Expanding the Cultural Perspective

    Nannying brought a great cultural experience that really answered that question "Why are all the asian kids so smart?" It is cultural. The focus of the home is on education. The television is in the basement. The kids know their way around the library and plow through about 8 pounds… yes pounds of books a week. They enjoy the same things that all boys their age like. They play clash of clans with their iPad time, enjoy funny youtube videos, chips, chocolate and candy are some of their favorite things. But it's all done with great moderation. Limit iPad and computer time, emphasize reading and learning about all different passions, including bugs and worms.

      There are many imperfections, one example is the conversation I had with the younger boy about sharks. This kid know about all different types of sharks, where they swim, what they eat… I ask if he wants to be a marine biologist when he grows up. He response really through me for a loop, he said "Mom says marine biologists don't make enough money. She says I need to be a doctor or dentist or orthodontist…" at age 7 this statement hit me like a brick wall. He talks about wanting a big house with a pool and that the only way to have that would be having a job like his mother says.

     I wonder if it is really so engrained. As he grows up and realizes that passion is important in a career would he feel free to make his own choice. He will have the intellectual and social ability to be successful, no matter he choses to peruse. He is incredibly creative and smart. Will college and life experiences push him to use his gifts of creativity and character? Or will this "tiger mom" parenting prevent him from using these great skills?

     Is this the same idea of "setting a high bar" for all kids, and making college a part of the conversations? Teaching in "College Prep" urban schools, we force college to become part of the conversation. Taking middle school kids on college visits, naming classes after colleges, having teachers share about their college experiences…. Do I really think everyone of these kids has the ability to get into Harvard? Perhaps very few of them… but the mission of continuing to learn and educate themselves is important.  They might not want to take the college path but the most important part is that they will be prepared to make that choice.

       When we look at standards across the country slipping, perhaps the expectations of middle class parents have also slipped. Using myself as an example, lets look at the history of education in my family. Beginning with my grandfathers… My mother's father went to Harvard on the GI bill, my father's Dad went to Yale on the GI bill as well… Two Ivy league educated patriarchs. Both became very successful in their fields. My mother's father becoming an lawyer, FBI agent, and eventually chief of the Pennsylvania State Police. The other an accountant for Earnest and Young, running the Pittsburgh office. I'm not sure exactly how we fell… a little at a time. We still have a smart well educated family but the positions of prestige have seemed to slip. We have several attorneys in the family, but none with quite the drive that brought my grandparents to the top of their fields. Perhaps the generation of Baby Boomers created different priorities with their lives. They grew up having a lot, and perhaps realizing that having success is not as important as enjoying what you do. So have they let up on the pressure I should have had growing up. Should they have worked me harder with school work? And will I be enough of a "tiger mom" to stop the cycle, if someday I am blessed with my own children?

       So "tiger mom" I hope that much of your motivation is about giving your children choices. Setting the bar high to enable them to use their wonderful balance of intelligence and creativity. Exposing them to more and hoping when they are on their own they are not only going to follow their heart but they will also have the ability to do whatever they desire.



       

Catching up on the gap year… After the traveling: New Years Resolution

        I feel like to get the most out of this life choice I need to do a better job of chronicling the choices and decisions to continue to carry the knowledge with me that I gained over taking this time off. Even though some of these events ran concurrently I'm going to try and separate the ideas to have a clear idea of what has changed.
     
       Nannying. My New Years resolution last year was to get a job. I start the new year with a small job. I took a job nannying a few hours a day, a few days a week. It did a few things… It kept me in one place, having a consistent commitment, it gave me a bit of spending money and it gave me something to schedule my day around. It's amazing how easy it is to fill time with just one daily event to plan around.   I was nannying for a family of two boys. Mom was a doctor, Dad a dentist. Yes, they were asian. At 3pm I would pick the boys up from the bus stop. We would have a healthy snack, sometimes pick the older one from after school activities, work on homework and additional work mom had assigned. We would go to tennis, and the library to get new books. iPad time was limited. It wasn't the same thing everyday, but it was also short… 2 to 3 hours a day. Nothing compared to the 10 hour days I was used to. But 3rd and 5th grade was also new to me. I forget the little temper tantrums, or the tears when homework is too hard.

