Education Awesomeness

So I went to an Instructional Rounds debriefing today during lunch, expecting to discuss what we observed and how we can use that to improve our own teaching.  The observation focus was Student Engagement.  The discussion started out as you would expect.  Teachers started sharing some of the strategies they saw and were discussing student engagement.  After hearing what they were saying, and reflecting on the observations I did, I spoke up…

I don’t know exactly what I said, but it was something along the lines of, “I had a hard time figuring out if students were truly engaged, or if they were just being compliant.”  The comments people were making about students looking at the teacher and answering questions when asked to, didn’t convince me that we observed engaged students.  We observed compliant students; students who were just “doing” school (I stole that line from Shelley Burgess).  I’m not sure how many were truly engaged. It is so hard to get students truly engaged.  To make them want to learn, excited to learn, and passionate about school is something we all want, but how often do we accomplish it? It’s definitely something to think about and work towards.  I hope my comments got others in the room thinking.

A few minutes later in the same meeting, seating arrangements, classroom management, and cell phone policies were being discussed.  As I listened to teachers talking about their reasons for why they had seats in rows instead of pods, and why some allowed phones in class and others didn’t, another thought popped into my head.  What is the ideal learning environment in 2013? Clearly there is no single answer to this question, but in MY class, what is the ideal seating arrangement, cell phone policy, grading policy, etc. If the kids are the one’s learning in my classroom, shouldn’t I at least give them a voice? That’s not a groundbreaking idea.  I’ve seen numerous tweets and read several blogs about student voice, but listening to my colleagues talk about their rooms, and reflecting on my own setup, it was all about the teacher’s preferences.  It’s like a movie theater having plastic seats because they know people are going to spill soda and wipe popcorn butter on the seats.  If the seats are plastic, they just wipe ‘em, or hose ‘em down at the end of the day.  However, that’s not the case.  They realize that we won’t watch a 2 hour movie in a hard plastic seat.  We want to be comfy while we watch.  Shouldn’t the same way of thinking be applied to a classroom.  If we want them to learn for hours on end, shouldn’t we ask them what the ideal learning environment is instead of just doing what works for us and makes our job easier?

When I mentioned the idea of asking the students how they would want the room setup, I was immediately shut up by another teacher.  I don’t remember his exact quote, but it was something along the lines of, “We teach in an industrialized system, asking kids how they would want school to look is pointless. We can’t give them what they want.” The words industrialized system, were actually said!  It’s not that I disagree.  Our current education system is still largely based on industrialized models from 100 years ago.  But what got at me was his acceptance, and the acceptance of others in the room.  One of my colleagues did jump in and defend my statements, but we were clearly the minority in the room.

After finishing my day I decided that I was going to do exactly what I said I was going to do.  I am going to ask my students several questions about their ideal learning environment.  While I do try to give them a lot of freedom and choice already, I want to know what they want school to be like.  I will start off my questions with the statement, ”Forget everything you know about school and education…”  We will then have a roundtable discussion as a class using THESE QUESTIONS I wrote up this afternoon.  It addresses their ideal learning environment and even tries to figure out the student apathy problem that I have been seeing increasingly over the past few years.  I’m very excited for tomorrow and the answers that they give me.

“We can’t give them what they want”…We sure as hell can listen and try!

August is here and I’ve spent all summer preparing for this next school year.  School ended on June 13th, and on the 14th I was already scouring Twitter and racking my brain for ways to improve as a teacher.  I am always striving to be better and challenging myself to be creative and awesome and never fall in the cruise control rut that so many teachers can fall in.  I can’t even begin to tell you how excited I am for school to start in the next couple of weeks.  However, with all of that excitement comes some nervousness.  I’m nervous because I’m doing things rather differently this year.  My class will be based on a self-paced, mastery-based model.  I will also be implementing 20% Time with a focus on community improvement.  Seating arrangements are different.  My schedule is different.  I could go on and on about me being nervous, but I should get to the point of this post.  I am most nervous because I have enrolled in an Admin Credential program.

Let me now explain the title of this post.  I am only entering my 7th year of teaching, but over the past year I started to have such a passion for education that I started spending more time researching education instead of focusing on my content area of history.  Don’t get me wrong, I still love teaching history.  However, I started having a feeling of “I want to do something bigger.” I felt that I was destined to do something big with my growing passion in the field of education.  When I told a colleague this, I felt arrogant saying it.  Like teachers aren’t a big deal.  They are.  We are.  Am I being egotistic thinking that I am destined for something bigger?  I don’t know.  I don’t know if it’s egotistic or ambitious.  Regardless, I feel passionate about education and I would like to try to have a bigger impact.  Therefore, I enrolled in the Admin program and I’m going to do it.  I am nervous as hell and don’t know what to expect.  It’s a great feeling!

