Dobber Fuhl of Socratic Spunk

Following last week's Ethics class, 7th grade Ethics teacher Adam Dobberfuhl reported that his Barnard homeroom engaged in a very honest discussion about cheating and the 7th grade maxim for courage, "get involved." His students resisted the idea that they have a responsibility to get involved when they witness another student cheating at school. He honored his students' objections with air time during the discussion and he mostly listened. As a result, he came to a clear understanding of exactly what many of his students were objecting to.

Mr. Dobberfuhl's students did not believe they were affected by the cheating of other students. I don't cheat, they said, but it's not my problem if somebody else does. I don't see why I should get involved.

What if it's your friend who is cheating? Wouldn't you want to help your friend shed this bad habit?

The response to this scenario was interesting. They would not get involved in this case, either, because the cheating, many argued, would eventually catch up with the cheater. The cheater would get caught, learn the lesson, never cheat again. If I just let nature takes its course, they reasoned, the bad habit would break itself. There's no need for me to get involved.

Mr. Dobberfuhl relayed all of this to me, and I was able to plant a slightly different take on the same theme in this week's Do Now. This time, it's on the bus. Charles, a popular 7th grader, witnesses Alex, his 6th grade cousin, being bullied. Charles chooses not to get involved, reasoning that eventually the bullies will grow up and leave poor Alex alone. Let nature take its course. No need to get involved.

In the call to begin, Mr. Dobberfuhl refers to last week's discussion and rehashes some of the points his students had made. He then promises to "poke some holes in this theory."

But it isn't Mr. Dobberfuhl who does the hole poking. The first student he calls on--we'll call him Kevin--is adamant: Charles definitely should get involved. His cousin Alex will get hurt while he lets nature take its course. That's not right.

Mr. Dobberfulh: But doesn't that contradict what you said last week, Kevin?

Kevin: No.

Mr. Dobberfuhl: Weren't you saying last week that you wouldn't get involved if your friend was cheating even though he was being hurt by this bad habit?

Kevin: No! I never said that!

Kevin's sheepish smile and the laughter of the Barnard homeroom reveal that Kevin was, in fact, one of the leading conscientious objectors last week.

There are twenty plus hands still up, waving. Mr. Dobberfuhl calls on Myra.

Myra: Charles should definitely get involved. It might go badly if he does, but if he doesn't he might get in trouble for not standing up for his cousin.

Mr. Dobberfuhl: So you would only get involved to avoid punishment?

Myra: No. That's not what I mean.

Mr. Dobberfuhl: Then what do you mean?

Myra: Charles' family would want him to stand up for his cousin.

Nolan: Yeah, if it's my family then I would definitely get involved.

Mr. Dobberfuhl: So now you're saying you would get involved?

He feigns a puzzled look.

Nearly every hand is up, but Mr. Dobberfuhl leaves them wanting more and transitions to today's reading on Harriet Tubman. There is a sense that this discussion is far from over.

Mr. Dobberfuhl resisted the soap-box urge in this instance. He knew that the students would make his point for him if he was able to draw it out of them with the right line of questioning (and perhaps a scenario they could relate to more easily). A science teacher by day, Mr. Dobberfuhl is very familiar with this kind of pedagogy. It would be fascinating to gather the data, but I would bet that 90% of what Mr. Dobberfuhl says during a typical class--ethics or science--is in the form of a question.

Socrates saw himself as a midwife, helping his students give birth to the truth. Like Socrates, Mr. Dobberfuhl, prefers to draw the truth out of his students rather than deliver it to them. He lets the students do the intellectual heavy lifting. The hard-won idea, the idea that the student has pieced together herself--her idea--is going to be more compelling to her than Mr. Dobberfuhl's.

There is a risk, though. They say good trial lawyers never ask a question unless they know exactly how the witness will answer it. The same holds for cross examining your students in Ethics Class. Going Socratic can backfire if you do not have a handle on how your students will approach a particular scenario or issue. Or, if you do not ask the right questions. In this case, a student's own hard-won idea, the one that is most compelling, then grows in opposition to yours. The student leaves the discussion with a greater sense of conviction, but maybe not in the direction you'd like. Maybe the student leaves the discussion about "getting involved" with a greater appreciation for her original notion of "mind your own business."

