Teacherscribe's Teaching Thoughts
Week 33
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Amen
Isn't this what we do?
Always be in beta
Book recommendation - George Couros' The Innovator's Mindset
Teaching Thoughts
Week 33 (Apr. 29-May 3)
Teaching Thought #146
“Nine Elephants in the (Class)Room that Should Unsettle Us” by Will Richardson.
Elephant #3 – We know that deep, lasting learning requires conditions that schools and classrooms simply were not built for.
This is a great point - When we look at the things that each of us has learned most deeply in our lives, the same certain conditions almost always apply: Among other things, we had an interest and a passion for the topic, we had a real, authentic purpose in learning it, we had agency and choice, deciding what, when, where, and with whom we learned it, and we had fun learning it even if some of it was “hard fun.” We know this.
Yet, what does school look like mostly? Not that.
Now I know it can’t be as simple as what Richardson makes it out to be. Some things have to be boring. Somethings have to be taught ‘traditionally.’ I get that. But, be honest, when was the last time you really learned something the same exact way our kids are taught it.
Was it during your school’s professional development? How well did that really work for you? Are you still using any of it?
Was it during those dreadful safety training videos we are required to watch? How much time did you really devote to them? Or did you just turn them on and let them run while you did something else?
Now, contrast that about something new you just learned? I bet you didn’t sit at a conference table listening to someone else drone on, and I bet you didn’t sit through a mind-numbling boring Power point either.
How can we make class learning more like real learning?
Teaching Thought #147
“Nine Elephants in the (Class)Room that Should Unsettle Us” by Will Richardson.
Elephant #4 – We know that we’re not assessing many of the things that really matter for future success.
Richardson notes - The reality in K-12 schooling today is that the majority of what we assess, content, knowledge, and basic skills, is the easiest to assess, not the most important. It’s much more difficult to assess the literacies, skills, and dispositions that are required to succeed and lead a healthy, happy life, especially in a world where answers are everywhere via the technologies we carry in our pockets. In that world, creativity, curiosity, a change mindset, the ability to create, connect, and participate in networks…all of those are now required, yet few of those are currently assessed at all.
I’ve lamented for years the folly of high stakes testing.
As a teacher, ask yourself this, “Is what we are teaching designed to simply make kids pass tests, or is what we teach designed to create life-long learners who can thrive in the ‘real’ world?” Do those two things have to be mutually exclusive?
Teaching Thought #148
“Nine Elephants in the (Class)Room that Should Unsettle Us” by Will Richardson.
Elephant #5 – We know that grades, not learning, are the outcomes that students and parents are most interested in.
No doubt. Why is that when I grew up (Gen X) was ‘test anxiety’ never mentioned? But today, it’s a legit thing, so much so that my daughter, when she was in first grade, had a meltdown taking her NWEA test? Isn’t that child abuse?
If you want an interesting discussion, ask you kids, candidly, if they’ve ever taken a class, learned little, but still got an A? I do this every year and am saddened by the discussion.
But it’s true for us too. I’ve passed safety test after safety test and really learned little.
How can we shift the focus of our classes to what is really important? The ‘mastery’ of content as opposed to an ‘A’?
Teaching Thought #149
“Nine Elephants in the (Class)Room that Should Unsettle Us” by Will Richardson.
Elephant #6 – We know that curriculum is just a guess.
The way we talk about “The Curriculum” you would think that it was something delivered on a gold platter from on high. In reality, it was pretty much written by 10 middle-aged white guys (and their primarily white, middle-aged friends) in 1894 called “The Committee of Ten.” They were from some of the most prestigious schools and universities at the time, and they fashioned the structure of much of what we still teach in schools today. But we know that much of what every student in 1894 was supposed to learn isn’t really what every student in 2015 needs to learn. Yet we seem loathe to mess with the recipe. And as Seymour Papert so famously asks, now that we have access to pretty much all there is to know, “what one-billionth of one percent” are we going to choose to teach in school?
The curriculum. That is enough to make a first year teacher panic and a two decade veteran roll their eyes.
I have a love hate relationship with curriculum. I guess in the abstract sense, I actually love curriculum. I truly love what I teach. But I also know ‘what’ I teach grows and changes over time. What I dislike about ‘curriculum’ is how some powers on high decree what should be taught. What I hate about ‘curriculum’ is how some powers on high even go so far as to decree HOW it should be taught. For me, that’s just going too far. That’s taking all the magic out of teaching.
And if curriculum wasn’t a guess, why do the standards change every few years? Why do we have curriculum cycles where we get duped for the latest and greatest curriculum?
