I am getting worried that tech integrators are starting to push projects based on a certain technology, or just offering up tool boxes of “top ten” tools to teachers and expecting them to build a lesson with them. We should be focused on getting teachers to create higher order authentic units in which it is necessary to use technological tools to achieve the goals and objectives of the unit. Unit comes first, selection of tools come second. I think the ed tech world is starting to push the tools, and forgetting to push the unit’s concepts, goals and objectives.
Architects don’t select a carpenter’s tool and then decide to build a house using only that tool. You don’t give a mechanic a tool box and tell them to build a car. Design comes first, tool selection comes second. We shouldn’t be creating units to highlight technology in our classroom. We should be creating units that highlight authentic use of critical thinking skills first, tech integration second. Do the first, and the second should come naturally.
I don’t use technology in my class because it is cool. I don’t create projects around a certain type of 2.0 tool. I don’t look at my tool box before I start designing a lesson. I don’t use it to motivate or teach the kids. I don’t use it to make my units more exciting or engaging. The design of my units make the use of technology necessary. The units are not technology in search of content, technology in search of a project, or technology in search of a reason to be used. Every unit should have a reason why technology should have to be used to meet the goals and objectives of the lesson, otherwise our kids’ learning is dictated by the tools we give them. We need to let them build, not be built.
With an “academically challenged student” we don’t expect them to learn all the skills and content they are missing on the first day. We don’t teach them something and then if they can’t do it immediately give them consequences. We differentiate, review, we use all sorts of modalities to engage, and if everything we try doesn’t work we try something else.We expect to see progressive growth from day one until the end of the year.
Why don’t we take this approach with kids who are “behavior challenged?” Why do teachers expect to tell them something once and then if they don’t do it “punish” them. What if teachers approached behavior just like academics. Teach it, review it, reinforce it, opps you made a mistake lets try it this way, here’s why its important, here’s how it impacts your life, your future, and if that doesn’t work try something totally different expecting not an immediate turnaround but slow growth over the course of the year.
The first of the many political flyers to hit my mailbox came today.In my little town we have elections in May.Today the one for the Republican Board of Education candidates arrived today.I was very interested to read it because this is the first election since my kids entered school in 2007.After experiencing two years of our community school, I was eager to hear about their ideas on how they were going to make some changes and what they had planned to improve the education that my children are receiving.Three candidates, three big paragraphs.I have included all the sentences from each profile below that had anything to do with what they were planning on doing when they were on the Board of Education.So in other words, once you take out where they grew up, what their job is, and how many children they have, here is what was left:
Candidate #1-My fiscal conservatism will balance the needs of paying for an excellent education with the needs of keeping taxes low as possible.
Candidate #2-Physical fitness and the health of our children is a top focus of mine.
Candidate #3-I want our children to get the best education available, but am equally concerned about how effectively the community’s tax dollars are being spent. I am very frugal and will do everything I can do to ensure that we are getting the best value for our money.
In my “Drafts” I have over twenty posts in various states of completion—most will whither away.I decided to take this one out of the box as-is and see what kind of comments it elicits….
So let’s get started again…where was I…ahhhh…that’s right–You are a Geek
That’s right, if you are reading this you are probably a geek.You stick out like a sore thumb for how you teach.I have noticed at the end of the last few conferences I have attended that everyone mentions how hard it will be to go back to their schools because they don’t quite fit in—they felt so at ease with the people at the conference and they will now have to go back to work where they can’t even eat in the teacher’s room. Has that ever happened to you?Do you know why?Because you are a geek.You are not one of the cool kids, you don’t think and do what everyone else does.
Seriously, that is the strength and weakness of the geek movement.There used to be lots of people a year or two ago writing about why so few people are moving to integrate technology in their classrooms and how we should convince them.Well, that would be like the kids on the chess club going into the locker room and telling the football players why they should use a highlighter when they read.I am thinking that the chess players would exit the locker room with their heads highlighted.I know that I am coming close to the point where I can no longer understand someone who is a traditional textbook, workbook, quiz, test, coercive consequence classroom management plan teacher. I don’t know if I can sell my style of teacher that type of teacher.So what if we approached convincing teachers to use more technology in class the same way a company brands a product?
Make a connection with a somatic marker of some sorts. People make most of their decisions subconsciously based on past experiences–make the connection emotional.When you mention technology, what comforting memory can they reflect back upon? What have they experienced and forgotten or not even noticed that you can appeal to deep in the subconcious regions of their body?
Create an image of what using technology in a classroom looks like.One image.Mention using technology in a classroom and everyone should see the same thing in their head. It should look natural and attainable by everyone.
Don’t tell people to use technology because it’s “better” or it will improve student achievement.That implies what people are currently doing in classrooms is wrong. People resist being fixed.
Make people wonder about using it.Don’t give answers, give them questions.Open possibilities, don’t give them stuff.
