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.
Meme #1–What is the most unique thing about your school?
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.
Meme#2—What would you do if you were the last person on Earth?
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.
Meme#3—What kind of superpower would you want?
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.
Meme#4—Random Act of Kindness-Leave an encouraging comment on someone’s blog
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!
Meme#5—What are five changes you would like to see in the educational system?
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!):
7 responses so far ↓
#3 on the what would you do to change schools list is my favorite. By far. Where can I sign up for this?
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First of all, I love the title of this post.
I think my favorite part however was #3 on your list. I’d like to be there for that!
That said, if we could just accomplish #1 we’d be able to make some huge, meaningful changes.
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#5 is my favorite & I agree with you on every point, Paul… even on reducing the number of needed college professors (which incidentally is already happening).
Have you read the Malcolm Gladwell piece on comparing how we find great teachers to how we find great quarterbacks? In it, Gladwell proposes nearly the same thing as your point #4 on training new teachers.
Perhaps you could take a moment and check out my thoughts on a Teacher Summer Camp? You are precisely the kind of person who would make such an experience very powerful.
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Paul,
And this is why you should have won, “Best education blog.” You consistently write the best education blog posts. Love your work and what you would do to change the educational system. Paul Blogush for education czar! Your thoughts are the most innovative and vital ideas I’ve heard in a long time.
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Hey Mr. B,
Thanks for the comment. It is fun saying hi to you every morning, especially after you told me that story of the jogger. I didn’t know it meant that much to you. Now, I’m glad that I do say hello. You said that not many people like to say hello. Well, you and I do and that counts as 2! Thanks again. You are an awesome teacher!
Megan
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I love it! Blogging my response now
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[...] ritual necessary to start my early morning), I came upon Paul Boglush’s latest entry, “M-M-M-M-Memes.” I don’t usually skim over his posts, so I dug in. I’ll let you do the same [...]
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