I Like Teachers That Love to Learn

I have to thank Mr. James Cowper from Ontario Canada for the inspiration for this blog post, which seems strange as I’ve never met him. It was this tweet from him that inspired me:

I’ve been struggling this year with the amount of time that I am scheduled to be out of the classroom for professional development. Being in the classroom with my students is my passion and my joy and I honestly do have a hard time leaving them behind. The reasons for this are partly egotistical: I like to believe that nobody can teach my lessons the way I would . A greater part is frustration: sometimes the mandated sessions that I am required to attend are not relevant or challenging and sometimes, since the guest teacher system was privatized, I have to leave my wonderful students in the hands of a random guest teacher who I have never met. Recently, I had to radically alter my prepared lesson plans at the last minute when a delightful little elderly lady showed up and told me she couldn’t even read my lesson plans as the font was so small. Technology integration was obviously going to be a stretch!

But professional development is a necessary part of my job. Part of the safety demonstration on a plane states that if you are travelling with children you must put on your own oxygen mask first in order to help the children. The same principal applies in the classroom-in order to educate our students we must first educate ourselves. Teachers often arrive in their classrooms to find that new technology has been delivered overnight: interactive whiteboards, iPads, clicker response systems to name a few. We also have a huge shift in curriculum delivery to contend with following the adoption of the Common Core Standards. It sometimes feels like waking up to find a Boeing 747 parked on the driveway with a note saying figure out how to fly this, you’ll be transporting 300 hundred passengers tomorrow!

So I accept that I have to attend professional development and I embrace the fact that I need to learn and grow as a teacher in order to do the best job that I can for my students, they deserve nothing less. I attend district meetings to make connections with other teachers who I can share and learn with, keep up with district developments and represent my school’s unique perspective. I attend conferences to become inspired by the experiences of other teachers and bring back to my students innovative and engaging ways to learn. I attend classes to maintain my professional certification and stay in touch with current pedagogy and best practice.

So how do I minimize the impact my absence has on my students? I try to ensure that I secure the services of a competent and reliable guest teacher in my absence, one who has an established relationship with both me and my students. I leave detailed lesson plans and work hard to institute routines that encourage my students to be independent thinkers and learners. In the event of problems I make myself available to my guest teacher, parents and students via email and Skype. I take advantage of the expertise of my colleagues and try to incorporate team teaching activities at best and offer them up as support at least.

What can I do better? I think I need to communicate more to my parents and students about where I am going and how attending professional development sessions have a direct and positive impact on my classroom. I need to work on finding balance, and enlist the help of my administrators in determining what is necessary, preferred and superfluous. I also need to breathe and realize that I can’t learn and implement everything immediately, despite the fact I want to because I want to be the best teacher that I can be.

This also applies to my role as a mom. On Saturday morning I was watching a presentation live from Edscape 2012, and my son told me that for Christmas he just wants me to not logon on to my computer for a whole day. I am a teacher that loves to learn and I hope that my occasional absence  from both my classroom and from my family inspires  my students and my own children to mirror my love of learning, and embark  on their own unique lifelong learning journeys.

 

The Purpose of Education

I asked a friend of mine who lives in Canada how his six year old daughter Brooke was settling in to the new school year. She is a delightful little pixie of a child who finds joy in everything so I was shocked when he told me she is utterly miserable. She comes home crying every night, she is having trouble sleeping and eating and getting her to school every day has become a trauma for all involved. Apparently she is part of an experiment that the Principal is conducting. He has taken four students from each of his two Kindergarten classes, two boys and two girls, and placed them in the other class for first grade. All four of the kids are struggling because they don’t know the other kids in the class and are not being accepted and included by their peers. When dad went to explain this to the principal and ask for her to be placed back in her old class he was given short shrift, told nothing would change and given no rationale for the decision to boot!

The sad part about this is that it is such a recurring theme in education. New initiatives are often dreamt up and put into place by district administration, by principals, by teachers and all, I’m sure, with great intent. The tricky part however seems being able to figure out when an idea isn’t working. More often than not the success of a new educational initiative is measured numerically through assessment data. Brooke will be tested in the next few weeks in her Canadian classroom and I’m sure the data will show that she is not progressing, not learning and it’s not difficult to figure out why-she isn’t happy!  Children can only be open to learning when they feel safe and secure and happy in the learning environment. Do we need data to figure that out or to determine next steps, or could the issue be resolved through open and honest dialogue between the student, parent, teacher and principal?

