lesson plans – The Captain of Class

Proof is Classy: A Back to School Idea

Worms make better pets — Worms are AWESOME! Fact or Opinion?

Most people have heard of the ice-breaking game, “Two Truths/One Lie.” I enjoy this little game so much that I have incorporated it in my first week of school for several years. I changed the name to “Fact vs. Falsehood” because I am a fiend for alliteration and I don’t like the idea of teaching kids to lie. Additionally, it affords me a teaching opportunity on day one: I break out the vocabulary word, EVIDENCE.

In the past, I would teach the difference between fact and false, and inevitably get things muddled with the concept of opinions. I recently saw a tweet by @tomascmurray, who will be keynoting the East Penn Back to School Assembly for teachers on Aug. 22, that gave me an awesome idea for changing my game. He suggested having interactive, thinking-oriented items on desks when students arrive on the first day of school, rather than a pile of books and papers. I loved this idea!

This year I plan to marry two games, and let kids work on figuring out the rules on their own. In addition to “Fact vs. Falsehood”, the second game is “Classmate Scavenger Hunt”. Traditionally, kids would have a piece of paper with a list on it. They would work on finding other kids who share the same experiences, opinions, and criteria from the list. They write the names of peers next to statements as they find students who fit the descriptions.

This year, however, I plan to break up the Classmate Scavenger Hunt paper list. I will make cards that contain one statement each. They will be placed in a bowl that I’ll put in the middle of each group of desks. Some example statements include:

I don’t have any pets.
I have more than one favorite color.
I have written a book. (Some kids love writing stories into mini booklets.)
I took the bus to school today.
I have never been to Disney World.
I love to swim.
My birthday is in the spring.
Summer is my favorite season.

Because there won’t be anything else on the desks, and kids can’t help but touch stuff, I expect that they will begin digging into the bowls and looking at the cards. I hope that they communicate with each other about the statements, finding out which ones they have in common. (Later on we can use the cards to make Venn diagrams, displaying similarities and differences between students.)

In the past, I taught the students in a whole group setting the difference between “facts” and “opinions”. This year, I am going to see if kids can figure out the difference by separating their cards into two different groups. I won’t tell them what the criteria is. They may decide to make a pile of things the classmates all share in common, leaving the rejected statements to their own pile. That would make sense. I’ll simply have them try to find another difference or criteria to categorize the two piles, until they realize that some statements contain phrases that make them opinions.

Eventually, I’ll bring the thinking around to noticing that some of the statements can be proven, while some are impossible to prove, even though you might feel like they are true. The ones that are “prove-able” — able to be proven — are facts. And, how can you prove their accuracy? With… drum-role… EVIDENCE.

Roaches make cool pets — Roaches make the best classroom pets.

My birthday is in the summer. This is a fact. What proof do I have to support this? The evidence can be found in a few places: Driver’s license, birth certificate, social security card, passport, etc.

“Summer is the best season” is an opinion. No matter how much you love it, or how many people agree with you, this is NOT a fact. You simply cannot prove that summer is better than other seasons. It might seem that way, but there isn’t any evidence to back up the statement.

Opinions are not bad or wrong to use. In “5 Classy Elements of ‘The Story of Mankind’ (1921)” I praised the author, Hendrik Van Loon, for providing his personal opinion within a history book. I enjoyed reading some of the ideas that he gleaned from his study of world history. It is helpful to let people know your likes and dislikes. Those are opinions.

baby chickens are cute — Baby chicks are soooooo cute!

baby chickens are noisy — Baby chicks are noisy and distracting.

Trouble arises when opinions are made to seem like facts. “I have a lot of homework” might seem like a fact, but in actuality, this is an opinion. When the phrase “a lot” is used, a statement that might otherwise be a fact turns into an opinion. “A lot,” compared to what? Comparing your amount of homework to what a kindergartener brings home would make it seem like a ton. But, compare your homework to what an eleventh grader might receive, and your task is minuscule! You DO have homework. That is a fact. You can prove that. Your evidence is written on your assignment book page, and you may even have physical papers that are not yet complete. So, saying “I feel like my homework will take a long time to complete” may be a more accurate statement than the one above, but until you actually complete it, there isn’t any evidence to prove just how much homework there really is.

“My homework took twenty minutes to complete, last night.” This is a fact, as long as it is true. There are parts of this statement that can be proven. Did you do it last night? Did it take twenty minutes?

Falsehood (untruth)	Opinion (feelings)	Fact (prove-able)	Classy Fact (dressed up)
“My homework took me two hours to do!”	“It felt like I would never finish my homework last night.”	“It took me twenty minutes to complete my homework last night.”	“I was surprised to find out that it only took me twenty minutes to do my homework last night, because it felt like it was taking forever.”

Facts can be dry and boring. That’s why we season them with opinions. “My birthday is in the best season, summer.” Your birthday may very well fall within the calendar days that land it in the season of summer, but who is to say that summer is the “best season”? That is your opinion.

