InfoTeacher

My last entry was about (OK, so I rambled a bit before I got to the point) teaching as a calling. I am taking a class, and in that class we are having a discussion about this very issue. I will share my thought and those of one of my colleagues (anonymously)  as we tossed this football around .

My thoughts (I was actually responding to the thoughts of another colleague):

I couldn’t agree more that collaboration and RtI can and should go hand in hand. If we want to move toward a culture that is data driven, end-result (outcomes) targeted, and student-need focused, then we need to put our best collaborative relationships together with our best early interventions for those students who are identified as not meeting the standard (as early as we can identify this), and work together figure out what we need to do to help students achieve. (I’m pretty sure that was a run-on sentence).

The days of, “I taught it, those students just aren’t doing their part” need to be distant memories. We need to see ourselves responsible for student accomplishment (or lack of it). And, by that definition, we will see where student’s didn’t achieve (and yes, we will have to say, I take responsibility for X who didn’t make it). But at least if we take responsibility, we can look at ourselves and ask if we did EVERYTHING we could to make sure X didn’t fail.

One response from a colleague I respect greatly. I post it so that I can post how I responded. I value the chance to make my thoughts more clear and better defined. In the end, I don’t think we disagree, but see both sides of the coin.:

When a student fails or fails to achieve anywhere near his potential, who is responsible?  When I think about responsibility and children, I think of a continuim.  As our children grow older, as parents we lengthen the apron strings.  We give them more responsibility and hold them to a greater degree of accountablility.  As educators, I always saw us doing that in like fashion.  If I teach 6 year olds, my level of responsibility and their level of resposibility for their learning is different than if I teach high school seniors.  As my daughters grew, my wife and I trained them to be responsible, hard working students.  Now that they are teens, they have taken most of the ownership for their learning.  I know in a few years when they go to college they must take full ownership.  I see a continium. 

My response:

I completely agree –the continuum is how it should be (and works for 80-90% of kids). We teach all kids in public schools, however, and the difficulty comes from those kids who we have to teach but who have not grown to that level of responsibility. We get kids whose past we can’t control; whose home life we can’t control. These get passed on to us. Kids whose who will never learn responsibility in their home, never see responsibility modeled in their home; some kids who have parents and families who have given up on them, and all of society wants to give up on them. All I am saying is WE (public educators) CANNOT, MUST NOT give up on them. We have to teach responsibility (that’s what these kinds of kids must learn; history, English and math are just content — and this content becomes a conduit for teaching responsibility — in high school or first grade). If you try to teach responsibility to them with a new strategy or technique every week then that’s what we must do.  I fully know that is unrealistic, but we must try anyway — which is what I meant when I said we will fail. We will have to say I should have done something else for X (even when I don’t know what else I might have done). Yes, we take responsibility for their failure.  But I can live with those failures (i.e. kids not making the standard) if I know I as a teacher (or better yet my team of teachers) have not given up (and even when we did all we could we got together to see what we can do differently next time). I’ve been in conversations with teachers who have given up on kids — and frankly it makes me angry  — angry at the teacher, not the kid. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve gotten angry at kids, too. But what you have to do is get over the anger at the kid and come back tomorrow with something else — something new to try to help that kid do what he or she needs to do. This is what makes teaching so exhausting, but it’s our job.

I once had an outstanding teacher friend tell me he heard a lot of teachers talk about how they like to teach the kids who are in school to learn, but didn’t want to waste time with those kids who didn’t want to learn. My friend said (and I agree) that saying something like that is a lot like a doctor saying they like practicing medicine with those patients who are well, but didn’t want to waste time with those patients who were always sick (an absurd thought, really). We have to be there for those kds who don’t want to learn and have no idea how (or desire to be) to be responsible. Who is going to be responsible for them if not us? Who is going to teach them responsibility if not us? We can (and sometimes must) teach responsibility by letting the consequence of the students action or inaction fall, but we must be proactive before it comes to that, so that we can say, “it’s going to hurt me as much as it hurts you” (to return to the parent metaphor that I am responding to). These words are the words of loving parent teaching a child responsibility. If a kid sees us saying and meaning these words, it may be that first step with that child that can make a difference. But it won’t ring true if they know and see we already gave up on them.  Still, after that consequence falls on the student, we should be the first one at that kid’s door saying, “here is what you need to do to remedy that F”, “here is what you need to do to make up that paper I didn’t accept”, ”here let me help you enroll in summer school to make up this class”, or “let’s look at this alternative school to see if it might be the place for you”, or whatever. Bottom line: TEACHING IS A TOUGH JOB, but kids are worth it and there is nothing more rewarding.  If you are willing to give up on students, I think you should consider giving up on teaching.

