Watchwellast

Here is a collection of media that can be used to work with and engage students around a wide range of everyday problems. These videos all come from a pretty cool YouTube Channel called Watchwellcast. This is a part of a project focused on working with and engaging students in ways that help them make positive changes and/or informed choices in their lives.

I hope to add more content to this page. Please consider leaving a comment with your suggestions for more video, poetry, short stories, still images, quotes, music videos and lyrics, art and books.

Alberta needs a strong public sector

This post first appeared on Krystal Kromm and Serge Gingras's Red Deer Alberta Party blog here.

Do you care about our public services like health, education, fire and police protection?

Take 5 and a half minutes and watch this video.

Creating and protecting public services require a strong government that represents the people and our values of fairness, empathy, responsibility and equality.

The private marketplace filled with ethical entrepreneurs is an important part of a strong economy. Public education, universal health care, fire and police services are not markets -- they occupy a public, not private, space that is driven not by private profits but by public service.

Some corporations and their political friends want to turn our public goods that are for everyone into private interests that profit an elite and wealthy few.

Here is how they are doing it:

1. Deliberately underfund public services.

2. Taxes for the wealthiest people and corporations are cut in a way that government claims that we spend too much and as a result, we “all” must address the deficit together with higher fees and new health care premiums.

3. Lack of funding erodes the quality, availability and accessibility of services.

4. People get more frustrated and lose confidence in the services.

5. Corporations and their political friends say that privatization is the answer.

In many cases, privatization of public goods has a proven track record of lower quality, less service, higher costs and greater risks to public safety. Too often, privatization means that Albertans pay more and get less.

Privatizing our health, education and services for seniors often changes the bottom line. When a service remains public, people remain the bottom line. When we privatize and corporations take over the delivery of services, there is a shift and the bottom line becomes more focused on profits and less on the needs of people.

Some private-public partnerships may work but they can not only be held accountable to shareholders whose interest is on profits. A transparent government should be truly accountable to all Albertans and provide the best care for our health, education and seniors, without the threat of privatizing our public services.

The Alberta Party understands that Alberta's health and wealth requires a diversified economy, a commitment to the environment, a strong public sector, a balanced budget and a strong social conscience.

Learn about the Alberta Party's Better Way here.

Best. Video. On Creativity. Ever

Take two minutes and watch this. Profound.

We are more than labels

Here's a cool video that I use with students to talk about the harmful affects of labels.

Hello My Name Is... from studiOrange on Vimeo.

Best. Substitute Teacher. Ever.

I will not let an exam result decide my fate

I wrote a post on this topic a couple years ago called No Test is Worth Learning For. I'm re-posting it below:

There's a big difference between learning something and then having a test, and learning something because you have a test.

Yes, we want to make sure that we have high standards for drivers, pilots, doctors, and engineers - both for their safety and ours. But we also want drivers, doctors and engineers who are passionate and caring about what they do for its own sake.

But our mania for testing and accountability has the same affect gambling and alcohol has on addicts. Just like the gambler who forgets about their loved one's while sitting at the Blackjack table, students, teachers and parents tend to forget about our love for learning when testsandgrades become the point of school.

In his article "Well, Duh!" -- Ten Obvious Truths That We Shouldn't Be Ignoring, Alfie Kohn writes:

1. Much of the material students are required to memorize is soon forgotten 

The truth of this statement will be conceded (either willingly or reluctantly) by just about everyone who has spent time in school -- in other words, all of us. A few months, or sometimes even just a few days, after having committed a list of facts, dates, or definitions to memory, we couldn’t recall most of them if our lives depended on it. Everyone knows this, yet a substantial part of schooling – particularly in the most traditional schools – continues to consist of stuffing facts into students’ short-term memories. 

