Thinking about how teaching is different.
Some of it has to be that I'm different. I have learned from every student and situation which has come before this moment. This knowledge is both a blessing and a curse; while before I would wonder and frustrate about how to help a particular student, and now I know a little bit better, how to help so many students. Every learning experience for me has turned into a tool for me to use in that same situation in the future. The frustration comes in my limited human capabilities. Time, energy and resources. There's only one of me and so many of them. The challenge is still how to meet their needs with the resources available. I know more, I can do more. But I can only do so much!
Sunday, December 2, 2012
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
I wish I had a time machine. I've been teaching a long time. 27 years. I think. Maybe this is my 28th. It's like birthdays they run together and some days it feels like I'm a brand new chick in this game, other days my dog's so old I can barely muster the strength to drag myself off the porch.
Today, I feel old. Irritated with their lack of initiative, wayward ways, complete disregard for trying and so many of them embracing the easy, why try attitude. Not all... I forget that in the moment. Have to pull my eyes away from the disgruntled student trying with all their might to get my attention away from the real issue, and focus, reward with attention those students really trying. It's tough when I feel so pushed myself. It's tough when I lose sight of the true reason I'm there, in that classroom. I'm there to use my considerable skills and talents to take them from where they are to where they need to go. Push, pull, entice them to embark on their own journey in the right direction.
Again, I wish I had a time machine. I could transport back into the classroom with chalkboards! No kidding. No computers! Coolers that blew air so loud and ferociously all the papers would fly off their desks and counter tops. So loud that we would have to turn it off to teach a lesson, and sweat would bead up and drip on their papers then. One day, the windows were open (they had to be or we would all have heat stroke) and there were no screens. I could see out the windows, over the cornfields to the blue Bear Mountain in the distance. I had turned on the cooler and the students were working away. Dragonflies, bees and all forms of insects would just fly through the room. That afternoon, two dragonflies flew through one on top of the other. Memorable sight.
So surely teaching wasn't easier then. It was different though. Better, freer. Not without many challenges so my thought today is; how do I recapture the joy of teaching and pass that on to my students?
I wish I had a time machine and I could be a bug on the wall. Wish I could remember it all and truly compare it.
Today, I feel old. Irritated with their lack of initiative, wayward ways, complete disregard for trying and so many of them embracing the easy, why try attitude. Not all... I forget that in the moment. Have to pull my eyes away from the disgruntled student trying with all their might to get my attention away from the real issue, and focus, reward with attention those students really trying. It's tough when I feel so pushed myself. It's tough when I lose sight of the true reason I'm there, in that classroom. I'm there to use my considerable skills and talents to take them from where they are to where they need to go. Push, pull, entice them to embark on their own journey in the right direction.
Again, I wish I had a time machine. I could transport back into the classroom with chalkboards! No kidding. No computers! Coolers that blew air so loud and ferociously all the papers would fly off their desks and counter tops. So loud that we would have to turn it off to teach a lesson, and sweat would bead up and drip on their papers then. One day, the windows were open (they had to be or we would all have heat stroke) and there were no screens. I could see out the windows, over the cornfields to the blue Bear Mountain in the distance. I had turned on the cooler and the students were working away. Dragonflies, bees and all forms of insects would just fly through the room. That afternoon, two dragonflies flew through one on top of the other. Memorable sight.
So surely teaching wasn't easier then. It was different though. Better, freer. Not without many challenges so my thought today is; how do I recapture the joy of teaching and pass that on to my students?
I wish I had a time machine and I could be a bug on the wall. Wish I could remember it all and truly compare it.