Teaching Thought #150
“Nine Elephants in the (Class)Room that Should Unsettle Us” by Will Richardson.
Elephant #7 – We know that separating learning into discrete subjects and time blocks is not the best way to prepare kids for the real world.
An interesting quote - School is the only place in the world where we do math for 45 minutes, and then science for 45 minutes, and then Shakespeare for 45 minutes. That’s an efficiency that serves the system, not the students. To quote Mitch Resnick* again,
“The creative jobs of the future will not fit into boxes as neatly labeled and divided as the professions of today. The positions that involve mastery and the use of powerful technologies will be filled by people who combine a range of different skills from different disciplines. These jobs will require not just interdisciplinary but antidisciplinary thinking and doing.”
Does that come as a shock to anyone? And the same goes for separating kids into age groupings, by the way.
What about team-teaching? For years, I’ve kicked around the idea of teaching an American Lit/American History combo class. How cool would that be? How much would we learn when we hit the Civil Rights movement and read To Kill a Mockingbird? Or if we study the depression and read Of Mice and Men?
And why can’t math and science work together? Or why can’t Mrs. Kalhammer and I team up when we read The Ghost Map in College Comp and she studies pathogens and disease in her science class?
Just think of the possibilities. Yet, we compartmentalize our disciplines because it’s easier . . . for us, not for learning.
Podcast of the week - What Schools Could Be
Video of the week - The World is a Fine Place and Worth Fighting For
If this young man can go through such loss
Thoughts from Twitter
Tech Tool of the Week- What Was There
Currently, the locations are quite limited. But - hear me out on this one - how awesome would it be to have a project like this -
Have students choose different sections of TRF and then see if they can talk to their grandparents or great grandparents to see if they can find pictures of what those different sections of TRF used to look like. If they are concerned about losing their pictures, students could always use their iPads or their parent's phones to take pictures of the original pics.
Then you could upload the to What Was There to show what those different sections of TRF looked like over the years.
Or students could go to the local MNHS or the Times to see what pictures they could find to scan or capture with their iPads.
One issue I struggle with getting my students to realize is that the world didn't always look like it currently did.
What Was There is a great tool to illustrate that.
Bonus content for the week - Graphic novels in the classroom
Chief Inspiration Officer of Room 205
I am married to the most amazing person in the world, Kristie. It was love at first sight. At least for me. And it still is.
We have four wonderful children, Casey, Koko, Kenzie, and Cash. I also happen to have the greatest job in the world: teaching English to high school students.
I am about to begin my 21st year of teaching at Lincoln High School. I graduated from Lafayette High School in 1992. I decided to enter the field of education because of two amazing teachers, Mr. Mueller, my fourth and sixth grade elementary school teacher and assistant baseball coach, and Mrs. Christianson, my 9th grade English teacher.
I attended Northland Community College, and had my life changed by the amazing Dr. Diane Drake. Then I transferred to Bemidji State University in 1995. There I had amazing professors who further inspired me to teach English (Dr. Helen Bonner, Dr. Mark Christensen, Susan Hauser, and Gerry Schnabel). I graduated with my BS in English Education in 1997.
I student taught with the wonderful Lisa Semanko and then began teaching full-time at LHS in 1998.
I took a year's leave of absence in 2001-02 to return to BSU for my MA in English. There I had the privilege to teach and work closely with my greatest mentor, Dr. Mark Chirstensen. I earned my MA in English in 2006 and was honored with "Thesis of the Year" for my creative non-fiction, braided, multi-genre memoir, "Meeting Myrtle: A Biography."
In 2013, thanks to my dear friend and mentor, Dr. Jodi Holen, I was offered an adjunct teaching position fall semester at the University of North Dakota. Tuesday nights I teach Intro to Education: Teaching and Learning 250 from 5-8. Those three hours fly by in about ten minutes.
Then in 2016 I was blessed to win a WEM award (thanks to a nomination from a former student (and now an elementary school teacher), Ciera Mooney.
In 2017 I became part of the #pineconepd podcast club along with Brian Loe, Jeff Mumm, Kelsey Johnson, Kelly Weets, Josh Watne, Tevia Strand, Megan Vigen, Mariah Hruby, and Laura Brickson. This has been one of the best forms of PD I've ever been a part of. They make me a better teacher every time we meet. Please think about joining us in the summer at the Pine Cone Pub from 6:30 - until we've solved all the world's problems. For that evening anyway.
Thanks to the inspiration of Shane Zutz (our former principal) I devised this as a way to distribute my Teaching Thoughts and add more content to, hopefully, help out and inspire others.
Email: kurt.reynolds@myprowler.org
Website: http://teacherscribe.blogspot.com
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