This afternoon I have found myself with a little down time. I am usually correcting papers or lesson planning for a few minutes after school before I race off to Anytime Fitness and then rush to Hugo's (where some students recently spotted me wearing my "jogging pants" (I routinely give students grief for not dressing up for school, this especially includes those God awful jogging pants), but I maintain that they were my Russells, not jogging pants) before racing home to begin supper and to help Kristie bring in the kids. Man, I just got tired typing that.
Today I took a break from my workout routine. Before I start supper, I thought I'd get around to checking some of my email. Thanks to all the interesting links I find on Twitter and then send to my email account, I currently have 634 unopened emails.
Time to try and make a dent.
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Footage of the Challenger Disaster
This is just amazing. Original footage of the Challenger disaster. Watching this, it's amazing to think how the world changed since I was in Mr. Mueller's sixth grade class. Besides the professional TV footage, this is the ONLY other film footage of the disaster.
Now, contrast that with the 9/11 disaster. There are many versions of the disaster.
But just imagine if - God forbid - such a disaster were to happen in our digital society today. There well might be millions of people capturing it with their cell phones (I mean, come on, what cell phone or iPod Touch or iPad doesn't take video?). Back in 2001 all my cell phone could do was call. And the reception was spotty at best.
To note how much the world has changed, just watch this short clip from the Today Show in 1989 where the reports don't have a clue what the internet is or how it works.
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How to Kill Innovation.
As I read this, I wonder how many times I've let these stop me from innovating in my classroom. How many of us teachers let these things kill our desire to innovate?
1. Stuck Thinking - for me, this occurs when I feel like I just can't let anything go in my syllabus or curriculum. The world won't end if I don't teach Mockingbird or if we don't do the braided essay. As long as I'm trying something new that is good for my kids, letting go of a precious piece of curriculum is not the end of the world. I mean, I can always add that precious piece back in later.
2. We've Always Done it That Way - I think this is the most dominant factor in teachers failing to innovate. It's scary trying something new. Especially when you're going against tradition. But this is a sure way to kill innovation dead in its tracks.
3. Playing Not to Lose - I think I've become better at not doing this. I've taken far more chances in what I'm doing in my classes than I ever imagined 15 years ago when I started. Early on, every class was take notes on the reading, discuss it - which meant me just having them regurgitate basic info - and then take a quiz before repeating the process. Talk about engaging, eh? But I've stopped worrying about teaching the kids how I was taught. I've stopped worrying about what others do (and with my College Comp classes this is quite easy because there is a ton of room to innovate). In my freshmen class, I could still be plugging through short stories (which I love), but I decided to try something different (while still hitting the same skills that I would have hit with the stories) - I had students select books they wanted to read (some range from Water for Elephants to Old Yeller). Instead of just worksheets or quizzes, I decided to have each student start a blog and then create pages on that blog for summaries of each chapter, to keep track of characters, to connect to allusions and other outside events, to keep track of creative assignments connected to the novel, and finally to film a short review of their novel. So far kids have read like fiends and are adapting to working with the blog.
4. Customer Disconnect - Don't forget to forge relationships with students. In College Comp we've been discussion how to improve our school. To get them thinking I had them read this list of 20 things students want the world to know about what they want out of an education. There are numerous entries on that list that deal with customer disconnect. Today's students don't learn via simply sitting in their desk and taking notes (if any students ever really learned that way). Instead, the list reveals how important relationships are to the students. Make the classroom feel like a family. Make them feel valued. Make them feel like they contribute. Get to know them. I think the technology and social media at our fingertips is essential for building relationships. When students know you care about them and value their ideas, you have a different world in the classroom, and for me, that different world allows me to try and be far more innovative than I ever was 10 years ago.
5. The Lone Ranger Approach - This concerns the dilemma that sometimes just one person or group of people (especially in a company) are charged with being innovators. Truth is everyone should be innovating. I think this is what is so great about our common prep system at Lincoln. It allows staff members to share the innovative things they do with the rest of the staff. Teachers are known for the silos they exist in. We shut the door and do what we do in our little room and let no one else in. That doesn't lead to innovation. After 15 years I'm finally comfortable enough where I try and invite others into my room all the time, whether it be with guest speakers, other teachers and administrators, asking others for feedback on our blog, or simply having students text others to get some feedback on a topic we're discussing. Doing that has transformed how I teach. I also think it's changed how my kids learn. Now they get feedback and information from other people (real people out in the 'real world') and not just their teacher. When I send out my end of the class Zoomerang survey, I always have students respond that I need to have even more guest speakers. And I agree.
