Connected?

Ruminations of my life as a teacher

Month: June 2015

The net works! . . . and other networks . . .

For me, the teacher networks I belong to have two functions.  First, the networks connect me to a community of like-minded people with a common professional interest and objective in life. Second, I want to find resources that will have a positive impact on my teaching practice.

Oddly enough, the idea of developing connections with teacher networks only occurred to me in the past two years.  As a National Board Certified Teacher, I decided to attend the Teaching and Learning 2014 Conference in Washington, DC.  While perusing the list of presenters, I was immediately energized and interested to attend.  Until this time, I was proud of being Board certified but didn’t know what else the organization did or how it could further impact my teaching.  Attending this conference further opened my eyes to the scores of talented and knowledgeable people involved in education.  Being interested in policy and practice, I found myself with a buffet of choices involving both.  I was able to listen to Angela Duckworth discuss her research involving the impact of grit and self-control on educational success.  I met Pasi Sahlberg and listened as he discussed educational practice in Finland which led his home country to a #1 ranking on the PISA exam.  Charlotte Danielson led a panel discussion on her teaching Framework.  I found out about a website called www.noredink.com developed by a former English teacher, Jeff Scheur, to help with grammar instruction.  This conference changed my view of the National Board of Professional Teaching Standards from certification granting entity, to a living, breathing organization that was dedicated to being a teacher network and positively impacting the practice of all teachers (admission to the conference is open to anyone who is interested).  Teaching and Learning 2015 provided another stimulating session and I am looking forward to 2016!  Attending this conference is invigorating.

Recently, I’ve discovered the value of Twitter in connecting with educational people and organizations of interest.  Until fairly recently, I could not understand how Twitter was worth my time.  I’m not very interested in the daily lives of “celebrities” or the opinions of athletes.  This year our principal created a Twitter account for our school https://twitter.com/WarwickPPPRIDE I joined to check it out.  After a few minutes, I quickly realized that Twitter is much more than a 140 character platform for anyone with a keyboard.  Many of the names mentioned in the previous paragraph kept popping up on my Twitter page.  Instead of just being able to read their book or a random article, I could now be connected to a multitude of their ideas, and the thoughts and ideas of people they respect.

With these networks, I keep tabs on the profession as a whole and investigate educational policy in our country and, as much as possible, abroad.

As an aside . . . . While I vote and write my legislators regarding educational policy, I am not overly active in the political realm.  I do believe, however, that the least teachers can do is be informed about what is going on in the Department of Education and with legislation around the country and the world.  The leadership of the profession of education has been taken over by politicians in our country.  Since they have no idea what to do and refuse to ask teachers, social workers, and other experts on creating a nurturing social system, they have delegated private industry, including the test production industry, and others with little to no experience in education, or social issues, as the stewards of the public education system in the United States.  As a professional educator with a deep interest in the success of public education and the intellectual growth of the next generation of humans, I am appalled at what is happening.  I want to know as much as possible about these developments.  I want to see if more knowledgeable friends of education, and good policy, know what I know and see what I see.  I also want to know what they are doing about it.  For that reason, I follow Diane Ravitch https://twitter.com/DianeRavitch , Andy Hargreaves https://twitter.com/HargreavesBC , and Pasi Sahlberg https://twitter.com/pasi_sahlberg .  All are excellent sources on what Pasi Sahlberg calls GERM, which stands for the Global Education Reform Movement.  He explains in a Washington Post article from 2012, “It is like an epidemic that spreads and infects education systems through a virus. It travels with pundits, media and politicians. Education systems borrow policies from others and get infected. As a consequence, schools get ill, teachers don’t feel well, and kids learn less.”

I would love to hear about the teacher networks you’ve discovered.

Standing on the shoulders of newbies

“If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants.” (or newbies)

— Isaac Newton, letter to Robert Hooke

 

This post is dedicated to Erin, Jenn, Mags, and Wags.

The more I think about my teaching career, the more I realize the number of people that have influenced what I do in the classroom.  On the one hand, as I’ve said earlier, I have always looked to those above me for inspiration and have sought to work under people with strong leadership qualities who know education.  These people have always been great resources when I needed to “advance my game.”  On the other hand, my grade level partners and other teaching colleagues have also been inspirational and helpful in improving my practice.

What’s funny is that for the first 6-8 years of my teaching career, I practically sought reclusion!  My day was too busy to spend chit chatting about lesson ideas.  I already had ideas and I didn’t care what color my bulletin boards were going to be or if they matched the walls!  What I needed was the time to plan my ideas out into lessons.  What started changing my thinking was the addition of a few young, new teachers working at my school.  At some point, I overheard one of them talking about how she structured her math class.  I had halfheartedly sought an approach to teaching math that would avoid boring the kids who picked up a concept quickly.  In addition, there are always kids that respond remarkably well to small group instruction.  For whatever reason, if they are 20 feet from the teacher, they do not understand, but if they are three feet from the teacher, they “get it.”  I fretted over what seemed like periods of “down-time” for some people during math class.  After hearing this novice teacher speak, I was suddenly struck by the realization that other people might have superior approaches to managing a class than I!  Or at the very least, I could build on their ideas to form my own new idea!  Sadly, this had never occurred to me before.  I began forging closer relationships with the “newcomers” and what poured forth were many fresh approaches.  Similarly, they seemed interested in my thoughts and ideas and a connection was formed that provided inspiration for many improvements in my approach and a better attitude toward collaboration from me.

What came out of this initial realization was the idea of splitting my class up into three groups of 6-8 students.  During class, the groups rotate through two independent stations and one with me where they receive instruction on the current day’s math concept.  These days, one of the stations utilizes laptop computers and is technology driven, giving me a high level of accountability and the students a high level of engagement.  My students continually give me positive feedback about this approach and groan in pain if, for some reason, we deviate from this approach.  The time flies by for everyone, I’m always instructing to small groups where I can easily monitor everyone’s progress, and I can more easily differentiate instruction (note:  nothing is easy for me).

The trick for me is staying open to the mentors-my school network-that exist around me and allowing them in to my world.  The experience I’ve described above is the first time I remember being inspired in a material way by my colleagues around me.  I’m sure I missed many amazing opportunities before and since, to be positively impacted.  It is but one example of a time I was inspired by an amazing team of teachers with whom I had the pleasure of working for several years.

This experience showed me that mentors are not always older than me and that “connecting” is a two-way street.  It showed me what most teachers seem to grasp more easily than I . . . that it is our duty as educators to keep an open mind and open ears when others are talking.  One can never tell when one might hear something that will end up positively impacting teaching and learning.

So, cheers to the newcomers that rejuvenated my teaching and became my mentors in the process!  I can’t thank you enough!

I can’t end this post without also mentioning that this group of educators was extremely open to the idea of debate.  This was pointed out by Jenn in the comments section of my first post.  I miss the very honest exchange of ideas, without offense being taken.  When people are forced to support their viewpoints aloud, something magical happens if it’s approached in the proper spirit, with that element of trust.  The frequency of the debates to which I am referring is all too rare.

Cheers!

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