Also, opinions are increasingly useful, the more they are explained. While you can’t actually prove an opinion, you CAN support it. A classy person may say, “I love summer because you can swim, there isn’t any homework, and my birthday is in August.” Now, we understand several reasons that cause you to like summer more than other seasons.

For “Fact vs. Falsehood” to work, students should write down two facts that can be proven with evidence, along with one untruth that also can be proven inaccurate with evidence (i.e. “I have three sisters” could be a falsehood if a student only has one.) After students compose their sentences, we go around the room sharing and guessing which of the three statements is false. In this way we learn a little about one another, hear each other speak, practice good listening habits, and appreciate some classroom rules.

That's a big hat — That 24″ diameter hat is rather large.

To close the entire lesson, I might display the following table, reiterating the differences.

Falsehood (hyperbole)	Opinion (feelings)	Fact (prove-able)	Opinion/Fact (classy compound sentence)
“There were one hundred people at my house last night.”	“There were too many people visiting last night.”	“I had five extra people in my house last night.”	“Five people probably doesn’t sound like a lot, but that more than doubled the normal number of people using the bathroom, showering, and making messes.”

Every year, just before school begins, family visits my house. It is the end of the summer for them, which is a perfect way to wrap it all up. But, it is the beginning of my preparing to start the school year! I’m happy to host, but it is not the best timing. Is that an opinion or fact?

Cloning Creativity Is Classy

Consider Cloning Your Creativity. It’s Classy. Cloning myself

A person is considered creative by others if he comes up with new and novel ideas. To use a cliche that’s been chopped down, chewed up, and spit out a billion times, in the Tree_Falling_Down_-_panoramio same way a tree does not fall in a forest if no one is there to hear it, a person is only as creative as people recognize it. My suggestion: Cloning your creativity is classy.

This is classy because it helps you and others. It is helpful to you because it will make you feel meaningful and important. The greatest form of flattery is for someone to copy you. Sharing your ideas says, “Flatter me, please;)” Also, others may find ways to improve what you came up with. This shouldn’t make you feel badly. You invented the table. Others are simply lengthening the legs, sanding the rough edges, and polishing the finish. No one would be using it at all, had you never considered cloning your creative contribution to the culinary art! How classy.

Here is an issue: I came up with a lesson years ago that I hadn’t put together until just recently. I thought of having my students make “Choose Your Own Adventure” stories to make narrative writing fun and creative. (They can also explore multiple solutions to problems within plots.) In preparation for teaching a professional development class on using iPads in the classroom, I decided I’d finally try my hand at making one of these adventures. I created a planning paper, made a Google slideshow, hyperlinked slides together, and wrote a silly little story about the teachers that would be attending my iPad course. I even made a movie to show teachers how I did what I did, so that they could reproduce (clone) it.

I haven’t actually mentioned the “issue” yet. All this goes right along with the theme of this blog: Sharing your creativity is classy. Here is the issue: I just… just now, as I am in the middle of typing this blog, googled “Choose your own adventure lesson,” and do you know how many other people had the same idea as me? Well, it took Google half of a second to produce eighteen million hits. So, was my idea a creative one?

Has this kind of thing ever happened to you? Have you ever excitedly told a colleague or friend about a grand idea you had, only to have your audience say, “Oh, (so and so) did that last year”? Talk about taking the wind out of your creative sails!

Here is a classy consolation: How many artists were appreciated during their lifetime? Additionally, do you think Edgar Degas was the only artist who painted ballerinas? Did Michelangelo invent sculpture? As creative as people may seem, they are building upon concepts that already exist. It is what’s done with the creativity that makes it classy. A creative idea that sits in the classroom, confined to 24 students, and never tried by other teachers, isn’t any more useful than a tree falling in the middle of a forest is beneficial to a carpenter. Yeah, people are building tables all over the place. So, your raised wooden platform that people place food on isn’t all that novel in a global market, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t make one. Many people had painted portraits of women before the Mona Lisa. What if DaVinci thought, “That’s already been done. I don’t want to look lame, copying others.”

Not classy: Failing to give credit where credit is due. No explanation needed. Also, withholding compliments is not classy. A person can feel jealous when a colleague is getting attention for his creativity. Don’t let corrosive competitive feelings creep into your soul. They will kill your creativity. This is not a war or competition. Be congratulatory. That is classy. An attitude of admiration will boost you forward, usher you into a collection of collaborative creators, and fuel cogitation. A poor attitude will find you lying under a fallen tree in the middle of the forest, trapped, forgotten, and nonexistent.

Here is the lesson that I dreamed up, created, and found out already exists… millions of times over;) https://tinyurl.com/y8pnpybm

Here is the movie that I made to show off how I did what millions of others have done before me. https://youtu.be/xzi1Q0nAsBc

Although I am laughing at myself for thinking that I was soooo creative, coming up with this lesson, only to find out lots of others before me have done something similar, I remain please with my product, and encourage you… I would be flattered if you were to check it out and even use it. Let me know what you think, and if there were ways to improve upon it.

