Correct Career Choice?

  Kohn - The Case Against "Tougher Standards"

I chose the title for my blog this week, because I often wonder... 'if I had it to do all over again... would I have gone into teaching?'  The true answer to that question always leads me to mixed emotions and an overall puzzled feeling.  As a teacher, I have more good days than bad, I generally like what I do, and most often I feel that I make a difference in students' lives.  The flip side to that is that I find myself commiserating with the teacher who admitted that he, "'used to be' a good teacher."  Now, I do not feel that I have been in the career field long enough to admit the same sentiments, but I do feel like I am more limited in my teaching repertoire than the teachers who I had as a student growing up (if I may reference Dr. Bogad’s ‘igloo’ example here).

Kohn presented a level of these sentiments by discussing the five separate ways that the tougher standards movement is flawed.  The two areas from his list that stuck out to me the most were numbers three and five.  I like how Madonna pointed out in her blog, “One in particular struck me hard, which was “our children are tested to an extent that is unprecedented in our history and unparalleled anywhere else in the world””.  She expanded on that by mentioning the amount of testing that students would go through just as high school students!  That doesn’t even include all of the testing that they have endured up to that point.  More tests does not equal higher or more rigorous standards!  Additionally, doing the same thing over and over in a, “harder, longer, stronger, louder, meaner” (as Kohn mentioned) will not improve our country.  I heard somewhere that the definition of insanity is, “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”  As Kohn suggests, and links to an article in Education Week from 1999, this is not the case.


I agree with Madonna that I am in a funk with all of the new roll-outs that are happening right now.  I hope that our discussion on Tuesday will both shed some light on this topic, and make me feel better about what I am doing on a daily basis in my classroom (no pressure guys!)

Language and Power Facilitation

Hi everyone - here is the agenda I used for the Language and Power discussion on 11/13.  Also, I have included the links I mentioned/used.  If you have any questions, please let me know!

Language and Power                                                                                      November 13, 2012

4:15 – 4:35 – Weekly Check-ins

4:35 – 5:05 – “Terms” and “Who are we Talking About?” 

 5:05 – 6:00 – Review of the readings

6:00 – 6:15 – Interview with R.R.

6:15 – 6:25 – Break

6:25 – 7:00 – Silent Talking Activity w/debriefing

7:00 – 7:15 – Provide/Review handouts

Important Links:

WIDA

Other Organizations
Information for ELs in Rhode Island
Rhode Island Kids Count Factbook
Interview with Richard Rodriguez

Kliewer Article

Citizenship in School: Reconceptualizing Down Syndrome – Christopher Kliewer

The part of this reading that really stuck out to me was reading about Shayne, Isaac’s preschool teacher.  Here is a teacher who works with students to help them to reach their fullest potentials.  She believes in all of her students, helps them both in her classroom and the community, and sees value in all of her students.  Though what impacted me the most was not  the role she played in her classroom.  Shayne took a special interest in one of the classroom aides, Anne, who (like 3 students in Shayne’s class) had Down syndrome.  Anne’s job of working as a preschool classroom aide had been chosen for her at a meeting that she wasn’t involved in, even though she had no interest in working with children.  Anne’s true passion was movies and she wanted desperately to become a Hollywood director.  Even though Shayne couldn’t help Anne to fulfill her dream of being a Hollywood director, she did recognize her desire to work with movies and set out to find a job that she would like.  Soon, Anne was working in a local movie store (wow, remember those?!?) and in a field that was of great interest to her. 

As a high school special education teacher, I find that it is extremely important to include students in conversations about their futures.  Much like Shayne did, it is important to find out what my students are interested in, and then try to look at careers that might be appropriate for them.

One of my favorite projects I have my students complete is called Top 4 Job Choices.  The students pick any four jobs that they might be interested in and do a project where they research the job description, salary, education required, why they would like the job, and why they wouldn’t like the job.  Then the students turn the information into a Power Point to be shared with the class.  By the time they finish sharing, the students have learned about 35-40 jobs that they might be interested in pursuing in their future.  It also gives us an opportunity to talk about the fact that some professions require a lot of extra schooling and are the students really up for that?  Also, we discuss that not everyone has to be a doctor or astronaut, but that there are many important jobs that might be more realistic and interesting to the students as well.

