The Polliwog Journal

is happening right now on “the list*.” Chris, new to CyberEnglish, or CE, is trying to understand it better. He wants to know if a teacher website is absolutely necessary or would a Wiki work or a Blog. Ryan eloquently told him, among other things, that CE “is a philosophy in certain core beliefs about learning. As new tools and ideas emerge, CyberEnglish embraces those concepts if it meets the core beliefs.” And Ted, of course, and Paul, have joined the discussion. I am writing my response here as their discussion has nagged at some things I have been wanting to say anyway.

When Ryan says that CE embraces new concepts if it meets core beliefs he is absolutely right. Ryan knows that CE means a way of thinking about learning and teaching. When I started CE, there were no Blogs or Wikis, but I have been able to use those tools as they come along because they meet my expectation that students’ voices should be public. These tools also meet my expectation that cyber learning is interactive and collaborative. It’s not so much the tool that matters as what it can do.

I have long believed that the thing itself teaches. I once had to fix several large patches on a stucco house we owned. The stones and the elements for mortar were in our garage, but beyond that, I had no idea how to proceed. And I had no skill. I needed to do a good job or the result would be noticeable ugly. What I learned then and have successfully applied to everything since is that the thing itself teaches us what we need to know. The stucco job, by the way, looked fantastic.

This is absolutely true for CE. When I first saw Ted Nellen’s classroom in progress, I experienced a revelation and saw my own future there. But it was not until I was in the midst of the process that I truly began to learn what I needed to know.

There are two reasons why some teachers just don’t get CE. One is that they are not predisposed to get it. That is, they are not personally engaged in technology innovation or integration. Before I was a CE teacher, I had created my own websites and was using computers and software and technology. So I was ready for what came next. Secondly, some teachers think that all we do in a CE class is type. Seriously, they think that CE is a glorified word processing class. Ironically, typing is the most obvious attribute of my class. I do have to admit that when every student is fully engaged in a task in CE, all you can hear is their fingers on the keys. It’s a beautiful sound. But it’s not the sound of typing. It’s the sound of thinking and writing. Or it is the sound of peer review or of online discussion or of revision or of inquiry. It is never about typing except that as students get better at typing their fluency improves and this increases their confidence as producers of words. But teachers who are outside observers are just not going to understand this difference. This is something I know from living the process.

CE has changed how I think about teaching and learning. Just as more traditional teachers cannot understand what I do, I almost cannot understand what they do anymore. I simply cannot imagine not teaching the way I teach.

Which brings me to the next main thing I have been wanting to say. The theme for this year’s NCTE convention is interesting. Mapping Diverse Literacies for the Twenty-First Century: Opportunities, Challenges, Promising New Directions is actually perfect for me in a couple of ways. Personally, the NYC venue signifies the completion of the circle, for NCY is where my CE journey began in March of 2000. Although, to be honest, there is no circle and I will continue to progress and learn and move forward, embracing new concepts. Still it is fitting for me that this convention is in New York. More interesting is what the theme implies. There is a definite slant towards technology implied as there should be. This convention feels like it should be about CE exclusively. CE is where every English teacher, every teacher in general, should be right now.

Ryan said that Ted’s class was the original classroom 2.0 and I agree with him completely. He was doing all of this years and years ago. Even I feel like a veteran with only seven years experience and so I don’t quite understand how the concept is still so foreign to so many. Has the time finally come for a more widespread understanding? A guy I respect a lot, Bud Hunt, has said that he doesn’t quite understand CE, but from what I can see, the way he uses technology in teaching tells me he does. Are we CE teachers simply not articulating what CE means? Ted, Pat and I have a challenge then at this year’s convention to be clear. I want to show how what we do in CE is at the heart of 21st century opportunities, challenges, and promising new directions.

What I know is that when teachers who are predisposed to ‘get it’ observe a CE class in action, something really amazing happens. They start to literally see what could be for them in their own schools.

Want to understand CE? Come to the classroom. Talk to the students, the scholars. Don’t even talk to the teachers, because clearly, we can’t always put it into words. CyberEnglish is about empowering learners. And it isn’t something you can pin down to one day or one lesson or even one concept.

What I know is that at the beginning of the year, my 9th graders are tentative about CE, even those computer savvy kids. They are used to having teachers tell them everything they are supposed to know and do. They are used to being dependent learners. They are used to having decisions made for them. They are used to being told again and again and again, so they have learned how not to listen.

And then we start.

At the end of the year, those same 9th graders have emerged (almost always) as confident learners who are able to multi-task, who make their own decisions about web design and more importantly about their writing. They are hypertext writers who consider their audience. They are independent learners who have learned what they need to know to get where they want to go. More than all of that, which is plenty in one year, more than that is the fact that students in CE are almost always happy to be in class, happy to be in an English classroom. This empowerment is more than cognitive; it’s emotional empowerment also.

When Ted, Pat, Nancy and I wrote about CE being subversive in the English Journal (November 2004) we said that one of the most subversive aspects of CE is that it is FUN! School isn’t supposed to be fun, is it? English isn’t supposed to be a student’s favorite class. Writing isn’t supposed to be something you feel good about. CE changes all that.

If you don’t believe me, read their CyberJournals. Read their own testimony. Better yet, visit a classroom and ask the students themselves.

To Chris or anyone else starting out on the CE journey, begin with a Website or a Wiki or a Blog. Make your thinking public. Then find a way for your students to do the same. After that, live the process and learn together. There is no better way to learn than that, after all.

* engteach-talk is an open discussion list for English teachers everywhere, sponsored by Eric Crump at Interversity.org and is where the most exciting, vibrant exchanges about teaching English occur.