Passing the baton …… a teacher's legacy

Thursday, May 09, 2014

8:30 AM

As a retiring teacher, I've recently "reflected" deeply about my 40+ year career in education,  what I've learned over the years, and what yet needs to be done by my future colleagues. As I pass the baton of my career to two nieces and a godchild who have decided to join this noble profession, I want them to know what it has taken to get here, what rewards the profession has had, and the challenges ahead of them.

Thankfully, I've been blessed with having a career that spanned from teaching  Pre-K to teaching Master's degree classes, and I've watched education morph frequently.  Some of these changes were good, others were not, and some have come back again with a different acronym. These are my thoughts on where education has come from,  and where it is currently heading and what future teachers will need to think about.

So to my fellow teachers remaining in the classroom, and to new teachers,  I leave the following legacies: 

 1. The legacy of theories on student learning -  From open spaced classrooms who were coming into their glory during my student teaching experience, to theories about Assertive Discipline now morphed and called PBIS, to Dimensions of Learning, Multiple Intelligences, Content Literacy, Problem and Project Based Learning, Inquiry Learning, and now Common Core, the path to  understanding student learning has been far from boring or plain.  Each theory has improved a piece of the educational process or has changed as the needs of students have changed. 

I suspect learning theories will evolve even more as the nature of learning changes. Technology will enable the use of data mining, to morph learning, and aid both teachers and students.  Although currently, teaching is heavily focused on the data mining and reporting, and it has seemingly taken over the classroom and the media,  eventually the data will also enable individualized learning letting students have input into their learning path, and teachers will become guides on the sides. I challenge future teachers to make sure those paths are strong and correct.

2. The Political legacy -  although I started my career with the attitude that I could never go on strike because it would leave children feeling that teachers have given up on them, my own feelings for the political process have morphed over the years. As I've watched older teachers being pushed out of the classroom by changing their grade level after 30 years in the same one, or by giving them the hardest students to handle, and having a colleague hounded by administration and demoted to an aide because she was unaware that her administrator was lying to the press when the teacher told the truth, my respect for the union and its place in education has grown.  Watching the "language" disappear from the contracts over the years to whittle away at our sick leave and other benefits, has caused me to become more politically active in my older years.

But the hardest part has been watching as politicians have led the movement on bashing teachers by making education dollars the carrot that controls money hungry administrators.  Although their "truisms" seem right (NCLB, RTTT), the  funding machine has gotten into the hands of business leaders who don't understand education.  I remember one motivational speaker during the "education should be run like a business" phase who talked about how he had created a successful ice cream business, but was floored when a teacher asked him " What do you do in your business when the blueberries come to the dock damaged?"  He replied "We send them back." The teacher then replied "We can't send our blueberries back."  Nor do we want to send them back. 

Although these business leaders thought they were doing right by creating foundations, the corporate wheel has taken over and is not allowing enough input from teachers or enough time for their ideas to be tested, researched and tried with real students. Somehow, all the new ideals  (Common Core, PARCC, Teacher evaluations) are being rolled out without norm referencing and criterion testing.

Therefore, I challenge my colleagues to continue fighting politically for things that work, have been tried and tested, and for your own professionalism.

3. I pass on my technological legacy -  while this is my true passion, it is also the legacy that has morphed the most during my tenure.  From using typewriters in high school, to basic computers like the Commodore, DOS based computing, emails sent at 1200 baud, and Archie, Veronica and the World Wide Web,  to the mobile web and the cloud today, technology will have the greatest impact on the educational process. Although all the early changes took lots of time and effort to figure out, the speed of changes today are so rapid that very few people can keep up.  In fact, even the government has the vision of where technology can go, but ran across the major glitches with the Affordable Health Care Act.  However, those same glitches can be avoided if  Usability Studies in Human Computer Interaction theory are utilized before major rollouts like PARCC testing occur. But getting the politicians to slow down long enough to test the tests, and the evaluation system, as well as any future changes, will be your challenge.