“Though Shayne Robbins at Shoshone School did not engage in extended discussions of Gardner or Vygotsky, she intuitively rejected the notion that nonconformity to the academic norm meant a student inherently lacked intelligence or was intrinsically burdensome.” (83) This quote really stuck out to me, because I believe that this reflects my philosophy in the classroom as well.  I have shared before that I do not always enjoy getting into the theory behind good teaching practices, but do believe in being a good teacher. 

During my undergraduate studies I spent a great amount of time studying Gardner and Vygotsky in both education and psychology classes.  We consistently discussed their theories in class discussions, saw their names on tests, and read countless articles/publications both by and about them.  While I can understand the importance of being familiar with their research, I do not think about them or their theories regularly.  Much like Zeke didn’t always know the why behind his teaching practices, I also don’t, but like to think that I have a lasting impact on my students.

Attached is an article about including students with Down syndrome in a mainstream classroom.  It provides research, suggestions for teachers and support staff, possible classroom models, curriculum and charts/diagrams to illustrate the ideas presented.  I chose this article because it has a positive outlook on including students with disabilities in the regular classroom.  The study considered input from parents and teachers through questionnaires and conversations.  I also like that this article looked at both elementary and secondary education in its considerations.

 

An Un-Conference Indeed

EdCamp was the very first un-conference I have ever attended.  Going into this experience I had heard many great things about experiences colleagues had had at Edcamp, but I had no clue what an un-conference was all about.  Soon after arriving at the RIC Student Union Building, I found out. 

 

After registration and some small talk with the other educators at my table, I noticed someone taping blank pieces of white paper up on the wall under the heading “The Board”.  Although I didn’t pay much attention to it, this did catch my interest.  Soon after finishing, one of the leaders made a brief introduction and explained the purpose of “The Board”.  “The Board” was made up of 6(ish) columns across and 3 rows down 8 ½ x 11 pieces of paper.  Later we learned that the columns designated specific classrooms and the rows represented the three different sessions that were available throughout the day.  At that point participants were encouraged to go up to “The Board” and write down their ideas for a session that they would like to lead throughout the day.  As an un-conference newbie this really blew my mind!  If nobody went up and volunteered to lead a session, then the un-conference was over as soon as it started.  It didn’t take long, though, before people were excitedly walking up and writing down ideas of topics that they would like to share.  Sessions ranged from using Twitter, flipping classrooms, “Things that Suck” (which I can imagine was a popular one!), Global Education, Current Trends in Education, and many elementary topics that did not seem of relevance to me.  After writing down ideas, one of the leaders typed the topics in Word, displayed the topics on the screen, and people were free to move from session to session to best meet their needs.

Edcamp was a new experience for me, because of the design of the entire day.  I chose to blog about the experience instead of the content, because it was so new to me (and my Type A personality).  This was an experience that completely depended on participation by the attendees in order to make it successful.  I believe that this was both good and bad (as you can see in the following chart – again I will attribute it to Type A personality).  

Pros of EdCamp	Cons of EdCamp
·         Participants were encouraged to attend sessions based on individual interest	·         Some sessions were chosen out of ‘last resort’, because other topics didn’t apply
·         Participants were encouraged to move around from session to session as they saw appropriate	·         At times became distracting, because there was a lot of movement/switching of attendees
·         Free breakfast, T-shirt, and Water bottle	·         Nobody can argue with that
·         Well informed presenters	·         Due to design, presenters had no way of gauging the prior knowledge of participants so some information was not exactly what was expected

Overall, I enjoyed my experience at EdCamp, but definitely can see how the participants/presenters can make or break the day.  While I am not avidly “Google-ing” to see when/where the next EdCamp is, I would attend one in the future if the opportunity arises in this area in the future.