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Doors?

Posted in Education, Leadership, PLN, Professional development, Reform, Skills, Teched, Technology, Thought Provoking on January 19, 2010| 29 Comments »

Did you ever give any thought to doors? Right now you are probably thinking, “Why would I ever give a thought to doors?” Hold that thought for later. We never question doors. They come with every house. There are inside doors and outside doors. We build entrance ways to enhance doors. We adorn them with brass kick plates and fancy handles and elaborate locking systems. We never question their value. We never even have to think about how they work. We do not stand in front of them to contemplate their hinges, or handles. We use them without thought. It becomes almost instinctive. They are everywhere, on closets, on cabinets, on furniture, on cars, even on shower stalls. We accept and use them everywhere and the most thought given is probably the thought traveling through your brain right now.

In order to give this post a little more to write about, I would add a few more household necessities: the refrigerator, stove, television, and telephone. Can you imagine an average American home without these tools or a door to offer protection for them? Yes, there are people who choose not to make these tools part of their life, but that is a rare choice. It does not mean that these people have no understanding of these tools. I would be safe in saying that they represent a very small portion of our population. By this point you should have an inkling of where I am taking you with this.

I am a post WWII child. David Letterman and I are the same age. In the old days we were the Baby Boomers, or The Boomer generation. Now, as a group we are affectionately referred to as the Old Fart Generation. Even at my age however, there was never a time when I did not have a refrigerator, stove, television, or a telephone. They look very different from the 1940’s, but they still are useful tools for the purpose each serves. We have little choice in their use. They are similar to the door in that we no longer need to think about their use or purpose. It is a given.

We often think that we have choices in life and we do, but not everything is a choice. There are some things that our society, or culture, or government chooses for us. As Educators we once had a choice to use technology as a tool for teaching and learning. It was an expensive tool and there was a big gap between haves and have-nots. It was financially beneficial to schools if teachers chose not to use Tech as a teaching tool. Training, time and money were the obstacles of choice for change.

Now let us consider the objective of our teaching. I always thought I was preparing my students to be able to think and learn in their world, for that is where and when they will live. I am not teaching them to live in the 1940’s, 50’s, 60’s, 70’s, 80’s, 90’s, 00’s as I did. God I am getting old. The choice of technology as a teaching tool is no longer mine to make. My choice is how best to use it. Look around! Computers are everywhere. Computers that run our cars are probably more functional than those which were used to send men to the moon. I am not so arrogant to think that I can offer a student all he/she needs to know based on what I know.

For the generations to come technology is going to be like doors. It will be everywhere and people will not even have to consider its use. As educators why would we fight that evolution? Why are we not using that power to promote creative thought? Why do we have educators resistant to something that will continue to grow and improve the way we access, analyze, consume and communicate information?

The dumbest argument I remember from Math teachers in the 60’s about the use of calculators in Math class was;” What would happen if there were no more batteries. They need to know how to work without calculators for that reason.”We believed that back then. We were not stupid, but maybe a little unaware. It was a knee jerk reaction to technology. I guess math teachers had a fear of being replaced by calculators. That was a fear shared by many educators back in the day-being replaced by a computer.

We all look at something the same way, but many of us see it differently. I would like us to get to the point where we only have to think about how to best use technology and not whether we should use it. Yes, I agree, a good teacher can teach without technology and that will always be true. Yes, I agree, Technology does not have to be in every lesson. Yes, I agree, technology is not the answer to everything. Technology, however, is with us to stay and it is evolving. As educators we need to evolve too. These kids need to be educated for their world not ours. In their world Technology may be as ubiquitous as doors are.

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Does Experience Help or Hinder?

Posted in Education, Merit Pay, Pre-Service teachers on January 17, 2010| 22 Comments »

This is the second Post on my Blog, so I am still working what to say and how to say it. I also have to gage how often to do this. My fear is using up all of my ideas in a month. Then what? My intent is not to offend so many people that my message is never delivered. I also don’t want to sound as if I have all of the answers, because I do not. As an educator who travels to many schools in many Districts on Long Island, I am in a unique position to make observations based on real experiences.

My first considered observation is that Parking is terrible for visitors at about 80% of the schools I visit. I have no idea if that observation will amount to big changes in Education, but it is a pet peeve. I get to do that with my own blog.

I have always enjoyed talking with elementary students about their school experience. Little kids LOVE school. It does seem however, that as they get older and are influenced by the more experienced students with whom they have contact, this educational enthusiasm dwindles with each year. The final culmination of this has been fondly referred to as “Senioritis”. Yes, I know there are other factors too, but they do not support where I am going with this.

This same love of school may, for the purpose of this post, be compared to the Pre-service teachers that we put out each year. Pre-service teachers are student teachers. They must spend several hours of actual teaching in order to qualify for certification. Their great enthusiasm for teaching is evident in most students, but only after the first few days of terror at the beginning. Everyday has a light bulb moment when students see and experience so many of those things they have been theorizing for months and now they get it.

If they are fortunate enough to get a job, they carry that new enthusiasm with them. They understand and employ all that they have been taught. They have energy and a passion for teaching. They are like those little kids in elementary school loving it all. They are into Bloom, Rubrics, assessments, authentic learning, technology tools, pedagogy and they do Lesson Plans.

At that point in their careers they are sponges for everything educational. That is when they are helped along by the experiences of others. How many times have we heard something like, “you’re not in a college class anymore. It doesn’t work like that in a real classroom”. That may be an accurate statement. It probably does not work like that in every real classroom, but why not?

I would almost prefer that the experience of the new teacher would take hold on the Veteran teacher. That enthusiasm and understanding and energy for teaching and learning would become the dominant form of experience for teachers. That might move the change in the system that everyone seems to agree is needed.