Teaching Engage, a class specifically designed to help kids acquire key 21^st century skills, I constantly see students struggling with listening and flexibility. Being able to listen attentively to others ideas, ask questions, offer ideas, and encourage others input, then carefully and respectfully consider all ideas, seek to synthesize, and compromise are apparently skills that many adults have problems with too. New initiatives are a necessary part of education as we constantly hone and improve the service we provide but all stakeholders need to start actively listening to each other and remembering the true purpose of education.

I was recently asked what the purpose of education is and I had a surprisingly hard time formulating a response. I eventually came up with this:

The purpose of education is to light a fire in students, to help them develop a love of learning and learn strategies to become lifelong learners. Education should serve to open students’ eyes to the world around them. They should learn to not merely observe, but to think about what they see and wonder about how they can make a positive impact. They should leave the education system with a clear sense of their own significance, their own potential to make a positive contribution as global citizens and a thorough knowledge and understanding of the tools that will enable them to successfully make that contribution: creative thinking, productivity, digital literacy, communication skills, integrity, responsibility, reliability, and accountability.

But I’m beginning to think it really is much simpler than that. The purpose of education is to help and children learn and grow and this isn’t going to happen if a child is unhappy, teachers can’t create safe and happy classrooms if they don’t feel heard and respected, principals can’t create innovative environments if they are not encouraged to take risks and school districts will not be able to attain the assessment success they seek unless administration carefully and respectfully consider all ideas, or seek to synthesize and compromise when needed.

Maybe we should look to successful corporate models for inspiration. Check out this Blog post by Richard Branson, founder of Virgin, a dynamic and thriving group of diverse companies: Have fun, do good, success will come. Aside from the title, which I think would be a wonderful mantra for the world of education to adopt, the most striking thing about this post for me is how Branson is actively engaged in listening. His success speaks for itself and I’m sure it is in no small part because of his ability to listen, his ability to recognize failure and his ability to adapt and move forward. Maybe I’ll send Branson’s Blog post to Brooke’s principal in Canada. 

Six Word Saturday

My six year old joined Cub Scouts on Wednesday and we have spent today preparing for his first camp next weekend. It took some time hunting out tents and stuff as we turned to the dark side of camping several years ago when we bought a trailer! We’ve had so much fun pitching tents, reminiscing about past adventures and watching Jack’s excitement build.

 

 It occurred to me that so much of a child’s education takes place beyond the classroom thanks to the dedication, commitment and talent of many wonderful individuals who strive to make a positive difference in the lives of children. My first ever attempt at six word Saturday is for them. For the all the Boy and Girl Scout leaders, for the karate trainers, sports coaches, music tutors, chess club wizards, library volunteers, Science Olympians, dance and drama instructors and many more, here are my six words:

Thanks for enriching my childrens' lives.

 

The First Two Weeks of School

The first two weeks of school are so important. During this time students have to learn about their new classmates, new teachers, new routines and expectations. Teachers have to learn about their new students, new parents, new colleagues, new technologies and new curriculum initiatives. A new community has to be built, team spirit established and a sense of excitement and anticipation for the year of learning ahead. If not carefully managed and orchestrated it can be a stressful and overwhelming time for all involved. I find myself today, at the end of my first two weeks of school, happy, hoarse, exhausted and enthused about the year ahead.

My teaching partner, Rick Joseph, and I share 54 kids and together we make the “Joberts56”. Having both 5^th and 6^th graders, each year we lose half of our class as they move up a grade and gain 27 new students. A priority for us at the start of each year is to help the class bond and form their own unique identity. We launched this process by showing the students Blindsight. This is a documentary detailing the journey of six blind Tibetan students as they climb a mountain in the shadow of Everest. We encouraged the kids to write down their thoughts as they watched the movie and during a follow up debrief the Joberts56 of 2012-2013 was born! Our students were able to clearly articulate what was important to them as a group and the mindset that will guide them throughout the year. It didn’t take them long to graphically represent those notions and by day 2 we had a class T-shirt design.

 

The big eye on the front of the shirt signifies my students’ determination to not just be observers in life but to really see the world around them, think about what it means and wonder how they can make a positive and significant impact on it. The logo “Climb Your Own Everest” on the back reminds them that they need to take risks, overcome their fears and face challenges head on in order to achieve their true potential. Pretty cool, huh?