But Mr. Dobberfuhl has been at this long enough to know what questions to ask and how his students will typically answer them. And he's got a pretty good soap box tucked away in case he needs to drag it out.

Santos Sets New Mark for Single-Class CPM

Seventh grade Ethics teacher Fernando Santos shattered his own single-session record this morning, setting the new mark at an astounding 7.3 connections per minute (CPM).

Since the connections per minute statistic came into general use among educators during the early 1970s, no teacher has ever been able break the 7.0 barrier until today. Santos came close in 2008, posting an inspiring 6.8 CPM during a seventh grade History class about Egypt, a BPCPS record at the time and a mark which has stood until this morning.

Connections per minute refers to the number of connections the teacher makes to the personal experiences of students, to events in the life of the school, to current events outside the school, to the teacher's own life experience--in short, connections to anything compelling and familiar to students--during a typical minute of instruction.

Today, I observed Mr. Santos make the following connections while leading his advisory through the dialogue that introduced the seventh grade maxim for courage: get involved!

• A connection to one advisee's proudly displayed mohawk (getting involved often means doing what others are afraid to do and what might make you stick out)
• Tattoos (similar to the mohawk)
• A connection to superheroes (we like to imagine people who will intervene and protect the rest of us from crimes and other dangers)
• A stabbing over the weekend in Jamaica Plain (witnesses were reluctant to come forward with information)

Mr. Santos made these connections in fairly quick succession while students were reading today's text out loud. He allowed a very brief window for students to respond. Every hand was up, every student had a story to share. Mr. Santos gave everyone a few seconds of air time and then continued with the reading. The whole exchange lasted no more than two minutes (okay, so the 7.3 CPM is an exaggeration).

The point is that Mr. Santos, using only a few minutes of instruction, was able to connect the maxim for courage to something that he knew would be of interest specifically to the students who were in front of him. He knows his students, he knows what's happening in their lives--not necessarily in the lives of seventh graders generally but in the lives of those six particular seventh graders sitting at the Cafetorium table with him. He used this knowledge, and some impressive improv skills, to make the connection between something that might not yet seem relevant to his students, like the maxim for courage, to something that definitely is, like the mohawk. You can't put this stuff in a lesson plan.

In August, we talked about making Ethics instruction more immediately relevant to the lives of our students. Cranking up the CPM can certainly help in this effort.

Harris and Harbour Bring Text Alive

As compelling as Jackie Robinson's story might be, if students don't understand the text well enough, or if they fail to imagine vividly enough the trials of a young African-American baseball player breaking the Major League Baseball color barrier in the late 1940s, they will not identify with Robinson as a hero, or be inspired to discuss his struggle in much depth, and they will not be willing to look in the mirror and ask themselves if they have the strength of character to maintain focus and respect when they face similar adversity in their own lives.

Sixth grade Ethics teachers VaLonda Harris and Justin Harbour understand the importance of successful reading as a precursor to a fruitful discussion and effective Ethics lesson overall. This morning, I observed the effort and energy that each of them put into today's sixth grade Ethics reading.

While his students read aloud, Mr. Harbour paused frequently to check for understanding, showing patience and persistence in ensuring that every last student was following every last word of the text. In order to make certain his students were reading the text silently along with the out-loud reader, he broke the reading up unpredictably and called on different students to read--sometimes even changing readers in mid-sentence. You had to follow along with the group or you would not know where to pick up reading aloud if Mr. Harbour called on you.

There were the usual pre-prepared comprehension questions build into the reading, and Mr. Harbour addressed all of these with his students, but Mr. Harbour also went well beyond these questions to attack potential areas of confusion that the author of the lesson may not have anticipated. For example the word "segregated" appeared early in the text, and the concept of segregation played a pivotal role in the meaning of the text. While it is likely that many 6th grade students do know the meaning of "segregation," Mr. Harbour was not comfortable with the assumption that everyone in the room would know. So, taking at most two minutes, he very quickly led a couple of students to explain "segregation" and asked for its antonym (which would appear later in the text). A student was able to supply "integration" and an example. But it was clear during this brief micro lesson that there were students who did not understand the terms accurately. It would have been very difficult for them to get the full impact of the text, to appreciate the work of Jackie Robinson, and to contribute productively to the discussion that came after the reading.

