PERSONAL RENOVATIONS

Jeff Anderson

When my wife, Carole, and I purchased our first home we were excited. It is an older, smallish house with loads of character and charm. Not long after we moved in we had a typical experience.

Jeff, the tap in the second floor bathroom is dripping and the girls are having a hard time turning off the tap. Could you please take a look at it?"
"I'm going to fix that this weekend, "I replied about two weeks later when the drip started keeping us up at night.
"How long do you think this is going to take? "Carole asked on the appointed Saturday morning.
"Oh not long, I just need to take off the tap and pull the cylinder out. I think there is a little washer on the bottom of that piece that must be worn out. That's probably why we can't turn the tap off. It should only take about fifteen minutes plus the trip to the store, half hour should do it."

Things are never as they seem!

I grab my screw driver and a crescent wrench and trudge up the stairs. I hope I'm right, I think to myself. I check to see how to shut off the water for the sink and find out there is not a separate shut off valve. "I'm going to have to turn off the water to fix this," I state, as I make my way back down to the basement to turn the water off at the main line, "so if you think you might need some water you should fill up a few pots."
There is a lot of rust around the screw. I can hardly find the slot for the screwdriver. On the first turn the screw top crumbles to the point that there is no slot left.
"Aarrgh!"
"What's wrong?" Carole calls out, recognizing my plea for attention.
"Oh the screw is stripped. I can't get the tap handle off to get at the cylinder. I have to replace the whole faucet. Everything is corroded."
"Do you know how to do that?"
Well, yesterday I was talking to a guy at work who does a lot of renovations himself. He said it's not hard but I think I'm going to have to break the plastic handles off to get the faucet out. We aren't going to need them anyway if we buy a new one."
"Maybe you should call my dad," Carole suggests, with a hintish tone to her voice.
I pick up the phone and talk to my father-in-law who lives in Brandon.
"Yes they are old dull gray looking pipes," I answer my-father-in law's question.
He suggests," Take a pipe wrench and disconnect the taps under the sink. Maybe you can get the faucet off that way."
"I don't have a pipe wrench," I respond. This was beginning to look like more than I had bargained for. I had no idea how to do plumbing. I don't have any of the proper tools.
I borrow a pipe wrench from a neighbor and return to the scene. With the borrowed wrench I begin the task.
I place the wrench on the connection of the two pipes and try to twist. "It's stuck," I mutter to myself. I push harder. CLUNK!
"Aarrgh!"
"What happened, what was that noise?" Carole asks on her way up the stairs. As I pull myself out from under the sink I say to her, "The pipes were so old that when I tried to disconnect the two sections they snapped."
"Please call my dad back, maybe he can come in and help you fix this," Carole wisely suggests.
"Well what did he suggest?" Carole asks with hope in her voice.
"He said I should try and get a piece of flexible pipe and connect the two ends with clamps. I don't think that will work because the pipe is broken off inside the wall. I asked him if there was a possibility of him coming in to help."
About four hours later Wally and I are standing in the bathroom surveying the situation when he turns to me and says with that this-is-going-to-be-a-big-job kind of sigh in his voice," We may as well replace the whole works. We are going to have to tear up the bathroom floor and knock holes in the wall anyway. Why don't you go downstairs and measure how much pipe we'll need and try and figure out the types of joints we should have. I'll start taking out the old pipes." He stoops, picks up a hammer and starts to break holes in the tile wall above the bathtub," this is probably the best place to go in. Its a straight line from here to your intake and your hot water heater."
I just start on my way to the basement to get my measuring tape.
About forty-eight hours, three hundred dollars, twenty trips to the plumbing store, and countless trips to a chemical pail in the garage later, the house had been entirely re-plumbed. Not a bad weekend's work, but not exactly what I had set out to do.
It was incredibly exciting to turn on the water again and have it flow as expected. It was so exciting that I started to appreciate plumbing in a whole new way. I noticed it everywhere. I also began to notice that the tub was starting to look a little shabby and the hole in the bathroom tile would take some time to get used to but now I had some experience with this fix-it game, which is good because this was just the beginning, these other jobs would just need to wait until I had the time and energy.

