No Room 4 Ordinary
Congratulations! You are reading the first post of a blog that is sure to catch the attention of at least half a dozen people in the blogosphere. Some of those are my family members but maybe 1 or 2 people outside my family will enjoy my blog as well. I'm starting this blog because I have a lot of thoughts about education and life in general (plus I want to hone my writing skills in the hopes of landing a book deal and a lifetime of lucrative speaking engagements). As a high school administrator I have observed many different teachers and I have learned a lot about teaching. As a middle-aged, married human with three children of my own I have also learned a lot about life. My hope is that the people who read my posts will come away inspired, challenged, and perhaps slightly entertained. Enough with the boring stuff...let's get down to business.
TEACHER DESPAIRITY
These days there is too much despairity in the world of education. No, that is not a typo. I just made up a new word. If Dr. Seuss can do it, I can do it too. Despairity is the condition of suffering from a constant feeling of despair. Teacher despairity arises because they are the victims of intrusive educational laws, endless standardized tests, and unengaged students. Many teachers will say there is nothing they can do about those situations but I beg to differ. I agree that laws and standardized tests are nearly impossible for teachers to control, but who controls student engagement? Are students unengaged because of an issue on their part or are they unengaged because of an issue on their teacher's part? Students want to be engaged but they can't do it on their own. It is incumbent upon our teachers to develop lessons that engage and challenge our students. Gone are the days of student engagement from passively listening and taking notes while their teacher lectures the whole class period. The teacher might cover a lot of ground but is true learning taking place? There is no doubt our teachers work hard but to borrow a line from the inspirational holiday movie "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation", "So do washing machines". It's not enough to work harder. We must work smarter.
WORK SMARTER, NOT HARDER
I have recently been working with a coachable, fairly inexperienced teacher and she is learning the benefits of shifting to a classroom filled with individualized learning experiences for their students. Planning this type of lesson requires some additional time and energy but the teacher is rewarded with a much less physically-draining class period and the students are rewarded with a much more engaging learning experience designed just for them. I recently observed this teacher as she tried a lesson like this for the first time. She spent several minutes wandering around the classroom asking students if they needed help but they didn't. I still remember the slightly panicked look on her face as she feared that her evaluation score would drop because she did not appear to be working very hard. On the contrary, it was a beautiful sight. Each student was getting the exact help they needed from other students and for a while, the teacher was the second most useless person in the classroom (besides me). She had created an environment in which the students took ownership of their learning and those who were proficient helped those who were not. Not only did this lesson prepare her students to be successful on their upcoming exam; this lesson also prepared them to be more successful in life. They were learning how to collaborate, how to find answers, how to think, and how to solve problems. Several students remarked that they wanted to do lessons like that more often, the teacher felt energized, and her observation score was very high. It was a win-win-win. The beauty of working smarter, not harder is that an extra couple of hours planning will save countless hours of wasted energy and frustration in the classroom. We just have to be brave enough to try new things. The topic of bravery leads me to the topic of my next post...The ABC's of Education. Until then, create something extraordinary...because there's no room 4 ordinary.
Thank you for taking the time to read the first of what I hope will be many blogs. If you agree, disagree, love, or hate what I write please drop me a line at noroom4ordinary@gmail.com and follow me on Twitter at https://twitter.com/NoRoom4Ordinary.
These days there is too much despairity in the world of education. No, that is not a typo. I just made up a new word. If Dr. Seuss can do it, I can do it too. Despairity is the condition of suffering from a constant feeling of despair. Teacher despairity arises because they are the victims of intrusive educational laws, endless standardized tests, and unengaged students. Many teachers will say there is nothing they can do about those situations but I beg to differ. I agree that laws and standardized tests are nearly impossible for teachers to control, but who controls student engagement? Are students unengaged because of an issue on their part or are they unengaged because of an issue on their teacher's part? Students want to be engaged but they can't do it on their own. It is incumbent upon our teachers to develop lessons that engage and challenge our students. Gone are the days of student engagement from passively listening and taking notes while their teacher lectures the whole class period. The teacher might cover a lot of ground but is true learning taking place? There is no doubt our teachers work hard but to borrow a line from the inspirational holiday movie "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation", "So do washing machines". It's not enough to work harder. We must work smarter.
WORK SMARTER, NOT HARDER
I have recently been working with a coachable, fairly inexperienced teacher and she is learning the benefits of shifting to a classroom filled with individualized learning experiences for their students. Planning this type of lesson requires some additional time and energy but the teacher is rewarded with a much less physically-draining class period and the students are rewarded with a much more engaging learning experience designed just for them. I recently observed this teacher as she tried a lesson like this for the first time. She spent several minutes wandering around the classroom asking students if they needed help but they didn't. I still remember the slightly panicked look on her face as she feared that her evaluation score would drop because she did not appear to be working very hard. On the contrary, it was a beautiful sight. Each student was getting the exact help they needed from other students and for a while, the teacher was the second most useless person in the classroom (besides me). She had created an environment in which the students took ownership of their learning and those who were proficient helped those who were not. Not only did this lesson prepare her students to be successful on their upcoming exam; this lesson also prepared them to be more successful in life. They were learning how to collaborate, how to find answers, how to think, and how to solve problems. Several students remarked that they wanted to do lessons like that more often, the teacher felt energized, and her observation score was very high. It was a win-win-win. The beauty of working smarter, not harder is that an extra couple of hours planning will save countless hours of wasted energy and frustration in the classroom. We just have to be brave enough to try new things. The topic of bravery leads me to the topic of my next post...The ABC's of Education. Until then, create something extraordinary...because there's no room 4 ordinary.
Thank you for taking the time to read the first of what I hope will be many blogs. If you agree, disagree, love, or hate what I write please drop me a line at noroom4ordinary@gmail.com and follow me on Twitter at https://twitter.com/NoRoom4Ordinary.
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