To the parents of my struggling son's classmates

Note: There's a lot that sparked me to write this, but the story of a young man in Ralston (Reid Adler) who committed suicide has haunted me for the past few weeks. Reid's story is very different than my son's, but it made me think about my son and how difficult school has been for him. Here's just a teaser of my post...if you want to read more, click here.

To the parents of my struggling son’s classmates:

...when your child tells you about my son’s interesting behaviors, would you engage in an age-appropriate conversation about this? Your child and mine don’t need to be best friends. They don’t need to play together every recess or sit together every day at lunch. He doesn’t need to be invited to your kid’s birthday party. And, it would even be appropriate for your child to distance him/herself from my son during his outbursts and episodes. However, could you think about your child playing alone at recess day after day? Could you think of how your child might feel about him/herself if every day he/she took multiple trips to the principal’s office? I hope this thought moves you to explain to your child that sometimes kids can’t control their behaviors. I hope it encourages you to talk to your child about being friendly, even to those who are different...

Year 7

This week I'll be starting year 7 in the classroom...it's hard to believe. I'm no longer the youngest teacher in my building; I fall into the "teaching for 5-10 years" category. I'm not a new teacher anymore. Of course there's some sadness affiliated with this as I grapple with aging, but this also means that I'm more confident in my abilities simply because of my experience, and it means I've learned some teacher hacks to make the overwhelming task of teaching easier.

There's a few things I'm particularly excited about for this school year:

1. The kids. Kids now are different even from kids seven years ago---the needs are much greater and the struggles are often deeper. What I love about teaching is simply being present for kids; being an adult they can trust and look to for guidance. I love exposing them to new ideas or challenging them to think of old ideas in new ways. I love their energy, their passion for finding themselves, their uninhibited ways (admittedly, these very qualities can also drive me batty). Every year one of my goals is to build relationships with kids. This year I want to work extra hard on the marginalized students--the quiet ones, the difficult ones.

2. New classes. When haven't I taught something new in my teaching career?! I still have 3 sections of sophomores, but this year I'm also teaching a grad. class for teachers and I'm teaching 11th grade (American Lit) at Burke for the first time. Teaching teachers is something I've always wanted to do, and I've loved American Lit. since I was a junior. All exciting things...

3. A renewed perspective. For the first time in two years, I'm not starting a new job! What?!? There are some amazing teachers at Burke, and they and the kids make me excited to come to work. I'm also re-learning how to create my own happiness even around people and situations that are anything but pleasant. Surrounding myself with positive people, reading funny things (like Jimmy Fallon's book of thank you notes), watching cat videos, and doing things I love help me to achieve the kind of balance that keeps me centered and not freaking out when the kid in the back of my room falls asleep again.

To those of you starting school this week: I hope you find a way to enjoy it. Education is an opportunity (no matter if you are a student or a teacher) not to be wasted.

Teaching as Subversion

Note: this is just a rambling piece of writing that I used to process through a discussion we had in class early this summer. It’s not quite finished, but it’s a piece that has been ringing in my head throughout the summer.

I’ve been thinking a lot about what a teacher mentioned one week in class--her question of, where is the book that encourages teachers to step outside the walls of their own classroom and engage in changing education? I’ve read so many pedagogical books that are critical but are solely focused on classroom practices. These are helpful books, but they aren’t doing much to change the educational landscape. The truth is, research shows that kids in the US are actually performing better than they have in many years. There are teachers and administrators across the country who give their lives to kids and who care about helping kids to become critical, passionate, creative people. While the state of education is not falling apart, there are, however, major cracks in its foundation. When a building has cracks in its foundation, it becomes structurally unsound….I fear this for the state of education in our country. Running schools using a business model, a push for seemingly all students to attend college, keeping teachers from having a part in creating school, district, state, and national level policies and standards, a heavy emphasis on assessment, the devaluing of creativity, inequality in resources based on tax base, treating teachers as paper-pushers rather than the professionals they are….the list of problems is overwhelming.

