….and, I think all teachers should read Nel Noddings book “Happiness in Education”
I wonder what education might look like if we followed this simple advice each day for every person who walked in the door’s of our schools?
Imagine a world where we could be happy, responsible, and not deny others their opportunities?
Cross posted from my own blog; Blogging Through the Fourth Dimension.
I am just going to admit it; not grading sucks! Not grading means I cannot assign an average, translate it into a grade and be done. Not grading means I have to have anecdotal evidence to back up my final grade on the report card, anecdotal evidence I have to collect throughout the year and then actually keep in one place. Not grading also means that my students have not been given percentages at any time throughout the year, which means that when I have to give them a letter grade (as mandated by my district) it is my job to make sure that they have an idea of why they are getting what they get. Not grading means I cannot just zip through a pile of papers, correct them according to my answer key, and whip out my…
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I often hear from parent/friends that they don’t like the idea of allowing their children on the Internet because it’s “distracting”. Yeah well, I have been procrastinating today by surfing the Internet, checking FB and also keeping busy with cleaning my kitchen, working out and feeding the kids. What should I be doing? I should be studying for an exam! Why am I not studying? Because this particular subject is BORING, has been presented in a boring manner (massive long PowerPoints that appear to come straight from the textbook’s teacher resources) and I personally don’t believe there has been any clear direction on what to study (basically study it ALL!). I’m guessing this is the same for a lot of kids and adults who are supposed to be “learning” but procrastinate instead.
We all have to do stuff that we don’t like, but hey surely our teachers could try to make it a little more interesting? right?
So is Internet to blame for my lack of study? NO!
(mini rant over….and back to study for me!)
Carly’s Cafe – check it out for a glimpse of what it may be like to have autism. I am sure that autistic experience varies greatly, but this is an interesting interactive, online view.
Adora Svitak: What adults can learn from kids
This video came out a couple of years ago; it was powerful then and still is now.
“…in order to make anything a reality, you have to dream about it first…”
I’ve been following Richard’s blog/s for a while now. His work/writing is always inspiring and interesting; he is a passionate educator and writer. I had to re-blog this post because not only does it highlight how brilliantly he writes and thinks but it also includes a link to his awesome new website. http://inglishteacher.com/Check it out! It is great. When I was a teenager music was VERY central to my life (still important now too) and I can imagine that this type of learning (via music videos) would be very effective. ESL (English as a Second Language) students were thought of as the audience here but I would also use this site if I was struggling with English grammar OR trying to learn French (which I did in High School and I found it so boring because there weren’t any sites like this around at the time!). Enjoy! Well done Richard!
Through the awesome-ness of Twitter I saw @davidwees tweet about this great site: Computer Science Unplugged I spent some time navigating through this site and I’m loving it! There are lots of activities to help explain/learn the concepts involved in computers/technology. It also includes loads of resources for teachers.
The activities are great. I have used some of these activities in the past (either stumbled on the idea myself or learned from other people), so it’s great to have all of these activities in one place and with added Youtube videos too. These activities are great as a back-up plan if the computers are “down”, server crashes etc; but they are also great activities to supplement the computer-based learning. One of the things I dislike about most computer classes is how immobile students are and I think getting students to move around to experience learning is an awesome idea. This also allows for different learning styles and helps those students that like to put learning into action.
Dear friends.
The poor get poorer, and more get poorer. Meanwhile college tuitions keep rising. Meanwhile the media declare that no one who hasn’t got a BA can possibly qualify for a living wage. Something’s rotten in this proposition. It’s a catch-22. And it doesn’t have to be that way. It isn’t that way in Finland, for example.
Finland didn’t do it overnight, but they built it around critical democratic habits: competence and trust. They didn’t trade off one for the other. They joined competence and trust—just as we do when we hire a baby-sitter. I often go back to this metaphor because it seems so odd that we understand trust when it comes to a babysitter (even when our children are so young that we can’t really get “their side” of the story) but keep looking for a trust-proof solution to system-wide public schooling.
Trust and skepticism go fine…
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Where to start? Well, first off I am aware that I am still muddling through all of this and I doubt that I will find the “right” solution until I am actually teaching full-time…..and even then I am sure my thoughts will change due to different class dynamics and external pressures such as testing, accountability measures, policies etc.
