R. Tyler Horner

Autonomy In the Classroom

Maybe it’s because I have written curriculum for two districts now and can see the overlap. Maybe it’s because I have taught all three grades of middle school history. Maybe it’s because I like to help people. Maybe it’s because I like to fix things.

All these things are true statements and reasons I’ve always given up time in my own personal curriculum to help introduce students to the 8th grade curriculum. For the first time this year I heard a dissenting opinion during a district meeting. The teacher outlines a very well thought out opinion that they should not have to teach any material that pertains to the tested 8th grade curriculum. It shocked me that someone would say such a thing, but the more I thought about it, the more the debate raged on in my head.

If it is acceptable to ask teachers in non-tested grades to teach some of the tested standards, in Texas it needs to start in the 6th grade. There is not much overlap from grade to grade, but the conceptual vocabulary definitely can be taught. When I taught 6th grade I focused on the US Government, the ideas of Revolution and Colonization, and really tried to get the students to understand how natural resources determine a civilization’s economy. In 7th grade there is more overlap with 8th grade US History. I usually tried to compare the colonization of Texas to the colonization of the United States, really focus on Westward Expansion, and taught the full 8th grade TEK driven Civil War and Reconstruction units. The question I always asked myself was, “do I really believe that students are carrying over knowledge from 6th and 7th grade to 8th grade?” My answer was usually no, but the more times the students are exposed to the material the more likely it is to stick in the heads. This also wasn’t burdensome for my classroom because I was already teaching those concepts.

As I thought about what it would be like to not have taught those concepts, I think about the freedom that would give me. I think about all the other ways I could have taken those concepts in my classroom. It also made me wonder whether that is good for the student or good for the teacher. We all prefer to teach the way we want and how we would like to teach it, but is that good for the student? In some ways it would be to the student’s benefit because they could potentially have a more passionate teacher who is teaching things a way that they are super passionate about. The case that was made to me was that the overlap is what non-tested classes should focus on. In the case of history this means social studies skills, reading skills, and writing skills. I’m completely on board with these things. My counterpoint to this is that if the teacher is already going to be teaching something in their classroom, why not go ahead and help the teacher who will be tested some day?

I guess when it comes down to it, this debate is whether you think that it is valuable to be willing to give up a little of your own time for the betterment of your students or not. I, personally, will always side on the side of the students and their needs not my own wants and desires. I want my kids to understand as much material as they can in as easy a way as possible. I want the teachers that come after me in line to have an easier time with their curriculum than I have with mine. Does that always work? No. But I’d like to think I’m helping in some small way.

A Case For More Vertical Alignment

In my seven years of teaching, no topic has come up in my history departments as much as vertical alignment. Middle school history is super challenging in this regard because our curriculum doesn’t overlap as much as other subjects. That being said, I would like to make the case that vertical alignment is one of the most important things we can do as history teachers.

First, the students do not care about vertical alignment. In fact, they do not care at all about most things we think about as teachers. They are mostly ego-centric beings swimming in a sea of hormones. Given this fact, why should we even care about vertical alignment. By not being a unified front, the students have shown their weakness…or at least a potential weakness. Imagine if our students all came together and acted as one to get what they wanted. How scary would that be? If we as a history team can use the same academic vocabulary, teach concepts in similar ways, and have common goals for the learning goals of our students, isn’t that more powerful than simply doing what we want? If we expect to change the culture and how our students learn, isn’t it better to work together with other professionals toward a common goal?

Second, the kids have summer break in between grades. Maybe that’s overly simplistic. Kids struggle to retain things they learn from year to year. If our history departments teach as lone wolves, it’s going to be increasingly harder to get the students back in the swing of things. Humans are creature of habit, so if they have a comfort level doing things a certain way, why would you not continue things that effective?

The thing about vertical alignment is that we all are opinionated. We all think our way is the best. But what if “our” personal preferences aren’t as good for the team? Does the kid’s learning mean more or does our personal preference mean more? It’s uncomfortable to compromise, but before you protest with vertical alignment think of the kids.

In the beginning

The beginning of the school year is full of new possibilities. New teachers are learning their craft and putting theory into practice for the first time. Experienced teachers are refining their craft and becoming a better teacher day by day. There are plenty of ways people start anew each August and the more times I go through this the more I reflect on what makes any new school better than another. Here are a few of my musings.

