For two consecutive days of my Spring Break, I spent time as a member of Watch D.O.G.S. to be there for my son and help out as a positive male figure on campus. Above is the slide deck of everything that happened, but below are some of the details that really stood out.

1. Kids really love seeing adults on campus. Even though my son is in Kindergarten and almost every 5 year-old loves to see someone who will play with them, the big kids were eager to talk to me as well. Asking who I am, whose dad I was, where I went to college, how old I am, and if I liked macaroni and cheese were just a few of the questions they threw at me. I answered each with a smile, knowing that many of these kids don't have a positive male figure in their life. Sad, really, but I was there to have fun.
2. Elementary school principals (and probably principals in general) should truly have a degree in just about everything: business management to deal with the finances, chemistry to deal with the cleaning supplies being low, psychology to deal with a crying 7 year-old who doesn't want to talk, and social work to deal with the mayhem of a small city that we call an elementary school. Seriously, hats off to you for staying sane and loving what you do.
3. Elementary school teachers deserve a hug every single day. Yeah, we secondary folks have it rough, but my son's Kinder teacher successfully lassoed 26 5 year-olds without skipping a beat and managed to listen to the alphabet songs on repeat (and will continue to do so for 180 days per year). You ladies and gentlemen are the first hope for many of these kids to right the ship in an otherwise rocky course for success. I hope you know how much you are appreciated.
4. Kids love--and deserve--play time. Seriously. During each recess, those kids couldn't wait to get out to their play spot and continue the game that they had started that morning, the day before, or whenever. They fought, they argued, they made up rules, they cheated like crazy, but they all figured it out... or they went and told a teacher. The playground is for more than letting out energy stored during class time--it's an opportunity to learn necessary skills that will help as they grow.
5. Lunchtime disgusts me. Sure, I get that we need to provide a school lunch system that provides nourishment for our underprivileged youth. At the same time, you should have seen how much food was wasted in the two days I spent on that campus. It isn't just my son's school, either; schools across the country are throwing away perfectly good food at an alarming rate. Since 2012 when children were required to take a full meal for lunch, school food waste has increased an embarrassing 56 percent. Sure, I get that Michelle Obama wants healthier kids, but this isn't the way.  
6. Our students with special needs are—or should be--the stars of the school. My day got exceptionally better when I met J, who claimed to be every superhero under the sun and followed me around like a shadow. He brightened my day and so many others on the playground, and his excitement for life was something I wanted to bottle up and spread to everyone. K wanted to give me a hug 5 minutes into meeting her, then only wanted to play catch with me during the P.E. stations. While she might not be able to have the designated campus "hugger" (darn those germs), she could certainly make more kids smile.
7. Running the mile is a joke. The athletes cruise, the athletic-built kids survive, and the kids who are out of shape get inadvertently shunned. This isn't only in elementary school, either. We run the mile in high school as well, and it's only worse. We have to find a way to do better. Here's a thought: Have each kid run the mile the first time, then set up a differentiated metric based on time. Yes, kids can sandbag it so they don't have to work as hard, but so what? If an overweight kid "runs" a mile in 18 minutes, let him/her run a quarter mile in 8 minutes, then build up. It's a progression, and we do that in core classes, so why not exercise?
8. Being on a truly diverse campus makes everyone better. All across the campus, I saw kids playing with kids from all backgrounds, cultures, races, and genders. I'm so proud to say that the Great Schools rating could not be more wrong, a 3 out of 10. The principal and his staff are working tirelessly to build a safe space for their students and that is very evident. This is just one of many reasons to take ratings like those at face value. Remember, not everything you read on the Internet is true.

For now, I go back to the high schools I serve, but fresh in my memory is a love and respect for the work that goes on in those classrooms with tiny chairs and color-coded crayon boxes, playgrounds with dozens of four-square courts, and adults who interact with miniature people who are yearning for someone to care about them, love them, and care for them. 

Happy "Dog Tag" Fishing

Have I mentioned that I love my job? If not, it should be clear: I love my job. Here's a reason why:

Chris is an AP Stats teacher at one of our high schools and he knows that I have a 3D printer. He shoots me an email to find out if I can help him improve a chi-squared test (for fairness) lesson he's about to do with his students, using dice that they create. Come to find out, he's interested in having the students take a risk, knowing that this is a risk for him as well. His original idea was to have the kids design an irregular die using the Chromebooks and send me the files to print.

Nah, let's have some fun with this.

Rather than having something printed away from their view on a machine that's foreign to them, we decided to wheel the machine into the classroom. Yep, what was once a product of science fiction lore was now resting on the counter behind Chris's desk. Kids came into the class and you would've thought there was a celebrity in town.

This was about to get real.

To prepare the lesson, Chris showed his students the work from years prior. You know, the clay-molded dice, the glued cardboard dice, and even the one made from welded steel. Cool, but not COOOOOOOOOL.

This year, students were given a Chromebook for their group, then guided to tinkercad.com to explore. While some may shy away from Tinkercad because "it's for little kids," know that these AP Stats students dove right in and were able to really explore the design of an n-sided die that would fit in a hair gel container.

Four days later, the products were due. These 17 and 18 year-old men and women were like little kids as the printer turned on, the LED lights blinking as the printer warmed up, all so they could see their products getting printed. We optimized the drawings, uploaded them to Matter Control (the printer's slicing software), and began printing.

I have no explanation that accurately describes the students' expressions and conversations, so I'll leave it to them:

• What the...?
• Bro, you gotta see this!
• Hey, ummm, how is this printing?
• No way. No. Way.
• So if I wanted to print a car, could I? I mean, this thing can print ANYTHING, can't it?

​The next day, we got to show them their products. The dice were a mix of stellar productions and epic failures, but it was all a good learning experience. After all, the "thing" they created on a computer was now in their hands. WOW.

From Chris, who really just needs to start a blog of his own to share the cool stuff he's doing with his students:

At this point, I'm pretty sure we could've told the class we were taking an 84 question test and they'd be fine with it, as long as they got to hold onto their dice. Instead, the students ran a fairness test, rolling the die 30 times and documenting every outcome.

True to form, the weird dice gave weird results. The exorbitantly bad dice were redesigned and printed again. The small dice were scaled up. The students were given a chance to iterate. We had so much fun making the first set that we fed the printer with pink filament and gave the kids an extra.

Seven days, 38 students, one 3D printer, and a ton of curiosity was all it took to prepare a mathematical feast these kids will be talking about for a long time after the printer has left the campus.

More importantly, my hope is that this group of students has become empowered to try something new. I'm not a subscriber to the FAIL (First Attempt In Learning) model that floats around the Internet on a daily basis. No, these kids had first, second, third, and fourth attempts, and the technology gave them the safety net of being wrong as a good thing. It was awesome to listen to the conversations change as the groups knew they could continue to iterate, almost as if they were in an engineering firm as they prepped for a big contract they were about to bid. Yeah, the application of their learning is going to stick around.