6. Failure in not an option. Our principal is fond of saying don't be afraid of trying something new, don't be afraid to fail in front of the students. It shows them that you're just like them, learning all the time. And what's wrong with not only failing but also learning from the students?
7. Follow the leader mentality. Too often when it comes to innovation, especially in education, this is how it tends to work. A hired gun comes in and shows a new way to use a SMARTboard or iPad and then teachers just copy what the hired gun did. I like this line from the article: Figure out where your customers [students] will need you to be in six months to a year and get there first. What would teaching look like if we tried to do that more?
8. Weak hires. Unfortunately, this is far too often the case in education. How many principals need a new teacher AND a head coach. Instead of hiring the best teacher, they settle and hire a coach who can teach. It happens all the time. And it's a damn shame. In fact, when I talked with my College Comp kids on how to improve LHS, they said "let teachers teach and coaches coach." Students often felt neglected when their teacher had to miss class for a game or didn't an engaging lesson because they didn't have adequate time to prepare because of the rigors of coaching. And it's true. And if a teacher decides to become a teacher just in order to coach? Well, I hope my kid never has you for a teacher.
Something that I think is even worse is when, to save money, a school board will insist that the principal hire new teachers rather than veterans.
9. A Lack of Know How. I like this: Employees need to have the appropriate skills and abilities to discover, evaluate, and execute on the best ideas. If you don’t invest the time and money to constantly develop those skills, don’t expect people to innovate on a consistent basis. How often do teachers - especially young teachers - focus on best practices? Or how often do they just teach what and how they were taught? Or how often do they rely solely on the text book or the curriculum laid out by the previous teacher? And how many districts really put the proper type of professional development in place to really improve their teachers (as opposed to just having a 'hired gun' come in and present to the staff. This rarely works. It's like students cramming for one of our tests. We might have the best of intentions, but that type of assessment and how it's presented, doesn't truly measure anything, for our students forget that information as soon as they walk out the room. Likewise, teachers tend to forget what the hired gun presented on as soon as they leave).
10. Unrealistic expectations. Again, this is so true in education. How often does a district insert whole sale changes, thinking one new concept (whole language instruction, getting everyone SMARTboards or iPads for example) before really thinking the new implementation all the way through, only to have the new concept fail (as in the whole language method of teaching reading) or go unused (how many teachers truly use their SMARTboards or iPads to their utmost?)
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I follow Jim Burke on Twitter, and he posted this link to one of his student's digital essays on imperialism. Talk about innovation! Why we aren't all doing digital essays in some format is beyond me. In fact, I've decided to have my College Comp II students create them in response to the books they are currently reading as part of their Sticky-Note book report assignment.
http://hod.teenexecutive.com/
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Here is a great link to a very interesting story on a very controversial subject: posting teacher's ratings in the newspaper. The article does a very good job covering the development of the reform effort, from an early report on New York's infamous "Rubber Room" where horrible teachers, who couldn't be fired because of their complex contracts, were housed and paid. It was better to remove these people from children and still pay them than actually have them in schools. Disgusting, but true. The article then follows all the big names in the reform effort: Michelle Rhee, Waiting for Superman, and Arne Duncan.
Think what you want of publishing teacher "evaluations" in the paper, but this much is clear: the old business as usual of tolerating horrible teachers is over. It might be over as a result of the death of tenure (something I'm suspicious and fearful of). It might be over as a result of every state having to evaluate teachers in a variety of ways (something I'm hopeful for). It might be over because of the new, more rigorous basic skills tests all teachers must pass in order to graduate (a good first step but not nearly enough. I'm all for making it hard to become a teacher. It's not easy to become a nurse either. Let's have people really strive to get into education programs rather than taking on all who apply). And it might be a result of publicly shaming teachers (the jury is still out on this one).
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And you can never get enough of Sir Ken Robinson!
Here are middle school kids interviewing Sir Ken.
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Top Ten Media Competencies for Teachers
This is a very bold list. What would schools look like if could fluently do each of these things?
Great. That leaves me with about 625 unopened emails! Well, I've made a dent at least.
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