My secret passions  are really individualized and global learning. If the learning my students garnered during my Kidlink days using global projects in the 1990's could have been spread more quickly, then 9/11 may have been avoided.  But we were such a small but global entity in the 90's passing on respect for global partners, celebrating similarities and differences, and making students aware of the global community.  With today's tools such as Facebook, Twitter, and mobile apps those global projects have so much more potential for creating awareness of and for other cultures.  Your challenge will be to explore Social media tools, particularly online discussion tools, to enable your students to interact with their global peers. If my 4th grade students in 1998 were able to write a mystery story with students in Denmark and an author in New Hampshire, and have the story critiqued by students in South Africa and Maryland's Eastern Shore, and shared with global peers, imagine YOUR  possibilities now!

In addition, the technology can now be harnessed through Learning Management Systems to enable Common Core to focus and direct skills to individual students, enabling students to progress at their own speed. If teachers can be involved in developing the online curriculums to match the common core, then students who have been exposed to the technology as infants will be able to plow through the skill at their own pace in that digital environment.  Your challenge will be to make sure all students can develop their strengths, but also develop their weaknesses.   You will also need to be sure that the whole child can be developed in spite of the technology.

4. Last but not least, I pass on my time and talent legacy  - I wish I could bottle and pass on the 40 years of patience I've developed over the years while teaching thousands of kids and impacting others through the teachers I've taught or mentored.   Although that is not possible, I can pass on my wish for you to be treated as professionals.  If college professors can take sabbaticals every seven years, why can't teachers do the same?  I've left the classroom several times, each one for my own professional growth in the educational field, and have returned a stronger teacher (in my opinion, not necessarily that of my superior's).  But imagine if I could have left the classroom with the blessing of my district… If every teacher had a 6 month or year hiatus every seven years to grow professionally, interact with researchers in their field, and  had time to analyze their own teaching, what could they bring back to their district and students?  They would feel valued and respected, and further the educational field more efficiently.  Students and other teachers would truly benefit from their experiences.  Therefore, I challenge you to take on the political forces to change society's view of teachers, and fight for the time for your own professional growth.

In conclusion, I challenge future teachers take all of the above philosophies and blend them to make new ones that will further education.  I will be cheering from the sidelines, and hoping that teachers are included in the process and guiding these changes.  Have confidence in yourselves….you  know what needs to be done for students. And hopefully I'll still be around to watch you pass your baton…. :-)

Best wishes,

A Retiring educator,
Cybrscrybe

©2014

The myth of tenure..... is hurting students

Tenure... that word that supposedly protects teachers... the one that everyone claims keeps bad teachers in the classroom, was proven wrong today, especially in my district.  You see, I got riff'd today!  Yep... and I have tenure and many years of experience.... so if the myth is true, then it should have protected me.  Even recently getting my doctorate so I'm current in my field (Computer Science), and winning a Curriculum Award from the district, and getting runner-up for best paper at a state conference, and presenting at a National conference in my field didn't protect me.  Being in Computer Science seems to be a detriment in this district, as many of the first to be let go were Computer Science teachers with tenure.  That's extremely sad for our students.  You see, we are a district that has lots of BRAC potential, touted that our county would grow with the influx of high tech positions, and it is predicted that our students will have good chances of employment in that field in this district in the next 10 years.   But if they don't have Computer teachers, how are they going to learn the skills needed for those positions?

So if those in my field and my district feel that I am sharp enough to win those awards, why didn't they keep me?  It all comes down to money.... our county executive cut his portion of paying for public education in the district, and the district has to rearrange its budget. I haven't a clue about how they decided, but they are "cutting programs" and our program is the first to go.  Maybe it has something to do with the fact that our Chief Information Officer has not supported our programs for the last several years.  Maybe it has something to do with the perception that kids are born with technology skills (they may be, but they haven't a clue how to make them "work"  for them rather than be a toy).  Someone needs to teach them how to adapt those programs to what they are learning in the classroom. 

