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Saturday, April 27, 2013

"Concluding Post: An Open Letter to My Students"


Dear Students,

            Since I will be your teacher, the adult that you spend the majority of your waking hours with for the next few months, I feel that it is only fair you enter this journey knowing a bit more about your traveling companion. You see my past, the present, and my future thoughts drive me in shaping the curriculum that you will encounter this school year. Just as I hope to have a deeper understanding of what makes you tick, I want you to understand my own Curriculum that we will soon share together.

            Growing up, I did not have one teacher a year. I easily had thirty. My brother was the teacher of playing fairly without cheating, even when I wanted to. My mom taught me fractions with cooking and how to treat people with respect. My dad taught me how to create things with tools and how to begin and finish projects. My grandmother taught me the names of different flowers. My teachers taught me what the state deemed academically appropriate. My dance teacher taught me to create and listen to music. My books taught me to imagine and crave knowledge. My puzzles taught me the states and capitals of the United States. Greenfield Village taught me the ways people lived long ago. The movies taught me new vocabulary. My church taught me morals. My family taught me to love and except others. My friends taught me to share. Baseball taught me discipline and to think on my feet. Without these teachers, I would not be the person I am today. I know that I was lucky when I was younger to be educated outside of school, not everyone has this chance.

            Now, as a teacher, I think about the wonderful curriculum that surrounded and shaped me. This is the curriculum that I now teach. I am a behaviorist in my beliefs that you need to be given multiple experiences in order to grow. I do not just teach the National Curriculum that a council of officials deemed worthy for all students to know. I teach students how to think, how to grow, how to survive, how to love, how to except, and how to dream. Without thought, you will not have the critical thinking skills needed to survive this ever changing environment. How can I prepare you for the world of tomorrow when I don’t even know what it will look like? That is easy, by helping you master your skills to be thoughtful problem solves. Without the knowledge that you can grow as individuals, you may never feel the self worth to try new things. Take it from me; you have the power and ability to be great. I will always provide you with the right amount of scaffolding to reach my high expectations. By giving you survival skills I know that you will make it in the world. Teaching students to love and except others is something I believe is an educator’s most important task. If students cannot love themselves or others, they will never be truly alive. This love for themselves will turn into an acceptance of others. I think it is very important that we know how to get along with other people in society. You might be very smart and good at a job when you get older. However, if you cannot get along with your coworkers, there is little hope for you.  

            I dream about the future of education and am hopeful. I am excited that students around the nation will have to be taught the same academic curriculum in each grade. This will make it a lot easier of you have to transfer school. I want you to be as successful as possible, if transitioning to a new school means never learning a valuable piece of information, it could cause a domino effect on other skills you will learn. Now, there should be more consistent around the nation. This in turn should make the content tested in standardized tests more easily compared. I do have a really big dream in terms of formative assessment that you may see in your life time. I am a firm believer in the multiple intelligences. That each student has a certain way that they learn best. With this being said, I believe that each student has a certain way that they are best assessed to. In the future, I hope that standardized tests can be standardized differentiated tests. Meaning that, depending what multiple intelligence you excel at the most, will depend on what type of assessment you are given to demonstrate your knowledge. Wouldn’t that be interesting to take the SAT but to be separated into different rooms based on your greatest learning strengths? These rooms would than give you assessments that were equal in rigor based on your own strength? I think years from now, statisticians will pair up with educational thinkers and develop these multiple intelligence assessments that are comparable.

            I can best compare my idea of education to a dance. In a dance, there are many factors that create the bigger picture. The dancer is like the student. The dancer is living proof if the music, choreography, costuming, and technique training has paid off. Much as the student’s progress is what deems a school or teacher proficient thanks to NCLB. Now the choreographer is the visionary of the dance. The choreographer is the one that knows the dancer’s strength and weaknesses just as a school teacher knows their pupil’s. The choreographer’s job is to know their dancer inside and out. The choreographer must be able to push and challenge their dancer without pushing them to hard to cause injury. This mirrors a teacher’s challenge to push a student to reach their full potential without them reaching their frustration level and becoming overwhelmed.