This incident was several years ago but the episode has stuck with me and has become an apt metaphor for my action research inquiry.

…The tap in the second floor bathroom is dripping…

With a feeling of utter satisfaction I gather my things and slip the video tape under my arm. With an enthusiastic air of self importance I make my way to the staff room to get my coat. On my way to the staff room I meet a colleague in the hall.
"You're leaving early, where are you going?" he inquires.
"I'm on my way to meet with Dr. Gordon Wells, do you remember the name, he spoke at the symposium last week."
"Oh yeah, I think I read one of his books, what are you meeting him for?"
"Do you have a minute I'd love to tell you?" I asked, fully prepared to tell anyone who asked all about my plan.
"Sure," he said," I'm on duty I've got all noon hour." He took a sip of his coffee.
"I am thinking of taking my M.Ed. Program through the program that the division is sponsoring," I started with some pride. I had always fancied the idea of graduate studies but didn't really think I could get in. "Last week all the people that are interested were asked to come to the symposium to hear Dr. Wells speak about teacher research. After the session I got quite excited about the whole enterprise because the research is done in the class so it seems to have some real relevance. This afternoon we are meeting again to hear some more specifics about the whole idea. Dr. Wells asked us to bring an idea or a videotape of a classroom activity that represents the kind of things that go on in our classrooms to share with the group. I think his intention is to help us talk about the ways we could turn our ideas into research on our class."
"That sound interesting," he said encouragingly," is that the video under your arm?"
"Yes," I responded with a flush. I was excited about what was on the tape. Without waiting for the next question I started to explain what I had done. (He did say he had all noon hour.) "We have been covering government in social studies and I have set up the desks in my room like the House of Commons. Lately some of the students in the room have been fooling the couch that I brought in this year and so I took it away. The students didn't think that was fair but I wanted them to appreciate it so I asked them to write a bill governing behavior on the couch. We talked about the whole process of writing a bill and all the stages the legislation would have to go through. The students were engaged because they really wanted the couch back. They felt they knew the source of the problem but they checked out their conclusions with some outside observers before they wrote the bill. They finally got a bill together, had three readings, with the debate and revisions along the way, and passed the bill."
"Great," he said with enthusiasm," Real stuff!"
"I know," I continued almost without taking a breath," it was great. Then, just as they thought they were getting the couch back, I introduced the idea of the senate," I added with a slight laugh. "When, the whole process was finished and we had returned the couch to it's place of honor in the reading corner I thought we would have a class discussion on the parliamentary process."
My patient listener commended me," That sounds fabulous; a real life situation integrated into the social studies program. Good luck this afternoon."

Wow! I was pleased with the way things had unfolded. A class discussion on parliament and the value of the parliamentary process. In addition, I was proudly video-taping the whole discussion to share with my colleagues as my example of the kinds of activities My students were engaged in.

This is exactly what I wanted to do my research on, classroom discussions as a teaching strategy. I would just attend this lecture, get some nifty tips on how to formalize the teacher research process and start the courses.