In my experience when teachers do step out, voice concern, or attempt to enact change, they are labeled as subversive, insubordinate, disobedient. For many, these labels are terrifying. They can damage one’s teaching career. I tend to be idealistic when it comes to teaching, so I think being “let go” from a job and labeled as insubordinate may not destroy a person’s career entirely if he/she can justify the insubordination and back it with sound and acceptable research. Is stepping out risky? Of course. But what happens when nobody says anything? Historically, when people are silent about inequity and injustice, the gaps of inequality widen and the injustice spreads like ringworm in a wrestling room. I want my son to attend public school, but if we continue to sit back and let things get worse, what will education look like in ten years when he enters high school?

I believe it is teachers’ responsibility to not only be engaged in their classrooms but outside as well. Most teachers devote much of their lives to teaching and helping kids. They go early, stay late, make phone calls home during their personal time, drag their families to games and concerts and performances, stay up late to create lessons, grade papers during any free time they may have left. The families of teachers often get put on the backburner just when teachers are meeting their daily obligations. My own son has said, “Mom, you always grade papers.” Granted, he’s five, and things are very black and white for him. I really am not always grading papers, but the comment did cause me to halt a bit, step back, and rethink my priorities. How do we balance our families, our jobs, and being an activist? Ultimately, I do want my son to see his parents as involved in his life AND involved in the lives of others. I want him to see his parents as people who fight to make a difference for the good of others because that’s who I want him to become.

There’s not an easy solution to these dilemmas. But, my parents always told me that nothing worth fighting for comes easy...

My new job

This summer I'm working part-time as a consultant at Omaha Metropolitan Community College's writing centers. I'm happy to still be using my Masters Degree, and this writing center gig seems to be a great blend of writing instruction meets social justice. It allows me to talk with writers about their writing rather than talk to/at writers about their writing. I've only had four consultations so far, but from what I can tell--I'm not as good at this as I thought I'd be, and I think my experiences as a high school English teacher have contributed to this.

I'm learning that a writing center consultation should be writer-centered. As a consultant, I should work to understand (via questioning and listening) the writer's background, context, and the institutional demands of the assignment. My goal seems to be to help students creatively and critically negotiate these concepts through their writing. This seems difficult to me because there is no concrete blueprint of what this looks like. I've read about five articles on writing center theory and practice, and while they were provocative, I struggled through each one. Maybe it's because I'm not as intelligent as the people meant to read each article, or maybe it's because I'm accustomed to teachers' guides filled with suggestions and tips--but what I really wanted was a list of questions I could ask each writer during a consultation. Of course, these probably don't exist because each consultation will be different since each writer is different. I have to rely on my own intuition, education, and knowledge, which, for someone who is a bit overly analytical and self-conscious, can be intimidating.

You might be thinking: Helzer, you're an English teacher! Don't you "consult" with kids every day about their writing? The truth is, no, I don't. I can't always do this work in the traditional high school English classroom because of the institutional demands I face: timeliness, curricular confines, pressures to be on "the same page" as the other section teachers of my class, expectations of administrators/parents/students, etc. It is a teacher's responsibility to be critical and negotiate these demands with her own background, strengths, student make up, knowledge of best practice, etc. However--depending on the space and its culture--teachers are limited in what they can do. I would've loved to have sat down with all of my 110 students each time we wrote to talk with them about their writing before they turned it in; perhaps if I had stuck around Gretna long enough, I would've learned how to navigate this. But I just didn't have time. I felt like I was racing through the year from one assignment to the next (I can't imagine how my students felt!). When I did get a chance to talk with my comp. students about their writing, it was clumsy and awkward because we simply didn't do enough of it. Oftentimes I handed back writing assignments with editing marks and a brief justification of their grade scribbled at the bottom. I felt like a gatekeeper who controlled everything; admittedly, the writing process was not very democratic in my classroom.

Thus, the opportunity to work as a writing center consultant is an exciting challenge. I'm hoping to learn how to do this "negotiating" business so I can help students develop agency in an institutionalized setting. I suspect that when I return to the high school classroom I'll be more equipped to navigate the system so I can help my students more democratically. Hopefully I'll get better at this writing center business as the summer progresses!

