their eyes and draw a picture of themselves; afterwards, they had to write whether this "blind" drawing was accurate or not, what their subconscious hands said about who they are. 

While one could think it a stretch to use a poem in science class, I think the self-portrait works because you don't have to read a poem to get the jist of it. Sure, if you want a summative assessment, but one could simply start class with a review called "self-portrait" and define the term with the students:

​​Teachers know that we need to get our students' I, me, my into our content as much as possible to make the schema stick. [1]

And, truth be told, many of the self-portrait poems I've linked can be abstract, complex, full lesson plans in themselves, perhaps over students' heads in a non-writing or upper-level literature course. If you're interested in a starting point, though, Mary Jo Bang's "Self-Portrait in the Bathroom Mirror" is money: 

Why not throw "self-portraits" in your tool box, or in emergency sub notes this winter/ fake spring/ and then winter part two once again. It freezes, it slushes, the slush freezes. Always a good time for introspection.

[1] Or, literal self-portraits. I just had a vision of students drawing their faces as a nucleus of a cell, but it looks like the Sun Baby from Teletubbies. Quite haunting. And if you hung the portraits in your classroom, the nightmares alone would be enough for them to remember the material for the test and subsequently the rest of their tortured lives.

by Heather M. F. Lyke

— first published in October 2016 ​by RPS Secondary Curriculum & Instruction  |  ​updated in February 2022 — 

As we help students develop skills that will suit them well in the world beyond our classrooms, many of us find ourselves moving to more and more partner work, group tasks, and full class discussions and debates. This is especially true as we return to in-person learning now that we're finishing the second year of the pandemic: more and more we set aside the technology we depended on in recent years--embracing opportunities to have students discuss face to face.

Discussion opportunities help our students develop collaboration skills and illustrate teamwork, develop communication skills and think critically—all skills which today’s students need to thrive in the 21st century workforce that awaits them in their not-to-distant futures.
 
The struggle, however, is in ensuring that all students still walk away with deep levels of understanding. Far too often in partnerships, in small groups, and in full-class activities only a few students are actively engaged--some students choose passivity. When this happens, does it mean only those few students who participate walk away with the learning? It can, so it becomes our jobs as teachers to ensure all students engage in the learning we offer them.

As we return to more collaborative and in-person learning environments, here are some strategies to help ensure all learners are still learning at high levels

​What to do:

1. Have students partner up and assign one as ‘A’ and one as ‘B’.
2. Give ‘A’ a specific question to answer while ‘B’ only listens.
3. Then, provide ‘B’ with a different question to respond t0 while ‘A’ only listens.

​Variations:

• Ask ‘A’ to complete a task, summarize a part of a lesson, or answer a question while ‘B’ observes/listens; afterward, ‘B’ shares what she noticed, captures any missed details, or provides an example pertaining to the what ‘A’ did/discussed.
• Ask ‘A’ to describe the next step (in say a math problem or science lab) while person ‘B’ then does exactly what student ‘A’ described.

Why this Works:
This ensures that there are equal voices, encouraging shy students to speak up while preventing naturally talkative students from taking over. It also teaches students balance, which is not a skill that many students develop naturally.

​What to Do:

1. In groups of three, have students number off.
2. Then, begin by asking ‘student 1’ a question.  This student is the first of the triad.  
3. After ‘student 1’ responds, keep your reaction to the student’s response silent.  Instead, redirect the response of ‘student 1’ to ‘student 2’ by saying, “Student 2, please give evidence to support or refute what student 1 said.”  
4. After ‘student 2’ responds, call on ‘student 3’ to evaluate the merits of the response that ‘student 2’ provided.  
5. Finally, return to the ‘student 1’ and ask him/her to make a final rebuttal or comment on what the classmates had said.  

​Variations:

• Have students do this with a multi-step process where ‘student 1’ does step 1, ‘2’ does step 2, and ‘3’ does step 3.
• When analyzing a reading, have ‘student 1’ paraphrase the text, have ‘2’ identify the main idea or theme, and have ‘3’ identify 3-4 text excerpts that support the main idea or theme. Finally, return to ‘1’ and have him/her identify what a reader might infer from the text.
• In math, have ‘student 1’ read the word problem, ‘2’ draw a sketch of the problem, and then ‘3’ writes the equation.