The video now securely stowed under my arm had all the final classroom discussion recorded and it moved through the halls with the same satisfied calm and proper slowness as I did. I'm sure it flushed with me as we received the good wishes and made for the car, was I ever proud. I had every reason to be. This had been one of the most successful class discussions we had had all year. All I needed now was to get some idea of how to turn this into an inquiry and I was off.
Shouldn't take very long.
Moving to my place at the table I was hopefully anxious there would be opportunity for my tape to be played. Then the reality hit me. Forty-five minutes might be a bit long for the purposes of this meeting. So as the group was assembling I started to try and remember some "highlights" for public view. I stared at the box on the table in front of me trying to visualize the contents. Try as it might to help me the video was of no use and because the discussion had gone so well I did not remember having as sense of the time so I could not even say oh, about ten minutes in, or half way through. Reluctantly I resigned myself to the fact that I would have to take my new friend home and become more familiar with the contents.
With my supportive wife by my side and a cold beverage in hand I started the tape. I grabbed some paper and pencil and got ready to scribble down the numbers where the "highlights" could be found and a few thoughts that would be helpful in setting the context for the group.
"You seem quite excited," Carole prompted.
"This was a really amazing discussion today Carole. After the meeting with Dr. Wells I really think I'm on the right track. The kids were right there today. They were quiet and with me the whole class. They really seemed to understand the idea of the parliamentary process. The discussion went so well. If I could teach like that every day we could really do some neat things."
"That's great," Carole said with a smile.
We settled in to watch the tape. After I noticed that my voice sounded different on tape, and that the pants I was wearing were a little snug (the pockets flared out) and that I appeared much shorter on camera, I remarked that I should have had someone operating the camera because it was hard to hear the students because the desks were still set up in the house of commons arrangement and the camera was stationary at one end of the room. We pressed on, this noted for next video session, and I gave Carole a little background on the whole process we had been through as we waited for the "Highlights" of the discussion to make themselves known. After about twenty minutes of watching I realized there would be no "highlights" because the camera was focused on only my part of the discussion. In fact I was the whole discussion.
"Gee, I sure do a lot of talking on the tape. I thought the students were more involved than that," I ventured quietly.
"Its hard to get in when you're in a conversation, the same thing happens when we talk," Carole responded gently.
"What do you mean?" I queried.
"I'm not sure. Its just that you have a tendency to take over conversation." she explained.
In my mind however, this had still been a successful discussion. I was proud of the behavior of the class and the teaching that had gone on. I would have showed the tape to the group willingly but alas, it would not really be of value for the purpose I felt Gordon Wells had outlined. There was not as much footage of students as there was in the samples he had shown at the symposium so it was at this point that I decided to forget my tape at home the next day. After all, I had done the assignment wrong. I left the tape in the machine, programmed it to tape the next hockey game and left the room.

Based on my observations of the difficulties I saw the students having and the frustrations I felt with their participation during the discussions I think I need to look at how to give my students ways to be more successful in whole class discussions.

…Things are never as they seem…

Last January the Master's program on teacher research began. At the start of our first course we were encouraged to collect data with the use of critical incidents, an occurrence in our classroom that caught our attention and made us think. Further to this, we spent time in class discussing and wondering about the underlying assumptions contained within the incident itself and in the fact that we chose to record any particular incident or keep the document. The purpose of all this was to begin to identify patterns and assumptions within our practice which could then become the focus for a mini action research inquiry.

We were told that we would not know what was important and were encouraged to record everything and create a portfolio of data. Like many of my classmates I began the process of filtering because I was sure I knew where I was headed with my inquiry and only paid attention to those incidents that applied to my assumed topic: What specific things are the students doing that shut down conversation during group discussions? That is why I had erased the tape.

… The screw is stripped…I have to replace the whole faucet…

Nearing the end of my third course I was to have a paper of some substance ready to present to other member of the class for response. This paper was supposed to be a summary narrative of our mini-inquiry. Like most of my cohort members I was nervous about the prospect and I wondered if I had enough data, evidence and writing ability to get my understandings across in a narrative and make the inquiry credible. I had thought I knew where I was going with my inquiry from the outset however, when I began to gather my data together, for the writing process, I realized just how far I had moved away form the original topic and how much I had changed in my classroom practices.

My inquiry had now shifted substantially from looking at the students to looking at me. My perception of the problem had been altered by looking more closely at the data that I had collected, which for me now began to include those thing I had chosen not to pay attention to. I began to uncover an assumption that had been driving my instructional practice; I felt that much of what was wrong with the discussions in my room was the students fault. I now had to reassess the entire situation and look deeper if I wanted to affect any real change. I needed to look at myself rather than at my students. What was I doing that was getting in the way of good discussion? How could I use the understanding of the video tape incident to further my inquiry?

There was real evidence that some great shifts had been made within myself and my students. My inquiry had been a practical success, that is, I had observed myself within my class, looked and discovered an underlying assumption. After reflecting on the implications of that assumption, I made some changes, came to some new understandings which led to further changes that continue to make my classroom a better place for students and myself; a community of learners.