Now, I think about the other factors that influence a dance; music, costuming, lighting, props.  Like the choreographer, these are all the additional variables that a teacher has to work with. In education terms, this may include parent input, classroom resources, school board expectations, or national standards. The biggest issue occurs when the choreographer does not see eye to eye with the costume designer, lighting designer, or Conductor. When these artists’ visions diverge, arguing and chaos can ensue, usually at the dancer’s expense. Now, when you think about it, shouldn’t the choreographer have the greatest say? I mean, the choreographer is the one that works with the dancer and is the one whose name is on the outcome of the final product. The choreographer is the one that has the vision; the other artists should be assisting the choreographer, shouldn’t they? Just like in the educational field, this is rarely the case. The choreographer has to take what he can get and try to homogenously meld everyone’s input together to make the dancer look good. When you think about it, if the dancer looks good, the dance has been created successfully.

In time, I think the nation will realize just how much teachers know about what is best for their students. Teachers will be asked to share “best practices” and develop curriculum to meet the children they see, not the children that government officials imagine.

Well, I hope this letter helped you understand a bit more about me and gave you hints about what we will be learning this year. Yes, you can expect to cover everything that will be covered in this grade at a school on the other side of the state. However, you will be learning so much more! Be prepared to be exhausted from learning, excited to come to school, and unable to hold in questions that strengthen your understanding each day!

 
Much Love,
Mrs. Johnson

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

“Cycle Five: What does a good school look like?”




                                What does a good school look like?

          I think back on my formal education, the readings from this chapter, and the school that I am currently working at in order to answer this question. We measure schools in terms of success, in today’s society that success is based on standardized test scores, the amount of graduates, and the schools with the lowest attrition.

          The readings from this chapter made me think about success in a different way. Although some of the texts had varied views, I identified most with the idea that student centered success, not the school in societies’ eyes was most important. When talking about aims in school, Nel Noddings mentions that happiness should be a contender. When you mention a singular word like happiness, it opens up an assortment of paths for a school to take. How will they reach each student? What makes a student happy? How do we know they truly are happy and we have reached this aim?

          I then think about my own education, the times\ I was happiest in school, what I remember the most. I think about those amazing teachers I had, those were years of happiness from feeling safe and appreciated. I think about the enjoyable projects I got to create, that was a time of happiness from content I was interested in. I think about reaching educational milestones like my first oral presentation or high school graduation, that was happiness of success. If these were times that I was happy? Could it be true for everyone? So, with some research, a came across a program that is suppose to increase students' happiness through brain based learning and being mindful of their actions and thoughts. The program is called, "MindUP". This reminded me of one of the new aged programs that is being offered to schools.

 


In many ways, I feel like these programs are put in place because of the awareness that many students' home environments are not always condusive to their mental development.

Are my ideals Socratic? “Those who love certain forms of work will care deeply about that work and become competent at it” (Noddings, 428). This was the case when I was completing projects in my youth.  However, I know I would not be as happy as I am now if that philosophy followed me throughout my entire schooling. What if I only had to concentrate in one discipline that I really enjoyed? Then, years later, I became an elementary teacher? I would probably be crying of embarrassment any time my students asked me a question in language arts or science and praying from math class to come. Then I think, I probably would not have become an elementary teacher but gone into a job that was closer to my field of enjoyment at the current point in my life that I picked it. This makes me laugh since I changed my major in college. I probably would have been stuck as a biomechanical engineer.       

Because I received a varied education in my youth, I am happy today. “The function of schooling is not to enable students to do better in school. The function of schooling is to enable students to do better in life” (Eisner, 329). I felt that I could identify best with Rousseau’s idea that educational curriculum should be based on the individual’s success. However, this needs to be done with a focus of the needs of society. For an individual to be truly successful, they need to perform well in society. This can be done in the way that we asses students too. “Multiple-choice tests are not a substitute for the real performance” (Meier, 65).