Last night President Obama gave his first major presidential speech. With our nation’s current economic situation, it really is a big speech. He spoke one easy-to-miss line about public school about which I want to comment.  But, first, an aside (forgive the rant). . . .

I am an Evangelical Christian (in the classic sense of Evangelicalism – really I hate the term as it is used today). In 2009, Evangelicals are almost synonymous in the public mind with Fundamentalists. I went through a Fundamentalist war in my denomination a few years back (one of the reasons I changed careers), and the Fundamentalists won (which means the denomination [and the cause of Christ] lost. In the classic sense, Evangelicals emphasize the Gospel. Today’s Evangelical emphasizes Politics (Pat Buchanan’s term is “The Culture War”). I grew up in church where Gospel was everything, and Gospel was how we were to change our world. When we emphasized Gospel, our manipulative invitations (and other peculiarities) were an exception to the way things were done, and they didn’t do as much damage to the cause of Christ. But in the late 1970s, everything began to change. Evangelicals discovered political activity, and they have done great damage to the cause of Christ (some time later they discovered Rush Limbaugh and even though politically I am in agreement with much of conservative philosophy, Limbaugh and his ilk have done much more damage as the GOP and Evangelicalism have become fused (see this book and this one). I feel I must lead with this rant because in some circles anyone reading this post will equate my reference to any speech by Obama as the thoughts of a “liberal public school teacher.”  I am anything but. I am a conservative, though I am a conservative who laments the death of thinking conservatives now that Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh are our de facto leaders (what a vacuum of leadership we must have!).  Please read this post from the Internet Monk about how Christians should be careful about how we speak about our president even when we disagree – note, we (Christians/Evangelicals) did damage to our reputation by violating these principles during the Clinton administation. We accelerated the downward slide of our ability to speak Gospel to our world and be heard (see this link and this one on why conservatism is “dead,” though I choose to think it’s not dead but in dire straights until we can find another leader to pull our diverse elements together into a positive whole as Reagan did — NOT that Reagan was an Evangelical or even a Classic Christian [many forget history], but he was a great conservative). OK, this Rant is finished, so I can now post the comments I received from another teacher  who, in turn, just passed along what she reveived from another teacher.  I have taken the liberty of highlighting some sentences.  Along with the original writer of the post, I have MUCH that I disagree with from our president and his politics, but he is our president (and the republic will not come to an end just because the GOP does not win every time). 

Last night, during President Obama’s speech before congress, I was inspired by something he said. “Dropping out of high school is no longer an option. It’s not just quitting on yourself, it’s quitting on your country — and this country needs and values the talents of every American.”  Though I may not have agreed with most of the President’s solutions, I feel that the sentiment of this line needs to become a clarion call to our students. Education is not just about them. It is a call to the very heart of this country. It is every student’s patriotic duty to become educated.  We as teachers assume a patriotic duty to teach our students. It is this attitude that can rejuvenate our hearts and maybe rise up the next “greatest generation.”  

President Obama committed last night to a goal of making our nation the most educated nation in the world by the year 2020.  Today, as you teach your students, realize that your job is equipping these students to make our nation stronger. Communicate to your students that their responsibility to their country, to the freedoms they have, is to learn. Whether it is to write, to do math, to use a computer, to understand economics, to contribute through the arts, to become civically minded, or whatever educational endeavor they are participating, all will contribute to the milieu that will make America the greatest nation in world.  

I hope you don’t mind my sending these thoughts to you, but as one who has served in the military and loves his country I am inspired this morning. We as educators have a great calling and responsibility. Hold your head up with honor and pride, for you too are defending and strengthening your country.