A mini-philosopher

Ran across this video this morning on NPR. It made me smile. The blogger on NPR who posted this video wrote about how this kid's parents don't have a particular method that lends to such an insightful child. Instead, they simply treat him like he's an intelligent kid who can understand the complexities of life. I've only had a few interactions with young kids, but in my experiences working with little kids (I did run an after school program for elementary kids for one year...it was both terrifying and rewarding),  I've learned that if we talk to them like they're smart people, they'll have smart things to say. This is a humanizing concept. Treat kids like they're intelligent beings. Of course, we shouldn't have unrealistic expectations for our wee ones; they can't talk and act like adults all the time. They'll still do little kid things like pick their nose (gross) and there's room to allow them these little kid "privileges." It always makes me cringe a little when I hear adults talking to kids like they have no brains. So, I guess that's why I like this video so much. It makes me excited to have kids in our home.

Social Justice in Omaha Part II

Here's the second part to my previous post:

Q: What kinds of social justice issues do you face as an educator? What does that look like?
A: One big issue that I think all teachers face is that our classrooms are diverse, but the tests were so bound to by the government don’t take these diversities into consideration. While there is a need for standards in education, the current method of assessing these standards only looks at a very select skill on one particular day of a student’s life in order to determine if this student is “proficient” and if teachers are “proficient”. These test don’t take into consideration the whole student. They don’t reveal how far a student really has come in his/her learning. Our current assessments are stifling for both teachers and students (they often result in canned curricula that is separate from the real world) and the consequences of these assessments on districts often cause districts and teachers to do things they wouldn’t ordinarily do.

Q: Are these issues specific to your classes or are these issues that most educators face?
A: I think this is an issue most educators face. Unfortunately some are just not aware of it. They haven’t been encouraged to be critical of these practices.

Q: Why should these matter the Omaha community? Why is this significant for the Omaha Metro Area?
A: As I mentioned, I’m new to Omaha---so I’m coming at this with a pretty limited viewpoint. However, a more equitable society should be important to each community. If we don’t learn to see the potential in all people, then we will continue to commit acts of injustice. We’ll continue to treat people unfairly, we’ll continue to remain divided by class and race...injustice is a vicious cycle. Omaha won’t reach its own potential as a community if we don’t learn to value one another’s potential.

Q: How do you approach the issue of social justice in your classroom? Why does this matter to you and your students?
A: I’m not perfect, but I try to set up a just classroom; one that is nurturing to all students and is a safe place for them to grow, create, and engage. We do a lot of character building activities and character study through the literature we read, the essays we write, and the disscussions we have. I always tell my students that I want them to leave my classroom a better person. I try to treat them fairly and I expect them to offer this same courtesy to their classmates. And I want them to be critical, so in relation to the literature we read, we discuss a lot of current events and socially relevant topics that explore injustice. Of course, I have to teach them how to discuss how to challenge one another civilly. We also discuss what might be the most effective way to speak back to injustice. It’s important me to teach this way because, it’s the right thing to do. Many students don’t learn these skills at home, and these are skills necessary to be a critical and participatory adult. I don’t want them to get caught up in a circle of apathy because that’s no way to live. I want them to learn how to live well in their communities (wherever they end up).

Q: What might justice look like in education? Can you paint me a picture of that?
A: Going back to one of my teaching role models, Linda Christensen, I think justice in education or life in general, might start with believing in people’s potential. When we are able to look past surface level and when we look at each person (no matter their appearances or their past) and truly believe they have potential and value, then our actions will change. We’ll start treating people more fairly. We’ll start teaching to each individual student, we’ll make education relevant to students’ lives and the lives they’ll take on in the future, we’ll start trusting our teachers more, and maybe we’ll begin to eliminate draconian educational policies.