Try something new every school year. The quickest way to become a boring, soulless educator is to stop innovating and become stagnant. Make it a point at the beginning of every school year to try something in a new way or try a new strategy you’ve been meaning to try. For me this shows my students in a small way that I’m willing to take the risks that I’m asking them to take in class. It also reminds me in a small way that I’m not a finished product and need to keep reinventing things and seeing growth in new ways. This year I’m trying to relate to my students better from the start. I’m diving into their lives and working with them in ways I never have before. I’m also sponsoring a student group to get to know students in a different set circumstances.
Be flexible. This is not in my natural skill set. I want to be someone who goes with the flow and isn’t rattled by anyone, but that’s just not me. I like a little bit of control in the classroom and when I don’t feel like the kids are responding to me in certain ways I get easily frustrated. At the beginning of the school year especially I have to remind myself that things happen and I need to just go with it. Students are figuring me out and I’m figuring them out and that takes time. I usually have to harken back to my days coaching c-team football and laugh a lot more than I get angry.
Communicate, communicate, communicate. It’s my belief that 99% of the problems in a school could be solved or de-escalated by better communication. I like to try and have as many face-to-face conversations as I can at the beginning of the school year because it forces me to learn about everyone in the building. If I can’t meet face to face I’ll try and call them on the phone. It’s not ideal, but at least you can understand the tone of the person you’re talking to. Lastly I’ll e-mail someone if I can’t reach them any other way. It’s the least personal and most frustrating.

These ideas are nothing new, they just help me reframe my mentality to that I can make the most of the beginning of the school year. Ideally I’m using these all year, but I really like to emphasize them the first few weeks of school.

Do Creations Have Rights?

I enjoy going to the movies, and I don’t need my movies to be filmed in revolutionary ways or have unusually deep plot lines. When it comes down to it I really want to be entertained for a few hours. Recently I’ve noticed a current flowing through movies set in the not too distant future: Do things we create have inherent rights?

The first movie I remember having this theme was made in the 1980s, Short Circuit. I loved this movie because not only did a robot get made, but somehow a lightning strike rendered him alive and apparently gave Johnny 5 a personality. I’m no computer scientist, but I’m not sure a lightning strike would give a robot the ability to think, feel, and show emotion to humans. The basic premise was that Johnny 5 wanted to stay alive by whatever means necessary. At first he was a happy-go-lucky robot without a care in the world. By the end of the movie he was actively fighting “the man” to keep himself alive. I remember thinking as a child watching this movie that this was so ridiculous and that there would never be a day where computers would be able to think…guess I was wrong.

There have been other movies that have similar plot lines in some ways like Chappie and Wall-e, but I recently saw a movie that brings this issue to life for me in a way that I never thought about…

I’ve always loved the movie Jurassic Park, but for some reason I never thought we would get to a place in my lifetime that people would be splicing genes together to create new species. I went and saw Jurassic World recently and it brought the issue of whether creations have rights. At this point in the Jurassic series, there are people in the corporation that would like to turn some of the dinosaurs into weapons of war. When they are questioned by other management/ownership level employees, one character makes the comment that, ” we created them, they have no rights.” Other movies have attempted to bring up similar situations, but this one really stuck with me and made me think.

Seeing that I teach history, it got me thinking of historical situations that were similar to this. Too often we focus on what we are doing in the moment without thinking about what may have happened in the past and how it can inform the present. I came up with two parallels:

Slavery – Immediately my US History teacher brain went back to colonial slavery (although any slavery works for this). We chose a group of people that only had a limited ability to fight back and we forced them to work for us. This is similar only in so much as we took the inherent rights of all people that our European forefathers outlines for us in the English Bill of Rights and our US forefathers outlined in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Were they of a different race? Sure. But they were still human beings that we subjugated and forced to do our bidding. I think we can all look back and see why slavery is wrong, right?
Children – I’m not going to to claim to have the answers to this, but let’s just say that there are all kinds of debates going on about how much control parents have over their children. It starts with the heated debate over abortion, and there are passionate arguments on both sides. Moving forward a little bit, there are children who have divorced their parents…which seems weird to me. I’ve even had arguments with my students in class about what rights children have. There are a lot of hazy gray areas in the area of children and rights. I’m not sure this helps do anything but muddy the waters on our current debate.

Reflecting a little bit on the history of rights and creation/subjugation, I would say that we need to think long and hard about the moral ramifications of creation. If you neglect your child (or your pets even) you are considered a criminal. Do those penalties follow us if we create a computer that learns, but we neglect it? We are quickly moving from an age where we need to move away from the question of “can I create this?” and toward the questions of “should I create this?” and “what are the potential problems with creating this?” Not that we’ll be able to predict everything, but we should at least try.