The point is well made. I have very little to add. As a Christian (Evangelical Christian) who is proud to teach in a public school (a giant contradiction in many Fundagelical’s minds), I find these words encouraging, and they serve to call me to renw my committment to the heart of my calling as a teacher.  May all teachers view their career as a calling — we don’t just have a job, we serve in a vocation. 

Mike Shatzkin is founder and CEO of The Idea Logical Co. (IdeaLog.com). He has been involved in “digital change issues” in the book publishing business. Here is his informed imagination about what the book publishing business will look like in ten years. 

Some highlights:

The robust e-book market—more than 50 percent of the sales of many titles (also a bit more than 10 years off)—will have been fueled by features built into e-books that can’t be replicated in print versions. For example, e-books will frequently use moving images as illustrations, rather than stills. And, of course, e-books all will have links, which will be consistently listed as the No. 1 deficiency responsible for the rapid abandonment of paper books.

One can only imagine how these radical changes will affect libraries, the teaching of technology and information skills, and teaching in general. We had better be prepared for more and more change, fast-paced change, and doing things in new ways. The library as the central book collection headquarters for the school is already an old paradigm. If the library (and the meda center, computer lab, etc.) is to maintain its place as a central hub of the school, it had better become a place where teaching occurs and students come not just to access information but to synthesize and build a project around all of the information that they access in various places.

Our school board is considering closing schools. This is not unusual in our current climate. School boards all over the country are looking at numbers, tax bases, economic woes, and they are making hard choices. I talked to a friend of mine who teaches in Phoenix, and word is that they are looking at a large (shockingly large! It’s hard to believe the numbers he quoted me) reduction of their professional and paraprofessional staff.

The truth is, our board has put off making this decision for half a decade. We are an urban district (In a formerly large town which was, prior to that, a medium-sized town. It’s a town that still has a hard time thinking of itself as an urban). But the hard truth is white flight is occuring; families that move in who can afford it are moving to the more suburban school districts that surround our city. Even though we have one pocket of semi-suburban neighborhoods still within our district’s boundaries where we’ve build schools in the past two years to relieve overcrowding, most of the rest of the district is losing students. We have upwards of 4,000 fewer students now than we did a decade ago. We have a few half-empty schools and quite a few schools that are not half-empty, but are getting there quickly. Still, prior boards have avoided making the hard choices.  Here is an editorial from our local paper which speaks in favor of making these hard choices.  We’ve had public meetings and asked for information from groups of stakeholders, employee groups, parents, staff. They have enough information — really they have a ton of information. Here is another article about the information they have.  They started with some basic presuppositions, and a collection of data about school usage and programs in the various schools. All schools (not just those on the list) were asked to evaluate and list their own strengths and areas to improve. Then a consultant was brought in, and all of this information was tabulated in a plan that they took to employee groups, employee leaders, and to the public. They actually asked and solicited information, and they listened. The plan was changed and each change was posted (currently the district has Draft 18 on their site). At each public meeting they asked focus groups to record and give input about various options. Still, we have people crying that this decision is being made too fast.

The school board is caught between doing doing what is fiscally responsible and largely unpopular, and putting off the decision or doing some small measure that pretends to solve the problem.  It’s a tough position. I don’t envy the tough spot in which they sit. The problem with a true democracy is that people won’t make the tough decisions. Self interest gets in the way. That’s why our founding fathers made this country a democratically elected republic. That’s essentially what a school board is. A democratically elected republic presumes that those elected to the board will have the guts to make the hard and even unpopular choices.

I think we have a good board. Current information suggests that all but one member recognize the difficulty, and are willing do the tough but necessary job. I hope they make the hard choices. If they don’t make these choices, we will be talking about a fiscal crisis in a year or two. Decisions made in a crisis are not likely to be decisions that work to improve student achievement.

I have created a rubric that can be used for Podcasts of Digital Stories.  I think I am going to jump in head first with a class next week turning their stories into Podcasts. They already have the stories finished, and have created their own pictures, so some of what is in the rubric is a little obsolete. Hopefully they will still catch on as their stories are evaluated. This rubric will help them as they are evaluated on the technology/media side of things. Rubric was created with Rubistar Rubric Maker (they are great, and already have suggestions for categories for podcasts; this rubric was created the simple way — just using the suggested content of categores chosen from the pull down list).