Get a cool kid to start using it.People don’t imitate geeks.I am a geek at my school.If no one respects what I do or what I believe it is awful hard to get people to join my club.Nobody wants to be in the geek club unless they have been thrown out of the cool kid gang.No one at my school has ever asked me about anything I do.Whether a question about integrating technology, or my holistic style of classroom management. When someone new comes into the school they automatically imitate the cool club. No one wants to join my club. It would not provide them with a sense of security.Joining the geek squad makes someone feel insecure.Why else do all the geeks work twelve hours a day trying to improve their teaching and learning new things?Because they are not part of the club that has control and offers safety, geeks bury their head in their work and call it “passion.”That gives them control, that gives them some sense of security.
Our brain is filled with mirror neurons that make us want to be like and be liked by everyone else by following the established tradition of rules, not the exception to the rule. Geeks are the exceptions to the rules.I guess geeks will always be geeks.By the time all of the cool kids have joined their club, the geeks will have formed another one.
I just finished watching a video of Sammy Hagar at a school in St. Louis. I was one of those people that turned my back on Van Halen when he became the lead singer, but did hold on to his solo albums. He was there because he donated money to a program called Blessings in a Backpack. He donated money to send the kids home with backpacks full of food. He also announced that all of the profits from one of his restaurants will go to funding the program “forever.” Here is a bit about what they do:
Blessings in a Backpack is a results oriented program. This unique program is designed to feed children grades K-5 in Title 1 public schools who qualify for the Federal Free and Reduced Meal Program and may not have any or enough food on the weekends. Better test scores, improved reading skills, positive behavior, improved health and increased attendance have all been attributed to the success of this program.
$80 feeds a child in the program for an entire school year. Following a donation, a school is chosen and a local grocer partners with the program to provide food for meals in the backpacks. Every Friday, students receive their backpacks with food that requires little to no preparation. They return with their backpacks on Monday ready to learn.
I did not think much of the video at first. I taught for ten years at a similar school. At the end however, when the video switched to him putting the food in the kids bags as they walked by him my brain felt a little queasy. Here I am in my school trying to put laptops into kids bags when he is putting food into theirs. Food. Just food. Makes me wonder if the integration of technology should be lower on my list of priorities. My kids can’t eat, talk to, or feel love from a laptop.
Connecticut has been under the spell of the Connecticut Mastery Tests(CMTs) for the past two weeks. Every morning the kids take a test that lasts from 47-70 minutes. A common practice of schools is to eliminate or greatly reduce homework during the time of the CMTs. I would just like to share a snippet of a conversation from dinner table tonight.
Mom: Do you have any homework tonight?
Daughter: Just math
Mom: That’s it?
Daughter: We don’t much homework during the CMTs
Mom: Why not?
Daughter: Because they want us rested so we will do well on the tests
Dad (in his head): So they don’t want you rested to do well the rest of the year?
Tonight I got to spend time wrestling with my girls and then we even had time left over to go to the library together because they did not have much homework to do.
standardized tests + CMT homework policy = more family time
For one night, I was a huge supporter of standardized testing.
“Do you ever feel like every time you walk into school a little piece of you is taken away, and when you leave school you don’t get it back? CJ (student)
Go ahead and answer this questions — Whose room do you work in?To whom does it belong?
Now fill in the blanks with the best answer:
1- _______ classroom is a special place.
My
Our
2. ______ have control of the learning.
A.I
B.Students
3. ______ have responsibility for developing units of learning
I
Students
Steve Moore in a recent post had a single line that prompted this post.He wrote “I feel as though it is my school.”How many students feel as though it is “their school?”How many teachers?I bet if you made one graph showing students’ grades, and another showing the answer to the question “Do you feel as though it is your school?” the two graphs would match.
How do you empower students? How do you give them control? What are they responsible for? How do you give them responsibility?
What can they do that you haven’t already decided for them?What choices can they make that are authentic, and not you giving them two options for presenting material with a checklist that you made.Can they handle the power of making decisions?Does your school encourage students taking control, or does it encourage controlling students?
Can you imagine being told what to do for almost every minute each day?
Wake up now
Get on the bus now
Stay on bus until 7:50am
Go to homeroom
Don’t stop to talk to friend in hallway
Go to class now
Take out the book
Turn to this page
Answer those questions
Each question answered like this
Leave class now
Repeat 6 through 12 three more times.
Go to lunch now.
Finish eating now
Repeat 6-12 three more times
Go home now
Take out book to do homework
Turn to this page
Answer those questions
Each question answered like this
Pass in homework on due date given to you
Repeat 1-21 180 times during 10 months each year
If you knew you had the future President of the United States in your school is that the program you would want her to follow in preparation for leading our country?
Phillip the II once went to Alexander the Great’s teacher and said “strive to make yourself useless.” That is my goal each year. I strive to make myself useless. Slowly empower your students so that on the last day of school when you ask them “Whose room is this?” They will answer, “it is my room.”
I was tagged with another meme…and I think my tagger might have something up his sleeve. Terry Shay tagged me for two memes in a row which is breaking rule #43 of Meme post tagging. I am thinking he is slick enough to see that my posts were increasingly taking on a crabby negative dark side spirit and he is making sure that there is still some joy in my life….right Terry?