On day 3 Rick and I shared our progress with parents during Welcome Back Night and attempted to express our individual philosophies and aspirations for the year. It was an opportunity for parents to put names to faces and be assured that we will love and nurture their children as well as guide them academically. A parent volunteered to get the class T-shirt organized and printed and by some wonderful miracle she had all 56 shirts ready for our three day camp during week 2 of school. Getting 216 students, sixty some volunteers and eight teachers to camp on the seventh day of school has been a labor of love for several months. Nancy B, school secretary, and Cindy B, Community Service Officer, did a tremendous job of preparing this trip, getting all the necessary transportation, medication and documentation together. They organized parent volunteers, accommodation, travel groups and without their dedication it simply could not have happened.

So on the seventh day of school I found myself 125 miles away from home at Camp Michindoh, watching a group of my students try their hands at archery. I wasn’t participating because I’d never done it before and didn’t want to look incompetent in front of both new parents and students. One of my sixth graders invited me to join in and when I declined she said, “We are the Joberts56 Mrs R, we don’t just observe, we go beyond our comfort zone and get involved. Climb your own Everest.” Astounded and inspired how could I not get my Catniss on and step up? The next few days were spent canoeing, building shelters, making fires, climbing rock walls and handling a variety of snakes, frogs , spiders and cockroaches. The mantra “Climb Your Own Everest” was used repeatedly to encourage and challenge all of us, students and teachers  alike to achieve what we never thought possible. It even began to impact our fabulous parent volunteers as they too stretched themselves and found themselves beyond their comfort zones during their three day marathon event as chaperones. Their commitment, leaving behind work and families, was another major factor in making camp happen. It also provided us with the opportunity to begin to get to know each other and form relationships that will be crucial to the success of this school year.  By day 10 of school, the Joberts56 community was born!

Did the first two weeks go off without a hitch? No. The schedule changed after distribution of over two hundred paper copies, our T-shirts were not  quite what we originally designed and a student spent three days at camp with only the clothes he was standing up in because his bag was left on the bus. Instead of whining and complaining everybody demonstrated solidarity, flexibility and understanding which enabled us to sail over these small bumps in the road. I’m secure in the knowledge that we will overcome future obstacles on our journey together because of the people I travel with: amazing students, supportive parents, dedicated office staff and passionate educators.

During the next two weeks of school my students will face a battery of district mandated assessments. I know these will provide me with a snapshot of their academic abilities but the knowledge gleaned from these tests cannot possibly compare to what we have learned about ourselves and each other during the first two weeks of school.

 

 

 

Character Education

I was invited to speak to the newly hired teachers in my district on the subject of Character Education yesterday. I know those of you who know me well must be wondering if I was asked to present on how to be a character but my role was to demonstrate how character education can be incorporated into the curriculum.

I have served on my school’s character committee for the last six years. At the time of joining the committee the different grade level teams at my school participated in several community service projects such as Gleaners Community Food Bank, Care Packaging for the Troops, and Forgotten Harvest. We would come together as a whole school community to respond to natural disasters both nationally and globally and while these projects were successful, there was a certain level of frustration amongst both staff and parents that they were scattered, overlapping and lacking in long term significance. We decided to make a concerted effort to integrate service learning into the curriculum.

Service learning is an experiential teaching strategy that intentionally combines academic learning and relevant community service. Key components of service learning include:

-          Research/Investigation

-          Project has purpose or meaning

-          Reflection

-          Sharing or demonstration of knowledge gained

There are similarities between service learning and community service. They both foster civic responsibility and an individual’s growth personally and ethically. Both create strong community connections and meet real needs, but there are some significant differences.

 I shared with my new colleagues a service learning project that my teaching partner and I collaborated on. We share 54 students, I teach math and science, while he teaches Language Arts and Social Studies and the result was our River Rouge Watershed wiki. Yesterday I asked the teachers to peruse the wiki and try to identify possible learning objectives and character traits that students may have learned about during the course of its creation. I was thrilled with their responses and how much they saw in it but I was also struck by how much unintentional learning took place. It became crystal clear to me that when it comes to the education of a child we cannot separate heart and mind.

At risk of giving away my age, when I was at school students were empty pails waiting to be filled with information, facts and knowledge. I am so fortunate to work in an environment where the teaching of core subjects is seamlessly interwoven with character education and key 21^st Century skills. The result of that is that I get to work every day with highly engaged, passionate kids who are teachers and learners and influential global citizens.

Recovering

It’s been a week since I returned from the Microsoft Partners in Learning Forum in Redmond and I’m still recovering from a PiLUS hangover: Recovering from the jetlag, from the time difference, from the shock of winning, from over indulgence in innovation, camaraderie, and inspiration!