I was going to upload an Excel Spreadsheet but can’t see how to attache a file (except video, audo, image etc), and I can’t even see how to paste a table in here (still figuring out Word Press after using Google Blogger for 2 years).  Email me if you would like to see it until I figure our how WordPress uploads Excel.

Tags: 21st Century Learning

I have recently had the privilege of teaching Audacity to other teachers. I’ve also been working very hard to update some of our “old fashioned” projects into 21st Century products — and podcasts are my current favorite format. Kids love the outcome and work hard — I think they are learning and are more engaged. My teachers seem to agree.

One of the great benefits of teaching adults is meeting other excellent teachers. We often circulate just among our known colleagues, and a need to take advantage or more opportunities to widen my circle. I met some great eduators. John H. was one of those teachers. I was using ripped music for podcasts, and talked about the need to find royalty free music.

John sent me this link to Larry Ferlazzo’s blog. This entry has a collection of royalty free music. It looks like good blog, and I am going to peruse further and consider adding him to my blogroll. Maybe I’ll search the Teacher Librarian Ning and see if he wants to be my friend (maybe that’s why I haven’t jumped further into the social networking thing — I feel like a 2nd grader asking people, “do you want to be my friend?”).

Anyway and excellent link to a need — royalty free music.

I wasn’t sure it was true, but according to reliable sources, she’s gone. 

I thought everyone knew Ms. Dewey – at least all library/info/technology types — but I discovered today that she is more obscure than I thought.  This is the very same day that I discovered she might be gone.  

Picture from Wikipedia. URL of the Wikipedia entry on Ms. Dewey can be found here. 

In my school district, we frequently email our group for a quick answer. Today I emailed, and one of my colleagues quickly responded with EXACTLY the information I needed. She was a real Johnny on the Spot. I responded (to the whole group) with “never mind, Ms. Dewey found it!” (so that no one else would bother to send the very same info).

A quick note — I probably shouldn’t have called a female colleague Ms. Dewey. She could probably sue me for sexual harrassment. I meant nothing, but Ms. Dewey is the provotive, sexy search engine (I was smart enough to not say that on our district’s email).  

Back to my story. Just in case anyone was not familiar or didn’t know the address, I was going to send the Ms. Dewey URL in the email, but I decided to check it first.  By the way, that URL is (or was) http://www.msdewey.com. But if you go there now, all you see is an very plain page with a button inviting you to install Microsoft Silverlight (no idea what that is). 

So, I went ahead and sent the email, but  I stuck in a quick “never mind, Ms. Dewey is gone,” but I failed to remove the link. In response, I received many questions (one colleague even stuck a quick “are you going wacko over there?”).

Ms. Dewey was owned by Microsoft.  Back when I first discovered her, some were speculating that they were trying to test an entertaining interface to entice people away from Google. They simply used the search content from Live (at that time was it Live or MSN Search?), and let Ms. Dewey be the interesting and entertaining interface. She would always lead in with a short, but entertaining clip (like you had interrupted work at the Circulation desk in the virtual library in which she worked). She would ask you what you were searching for (like any good reference librarian!). Some days she was friendly, and some days she appeared impatient. If you sat idle, she would challenge you to hurry up or ask you if you were still there (knocking on the glass of your monitor). Often she would sing, dance, and had something entertaining related to the holiday or special occasion of the day. She always gave you good search results (not research, but search — she was after all only a search engine and not a real librarian or information professional).

Wikipedia says that “at some point the site became inactive.” They don’t even tell us when she went away. A terrible tribute.

Well, that’s what I get for working too hard. One of my favorite useful and entertaining sites went inactive and I failed to even notice.  I really should go home earlier so I can surf the web for fun.

Goodbye Ms. Dewey. Even though I hadn’t been to your site in quite some time (I confess I Google like the rest of the World), I will miss you. You were a rare fusion of entertainment and usefulness (ok, if you had been that useful, why did I keep going back to Google?).

Tags: Nature of Information