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Terms and Conditions

  By Grade Abatement, Space Explainers, Triage

Dima Yarovinsky, “I Agree” (2018)

Meeting the Course on Its Own Terms

Every instructional post, however long or short, has a thesis1. The thesis of the post you are now reading:

You must meet this course on its own terms.

But it’s not just that you must meet the course on its own terms; you must also stop yourself from substituting your own terms and using your own assumptions.

This is true for every stakeholder, not just students. Innovation requires a good-faith investment from parents, administrators, interested teachers, and anyone else who cares about student learning. There is too much bad faith out there already.

You can start with this quotation:

The challenge is to set up systems that allow students to follow their interests. People tend to dichotomize approaches in education: The teacher is either telling students what to do, or standing back and letting them figure it out. I think that’s a false choice: The issue is not structure versus no structure, but rather creating a different structure. Students need to be exposed to new ideas and learn how to persist. They also need support.
~Tony Wagner, Creating Innovators

This course uses just such a unique structure.

For the first part of the year, students learn how to learn. They are exposed to new ideas and helped to master important skills and traits. They explore the expected reading and writing of ELA as they learn universal tools and processes.

During the first part of the year, individual feedback is given alongside a framework of instructional, interstitial writing. Students are assessed through a unique, profile-based system based on universal skills and traits.

For the second part of the year, students put their skills and traits to work on a series of projects in the Humanities: reading and responding to literature; writing research-driven essays; public speaking and letter-writing; and the student-driven “genius hour” projects that can be tied into the final exam.

I would usually fill paragraphs like those last three with hyperlinks to demonstrate that each element of this structure supports the rest in improving student learning. That is what you’ll see everywhere else in this post, as well as everywhere else on this site.

In this case, however, the lack of links is there to emphasize the thesis we’re working with: You must meet this course on its own terms, and you cannot replace those terms and conditions with your own.

In Good Faith

You can always look to the testimonials and history of the course to dispel any misinformation or disinformation. If you act in good faith, honestly looking to understand what we do, you can avoid low-information sepsis.

Even when you are informed, you must still face down your assumptions. If you’re a student, some of those assumptions are that you will be spoon-fed information; that you will be asked to regurgitate facts and insight on tests; and that the teacher should perform in front of you, Keating-style, to hold your attention.

In this course, the teacher interacts with students constantly and responsively through writing. This is part and parcel of the course. We meet in person regularly; there is constant, feedback on student work; and every period is designed as a workshop in which students collaborate with the teacher and peers. The use of the written word, however, is paramount: Writing is the most essential act in the Humanities.

This is also about teaching in a new way instead of capitulating to outdated assumptions about learning. I’m thinking specifically about “Teaching as an Amusing Activity,” the tenth chapter in Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death, which gives us the following quotation:

We may take as our guide here John Dewey’s observation that the content of a lesson is the least important thing about learning. As he wrote in Experience and Education: “Perhaps the greatest of all pedagogical fallacies is the notion that a person learns only what he is studying at the time. Collateral learning in the way of formation of enduring attitudes… may be and often is more important than the spelling lesson or lesson in geography or history… For these attitudes are fundamentally what count in the future.” In other words, the most important thing one learns is always something about how one learns. As Dewey wrote in another place, we learn what we do.

That is embedded on the homepage, in the course syllabus, and throughout the course. It is the essential philosophy of effective education: a focus on the process, not just the product.

Postman goes on in that chapter to explain that performative, entertainment-based education is like watching television — a passive act that mostly teaches you how to watch, not learn. If you’re a student, your learning cannot passive, because it is most importantly about you. You must be an active agent in the process of creating those “enduring attitudes.”

This course rejects the “rapid emergence of a new education based on the speed-of-light electronic image,” as Postman predicted decades ago, and embraces instead “the slow-moving printed word.” The computer screen is just the medium for the written word.

Look at our guide to writing, especially at the quotations that are used to illustrate each universal component:

The first quotation is in Latin and elevated to the top of the guide. It is the philosophy of a Humanities makerspace: Verba volant, scripta manent. Spoken words fly away, while written words remain.

And that brings us back to one of the most ineluctable terms and conditions of the course:

You must read what is written.

This isn’t unique to a makerspace, of course. Textbooks must be read, lectures must be heard, videos must be watched, etc. Whatever a teacher uses for instruction must be honored in good faith.