     The minimal time commitment left me with a good amount of time to take care of myself and slowly bring my life back to normal. It's during this time that I learned how to prioritize my gluten allergy. It was also great to work in house hold that kept to a strong healthy household. I read more, I went running nearly everyday, I went to visit my grandmothers and worked to build healthier habits making myself a healthy vegetable and protein filled brunch daily.
 
     I enjoyed nannying. Getting to know the boys, helping them with their homework. But there were times of boredom and little stresses. Things could be inconsistent and I would get called 2 hours before I am supposed to be at work to say they don't need me today. I realize I like the consistency of a traditional teaching position. I think I've missed a total of 8 days of school since I started teaching 8 years ago.

    So my new years resolution, was to get a job… back to a more consistent full time position.
 

MOOC's A New Kind of Education

One of the benefits of having extra time is that I have the opportunity to explore. My last 7 years in classroom have made me a great teacher but feeling like I've lived in a cave. I spent the first few months spending a substantial amount of time looking into interesting programs, online resources, school models, and teacher resources. It always began as fascinating and interesting, but after about an hour of linking to new links, and new programs,  I would find myself transitioning from excitement to frustration. I want to return to the classroom next school year and I just don't want to fall into the same cave. I wonder how many people there are working in the field of education who are not classroom teachers.
I found MOOCs, Massive Open Online Courses. They are an amazing resource to keep yourself out of the cave. What I really like is that they are what you make of them. Some have more assignments and readings then others, some have tests. Others just put together ideas, resources and encourage people to participate and interact. The course I'm currently taking is though the university of edinburgh. It's not really applicable in classrooms but it's an intellectual challenge. Teaching like many professions can become monotonous, repetitive, and frustrating. People label our generation as Millennials. Sometimes called "Generation Me." Switching jobs frequently, comfortable with multi-tasking and technology. Our generation was growing and evolving as the internet was doing the same. MOOCs are a great way to keep from falling into a funk, exploring new ideas, and the choice to be as involved as you want to be. To be honest I don't really know what exactly what I'm doing in these MOOCs but I suggest people to try it. How wonderful is having some great minds of great institutions sharing their knowledge for free all over the world. Will college degrees really have as much value as certificates from a wide range of classes, from some of the greatest institutions in the world?

Just a Quick Thinking Summary

This blog was not really supposed to be about venting but with a lot of extra time to read books, twitter, articles I have a few take aways about politics and our country. I am not a big fan of memorizing things, but I am grateful that my 5th grade teacher had us memorize the pre-able.

We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union establish justice and ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessing of liberty to ourselves and our posterities. 

Things that I have been doing with my time that I brought me to these conclusions:

1) Reading Zietoun- the story of a family man's journey in the days leading up to and during Hurricane Katrina.
2) Twitter- Cory Booker (Newark's Mayor)- is an absolute fav. He does so many good things for the people of his city. He is a daily reminder that there are good people in the world doing great work each and everyday.
3) Controversy over Education- I try to stay on top of different sides. The fact of the matter is our education system needs to do better. Does it matter if the school is a traditional public school or charter?  Let's look at great teachers, great schools, great school leaders, and strong curriculums to help guide us in the right direction.

Read, connect to people, hold judgement, help those in need. Make the most you can of the life you have been given. In the end it won't matter what religion you practice, or what god you pray to. We will be judged by the way we loved, the way we cared for others, the connections we make...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCvmsMzlF7o

Could Someone Inform me What Makes a "Real" Educator?

Ed Reform... Public Education is failing. Do people disagree with that? We need good teachers in classrooms, any arguments there?  As a democracy it is vital that we have a public schools to educate our population. There are schools all over the country, public, public-charter, charter... that are having success. 