Friday, November 23, 2012
On teaching 9/14/12
My belief is that teaching is a great
art. An art not easily taught or learned or judged. Just as a
masterpiece can't be created in a paint by numbers kit; so great
teaching can't be created or judged just through numbers. This
incessant attempt to improve our education system through judging
teachers on their student's test scores is only a simplistic solution
to a complex problem. To those who have only ever been students in
their lives, this simplistic solution may seem viable, yet it holds a
falsity within it's very premise. Teaching a CHILD is not teaching a
SUBJECT. Within the folds of teaching lie the delicate interactions
and threads of human interaction, of trust, of give and take, the
lightning quick judgments and decisions which must be made to adjust
the learning conditions to help the learner to go further and beyond
where they are in their understanding at that moment. No curriculum,
computer, program or even an untrained person can take another
individual beyond, can push just gently but persistently enough to
bring another person to a new threshold of understanding, then beyond
again. Day after day, through the beginnings of the new, unknown
relationship to the deep knowing of one another as the journey we
just traveled together. This journey is then forever within each of
us who has had a great teacher and lies within each teacher as a
living seed of nourishment for the next trial, and passed on to the
next student who will benefit from the experiences the teacher
gained.
As we watch a nation of teachers
marching for what seems trivial issues; why strike over being
evaluated by test scores? Why worry about being let go when your
seniority prices you out of your school district? If you're a good
teacher you have nothing to worry about. This is completely untrue
and in fact exacerbates rather than solves any problems withing our
education system. Teachers know that these evaluation techniques and
policy mandates hurt our children. Children benefit when bad
teachers go through an extensive evaluation process with people
working with them to improve their craft then if that fails ending
the process with a new career. Children benefit when teachers with
the seeds of experience from countless learners within their minds
and hearts can use these for the next generation. Teachers supported
in using the techniques and skills which work with individual
children and allowed the freedom to alter, fashion and REALLY teach
students will benefit our future for generations to come.
Monday, November 19, 2012
So what's wrong with testing?
Test analogy #1:
My doctor tells me I'm going to have to undergo a series of physical endurance tests 10 months from today. His job rating and subsequent job security and pay are linked to the results of these tests. The tests results will indicate how well he instructed me on the value of eating healthy and doing daily exercise. He will be assigning me a set of exercises and a diet to follow in order to get ready for these tests.
However, while these are sound wellness strategies the results will have no effect on my life. I will get a print out of my results 3 months after I leave his care and I will then move on to another physician's care.
Will my test results truly be an accurate reflection of my doctor's knowledge and abilities to diagnose and prescribe their patient's needs?
Nay..
And this is how we propose to judge a teacher's qualifications.
If test results have no impact on a student's life the test results will not matter to that student and they will have no ownership over the outcome.
Yearly Standardized Test results are a farce.
My doctor tells me I'm going to have to undergo a series of physical endurance tests 10 months from today. His job rating and subsequent job security and pay are linked to the results of these tests. The tests results will indicate how well he instructed me on the value of eating healthy and doing daily exercise. He will be assigning me a set of exercises and a diet to follow in order to get ready for these tests.
However, while these are sound wellness strategies the results will have no effect on my life. I will get a print out of my results 3 months after I leave his care and I will then move on to another physician's care.
Will my test results truly be an accurate reflection of my doctor's knowledge and abilities to diagnose and prescribe their patient's needs?
Nay..
And this is how we propose to judge a teacher's qualifications.
If test results have no impact on a student's life the test results will not matter to that student and they will have no ownership over the outcome.
Yearly Standardized Test results are a farce.
A Tsunami of Technology
Truly,
Every time I sit at a computer I feel like I have to learn something new....and it's exhausting. New passwords, user names, directions to navigate, AND who are all these people??
So many voices crowding the air, streaming everywhere. What does this do to us as individuals? What will this do to our children? Are our individual voices truly important or are we just another voice in a million, a grain of sand,or yes the proverbial dust in the wind.
In my classroom the effect continues. Attendance, testing, maintenance, student challenges and research, media and lesson creation, they all require these little tidbits of information, little decision hurdles which snip away at my allotment of decisions for the day. I must have on hand, in my available storehouse of knowledge, a huge amount of trivial data to navigate my way through the technology of the day. AND it's always changing. AND this has very little to do with the actual work of teaching children.
