YouTube Learner

Pivot tables, motion charts, canned responses, oh my...

I've been working on becoming a Google Certified Educator for a couple of months now.  After breezing through Level 1, I became stuck in Level 2, and thinking I could just plow ahead, I took the Level 2 test and failed.  When there's any kind of fee involved in learning, which each level test has, I hate to pay and fail.  So, of course like anyone else, my first question after getting my results is, "Why?"  I want feedback.  And the dreaded pivot tables, motion charts, and canned responses are sinking me.  But when I click on the links in the training units to learn more, it's a help sheet of text.  Not that I'm opposed to learning this way, but it's not learning that sticks with me in this way.  

I know my dominant learning style, being visual and kinesthetic, so I'm a YouTube Learner.  I need to see it, do some, then see some more, then do some more.  Initially, I didn't take the time to look for solid videos to learn these concepts thinking they wouldn't be so important, but alas, I found otherwise.  

So now, I watch, do, study, then test again in a bit.  But at the end of the day, the lesson I try to impart to my own children, is to never give up.  Just because you hit a bump in the road or don't understand something, don't give up.  It may be the 2nd or 100th time that doing something will result in success, but don't give up.  Just try to learn the lesson a different way, which is what I'm doing.

In this experience though, it reminds me to meet our students where they are and in the learning styles they need to succeed.  We need to adapt, revise, and continue on, but never give up.

Critics

I must admit, I've started and stopped this post on four different occasions now, just trying to process my thoughts and how to say what I wanted to say without being all negative, because after all the idea of criticism or critics, isn't a popular or positive one.

When my husband and I began serving as the Children's Pastor at our small church 8 years ago now, our Head Pastor's words to us were, "When you're in leadership, everyone will have a better way for you to do things."  These words translate to every type of leadership role I can imagine or have ever been in.

What I've experienced is that no matter your role, there will be critics.  As a Teacher, an Instructional Specialist, and now Testing Coordinator, there are those who will be a critic or tell you how to do your job differently, aka "better".  But something else I've recently come to realize is that, as an administrator, the same is also true.

I had the opportunity recently to attend a district training with both my AP's and our Diagnostician.  During lunch, I watched one of our APs deal with a crisis back at school, by phone, while trying to eat.  Now, mind you, I told my husband when we got married nearly 17 years ago, "I don't understand subtlety, so don't use it on me."  But over the years, I learned to read body expressions, and man, I could tell that this AP was having a time on the phone and trying to eat simultaneously.  Not a fun position to be in.  Once the crisis was done, my question to both my APs was this, "How do you make that mental division of school and home/life?"  You see, administrators are just like teachers and any other professional, they have a life outside work, so how does one just simply "turn it off"?  Their response?  Choices...sounds so simple, but not so.  They make a conscious choice to not check email, leave tomorrow's work for tomorrow, set a schedule and live by it faithfully, but to also be flexible, and lastly to make their families a priority after school hours.  To be fully present wherever they are.  So, then my question to myself becomes, "How do they deal with all the critics?"  And my answer is again, it comes down to choices.  We have the choice to let someone bother us or not.  We can let criticism roll off like water on a duck's back or let it set in and steep in our bones.  We can let it ruin our day/week/month, or not.  Choices, plain and simple, not always easy, but necessary.

15 Hours a Week

I heard a quote this morning on our announcements that said, "If you want to go quick, go alone and if you want to go far, go together."  It kind of struck me as odd.  When given the option to work in a group or work alone, I would choose alone, due to being done wrong so many times in groups.  But I understand that later part of that quote, that if you want to go far, go together.  But I want to go far with my family.

This past weekend at my church we had a community outreach as a Halloween alternative and as my husband and I served together to man a game booth, my children got to visit the games on their own without Mom or Dad.  It really reminded me that there needs to be a balance between what we do for others and what we do for our first loves, our first ministry, our family.  Am I going far with my family or just giving them leftovers from my days?

My school is 22 miles from home.  I've been there 13 years now and each year it seems like my drive has gotten longer and longer due to construction, growth, new homes, etc.  The number of stops I make each morning has not increased, but the time to do these often takes 90 minutes in the morning and just as long in the afternoon to get back home.  I can count at least 6 routes to school, but none is direct.  So, when I add it all up, it takes me 15 hours a week to commute back and forth to school.  In all these years at my campus, I've been tremendously blessed with Grandma care for the last 11 years as I've had a little one and for that I'm eternally grateful to have had one on one, loving care.  It's been a choice to drive this distance for my kids and my family.  It is very important to me to give my kids a stability in their education and as my oldest nears her senior year and begins driving, while my last one moves through Kindergarten, it leaves me in a quandary.  Do I pursue the admin route with all my education, certification, and training in place or do I go back to the classroom and implement so many things that I've had the opportunity to observe and learn from others in my support roles?  In either event, I am certain of only one thing and that is that I want my commute to be no more than a total of 5 hours a week.  I want 10 hours of my life back each week to put that time into other parts of my life outside of school.  I want to be home before dark so my kids can know our neighbors, can spend time together (outside of our van) as a family, with extended family, and with our church family.