I think one of the things that no one anticipated with NCLB was this idea of stress and pressure. I have seen really wonderful principal forced to move into failing school, and fired after not being able to turn it around in two years. I see teachers and principals feeling stressed looking at students formal benchmark assessments leading up to state exams. I see students performing well below grade level, continuing to be passed on, and budgets being cut to prevent students from receiving the academic assistance they need. When animals are backed into a corner they fight back. Right now I feel like urban public schools are somewhere in this process... some have given in and given up, some are still fighting back against Ed Reform, some are just going through the motions, many are desperately trying to change with the common core, larger class sizes, and staff cut backs leaving the teachers over worked and under supported. Many strong veteran teachers have moved to closing their door and just doing their thing. 

In my time off I get to read a lot of articles and blogs. I read frustrated teachers venting about Common Core, blaming administrators, blaming charter schools. I get it. I was definitely there. So stressed out and frustrated you lose an element of rationality. So I understand where the teacher who had originally written this statement comes from. She writes "To real educators, corporate education reform ideas are simply insane." 

I would really like to know who are "real educators"? And perhaps this is why I feel like I'm a limbo teacher. I have an BA in Education, I've taught in public schools, my time in charter schools made me a better educator, and my masters program focused more on data, teacher performance, and teaching techniques was a great balance to my much more theoretical background from undergrad. 

I believe in public education. I think competition from charters should be allowed. I think we can all learn from each other. I believe in the long run common core is good for education. I think there is an element of "Fit" for teachers, administrators, and it's okay to admit things might not be a good fit, fit for age, fit for subject. We all need to breathe, relax, and remind ourselves why we got into this profession in the first place. We are at our best when our hearts and minds are at peace. 

I believe that I am a "real educator" and I don't think that every idea coming out of education reform is insane. Is it hard? Yes. Does it need to be financially supported? Yes. Do we need to re-educate teachers to make these changes? Yes. But just because something is hard doesn't make it insane. Think about our kids with learning disabilities, we can't just give up when things get hard, we have to keep fighting, just like so many of our kids do each and everyday. 

Technology is NOT the Key It's a Tool

I wrote this topic down a while ago and finally the research is coming out about the poor results of cyber charter schools. Technology is NOT the key!! This idea that we can spend $2,500 to set up a student with a computer and software and they receive a quality K-12 education is complete crap. I am not negating all online course options or that online education might be a good option for special cases. The olympic gymnasts are good examples of this idea of unique cases.
Technology is a tool, but tools are only as good as the people using them are skilled. And technology in the classroom can be hard. It's time consuming, takes a lot of prep, and can waste valuable classroom time. On the other side, it is an absolute necessity of not only college readiness but any type of career readiness.
It's fascinating to see and read about different ways teachers are using technology in their classroom. From my old cooperating teacher using wiki pages to have the students write their own history textbook, to using clickers to engage students and work towards accurate calculations, to the school I read about in California with 7 math teachers in a computer lab with 200 students, and little rooms around the outside for small group instruction and culminating projects. Everyday I'm finding new tools, Glogster is my newest.
But there is no way teachers have the time or resources to keep up with the ed tech world. It has been almost a full time job for me to follow blogs and tweets, to be familiar with new resources, forums, and not to mention everyone is re-inventing their curriculum for the common core... it is exhausting.
I love using technology, I love teaching with technology, and it has really amazing things to offer, but it is not the solution to all our problems. And video taping great teachers and putting them up on youtube might seem like the way to go so everyone receives great teachers, but I assure you a youtube video does not show empathy, or a kind smile, or a handshake. Perhaps there is a segment of our population that wishes to create a troop of isolated, robots, working from home, completing tasks, and checking off boxes of objectives to be reached.
 I don't want to live in a world like that. I want, no, I crave art, and music, and movies... I love creativity, and humor. But most of all life is about people. People are what make our lives worth living, building relationships with actual people. And the skill of building relationship start in the home and in schools. One could even make the case that part of the reason charter schools might be out performing public schools (in the places they are), someone is looking out for the child. There is clearly a relationship in that child's life.
I left teaching feeling more like a mother sometimes then a teacher, and when I returned to visit my students after my travels and was greeted by hundreds of hugs and grade updates. There are just no words... smiling from ear to ear, a sad place in your heart missing them, so proud and surprised of how much they have grown.
And then you think how many millions of kids just like them are out there fighting everyday.