Maybe it has something to do with the new Common Core Standards that supposedly have a STEM base to them, yet don't mention computer skills anywhere in the standards.  They focus on Engineering, Mathematics, and Science, yet when professional development is offered, the technology piece (in particular careers in Computer Science like database administration, technical support, network engineers,  software engineers, programmers, are never mentioned as possible careers for kids in STEM).  

So what's my next step?  Not sure at this point... I'll be exploring how I can use that newly acquired doctorate, trying my hand with writing again this summer, and exploring what retirement might look like....  hopefully I'll find a window of opportunity ... and soar through it..   although it won't be one that promises "tenure".

What's Up with Teaching in 2012 ? (from a teacher's viewpoint )

      With all the negative press about teachers in the last several years,  I thought it might be beneficial to keep a blog on the impacts of the new changes taking place in education as they are rolled out.  From the Common Core Standards (CCS), Universal Design for Learning (UDL), to Race To the Top (RTTT) pressures to change teacher evaluations, the paradigm shift is huge this year!  We've had changes in the past, but now the changes seem cataclysmic.   They may be needed changes, but coming all at once makes it seem like a roller coaster to most teachers.  How we get through the next year will be interesting and worth documenting.

My first real exposure to the above topics took place throughout the past year as I've been researching for my doctorate.  My topic was not related to either of the two, but as I searched for journal articles on my topic, news reports, journal articles, and conference related tweets and postings on facebook, all kept me informed on these topics.  It's been interesting to see the technology being utilized.  I know that most of my colleagues and family have probably been bored when I posted that I liked or read certain professional articles on my facebook page, but  hopefully, they've all been able to get a glimmer of the coming changes along with me.

Formally, I got the school system's official take on CCS at a 2 day workshop I took this summer.  It was well done, and gave a good overview of the Language Arts (now ELA for English Language Arts rather than the ILA for Integrated Language Arts it's been the last 20 years or so), Math, and STEM.  The Language Arts one was well done, however,  it seemed that the focus was more on the I for Integrated more now than before.  The premise that we should be including finding more answers in the text rather than personal reflection is a throw back to 20 years ago.  It's good that they are going back to that, as well as including more types of text in their examples.

The math workshop was well done as well, but it still seems to me that they have students solving old world problems, rather than ones relevant to today, and not geared to 21st century learners.  For example, they gave us a sample problem to solve about a person trying to figure out when they would have written a certain check in their checkbook, given the dates and check numbers of all the checks written.  My goodness.... who writes checks these days?  And why wouldn't you utilize the online tools to sort through the checks and find the answer in about two minutes?  I realize that it's supposed to make the kids use HOTS (Higher Order Thinking Skills), but from my viewpoint, and probably the kids as well, this question would be totally irrelevant, and I wouldn't be motivated to figure it out (I had a hard time getting into the spirit as an adult at the workshop!).

The STEM activities were  good as well, and I'm glad to see that they are pushing the engineering type of activity as well as the engineering process.  However, I was appalled that technology skills and computer science careers were NOT one of the things they plan on teaching kids.  After the workshop, I researched it and found that it's not just my district that's lax on the concept, but nationwide it's a problem.  Somehow, Computer Science seems to have "gotten left behind" in the eyes of politicians and educational administrators as they've planned these changes.  It looks like a grass roots movement is starting to bring this to the attention of the policy makers. This effort is being spearheaded through CSTA a  listserv that is part of ACM (Association for Computing Machinery.org).

 And it looks like the CSS's (Common Science Standards) are already being redone and will be called NGSS or Next Generation Science Standards ... so what's new... education is always changing...

This post only covered one of the changes listed above.  The next post will cover the new teacher evaluation process which I will be attending a meeting for this week.   

 Keeping checking back... AND send me your comments and impressions of these changes..