So this post may not be encouraging to anyone in particular, just simply a reflection of my current state.  If anything can be taken away from all this, is that we all have choices.  You, me, we, are not stuck in any particular situation.  No one is guaranteed tomorrow, so how will we choose to use the time we have on this planet?  Who will get your time?  I only know that I don't want driving to get my time.  I want my family to get more of me.

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More Than Just "Making It"

Yesterday I saw someone I hadn't seen in quite some time and as usual, the question gets asked, "How are you doing?"  My standard response is "I'm making it." And when I saw her face after saying that, I could tell that I was being a "Debbie Downer" to her at that moment with my response.

At my school, we used to have a teacher that when asked the same question, would always reply with "Living the dream, living the dream!"  It would catch me off guard and make me think, "Yeah, you know any day above ground is a good day!"  I've taken to ending any email I send out with a salutation which reads, "Have a blessed day!" and I truly hope that whoever reads it does.

As I've stated in some other blog posts, teaching is a ridiculously hard profession.  Things change rapidly, day to day, even moment to moment in a class period, and there is an almost unreasonable amount of stress that comes with educating students, communicating with families, and just staying current on content and other things.  So, shouldn't we do everything in our power to build each other up instead of tear down?

I'm not sure what season your staff are in where you are, and I don't mean literal season like spring, summer, winter, or fall, but encouragement, disillusion, reenergized, defeated, etc.  But it seems that during this time of the school year and during the middle of the spring semester too, that we as teachers get weary, worn out, feeling defeated and we need to be encouraged daily.  Some folks are born encouragers who leave you feeling better for just seeing them, knowing them, listening to them, etc.  Some folks are not and need to be encouraged.  I think we all fall into both of these categories depending on the season of life we are in.  We need to "carry our own weather" as The Leader in Me program says.  We need to "be kinder than required at all times" as I saw posted in a class at my school.  We should not be merely surviving, not just "making it", but thriving.  The moment we are just surviving, we need to seek out those born encouragers, but not to be their Debbie Downers, but to get some refreshment so we can always give our students our best effort and not just a partial effort.  I hope you are more than just "making it".  I hope you are thriving.  I hope you are helping others to thrive and speaking life into them.

Maybe you need some Educational Reassurance?

Maybe we just need to count our blessings and Find Some Good?

Maybe you need some Twitter-ment or help finding your marigold to encourage you?

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The Great Irony

As a teacher in the classroom every day, I knew my students better than anyone.  I knew what made them tick, what motivated them, how they processed information, how they learned best, etc.  I knew my kiddos better than anyone.  

As an instructional coach for the past four years, I experienced walking that delicate balance between administrator {which I am not} and support teacher {which I am always}.  I could observe in a class, help you figure out how to work certain aspects into your day, how to help you manage your students, group them, arrange your class to run more effectively and efficiently, etc, but I could and will never pretend to tell you how to teach your students, because you, the teacher, know the needs of your students better than any data report I can pull, better than any observational time.  I could coach you into more sound pedagogy practices, but not teach for you. 

So, herein lies the great irony.  As a teacher, we are told by so many to "Do what's best for your students.  You know them best."  But we are also told, "You must teach this concept this way, and don't deviate from this curriculum."  "We must do it the way the district folks say so."  And as a teacher, we're left wondering if I should just do what I know to be best for my students or choose to do it the way I'm told and prescribed and not rock that proverbial boat.  If I step out of that boat and make waves and I fail, well then I get laughed at, penalized, talked badly about.  But if I step out of that boat and I succeed, then others want to emulate it and I become a "success story."  So, what's a teacher to do?

I will never pretend to know what the perfect, right answer is.  But I completely understand the great irony and know that each teacher has to make that choice daily to do in their heart what is right to help their students succeed or do what is told so as not to cause problems.  What I am certain of, is that no one person, not even a team of folks can make a single curriculum, single lesson, a single strategy that will work for everyone.  In my district we are nearing 120,000 students, so no way can something work for every student.  That's why we need caring, daring, studious teachers to take the time necessary to never give up on a single student and keep trying, keep motivating, keep changing till they "get it", and keep pouring into our students every day.  I always try to keep in mind the thought that if this were my own child, how would I want them treated.  Having three kiddos (Kindergarten, 6th gr, and 11th grade), I know and understand that what works for one may or may not work for the other.  