Several months after the start of the program when we as a group were trying to get ready to write Dr. Wayne Serebrin shared some of the data he had been collecting for his own inquiry during a Saturday class. He talked about the varying perceptions people have of what goes on during the conversations in his classes. This was of particular interest to me. He spoke of the surprise he got when reading the response of one student who left one of his class' discussion times feeling "dumb," while he himself had left the same class discussion feeling "lighter than air" because of the wonderful conversation that had taken place.

Upon hearing his story I suddenly became aware that the tape I had made could in fact have been data supporting the beginning of my inquiry but it no longer existed in a useful form. The problem was that at the beginning of my inquiry I didn't think I was going to be looking at myself.

…I borrow a pipe wrench from a neighbor and return to the scene…

Remembering back to past conversations with Carole and the video taped evidence, or lack of it, it became clear to me I needed to use some new tools for leading discussions. I determine I am going to have to observe group discussions and those who facilitated them well in order to gain some perspective on myself and perhaps ‘borrow' some specific skills that will be useful in facilitating the change I want to make now. I start close to home.

Dr. Judith Newman (my professor at the time) and Carole (my wife) are two people who have a way of drawing people into a conversation that seems to elude me. I watch them carefully over the next month or so.

Carole and I lead Marriage Preparation workshops about four times a year. We are always concerned that the couples are involved in the designing of the weekend, the curriculum, if you will. It is very important that the couples engage in the dialogue, as the more personal they can make it, the more personally beneficial they will find the weekend. Carole and I are not experts. We are just there to share our experience and guide the couples who are participating to their own understanding of the kind of relationship they would like to develop. This is how I imagine myself as a teacher as well.
Carole has a wonderful ability to make statements that are open ended and inclusive which draw people in to the conversation. She makes them feel a part of the process. At this point in my inquiry we often talked about how I shut down conversations. I often come home frustrated with the discussion in class. Without knowing first hand what is happening Carole can offer no concrete suggestions but she is supportive and listens. Then one weekend we had a first hand example to analyze.
Carole and I were conducting a Marriage Preparation seminar. The first few sessions of the weekend were a little uncomfortable for Carole because of the way I had been handling the feedback after the group activities.
"This time I'll handle the feedback," Carole said leaning over to me," you keep cutting people off and shutting down the conversation."
"Really? What do you mean?", I asked perplexed." I want to try and figure this out."
"Last time when you were leading the discussion someone was talking. At one point they faced your direction and when they stopped for a breath or to think or something you jumped in and finished their statement, with one of your own, then asked if there were any further comments."
"Yeah, what was wrong about what I said he seemed to me to be done. How did that shut down the conversation?" I asked, really wanting to know.
Carole took her time and thought carefully about her response. It was accurate and thoughtful. "You seem to make these broad sweeping summary statements based on your knowledge of the situation. You need to let the group come to its own understanding."

During a discussion there is really no reason for any further comment from me as leader. This is not my session it is for the participants. Unfortunately I do have a tendency to impose myself on the group. I seem very concerned that they come to the same understanding as I have. Unless Carole rescues the situation or I become very aware of my role there is usually no more input from others in the group; there is no need to participate

This is how I see myself as a teacher leading group discussions but, do not have the benefit of having someone to rescue the situation unless there is a student in the group who is as committed to the particular topic being discussed as I am and who is willing to compete to be heard.

Judith is another person I observed facilitating group discussions. She seems able to make each member feel that their input is important and valued. Two things about her style indicated this to me, first, she does not respond to everything people say rather, she asks for more information or comments from others using phrases like: "tell me more about that", or, "help me understand that better." Secondly, she keeps a note or log book of the things that we say, of what she is thinking about during the discussion, and of things she wants to be sure to touch on or guide the conversation toward at some point.

Judith and Carole also both make a point of not filling the silences during the conversations. Instead they leave them open, understanding people need time to formulate their opinions. I am always very eager that the conversation should keep moving and jump in at the first opportunity. Little did I realized that this action designed to keep the conversation moving in fact closed it off, unless I was going to keep it going on my own, which I often did or had to. With these new tools I went back to my classroom to try and see if we could have some success at this group discussion thing.

