From one of the books I read this summer–
“This makes it clear that the brand name alone of a program is not the predictor of success, but rather the professional practices employed by teachers and leaders in the building.”
I have always believed in this 100%. You can have a great program that is glossy and all. If you do not have the people, you are out of luck. I have always been about creating programs with the people we have in the school. We know our own kids the best. Sure, there are great “programs” out there, but tread lightly. It always comes back to the people.
If given the choice between a great staff and a great program the choice seems clear. The teachers, staff andleaders are what make a great school.
I wrote about this in an earlier post, but felt the need to re-post as we are gearing up for the new year. I think we all know this already, but the quote in the book reafirmed it for me!
I was walking around classrooms during our first week back. I enjoyed all of the lessons and great things going on in our teacher’s classrooms. One thing really caught my attention.
I went in a 6th grade social studies room to collect a paper. There were not any students in the room, but the teacher had a satellite image of our school displayed on his Smart Board. We started to talk and I shared how I used that as well when I was teaching technology a few years back.
Being it was the first day of school, he was using it to show the brand new 6th graders where things are at our school. He was pointing out where they go in the morning, during lunch, etc… It kind of gave his classes a “leg up” as they were facing a scary new school!
What a great intro he was using to the world of satellite images. If I was teaching geography I would be chomping at the bit to use google maps and all of the other imaging toys! Talk about engaging students. While they are learning about just about any place in the world, they can go there through these images. Great job, Mr. Majors!
Thanks Scott at Dangerously Irrelevant. I have been awarded the shiny Fantastic Commentator Award!
While I enjoy hosting my own blog, comments are the heart of blogs. I think what drives many of us to blogs, is the interactive nature of them. I like posting my thoughts and musings, but the conversation is the key for me. Reading and leaving comments on blogs allows me to learn so much more from other people.
Curriculum Mapping
I have actually been somewhat neglecting my blog these past two weeks. We started classes this week and we all know how busy this time of the year can be! My district is placing heavy emphasis on curriculum mapping this year. I had some experience with it in Florida, but it is being instituted district wide here. I think it has powerful potential.
We have all seen the comparisons of U.S. schools to other nations (Think TIMMS). It seems other countries focus their instruction so much more. Our books are shiny and expensive but way to BIG!! When I look at our text books it is almost funny that we expect our kids to be able to learn all of the information in them each year. The problem is some teachers still rely on the text book as their main teaching tool. We need to get away from that!
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“Understanding the demographics of your community is important, but understanding the culture of your community is even more important.”
This has nothing to do with the theme of this blog, but I think it is important. It seems like there have been many, many toys recalled due to health hazards of late (about 8 million!). If you are a parent or work with small children please take a look at the recalled list.
Our teachers come back tomorrow and we are ready! The master schedule was finally completed today (actually, the 6th and 8th grade has been completed for a few days). I feel like I can breathe once again. We were trying to do some innovative scheduling with our 7th graders. It entailed hand scheduling the entire 7th grade a few times as we were trying to make it work. In the end, it did not work as we had planned, but we did try!
In a nutshell, we were trying to do a hybrid high school/middle school schedule to allow for movement through our different levels of math. Our goal was to keep the team concept, except for math, so changing math levels would not disrupt the student’s entire schedule. The goal was great, but in practice we could just not get it to work.
I always look forward to the first day for teachers. Enthusiam is up and everyone is ready to get back in there. Good luck to everyone as we get ramped back up!
“Information is not knowledge”.
–Albert Einstein
“Knowledge is power.” It sounds great, but knowledge is pretty useless if you do not know how to use it. The connections to education are numerous. If a person has all of the knowledge in the world, are they really better off? Not if they do not have the tools to use it.
Curriculum
Schools need to develop thinkers and problem solvers. This is not anything sage like or cutting edge, but what are schools doing about it? We need to find ways to allow our students to discover and apply new knowledge. I hope my child learns all sorts of things in school, but he must learn how to process the information and problem solve. We need to teach our students how to work with others and forge relationships. I think many schools are missing the boat on this one.
We need to prepare our kids to work with others (not just assigning group work!), build relationships and connections, and think on their own. If I were a business owner, I would want employees who can solve problems, forge relationships with customers and work on their own. I guess it would be great if they could do trig and know who won the Prussian War, but would it be necessary to job performance?
School reform should be focused on preparing our children for their future. I am not sure that our current model of education is meeting the needs of our customers (students). I do not pretend to have the answers, but I know we need to be asking this question.
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Cross Posted at Leader Talk
I am for increased accountability in education. I think it is guiding us in the right direction. I see the value of state “super” tests and the magnitude they hold. Is it perfect? No, not by any stretch of the imagination. The question that hits me is what are we trading off for this increased emphasis on accountability?
One of my goals as an educator is to teach our children to become productive members of society. My main goal is to increase their achievement levels in all subject areas. I also see the glaring need to guide them to appreciate the importance of giving back to society. I show the students that no matter how little they may have they can impact the world.
Many of our students do not see community service first hand. They are missing out on the rewarding experience of giving back. As educators, I think we owe it to our kids and society to expose them to the world of community service. I am not suggesting we require students to simply log 40 hours of service as a diploma requirement. This is what happened to me in school and it did nothing of benefit in the long run. We need to expose our children to exciting and engaging activities for the purpose of helping others, not fulfilling a requirement.
We are currently in the process of revising our advisor/advisee period at our school. Coming from a high school, we did not offer this type of service to our kids. I think it is a great idea and needed at all levels of school. However, I am sure there will be push back as we will be taking time out of the school day from “pure” academics.
The core of the program is developing relationships with our kids. They will have 20 minutes a day to spend in a small group with one teacher. The heart of the program will be the daily interaction between the kid and adult. Most of us had parents that made sure we were ready when we were in school. They made sure we had our home work completed, had the necessary school supplies, taught us how to behave in school and on and on. Many of our kids do not have that at home.
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“It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but rather the one most responsive to change”.
–Charles Darwin
Interesting thought as we push forward with school reform. I think schools are on the right path to start positive change. We need to make sure we continue with the implementation. Talking about the necessity for change is easy–the real test is in the implementation.