​Why this Works:
Just like with Partners A & B, Triads ensures balanced voices and balanced participation within a small group; the addition of a third student, however, allows for more versatility and creativity within the structure of the activity. Additionally, the ‘additive’ element in almost all variations of Triads forces students to see and to work with how other students think. Often, there are multiple routes to the same answer, or various correct answers, and should ‘student 1’ opt to take a route different than what ‘2’/‘3’ were expecting, then the thinking of ‘student 1’ must broaden and thereby deeper learning will occur.   

What to Do:

1. Have students count off: if you have groups of six students, students count off 1-6 (they may do this in whatever order they choose). If there is a group with only five students in it, one student will have two numbers.
2. Then, pose a question or problem to the class and tell the groups that they have a specific amount of time to come to consensus on an answer (the amount of time allotted depends on how open-ended the question is).
3. Have the students put their heads together and make sure that everyone in the group has the answer(s).
4. Then, call a number from 1-6 (try using Virtual Dice Roll so students can’t accuse you of “picking on them”). All the students with that number then stand.
5. Call on all (or just a few) of the students standing to give their groups’ answer(s).

​Variations:

• Ask all students with the called number to go to the board to simultaneously record their group’s answer.
• If the question has multiple answers, allow each standing student to report just one of their answers. Use the rule, “be additive, not repetitive.”
• Instead of questions, provide all students with a graphic organizer or similar task: have them work through it in their small group. Then, only collect one from the group—the one whose number is selected. (Added bonus: this equates to less work for you to provide feedback on.)

​Why this Works:
When students are assigned to work in groups, particularity groups larger than four or more, it’s common to assign roles. Where roles certainly have their merit, they can also backfire. When one student is assigned to be “recorder” others in that group might hear, I guess I don’t have to write any of this down, and thereby may disengage. Likewise, when one student is assigned to be a “reporter” others may hear, I guess I don’t need to really know this if I won’t have to share out later—again, potentially encouraging some disengagement. However, when students know you use Numbered Heads to determine whose work is turned in and/or who shares out, then all must stay engaged for the entire activity.

What to Do:

1. Establish a method for calling on all students at random. (Tip: my favorite low-tech way is to have each student’s name on a note card and to then to shuffle those note cards prior to each class to ensure they're always in a different order; whereas, my favorite high-tech way is to use Wheel of Names.)
2. Use whatever method you chose to call on students at random as you facilitate the discussion. 

Variations:

• Both with the cards and with ​Wheel of Names, you can opt to remove the names of the already-called-on-students or to keep them in the mix: removing names helps ensure balanced voices, whereas keeping all names in the mix ensures engagement throughout because students are aware that their name may come up again.
• Have a student act as the ‘picker’, choosing the next card in the pile or hitting the button on the iPad to pick the next student. It’s a great way for students to show leadership.

​Why this Works:
When facilitating a whole group discussion, students who blurt answers aloud or constantly raise their hands tend to take over, giving other students perceived permission to tune out and disengage. However, establishing that all students will be called on at some point encourages students to stay engaged throughout. This strategy ensures that both shy students and students who prefer to be passive learners stay more active in their learning.

What to Do:

1. Round up some poker chips or something similar; you’ll need enough chips for each student in the discussion group to have four each.
2. Give each student four chips—explain that all students are expected to use at least three chips, but that no one is to use more than four.
3. Sitting in a full-class circle, provide the class with their topic for discussion and/or focus questions (I also like to give them some prep time, which is really key for more introverted students to feel comfortable in such situations), and then have them get started. Do your best to keep your own contributions at a minimum: only interject when absolutely necessary.
4. Each time a student talks, the student must toss a chip into the center of the circle. (Tip: if your room is not carpeted, set a blanket down on the floor to cushion each chip’s fall, otherwise the chips can make a lot of noise.)

Variations:

• Playing cards work well in place of chips, as do colored strips of paper.
• Use this with groups of roughly 8-12 students in a Fishbowl discussion format.
• Give each student two blue chips and two red chips: have blue mean “I only added slightly to what someone else said or reworded someone else’s idea” and red mean “I added a new idea, text support, or a ‘real-world’ example.” This helps ensure the conversation delves deeper. (Should a student miss-identify the question-type used, feel free to hand back the chip.)
• Divide the class in half and host a debate: when using the chips, one color can be for new ideas and the other for rebuttals.
• Give students who have anxiety about group discussions fewer chips to use.