I have just completed another 3-week practical experience at an Australian High School. My teaching areas are in ICT (computer technologies) and Business. This was the BEST prac experience so far for me; my mentor teachers were awesome and the school (approx. 1500 students from Year 8 to 12) was diverse and interesting to teach.
One of the things I struggled with (yet somewhat enjoyed, lol) was the disruptive behaviours of some students and figuring out how to deal with them. I was told by my mentors to “set your expectations” right at the beginning and I attempted this but I really didn’t know exactly what they meant until half way through the prac. What my mentors were suggesting was to explicitly outline my expectations in regards to being on task, behaviours etc.
I guess I came in “soft” and just expected that students would act as “young adults” – so the question is, how should a “young adult” act? Do I really want to teach students that are ALWAYS on task, ALWAYS polite, that do not “have a bit of fun” in class etc? That’s not how I experienced my High School years. Yes, I got most of my work done and sometimes I questioned my teachers and mucked around in class when I didn’t find the content interesting. I definitely wasn’t the “perfect” student and I would not wish that for my own children. Why? I believe classrooms should be a place of learning about content but also about questioning norms & expectations and also about making mistakes.
After 3 weeks I learned that I had to give consequences (such as staying behind at lunch break) if I wanted students to complete home-work and in-class-work. Consequences was the MAIN way that I dealt with disruptive behaviours too, this was usually after trying to talk to the student/s. I heard a lot of teachers at this school talk about having to be “strict” and have good behaviour management strategies in place to be able to handle the diverse students. This all makes sense BUT……..
There was not a lot of talk about understanding the students as individuals. Yes, students were labeled with specific differentiation labels such as ESL, learning difficulties, emotional issues etc but this did not go further in any type of special help for the student. I didn’t see a lot of differentiation or personal discussion to help individual students. I’m guessing that I missed a lot of this purely because it would be impossible to deal with all of that in the span of 3 weeks. So the easiest thing to do in the short term is to simply enforce good behaviour by using consequences (basically threats: “if you don’t do X, then you will have to stay back or see the principal”). My concerns with this are 1) I don’t personally like this style of behaviour mgmt but I could see that it worked and 2) this “quick” style of behaviour mgmt was ignoring any possible personal issues that the student may be dealing with.
1) If you’ve kept up with my blogging you’ll know that I don’t believe that a rewards system is beneficial to children or young adults, although I do accept and acknowledge that this is a common practice in our families, schools, workplaces and communities. I’d like to avoid this type of strategy if possible. I don’t think I can avoid this in the short (somewhat artificial, unrealistic) setting of a practical experience.
2) The thing that worries me the most is the possibility that a student’s disruptive behaviour is merely a symptom of something bigger (marginalisation, learning difficulties, emotional issues, abusive relationships etc). The only way that I could know what a student is going through personally would be to get to know them better, through the continual practice of an ethics of care and by fostering a caring community in the classroom (Noddings, 2005). If I was teaching full-time, how would I do this? I would involve students in the creation of classroom rules and expectations; we would approach this as stakeholders with possibly our own version of a dialogue circle (Queensland Studies Authority, 2010). OK, so that’s what I would do, but could I do it? Something that struck me as a major barrier to getting to know students on my practical experience was the continuous pressure of simply not having enough time to fulfill all the curriculum assessment requirements. To help each student individually requires that teachers build relationships with each student and differentiates the curriculum. However with increased societal and government pressure on teacher performance accountability and student assessments, it is argued that the time and focus required to build such relationships are diminished (Harris, 2008). Harris (2008) proposes that teachers identify how assessment accountability has changed the nature of their teaching and then to reclaim “…the relationships as the ‘organising principle’ of schools” (p. 368). How to do this and still tick all the boxes is a vexing question and I am sure to be thinking about this again!
Harris, B. (2008, November). Befriending the two-headed monster: personal, social and emotional development in schools in challenging times. British Journal of Guidance & Counselling, 36(4), 367-383.
Noddings, N. (2005). Caring in education. Retrieved from infEd: http://www.infed.org/biblio/noddings_caring_in_education.htm
Queensland Studies Authority. (2010, January). Dialogue circles: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives – resources. Retrieved from http://www.qsa.qld.edu.au/downloads/approach/indigenous_res_dialogue_circ.pdf
Love it! 🙂
The majority of teachers in this country are women, their impact on the history of education is vast, but only a few are covered in textbooks on education or talked about among the major thinkers in the history of education. Their wisdom, experience and action research in and out of the classroom has helped shape the history of education.
