Are Our Classrooms Backwards?

     What does a student centered classroom look like? Imagine a class where a student is teaching you and other students the specifics of a particular app, or piece of technology. Or even better, a student is teaching you about something they are passionate about. This comes from a concept called Genius Hour. 

    Genius hour is a concept where students have an hour out of their day to learn whatever they have a passion for. During this time, the students will spend their time learning about something they have a passion for. This is a project based assignment where the students will get a chance to share with the class about what they have been working on. This sounds like "Show and Tell" to me. I remember I loved "Show and Tell" as a kid, because I had a chance to show off something of mine and potentially learn something cool about someone else's "thing". 

    This is just one way of having a student centered classroom. In the video, Reimagining Classroom: Teachers as Learners and Students as Leaders, a video by TedxFargo, Kayla Delzer speaks about the knowledge road block we can be as teachers. Years ago, without the technology we have today, teachers had to be the experts in everything they taught. They were the gatekeepers of knowledge. With the advancement of technology, we have so much knowledge at our fingertips. The phones we carry in our pockets have access to so much more knowledge and we somehow miss the opportunity to leverage this. 

    Many schools have written into their policies that "No Cell Phones Allowed". With the way technology is advancing and making knowledge more accessible, we as teachers do a disservice by not allowing some use of cell phones. There are many great apps that can be used where cell phones are very useful. Instead of being fearful of what kind of trouble students can get into, let's think about all of the possibilities are available at their fingertips, literally with cell phones. 

    Kayla Delzer makes a great point about how much of a disadvantage our students will have when it comes to something basic as getting a job, if they were never allowed to embrace technology and be able to become proficient in it. Let's stop holding our students back because of fear, and let's support them in their passion while they are learning.  

     So, I ran across a website at teacherspayteachers.com probably several years ago while I was in my early years of going back to school. I knew I wanted to be a teacher, and so I became aware of this sit early on. I felt like it was like Pinterest but for teachers (Well kind of). Teacherspayteachers.com is a place for teachers to go and purchase other teachers work as in lesson plans, activities, handouts, and other various education related material. I didn't think about it at the time, but it's also a place for teachers to earn some extra income by selling their work to other teachers. 

    I have some positive feelings about it and also some negative feelings about it as well. The positive feelings I have far outweigh the negative feelings I have. First, I think this site is a great way to get inspiration and legally use the work of other teachers, as long as you are paying for the material you are using. Second, I think this is a great way to earn some extra money passively with work that you have already spent lots of time doing. This is a great way to get paid while helping other teachers out. Third, I really like the creativity many of these teachers have. I fell like I'm pretty creative, but some of the work I've seen on this site far exceeds the handouts and worksheets I grew up getting in school. Much of the work that's for sale on this site really make learning fun and interesting. 

    Now, the only real negative I have with this site, (and it's not really a negative) is that we really shouldn't be relying solely on someone else's work to teach our students. At some point, you will have to know how to teach and use your own creativity. The lessons, worksheets, handouts etc. should be a supplement to the lessons you have for your students. 

    The resources teachers have now because of the internet is so abundant. I am looking forward to using some of the tools I've learned in my Technology for Teaching class. With the direction education is taking, especially with the fast track of remote learning because of a pandemic, these tools will help to shape the education system and take education to another level. 

    I remember when my daughter asked, "Dad, do you think learning online will be the new normal?" To which I replied with, "well at one time, all the kids in the school shared a room and had one teacher and that was their normal. It is a good thing to be changing and evolving to make sure students get the best education possible" 

Is all advice good advice? 

In a slide show that I just recently read, there were so many different pieces of advice for new teachers. In fact, much of the advice is good for any teacher. Teaching can be such a thankless job, and burnout is a real concern of those teachers who have been at it for quite a while. While I'm still in school to become a teacher, I have been silently collecting tips, tricks and advice to help with my teaching experience. This slideshow was jam packed with information that would definitely help. 

I seemed to write down many of the good advice early on in the slideshow, but soon found myself overwhelmed with all of the advice. The general ideas I took from all of the advice given were on burnout, asking for help, and don't be fake. There was one piece of advice that I did not happen to agree with, and believe it or not, it was the first piece of advice in the slideshow. I will get more into that in a moment. 