The difference here is what this kind of interstitial instruction requires — and what it does to help students.

The first advantage of this kind of carefully constructed instruction is that it teaches students how to write and how to read. This is Dewey’s idea of enduring habits and self-efficacy: It is more important to build skills and traits than to internalize knowledge.

So the instruction is not just informational. It adds more to student learning than other forms of flipped instruction.

The post you are reading right now is an example: It is designed to model effective writing and to strengthen close reading. It repeatedly invites students to learn more about philosophy. It defines new vocabulary. It varies style and rhetoric to invite emulation.

The second advantage is that the work stacks. The more students read this kind of writing, the faster their writing and reading improves. Paul Graham puts it this way: “[T]he more you learn, the more hooks you have for new facts to stick onto — which means you accumulate knowledge at what’s colloquially called an exponential rate.”

These posts are meant to build habits, not simply impart facts and directions. This is the key.

Contrasting Space

A contrast is found on the whiteboards used regularly in the physical classroom. (You can take a tour of that space online.) Whiteboard writing is temporary by design, unlike everything else written to students.

Here is an example of the whiteboards in Room 210, taken from the week of September 21, 2020 (and presented with all the glares and discoloration you’d expect):

The first whiteboard allows us to talk in person, early in the year, about how feedback works. It is a visual reference for me to use during discussions and individual conferences, too.

The phrase “feedback chain” is a reference to a post: The Feedback Chain. That post is essential reading.

The metaphor on the whiteboard is “[c]loning the teacher and instruction,” with a note that this is done “via flipped and interstitial writing, video, and audio.” This is a summary of how this site and most other feedback works: It effectively clones the teacher, freeing up class time for more individual and small-group discussion.

The second whiteboard is an overview of current course work, circa 9/23/20. Since this is also from early in the year, it contains significant emphasis on the backbone of the course — which is, again, the way a student interacts with letters, posts, guides, and other teacher-written materials.

That metaphor — a fairly clichéd “backbone” metaphor — is also found in the letter given to students at the start of school in 2020:

Letters like that work on multiple levels. One is, again, to teach writing and reading through exposure; another is to emphasize the terms of the course in order to invite more reading, thinking, and writing. Here are the first three paragraphs of that letter, reprinted because they evoke Neil Postman’s prescient analysis of education:

This letter will be read to you in class. It is available online, too, to illustrate its central argument, which is that reading letters like this is the most critical skill in our course and the most important element of your growth in the skills and traits that matter most.

The backbone of this course is its instructional method, which is based in reading and taking notes on what you read. The difference between students who benefit tremendously from this space and students who struggle is their investment in this instructional method.

You also have access to face-to-face meetings, of course, plus scheduled visits to office hours, virtual meetings in class, and just about any form of written back-and-forth you can think of. The online instructional method does not exist in a vacuum, and there are dozens of ways to make it work for you or to supplement it with additional instruction.

The bolded clause is another condition of the course: If you invest in reading the posts, letters, guides, and so on, you will improve the skills and traits that matter most. For students, this is the backbone of learning. You’ll gain the information you need, but you’ll more importantly deepen your ability to learn.

In other words, it’s not just about becoming a better reader and write, but improving in all the skills and traits that matter.

2020 also featured the first attempt at an FAQ driven by student questions early in the year:

Each response models effective writing, and the interlocking links and references promote close reading. The length of the FAQ requires students to organize their time, and the new ideas and insights require critical thinking.

The FAQ is, therefore, designed not just to answer questions but to teach students more about how they learn.

Contrast this with more forms of flipped instruction, especially most video-based instruction, which transmits information and insight that is independent of the medium used. The medium isn’t the message; the goal of a video lecture, for instance, is not to help students create their own video lectures.

Here, the medium is the message: Every written post, guide, FAQ response, etc, is constructed to model effective writing for students. Each one is written specifically to invite emulation. Each is also written with meta-commentary to identify what students should be learning.

That’s why a post might link to the definition of terms a student might not know2. It’s why the use of rhetorical strategies is made transparent, with definitions or examples provided through meta-commentary. It’s a different kind of writing.

The Conclusion

The conclusion is a proven one:

The more students read the instructional writing of this course, the more they will improve as students.