          I thought the idea of commensurability was an interesting one in the Elliot Eisner reading. Part of me understood that commensurability seems to be needed to make comparisons on an even playing field. However, you are comparing different students with different learning styles. Therefore, are you really comparing them fairly? I think not. However, if you assessing students differently based on their needs, is there a way to create the assessments and rubric to be just as rigorous for each different type of assessment? Should you have a different creator make each assessment? I for one could create an extremely easy assessment for a learner that does not have the same learning style as me and think it was just as challenging as another assessment.  Is there a better way to go about this? I always think about teaching something in three different ways. If you do, you are bound to hit the needs of almost all of your learners in the classroom. As this article PBS aricle points out, "How can different learning styles be addressed with consistent expectations?" there are some teaching strategies, like inquiry lessons that support a variety of learning styles.

          I think a good school creates critical thinkers, attempts to create happiness by catering to different learning needs, has an integrated curriculum, and helps students become acclimated to society. I agree with the need for staff centered curriculum discussions. I have been at different schools in my life that had completely different beliefs and outcomes with respect to this idea. Let me tell you, a staff that speaks a common language throughout the school building has an easier time getting through to students, is able to start the school year at a run (expectations are consistent from year to year for students), and also creates a common bond for the students to see.

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Cycle Four: How should curriculum be created?


                I will be completely honest with you. I found the article on the Texas Board of Education and its influence on the United State’s education system riveting. No, there is no hint of sarcasm in my voice. I thought it was a very powerful read however, a bit bias towards the Texas Board of Education. At one point the writer stated that, “Christian thinkers like to point out…” which lumped all Christians into a category.  This statement made it hard for me to trust this journalist’s view points, which were clearly anti Texas Board of Education. Honestly, Texas is to the education system of the United States as Roger Goodell is to the NFL! On a side note as I was researching teaching evolution in public schools I came across this article, http://www.bibleliteracy.org/bibcdocs/TheBibleAndItsInfluenceTEIntro.pdf. Page 12 talks about a book that was actually made for teaching the Bible in public schools called, The Bible and Public Schools, based on our First Amendment Rights. 
                I felt very ignorant to the power Texas holds in our education system. It seems that there is a hierarchy with the Texas Board of Education being at the top. It then trickles down to the textbook companies, the states power, districts power, the school boards power, the schools authority, teacher say, and finally student influence. Now, what I think and how this education food chain can be altered is a topic for later discussion, of which I will get to.
                The question, what justifies the Texas Board of Education as being a key game MAKER of our education system? The only answer I can come up with is money. Money talks, so sad that this happens when a child’s education is at stake. Now, I know what you are thinking…since not all states are given equal government funding one state is going to be more influential than the others. This state is the one that textbook companies will court, changing their identity so as to find a suitable match for their schools. The other states will have to follow, this time in reverse, adapting their objectives to match the books that will be instrumental tools in their schools.
                Now, I understand the main concern of the Texas Board of Education is that many people on the board are not teachers and although deem themselves “expects” in a field of study, they are not practiced educators. Maybe if it was filled with educators this board would be less scrutinized, even when they voice their own views. The fact is, no matter what state was in charge or who was on the leading board of education the outcome would be the same. As long as people are free thinkers, they will hold that power to influence others. If you think your voice is the correct one, you will use that to get others to see it your way. Can you really blame them?
               The only way that each state can get passed that would be to negate using textbooks that do not have their own states content. Well, that is what they could have done before the time of Common Core.
Now, onto Tyler’s book, Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction. This was an interesting read when thinking about how to determine what should be taught and identifying areas students are lacking in. At one point Tyler mentions that, “It is unnecessary for the school to duplicate educational experiences already adequately provided outside the school,” which got me thinking, how is adequately truly defined or accessed? (pg 8). I suppose this could later be paired with later chapters where Tyler mentions surveying students or providing them with written assessments as a tool for determining students’ knowledge. I think about the way a progressive educationalist is defined in this book and realize that I am not them. They say that “the primary basis for educational objectives is the interests of the learners themselves” (p 10). I think about this and believe that this is how lessons should be planned, not objectives created. The learner’s interests can play a key role when thinking about the multiple intelligences to influence lessons. However, if you only followed a students’ interests, especially in the earlier grades when the exposure to information is minimal, it seems like new interests would be hard to develop to teach a student everything they should know. Now, I completely agree with the second argument Tyler brought up about the way to analyze contemporary life to suggest educational objectives (p 17). Tyler suggests that you prepare students in the ability to analyze situations and adapt to them basically, to be critical thinkers so as to be prepared for the life of tomorrow. This basically means making the objectives more rigorous which could be done by using verbage found in Bloom’s Taxonomy. Students can still be exposed to the same material, however they need to be able to think critically about it.
One way Tyler explained objectives could be made is through public opinion polls. The belief is that by polling citizens, you could see “the areas in which citizens have little information and have ineffective attitudes as a basis for their attack upon important social problems of today” (p 22). I’ll be honest, this just made me chuckle. My note next to the text was as followed, “hahahaha, this is so pro-government. Clearly I should be getting paid more by the government so I can better influence my students,” this statement was then followed by the words, “V for Vendetta?”
A good point that made me question our new Common Core was the idea of just how diverse our nation is in terms of geographical spans and even rural or urban environments. Are we wasting our students’ time by teaching them things that they have already been exposed to? Will polling students be accurate enough to tell us what they already know? Does Common Core favor one demographic more than the other?
One thing I know is that curriculum should be created with the learner in mind. I know what you are thinking; the student was at the bottom of my previous classification list that I had written above (when ordering educational influence and power in our country). This is why it is so important for teachers to be thoughtful and mindful of their pupils. When I say keep the learner in your mind I mean create lessons with differentiation, use students’ multiple intelligences to create lesson plans, create units that allow students to reach the objective by following their own interests.