Now, you are thinking, “He is nuts, my school is not like that.” I believe that too, but if that were true of every school why is our education system in the shape it is in. What happened to that glow that we all had when we started. Yes, there are hundreds of reasons that an existing negative attitude persists in many, but not all educators. The mere fact that you are still reading this post sets you apart from thousands of other educators who would not have any interest in reading anything talking about improving attitudes in education. Your action of reading this post on a computer also sets you apart from many other educators. These are positives.

Our educational leaders really believe that they are addressing this need to change attitudes by providing an inspirational speaker at the beginning of every school year. That works well for feeling good as you leave the auditorium. For me that inspired feeling never lasted more than a day. There was never a real take away. I would suggest that the thousands of dollars spent on inspirational speakers be used to pay teachers to share best practices. Support those things that educational research tells us really works in the classroom. Allow those teachers who have been successful to share their successes. Do not allow soured experiences sour our new teachers. Use their energy to inject a system that sometimes becomes too lethargic.

Best practices are not necessarily based on experience. We need to establish what constitutes a best practice in the classroom and promote that with every member of the staff. We need to showcase what works and what we expect. We do not need merit Pay. We need to use that money to enable successful teachers at any level of experience share their successes. Additionally, as veteran teachers, we should always consider the advice that we share with our younger colleagues. We are models.

I realize that this is all based on generalizations, so you need not remind me of that. There are places where this may not hold true. It would be my hope that all schools would exhibit the positive attitudes needed for success. I also wish that as long as my wishes are being granted, that somebody does something about the damned parking situation so poor at so many schools.

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My First Post on My Own Blog

Posted in Blog, Education, PLN on January 15, 2010| 45 Comments »

Does every Blogger give a reason for writing his/her blog on the first post? I don’t know the answer to that, but I do feel a need to put something on the screen to form a Mission Statement or at least offer some type of focus for this path I am about to take. After 34 years as a secondary English teacher and now adding three more years as an Adjunct Professor of Education there is one thing that I have enough life experience in to talk about. That would be Snow Days. If there is one thing I look forward to as a New York Educator, it is a good snow storm. A good Snow Day enables us to sleep in late while everyone else goes to work. That is one of the benefits unique to the teaching profession. However, this probably will not offer enough topics for consistent delivery to a blog. Seasonal topics have a limited time to retain interest of the reader. Most people would not have an interest in reading about snow days in July?

That would leave my other education experiences to serve as the stuff of topics. These experiences are not all those of a polished and perfect professional. My career began when education was less of a science and more of a tradition. New teachers were mentored by veterans, many of whom had less training in the latest educational research. I am also not saying that I always did the right thing. It was just the opposite in many cases I did the wrong thing. It was through reflection and research that I began to change. The uncommon commodity of common sense led the way to that wisdom I would seek. There was no internet, so aside from written material in the library, and what were called in- service courses, the only other source was any good teacher willing to share or collaborate. That was the environment in which I began developing my own face-to-face, real-time Personal Learning Network. The skills I needed were simple; Identify the value of a lesson,acknowledge the value of a person with an ability to collaborate. This continued for years. That is the way it was in the day.

Thank God Al Gore came along for then we had the Internet. I don’t know if he invented it, but they both showed up at around the same time. Coincidence? I think not. The Internet added a new dimension to my PLN. I could now use a search engine to search topics for helpful websites. One search could bring 50,000 sites, so with three searches I could clearly spend four weeks reading websites. The internet may have been cooking, but it wasn’t done yet.

After 34 years of teaching I made the decision to retire. I traveled down other paths after teaching, but none served me as well. On a chance meeting with a helpful Nun on a ferry trip to my Fire Island home, I learned of a position teaching Methods classes in a local College. It was perfect. I jumped at the opportunity and soon found myself in need of a great deal of help.I could only hope the Internet became more user-friendly, because ready or not I was going to need it.

As I started out using my computer to explore the internet for material to use in my Methods classes, I discovered a great deal of material, but there was no person to talk to about it. I had email contacts, but that was a slow procedure to exchange ideas. The other problem was that my contact list was very limited. I guess you might say I had no friends or at least professional colleagues. My ability to use search engines exceeded my greatest expectations. I saw myself as a master of information searches, but it was not enough. I needed to talk to somebody about some of this stuff.

I discovered Linkedin after my wife, Joyce, showed me how she posted her resumé and made a number of professional connections. I recognized this as a way to develop professional contacts and share ideas. I found no help in all the existing educational groups, so I decided to start my own, the Technology-Using Professors group. This led to a discovery of Twitter and Four more educational Groups on Linkedin.

I still needed folks to talk to. I found myself throwing out questions and engaging several twitter members in heated educational discussions on a daily basis.Two people who I met through Twitter volunteered to help with an idea to get folks talking about education and archiving the results.Shelly Terrell, Steve Anderson and I have run that idea as #Edchat ever since. Still needing more people to talk to and a place the deposit these links from all of these sources there was one more addition. a Ning site, The Educator’s PLN.

Now I find that I need another outlet for further expression, and more connections. It was a quest for answers that started me on this journey. It is also what drives me to continue further down this path. I have more questions than answers as do most educators. What I have to offer is a wide range experiences of mistakes and successes in education that people can use or not. I plan to ask more questions than offer answers, but I hope to promote thought and discussion. It is my intention to do this on an as needed schedule. I hope to help frame the discussion for improvement of education with a blend of research, collaboration and a little common sense.

Another choice would have been to Blog my way through Julia Child’s cookbook, but that was already overdone, or using the vernacular, well done.

Thanks