As I was sitting at a Common Core professional development this past week, something happened (Why was I at a Common Core PD??? While I don’t fully embrace this new era we are entering, and the implementation of Common Core assessment seems like a joke, I do like the focus on higher order skills, so I want to learn about it. Back to the story).  What happened was scary, funny, but more than anything it was enlightening.  One single question asked by one person, and the reaction that followed was all it took.  Are you ready? Here’s what was asked…

“Have you guys heard of a flipped classroom?”

(Before I go any further let me clarify that this post is not archived from a previous year.  This question was asked on July 9, 2013.)

I was waiting for a variety of responses.  There were none.  A few people sat silently (in a common core coma), and everyone else said no or shook their head as if they were completely confused by the question (You know the look/head shake I’m referring to).  After 5 seconds of that, and processing what just happened, I jumped in and offered a few thoughts on flipped classrooms.  I’m not what you would call a flipped classroom teacher, but I definitely have embraced aspects of it, use it periodically, and understand it and multiple interpretations of it.  The people I was with had no idea what it was, and aside from the guy who asked the question, they had never even heard the term.  I’m sure a lot of you now understand why I thought this was scary and funny at the same time.  You can also maybe see why I thought this moment was enlightening.

Our colleagues need our help.  How can a room of teachers be in the dark about something that is common knowledge to a lot of us.  I’m not saying they are bad teachers and I am superior to them because I knew about flipped classrooms. What I am saying is that a flipped classroom is a new teaching strategy, along with hundreds of other new strategies and ideas being shared online, and rarely in traditional PD, that teachers need to be aware of.  So what about the teachers that are not on Twitter?  The teachers that have never heard of an edcamp, or a coffeecue?  These teachers should be exposed to the new and exciting things going on in education, and if they’re not on Twitter or into reading blogs, we need to share things in other ways with them.  While we can try to sign them up for Twitter, it’s not for everyone, and we need to understand that.  That doesn’t make them bad teachers.  It just means we need to find a way to share with them.

Make an effort to share cool ideas, new teaching theories, awesome lessons, and anything worth sharing.  Shoot out an email to your department or staff once a month with a list of cool things you’ve learned via your online PLN.  Speak up at department or all staff meetings and share things.  Let them know that there is a network of teachers online that are constantly sharing and supporting.  Little constant reminders will serve two purposes.  First, it will be a way to share the awesome things we are getting from our online PLNs.  Second, the more times they hear “I saw this on Twitter” or “I read this on another teacher’s blog,” the more likely they are to go and check those tools out.  It may take someone hearing that 5 times before they finally go sign up for Twitter.  Don’t force feed anything, just let our colleagues know the value that you find in online, free professional development.

The eye-opening experience that I had, while scary, helped me realize that I want to share more; That I have to share more; That more teachers need to be aware of the teaching (R)Evolution that is going on right now.  Spread the word!!!

This is my first blog post.  Will anyone read it?  I’m sure my wife will. Oh well.  I guess only time will tell.  I guess the writing of this blog is more for me and my reflection purposes anyways.  Although, with the thought of having an audience, I will write it with one in mind.  Mr.David Theriault @davidtedu teaches his students to write for an audience, so I will take that advice and run with it.  Ok…enough rambling (I guess I’m already figuring out that my blogging style is more of a ramble and rant style than a poetic, flowing style.  That sounds about right if you know me)

I titled this post Mr. Floyd Version 2.0 because I feel that is who I have become over the past few months.  I have been a teacher for 6 years.  Still considered a rookie by some, but a veteran to others.  Regardless, I have been reborn as a teacher over these past few months.  I can’t really pinpoint a specific event or time when it happened.  I think it was a slow realization over the past 2 years that I can be better.  A realization that I was teaching students in a very similar way to how I was taught.  I thought I was good.  Kids usually say my class is their favorite.  I think that satisfied me. The difference is that when I was in high school (mid to late 90s), I had a pager, I used encyclopedias and books in the library, and transparencies on an overhead projector were considered edtech.  The world has changed so much, but it took me until now to realize that the 15-17 year olds sitting in front of me are wired differently than I was when I was their age.  They learn differently.  They interact and communicate differently.  Simply put, they are different.  So I had to change.  I had to adapt.  I had to relearn how to teach.  I’m doing that now.  I can’t believe how much fun it is!

Version 2.0 has been built using Twitter, networking, reading other teacher’s blogs, and reading books like Teach Like a Pirate and Drive.  Where Mr. Floyd Version 1.0 relied on content, lecture, retention of facts, percentages, one size fits all, and rows of desks; Version 2.0 is all about teaching skills, coaching life-long learners, mastery, self-paced learning, problem solving, and inspiring creativity.  I think I’m going to like Version 2.0 better, and I think the students will too.  I’ll let you know as this blog continues into the next school year.  Until next time.