Until the 1970’s most books about education were written by men. When Vivian Gussin Paley, an early educator at the Lab School, wrote her first book, White Teacher, her work as an author/scholar was dismissed and chastised. Her fellow teachers and academics didn’t believe that it was the teacher’s place to study the lives of children she taught.
Action research is now taught in teachers colleges, but we still often forget to celebrate the work of women educators, for example, quotes by John Dewey show up daily on social media…
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If you’ve been following my blog or know me personally, you probably have figured out that I am an advocate of the use of ICTs, especially in schools. I believe that schools should have NO blocks to the Internet. Here are a few advantages of unblocking the Internet at school:
Wow! Something to watch for parents, teachers and education leaders. This video talks about the privatisation of education in the USA.
Public schools are IMPORTANT to a democratic society. We need inclusive classrooms that teach children/young-adults curriculum, life-skills and how to live in a diverse community. I get a bit worried about all of the changes in Education that seem to be coming from free-market principles that focuses on competition. We should be worried about this. What are we teaching our young citizens if we focus on competition, consumerism and numbers (money).
There are some wonderful comments made by inspiring teachers in this video, here’s one: “public school teacher….a way to change the world” Yes, this is a major motivation for my own teaching – even if I just help/change/reach-out to one student then I’ve succeeded.
My son will be 9 years old at the end of next week. We were chatting about this wonderful upcoming event (his B’day) today and he also said, “Oh and I’m so happy it doesn’t land on a NAPLAN day.” I asked him why it mattered and he said, “oh you know, I’m a bit nervous about having to take all those tests”. I asked him whether he understood what the tests were for and it quickly became apparent that he didn’t really understand.
So I did the only logical thing and that was to try and explain NAPLAN (standardised tests) to my son. I showed him the My School website and we had a look at the information for his school. I then explained the meaning of the dark green, light green, white, pink & red band colours shown in the NAPLAN Results in Bands page and we looked at the results for the last few years. He saw a lot of white (average) and some light green (above average). We had a mini lesson on what is “average” and how to calculate “average”.
He then said, “They must not have been very good a couple of years ago, look at all that pink (below average)”. Hmmm, OK, so then I had to explain to him how NAPLAN testing, like other standardised tests around the world, are LIMITED and only show a small part of a child’s ability……AND that it only tests children in a very NARROW way. Oh WOW, what a conversation we had! We talked about diversity, about how people are good at different things and also about how some types of testing (like multiple-choice) are not a good measure for some students. We also talked, just lightly though, about how NAPLAN and the expectations that result due to NAPLAN impact the way teachers teach, what they teach, what they concentrate on and also what they may ignore or skip.
I think it is IMPORTANT to have this conversation with children who have to do standardised tests. I think they need to know what it is, why it is done and how people interpret the results (the good & the bad). With limited knowledge my son had initially put-down the school’s NAPLAN efforts a couple of years ago because he saw some pink bands….imagine what the uninformed adult does who might be considering what community to live in and what school to put their children into. We need to talk about this more so that there is more understanding of the impact of NAPLAN.
Now here’s an interesting, thought-provoking & funny TED presentation by JP Rangaswami.
How do we consume data/information? The way we think about food, organise it, our views on its production & the selling/marketing of it and then our consumption of it is very similar to our relationship with food. Love it! 🙂
This has been bugging me for a while. There are many occasions when I meet someone and the discussion turns to why would I decide to teach teenagers instead of adults. Often this is coupled with a sound or look of disgust or just plain bewilderment that I would even consider to do such a crazy thing! If I was a teenager I would be offended and yet people (adults) assume this type of stereotyping of teenagers or young adults is ok. The cashier (approx. in her mid-20’s) at the local grocery store announced in conversation yesterday that “young people today are so lazy”. A woman who I met at my children’s gymnastics class nearly choked out her disgust that I would do something so “stupid”. A Professor at the University that I currently attend told me in a kind of sneer (I don’t think I imagined it) that “You’ll find that tertiary teachers very rarely decide to stoop down to teaching in High Schools”.
