10 things I have learned part 2: Fun and Inspiration

Without doubt, teaching is a two way street. As much as I put in, I get out. Believe it or not, it took me a few years to realize that. Back in 2003, I was getting burnt out. The workload, hours, negativity about education in the press, micromanagement of my principal at the time... all these things drained my soul. It wasn't until I taught "the worst class" in the school (math 9 core), that I finally got it.

The class was full of grade 11's who still hadn't passed grade 9 math. Most were category R or H. both behavior categorizations (the joke they stand for rotten and horrible) plus a learning difficulty. They all struggled with the basics... even simple things such as multiplication tables, adding, measuring, etc... I started out doing the traditional model: Lecture, work through some problems, practice, wrap up, etc... I never had a class go south faster than this one. It was like watching a clown car drive up and 20 clowns pile up all the time time march of the gladiators playing in the background.



Needless to say, we shifted gears fast. We started having fun with math... having multiplication races & doing activities like "how many meter sticks would it take to fill this class".What happened was special... They started to learn about math and I started to learn about them. We bonded as a class... They had fun and in turn, they inspired me.

From the "worst class" I ever taught

We as teachers often talk about the inspiration that we deliver to kids.... buts lets not forget the inspiration we get from them.

10 things I have learned part 1: Relationships

If I was to go into the PDP program at SFU, UBC or UVic, the first thing I would say is: "Relationships will be the bedrock of your teaching experience". I don't know a single master teacher that doesn't make profound connections with kids. But I would also tell them that they don't all have to be like Robin Williams in Dead Poet Society.



I would bring in one of my favorite people in the world to prove my point. Carlo Muro, a math teacher at Riverside Secondary, could be seen as my polar opposite.

Carlo winning BC Coach of the Year

He is quiet, shy, thoughtful, jittery, kind, contentious and possible the most angelic man I know (Sorry @braabe but Carlo has you beat). He teaches all class, lectures, give exams after school and is probably the greatest math teacher I have ever met. Beyond our dissimilar techniques, what I admire about Carlo (and what I hope to become better at every year) is his ability to make profound connections with kids. We have teachers at Riverside who Carlo taught, coached and mentored and he is adored. He would never have kids stand on a table and shout out the quadratic equation or boast about his success... he would ask how their day was, what they learned, how their basketball game went. He would show up to a basketball game to see one of students play...then he would show up to the next. Carlo (and I think every great teacher) understands that forming and maintaining relationships takes work.

When you have those relationships in place, your classroom management becomes easier & your interactions with everyone (parents, students, staff, etc...) become more comfortable. It's not a hard thing to do but like any other skill, it takes both effort and time.

You have to give up some of your time to make a difference... and that sacrifice is hard sometimes. Missing out on your family time to see a student's basketball game is hard but its easier when you make it a family activity :) It takes effort to know students not in your class, but walking down the hallways and saying "Hi" to any kid in your school is a reward in itself.

So to all you new teachers out there... build profound relationships with kids. Be that teacher that you remember from school, the one who made you want to become a teacher (thank you Mr. Carillo!)

10 years of teaching - 10 things I have learned

I just completed my first of 10 years of teaching. 1/3 of my professional career is done... That's a daunting thought! You'd think I would be smarter than I am after all that time, but I still make stupid mistakes, put my foot in my mouth and step on people toes all too much. For all of that, I have learned a few things...

1) Relationships matter more than anything else.
2) Inspiration and fun are intimately related.
3) Great principals DO make a difference.
4) Great team members can excite you.
5) Correct and Reflect 
6) Be prepared for ups and downs
7) No surprises
8) If you don't love what you are doing.... do something else
9) Teaching is more than standing in front of a class... be a school teacher
10) What I have learned part 10: Mentorship leads to innovation

I will be doing a series on these points over the summer. Kind of a way to keep my mind active and reflect on the last 10 years of my life!

-Browner

My Goals - did I make it?

Last year I made a post about my goals for the year. Well...the school year is almost over...lets see how I did :)


Here was my list:


1. Use more integrated resources in my everyday lessons

- Well, I did...but not in the way I imagined I would. I thought I would use technology more in my everyday classes (Chemistry 11) but instead I used more manipulatives, demos, and then some tech like twitter, youtube, phet, etc... 

2. Do more labs

- Accomplished this goal. added 7 more hands on activities/labs to the class

3. Do a better job communicating with parents...and not just the bad stuff. I want to call up a parent to say "your kid did a great job!"

- Yes and No... I communicated with parents more, but I still fell short when the kids did well. I need to work on this more.

4. Know more kids in my school.

- Made great strides here. I made a conscious effort to say hi/good morning/how was your weekend/need some help to as many kids as I could on a daily basis. 

5. Go to more school sports and support my students

- Failed miserably - having a kid during winter sport season killed this one :)

6. Be passionate about more stuff

- I found and lost and found my passion again throughout the year. As always, it was collaborating with other, when I felt the spark most (thank you PLN =D )

So, overall, I think I did pretty well this year. Starting to make my list for next year already! 

My question to you is: What did you set out to do? Did you accomplish it? Where did you fail? 

Why I don't like black and white statements....

When I was a kid, I grew up in a small community. I had a simplistic view on life... If work needed to be done, you did it... If Old Yeller needed to be put down, you manned up, grabbed your gun and shot your best friend. Unfortunately, when I became a teacher, life started to throw me problems that didn't have a single answer. Life was more gray and situations were more complex than I ever thought. A Professor once told me problems were either simple, ugly, horrible or good luck fixing and only the simple ones had an easy answer. So, I learned to develop a set of skills that allowed me to look at each instance and make better and better judgement calls.