My teaching partner and I were fortunate to gain first place in the Extended Learning Beyond the Classroom category with our project Doing Businessin Birmingham. I say fortunate because the caliber of the projects presented was astounding. The judges, including winners from the 2011 Global Forum Lou Zulli and Doug Bergman, must have spent hours wrestling over their decisions. Rick and I are truly humbled by the honor and look forward to participating in this year’s global forum in Prague, along with the other US winners.

It’s difficult to explain the impact this experience has on teachers and convey how truly uplifting it is. To be surrounded by teachers who are taking risks and pushing the boundaries in their classrooms every day is like being plugged into the ultimate energy source. While the forum is technically a competition it is so much more than that. It’s an opportunity to connect with other educators, share ideas and build relationships that last well beyond the forum itself. It’s a place where teachers get to meet and learn from educational leaders like Alan November, Vicki Davis and Kari Stubbs. It’s a showcase for new technology tools and a cradle of creative thinking. For the most part it is a celebration and appreciation of pioneering teaching and learning practices.

Lou Zulli asked us all to “pay it forward” and I know won’t be alone in sharing my learning with my peers, encouraging them to take risks and to get more connected with other innovative educators .My first advice will be to have them join the Partners in Learning Network , where they can become involved in  a global community of educators, driven by passion and committed to providing a quality education for all students.

I met many amazing teachers in Redmond who were recovering themselves: Recovering bankers, recovering lawyers, and recovering fashion designers who have chosen to enter the world of education to recapture a sense of significance and to make a positive difference in the world. That they certainly do! I am thankful for my PiLUS hangover. Because of it, I am more acutely aware of my responsibilities, I am inspired to do better and I am reminded that teaching is indeed a noble profession.Thank you Microsoft!

Revving Up For Redmond!

The first month of summer has been heavenly. We had family visit from England, we’ve been to the beach, hung out at the pool, even managed a trip to Disney! Now, however, it’s time to swap flip flops for heels, shorts for skirts and get my game face on. I’m heading out to Redmond, Seattle on Monday to attend Microsoft’s Partners in Learning 2012 US Forum.

For those of you who have not heard about the forum, Microsoft has invited 102 educators to Redmond from 25 states to showcase the innovative ways they are using technology in and beyond the classroom. The Partners in Learning US Forum is an annual event that connects and celebrates educators for the outstanding and innovative work they are doing with technology to creatively engage students. Educators compete for a chance to go on to represent the United States at Microsoft’s global forum this fall in Athens, Greece.

I am so fortunate to be attending for the second time with my teaching partner Rick Joseph to present “Doing Business in Birmingham”, a sustainability project imagined and created by our 54 students. Curiosity about sustainability in business led our students to organize their own research field trips to various businesses in Detroit. Travelling in small groups and driven by parent volunteers our students visited places such as Ford Field, the Fox theater, the Ford Sustainability lab, the Renaissance Center, and Detroit Mercy Hospital , eager to learn what they were doing to be sustainable. They compiled their collective knowledge to create Downtown Detroit, but learning about sustainability wasn’t enough. They wanted to do something with their knowledge, and turned their attention to the local downtown area. Armed with informational flyers and brochures they had created themselves they took to the streets of Birmingham and visited over 100 businesses to educate and inform the owners about sustainability. They recorded the trip with Photosynths and Cliplets and created an Honor Roll for businesses that provided evidence of sustainable practices through follow up calls and emails.

I’m revving up for the forum not so much to compete but to make sure that I effectively represent my students and the wonderful work that they do. Their insatiable curiosity led them to wonder how sustainable other business communities are and the final page of their wiki includes all of their resources and an invitation to other students and teachers to replicate their project. I’m psyched to attend the forum to share their invitation and if I can get at least one other educator to give it a try I will have done them justice. I’m also eager to learn about the other amazing learning opportunities taking place around the country and the possibility of making connections with other classrooms for my students to collaborate with in the future.

I wish you could all kick off your flip flops and join me for this incredible celebration, for a celebration is what it truly is: A celebration of teachers and students working and learning together. Fortunately you can still get involved by following the event on Twitter #PiLUS, or the Partners in Learning Facebook page, by reading about the projects on TeachTec Blog , or better still, by joining the conversation and sharing your own innovative practices on the Partners in Learning Network, one of the world’s largest global professional networks for educators. I know its still summer but get revved up, get ready to learn, get involved!