​Why it Works:
Again, as was noted with Random Selection, large group discussions tend to foster environments where some students naturally dominate, either pushing quieter students aside or giving students who wish to disengage permission to do so. However, a strategy like this helps combat that by making students aware of the discussion's balance—helping those likely to over-contribute keep themselves in check while simultaneously motivating those likely to under-contribute to add their voices into the conversation.

If you are looking for more ideas on increasing student voice and engagement, or would like to dig deeper into the value of such strategies, consider starting with these four resources: 

• "Giving Students a Voice in the Classroom" by the Search Institute, 2016
• "How to Open Class Participation to Everyone" by Edutopia, 2022 
• "Including Voice in Education: Addressing Equity Through Student and Family Voice in the Classroom" by the Institute of Education Sciences, 2021
• "Maximizing Student Voice to Achieve Equity in Classroom Participation" by Edutopia, 2021

by Nick Truxal

​Recently, I took a break from my years as an educator to get new training on better leading and applying evidence: specifically, data driven evidence.  The focus of my program is the corporate world, and as such, I am having a number of revelations. 
 
The one that I want to focus on today is that the corporate world is transforming in many of the same ways that we have been doing in education.  There is an enormous focus on skills: building new skills in employees, breaking jobs down by associated skills, understanding the skills needed to perform well in teams, as well as assessing and reporting based on skills.
 
Since our inception, Third Eye Education has been speaking about skill-based reporting. Just a few examples: 

• This podcast episode with Myron Dueck:  "Airport Stories: Piloting Students Beyond Silos" (February 2021)
• This article inspired by the work of Dessa: "Inspiration for Transdisciplinarity Innovation and Application" (March 2021)
• These podcast episodes "A Hip Hop Education" with Ian P. Levy (May 2021) and "A Rich Process of Creation" with Lazerbeak and Ilan (August 2021)
• This article inspired by the work of Sarah Zerwin: "Focusing on Feedback: Reassessing Letter Grades" (June 2021)

I personally love feedback only, skill-based instruction and reporting.  The remarkable thing is that the entire world seems to be making a pivot in this direction as well. There are a few key reasons driving this transformation, and a few key takeaways for educators.  ​

These reasons may sound familiar, but the slant on them I find unique:

• There seems to be universal agreement that employee evaluations have been poor
• There has increasingly been a need to make assessments and evaluations more valuable
• The options most organizations explored were (and I love these):
  • Become skill-based in their assessments
  • Create an algorithm that takes into account the performance of those surrounding the person being evaluated, the culture they are a part of, the audience they are working with, etc.
  • There was an understanding that staying with the current system was simply not an option (though, of course, not everyone has the resources to pivot)

​I see these as being parallel to the conversations we’ve been having in education.  Of course, each can be applied to how we, as teachers, are assessed as well as how we assess our students.  I do wish that I had considered the third bullet point above, which is offering options to better our practices, before jumping into the work, myself. 

​Ultimately, this means a few things for educators:

1. The concern that we are shifting the conversation to skills when colleges and workplaces are not is a misplaced concern.  Colleges are, again, as I can attest by being in a masters program at the moment.  Moreover, those programs that are not will certainly be under pressure to become more skill focused as resumes become more skill focused (again, as I can attest - I had to update my resume for my internship, and was advised to move from work experience to skill based).  As employers hire based on skills demonstrated through the resume, the employee portfolio (again, becoming more important), and the placement assessments being taken.
2. These efforts can teach us how to better implement skill based feedback in our educator evaluation systems as well as in classrooms.  We can learn from efforts to break down discrete skills and competencies.  We can see new technologies that can help us to do so, to track skills, and to help students understand the root skills needed for employment they may ultimately find attractive.
3. As we are making a shift as a society towards skills rather than experiences, this should be something we see at all ages, not simply the end of high school.  When kindergartners are on a nature hike, the experience is fantastic.  What skill are we hoping they take from that experience?  There are certainly a plethora of options, from critical observation skills to rudimentary understanding of biological systems.  Knowing our purpose before planning our experiences can help ground our practices.

A small disclaimer as I conclude:  I’ve always hated the idea that education should take anything from business.  We are not a business.  We are here to help young people to grow.  I’ve often found it difficult to accept the best practices emerging in the workplace.  I think I found it easier this time because it so closely mimics what we’ve been working on for a long while. 