Social Justice in Omaha Part I

Tonight I have the awesome privilege to help out our friend Micah with a project he's doing to promote social justice in Omaha. He and a crew are interviewing a few people tonight about their experiences and views on social justice; they'll use some of the clips to create a video to show at the church Micah works at (Christ Community) for a sermon on social justice. I would say that social justice is a fairly contentious issue among many evangelical Christians because of the connotations of liberalism that it arouses in peoples' minds. So, I'm interested in seeing the final product. I'm humbled that Micah asked if he could interview me to get my perspective about social justice in education because I really don't see myself as doing something out of the ordinary; I teach the way I do because it's just the right thing to do. Plus, I feel like most of what I've done from my classroom is to the credit of other people. I've learned to teach from so many other great educators.

Today I sat down for a few hours to process through the questions that Micah will ask tonight. In typical type-A English teacher fashion, I typed out all of my responses...so, I thought it would be interesting blogging material. My responses are long, so I'll break this into two posts.

Q: Tell me a little bit about your story and background? How did you end up in Omaha and how has Social Justice become a topic of interest to you?
A: In the fall I’ll be starting my fifth year of teaching high school English. My teaching experience so far has been in rural school settings in western Nebraska. I took interest in social justice primarily because of my experiences in my graduate work with the Nebraska Writing Project at UNL. I took classes with some of the best teachers in the state, and these people pushed me to think more deeply about education. Teaching is more than tests, it’s more than standards; the best teachers present their students with a diverse perspective of the world and then give them chances to and push them to think critically in order to develop their own opinions of the world, to be able to articulate these clearly and logically, and then to equip them to act. This kind of teaching is tough and it’s messy and it’s not always valued by administrators, teachers, students, communites, or educational policies. As one of my teaching role models, Linda Christensen from the Oregon Writing Project says, "Social justice is at the core of my work because it is a belief in people's potential.” I think why I took interest in social justice and continue to find ways to bring this work into my classroom is because it takes on this belief that everyone has potential (which I think is a good starting point for social justice), and as a teacher, it’s my responsibility to tap into this potential in students. It’s my job to find their potential and help nurture it. It’s just the right thing to do.

As far as how I got to Omaha, my husband and I have enjoyed small town, rural living, but as we got closer to growing our family through adoption, we decided that we wanted our kids to grow up in a culturally rich area. So we began searching for jobs and were blessed enough to land here.

Q: Tell me more about the work you've been doing with Social Justice in the classroom? What does that look like?
A: Originally I started small by introducing a variety of writers into my classroom. I moved from a primarily white dead-guy curriculum to one that included women writers and writers of different backgrounds and cultures as a way to introduce my primarily white students’ eyes to other ways of living and being in the world. I also introduced lots of non-fiction articles that discussed issues I thought kids needed to think about: issues like race, gender, oppression, activism, etc. Eventually by the time I left Ogallala, my 9th grade curriculum included an entire quarter devoted to social action where kids studied the Civil Rights Movement and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s four steps to non-violent direct action in his text Letter from a Birmingham Jail. My students interviewed local changemakers in our own community to capture their stories and then make them public via stories on our class blog, and then they were required to make some sort of positive impact on their community using their passions, talents, and resources. Their projects were research based as I required them to do some initial digging through primary and secondary sources to see if their project was valid. Their culminating activity was to create a visual presentation of their research to prove why their project was necessary to complete, the vocabulary learned along the way, and photos of themselves in action, as well as a summary of what they planned to do next. They planned a project night similar to a traditional science fair, and they invited community members to attend via business letters. The two years I did this was a success--I had close to a 100% completion rate, and this year over 100 community members attended our project night to support students in their own form of social action.

Should teachers be disciplined for online lives?

Note: This post is edited from one I recently composed for our district's Professional Learning Network. Since this is my "personal" blog (I say that a bit sardonically), I added in a few of my own thoughts, some "one-two punches" as my dad calls them.

Should teachers be disciplined for online lives? What a question! This contentious issue was one of the topics on NPR's Talk of the Nation today. Two college professors, Jonathan Turley (Prof. of Civil Law) from George Washington University and Elizabeth Meyer (Asst. Prof. of Education) from California Polytechnic State University, discussed the issue with callers on today's program. I listened to the podcast of the episode today and found it incredibly relevant for teachers even in a small, rural district like ours.