The work of teaching children pivots singularly around KNOWING them. Their strengths, weaknesses, needs. Where each is in their own development. It is so easy to find myself lost in the maze of unimportant business. Assignments which don't meet their needs or grading which doesn't give me new or usable information about them. My daily challenge is how to stay grounded in the important work of the day and how to keep the students there with me.
All of this is just in the small microcosm of my classroom. This doesn't address the incoming pressures to use this designated technique, or that curriculum in a prescribed manner. Those pressures and decisions are a rant for another day.
Every time I sit at a computer I feel like I have to learn something new....and it's exhausting. New passwords, user names, directions to navigate, AND who are all these people??
So many voices crowding the air, streaming everywhere. What does this do to us as individuals? What will this do to our children? Are our individual voices truly important or are we just another voice in a million, a grain of sand,or yes the proverbial dust in the wind.
In my classroom the effect continues. Attendance, testing, maintenance, student challenges and research, media and lesson creation, they all require these little tidbits of information, little decision hurdles which snip away at my allotment of decisions for the day. I must have on hand, in my available storehouse of knowledge, a huge amount of trivial data to navigate my way through the technology of the day. AND it's always changing. AND this has very little to do with the actual work of teaching children.
The work of teaching children pivots singularly around KNOWING them. Their strengths, weaknesses, needs. Where each is in their own development. It is so easy to find myself lost in the maze of unimportant business. Assignments which don't meet their needs or grading which doesn't give me new or usable information about them. My daily challenge is how to stay grounded in the important work of the day and how to keep the students there with me.
All of this is just in the small microcosm of my classroom. This doesn't address the incoming pressures to use this designated technique, or that curriculum in a prescribed manner. Those pressures and decisions are a rant for another day.
Saturday, February 25, 2012
Teacher Tears
My heart aches today for teachers young and old. My heart aches today for the countless children whose horizons are limited because their potential future teachers are redirected away from education; though their sensitive hearts call them to spend their lives investing in the future through building up children, the hostile workspaces of schools and their tangent communities have driven them away I have taught for nearly 30 years, pouring my heart into my teaching, students, parents and community. Yet today I am portrayed as some selfish pariah feeding off the community's tax dollars.
Just as the light from a far distant sun doesn't reach us for millenia, so I see the impact of my daily words and efforts. Developing learners who believe in themselves, care about others, invest of themselves in their classmates and school doesn't have an immediate impact, but it works to develop individuals that will be productive members of the community later.
The battering of today's teachers is unprecedented. The constant stream of misrepresented data intended to deprofessionalize teaching is a flood of ignorance and misdirected good intentions almost too overwhelming to stand against. So here I try to find my voice and speak for two underrepresented populations; the teachers who want nothing more than to work themselves to death for the children they serve, and the children; more devalued in our society then has been seen in generations.
Here I intend to speak the truth from a classroom, join me in sharing your own experiences, fears, questions and challenges. There is hope for our future and it lies within the hearts of our children and those willing to look at the true complexities that face us.
Just as the light from a far distant sun doesn't reach us for millenia, so I see the impact of my daily words and efforts. Developing learners who believe in themselves, care about others, invest of themselves in their classmates and school doesn't have an immediate impact, but it works to develop individuals that will be productive members of the community later.
The battering of today's teachers is unprecedented. The constant stream of misrepresented data intended to deprofessionalize teaching is a flood of ignorance and misdirected good intentions almost too overwhelming to stand against. So here I try to find my voice and speak for two underrepresented populations; the teachers who want nothing more than to work themselves to death for the children they serve, and the children; more devalued in our society then has been seen in generations.
Here I intend to speak the truth from a classroom, join me in sharing your own experiences, fears, questions and challenges. There is hope for our future and it lies within the hearts of our children and those willing to look at the true complexities that face us.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)