For non-student stakeholders, the conclusion would be that delving into the course writings will erase every concern and illuminate every success. A good-faith effort to learn about what we do will reward that faith with ironclad data and evidence; a bad-faith dismissal of what we do reinforces ignorance and resistance.

If you are a student, each and every letter, post, guide, and comment is designed to expose you to effective writing so you can learn from it. It’s not just about embracing the slow pace of the written word or deepening your thinking; it’s about the oldest form of learning, which is to copy what you see.

This is the age of the essay, as people like Paul Graham noted 15 years ago. It is the age of online discourse. In here, you read that kind of writing as part of each assignment, which builds the skills and traits you need. You read what you are later asked to write.

The reading must be pervasive, too. It needs to be part of every day. That is why the term for this is interstitial. You can access the course at any time, from any device that can get onto the Web.

Look up the literal definition of the term interstitial and apply it to your learning. You can read a post, FAQ, or letter whenever you have a chunk of time. You can read the text in sections, jump from one section to another, or linger over one section until it is clear. You can ask questions privately or publicly. You can read answers on your own time, too.

That means that you do not need to be physically present in a classroom to benefit from the instruction. You do not always need to consume the instructional materials in one sitting, either. You can be anywhere, and as long as you have a device with an Internet connection, you can practice close reading, absorb strategies for effective writing, and deepen your knowledge in the Humanities.

Along with that interstitial instructional model, we have grade abatement and makerspace-based projects to weather almost any storm. These are our building blocks. They work in concert. It all rests on the writing, however.

I think the best way to understand this is to read what students gain from this approach. This, too, emphasizes writing as central. Another of Neil Postman’s insights is that writing, because of its permanence, gets us closer to the truth; for students, their own writing is the vehicle for truth.

That said, it is also important to highlight what students stand to lose, especially now:

A Glass Case Full of Lost Treasures and Fossils

  1. The two linked examples also demonstrate the way instruction is explicitly differentiated. Students can access the course at a level that is appropriate for them. If there is a lengthier, more detailed version of an instructional post, it is for stronger or more invested students. The depth is responsive to student needs and interest. ↩

  2. In this “Terms and Conditions” post, for instance, you’ve gotten prescient and ineluctable. Vocabulary is about encountering words in context, as one of the FAQ responses details; an instructional text, however, might link directly to the definition. ↩

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Focus and Feedback

  By Opening Salvo, Space Explainers

Note: Intended for the beginning of a school year (the tagged “opening salvo”). Each subheading links to an Atmosphere song, which is unrelated to anything but how good Atmosphere is.

Shrapnel

The focuses of this instructional post are in-class focus and feedback. The impetus is that it is never too early to warn you against straying from the path. We shouldn’t wait until the spring to discuss poor decisions; we should talk about it now, at the beginning of things, before any bad habits metastasize. The worst habits, like wasting class time and ignoring instruction, will slowly end you.

There’s something in that warning that should scare you, and I’ll tell you what it is. First, here’s what it is not.

It’s not what happens when you ignore instruction. That decision is insubordinate and disrespectful and breaking pretty specific rules of the whole school, and our classroom can only tolerate that for so long. Then you face some kind of punishment. Parents are called, Guidance meetings are arranged, infantilizing behavioral plans maybe get drawn up, etc. But that should embarrass you, not scare you.

It’s not your grade. As many posts explain, GAP scores suffer most when there isn’t evidence of in-class focus and feedback. The margin for error is less as you get older, too, but that’s obvious. That shouldn’t scare you, except to the extent that you are scared of the traditional Skinner-box shocks to your system.

It’s not even what bad decisions truly do to you. You are, right now, becoming a permanent version of yourself, and that self, for some of you, is going to be uninteresting, unskilled, and undisciplined. Believing otherwise is the “grain through the body of a bird” error explained many years ago in the first guide to this stuff, which puts it this way:

The ugly parts of us don’t operate on a switch. Apathy, disrespect, entitlement—these aren’t sweaters or jackets you can shrug off and cast aside when you’re tired of wearing them. That stuff will stick to you, stay with you, for a long time. When you choose not to work, you are breeding future selves, developing right now the habits that will poison or empower you in every aspect of your life. Your daily life is inculcation in its purest form: the linking together of a chain of decisions that will protect you or drag you down.