                

          There are so many more things I want to say about this reading and I am afraid I am running out of room. Instead, I am going to quote the text and include my commentary. Please read if you are interested or only comment on the written portion above! Thanks.
  1.           “A smaller number of consistent highly important objectives need to be selected” (33). Agreed! How long before this occurs? How are objectives inconsistent of each other?
  2.      "Another question with which the school’s philosophy will need to deal can be states, ‘Should there be a different education for different classes of society?’” (36) All I can say to this one is, HELLO CHINA and how can you agree with this and be pro general education?
  3.      “Since the real purpose of education is not to have the instructor perform certain activities but to bring about significant changes in the students’ patterns of behavior” (44) Does this mean that objectives are not for knowledge change but for ones moral, attitude change? Or, is the key word here instructor performance versus student performance?

Monday, February 18, 2013

Cycle Three: Should the curriculum address controversial issues?


                I think about the saying, “What they don’t know, can’t hurt them” when I think of bringing up controversial issues in a school setting.  Now, by saying that, a reader may automatically make their own conclusions about my educational philosophy and curriculum standpoint.
                The traditionalist and moral conservative might take the statement as truth. The generalization of these groups is often the belief that the classroom is no place to educate students on HIV/AIDS, the deviation of typical gender roles, or sex.
                Now, the educator brought up in the Deweyan tradition would take this quotation and laugh at it, thinking I was being ironic or would give me a reply of, “But they do KNOW!” This educator would hold firm that children come upon knowledge in their own way and that the classroom needs to be a safe place to develop this child’s knowledge or expel any misinformation they might have.   
                Now, what do I really think? Honestly, what I think and what I do are two completely different issues. As an educator I have learned to never give my students my own opinion, to give students the opportunity to make their own decisions by informing them of all the possible sides of a situation.  What I realize though is that this view point comes along, handcuffed if you will, to my fear of making waves with the parents in my classroom. I wish I could think of myself as a really good comedian, that I know my audience! However, I really am just playing it safe. After reading the article, HIV/AIDS Education: Toward a Collaborative Curriculum by Jonathan Silin I couldn’t help but wish I taught in a district that mandated this education in a fourth grade classroom. That I would have state mandates backing up my curriculum to irate parents. For the time, I do play it safe. I am an at-will employee and am not under contract. I would hate to make a false move and be the center of a parent rally. I think about how I could justify my actions to the parents, and I honestly think I would do a very good job. I could state how these controversial issues go along with our school’s Moral Focus Curriculum, to accept everyone. I could state that the book I was reading which brought up these topics have such wonderful plot elements. I could even hit them hard with facts. Telling them that, “one-fifth of people with AIDS are in their 20s … it can be inferred that many of these people contracted the virus as teenagers” so teaching them about this when they are ten might save their lives (Silin p 258). Even after carefully compiling all of the reasons I could justifiably teach these controversial issues I think parents would still have a problem with it. I think the main problem would be that these topics are not part of the objectives that are in the handbook the charter school hands out at the start of the school.
                Could I ever dream of teaching these controversial issues in the classroom, you bet I could! I do think that parent consent or knowledge would have to be key. An open dialogue from school to home could help for many reasons. Firstly, it would give the parents a chance to contact you if they had any concerns about the topics (based on religious or personal reasons). This would give you a chance to reassure them or hear their concerns and develop an alternative assignment for their student. Parents could inform you of any questions they have. Also, if gives families the heads up so they are not blindsided with questions from their students that they cannot answer.
