teaching
As my first post, I would like to introduce you to my style of writing and inform you that I am not a born writer. I am not even a skilled/trained/learned writer. I went through all the classes and procedures that most do to become proficient at writing, so I am able to express myself with words. However, it is not a talent or even something I have a flare for. In fact, my many poor grades and close calls at not passing college level writing classes and exams, has ingrained in me that writing is my weakest skill. Ever. Of all skills. Please take my errors and my expressed feelings with a grain of salt. And probably just smile at me when you see me and know that deep down, I am not, nor will I ever be, a great and mighty writer of anything. And I'm okay with that. So, now that formalities are out of the way, I want to give my insights after reading "Why School?" by Will Richardson. "Today, we have an Internet connection, we have fingertip, on-demand access to an amazing library that holds close to the sum of human knowledge, and equally important, to more than two billion people with whom we can potentially learn. Compare that to the library in your childhood school and the faces lined up in your yearbook. The enormity of the difference is hard to put into words." In the beginning the author sets up a pretty clear picture about how students learn in this day and age. The steps he gave to the current needs of education were given through the example of his son Tucker are as follows: 1. Have a passion for the topic 2. He updates the curriculum based on what he needs to know (meaning he is able to identify his own gaps in understanding and fill them. This is a very complicated metacognative step that many students don't always have inside the classroom.) 3. Finds his own teachers. People he can relate to and is willing to learn from. 4. Performs his own self assessments. 5. Determines what needs to be done based on his self assessment. Does he need to start over? Is his work good enough? And lastly, 6. He provides feedback to his peers. Because of technology and the internet, the needs of students has dramatically evolved over a relatively short period of time. As a result, what has been reliable in the past can now be almost a damage and hinderance to stuents now. The author calls for a reform and I think it is clear that his ideas outlined in "Part II: New School" are spot on. "We have to stop thinking of an education as something that is delivered to us and instead see it as something we create for ourselves" For me, as I watch teachers on camps at my school sites I wonder how they make time for any planning at all. I feel like the main reason not making changes or reform is because there is not time. Teachers are just surviving, getting from day to day, and few have the skills needed to do this AND provide meaning well thought out lessons. It seems that in order to do it all you have to be blessed enough to have a special talent or flare to doing it. Being new to this, the idea of having to plan an entire years worth of deep meaningful lessons is daunting and overwhelming. I could pick one of Richardson's six skills but I don't know that in my first year or even right now that I have the time to develop anything. Hypothetically I would want to be better at providing lessons that help students discover and where I don't just deliver information. But if I'm speaking hypothetically then I would want to acquire all his 6 skills. The hard part is the how. How to find the time, how to use the time appropriately, and how to execute. At this point, I have found few mentors that can display a solution for that. For me, as I watch teachers on camps at my school sites I wonder how they make time for any planning at all. I feel like the main reason not making changes or reform is because there is not time. Teachers are just surviving, getting from day to day, and few have the skills needed to do this AND provide meaning well thought out lessons. It seems that in order to do it all you have to be blessed enough to have a special talent or flare to doing it. Being new to this, the idea of having to plan an entire years worth of deep meaningful lessons is daunting and overwhelming. I could pick one of Richardson's six skills but I don't know that in my first year or even right now that I have the time to develop anything. Hypothetically I would want to be better at providing lessons that help students discover and where I don't just deliver information. But if I'm speaking hypothetically then I would want to acquire all his 6 skills. The hard skill to develop is talking to strangers. Not only do I naturally struggle socially, but finding the time to learn how to express myself digitally other than how I already am will be difficult for me. I am and expect to be consumed with how to find the time, how to use the time appropriately, and how to execute. At this point, I have found few mentors that can display a solution for that. "High stakes testing has corrupted the spirit of American education." I also found this quote very interesting from the reading. I can agree and disagree with this statement. I do think that the incredible focus on testing has taken away from the point of education. However, is it a state that was imposed onto education, or has education and educators made it such?
The other day I was in a department meeting for the entire district regarding NGSS training. So many teachers are frustrated and upset with the change to NGSS standards. The main reason being that the state has issues these standards, they are expecting them to be implemented, but no one has designed an assessment for it yet. Oh my gosh, how are we supposed to teach it without the assessment? I'm new, so I don't see the issue that everyone else seems to be hung up on. I'm hung up on the time issue. But the assessment issue seems negligent. Its hard to tell if teachers have have created the state we are in, or if No Child Left Behind has created it. Many jump to point fingers at the government, but is there something in our nature that prefers to know the end result? Just something I have been thinking about....
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AuthorI teach. I CrossFit. I like to talk about both! Archives
May 2015
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