But that is more depressing than it is scary.

What you ought to fear is missing out1. Everyone who invests in this course and its philosophy, who works hard and pays careful attention, unlocks something special, and that is no longer a wild claim:

In essence, there are two courses taught in a Humanities makerspace. The first one exists to improve how you do your work, pay attention, and develop basic skills and traits. It attempts to make you a half-decent citizen of the world. It’ll cover ELA staples, get you ready for exams and graduation, and help you feel less stressed about grades.

The second course exists to transform you. Its students are smarter, more interesting, and more engaged. On their worst days, they have a space that understands and supports them. On their best days, they find real freedom and true inspiration.

Yes, you should be afraid of low grades, making disrespect a habit, upsetting the teacher enough that he decapitates you in the middle of class2. But much more existentially terrifying should be the risk of wasting such an opportunity.

To be in a room with people who have unlocked that deeper level is a constant reminder that you could have done it, too. You have the freedom to become a better person, to study many of the things you want, to do many of the things you want — and instead you’ve wasted it all to scroll through Instagram or play a video game3.

The Keys to Life vs. 15 Minutes of Fame

The purpose of a GAP score is to tell the story of your learning. The number unpacks to a profile, which unpacks to the work you’ve done in the course over (in our case) three weeks or so. To figure out that GAP score, you might want the complete guide next to you; you can get away, however, with just the following:

Every 15 days or so, you will be given a Google Form through which you indicate which GAP score you believe fits you. The data we gather through that form help us assess your struggles with the Dunning-Kruger effect and/or the imposter syndrome. Two of the self-assessments ask you to consider your in-class focus and use of feedback. That’s because those really are perhaps the two most important contributors to your success, even before you get to the logic of the profiles themselves.

Here is a document that explains further:

Starting at the top of that handout, you see again these two most basic requirements of this course, which are also the two keys that unlock upper-tier success:

  1. You must make the most of the class period.
  2. You must invest in feedback.

Feedback is also the focus of this instructional post, which links to an updated Medium essay on feedback here. These counter a lot of long-standing rumors while reiterating the importance of our time together during the school day — see this essay or this one for more on working face-to-face and during the period. Here is another post on the concept, too.

Back to focus and feedback: Part 1 of the handout (“The Keys”) asks you to self-assess your in-class focus and the level of feedback you’ve generated. Again, it’s an iteration of what you see in the Google Form you complete every three weeks or so. It is a color-coded, subjective self-assessment.

What may help to clarify how a self-assessment is useful is a look at what the old version of this handout looked like. Instead of circles, there was a line of emojis:

When viewed through some browsers, the faces looked like this:

This will seem unimportant, but there was a reason to use faces instead of numbers, at least originally. It is all about relative self-assessment.

In our case, there are two perspectives. The first is the imagined perspective of an objective observer. What would someone notice about your in-class focus and feedback over the course of several weeks? That observer doesn’t care about why you were playing video games or mindlessly reloading Snapchat; he just makes a note that you were.

The second perspective is relative, and it’s inspired a bit by the Wong-Baker pain scale:

There is a lot of subjectivity in this sort of self-assessment. What you consider to be a 10 — the worst pain you’ve ever experienced — might be only a 4 or 6 for a much less fortunate person. It’s still a 10 for you, though, because you can only base it on your experience. That’s the second perspective in our classroom: To a small extent, your best version of focusing might be different from that of others, and we might adjust — to a small extent — the standards to which you are held. You might be capable only of a certain level of feedback. That’s okay, if it’s true.

Again, the first perspective on your body of work is ultimately more important:

What would an objective observer write down, if he was asked to describe your habits and behavioral patterns?

We aren’t always after the reasons you were compelled to play on your phone for 35 minutes while your required reading gathered dust in front of you. We can’t always take into consideration why you were playing video games instead of workshopping an essay. And, in fact, advocacy is such an integral part of the course that if you did need to space out for 35 minutes, you could probably ask for that, reflect on it later, and end up learning quite a bit about yourself4.

Part 2 of the handout (“The Engine”) clarifies these two perspectives through some close reading. The selections you see come from grade abatement profiles of 2, 4, 6, and 8, which give us final scores of 60, 70, 85, and 95, respectively. By any heuristic, these are the profiles that serve as benchmarks for failure and success. These small excerpts should help you arrive at a more accurate and helpful GAP score.