Once you can be sure that all of your students know what all the words mean, there is still the work of effectively engaging their imagination, to get them to feel what Jackie Robinson must have felt.

Ms. Harris interrupted the text from time to time, not only to check for understanding, but to check for appropriate engagement with the text. The text read, "...but through it all, Jackie Robinson never lost his cool."

"He never lost his cool," Ms. Harris repeated and let the words sink in a bit. Then, she helped her students conjure the scene in their minds. "Imagine what that must have been like... Imagine being called every racist insult you've ever heard--even by your own teammates--imagine opposing players sliding into you with their spikes up, cutting into your leg, the umpire calling you out when you are safe stealing second by a mile, the fans throwing their trash at you, screaming insults at you, booing you... And you are able to keep your cool, brush yourself off, and focus on what you need to do, focus on your job..."

Now the students got it. Now they understood the story.

Every week, middle school teachers at Boston Prep are handed a plan and a pile of materials for an Ethics lesson. A bunch of papers with a bunch of words. But it's the singer, not the song. It's what the teacher does with the words on the page that really matters.

Shuman Pushes for Honesty, Holds His Ground

I had the pleasure of observing Matt Shuman's 8th grade Ethics class yesterday during a particularly risky lesson focusing on anti-gay bullying in schools. The students read a piece about Jamie Nabozny who was brutally harassed and bullied in middle school and high school and who now tours the country speaking about his experiences and advising schools and other organizations.

Mr. Shuman had clearly established a culture within his advisory that allows students to feel safe expressing honest opinions and asking sincere questions related to highly charged issues. One student--we'll call him Darryl--proposed that perhaps Jamie Nabozny had brought the harassment upon himself.

"If nobody knew he was gay, then he wouldn't have been bullied like that. Maybe if he wasn't so out in the open about it and just minded his own business, then people would leave him alone."

I was certainly tempted to call the foul: "That's blaming the victim! You can't blame the victim!" But, as an observer and not the teacher in this case, I suppressed the urge as well as I could.

Mr. Shuman didn't call the foul either. "That's an interesting point, Darryl." And then he turned to another student--we'll call her Julianna--whose hand had shot right up in response to Darryl.

"He shouldn't have to pretend he's something that he isn't!" Julianna protested. "He should just be able to be who he is."

There followed a lively discussion, which Mr. Shuman brought to a close with an analogy of his own.

"Here's the way I think about it," he began. "Javonne is Haitian, right?" He nodded towards Javonne who proudly displayed a Haiti wristband. A round of snaps followed, indicating enthusiastic solidarity from many in the group.

"Should Javonne stop being so Haitian?"

No, of course not, seemed to be the consensus. Even Darryl had to agree that Javonne had the right to be openly Haitian without fear of harassment.

"It might be easier for you to identify with being Haitian than being gay," Mr. Shuman acknowledged. "But it's really the same issue, right? There's something wrong if you have to hide who you are to avoid being beaten."

Darryl got it. The other students got it.

In this discussion, Mr. Shuman allowed himself a small but very effective soapbox moment. The timing of it was crucial. Had he chosen to shut Darryl down initially, he would have sent the message that the teacher's opinion is the only one that really matters. Students then feel pressure to say only what they think Mr. Shuman wants to hear. Or, Ethics Class becomes a weekly battleground, Mr. Shuman vs. his advisory. Either way, there is little potential for learning.

It was important that Mr. Shuman allowed Darryl to air his thoughts. It was equally important that Mr. Shuman aired his own. He wasn't contentious about it--"Here's the way I think about it..."--but he was clear about his conviction. Our students need us to weigh in, to reveal and justify our ethical beliefs, and to model adult ways of approaching difficult ethical problems. They need us to listen, but they also need us to lead.