As the title implies, teachers across the nation have been disciplined for online activity. One teacher was disciplined after he posted a blog entry containing his opinions on the topic of gay marriage (by the way...this same guy was previously awarded Teacher of the Year in Florida), others have been let go for posting photos on social networking sites of themselves drinking alcohol, and the infamous Philadelphia teacher who blogged about her students being "rude, disengaged, lazy whiners" was also fired. Though this may seem to some like immoral behavior, as one caller (a pre-service teacher) points out, it's all perfectly legal and within each teacher's right as an American citizen under the first amendment.

"Teachers are denied the full range of freedoms adults have" states Turley. Turley's argument throughout the show is that teachers work long hours for low pay, and they should be allowed the full freedoms that every other citizen is allowed. Meyer argues that there is no separation between a teacher's career life and his/her personal life. "Schools are public compulsory, therefore it's essential that teachers are held to a higher standard," she states.

While I agree that teachers should model social media responsibility (as well as civic responsibility), I completely disagree with disciplining teachers for online activity if the activity displayed is within that teacher's legal rights. When I moved to a small town to teach, I understood I was moving into conservative country. I understood that my privacy probably wouldn't exist anymore. Like both professors mention in the radio show, teachers have to know their communities and live responsibly in them. But if we start limiting what teachers can or cannot post on social media sites, should we begin policing grocery stores or other public places to monitor conversations teachers have with community members? And who will be tasked with this monitoring? Who will ensure that discipline is issued equitably? If morality clauses are introduced into teacher contracts, who will define "morality"?

I've only been a teacher for 4 years...technically, if you're familiar with my crazy student-teaching experience, 3.5, but already in this short time, education has changed radically. It will be...interesting (for lack of better terms) to see what other crazy policies, bills, and changes wiggle their way into the world of education.....

My Thoughts on TUSD's Elimination of Mexican-American Studies

I can't ignore the barrage of emails I've received about the recent ban on the Mexican-American Studies program at the Tucson Unified School District. Emails from Rethinking Schools, UNL's English Department, NCTE...the list goes on. Yesterday one email from Rethinking Schools (of which I am a subscriber) read:

"Did you see the news last week? On Friday, we learned that our book Rethinking Columbus was banned — along with other books used in Tucson's Mexican American Studies program, including Paulo Freire's A Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Rodolfo Acuña's Occupied America, and Elizabeth Martinez's 500 Years of Chicano History in Pictures. So we're in good company.

School authorities confiscated the books during class—boxed them up and hauled them off. As one student said, 'We were in shock ... It was very heartbreaking to see that happening in the middle of class'" (Rethinking Columbus Banned in Tucson).

Confiscating books DURING a class?!? Really? That line fired me up. And while I haven't read Pedagogy of the Oppressed yet (it's in my pile of thesis books), I have read Freire's Education for Critical Consciousness...his ideas have opened my eyes to look at the way we educate students and to revise my curriculum and teaching methods to present a more just, relevant, and overall critical education for students. I don't always succeed in this, but I try everyday. So, I'm a bit outraged that his work would be banned (banning books has always seemed like a draconian concept to me). I couldn't put reading about this aside any longer.

Yesterday NPR featured an interview with TUSD Superintendent of Public Instruction, John Huppenthal. I listened to it tonight and read the transcript a few times...and I can't keep my mouth shut about this. Brace yourself..I'm stepping on a soapbox for a moment.

As I understand it, the program was hacked because it violated an Arizona law which bars courses that "'encourage resentment toward a race or class of people'" (Mexican American Studies: Bad Ban or Bad Class?). The district would be faced with massive fines if they left the Mexican American Studies program alone. Now I have several issues with this interview and the cut, but for sake of time...I'll key in on a few.