The more closely we inspect this model of teaching and testing, the more problematic it reveals itself to be. First, there’s the question of what students are made to learn, which often is more oriented to factual material than to a deep understanding of ideas. Second, there’s the question of how students are taught, with a focus on passive absorption: listening to lectures, reading summaries in textbooks, and rehearsing material immediately before being required to cough it back up. Third, there’s the question of why a student has learned something: Knowledge is less likely to be retained if it has been acquired so that one will perform well on a test, as opposed to learning in the context of pursuing projects and solving problems that are personally meaningful. 

Even without these layers of deficiencies with the status quo, and even if we grant that remembering some things can be useful, the fundamental question echoes like a shout down an endless school corridor: Why are kids still being forced to memorize so much stuff that we know they won’t remember?

The only difference between a child who studies relentlessly (if not obsessively) everyday all semester and the kid who studies only the night before, madly cramming information into their brain hours before the test - is that the crammer forgets everything 15 minutes beforethe test while the studier forgets everything 15 minutes afterward.

There's a big difference between preparing kids for a life of tests and the tests of life. The former may have kids worried about failing their classes without realizing such a misguided distraction is a recipe for failing at life.


Making students, teachers and parents focus intensely on test scores makes for a great bumper sticker and consumption for the six o'clock news, but it offers nothing but a hollow promise for those interested in real learning.

Rise above the mark

I'm looking forward to this new documentary.

Best. Anti-Bullying Video. Ever.

To This Day by Shane Koyczan

To This Day
When I was a kid
I used to think that pork chops and karate chops
were the same thing
I thought they were both pork chops
and because my grandmother thought it was cute
and because they were my favourite
she let me keep doing it

not really a big deal

one day
before I realized fat kids are not designed to climb trees
I fell out of a tree
and bruised the right side of my body

I didn’t want to tell my grandmother about it
because I was afraid I’d get in trouble
for playing somewhere that I shouldn’t have been

a few days later the gym teacher noticed the bruise
and I got sent to the principal’s office
from there I was sent to another small room
with a really nice lady
who asked me all kinds of questions
about my life at home

I saw no reason to lie
as far as I was concerned
life was pretty good
I told her “whenever I’m sad
my grandmother gives me karate chops”

this led to a full scale investigation
and I was removed from the house for three days
until they finally decided to ask how I got the bruises

news of this silly little story quickly spread through the school
and I earned my first nickname

pork chop

to this day
I hate pork chops

I’m not the only kid
who grew up this way
surrounded by people who used to say
that rhyme about sticks and stones
as if broken bones
hurt more than the names we got called
and we got called them all
so we grew up believing no one
would ever fall in love with us
that we’d be lonely forever
that we’d never meet someone
to make us feel like the sun
was something they built for us
in their tool shed
so broken heart strings bled the blues
as we tried to empty ourselves
so we would feel nothing
don’t tell me that hurts less than a broken bone
that an ingrown life
is something surgeons can cut away
that there’s no way for it to metastasize

it does

she was eight years old
our first day of grade three
when she got called ugly
we both got moved to the back of the class
so we would stop get bombarded by spit balls
but the school halls were a battleground
where we found ourselves outnumbered day after wretched day
we used to stay inside for recess
because outside was worse
outside we’d have to rehearse running away
or learn to stay still like statues giving no clues that we were there
in grade five they taped a sign to her desk
that read beware of dog

to this day
despite a loving husband
she doesn’t think she’s beautiful
because of a birthmark
that takes up a little less than half of her face
kids used to say she looks like a wrong answer
that someone tried to erase
but couldn’t quite get the job done
and they’ll never understand
that she’s raising two kids
whose definition of beauty
begins with the word mom
because they see her heart
before they see her skin
that she’s only ever always been amazing

