One chapter ends, another begins

It's been a couple of weeks now since school let out; since my time as an employee of my former district ended. It's still semi-unreal to me that I won't be returning to that same school where I invested the past eight years of my life. And yet, while I do regret that I won't be continuing to work with the students and teachers I had been working with, at the same time, I learned a lot this year, and so I cannot truly say it was a wasted year. I learned a lot about leadership, about what poor leadership looks like and what poor leadership acts like. I learned that sometimes you stand up for what's right, even though it can cost you more than you think.

And I think that's what my students learned as well. Based on feedback I've gotten from my (now former) students, I taught them a lesson that will never appear on any test, never will be added to any sort of score, and is likely far more important than how to avoid comma splices. I taught them that when it comes down to it, standing up for what you know is right, standing up for those who can't, is always the right thing to do, even if you lose. In the long run, it's worth it, and you really don't lose anything.

I have since started my new job in a new district, and I'm really excited about it. I'm back to working with middle school students, but this time, it's with a twist: I'm going to be working as an ESL (English as a Second Language) teacher. For about the past week, I've been working with a group of 6th grade (soon to be 7th grade) students in a summer school/pd environment. I have 12 students from eight different countries on three different continents, and their language skills range from barely speaking and understanding oral English language to high fluency in oral English language.

I'm pretty excited about this new direction that my new career is taking. I've been taking a new look at the tools introduced to me through the technology leadership program I was a part of in my old district and figuring out how ones I'd been using and ones I hadn't used can be utilized in this new environment.

So I'm off on a new adventure with a whole new horizon and a whole new set of skills to be built. It should be fun!

Ch-ch-ch-changes (with apologies to David Bowie)

Another school year is rapidly drawing to a close, marking the completion of my 22nd year as an educator. For a variety of reasons, it's been one of the longest and most difficult years of my career, and one that is most notably marked by a change in employment. Next year I will find myself in another school district at a whole different grade level: for the first time in a long time I'll be teaching middle school again. Come next fall, I'll be standing in front of a group of sixth grade IB students. While I am saddened by leaving the students and faculty where I currently am employed, and I will miss them terribly, at the same time, I am very excited to meet my new students and co-workers.

The new challenges will be a great opportunity for me to grow as a professional and as a person. The advantage for my students is that since I've taught at the high school level, and having taught IB at the high school level, I know where they are headed and what is in store for them, and so I can help to get them ready for that transition. I've already downloaded sixth grade vocabulary and book lists, and have been running through potential lessons and scenarios in my mind.

I've certainly enjoyed my time as a high school educator. I've worked with some outstanding young men and women (and some outstanding not so young men and women... heh), and I've learned quite a lot. For a while, I resisted the change; there is comfort in familiarity, change represents real risk and is scary. Yet everything kept pointing me in that direction, and the harder I pushed against it, the harder I was pushed toward it. And yet when I think back on my previous years as a junior high/middle school teacher, it is almost always with a smile and a bit of warmth: I genuinely like working with middle school students and find them to be quite a lot of fun.

The other challenge will be figuring out which technological tools will be useful for my students and which ones won't. There are some that in the past I neglected since they were "too young" for my 9th, 10th, and 11th grade students that I will now likely find very useful. I will look at others to see if they are "too old" for my 6th graders or if they can be adapted for use within the middle school classroom. Of course, this is assuming I'll have at least semi-regular access to technology.

So many questions as I venture forth into new and uncharted horizons, yet I'm filled with a sense of adventure and excitement. This year will end bittersweet for me, but the next year is filled with promise and excitement. My next big adventure awaits!

Barack Obama: The Education President? Not necessarily

(Part V in a series on education in the 21st century.) I voted for President Obama. Filled with the excitement and hope represented by his progressive ideas, I looked forward to what he had to offer the American people. Tempering that enthusiasm, however, was the realization that campaign promises often run into that nefarious obstacle called “governing.” I did not expect Mr. Obama to reveal red and blue tights under his suit come Inauguration Day, and I realized that many of his goals would take time to accomplish. I was disappointed in his choice for Tom Vilsack to lead the Department of Agriculture,  and was struck by the irony of that appointment when juxtaposed with the organic garden in the White House lawn. I became less enthusiastic when Arne Duncan took the reigns as Secretary of Education. Once again, the person who was given the responsibility for education in our country had never spent a day in the classroom as an educator. (The very fact that his Department of Education biography describes his position with the Chicago Public Schools as “CEO” instead of “superintendent” is telling.)

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You know you're teaching in the 21st century when...

My son was out last Friday, and asked if I could stay home with him; since he rarely asks me to do that when he's not feeling well, I decided to honor his request.

The interesting thing about the whole process was how the whole day was set up. I put in for the sub via a website, then sent a text messages to colleagues on my team notifying them that I would be out and was going to email them the lesson plans for the day.  I wrote out the lesson plans and emailed them out. Since the Theory of Knowledge class is so seminar based, I set up a class discussion about the meaning of history on CoverItLive and class continued as normal.

This definitely has some interesting potential for education and how it is delivered. There are an increasing number of online programs and sites available where teachers can post and deliver instruction online. However, there is much to be said for face to face interaction, especially when it comes to delivering instruction. While it did enable me to continue instruction on a day when I was out, I would not want to give up the spontaneity and energy of actually being in a classroom, interacting on a more personal and intimate level. Human relationships are affected by online interactions, and I definitely don't think the class would have gone as well had I not previously built those unique relationships via classroom instruction and the simple human interaction that comes from teaching. The idea that teachers are far more than simple deliverers of material isn't exactly a news flash: the duties and responsibilities of an educator go far, far beyond that of simple subject matter... and these "soft skills" that don't get measured on any standardized test are just as important, if not more so, to the development of a student and to their success (or failure) as an adult.