                How do I think controversial issues should be taught? I think that teaching them in a school setting would create a common language between all students. I love the idea of highlighting successful individuals from all walks of life to help students with tolerance and acceptance. Creating presentations that would allow parents to sit in on the lesson with their students would also help reinforce dialogue in the home. If these controversial issues are not state mandated many parents might become upset due to religious or moral reasons.
As an educator, it is so important to be politically correct about issues, I think about subtle ways I could bring up some controversial issues in the classroom. For instance, when a am reading a book and they mention Christmas my heart stops, thinking that the Jehovah Witness Parents in my classroom are going to start screaming at me the next day. So, instead, I look a bit crazy as I interject with side notes. I say things like, “Christmas which is a holiday some people celebrate in December or Valentines (Valentines are cards people hand out on a holiday in February that some people celebrate) ”. I could say things like “Jimmy went home to his parents, his parents are a male and a female.” A Teacher's Guide to Religion in Public Schools is a good read if you have any questions about this. 
The trickiest question we have to ask ourselves is how much of the curriculum is up to the teacher, how much to the government, and how much to the child’s parent? Isn't it the teacher’s job to prepare the student for the ever changing world? However, shouldn't the government be consistent in creating guidelines for students’ education? Then I wonder what if these guidelines go against the separation of church and state? Finally, isn't it a parents’ job to protect their child? What if parents see the knowledge of these controversial issues as harmful, isn't it their right to protect their child from this then?
If I have learned anything it is that curriculum can be influenced by many sources. A teacher is a very influential person in a child’s life. Before acting on any controversial issues a teacher needs to be aware that they might stir up conflict and must be prepared to justify their actions. If you have time, please read the following article, Full Inclusion: Understanding the role of the teacher educator. Although a bit outdated it does a good job focusing on the constraints teacher educators face when talking about controversial issues in the school, such as gay and lesbian books and films. The issue of government book censorship was one that crossed my mind, but I did not write about it in this blog. This article shares viewpoints about this. 

Saturday, February 2, 2013

Cycle Two: What Should Schools Teach? How Should They Be Held Accountable?


            As I reflect on the issue, “What Should Schools Teach?” I think back to my own varied education and teaching. Although I began my formal education in Kindergarten I was being educated from the time I was born. I had an older brother and thus was introduced to what school was early on. When I began my pilgrimage into the realm of formal education I already surpassed my peers academically. I distinctly remember in the K-8 parochial school I attended that I could be absent from school and take a test the day I came back, acing that assessment because I already knew the material. This knowledge was typically given to me with the many books I absorbed or by learning from my older brother. I think about the K-8 education I had and wonder how I am able to survive in the world today. This school valued the traditionalist education. There was a lot of teacher led instruction, note taking, diagramming of sentences, formal algorithms taught during math which were practiced over and over again, and a lack of any group work or independent thinking in the classroom. There was no freedom of expression, thought, or the ability of trial and error; to apply my knowledge in real world experience to see if I failed or triumphed. Dewey would probably have had thoughts of burning the school down!  