As far as burnout, I hear that it is important to make time for yourself, and don't expect to do everything perfect the first time around. One of the pieces of advice that was given was to do one thing exceptional and the rest you can "get by". After you've mastered the one thing exceptional, you can introduce another thing to do exceptional. You've got a lifetime to perfect your teaching style. 

The next idea I was catching on to was the idea to not be afraid to ask for help. It is also ok to not know all of the answers for the students. This will give you an opportunity to show by example how you find information and how you continue to learn even as a teacher. It is also perfectly acceptable to ask your colleagues for help. When you are clueless about something and your neighbor teacher can help, why wouldn't you  reach out.  

The last good piece of advice topic I was seeing had to do with being real. Fake character may be overlooked at the younger grade levels, but in 4th, 5th, middle school and up, being fake will strip you of the respect of your students. Your students see right through the fakeness, and you will quickly lose respect. You don't have to be their best friend, (btw, that's fake also), but you can be real and true to them as people. 

There was one more piece of advice that I found helpful and was a theme among the slideshow I read. Do whatever you can to create a sense of community. You have a community in your classroom with you and your students, and you have a community amongst your colleagues and departments. Your school is also another community that you play an important role in participating in. 

Now, the not so good advice that I took away from this slideshow is "your first year of teaching is a throw away year." I was immediately put off by this, because I believe you can make your first year what you want to make it. I can say that I have worked my butt off and have been through so much to say that my first year teaching is a throwaway year just encourages me to make my first year teaching amazing and productive. 

I guess that's why they call it advice. We have the choice to follow it or not. I hear tons of great advice from seasoned teachers and I know they have worked just as hard as I have, and some of them have earned the respect of me to listen to them and heed their advice. 

"Life is created according to the talents you discover," a quote by Sir Ken Robinson in his TEDx Talk "Life is Your Talents Discovered". Sir Ken Robinson recalls his conversations with Paul McCartney, a singer for the band the Beatles, where Sir Ken Robinson asks if Paul's band teacher thought he was talented. He went on again to ask if the band teacher thought George Harrison had any talent to which Paul replied "No". Jokingly he says that the band teacher didn't ever realize that they had half of the band the Beatles in their class. This proves that our talents need to be discovered and as a teacher, we are here to help discover those talents. 

    We as teacher's have our next generation leaders, artists, musicians, athletes, and scientists passing through our classrooms. All of which have talents waiting to be discovered. It's one thing for someone to discover their own talents, but it takes a great teacher to help draw out those talents. 

    Growing up in school, I definitely had teachers who were more engaged than others. I remember my math teacher who inspired me to do more than I felt I was capable of. I started high school as a freshman in remedial math, because of the choices I made during middle school. When I was a junior, I walked into the classroom of Mr. Stepp. He was my algebra 2 teacher. I knew that the trajectory I was headed, I would only make it to pre-calculus before leaving high school. He saw the potential in me, and even though I wasn't going to move up into higher math classes, he helped me discover my love for math, and I made it into honors algebra 2 that year, and then honors pre-calculus. 

    One of the things that helped encourage me, was someone believing in me even when I didn't believe in myself. As a future teacher myself, I want to realize the potential in all students and help to draw the confidence and talents out to help discover those talents in our students. 

Sir Ken Robinson's TEDx Talk can be found here: https://youtu.be/FLbXrNGVXfE

     While I was watching the talk, "Trouble Online: Campus Computing and the Law" presented by C.L. Lindsay III, I had a few thoughts on the idea of plagiarism being a business. The idea of selling written works for the purposes of helping students in their classes being a big business blows my mind. I knew that plagiarism happens, but to the degree that C.L.Lindsay described is incredible. The business not only makes money on you for selling you a paper, but to extort more money from you by threatening to rat you out to your school is crazy to think. I was taken a back being naïve about things like this, but it sure makes me think to not put it past people to think of things like this. 

    Some of simplest and yet best advice Lindsay gives in his talk is, "If something is not alright to do in real life, it's not alright to do online." This advice is a reminder that we are not safe in our own home behind a computer screen doing things we're not supposed to be doing. I know illegal online activity happens and this litmus test of choices helps me to stay far away from it. 

The video described in this post can be found here: https://cdnapisec.kaltura.com/index.php/extwidget/preview/partner_id/1371761/uiconf_id/13362791/entry_id/1_0wn0c02h/embed/dynamic