Wisonsin needs ambitous clean energy goal in our Schools!

The opinion section of the Wisconsin State Journal dated Sunday, April 20th was "Wisconsin needs ambitious clean energy goal."  I generally agree with the theme and believe that green energy is a way for us to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and is a wise investment in our future.  I also believe Wisconsin's goal should be more than just a percentage of our energy use in the state. Our goal should include our schools and students - we need to make everyone good consumers and decision makers with respect to energy. (FYI -- I don't want to enter a comment nightmare about political views, I just want to discuss simple economics of green energy and the power of students with legislature assistance.)

The school where I teach has been using Green Energy to help my students learn the skills that the world and workplace require (project management, problem solving, analysis, justification, etc).  We have avoided entering the climate change debate because people tune out, we have simply studied whether green energy makes good financial sense.  They discovered that generating our own electricity at our school with securing some small grants and donations simply made sense.  Using solar and wind versus carbon based products in the long term simply means a long term reduced cost to operate the school in our district.  Once the panels are paid for, the energy just keeps coming, it is simply a method to pre-purchase power.  It is proactive and can create powerful learning experiences for students.

The Wisconsin legislature should be pushing ways to help schools met ambitious goals for producing their own power, using students to lead the projects and find ways their schools can do the work and reduce their long term costs.  Students are an untapped resource in every district - their drive can make amazing things happen (video about using Real Problems, Real Projects and Real Solutions).

Students can get the project going - can analyze if a 15 year payback, with an ROI over 5% is a "good" project - then tell the boss (the board).   Each school in the state should have students working on this and presenting to their school boards.   We know school buildings will not disappear over the next decade - the costs to operate a school is one of the few places where reducing the cost does not effect students!

Now I (and my class) agree that some grants are needed, the cost of solar straight up puts paybacks into the 20 plus year range.  But that is where the legislature can help, channeling grants through Focus On Energy for student led projects could be a boon for our education system from the stand point of learning and reducing our school distirct's operating costs.  Currently nearly all the money spent on electricity goes out of state - and yet the sun gives enough energy every hour to power the world for an entire year - so we can easily power 10% of our school's consumption! 

My class has found people who want to make green energy about climate change, about the Middle East, about amount of government, etc -- some people want to make this a political discussion and that leads to all kinds of arguments.   We stick to the idea that it is really just good sense to reduce your long term repeating costs.  And energy, like everything else, gets more expensive with time.  Pre-buying power can be a win for the schools, the state and its taxpayers and most importantly the students!  I urge the State Journal to bring this to fore front with their editorial board and I urge our legislature to find a way to help fund schools so that all districts can generate 10% of their power.  And while education funding is complicated and hard, this type of initiative is a one time funding thing and the state is in the right place to do it now.  Action can lead to results.

Cause every kilowatt, every dollar counts -- waiting is giving away power and savings -- but more importantly students building and leading is too positive an outcome not to invest in immediately.

Real world consequences? Responsibility? Our job is skills.

If you teach you have heard this from some teacher, "XYZ student does not do his/her work, if they don't do anything what can I do?  And if I do something special, is that fair? Am I really preparing him/her for the real world?  What about responsibility?"

Responsibility? Real world consequences?  Interesting thought, interesting title; let me be clear that High School is not the real world, it is a student world.  And while performance in HS is important, the "direct relationship" between HS performance and job performance is not a guarantee.   I fired a lot of "smart" people who played school well in my previous career.  We shouldn't teach responsibility at the HS level as a pass/fail; we must make sure they have skills, responsibility is second.  (And ever time I hear an employer whine about responsibility - I simply think of supply and demand - pay little, get little.  Interview poorly, get poor hires.) 

We need to try to make sure that responsibility is there, that students understand the difference between HS and the world. But my number one job is make sure my students have enough math to move on outside my walls - I cannot let a student's irresponsibility be an excuse.  That includes the kids who won't play school and do not want to do their work.

I completely believe with students who don't care about their grade that they need more assistance, the world requires them to have a diploma.  When, we teachers, let them fail we are creating a problem and not doing our job.  (Now a disclaimer or point of order, even when we do our job they may fail because the other edge of this sword is not lowering standards.)  We need to make sure, work towards, all students getting the learning done.  Thus the C word, consequences; preferably like the real-world would give.  Cause an F does not motivate them, a zero doesn't, those are not consequences for someone not playing school.

And while HS is their job now, it is not real-world  job.  We can talk about expectations but we cannot treat students who won't play school that school is like a real job.  Cause it simply isn't. 

And why would we want HS to be real-world!  In the world decisions are made more often about money and productivity, not about people - the world will make relationships but only with employees who have made a commitment to the business (and in corporate America that really does not happen).  In school every day can be new with students, chances can be plentiful.  And that is great -- firing and laying people off is overrated and  NO FUN!

So when a student does not work, I work with them.  I don't make it about grades, I make about a skill - about their future.  I also tell them that my job is not to just let them fail - I am suppose to make failing harder than passing!  I make the skill so important that I will pull them from lunch, before school, after school -- from study hall, you name it - I will do it.  And not surprisingly if they get success once and know you care, they start at least doing the minimum.


And if you think that is easy, you are not a teacher.

Changing - The goal is to be better.

We are in the middle of a shift or moving towards the extreme end of a pendulum swing currently with the Common Core Standards.  We can already see people now moving against the core and I don't think it is bad or good - it is too much too fast.  And that is the problem with education - lets be great tomorrow - students must get there and be great - immediately.  But my goal has never changed in my eight years of education since I came from private industry - I simply want to be slightly better tomorrow than I was today. 

Personally I have worked hard at making my curriculum "college and career ready" - using the ACT as my guide (an Aligned by Design mentality).  It is the test that about half my students need to do well on and does indicate whether they are ready for college math or not.

 I started this mission on college readiness in 2010 following a conference (another subject another time).   And the mission was simple and small, to start reducing the percentage of students taking remedial math in college.  My mission, now three years later, is for all my Algebra 2 students to test into credit math at college or tech school, which is something education currently struggles with - somewhere from 33-40% test into remedial, non-credit college, math.  I have had success in this by making my students accountable for all math - at all times.  So Algebra 1's grade is 50% pass material, Geometry is 50% Algebra, Algebra 2 is 50% Geometry and so forth.  We don't take time on the material but simply use recursive assessments to make sure students use it enough not to lose it.  I think of it as two, 15 minute power review sessions during the week -- except the review session is just a quiz.  But the important thing is, it is one small thing to be just a little bit better tomorrow than today.

Either way, no matter what I do or how I do it - I just want my students to be better than yesterday.  Just to progress  daily - 2% improvement year after year is the goal.  By doing that I have had success, so my question is not what is the next big thing I am doing - but what is the next small thing.  The large pendulum swings just does not work.