First, the host Michel Martin hits on an important issue. She asks a pivotal question: how do you measure whether or not a course creates or encourages resentment? Any event in history could cause resentment for a particular group of people. Currently I'm teaching the Civil Rights Movement, and I don't know how anyone can speak about this era in history without feeling some sort of sorrow, shame, and some resentment. Martin states, "I'm just wondering how you can teach something in a manner where you are going to guarantee what a student may or may not feel" (Mexican American Studies: Bad Ban or Bad Class). Part of my job as an educator is to reveal injustices in history, society, and culture. Many textbooks gloss over these events, and I'm sorry to say it, but many parents don't speak to their kids about these. So then who will teach kids about these atrocities in order for them to think about the impact and feel the weight of these injustices? If we don't teach them in school, how can we guarantee our students will grow to be productive and just citizens who don't fall into the role of an oppressor or one who is oppressed (a relationship mentioned by Freire that is chided by the TUSD superintendent). And when did students feeling become a negative concept? If students aren't allowed to feel emotions and then taught how to deal with them in an appropriate manner, they may never learn.

This brings me to my next mini-rant: With the advent of No Child Left Behind (thank you George Bush), the purpose of education has changed and not for the better. Honestly, I feel like the purpose of American public education has quickly become centered around getting kids to pass a series of tests that offer them few real-world skills. Do kids need to be effective readers and writers in order to be productive citizens? Certainly. However--does our current system adequately measure these skills? I don't think so. Districts are facing an incredible amount of pressure to get kids to pass these tests....I'm feeling it myself. After a conversation today with someone who will remain unnamed, I'm wondering how long I'll be able to keep teaching valuable units (that all line up with many of the state ELA standards) in my English classes---units like my Social Action unit which teach interviewing skills, business letter writing, news writing, using social media effectively, analyzing non-fiction documents important to our history, and how to effectively take action to make change---all practical skills that students are more likely to use in life--or my House on Mango Street unit which opens my primarily white students' eyes to Mexican American culture and what it's like to grow up poverty stricken in an inner-city---experiences many of them will never have. I predict that in a few years, I will be forced to scrap these units just like the Mexican American Studies program in Tucson, trading it for a watered-down, scripted curriculum designed to achieve a certain level of proficiency as defined by law makers who have little to no experience in education.

And the final issue I have with this ban on the Mexican American Studies program is that it looks (from the outside) as though a large reason why the course was eliminated was because it reveals the not-so-pretty picture of American history/culture. As Michel Martin states, this sudden change to a program that's been in existence for at least ten years is simply trading "one bias for another bias." We shouldn't hide our history...we should confront it in order to learn from it.

I don't like it, but I understand the era of cuts in a tight economy. But the issues above make me nervous to be a teacher in this day and age. The minute I'm forced to compromise my values and philosophy and neglect what's in the the best interest of kids, is the minute I'll have to rethink my career path. I pray I don't see that day, and I pray my own kids will receive a critical, just, diverse, and relevant public education....

Stories of Teachers' Impact

If you're a teacher and need some encouragement and validation, or if you're not a teacher--but appreciate the good work teachers do, check out this post I recently published on my PLN blog. It's an excellent tribute to teachers!

"Waiting for Superman" Reflections: Part 2

After watching the last part of Waiting for Superman I realize that one way to affect positive change in education is by attracting good people to the teaching field, training them properly, and then retaining them.

During my undergraduate program I sat alongside other to-be-teachers, and wondered how some of them would make it. There were a few in my classes that I would never want teaching my kids. Yet--these people managed to gain acceptance into the College of Education and then managed to earn a teaching degree despite their massive degree of incompetence. I wondered over and over again, why are we passing these people through the system? I knew then as well as I know now that it's a money game. I know that many school districts (especially in my rural area) are desperate for teachers...no matter their competence level. But there HAS to be a change. We cannot keep passing inept people through education colleges.