…With the borrowed wrench I begin the task…

Off I go to fix the newly discovered problem. In some way this seems more manageable. Working on me rather than the students. After all, I tell my students it is much easier to control their own actions, than the actions of others, all the time. I get myself a little notebook, one that I can easily carry with me, and one morning I gather the class in a circle to talk. Of course I open the conversation.
At my university classes I have started to try and figure out how our class discussions get closed down. First I want to say is that I am not real happy with the way our class discussions are going. I would like to make some changes in the way I operate in the group. I realize that I do too much talking and that there are times I just simply take over. I am particularly interested in what I do that stops people from talking. I want to try a few strategies to help me with this. One of the first things I want to do is start recording the things that are said, and the things that I think about when the conversation is happening, in this notebook. One reason for this is so I can keep track of the conversation, and secondly so I can keep myself busy and not do as much talking."
A third reason, which I do not share with the students, is to make them feel that what they have to say is important and valued. I feel, based on my experience, that when something is being recorded it is important for me to have input. This has the effect of keeping me engaged in the conversation because it makes me feel that what I have to say is valued. I hope it will have the same effect on the students.
Before the next class discussion I rehearse in my mind what I want to do. I intend to be very conscious of how much I talk during the discussions. I am just going to let the silence be and have patience that the conversation will continue at its own pace. I have to be careful not keep rephrasing my questions before there is a response and make sure to use some of the encouraging comments I had seen those people I was trying to emulate employ. I would try to ask for more information rather than give more information. I should ask and encourage others to comment on what had been said and all the while I can jot down notes to reflect on later which would help me to further refine and improve the discussions.
Next I rearrange the room. Eye contact is an obvious requirement. I arrange the environment on a permanent basis by having the desks lining the perimeter of the room. After the first discussion I remember that when Carole and I have large group discussions on the marriage prep weekend we sat in a circle. No tables to write on, no pencils to write with, just us and a chair. I arranged the environment on a permanent basis before by having the desks lining the perimeter of the room. The fact that the students have all their books and pens at hand is proving to be a bit of a distraction so I have the students sit in front of their desks and pull their chairs up so we did not have to talk across the room or over the rustle of papers and pens.

After the conversation is over and I sat in the quiet of the empty classroom and reflected on the process. I was not very successful. There was nothing written in my log book. I was so eager to make this discussion work to validate and prove my theory of why discussions had closed down that at the first opportunity I was talking. Sure I was using the phrases and strategies but I did not see the results I had hoped for so I pushed harder continuing with what I saw as the right tools.

Next discussion I just waited at the first silence. We waited quite a while until some people thought that nothing was going on. Soon one boy starts," what are we doing?" Determined not to fall into the same pattern I ask," does anyone want to comment?" No response so I just begin giving my appraisal of the situation and in no time I am just sitting there talking to a group of people who are having there own side conversations. Oops! Exactly what I didn't want to do.

…"Its stuck," I mutter to myself," I push harder"…

CLUNK!

Next I tried leaving the room so that I could not take over and some of these conversations went well and accomplished the task, but I wasn't part of them. I needed large group discussions to be part of how the class operated, although I wasn't sure why, and I was part of the class. Me leaving the room changed the whole group and made it impossible to observe myself. Next I tried small groups but that wasn't the point of my inquiry so I didn't really take notice of the results. I wanted us all to be engaged in conversation.

These strategies were intended to solve one small problem but created a larger one.

After two weeks and numerous discussions I came to the conclusion that there was more to this than simply adopting an approach that seems to work for others. It required a change inside me not just on the surface. If I kept this up we wouldn't have any valuable discussions and as long as only I was talking to get across my ideas there was no reason for the students to participate.

Finally, I went to my students. I asked them what made having group discussions hard and they generated the following list:

1. We don't know how to talk to each other.
2. We're different.
3. Some people are shy.
4. We don't know what to talk about.
5. If you say something people might laugh.
6. Some people don't feel wanted in the group.
7. Boring.
8. Interruptions break our concentration.
9. People fool around and don't take it seriously.
10. It feels forced.
11. People don't listen.
12. People are not open, they don't give enough information.
13. We don't know how to react to each other.

CLUNK!

