It was a day like any other day (except for the fact that it was Monday, but seemed like a Thursday since tomorrow is Tuesday, but is really Friday). I made it through 1st and 2nd block easily, but then 3rd block rolled around. Not that I have anything against 3rd block. Really. I don’t. But it started off with a very nasty habit many of the students in that block have: being polite. Yes, they are polite to a fault. I’ll try to explain.
Students are tardy if the they enter the classroom after the tardy bell rings. Makes sense, right? At Putnam City, all of the doors are kept locked when shut, therefore, students cannot enter the classroom late, unless someone opens the door for them. And therein lies the problem with their politeness. I’ll continue to explain. I usually stand at the door and close it just as the tardy bell rings. I then proceed to get students going on the bellwork or whatever other task I have for them to start class. This means I am not at the door and cannot see who comes in late to class. There is a sign on my door, which says “For entry, knock politely” which students read “To sneak in, knock quietly”. This is what usually happens. Students knock quietly and my students, being the polite human beings they are, open the door and return to their seat. Usually before I can see who is coming in tardy.
So there you have it, my students are annoyingly polite! This put me in a other than pleasant mood since it happened once, I addressed it, and then it happened twice more! We then proceeded to submit papers to turnitin.com, which you don’t even want to hear about. Really. I’m not going to talk about it.
That was the “bad” part of my day. Not very bad, right? I didn’t think so either. I love my job. And therein lies the good part of my day. I went up to the teacher workroom to check my mail box and was greeted by a fluorescent pink sheet of paper there in the box. What was this pink paper? Glad you asked. It was the final ballot of the “teacher of the year” voting for our school. You might ask why that is significant. My colleagues have voted me through the first two rounds which means I’m on the final ballot “against” two other teachers. Knowing these two people, there’s no way I have a chance to be voted teacher of the year for Putnam City High School, but that’s okay. The other two teachers are the type of teachers who make an impact on students and they are both very deserving and after all, that’s what its all about anyway. Impacting students lives. I am just honored to be nominated. Thanks faculty, I appreciate your confidence.
No, this is not about a fight between a parent and a teacher. Maybe I need to think about that as a fundraiser for Physics and Astronomy Club. This is just a little reflection on the day.
Today I have been working as both teacher and parent. Instead of working on schoolwork, both for the classes I am teaching and for the classes I am taking, I have been working as a parent. Studying grades, visiting with students, i.e. having discussions about make-up work and test re-takes, you know all of the stuff that makes being a parent fun.
I must admit, sometimes it can be a sticky situation, since my children tell me one thing and then a colleagues tell me other things, meaning the stories don’t always agree. Its difficult. In many ways I love having my kids here at school with me; I wouldn’t want to change it. Then, in other ways, such as the one discussed here, it would be so much easier if they were simply a teacher at another district school.
Its really much easier to treat it like a normal parent would by just emailing the teacher. I could easily talk to them at lunch, but why ruin lunch with talk of business? There’s enough of that going on at lunch anyway.
I’ll just keep trying to be a teacher/parent and make the best of it. After all, what more can anyone ask? Its all I ask of my own kids and my own students.
Thanks for reading.
While others ask “why not?”
I was working on an assignment for Ed Research tonight. I was required to create a questionnaire and while working on it, it hit me: Why not use google docs for this assignment? The other part of the assignment is to bring a transparency copy of the questionnaire, so the entire class can view it at our next meeting. Of course, my brain, left unchecked, went down the path to the end and I’ve chronicled that below.
We are a graduate level class, training to be National Board Certified teachers. We should be using every available technology resource at our disposal. Yet, we are using transparencies. Technology that has been around since 1945 and widely used in education since the late 1950’s. It gets my ire up when I see a blatant disregard of the use of free resources, especially in education. People whine and moan about not having the right tools to do the job, but, honestly there are many tools, which sit unused. We could very easily email a link to a googledoc to the professor, who could then show our questionnaire to the class through a computer projector. Instead, we will print out an actual transparency sheet. Yes, we will waste plastic. Good job. Way to be environmentally conscious, but that’s a whole other post. I won’t even go there.
So, here’s my question: Why not? Why does this particular program not embrace technology? Is it Tradition? Ignorance? Laziness? Honestly, I don’t know. I suspect its a combination of several of those issues.
These are not rhetorical questions. I really would like to find some answers. I want to affect change in the system. I’d like to find out why, in some sectors of higher education, technology is shunned and in others it is embraced. Is it strictly a professor’s preference? Is it program leadership? Is it discipline specific? If you know, I’d sure like to find out what you have to say.
I wonder if its too late to change my research question?
Raising test scores may be the touchiest subject any for any teacher. This is especially true for teachers that teach End of Instruction testing classes. Any time “raising test scores” is mentioned, those EOI teachers get agitated. Get. Teachers. Talking. This is the way to raise test scores. Get the teachers talking.
Effective collaboration between teachers is a key component to student learning. Why not draw on other teacher’s expertise? This includes successes and failures. Teachers need to talk to each other about what works and what doesn’t work. Peer Learning Communities (PLC) are a great way to get this collaboration started. These communities should include a discussion of what is right with the class, what is wrong, and begin to work towards an alignment of the curriculum.
Communication between teachers and administration also needs to occur. If there is going to be a change in how things are going to be done, why not let the teachers decide how to do it? Or at least drive the early discussions? The teachers are the implementers of change, therefore, they probably need to have a say in how that change will/should occur. All of the tools for effective learning may already be in the building. Someone just needs to get the right people talking to each other so these tools can begin to work together.
Freedom of adaptation is the final piece of the puzzle. Teachers have to have some wiggle room to adapt for differentiated learning. Otherwise, why not just record one teacher, delivering the same content and replay it for every class. Teachers (at least the good ones) know (through assessment) when their students are learning. They also know how to adapt curriculum to fit the needs of their students. If a teacher does not know how to do that, an effective PLC and/or mentor teacher will be an invaluable resource.
Raising test scores is a goal that is attainable, but only if teachers are given the tools needed. It is attainable only if those tools are used effectively by the administration. Scores will go up when teachers are allowed to use their expertise to create an environment in which learning may occur.
Today we had a special speaker in our Pre-AP Physics class, Dr. Flera Rizatdinova (who is originally from Moscow and has a very strong Russian accent, which makes the talk much more interesting) from the Oklahoma State University Dept. of Physics. She is a scientist working on the ATLAS collaboration at the Large Hadron Collider. She shared some of the writing she has been doing for the DOE (which I mistakenly confused with the Dept. of Ed. initially) towards the end of her presentation. She was writing for them about the “benefits of particle physics research” which is a subject that arises frequently in my class. I hear something like “Mr. Bowie, isn’t this just an enormous waste of money?”
Dr. Rizatdinova talked extensively about what the questions the LHC is trying to answer (see previous post). This was the deepest part of the presentation and was probably a little above level of my students (but if I don’t set the bar high, they won’t achieve as much, right?). At the end, she took some questions which was really good for the students. I’m glad they have some opportunities to interact with college professors/scientists.
There wasn’t really any ground-breaking material in her talk. I have been keeping up with the goings-on of the LHC recently and did some research over the summer with Dr. Rizatdinova, so much of this was a review for me. I’m not sure how the students will react to it, I’ll try to get some feedback tomorrow. I was simply excited about having a real, live scientist in my classroom and wanted to share the experience!