In some institutions, the training of teachers also needs to change.* I had two excellent education professors in my undergraduate career. Both of these professors--Ken Mumm and Dr. Susanne Bloomfield--made me think, gave me experiences I needed to become the teacher I am today, and challenged my idea of quality teaching. The others tended to present watered down information from a textbook, weren't in the business of challenging students, and simply seemed to be collecting a paycheck or waiting for tenure. I didn't sense the passion for education. We need education professors who have spent time in the trenches of public education, who have first-hand experience working with students. We also need to create better partnerships between universities and public schools. I spent too many hours simply observing a classroom (some of this observation time was valuable) and received no hands-on experience working with students and teachers until I took matters in my own hands and signed up for my substitute teaching certificate. Without my substitute teaching experience, before student-teaching, my total time in action in a classroom was 45 minutes. 45 minutes. That's pathetic. How am I to even know if teaching is what I want to do with that sort of time? How am I to know if I'll even be any good at teaching after spending only 45 minutes teaching students about Frankenstein? Colleges and universities need to develop partnerships with schools so that pre-service teachers can get their hands dirty early in their education. Learning must be authentic. And for learning to be authentic, we must go beyond observing in a classroom or being told what to expect from a professor who may not have any experience teaching in a K-12 setting.

Finally, we must figure out a way to retain quality teachers. I've written several posts about this topic, and I still haven't found a good answer. I honestly don't think it would take much. When I think about what would keep me teaching in a district or in public education in general, here's what I want: freedom (within reason) in my curriculum and content delivery, support in my professional development pursuits, focus on students and not numbers, minor recognition of a job well done, fairness in teacher and extracurricular assignments, high expectations for both students and teachers, and a supportive environment. Is this too much to ask?

The problems of education will be around for a long while. But instead of waiting for superman to come save us (like the documentary implies), we must take action.

*Please note my use of the modifier, some. I know of many colleges and universities that have fantastic teacher training programs. However in other post-secondary institutions, there is room for improvement.

"Waiting For Superman" Reflections: Part 1

Tonight my husband and I finally popped in the controversial documentary Waiting for Superman.

After watching half of the film, I am so pissed. There's no delicate way to put it. I'm not pissed about the content of the documentary (these issues are nothing new as I've been following them for awhile now), I'm really pissed because, as a teacher, I feel I have no control. I can advocate for my students, teach what I know and what research proves is best for kids and in a manner I know is best for kids, I can write about corrupt leaders in the system and ineffective and detrimental policies, and I can send all the letters I want to politicians. But how much am I really accomplishing? Though I know what's best for students, unfortunately many (not all) of our leaders (appointed officials, school boards, as well as administrators within districts) within the education system do not. Many of these leaders are ill-informed or are too removed from the classroom, and these people often decide on the content delivered in a classroom, the time frame of the delivery, the often idiotic and micro-managed policies we adhere to, and sometimes even write the crappy tests we have to give our kids. So what power do I have? Don't get me wrong and think of me as a power-monger. I just want to provide the best education possible to my students, but there are times that I can't do this due to lack of control. Though I am fortunate enough to teach in a rural school where I am given a good deal of freedom in my curriculum and delivery, I am aware that if I stay in education long enough, I too will feel the same constriction and tightening many of my urban counterparts are experiencing.

Honestly, it's depressing and disheartening to be a teacher in our current society, and this documentary (well, the first part anyway) affirmed this fact. It's a good thing I receive so much joy and fulfillment from my work in the classroom, otherwise, I'm not sure I'd still be teaching.

New Idea...

My weekend mornings usually consist of waking up, making a big breakfast along with coffee, and putting on NPR and Pandora---these all keep me company as I read through the blogs on my Google Reader account, catch up on the weekly news, watch TED Talks videos, listen to podcasts from NPR that I may have missed during the week, etc. Most of what I read on the weekends deal with education---technology innovation, education reform, education policy, Language Arts education, etc.

Today I followed the same routine. I actually opened up my Blogger to compose an inquisitive post about the Anthony Weiner scandal you've undoubtedly heard much about---but somehow I got sidetracked and found myself reading Richard Byrne's Free Technology for Teachers blog. The most recent post featured a guest blogger from Scottsbluff, Nebraska---just two hours west of us. Intrigued by the closeness in proximity I have to this guest blogger on a major, award winning blog site, I followed a link to her blog, Nebraska Change Agent. After skimming through her posts and nosing around her blog, I found myself at a blog titled The Principal of Change created by a K-12 principal from Canada. I eventually had to tear myself away from the computer for a coffee refill. And as I refilled my coffee cup I thought to myself: I love this. I love reading work from passionate educators.