To Textbook or Not to Textbook

The state of Texas has decided that this is the year that Social Studies gets to purchase new textbooks. And why shouldn’t they, it’s only been twelve years since the last textbook adoption for Social Studies. As a brief aside, think about that for a moment…what in your life has been around for more than twelve years. Twelve years ago I had just graduated from college, unmarried, and wondering what I was going to do with my life. All that is beside the point though. As I sat in a meeting listening to different textbook publishers extolling the virtues of their product and subtly bashing the other publishers, I began to realize that maybe publishers have gone beyond the requirements for a textbook.

First of all, textbook publishers seem to think that all teachers have no brain and would like for someone to do their jobs for them. All of the publishers we looked at had pre-made lesson plans designed to cover all the TEKS we need to cover. While I appreciate all the time spent on all the lesson plans, I’ll never use any of them. I’d also like to survey all teachers and see how many would plan on using any of these lesson plans except in extreme scenarios. I’m not saying that there are zero scenarios where these would be useful, but I’m saying they should be the exception, not the rule. If districts see it beneficial for a teacher to use textbook curriculum rather than design lessons to meet the needs of their students, why even bother certifying teachers in the first place?

Second, every publisher hyped up their outside partnerships with other content specific experts, but do I need that? Publishers attempted to sell us that documentaries, foldables, mind-maps, animations, visuals, primary sources, and audio content were top of the line and that only they have access to them. In reality, little to none of the content was designed specifically for their textbook from these outside agencies. I can access almost all of the useful material without buying the textbook because it was made for other purposes and was copied and pasted into the textbooks. I could at least make the argument that the textbooks could be more useful and cost a lot less for the districts if they left out all these partnerships and concentrated on their textbook.

The main benefit I saw with the publishers is that they are making the long, slow transition into the digital age. Publishers, by nature, prefer print media, but the rest of the world prefers digital media. All the publishers we looked at had some sort of online component that could be used on either a computer or smart phone. Some of the publishers did it better than others, but all attempted digital content. Until 100% of students have access to the internet at home, textbooks will be necessary, but at least they are starting the transition.

Textbooks are not the devil. I choose not to use them in my classroom as much as the publishers would like, but I do see benefits of textbooks in the classroom. I wonder if publishers assume too many teachers need their bloated offerings to do their job. I also wonder if all this bloat is “necessary” or ” trying to make districts feel good about their purchase”.

Badges, We Don’t Need No Stinkin Badges

I’ve never been a badge guy. It’s not that I don’t like showing off my accomplishments or don’t like little rewards along the way. I’ve never gone out of my way to do things to get badges. I’ve tried to give out badges in my classes, but I’ve never followed through to consistently give them out in my class. Recently, my district has started giving out badges for using technology in the classroom and for the first time, the allure of badges is working.

Let me start off by saying that I have not become obsessed with badges, and frankly there are few people who do get obsessive about such things. I have not suddenly started twitching and showing signs of badge addiction. Believe me when I say that I will not be joining a “badges anonymous” group any time soon.

When my district sent out a website outlining the various badges you could earn, I laughed a little under my breath. I figured that I would get to it when I could, and that’s precisely what I did. The e-mail sat in my inbox for a couple of weeks until I had some “free time”. I had a couple of minutes before my next class, so I browsed the list of possible badges. Most of the technology I have used in class before, but there were a few I had never heard of, but maybe I would get to applying for some badges later.

I thought that I had forgotten about the badges all together, but then I found myself thinking about how I’d used some of them in class. Then all of a sudden I found myself asking my wife if she had heard about some of these things that I had not. As I was getting ready to go to bed later that week, I found myself looking some of these things up on my iPad lying in bed. A little nagging desire to know what everything was and how I could use them in class…and it would not leave my brain.

I also started asking questions about the possible badges. “Why did they choose these products over all the other ones out there?” “Why should I use this product that will get me a badge over something I’m more comfortable with?” “Who is choosing this list?” I started interacting with the material on a level that I had not intended.

In the end, I’ve applied for two badges and received three. I’m not going out of my way to earn badges, but I’m at least willing to consider these services. And that’s the point, isn’t it? The point of the badge system isn’t to have 100% of students earn every badge, it’s to have students think critically about their choices and be introspective.