he
was a broken branch
grafted onto a different family tree
adopted
but not because his parents opted for a different destiny
he was three when he became a mixed drink
of one part left alone
and two parts tragedy
started therapy in 8th grade
had a personality made up of tests and pills
lived like the uphills were mountains
and the downhills were cliffs
four fifths suicidal
a tidal wave of anti depressants
and an adolescence of being called popper
one part because of the pills
and ninety nine parts because of the cruelty
he tried to kill himself in grade ten
when a kid who still had his mom and dad
had the audacity to tell him “get over it” as if depression
is something that can be remedied
by any of the contents found in a first aid kit

to this day
he is a stick on TNT lit from both ends
could describe to you in detail the way the sky bends
in the moments before it’s about to fall
and despite an army of friends
who all call him an inspiration
he remains a conversation piece between people
who can’t understand
sometimes becoming drug free
has less to do with addiction
and more to do with sanity

we weren’t the only kids who grew up this way
to this day
kids are still being called names
the classics were
hey stupid
hey spaz
seems like each school has an arsenal of names
getting updated every year
and if a kid breaks in a school
and no one around chooses to hear
do they make a sound?
are they just the background noise
of a soundtrack stuck on repeat
when people say things like
kids can be cruel?
every school was a big top circus tent
and the pecking order went
from acrobats to lion tamers
from clowns to carnies
all of these were miles ahead of who we were
we were freaks
lobster claw boys and bearded ladies
oddities
juggling depression and loneliness playing solitaire spin the bottle
trying to kiss the wounded parts of ourselves and heal
but at night
while the others slept
we kept walking the tightrope
it was practice
and yeah
some of us fell

but I want to tell them
that all of this shit
is just debris
leftover when we finally decide to smash all the things we thought
we used to be
and if you can’t see anything beautiful about yourself
get a better mirror
look a little closer
stare a little longer
because there’s something inside you
that made you keep trying
despite everyone who told you to quit
you built a cast around your broken heart
and signed it yourself
you signed it
“they were wrong”
because maybe you didn’t belong to a group or a click
maybe they decided to pick you last for basketball or everything
maybe you used to bring bruises and broken teeth
to show and tell but never told
because how can you hold your ground
if everyone around you wants to bury you beneath it
you have to believe that they were wrong

they have to be wrong

why else would we still be here?
we grew up learning to cheer on the underdog
because we see ourselves in them
we stem from a root planted in the belief
that we are not what we were called we are not abandoned cars stalled out and sitting empty on a highway
and if in some way we are
don’t worry
we only got out to walk and get gas
we are graduating members from the class of
fuck off we made it
not the faded echoes of voices crying out
names will never hurt me

of course
they did

but our lives will only ever always
continue to be
a balancing act
that has less to do with pain
and more to do with beauty.

Why I hate school but love education [video]

Consider taking 6 minutes and watch this video on how some people come to hate school despite their love for learning.

A conversation with Joe Bower: If you don't grade, how do you do summative assessment?

If you don't grade, how do you do summative assessment?

A conversation with Joe Bower: How does formative assessment influence students' motivation to learn?

How does formative assessment influence students' motivation to learn?

A conversation with Joe Bower: How did students react to a classroom without grades?

How did students react to a classroom without grades?

A conversation with Joe Bower: How has your teaching changed?

How has your teaching changed?

A conversation with Joe Bower: What teaching experience do you have?

What teaching experience do you have?

A conversation with Joe Bower: How did you become a teacher?

For the next week or so, I am going to post one short video a day where I talk about education.

How did you become a teacher?

5 minute video with Will Richardson

Take 5 minutes and watch this Will Richardson video.

The problem is poverty

Take three and a half minutes and watch this...




The question isn't whether public education can be improved -- rather, it's how can it be improved. But before we implement a solution, we need to be clear about the real problems that are plaguing public education and, more generally, society.

The problem with Public Education is not low test scores. Poverty is the single largest problem that plagues most education systems.

In his post What the U.S can't learn from Finland, Pasi Sahlberg writes:

First of all, although Finland can show the United States what equal opportunity looks like, Americans cannot achieve equity without first implementing fundamental changes in their school system. The following three issues require particular attention.