When I look around at other educators (including myself at times) I see so many frazzled, burnt-out, under-resourced teachers. I think one way to help with this is to provide teachers with a way to stay connected to one another and to resources that would help them. So, I had this idea: Why not use my enjoyment of gathering these resources as a way to help staff in my district? This morning I sent an email to my administrators and our tech. staff to see if I could create a blog that would gather K-12 technology resources, sources for professional development, information on education reform, etc. that is linked to our district's webpage. The great thing about blogs is they can be a place for virtual discussion as well---so it could also serve as a place for teachers in our district (and maybe even surrounding districts) to collaborate, ask questions, throw out ideas, etc. I'm waiting for the okay; if I get it--I will be sure to link the website to this personal blog just in case you're interested!

Engaging students

Author's note: This post is a fragmented collection of my thoughts based on the Ken Robinson video I posted earlier today.

We are teaching a generation of students whose attention spans are pulled in a million directions in their everyday digital lives--and then we punish them for not focusing in school. When I notice my students not focusing, it is generally because I am teaching boring material in a way that is not conducive to the way these digital natives learn. I struggle with this. It exhausts me to think about how much energy I exude when teaching some groups of students. Changing activities every 10 minutes, creating lessons that contain visual, auditory, and kinesthetic components every day is worth it, but is time consuming and strenuous. I have often wondered if I can keep doing this for 20 more years. I fear that I can't...

I've heard many teachers, journalists, and government leaders lament the fact that students' attention spans have dropped exponentially with the rise of a digital age. But why do we focus on this? I don't think we can change it, and I don't think it's a battle even worth fighting. We have to teach our students in a way that will wake them up and rouse their senses. But it is exhausting! So what do we do? We change the way education is done."The current system of education was designed, conceived, and structured for a different age" (Robinson). This is a daunting task......

Standardized Testing: What's Our Priority?

Author's note: This post is a fragmented collection of my thoughts based on the Ken Robinson video I posted earlier today, an op-ed from NPR (see the link below), and a conversation I had with another Nebraska teacher.

Standardized testing, I fear, is creating a generation of test-taking robots who have little to no capacity for creativity or critical thinking. What standardized testing often does is strip critical thinking down into a multiple guess testing method. Why? Because it's easier to grade and monitor. I understand that we have to find ways to monitor student learning, student growth---and the easiest way to do this is by objective testing that can be scored by a machine. I understand that our country's education leaders are feeling the pressure to catch up with South Korea, Japan, China, and other countries. I read an op-ed on NPR's website a few weeks ago that ranted about our country falling behind to other countries and the need to "restore excellence to America's schools" (Rothkopf). And while I agree with what much of Rothkopf is arguing for, I don't understand why we would stoop to this level of standardized testing in order to "restore excellence to America's schools." Sure these tests may close the gap between us and South Korea, but this also encourages conformity in students. One of its priorities is to get students to perform at the same level: proficient. There are many problems with this: who determines what proficient is? And does a multiple guess test measure proficiency? Do we see students' thought process on an assessment where they click a series of boxes or fill in a series of bubbles? So what is our priority: creating a generation of creative, critical thinkers or creating a generation of students who can make educated guesses? Sadly, I believe our country's focus is the later. I fear what public education may look like in 20 years. I hope teachers, students, parents and government leaders will rise up and continue to fight against this. Doing what's easiest (creating a test that can be scored by a machine that will ultimately decide if schools, teachers, and students are proficient and successful) isn't always doing what's best.

Sir Ken Robinson Speaks: Changing Education Paradigms

A few months back I posted a TED Talks video from Ken Robinson called, "Do Schools Kill Creativity?" Here's another video that has had me thinking all week--it's worth your time to watch it. I've watched it at least ten times this week and have been working on a series of blog posts based on concepts presented in the video. I'll post them one at a time, so check back for more.