So, you might be wondering how I respond? Well, sometimes I just laugh it off and tell them that I like teaching and that I like teenagers because they’re cool. Sometimes I get into a long conversation about how I often thought that I would have liked to have taught ICTs to my tertiary students while they were in High School to give them a better head-start maybe. I also believe that I can have more of a positive impact on a young adult’s life as a High School teacher. There are so many reasons! In the end it doesn’t matter what anyone thinks because I’m doing it.
What is a concern is how easily adults put-down teenagers/young-adults. This stereotype that kids are lazy or that they are unable to think critically because all the answers are available to them instantly (google) is sad and an absolute distortion; it’s not true! I hear a lot of people complain that young people have too high expectations in the work place; so do we want our young people to have low expectations? No, I don’t!
Before making assumptions about young people, how about you actually start talking to them first? Or better yet, start reading a bit of Giroux and how he believes that young people are disenfranchised and under assault. “Not only do they live in a space of social homelessness in which precarity and uncertainty lock them out of a secure future, they also find themselves living in a society that seeks to silence them as it makes them invisible” (Giroux, 2012).
Giroux, H. (2012). The “Suicidal State” and the war on youth. Retrieved on 27 April 2012 from http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/8421-the-suicidal-state-and-the-war-on-youth
I think THIS is a good idea, what do you think? Performance appraisal and setting goals happens in most other professions, why not in Education too?
Wow! This is a great presentation that you HAVE TO check out. The design and use of cat-walk images is great and gets your attention. The message at the beginning is excellent – educators should work together, contribute and share, YES!
Some specific points that I like about this presentation:
slide 4 says it all: “it’s sharing with the community!”
slide 10: a good YouTube presentation with social media stats – interesting stuff
slide 26: the Twitter life cycle. I plan to post about my relationship with Twitter 🙂 soon. I am half way up the timeline shown on this slide. I have realised that by following the right people I get access (or notification) of great resources and ideas. I’m not at the “I can’t stop” point yet but I can see that possibility in my future since I have now graduated to also checking Twitter on my mobile phone.
While our current age of digital disruption has opened a cornucopia of new casual creative endeavors, the networked generation’s ability to multitask — and the constant need for instantaneous action — may also be hindering creativity.
Personally I’m undecided on whether technology and our increasingly digital lifestyle hinders creativity. On one hand our time spent in the digital world has begun to absorb time in the real world. This gives us fewer experiences we can relate to thus diminished creativity.
On the other hand in both work and school, there has never been a time when personal creative potential has been greater. If people can just use technology to express their ideas in different ways, then there is more opportunity to be creative. When else has there been a time when someone on their phone or tablet or computer can create symphonies so easily or novels and then give them to the…
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A new way to create Thank You notes and land that awesome job!
No, I’m not getting married. But we are getting an incredibly awesome new team member to join us at GiveForward. Last month, I posted about a candidate named Kristen who sent us the BEST interview follow up email EVER! The video went kind of viral and even spawned this blog post, Second Impressions from TechStars founder, David Cohen.
Many of you asked if we offered Kristen a position. We did! And she said yes! She starts Monday.
Here’s the video thank you note she sent us if you haven’t seen it yet:
http://portal.sliderocket.com/BPBOP/GiveForward.
If you’re looking for a job, take notes. This is how you land one. And if you’re not looking for a job, pay it forward and pass this along to someone who is. They’ll thank you later.
Another bookmarking organisation tool….looks nice! Thanks Kristi.
I find it helps to organize chores into categories: Things I won’t do now; Things I won’t dolater; Things I’ll never do.”- Cartoon Character Maxine
I’m a fairly organized person. My teaching friends would say I’m obsessive. That sounds so… so….accurate. *sigh* I just like things where they go and I don’t like to waste time. I like things alphabetized, organized, folderized, containerized, and color coded. (I even debated on using the words color-coded since it didn’t fit my -ized theme.)
My online life is no exception. I have a need for things to be organized and easily found. I recently decided my bookmarks were out of control. The “website weeds” needed to be pulled and I needed some rhyme to my reason. I found Symbaloo. Symbaloo is a FREE, customizable start page tool that lets users add all their most important links in a format that is…
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elketeaches 