As a supplement to classroom instruction or as an adjunct to instruction on days when a teacher is out but has access to technology, online discussions are the way to go... but as an acceptable substitute for instruction? Never. Education is far more important than that.

The cost of not going paperless

(The irony of having my disconnected SMARTboard in the background is not lost on me.)

One of the many things that many of us were looking forward to when we moved to our new building was the idea of moving towards a (virtually) paperless classroom. I most definitely was for sure. Not only does a paperless classroom assist students with the acquisition of 21st century skills, it helps to keep me organized (I can easily sort and file student papers in electronic files on Google docs) and it has the potential to save school districts in general hundreds of thousands of dollars a year (literally) on the cost of paper alone. Unfortunately, for a variety of reasons, the shift to paperless classrooms has stalled this year.

I recently crunched some numbers and came to a startling conclusion: based on the number of handouts I'm giving my students this semester, I will be responsible for nearly $5,000 in paper (just in paper) costs this semester alone. Multiply that times the number of other 9th and 10th grade teachers in our building, and it works out to over $84,000 just for 9th and 10th grade for one semester.  Double that for a full school year and double it again to include 11th and 12th grade, and you're looking at over $300,00 just in the cost of paper for one year. One so many levels, this is unacceptable, particularly in light of having electronic options available. (Realize two things: 1. the district where I work isn't overly large, and so the savings in other districts would be far greater, and 2. while I am talking about my district specifically, this applies to any and all districts throughout the country.)

To illustrate the point: my students just completed a district common assessment. I took the test and answer sheets to the wellness center in the school and weighed it, just out of curiosity. The two day test weighed 17.2 pounds. A ream of paper (500 sheets of paper) weighed 4.8 pounds, meaning that just for my students, approximately 3.58 reams of paper were used, for a total of over 1,791 sheets of paper used.  At a cost of (approximately) $.10 per sheet of paper, that amounts to $179.17 for just one test for one group of students.  Multiply that times four (four groups of students/four academies), and you end up with this one test costing the district $716.67.  These assessments are given four times a year, for a yearly cost of $2,866.67.

I wonder how much it would have cost to have the students take the same multiple choice test online? My guess is that the savings would be significant.

The district where I work could provide one laptop for every student in the high school for half that amount every single year (assuming a cost of $1,000 per laptop), thus enabling our students to learn 21st century technology skills in addition to the curricular materials while adding to the fiscal savings from year to year without affecting the currently adopted teaching model. Even if the students were issued laptops and allowed to keep them permanently, after the first year, the savings actually increase as districts would only have to purchase laptops for incoming students since existing students in said district would already have their laptops from the previous year(s).

The irony is that for many, the cost of providing a laptop to each student in any district is seen as prohibitive, yet I wonder if those responsible for working out budgets from year to year have ever really sat down and crunched the real numbers involved.

The other factor, of course, is that so many educators are downright Luddites when it comes to the integration of technology in their classroom. It is true that bad teaching is bad teaching, no matter what bells and whistles one tosses at it, that is no excuse to not include technology into the daily lessons. The engagement of my students increases dramatically when instead of just reading Martin Luther King's "I Have A Dream" speech, they are able to watch it on YouTube. Students are more apt to revise their work when it involves simply going back in to an electronic document and making the necessary changes instead of having to rewrite the entire thing by hand. Writing workshops become dynamic and enjoyable when I'm logged in on a student's essay the same time they are and I can give instant, real-time feedback to what they are writing. Do not tell me "if it was good enough for me, it's good enough for them," either. Times have changed.

Public education has a choice: keep up and actually become innovative rather than just give innovation lip service, or be left behind by students in private and charter schools. Private schools are often on the edge of the curve when it comes to innovation; I know, I've taught in both private and public schools. Often the innovation and creativity is due to increased fiscal responsibility: when the parents are writing the checks directly and can access the books anytime they want, there is an increased sensitivity as to where the money is going and how much things cost. Public schools regularly get ripped off. Case in point: I have seen videos for sale in catalogs provided to school districts that cost $40 or more when the same video can be had from any online or brick and mortar store often for much, much less.

It's time for public schools to take the lead. Our children deserve better.

Worlde your way through vocabulary building

(Image from Wordle.)

Last week my Theory of Knowledge students and I attempted to define the word art. Now while this seems perhaps somewhat straightforward, and all we really needed to do was to consult a dictionary, in reality, we found the dictionary definition rather lacking, and so we decided to embark on our own definition, including the connotation of the word as well as its simple denotation. We sent out the question via text message, email, Facebook, Twitter, and I let my freshmen and sophomores join in the discussion by writing down their definitions on a 3x5 card and dropping it in the box. We ended up with some pretty amazing answers, and I decided to put the answers on the class blog page and to see what might happen if we decided to make a word cloud out of it. The answer is above and can be seen on the TOK blog as well. As I looked at the cloud, I realized that this has some potential when it comes to exploring word meanings, especially in regards to connotation and the ideas that each of us brings to and puts behind the words we use.

This is a tool I definitely plan to use again, not only for this class, but in my other classes whenever the opportunity permits. There was high student engagement, and our discussion was strengthened by the inclusion of the definitions of others. Very valuable indeed!

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Recent update, just as powerful.