Is it like girliness? ? a term meant to demean , but occasionally value at the same time?

I can sense schooliness, even in myself. Like girliness, I try to avoid it yet do not want to push it away entirely. It has its place. On certain days for certain occasions, in certain moods, girliness is OK. Never my goal, just OK.

Now, schooliness??

Schooliness actually cares whether the line is quiet in the hallway. Schooliness is made of the film and chicken wire they put inside the safety glass insert in my classroom door to prevent shattering (of ideas, customs, or quiet). It blocks the view of what is REALLY going on inside (inside heads, especially those who can entertain themselves while ?education? goes on around them). Schooliness is the translator we apply to technology tools so they are ?safe? and comply with AUPs. Schooliness is the substitute we LOVED to see as students because she was so much fun to fool. Schooliness is why they invented NCR paper, then changed it to Acrobat files you have to TYPE into. Schooliness is what prevented me from turning in what I really thought in most essays?until I trusted the anti-schooliness of the teacher. Schooliness is what my liberal arts degree ridiculed. Schooliness is what Congress would use to define Highly Qualified Teachers. Schooliness is the make-up that thinking human beings ?touch up? as they leave the faculty room. Schooliness is what makes us wear a watch. Schooliness is what my brightest gifted students so aptly parodied as I chuckled and pretended not to hear. Schooliness is ?May I have your attention please,? which should warn, ?Turn the speaker off NOW!?

I will enjoy thinking about schooliness for days ?especially as I look out a non-school window, across my unfiltered computer, watching a lake with no buses or concrete in sight.

There is a definite exhilaration to leaving schooliness behind.

Schooliness is a system where grade negotiation is the main motivator for students to come conference and visit with teachers.

Schooliness is the void between what teachers know about how to learn and what students have to guess about how they learn.

Schooliness is the fear of evaluation when colleagues visit your classroom.

Schooliness is believing that there are certain texts that all students need to read.

Schooliness is teaching English as if all the students are on a literature professor career track.

Schooliness is the assumption that becoming a doctor or a lawyer is the pinnacle of academic accomplishment, and the purpose of secondary education.

Niches Solos…
“Going your own way isn’t allowed, not even in Spanish!”

School Sines!
“You lose marks for spelling…”

Colon Hisses…
“We did metaphors last week, this week it’s similes”

Chosen Soils…
“Stand your ground in debate class, this is History!”

Chess in Silo?
“Where else can games be educational?”

Clone his SOS!
“Should we all cry for help?”

Once his loss…
“Now all a loss we all must suffer…”

Inch loses so…
“Metric rules the day…”

Iconless “ohs”.
“Graphics design is another class…”

Sonic loss eh?
“Did you hear what the Canadian said?”

She sins. Cool!
“Which teacher broke copyright?!”

Con loses his…
“You think it’s your right to read what you want!”

(You convinced me about spelling tests, Wes)

Schooliness: A system born of the Agrarian Age, incessantly driven to meet the needs of the Industrial Age, and anxiously waiting for Pink’s Conceptual Age to fall off the Bestseller list.

Schooliness: Preparing students for challenges and careers that don’t exist yet by teaching them about challenges and careers that don’t exist anymore.

Schooliness is isolation rather than integration

handwriting; arithmetic; any content area course done for the credit towards graduation not the knowledge; any course where there is a teacher on a stage, one right answer, and/or taught by the textbook; recess; lunchrooms; ISS.

2. Write your own ?Devil?s Definition? and give us all a wicked laugh. I?ll carry them over to Beyond School and add them to a page there.

Schooliness is all about what I am not. I refuse to be a teacher in the classroom, I am a learner among learners. I will be the lead learner, I will facilitate their growth, I will set up a course. But there will usually not be one right answer. Vocabulary and APA formats seem to have one right answer, but often there is more than one way around to a solution. Antischooliness is about a group of learners who gather together, online or offline, to learn about something. Schoolinesss is about walking in straight lines, bells, blocks or periods, attendance lists, & demerits. Sometimes I feel more like a prison guard than a learner. And I went to school for this? Oi veh!

Cure: sudden jolts of inspiration applied directly to the frontal lobe in increasing amounts of power.

Schooly standards: mandated tests measure a student’s ability to regurgitate facts. As expectations rise, passing grades are lowered so that the statistically impossible goal of having every student test “above average” is reached.

School (noun) a place that prepares the young for the world by separating them from it.

We really need to get some students to add some definitions here.

Schooly Music Lessons:using outdated instruments (i.e. auto harps) to teach outdated songs, typically by rote, with outdated accompaniments that sound nothing like music that is being performed by real musicians in the real world.
and
Schooly Music Concerts:unimaginative, teacher directed, music programs, that are mindless entertainment for the administration to brag about in parent newsletters and press releases.

Thanks for playing and hope we see more

Schooly Discipline: A philosophy that states that the best method of punishing our most disengaged learners - class cutters - is to remove them from class or school grounds for periods of 1-5 days at a time. This philosophy may be applied inconsistently by any one of multiple official disciplinarians at school.

Anyway, what a complete description of your philosophy. It certainly helps to complete the puzzle of Mr. Burrel. This cuts to the heart of the “relevant, authentic and engaging” idea. I’m reminded of the work I’ve done this year on Project Based Learning. The one part that really struck home was how often we returned to the question, “will this matter in 20 years?”. Is this really important? So often we brush over this question for the sake of schooliness. Thanks for not letting go of this question.

Definition:
schooliness - the process of leaching creativity from the soul of a student

Comment:
Like your new wedding hairdo in the poster.