I am going to do three connected to school, and three personal.
1-Using my chainsaw. We have a wood stove and I cut my own wood. You can’t let your mind wander while using a chainsaw. It makes me block out the rest of the world and I experience “flow.” The process of cutting done a tree, piecing it, splitting it, stacking it, putting it in the stove to heat my family is a very satisfying job. It is one job in my life that has a beginning, middle, and end. Sounds kind of silly, but I am sticking with it.
2-Coming home to my family. Seeing my wife smile and hearing the words daddy will never get old. My wife doesn’t call me daddy, that would be my kids.
3-Being outside. I could be on top of a mountain or walking through a city. I am always happier when I am outside.
4-Getting an email from a past student. Just knowing that they paused long enough to remember me is touching.
5-Having a kid get up in front of the class who previously barely spoke and blow everyone way with a presentation. The rule is if you produce a tear in my eye you get an “A.”
6-When a student talks to me when they don’t have to. Whether it is a deep dark secret, or just what they had for diner last night. It makes me happy that they trusted me, or even thought of me to share.
Huh…I decided not to think and just go with the first six things and then go back and read Terry’s list. I notice some similarities between ours, and note the lack of things like cruises to the Bahamas. Which simply means we both should go on more cruises.
Ok, here are the rules for this meme:
Link to the person who tagged you.
Post six things that make you happy along with these rules.
Then tag six others (letting them know, of course).
Let the person who tagged you know when your entry is complete.
By the way, if you are an experienced blogger and you get tagged in the future, don’t forget to support up-and-coming bloggers and tag them. There are some links here!
The post that was supposed to appear in this spot I am holding off-I am not quite finished with it and it is a juicy one.I will instead put up a post answering memes I have been tagged with that I have not been able to get to for some time.If you click on each title it will take you to the original post.So let’s get to meme #1.
I have thought long and hard about this one.I polled a couple of classes.I thought a little more, and a little more.In the end, I had the same answer that I started with.Nothing.Now that is not necessarily a bad thing.We are just flat out average in everyway.So while it is not an interesting answer, it’s the best I have got.
I would travel down south and take over a beautiful house on the beach.Plant a really big garden, build a really big hammock, and drink out of coconuts.Not sure where I would get the coconuts, but I could easily live out the rest of my life like that.
I would like to read peoples minds.Not all the time.I would be able to activate the power.Most people don’t like to share what is going on in their life, and they don’t want to expose themselves by divulging some of the pain that they are dealing with.Imagine if a student wasn’t doing anything in class and I could “see” that they are thinking about their troubles at home.I would be able to approach that student in a very different way then the kid who I could “see” was just day dreaming about his new video game.
This is the comment I am going to leave on Megan’s blog:
Hi Megan.I want to thank you for the “Hello” you give me every morning before school.As the school day starts my stress level is usually rising as I start to worry about whether or not I have everything ready.Your “hello” snaps me out of my stress mode and instantly relaxes me and reminds me to be “in-the-moment” instead of stressing about the future. It’s funny how it does that every morning—it never gets old. Thanks Megan!
5-Hire a fancy smancy advertisement agency to create a campaign to recruit a whole new breed of teachers.Too many highly qualified individuals don’t even consider teaching because school simply wasn’t a place they liked to be as a student, why would they want to be there as a teacher.
4-Make an education degree two years of classes and short classroom experiences.Then you enter the farm system.Model schools like medical schools.Just like there are teaching hospitals, there would be “teaching” schools. Resident teachers would work with and shadow certified teachers for two years.Then they would take on a class of their own for a year in a one-on-one situation.Then work for two years on a team with a master teacher in charge.During the first five years of the program they are paying, the last two years a stipend.Shouldn’t cost more than their current BS + MA degrees.We could get rid of many of the college professors—frankly after many student teachers and interns over the years, they are not learning much in their four year programs anyway.
3-Have a contest to see who can make the largest stack of text books and them light them on fire.
2-Get rid of age level grades, mandatory year-by-year curriculum, and graded assignments.Let’s mix up the ages.Even put the pre-schools and senior centers in the schools. If a kid really want to spend a year learning about DNA and doesn’t learn about Saturn, will society really crash and burn? Or get a kid with a passion for science.Graded assignments!Nothing is worse…but that is another post.
1-Last but not least, Make a law that says whenever anyone is writing, talking, or meeting about changing the educational system that they start off with no school buildings or teachers in their plan. It restricts creativity when you start brainstorming about how to improve a system but keep the two largest components of it.
Five memes one post!I am going to tag ten people for these memes.Here is the rule.You can choose any of the five memes in this post to write about!If you have never done a meme before all you have to do is answer one of the above questions in a post on your blog, and then link back to this blog, and if you want to show some hyperlink kindness, hyperlink to the person who tagged me. Then you “tag” at least three other bloggers to answer the same question.
The following bloggers should considered themselves tagged (the focus here will be on supporting up and coming bloggers!):