Since then, I have lost patience with black and white thinking...

I understand when kids still see the world in this way... they haven't developed a sense of the complexity of life. But when adults make statements that are simplistic and damaging, I take offence (trying to not to say bad words). Some of you might remember my tirade over Tom Schimmer's Pro-D. His message challenged the teachers in the building to be progressive... what it accomplished was pissing off a lot of people who were already doing the right thing. Statements like: "QUALITY should trump TIMELINESS!" aren't helpful. Why even make this statement? Why just not say, timeliness doesn't matter? Instead say: "good practice in assessment and instruction will always improve the learning and therefore the works produced by your students" or "both quality and timeliness are vital and not mutually exclusive"? 

So my point is the following... be careful with your glib black and white statements. Be especially careful about making simplistic statements when you are talking about a complex problem... I expect better from the so called experts in the field of education....

 

I think Robert Frost was almost a 21st Century thinker....

The masterpeice by Robert Frost: The Road not taken:

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood
and sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveller, long I stood
and looked down one as far as I could
to where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
and having perhaps the better claim
because it was grassy and wanted wear;
though as for that, the passing there
had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
in leaves no feet had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I --
I took the one less travelled by,
and that has made all the difference

I read this... then watch this:

I am starting to think, that its not the road less taken, or even the road he didn't take...but instead, its the infinite possibilities ahead of us. I love being a learner in the 21st Century!!!



I think the poem should start and end:

Infinite roads diverge, then converge in a yellow wood... and I finally found one (or forty) that worked for me!

When the model for the delivery of Professional Development gets in the way...

Over this last week, I had the opportunity to be a part of three consecutive Professional Development Days. Each one was very different from the other...

Day 1: Presenter: Ruth Sutton - Best Teaching Practices, 4 Schools and approx. 300+ teachers in Heritage Woods Secondary Gymnasium.

Pros - Expert in the Field, Engaging, 3-4 good points about how to help students assess their own work

Cons - Huge group of people with varying levels of interest and background in the subject area, no differentiation of learning, barrage of information with little or no time for process.

Day 2: Presenter: Jeremy Brown (me) - Streamlining Online Involvement using Twitter and Google Reader #risdeprod. 13 people in a small room at Riverside Secondary.

Pros - Small group, great collaboration, chunked learning, lots of play time

Cons - Small group, how do you get more people involved? How do you keep that collaboration going?

Day 3: Presenter (multiple including Chris Kennedy) - TedxUBC - Fast Forward Education approx 100 people at UBC on Robson. 

Pros - short talks (20 minutes), high level presenters who are experts in a field, collaboration among physical and virtual participants 

Cons - Overload of information, no time to question or plan, little time to process that much information, only decaf coffee left after first break! 

Somewhere mixed in among these three days is the power behind Professional Development. Each of these days has a piece of the puzzle –pre-learning, experts leading, small targeted groups, collaboration & clearly defined, attainable goals. 

How I would Fix a Pro-D day for everyone:

1.       Prep it up – You need to get your staff together on the same page. Start a study group! Every Wednesday morning before school, bring donuts and coffee, order some books and talk about what you just read! Try The Big Picture by Dennis Littky, Blink by Malcolm Gladwell or Something from Fullen/Hargraves or DeFour.

2.       Experts - We still need experts in the field to teach/lead us. What we don't need, is an expert talking at us for 5 hours. We need the background, research and then some guidance where to go next or how to apply it to practice. Don't talk longer than 1 1/2 hours...MAX! If you are speaking longer than that you have lost a majority of your audience. Would you ever lecture a class for that long? Experts/Presenters need to start leading by example.

3.       Small Targeted Groups (this is the big one) - We all know that we can get lost in a crowd. There is little or no accountability and it is way too easy to get off task. When you have a small, targeted group, you have a group of individuals who are at the same level of interest/ability level. When I am teaching Chemistry and a group of students are struggling with a concept, I bring them up to the board as a group. I don't understand why we don't do this type of targeted instruction with teachers. Michelle Ciolfitto, from Heritage Woods Secondary, does this amazing activity with highlighters. As she walks by a student, she will use one of three highlighters to mark a student’s work. 

a.       If they have mastered the concept that they are working on, they get a yellow tag (happy).

b.      If they almost have the concept they get a pink mark (I think [pink] I got it) and continue to work on it with others until they have mastery.

c.       If they really don't get it, they get a blue mark and they can work in a small group with her.

Simple, good instructional techniques that work with adults and kids. Group people by ability and interest and you can focus your resources where they are needed.

4.       Collaboration – “Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success.” Henry Ford.  Every principal will tell you, after a staff meeting, that teachers the worst audience in the world (well almost… a group of principals is even worse). We yearn to collaborate but so rarely get the chance.  During a Pro-D day, have your teachers tweet about their experiences, thoughts, and impressions as it happens. Have a twitter search tag like #rsideprod and collaborate. Bring those discussions to your next staff meeting or study group.

5.       Defined and Attainable Goals for the day: Write some “I can” or “I understand” statements. For my day, I did “I can tweet, use hashtags and create a PLN”. I had 3 others, and by the end of the day, it gave some structure to the day and clarified the goals. I think the pictures say it all.

Even though this post has nothing to do with the content of the Pro-D, I find that is seldom the problem. The structure in which we deliver it needs to be reformed and changed because it is getting in the way of good instruction. These are my thoughts…what are yours?