what's coming next

I'm sitting in the tire store, trying to keep myself occupied, so I decided that I would type a little more on my thoughts about the coming year. Things that I'm excited to do this year:
- have my students use multimedia to find a better way to tell a story
- get more writing done. lots more. writing that is meaningful and connects to the kids lives in some way.
-give kids the option of keeping a blog or a journal. i will give the kids guidelines for what needs to be in their blogs every week. I want to keep a blog for myself where all of that is posted. Maybe this week I will start setting up my Actis homepage.
-get organized
- rely less on paper and pencil homework.
-do a computer survey at the beginning of the school year.
-plan way in advance. there's no reason for planning for the first month of school. focus on organizing and grading during that month.

Reading

One of the profs at Pepperdine and I were talking today, and he said to me that he felt like reading was really necessary in today's society. He was talking about how he believes in visual learning and so much can be told by pictures and I started thinking about what he was saying. Does it make me really traditional to say that I think that's nuts? I do understand that some elements of reading can be taken over by other technologies, but I still believe that reading has so much to offer in terms of storytelling, world building, knowledge building. I don't know how it can be replaced with other tools. And if that's what happens, I believe that will shortchange students. I'm open to displaying knowledge in other ways. I don't believe watching a movie, listening to a recording, even an interactive multi-media project has the same impact as reading a book. Perhaps I'm beating a dead horse, but I need to find a way to make this point to my students, the people who really matter. Perhaps, this year, I will have my students prove the point with a project where they get to figure out a way to use other media to tell the story, providing all of the essential learning. Hmm, an interesting idea coming on...

My next focus

A cool by-product of being here these few days is that I'm really thinking more about how to be an effective teacher. I will probably go back to my room today and start making a list of what things I want to try, what I need to do, how to change the world. I also am going to flesh out the article that I'm planning on writing about the discrepancy in education between poor kids and wealthy kids. We'll see how that goes.

Texting students

What does it say about my teaching that two of my students called and texted me about 15 times last night, insisting that I go to Magic Mountain with them. Even if I was in town, it wasn't going to happen, but my, they were persistent. Perhaps I've let them get too comfortable with me.

New ideas and what to do with them

So today was an interesting day for me. I spent the afternoon at Pepperdine, helping out in the master's program and I found something interesting (that I hope my close friends won't take the wrong way.) And that is, that I've outgrown this. The good news is, I think that's actually a positive thing, and I'm guessing a lot of my classmates outgrew this long before I did. What I mean to say is that I learned all this information from Pepperdine and I got all of these great ideas that I've been using and implementing and I'm now to the point that I'm moving a bit away from those ideas, in different directions and seeing what I really think is important for education reform right now. I guess you could say that the reformers I was listening to back when I was doing my master's had a great impact on me, but they are still saying the same thing and I'm wondering what's next. What else do you have to say that will make an impact on the educational system?

I'd love one day to come back and teach here, if I ever decide to get my doctorate. But first I need to figure out more about the solution to the problems that are out there. What I've discovered in the time that I've been out of grad school is that no one has the answers. I used to idolize Jonathan Kozol. I still think he's done amazing things and I frequently reread his work, but I don't think he has the answers. He does a good job at raising the questions. I used to idolize Gary Stager and think that he was on the right track. I don't think his solutions work for the schools we have. When we are ready to demolish those and create new ones, Gary has great ideas. I think Alfie Kohn is awesome, but until more people do, I'm stuck quietly implementing what I can from him.

What I have thought a lot about in the last year or so is that we can think all we want about what our ideal is. We don't have the ideal and today's kids are in these schools. My students, the ones who are right this very minute texting me to try and get my attention need good teachers who care about their learning and even more so care about them.

It's a struggle to give students the instruction they need. We do have a flawed system. I see my students for two 45 minute blocks per day. That's because I teach Reading and English. Most instructors get the kids for one 45 minute block per day. Sometimes that feels like a long time, especially when you have a particularly difficult kid, but most of the time, we realize how little can really be accomplished during that time. I'm lucky that at least I have the option to go back and revisit something the second time they come in. Is this the best way for students to learn? I don't think so. Do I really have the option to change it? I don't think so.

I thought to make a strong impact in education that I really needed to leave teaching and teach teachers. I think, still that maybe one day I will. Right now, I think figuring out how to work within the system, creating a viable model of powerful learning might better serve my students and eventually others. It's taken me a while to think that just teaching was an important enough change to make. I think, however, that it is. If I can figure out how to do it the right way.

Random thoughts

Okay, this blog is kind of cheating because it isn't really about teaching Junior high, but teaching and more so, learning in general. It's funny because it's been about 3 years since I got my master's degree in Educational Technology. That program changed my view of education and really changed my ideas of what it means to be a teacher. Since then, I had one great year where I really go to try out all of my ideas, and then one year where I had to completely pull back on everything I believed because of the views of my administration.

Last year was different. Last year, I moved into a new grade level with entirely new people, no technology and a curriculum I didn't know. Last year, honestly, I didn't try to teach the way I really want to. This year, I will make changes that will help me to see how technology can help 8th graders to learn more. I want to be constructivist in my approach-to a degree. Perhaps I'm not a real convert, because I believe that no matter how much a kid says they don't want to read, it's important that they do. My job, then, becomes to find the books that will make reading interesting and stimulating to my students. I got sick of hearing students say reading is boring last year. I disagree, or I wouldn't have become an English teacher.

The funny thing is, even some of the most stubborn non-readers got interested in certain things that we read together: The Monkey's Paw, Flowers for Algernon, Tell-Tale Heart. This is telling for me. It says that while students enjoy the stories, they don't want to do the work of reading them on their own. Those stories we read together, and honestly, students didn't have to exert that much effort in order to appreciate them.

I'm frustrated, because I hear people like Steve Jobs saying that people don't read anymore and books are a thing of the past. No matter how you read, what media you use, reading is important. Reading is learning and understanding the world around you. Reading is expanding your mind, and allowing different possibilities. I don't think there's a replacement. It makes me worry that people in positions of power do.

I'm heading off to Pepperdine again tomorrow and I'm a little nervous about it. I was once so excited about the change that is possible in education and I'm afraid I've become a bit jaded. I hope that I become reinspired.

I have a feeling this will become a multiple post blog over the course of the week. This is it for now. I may even post more later tonight.