Final thought: Where would this lesson fall on the SAMR spectrum? Is the use of technology Substituting, Augmenting, Modifying, or Redefining teaching?

Classy is Behaving “Purposefully”

Before school the other day, I was called to the office to help with something or other. The bell rang while I was there. When I went to walk up to my room, it was a little late, and I was joined by one of my students who eats breakfast in the cafeteria. This student isn’t a fast walker, but he kept up with me as I quickly maneuvered between and past meanderers.

Purposeful Writing: Students Provide Examples of Purposeful Behaviors

As I lead this student to walk faster than he would have, I thought about how I typically walk, and how that differs from most students. I walk purposefully. After the announcements and taking lunch count, I explained this to my class. To do something purposefully means to do it with a cause, meaning, or reason in mind. You have a purpose for doing it, and that goal drives you to act a certain way. Acting purposefully is classy.

“To an observer, it may simply look as though I walk speedily, but there is more to it than that,” I explained to my class. I was moving quickly in order to get to the classroom as soon as possible, because I wanted to see my students. It is common for me to walk quickly because I interpret moving from one location to another as down-time; unproductive time. “Finally,” I concluded, “I wanted to model for my breakfaster how one might maintain a pace that will enable him to have enough time to unpack, fill in his Assignment Book Page, and begin a morning work choice… all before the announcements.” They chuckled because the boy from my story is often seen finishing these tasks during my introductory lesson of the morning.

The antonym of purposefully would be “lazily” or behaving as though your task was meaningless. If teachers want well-behaved, classy kids, we will need to make sure that our lessons are full of meaning and purpose. Following this logic, it can be expected that a group of students performing a task that has no or little value, would not do it purposefully. Rote repetition breeds misbehavior. By definition, repetition is UNthinkingly doing something over and over; like a machine. Give students something to think about, and you are giving them purpose.

Also, in order for this to work, students must comprehend the purpose of the task they are given. I constantly tell my students to sit up straight, but I give them several reasons, none of which contain the phrase, “Because I said so.” Did you know that standing straight, in addition to looking classy, promoting health, clearing airways, etc., actually makes you more “Powerful” (Cooper, 2013)? What kid doesn’t like that idea?! Even when I occasionally have my students practice something that might require repetition, I supply a reason that encourages them to try to improve upon the task with each successive attempt.

After explaining this concept to my class, I asked them to come up with their own examples of doing things purposefully. Discussion included brushing one’s teeth. You can just run the toothbrush over your teeth and use up enough time, so that your parents think you did a thorough job, or you can actually brush them in such a way that you relieve them of debris and plaque. Gingivitis is a painful, expensive gum disease that 60% of 15-year-olds should have prevented, but didn’t (Dowshen, 2015).

A funny example that I related to was eating. There was a slight misunderstanding of purposeful activity when a girl suggested eating the right food. I re explained the concept of behaving purposefully, before telling the students that I often find myself so engrossed in my work that I don’t realize my hunger until I am famished. Then I get angry that I have to stop and consume some nutrients. It is irritating because, as an adult, I have to find food, which means putting my project on hold, going to a restaurant or store, finding what I want, paying for it… You get the idea! This takes up valuable time; The time is only as valuable as what it was being used for, however. It is important to participate in activities that have meaning, purpose, and hold value. When I finally have my food, I devour it like a Velociraptor.

I had my students write down their examples and draw pictures of someone behaving purposefully. They also drew a picture of what it would look like if someone performed the same task purposelessly. We had fun sharing those with each other to close the lesson.

Two things in closing: First, sometimes it is classy to walk slowly. The classiness comes from the reason for the behavior. It would not be classy to speed walk through a museum. This is a place where you should take your time to ponder artwork. You cannot do that quickly. Secondly, I am often struck by the paradox that I am supposedly a classy person, who writes rather sloppily on the dry erase board. Isn’t messy penmanship unclassy? Not necessarily. If my purpose was to model perfect handwriting, then, yes, my scrawl would be less than classy, to say the least. However, I am usually modeling taking notes, when I write on the board. I only write what I think students should take down in their spiral notebooks. The speed I use, which prohibits beautifully crafted letters, demonstrates what it is like to jot down ideas while listening. Along these lines, I rarely ever write complete sentences on the board. Parents often complain about their child’s penmanship. This is the last thing that I would focus on as a teacher. Why do doctors messily fill in prescriptions? Is it because that is what doctors do, or is it because they fill in a million, as long as the pharmacy can read it, it works, and their time is used better speaking with and looking at patients? So, parents, would you rather a creative composer, or a very neat transposer?

Cooper, B. (2013, November 21). The Science Of Posture: Why Sitting Up Straight Makes You Happier And More Productive. Retrieved May 25, 2018, from https://www.fastcompany.com/3021985/the-science-of-posture-why-sitting-up-straight-makes-you-happier-and-more-product

Dowshen, S., Dr. (Ed.). (2015, January). Taking Care of Your Teeth. Retrieved May 25, 2018, from https://kidshealth.org/en/teens/teeth.html