Badges – 1
My Preconceived Notions – 0

Stressing Like a Rock Star

it’s that time of year. The holiday season is over, back to the grind, standardized tests are looming. In my previous years of teaching I have seem stress levels increase and was able to provide some stress relief. This year, with state testing looming large a few months from now, my stress level has gone up a lot. Throw into the mix that a few visits to my classroom (which I welcome) and some big time illnesses spreading around my household and that makes for a week to remember. With all that said, I had to remind myself of a few things and cling to the things I know to be true in my classroom to pull me through.

Confide in someone. For me this was easy, my wife is always my sounding board for stressors in my life. This week however, she was sick and that took its toll on my mental health. I tried to confide in her without overwhelming her sick condition with my stress. At the end of the week, when all was well in my house, I took the opportunity to really confide in my wife and that cures a lot of stress. She provided me with perspective and reason that gets lost in the shuffle sometimes.
Know that you’re doing the right thing in your classroom. This presupposes that your doing the right thing in the classroom. I took some time this past week to reexamine some choices I’ve made for my classroom this year. While I can immediately list some things I would like to change next year, I also see the track that is leading to achievement in my classroom. I also have a plan for preparing for what is to come in my classroom. Just reiterating the plans for my classroom reminded the little voice inside my head that yes, we are on the right track.
Take some alone time. I really enjoy time to sit and think without the need for conversation. That being said, I also have a toddler and a pregnant wife who like to talk with me. I had to be very intentional to get away from people and spend some time thinking about things that don’t revolve around my classroom. It was very therapeutic for me.

I know that these stresses are managed not done away with, but my weekend has included all of the following. I have refueled my confidence and I’m ready to reenter the fray of public education. Thank goodness for a weekend of recentering myself!

Finding My Voice…Again

I think something that was under-sold to me as a beginning teacher is the need to find your voice as an educator. I would look at other teachers and think that they had it all figured out and I wished I could be more like them. This school year has been a wakeup call for me in a lot of ways because I have to relearn everything I knew about school operations and at the same time learn a completely new content. Throw on top that I have never been in a tested subject before and it has been quite a whirlwind for me. Throughout this year I have learned the importance of teaching style and working alongside people who think differently than you do.

Until this year I have never taught early US history in my life. As I reflect, I know that I have taken this course before, but I can’t really remember when. I have helped with tutoring for state testing before this year, but other than that I have little recollection of what happened in US history. I knew that I could probably create all the curriculum I would need on my own, but that seemed like a lot of trial and error along the way. The other team for my grade has a very good US history teacher so why would I not learn from her?

As the year has progressed, I’ve found myself less and less enthusiastic about the content that I’m teaching. At first I really couldn’t understand why that was, but as I reflected more I found that it was because I was teaching through my co-worker’s voice and not my own. In this case, it’s completely necessary for me to learn from her and do some similar things in my classroom, but I don’t know that our rooms will ever be carbon copies ever again.

Teaching Linear or Concept Based History

In some ways I think that History teachers are complete traditionalists. We look back into the past and try and translate the virtues and vices of people from the past and make it relevant to future generations. It seems we have a built in excuse for “good ole boy” syndrome because everyone in the past seems like a larger than life character. Sometimes we need to break the mold of traditionalism and move with the times of teaching. In the case of history, it seems this comes down to whether you teach sequentially through history or if you teach in a concept based curriculum. I would like to have a more definite opinion about the topic, but I am still in process. I can say though that the choice for a US history teacher is less clear than I thought it might be.