Achievement Gap or Innovation, The Impossible Challenge of Both

We as a country, state, district, school, classroom have hundreds of decisions to make each day about the education. I find two of these ideas very much at odds. The Achievement Gap focus on getting minority students to the levels of their white or asian counter parts. But here's the problem according to our schools the bar that the white and asian students are hitting is still not adequate to complete in the global market. It's like a person being trapped in the middle of a ladder 3/4 of the way up a building. Then you have this group sitting at the bottom... So you push that bottom group, and push them and hoist them up with all your might. And by golly they make it. They reach out and grab on to that group 3/4's the way up the ladder. Now you have this whole group of students stuck 3/4s of the way up the ladder. Ok, perhaps not my best analogy but I think it kind of gets my point across for my frustration of these two ideas at odds. We spend so much time and energy getting these students caught up to where they should be that the ones who start off in good shape never get any further to keep progressing the group forward.

In the world of education we are limited by time, by resources, but quality educators, parent support, ya-da, ya-da ya-da... but as we spend so much time, energy and money getting everyone 3/4s of the way up the ladder, couldn't we be using some of those resources to get the kids 3/4s of the way up all the way to the top. Can't we have some of the most amazing minds making it to the top of the ladder, can't we invest some resources and energy into pulling those kids up towards the top? As a result the kids that move quickly from the bottom aren't stuck 3/4's of the way up too. I think my brother put it as if our goal as a nation is to get every student at or above grade level haven't we created a large group of mediocrity?

When we focus on getting every student achieving a minimum bar, the only students that are having opportunities to learn how to be innovative are the ones who's parents acknowledge this creative gap in formal education and pay for other opportunities to develop this skills. Real, true, concrete learning, takes place through experience. That experience can be calling out flash cards over and over again, it can being memorizing the problem solving technique CUBB (Circle the key words, Underline the question...oh wait I don't know what the last two letters mean) And yes there are students that need the flash cards, and students that need the problem solving technique but the more authentic, simple, interactive the experience is the more memorable.

2 quick stories: First in 7th grade I worked in a group to create and ending project for our mythology unit. Now I know the name of the game was Journey Through Tartarus. I think there were 4 of us in this group and if I remember correctly I was the only girl. I remember Kevin and Jon were in my group, and one person that was absent all the time. I can't really tell you much of anything about Greek Mythology that I haven't seen in Disney's Hercules (was that even greek). The point is that I remember Tartarus, I remember trying to make the board look more dark, more hellish like. I remember being surprised that we got such a good grade on it. And I remember what different perspectives we had when we sat down to start the project. I remember the project but most of all I remember having to get along with these guys with completely different ideas about the direction we should take. I wouldn't be surprised if Jon could still rattle off some random facts, and Kevin remembered his awesome design on the game board... and they probably don't remember my name. But my social intelligence is a strength and I had opportunities to develop it and feel successful, and so did they.

Story 2: Kids at play is one of the most wonderful, fascinating things to watch as both an educator and a math teacher. I was visiting my friend Lauren who has a son Alex who's not quite 2. He had letter blocks that he was stacking. He used the blocks in the area built a small tower. Clapped for himself when it stayed up and toppled as he tried to add one more. He collected all the blocks he had and started to build again. This tower was much straighter. He had to stand-up to add the last couple blocks. He used every block and built a tower with a similar level of ability that any adult would build. He used every block available and when he finished he clapped for himself. But he noticed the top block was not straight he moved to make it straighter and the tower toppled but some may say... isn't that showing some understanding of priniples in physics and the idea that the wider the surface area of the base the more structurally sound (that is so wrong, someone that knows something about physics feel free to help) but at the same time he is reasoning, he is finding patterns and putting them into practice...

Every person's mind can be opened in a different way, the question is are we going to just make sure everyone can read and write, that be our only goal and focus, or are we going to find ways for students to discover for his or herself their way to a great life in the academic world.