This list stopped me in my tracks. There was much more to this change process and there was more to this discussion process, both required context. These group discussions were hard to have in isolation from all the other things which make for good communication between people. My change needed to be grounded in an underlying notion of what I believed about learning and teaching. If I was to try anything in my class it had to make sound curricular sense. This was not just an assignment to move me towards a degree this was about what I believed.

…We may as well replace the whole works…

As the goal of Teacher Action Research is to effect change through reflective inquiry, I felt, for about the fourth time, I was really on to the right track. Three new interesting critical incidents helped move me toward further thought, reflection and change.

First, I came to have a view of myself as a learner. I needed willingness, confidence, and support, to take the risks required for real engagement. I wrote the following entry in my journal:

March 18
When our M. Ed. cohort group first met discussions started about having the classes off campus. We were offered the use of the classroom of one of the cohort members, a site in the building where I am currently teaching. The space is set up set up for both comfort and productivity and there is a real sense of warmth to the environment. We have two areas at our disposal. One area has a few couches and another has round tables so there are places for small and large group discussion as well as an area where we can sit and write with all our materials spread out in front of us. As class draws near each week instead of cringing at the thought of driving out to the university campus I look forward to going to OUR CLASSROOM. I feel very comfortable in the space set aside and I am made to feel as if I can make myself at home. For the time we are there it is as much my space as anyone else's.
The way the instructors allow for our individual comfort needs makes me willing to come to class on a Friday night after even a week of teaching grade eight and nine students. I usually flop down on one of the couches and grab a cup of tea or a cold drink and begin an informal conversation with a classmate. When the time comes for some more formal conversation the professor makes her way around to each small group and pull us together. Often it is the case that we just gather in the lounge area and carry on with the sharing of our work.
The professor also builds my confidence with positive comments and helpful feedback on my written work. This for me was a huge hurdle to get over. I am petrified by my stereotypical notion of Graduate level writing. I am anxious about the fact that I am on the other side of the desk from where I have been for the last eleven years. I agonize over what the assignments required for each class might be not believing, based on my experience, that I can actually do a quality job of this stuff. When Judith told us that she didn't want to get caught up in grading and that she was prepared to give us each an "A", provided our engagement in the process is genuine, I feel confident that this will be possible. I really want this to be valuable for me and this is the chance to make a genuine inquiry valued in an academic context. When she said that if it she noticed that our engagement was not where it could be we would be encouraged to pick it up I began to feel that I was going to be taught not tested. I am starting to see that this will not be like I have experienced university before, an endurance course. Rather, this looks like it will be a layered process of individual learning shared in community. My confidence is high that I can succeed.
I find the way we read and respond to one another's writing very supportive. I come to class anticipating what others had to say about my writing. What new direction will they send me off on? How were the rest of them struggling with their jobs? What conversation will arise in the group from our written connections? Where will we go today? I am beginning to feel the support as an energizing force.

The second major critical incident of this newly refocused inquiry happened during a conversation I had with Wayne Serebrin, one of my professors. We were talking in response to one of my pieces of writing. With one question he opened a door that I had been looking for. (Learning is so obviously interactive.) He asked," what ways are the students involved in each others work?"

What was I doing to encourage the same type of experience that I was experiencing? Where is the context for these group discussions?

A third critical incident followed right on the heels of this conversation. As I mentioned earlier, I bought a small notebook to keep track of my thoughts during conversations. I used the book for about four months at the end of last school year and then started with the same book at the start of this year.

About a month into this year I found a note written in one my students handwriting in my book. It came at the end of my last entry which was a personal reflection I wrote just after I started to realize this notion of context. I had not known up to this point that students had been reading this notebook when I left it lying around the class after a discussion. I guess they were interested in what I was writing.
Oct.21 (my entry)
…The other thing I want to look at this week is the notion of multi-layered conversation in response to one another, on wall charts, in independently formed small groups etc. How do all these opportunities influence how the whole group conversations unfold? Is that the curricular context as Wayne says? I think I would like to try a class journal idea like Matt. Sort of a class free write binder. This ongoing conversation seems to me like it might create comfort, trust, confidence, and familiarity which might make all the conversations go deeper and be more valuable..
(student entry) I think That's a good idea because then who ever is shy to speak they can write what they are feeling and then for the journal I will get some dividers and put their names in it then when you look at it you will know who doesn't speak but there's lots of things to say that are good then you can bring them up in a discussion.