I know I'm not alone in this great irony.  It's one the echoes through the generations, across socioeconomic statuses, and across the country and world.  And I know that it won't soon go away.  So to each teacher I say, study your students, learn what makes them them, and never give up.

Why Blog?

I started really being faithful in blogging this summer as a challenge from Kasey Bell on her blog.  I wrote about it in a previous post.  

I am a total Math/Science person at heart.  Structure, logical thinking, numbers, black and white thinking.  But, I am also a person who reflects.  I don't have a quick wit.  I so often think of what I should have said or done long after something has happened.  So, blogging affords me the opportunity to stop and think about my own learning and experiences and then become intentional about choosing my words and thoughts carefully.  It also allows me to link my learning from a variety of places to a post so that I can find it later.  

Blogging isn't for everyone, but reflecting should be.  When I blog, I'm putting all my thoughts and written words out there for others to read and then make their own opinions about me and I have to say that not all my blog posts have been met with smiles, but with each one, I learn something.  Reflecting should be a natural extension of our education.  We do something, we reflect, we learn from it, and then we change something about what we do for the next time.  Most teachers who have multiple classes see this in their day to day teaching, where they do something in their first class and depending on how well it went or if kiddos are "getting it", they change their strategy or activity.  So blogging is to me.  I write something, I reflect, then I take time to do something different  from then on.  I think we should be teaching our students how to do this too and giving them an opportunity daily to not only reflect upon their learning, but upon their day, their choices, etc so that in this they can learn to become deeper thinkers, and deeper learners.

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I hope you take time today, this week, this month, this school year to really reflect.  As one of my Master's Professors said, "We are in the business of practicing our craft."  Which to me means, we are practicing, constantly learning from, modifying, changing what we do to better ourselves and what we do to help our students and staff.  We will never perfect it, because we are reflecting and learning continuously.

"Fostering Reflection" ASCD Article by Lana Danielson

"What Meaningful Reflection on Student Work can do for Learning" by MindShift

Just 4 Fun

Part of my becoming more balanced this school year, includes doing things just for fun.  My husband is teaching me this one.  I am a total cheap skate, so much that he can hear Lincoln screaming from the penny.  I budget to the point that I'd rather eat ramen noodles for lunch rather than order out for a birthday celebration.  But this weekend, my family had the privilege of walking/running the Color Run Houston, seeing a movie, and spending time together.  I realize that not everything fun has to cost money, but this weekend it did.  And we had a blast!  Doing things just for fun might be different for you and your family, but I'm learning that we all need things that are just 4 fun.  

I didn't become an avid reader until I was an adult, already in my career of education for 5 years.  I know this may sound crazy, but it's just the honest truth.  I read because I had to, because there was an assignment attached to it, a grade with it.  You get the point.  My middle daughter who was due in early May, leaving me plenty of time to rest and then teach summer school that year, didn't arrive until May 24th, so I was instructed by my district that I was a liability so stay home.  So, after having her, and buying and moving into our very first home 2 days later, what was I to do?  A former teaching partner of mine recommended a young adult book called The Skin I'm In by Sharon Flake and I was hooked.  I went on to read Money Hungry by the same author that summer.  And when I was done with those two, I became very restless.  I've already said that I have a really hard time just sitting still, so I gave this friend a call and said, "What else do you have?  What do you recommend I read next?"  She recommended Janet Evanovich, who writes mystery/romance and I spent that summer reading everything she had written up to that point.  See, I had just not found a genre that really connected with me or a book I liked.  It wasn't that I had more time on my hands, having my second child and my older one being 5 years old and moving into our first home, I certainly had plenty to do, but this joy of reading became something to me that was just for me, just for fun.  Nowadays, I'm an avid reader who consumes nearly 100 books a year and I love every minute of them.  I'm grateful for someone taking time to listen to me, find out what I like and recommend stories to me!

Tonight as I sat at dinner, my oldest, who is now 16, relayed the same feeling I had all those years ago.  She loves to read.  All my girls do, and for that I'm grateful!  They always have a book nearby and usually carry one when we go places so they can sneak in some reading time on the road, waiting in lines, etc.  But she told me that she hates it when it's attached to an assignment or has a grade dependent on it.  Makes me sad that this is what reading has become so often.  It reminded me of an article I read this summer that I discovered through Twitter, called "At Any Given Moment We Have the Power to Stop the Hatred of Reading" by Pernille Ripp.  I hope you take some time to read her blog post and reflect on our teaching practices of reading and find ways to help kids LOVE reading.  And I hope you take time to discover something for yourself that is just for you, just for fun!