• Funding of schools:
Finnish schools are funded based on a formula guaranteeing equal allocation of resources to each school regardless of location or wealth of its community.

• Well-being of children:
All children in Finland have, by law, access to childcare, comprehensive health care, and pre-school in their own communities. Every school must have a welfare team to advance child happiness in school.

• Education as a human right:
All education from preschool to university is free of charge for anybody living in Finland. This makes higher education affordable and accessible for all.

As long as these conditions don’t exist, the Finnish equality-based model bears little relevance in the United States.

Linda Darling-Hammond writes in the Nation:

Inequality has an enormous influence on US performance. White and Asian students score just above the average for the European OECD nations in each subject area, but African-American and Hispanic students score so much lower that the national average plummets to the bottom tier. The United States is also among the nations where socioeconomic background most affects student outcomes. This is because of greater income inequality and because the United States spends much more educating affluent children than poor children, with wealthy suburbs often spending twice what central cities do, and three times what poor rural areas can afford. 

Alfie Kohn on the Majority Report puts it this way:

Talking about American education is like talking about the quality of American air. It depends where you are standing. The rich areas of this country do very, very well in comparison to people in any other part of the globe -- assuming you want to use test scores as your criteria. The reason we have problems on those rankings is mostly because the U.S has more poor children than almost any other industrial country. And in the poorer areas, the kids are in desperate trouble... The issues of inequity of a gap cannot be defined in terms of a gap in test scores, because when you try and correct that by pushing up the test scores in the inner cities, you make their education worse because the tests measure what matters least.

Even when we choose to use narrow measurements like the scores on international tests like the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), it's important to recognize the effects poverty have on a country's ranking. Scores and rankings for countries like the United States are deceiving. When you include all students, the United States doesn't score well because 1 in 4 American children live in poverty.

If we are not careful, we risk misinterpreting the data. Instead of waging war on poverty, we end up waging war on teachers and schools. The shadow industries that have been stalking public education for a very long time need the public as an accomplice. Profiteers like Joel Klein and Organization's like Michelle Rhee's Students First are:

promoting an agenda that many educators see as de-legitimizing the teaching profession; making standardized tests a holy grail of assessing students, teachers and schools, allowing private foundations to set the education agenda; and inviting for-profit companies to come into the public sector with programs that are designed primarily to make money for investors, not help kids.

You'll notice that the likes of Michelle Rhee and her minions at Students First never mention poverty.

As long as we continue to misidentify the problem as low scores on standardized tests, and ignore the real problem of poverty, we will continue to apply solutions that actually make the problem worse. It's important to note that the United States has never done well on these international tests so to claim they are some how falling behind in the test score race is a lie.

People who say poverty is no excuse are making excuses about doing nothing about poverty. Children never choose to live in poverty, but we can choose to provide all children with a more equitable education system.

If we want to make school and the world a better place for our children, we need to be better informed. And to get you started, here are but a few people and organizations you should familiarize yourself with in order to stay properly informed:
Diane Ravitch blog - twitter
Yong Zhao blog - twitter
Deborah Meier blog - twitter
Susan Ohanian blog - twitter
Stephen Krashen website - twitter
Alfie Kohn website - twitter
Valerie Strauss blog
Anthony Cody blog - twitter
Pasi Sahlberg blog - twitter
Will Richardson blog - twitter
Phil McRae website - twitter
Carol Burris twitter
Paul Thomas blog - twitter
Gary Stager blog - twitter
Fairtest website - twitter
Schools Matter blog
Alberta Teachers' Association website - twitter

Save libraries with book burnings?

This is nothing short of brilliant. How do we do this for education?

Personalized Learning Video

Here's a cool video by John Spencer on Personalized Learning and the kinds of shifts we need to make from our traditional, industrialized model of School.

Student made mashup video on Anorexia

Here's a mashup video that a student of mine created on eating disorders.