Here was a student who had never spoken once spontaneously during a "Class Discussion" giving their opinion of a situation in a way I had failed to consider as a valid method of having input into the conversation.

I asked the student why he had thought of writing in my journal and he responded," I know you are keeping track of what is happening during the discussions so I thought I would just tell you something. Is that OK?" Of course, I thought, on both counts. I think I'm on to something that has to do with classroom discussions and it has nothing to do with my skills as a leader or the students as participants.

…Tear up the bathroom floor and knock holes in the walls…

Going to this deeper level allowed me to see that my notion or definition of conversation was much too narrow and shallow. Also, I began to see that this inquiry was about more than just the skills that were required of the members of a group to have conversation and my skills as a facilitator. It touched the very core of my teaching philosophy. What I had failed to ask myself was, why do I want to have conversations with the students? Underneath my anxiety about the discussions in my class was my belief that learning is interactive not static and the curriculum is what we make it. Conversation, specifically group discussions, seems to me to be at the heart of teaching and learning. A community of people exchanging ideas creating new understanding together. What was most getting in the way for our group conversation was not my specific deficiencies as a facilitator, although they compounded the problem, or the lack of student interest; rather the discussions had not been placed within an environmental, personal and curricular context.

…Not a bad weekend's work but not exactly what I had started out to do…

In order to change this I was going to have to go below the surface to get at the guts of this thing called conversation. After my experiences in these three university courses I realized that environment, choice, support, and several entry points were required if we, as a community of learners, were to engage in any meaningful exchange or interaction, group discussions included.

I had already begun to change the physical environment of my class. At the start of the year there was no furniture at all in my classroom. The students were going to help design their learning environment. We brought in some comfortable furniture which the students chose, funny, at the time I really thought that these on their own would fix the engagement problem, just like I thought that keeping my mouth closed would get the students talking.

Now I had to think about the communication environment. I needed to move towards a classroom where choice, support and several entry points were a reality.

The morning after I discovered the note in my journal we gathered for our usual discussion time, I have discovered that having a regular time set aside each day also helps with the engagement. Once again I said I would like to make some changes.
"Recently I have been somewhat challenged in my thinking (slight laughter) about what I think is important about this school process we all find ourselves involved in. I feel like the way I have been operating has not been as supportive as it should be. For starters I think I have been using marks as a form of punishment thinking, wrongly, that if I took marks away for lack of effort that you would be motivated to work. I just realized that to motivate anyone through fear is unfair and unhelpful. Therefore, I would like to move to a non competitive grading format. That is, I will no longer give out any mark lower than a "B" for your assignments. Each of these assignments will have a set of criteria that we as a class will develop. You can keep working on the assignment until it meets the criteria. The part of these criteria I would like to include is going to be getting responses from other students in the room on the things you do. Are there any comments?"
We talked as a group for about forty-five minutes. Some students in agreement some opposed and others wondering how they would explain only a "B" to their parents but we were engaged in the conversation, it had something to do with us together.
Next I started having the students read and respond to each other's work. I also put up large pieces of paper on the wall where students could write general comments about the work they had read that they felt would be of interest to others working on the same assignments.
Our next assignment happened to be an essay in Social Studies. The students were to get three people to read their essay and put a note on the back about one thing they especially liked and one they felt could be worked on a little more. I would then read and put my own thoughts on the paper and then in a meeting with the students encourage them to spend time looking for places where they could put the suggestions into their essay.
Next I collected a few sheets of loose leaf paper from each person in the class and donated an old binder to the cause and we created a class free write journal that anyone who came in the room could read and comment in. As well, the students could just put down their thoughts about things that were going on in the class.
It wasn't long before the binder was circulating during class discussions.