            So, what saved me? I believe it was the extracurricular activities I was involved in during this time.  I went to Girl Scouts, dance classes, and baseball practice on a weekly base. It was here that I used my traditionalist education in a real world setting which is reinforced in this website for parents that advocates extracurriculars. I knew in dance that if the teacher said there were six more counts of eight before I was suppose to come back on stage I would be counting to forty-eight or counting to twenty-four, two times.  I knew if the dance teacher asked what would be an even way to divide the twenty-four students into rows that we could have three rows of eight or four rows of six. When I went to Girl Scouts I saw the animal footprints and ecosystems we talked about in science class. Even when I played baseball I thought in the back of my mind as I was running form base to base, “Must go straight must go straight, the quickest way from one point to another is a straight line!” A concept that was ingrained in my mind during geometry class. I am thankful that my extracurricular activities allowed me to validate what I was learning in school and aspire to learn more. I think my extracurriculars saved me and wonder if other participating classmates felt this why. Did I gain higher level thinking skills which allowed me to apply my school knowledge in a nontraditional setting? Are all students wired to think like this, to find the cross over from what they learn in school to home/life? Was I at an advantage from my peers whom did not participate in outside activities, being able to apply my knowledge in a real world setting where I could see the value in it?  

Now, when I transitioned into High School I was faced with an extremely intoxicating mixture of educational philosophy. It was as if a daring mixologist wanted to see what would happen if he/she took the Cardinal Principles and the Committee of Ten values and blended them homogenously together. It was my first week at this college preparatory, private high school when I realized I was in way over my head. You see,  this was a K-12 school where I was considered a new student. I found myself at a great disadvantage in my critical thinking skills and understanding of what I would consider “old school” traditionalist values but still extremely helpful to have. Every 6-8 grader that attended this school was required to take a foreign language, Latin. Now, Latin was considered a necessity to know for the Committee of Ten. The first month at this school I could see the value of knowing Latin. It didn’t matter if I was in Biology, Chemistry, or English class, every teacher would ask the class what a word was and a “Liggett Lifer” (that’s what we called the students that had been attending the school since Kindergarten” would answer, “I believe the word comes from the Latin word  _____ which means ______ therefore I can infer that this word means ______.”  (For more reasons why Latin might prove to be a valuable adversary to other foreign languages please read the artcle, Learning Latin by Cheryl Lowe.)These students had an education that was fit with the best of both words a traditionalist education paired with enough indirect instruction to have strong critical thinking and inductive reasoning skills. I loved my time in high school because of the freedom I felt I was able to take in my education. The teachers guided us in our own educational needs.
I was never told what to think but asked, “What do you think.” It is funny how powerful those words are! Those four words gives a student a sense of empowerment, knowing that a teacher cares, knowing that if you sink they will not let you drown in your educational goals. I believe my high school's curriculum and educational values got it right and would make Dewey proud. If we were learning about the judicial system we were holding court in the classroom. If we were learning about physics we were zooming a go-cart around the track. If we were learning about chemistry we were using chemicals or making peanut brittle on burners. English class was the love of my life. I was never once told what my teacher thought about a book. I had to find my own values and beliefs; something that I think is very instrumental for a student.  I suppose in a way this school had, “a curriculum that (was) traditional in content but diverse in its emphases” (Hirsch, 1988).

I think about where I am as an educator when answering the question, “What Should Schools Teach.” My wonderful high school experience tells me that schools should teach traditionalist methods paired with a deep immersion of content in hands on ways. I know that my students remember more when they are interested and engaged. For instance, the first day we talked about the Alamo my students’ eyes were in pain, even with an interactive power point. They could remember little to know facts the next day. However, when the class was broken up into Mexican fighters led by Santa Anna and Texans (with the help of Davy Crockett and my brother’s old coonskin hat) and a battle was reenacted, leaving only 7 Texans alive, the students were able to tell me a lot more.  
The school I am teaching at leaves me feeling pulled in many directions when I think about HOW I am teaching. I know that we need to cover certain content for each grade, that part is easy. The difficulty lies in the how. I remember almost falling off my chair during my first staff meeting four years ago when I was told that I need to “teach to the test!” something that was engrained in my brain never to do in my education classes. Let’s face it though, with the high stakes testing and our school becoming a focus school, we knew something needed to change.  Students are being tested in a multiple choice format but being taught using higher level Blooms. Something clearly isn’t correlating. Then I think, “If they can write a paragraph about the War of 1812, why can’t they answer multiple choice questions about it? “ Part of the issue I have with high stakes testing is realizing that I really do need to take time to teach my kids how to take a test. Isn’t that a skill in itself or should they already have the inductive reasoning from the higher level thinking we do on a day to day level?