Further, it does show a fundamental shift in the way our society is thinking, and having advanced knowledge of such a shift can indeed help us better prepare our young people to grow.  

​by Julie Brock

February is the longest month in Minnesota. The snow and cold have settled in. Cold has nestled deep into marrow and snow is a welcomed relief to cover the dirt and sludge covering the roads and—if we’re honest—our hearts. 

It is the same routine. Start the car, scrape the windshield, drive to your destination seeing your breath hang around your head the entire way, and maybe--if you are lucky--the car warmed up by the time you get there. It's a grind, even for the most optimistic.
 
Add “the beginning of the end” for high school seniors and it is fertile soil for teaching absurdism and existentialism. Welcome, young friends, to the existential crisis season for 12th graders. Although many have pronounced their plans for all their peers to hear, the confidence behind the bravado is small, infinitesimal, in fact. And the questions seep in as they hear the choir around them sing of their collective, positive plans. Some are questioning their early action to college. Others are digging their heels in and fighting against the idea of any more school. Others are looking abroad at a gap year and others are gearing for military. All are trying to have conviction about their choices, but the Ides of March are near, and the tides start to turn in February.

​Absurdism results from the human tendency to seek inherent value and meaning and the inability to do so with certainty. Albert Camus, a French absurdist philosopher, believed individuals should embrace the absurd condition of human existence and then gave characters to challenge our inability to do so.

Absurdism? It is a literary genre? Are you serious? All great questions I’d greet with a smirk.

​I’d start class with a series of questions:

• Isn’t it absurd that we are just tiny beings living on a rock hanging in space?
• Isn’t it absurd that the only thing keeping us alive are the conditions created by the exact distance and orbit from the sun?
• Isn’t absurd that the sun is a dying star?
• Isn’t it absurd that the universe is infinite and there is no way for us to know what else is out there?

Small blinks from eyes followed by silent contemplation, then discomfort.

Camus’s The Stranger was the cornerstone to the Existentialism Unit I used to teach. Meursault became the unsettling presence for many students. They were confronted with a character who planned nothing, who was connected to nothing, and had no cares for what others thought about him. He had needs, and he filled them. That’s it. No more, no less. When he shoots the man on the beach the prosecution asks him for his motive, and he says the sun was in his eyes.
 
This outraged every class. How can that be? No one shoots someone because the sun was in his eyes. There must be more!

But there isn’t.

​The acceptance of life as a series of choices is one that is hard for my February friends to grasp during their own crackling façade of identity. Who am I really? What am I really? Why am I here? What is the meaning of life?
 
42.

Pushed in class to consider the idea that there is no one answer to any of these probing questions, and that the truest answer is in the recesses of their DNA, happy in the shadows of self is one thing; contemplating it in the second year of a global pandemic is another.
 
Transition from high school into what comes next is a big milestone in one’s journey. Doing that under the shifting sands of COVID-19 is exhausting at best and damaging at worst. Conscious or not, these young adults have built up expectations and stories following the close of their high school chapter. To do that without any true knowns pushes them off their axis and the world cannot turn without glitching. It doesn’t feel stable.

Absurdism pushes on the construct of certainty. How can we be certain of anything other than the breath that enters in and out of our lungs? And even that is not a guarantee. Existentialism asks the questions, “What else is there than existence?” and “What else is there to existence than the choice we make now, now, or now?”  

Watching eighteen-year-olds grapple with the idea that their life is a series of choices and even the best laid plan may not work brings both anxiety and relief. Collectively, there is nervous laughter as they contemplate how much energy they have poured into the future without a thought to what happens when they walk out the door when the bell rings.
 
Isn’t it absurd that when you walk out the door you will make a decision, turn right or turn left, and that decision will lead to a series of choices that will ultimately lead you to your next destination? 

by Phil Olson

Each fall, former students, seniors who are a week or a month into their last year of high school, show up at my door.  They try for some small talk, while their eyes communicate that they know I know about the Ask that’s coming.  It’s awkward and sweet, and I say yes, telling them it will be my pleasure.  And it is.
 
In recent years, college recommendations are increasingly accomplished via one platform, the Common App, a non-profit organization that represents 900 institutions of higher education.