…It was so exciting to turn the water on and have it work as expected…

"Mr. Anderson how come I got the same mark as …?" Our class discussions started to take on a richness and vitality that had been absent from them up until now. I had a role that the students had given me. We were talking about our learning, mine included, the very nature of learning was being discussed. What it meant to be in communication started to be acted out everyday. I was now on the look out for evidence that what I felt was happening was in fact happening. Recently two things have come to light.

It was lunch time and I was tired. I decided to bring my lunch up to the room and listen to some classical music on the stereo; maybe even shut my eyes for a minute. With anticipation I climbed the stairs and rounded the corner to my darkened room. Only one of the small desk lamps, in the corner of the room, had been left on. Sitting in the light of the lamp was a student reading the class journal.
"This is amazing," he said. "There is stuff in here that people have written that show a part of them I have never heard." "These people never talk like this in class but they have some really good ideas."
"How do we go about getting these people involved in the group conversation now?" I asked.
"Well maybe more people should read this book and then the ones who aren't so shy could talk for the others," they responded.
I thought to myself ‘This is maybe going to go some where,' so I started to get engaged. "Do you think there is a way we can get the people themselves to share their ideas with us?"
"Well maybe if someone who read it can ask them about what they wrote. It's kind of like the people are shy but if you ask them they will talk."
We sat and had about a fifteen minute talk about the journal and some questions about an assignment. When they left I didn't feel the need for a nap.

About two weeks later my teaching partner called me over to his desk and said "you might want to look at this."

He handed me a students journal. Two days before this student had asked if we could talk, as a class, about the new grading system. She was worried about only getting a "B" because of the reaction her parents would have.
(Nov. 13) … I like the way Mr. Anderson teaches it because he knows how we feel like how we learn he says that a mark or grade doesn't tell you what you learnt only tell how much work you did because no one will ever know how much you learnt or if you did but yourself. Like you could have gotten a 64% in social studies but it doesn't mean you didn't learn anything because the mark wasn't all that high it just means that that is the mark you got considering the work you did. You still learn if your mark is low. You could of learnt by listening, That's how I learnt. I got a bad mark in L.A. because of my journals I barely ever handed them in. My mark was low but I did learn, I can't say I tried my best cause I didn't. I consider a report card nothing because I know I learnt in L.A. I got a 50% but That's not what I think I learnt. I think I deserve 50% for my work but that does not show that I learnt 50% I know I learnt more. I think teachers should at least explain that..

Two days later I met this student's parents at parent teacher interviews and they had been talking with their child about grading. The conversation had come full circle. The next time we had a group discussion this student was helping to explain how this made sense for them.

…The bathtub started to look shabby and the holes in the tiles would take getting used to…

I am starting to see myself and my practice as a renovation work in progress. I started off thinking there needed to be some superficial changes made in the way I helped students participate in discussions. When I began to look at the "problem" carefully I realized there was more to it than just a quick fix. Looking beneath the surface exposed some underlying assumptions at work that were thwarting all our best attempts at meaningful dialogue. Once these were looked at closely for any weaknesses, pulled out, and replaced the whole process started to flow more freely. Certainly I did not solve all the problems with our class discussions but I think we have a better chance of developing the process following these new lines.

I am now tuned into the fact that there are many other things that could also be better. My practice and inquiry have become one as the interactions between myself and my class and the curriculum have become one. It is impossible for me to look at teaching the same but I have the patience and the confidence that things will continue to improve because of this experience and my new understanding that teaching is inquiry. Working on the underlying belief makes surface somewhat easier in the long run.

Today in class we were having a discussion about the interim report cards due out next week. This year I am going to have the students fill out their own report and then select work that supports their assessment. This work will then be placed in a folder and the students will take it home and use it to inform their conversation with parents about the reports. At one point during the conversation I fell into telling mode trying to hammer away at my agenda. One of the students put his hand up in a stop signal and stated "you are rambling like an old man Mr. A.

Some people might see this as inappropriate but I choose to see the incident as a positive development. At the beginning of the year my rambling would have ended the discussion. Now the discussion ended my rambling. I have a place in the circle where we talk.

Even though I never fixed the actual damaged washer the tap is working fine and the water is flowing freely. Any future washer repairs should be straight forward.