The last issue I want to talk about is this idea of accountability. I don’t like using high stakes testing to hold teachers accountable but understand why it is being done. I also see the many issues that occur because of it. It was very refreshing to read the article, Outside The Core,  where the music teacher states that the music performances are a reflection on what his students learn and how well they were taught. In all honestly, isn’t this what is happening to teachers in my schools now? I know that I am being assessed by how well my students “perform” or grow on their MAP tests they take in the Fall, Winter, and Spring of each year. In fact, my pay and bonuses are determined by my students’ growth. This was an issue for a few years because teachers would “cheat” in a way, knowing that if students’ did not try as hard in the Fall they would look like they grew a lot more in the Spring. One new improvement that my charter school put in place two years ago which I know is a high interest topic for public schools is a teacher evaluation system. This system tracks a teacher on a point system weekly with classroom observations. Now, not only is student growth but also teacher performance factored into my end of the year evaluations. To me, it makes a lot more sense tracking a combination of teacher and student growth to reflect a teacher’s worth and salary than just test scores. It also is an observation which means that their is no standard between teachers because not everyone is being observed by the same person. This article is an interesting read about the new observation protocals teachers are being faced with.  I also know that all I really know is a charter school system and thus have not seen greener pastures. What are your thoughts on how teachers’ should be held accountable?

Monday, January 21, 2013

Cycle One: What is curriculum? What is its purpose?


I have a confession, after reading Cycle One's articles and listening to its Podcast I found myself conflicted with my own ideals of curriculum and its purpose. This internal conflict occurred whenever I thought about Donovan's case.

I have always believed the curriculum was put in place to allow fluidity of growth and scaffolding between grade levels. That curriculum needed to be taught in a way that would allow students to think on their own, to prepare students to be a part of this ever changing world. I suppose I am a behaviorist as described by William Schubert in Perspectives on fourth curriculum traditions when he states that “we need to identify the kinds of behaviors that help students become successful in today’s world” (Schubert, 1996, pg 171). Teachers need to prepare students to become thoughtful thinkers and problem solvers. In the long run, teachers are unaware of the future. What is finite is that the future holds the unknown. Just as revelations have changed century to century so we must imagine they will continue to do so. Teachers are preparing students for the unknown world. The equipment that students need for that preparation is inductive reasoning, the ability to overcome failure, and proper scaffolding to come about a solution on their own. I urge you to read the article, Preparing All Students, (All Means All) for a Rapidly Changing World. I think this article sums up my point best when it stats that we need to teach "learners how to learn." The article talks about how globalization and modern technology has created competition between U.S. students and students in other countries. It also explains how much of the curriculum in place at schools is centered around high stakes testing. I would like to note that this article was written before the Common Core Standards were released, standards which now have objectives which focus on peer reflection and individual thought processes opposed to a means to an end. In essence, this is what preparing students of today for the world of tomorrow is. We are giving them the equipment to take whatever road they want to reach the final destination. As teachers, we should be more interested in the path the student takes and the reason for it, not their final destination.
 

How are we, as teachers, able to give students this equipment? I think it is very important to think about the classroom setting and when students are most engaged. I know in my classroom it is when we are doing hands on work, when we are doing any type of inductive reasoning, or when we create KWL charts before becoming engrossed in a new topic. The times when I see students most engaged are always during indirect instruction, when students have the control over their learning. Now, all of the tools I use in my classroom could go horribly wrong if students were exposed to this information before they were ready. This reminded me of Dewey’s (2001) statement that “it is certainly as futile to expect a child to evolve a universe out of his own mere mind as it is for a philosopher to attempt that task” (114).  Dewey understood the important of guiding a student in the right direction opposed to just telling them. For example, it would be a problem if you asked students to make simple circuits with given materials and never having heard the word circuit before or students being asked to create a KWL chart on Lewis and Clark without any recollection if they were explorers or scientists.
 