I overhear teachers from time to time snicker under their breath at the idea of teaching linear, sequential history. Concept based teaching is all over the place and with changing times comes an idea that newer is always better. I will agree that there are certain things I despise about linear history such as the roller coaster of interest in US history. Maybe this changes from teacher to teacher, but I would say that there is relatively high interest in the US Revolution, the Civil War, and to a lesser extend the colonial period. Conversely, there is very little inherent interest in the Constitution and early republic units. I would say that these may partially be inherent to the age of history and partially because of my interests in the history I teach, but they exist nonetheless. Linear history also can make it difficult to compact history into understandable chunks. When we get to the sectionalism section of our curriculum it is difficult for students to remind themselves the extreme differences in the colonies that would lead to the Civil War. Curriculums are also not equitable in how much time we spend on each unit. I have heard a myriad of reasons (excuses?) for this over the years ranging from revisionist history to personal preference to the weight of the TEKS on the unit. If we are to believe that all US history is important, could we not be more equitable in the amount of time we spend on each unit? Each of these indictments are not a deal breaker in my mind for teaching history sequentially, but they are things that we need to be intentional about in our teaching of history curriculum. I think we as teachers are aware of these difficulties, but the question is how are we working in our classrooms to minimize these difficulties. In “good ole boy” history classrooms, I would say these are not even considered because that’s the way they’ve always been taught history. While this can be the stereotypical old guard history classroom, there are some things that are of great benefit in this classroom. Foremost on my mind is that we do justice to history by telling it how it happens. We can see cause and effect relationships in things, we can decide for ourselves what characteristics of eras are when we learn history the way it happens. If we teach without the surrounding context we lose something beautiful in history: the beautiful way our history fits together to make us who we are. If we do the hard work of making connections and generalizations for our students we rob them of some of the beauty of history. We also are given the ability to revisit concepts multiple times because, oddly enough, history repeats itself. We are constantly dealing with similar events, causes, effects, and relationships in the course of history so why not use those as an opportunity to revisit these ideas? The least important reason that we should consider sequential history (at least in Texas) is that our standards are written that way. I am not saying that my state has it right or that we should teach to a test, but I am saying that they have written their standards in a way that makes sense for a sequential teaching of US history. For my first year of US history, I have taught through mostly sequentially and it has helped me understand how history fits together. I am not convinced that this is the best way, but there are some definite advantages.

In many history circles, sequential history is considered archaic. Why would we teach kids things in order? We need to get them to look at things from a macro level and the way to do that is to use common themes running through history to make connections. As with sequential history, there are some things that need to be at least considered if you want to make this your teaching method of choice. The biggest issue is that sequencing of history can be completely thrown out. My state standards place an importance on being able to formally and informally sequence things in history. They also are very good at providing a quote with a date on it and expecting the students to be able to place it in time and answer a question about its time in history. If you do not have an idea of relative sequencing in history it is going to be almost impossible to answer these types of questions. A good life skill for kids to have is the ability to figure out where in history something happens, but it is almost impossible if a student doesn’t understand the flow of history. My biggest pet peeve of conceptual history is that often the concepts are personal preference and may put emphasis on areas of history that have no bearing on US history or the future history content. Ideally student’s history knowledge builds on itself year after year. If my concepts in US history do not lead to the growth to their ninth grade year, have I robbed my students of growth they would have gotten in an old school history class? Again, these are not reasons to not to teach conceptually, these are things that need to be compensated for in the classroom. With that being said, conceptual history does have some distinct advantages. By covering similar instances at the same time, it allows for very good discussion of important topics. If I had the ability to have a good, well informed class discussion about “which of the United States’ wars was the most revolutionary?” without having to reteach the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812 to do so that would be awesome. Using the same thought process, it is easier to see how things change over time. You can talk about how the tactics in the Revolutionary War would or would not have worked for the Civil War or similar topics. Conceptual history education also allows for the educator to show their passion for specific topics to compensate for less interesting parts of the history curriculum. Talking about how democracy has changed over time is far more interesting than learning the principles of the constitution in a vacuum. Conceptual history, while being the method du jure in history circles, has its ups and downs that need to be compensated for.

What is best for kids is always on my mind as an educator. I want my students to hold on to and retain as much of my content as I possibly can. To do so, I need to remove as many barriers to learning as I possibly can and compensate for those that cannot be removed. I constantly struggle and debate about whether conceptual or sequential history is the best way to teach history curriculum, and I think that is a good place to be. As a wise educator once taught me, “learning happens in the struggle.”

A New Beginning

This summer has been summarized by change. I’m changing schools, school districts, and subjects taught. The thing I’m most excited about is that I’m going to be closer to home. My commute wasn’t awful, but now I’ll work about ten minutes away from where I live. This is going to allow me to work with kids in my community and hopefully allow me to bring about change for the good in my area of Denton. I was so sad to say goodbye to Coppell, but it was a move that I had been thinking and praying about for a long time.

The other main change that I’ve been thinking a lot about is leaving the G/T classroom for a district that does not have a specifically gifted history classroom. In my new district they have Pre-AP as their only distinctive grouping. I’m not going to start a debate for one and against another because that’s not productive at all. The change is stirring up philosophical questions for me like, “is separating gifted kids what is best for everyone?”, “what is the best way to break up students into leveled groups?”, and “how will my teaching need to change given my new context?” I’m not sure that I have answers to any of these questions, but I’ll be wrestling with them throughout the next few school years for sure.