GAP 2 | A 2 {may indicate} [a deliberate and systemic disengagement]…

This is a question of repeated, conscious choice. How many times does a student need to disengage, miss work, lose focus, etc, before it is “deliberate and systemic”? How many mistakes are permissible? No one expects perfection, even at the level of a 9, but we have to start the discussion with some sort of threshold. You have agency and self-control, and very few students goof off out of malice. You do it without thinking. At a certain point, however, a lack of adjustment or a lack of thinking is a choice.

GAP 4 | These students {do not meet} [the basic requirements of the course]…

The GAP 2 has modal language, which is language suggesting possibility. The student “may” meet those criteria, but there are other ways to slip to that tier. For a GAP 4 and its surrounding scores, the language is direct: If you do not meet the basic requirements of the course, you really shouldn’t be scored any higher than a 4 (70).

The question, then, is what the course defines as its basic requirements. Right now, as always, the course values in-class focus and student-driven feedback more than anything else. This new handout also lists the obvious stuff, like getting work in on time and being amenable to redirection, as basic requirements. As the handout says, it’s about doing the job on the days you would rather be watching Netflix, instead of, you know, actually watching Netflix in class5.

So the question is, again, how lenient we ought to be. Where is the line between human error and apathy or indulgence? It isn’t a hypothetical question. To illustrate what I mean, here are data from a normal classroom at 9:00 AM on 5/17/17:

Those are self-reported GAP scores from about a dozen students for a three-week assessment period. See how high the scores are? Maybe you can spot the issue when you read the original directions from the Google Classroom assignment:

That clearly states that completing the form before May 19 would lower a student’s profile score. So about a dozen students, some of them otherwise excellent, didn’t read the directions before jumping in. They also didn’t read the calendar, and they seem to have forgotten what we discussed in class. Yet they self-reported scores in Tier 4. Should those students have received lower GAP scores? Should we have shrugged away their mistake, even though it was mid-May? Where do we draw the line?

And that’s an innocuous example. The point might be that these are complicated problems, and we need to talk early and often about them.

GAP 6 | Students earning a 6 {are consistent and reliable} [in performance]…

My theory is that you consider “performance” to be only a particular set of things you do in school. Tests are performances. Essays are performances. Exams are definitely performances. The formative steps aren’t performative in the same way, so you cut corners and cheat the system if/when you need to. That’s not a finger-wagging accusation: Over the years, hundreds of students have admitted to copying homework, using Schmoop before a class discussion, zoning out during lectures, etc.

This course rests on the opposite principle: The process is what matters, and the products should never be the primary focus of our learning. That means that “consistent and reliable” work happens every day. I encourage you to read about that philosophy in this article about preschool crafts, and then to skim this:

View at Medium.com

GAP 8 | An 8 {reflects} [a systemic investment in the course]…

In many of the notes on earning a GAP 8, you’ll see “galvanize” identified as the key verb. That’s true, but another important verb is “reflects,” in no small part because of what it does for us metaphorically.

Most of your self-assessment looks at quantifiable stuff. You could, for instance, count the number of minutes you’re off-task when determining that a GAP 4 is your fate. If you believe you’ve been “consistent and reliable,” you can add up the assignments you’ve handed in, collate the formative and process-based work you did, and stack up your feedback-driven metacognition. It’s sortable, stackable, quantifiable data.

When you invest in the entire system, however, your evidence moves beyond the quantifiable and into something more reflective. Which is not to get too existential6. Think about how else we can use “reflect” in a classroom: It’s the other part of the self-monitoring you do, alongside metacognitive writing and discussion. You reflect your investment through self-monitoring. Once you observe the true purpose of the work, you can set the course accordingly. You’re in control of the learning, because you are involved in all parts of the system — not just the daily class periods and formal writing assignments, but everything.

Which is why Part 3 of this new handout, “The Vehicle,” is a list of the universal skills and traits we value. They are streamlined and edited a bit, but they aren’t changed fundamentally from the other guides to grade abatement, collaboration, and so on. Every iteration helps a bit. When you are invested enough, in fact, and when your focus becomes honing these skills, you will see them reflected in everything you do.