The application’s commonness allows students to complete one application for undergraduate college admission, instead of completing separate applications for each school.  The platform also manages teacher recommendations, which consists primarily of letters of recommendation and a series of comparative ratings.
 
As far as an unpaid, part-time jobs go, completing college application recommendations is a good one.  Let me explain.

First, I enjoy writing recommendation letters because I must pause to reflect on my experiences with students who are about to be done with high school.  I think about the work we did together (in fact, I like to revisit and quote their essays!), the things I learned about their personal stories, and I marvel at the truly remarkable process of maturation that unfolds in dramatic, double-time fashion during high school. 
 
Because I teach the spectrum of grade levels, I get to know my students first as kids and later as young adults.  I like how the recommendation process caps our time together, and I find it meaningful to have played a positive role, sometimes small and sometimes substantial, in helping students prepare for and take next steps.  I also get earnest thank you notes whose words do their intended job of making me feel useful and appreciated, and sometimes students show up to tell me when they’ve been accepted to schools and to talk through plans--often including the fact that they need additional recommendation letters for this scholarship and that.  I get to help with those too.

A second, meaningful feature of the recommendation dynamic has made me a better educator, an improvement fueled by the ratings chart below.  Give it a close read before we move on.

I have mixed feelings about rating recommendees in relation to student peers, but I continue to appreciate almost all of the categories, as they capture attributes that really matter—for success in high school, college, and life.  The thing is that, years back, I realized I was rating students with regard to categories they were not aware of.  Sure, these are things that matter to educators, but I can confirm they are not obvious to students who have absorbed messages about the defining nature of GPAs and standardized test scores.  To be more blunt, students are confused about what matters, as evidenced by how surprised mine are when I share the chart with them.

Since teachers are evaluating students on the criteria above, it makes sense for us to establish them as "studenting" targets in our classrooms—targets that need to be discussed early and often.

Okay, “academic achievement” is challengingly broad and inclusive, and rating “intellectual promise” is a toughie, but I like to ponder the promise I see in my students.  The student who writes poetry or plays chess beautifully?  That’s promising.  The student who is passionate about saving the planet, dismantling patriarchy, or understanding physics . . . promising!

• I am convinced that quality writing reflects quality thinking.  Writing is a way of knowing--a better, more thorough way than talking, working an equation, or taking a multiple choice test.  Students need to embrace writing, not as a series of unpleasant episodes, but as a consistent practice that improves with every sentence.
  
• Students who are engaged in class learn more, and participation in classroom discussions is also an excellent way to demonstrate leadership.  Students who can pose tough questions, and build on others’ ideas make content their own while also inspiring classmates and animating the classroom dynamic.  Active listening, too, is part of this skill.  
• Students need to express themselves creatively and take intellectual risks.  Capturing a complex idea with a metaphor or channeling a concept into an original piece of art reflects synthesis, which is toward the top of Bloom’s for a reason.    
  
• Students who are disciplined in their approach to work get things done well.  This overlaps with initiative and independence.  Time management is the key to juggling a full course load and a busy life, and the slippery slope of procrastination must be avoided again and again.  Students who embrace their roles as learners, those who genuinely value learning for learning’s sake (as opposed to laboring for points) nurture intellectual curiosity--the fuel needed to make the most of opportunities.    
• Students, like all people, need to earn respect from others, including their teachers, who are eager to bounce it back.  Teachers do school with students, not to them, and mutual respect makes that possible.  The quickest way to lose that respect is dishonesty. Cheating, excuse making, cutting corners to game the system all undermine learning.  

Like many area teachers I am in the midst of ultra-busy weeks as I bring first semester classes to a close, while simultaneously preparing to transition to the second half of the year.  This time in the academic calendar is always fraught, with extra helpings of grading (and some grade-grubbing) and planning, as well as a never-quiet Outlook inbox.  This year, though, it’s fraught² (An exponent because many of us must wrap and restart in distance-learning mode. **Deep breath, focusing on a long exhale with healing self-talk:  Phew... Everything will be okay.**)

As my students and I start second semester, we’ll wait on talk about percentages or papers; instead we’ll use the ratings chart to discuss authentic, effective studenting, which is even more important in distance-learning mode.  Then they’ll reflect, in writing, on how they rate themselves for semester 1 before specifying targets for where they want to grow in semester 2. 

​They will write recommendations for themselves. ​