Students will admit defeat early on and have learned nothing. However, it is a teacher’s job to stop and help students before they reach that frustration level and their love of learning is lost.

Now, although my believes were very set in stone in terms of what type of teacher I am, how I should teach, and when I should teach it. I have come back to Donovan’s case again and again in the last few days. Is that school really preparing Donovan for the ever changing world? I don’t think they are. However, I do think the key difference in Donovan’s case is that he has not mastered the ability to take care of his needs in the world now. The focus for him does need to be different. He needs to know survival skills for his own needs before academia. These skills Donovan will be able to carry with him into the future. The skills for taking care of oneself will never change what is deemed historically and scientifically significant might.

As I was watching Ken Robinson’s TED talk he mentioned that “creativity comes about from the interaction of different interdisciplinary ways of seeing things” which I couldn’t agree more. I then thought about the multiple intelligences teachers focus on during lessons. I try to focus on at least three different multiple intelligences when I am teaching a lesson in the hopes of playing towards different students’ strengths. This website breaks the multiple intelligences down and explains some activities associated with each one. It is worth checking out to get you started when catering towards the multiple intelligences in your classroom. You might also want to look at the Library of Congress website for your Visual Learners. They have wonderful pictures and secondary resources for you to use in your classroom.  What multiple intelligence are you? Take a quiz to find out. My top three were Logical/Mathematical, Intrapersonal, and Kinesthetic. One last helpful resource is the following website. It will give you more information about the multiple intelligences.

A focus of both Schubert and Dewey’s articles had to do with a child’s schema or prior knowledge and how an educator must use this when thinking about curriculum. When it comes down to it, a child’s prior knowledge is the second item I think about when creating lesson plans. My first thought is, “Where do I want them to end up?” followed by, “Where do I start?” The question of “Where do I start?” is what makes a teacher’s life challenging and ever-changing. Each year I will have a different set of students in my classroom that come to me with different backgrounds and thus will take different things away from the lesson. I will never forget this year that our writing coach came into the classroom to give my students a writing lesson. After the writing lesson a student raised his hand and wanted to know what a beach ball was. The teacher had mentioned a beach ball in her writing lesson. This fourth grader had never heard of or seen a beach ball before. So the enter lesson he was wondering about what a beach ball was. Do I think he took anything out of the writing lesson, possibly? However, without knowing what a beach ball was the story the writing teacher was telling would have lost a lot of meaning.

I think about this student and this writing lesson often. It would do the students a disservice not to tell a story because students have not been introduces to all of the vocabulary in the story. However, there are ways to combat this problem, such as showing pictures as you are introducing new words or giving the class a pretest to see what they already know (I'm thinking of a pretest before teaching other content, not a short story). In the case of the beach ball, I think about the exposure this fourth grader has had in his life never to come across this word before. The comfort that I can take is that this student felt safe enough in the classroom setting to take a risk and ask a question. This student wants to learn and grow to a deeper knowledge base. I think that if you have a safe classroom environment you can make the classroom as rigorous as you want. Students will let you know what they don't understand and be risk takers.    

Saturday, January 12, 2013

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Hello TE 818! My name is Ashten and I am very excited to become more technologically savvy this semester. I have been teaching at a charter school in the Metro Detroit area for the last four years. I taught second grader for two years before being offered a position in the fourth grade. I love my upper elementary class, their personalities are wonderful. I teacher all content areas. However, I did major in mathematics and minor in English and dance in undergrad. This school year has been busy with lesson planning, teaching dance after school, and beginning my master's degree. I am also the ambassador for our school wide behavoir management program, Capturing Kids Hearts. I had a wonderful time this summer getting this certification in Grand Rapids, MI.

In my free time I enjoy reading, cooking, and going on vacation. I absolutely love to travel! However, my husband has recently returned to school which really puts a damper on vacation plans. He is currently attending Wayne State University's Medical School. Our last big trip was two years ago, we went to Hawaii on a belated honeymoon. The only thing I love more besides vacationing (and my husband) is coffee. My students' parents will sometimes surprise me with a cup of coffee during the school day. I associate getting an unexpected cup of coffee to the happiness I would have if I ever won the lottery!

This is me in Hawaii!