That’s why it matters less which books we read, which essays you write, and which discussions we have. It’s more important for you to memorize our list of skills and traits, and then for us to work together to determine what you need to do to hone your strengths and eliminate your weaknesses. This becomes the blueprint for your growth:

Reflections

At this point, your brain should be churning as it begins to process this. You may need to write down your understanding for me to read and comment on. You may want to write about your previous experiences with grades. You may need to ask questions in the comment section below7. Regardless, you absolutely must write something in response to all this feedback — not just because that is a formal assignment, but because it’s the whole point.

First, I want to add that I still believe that it is nearly impossible to fake in-class focus and feedback. You can fake a certain level of curiosity and empathy, but it’s nearly impossible to reframe a period spent off-task as anything but what it was. You can rush through a few pages of perfunctory reflection, but it’s nearly impossible to turn a real lack of feedback and investment into something else.

Since “nearly” impossible is not the same as “totally” impossible, I usually try to pitch faking it in here as a good idea, theoretically speaking. That was the theory as early on as the tenth section of this essay:

If you force yourself through the motions in here, those motions will inculcate the skills and traits we want. A misanthrope who forces himself to take collegial and galvanizing actions will incrementally learn empathy. A narcissist who forces herself to reflect and metacogitate every week will incrementally find new self-awareness and insight. An apathetic student who grinds through assignments just to get them done will incrementally gain a real appreciation for the value of the work.

That’s idealistic, but it seems to be true for most students: If you fake it, at least you’re doing some good. Learning doesn’t have to be a zero-sum game.

I think there’s something else to add, though: If you decided that this “nearly impossible” claim was a challenge, you might figure out how to fake it. You might fool me. Or you might just slip through the cracks, earning credit when credit is definitely not due. Then the hard-working students become frustrated, seeing a kind of injustice. No one wants to feel cheated, to have a peer succeed dishonestly, or to see a good system subverted.

So here’s the thing: Did that person succeed? Did he really? When a student “cheats” in here, all he’s done is get worse at everything that the world actually values. That vehicle for learning — the list of universal skills and traits — might as well be a car rusting on cinder blocks in the front yard. The student, having gotten away with wasting class time and ignoring feedback, has made himself more distracted and more disrespectful. He knows less now and can do less with the little he knows than his peers. He’s grown dishonest and cynical and selfish.

That’s… not really a victory. How do you imagine you would celebrate that? “Boy, I tricked him! I’m a terrible student! My life is going to be much harder now!”

I mean, yes, I’m upset about that, but not in a mustache-twirling kind of way8. I would like the world to be filled with respectful, creative people who take advantage of extraordinary opportunities to learn about themselves and the world around them. I hope you will make that world a better place through your intelligence and compassion. I believe in your potential, and I hate to see it wasted.

That’s all.

  1. Not in the FOMO sense, although that’s a concept worth studying, especially as a gateway to learning about the five-factor model of personality. There is a test you can take, the IPIP-NEO, that will generate a really rich set of data to unpack and analyze. It’s a way of getting to know yourself more completely, and that’s almost always a helpful thing. ↩

  2. “Metaphorically!” he shouted quickly, glancing at administration and laughing nervously. “Metaphorically decapitates you in the middle of class.” ↩

  3. Both of which you could legitimately do, if it was part of a unit of study you’d designed. You could write about these things, study them, read excellent ETA essays on them. You’d get more out of it. Why not do that? Why not take the extra five minutes to advocate thoughtfully for the very thing you are doing thoughtlessly? ↩

  4. The best kind of metacognition is uncomfortable, so this would be perfect: Why do you need to waste class time? Is it really that you’re wasting it, or is something more significant going on? What is your brain up to? ↩

  5. Again, you could probably write and read about this, if you were invested enough in the course to see how it connects to our work. Binge-watching culture is fascinating, and I’d want to help you unpack the reasons why that show had so transfixed you that it couldn’t wait another few hours. ↩

  6. Says the Camus-inspired website that has pitched Regents Exam prep in the past with a Kafka reference. ↩

  7. Try that out. Scroll down and ask a question. It’s never too late to engage with the interstitial elements of the course, and it is the easiest and fastest way to get feedback. ↩

  8. Although I wonder… In that scenario, who is Dudley Do-Right? ↩