Tuesday July 3, 2007

So today was the last day and I have to say that my small group was awesome. You can see them in the above picture. They were truly awesome and they are awesome people.

The top row from left is: me, Josh, Melindah (sp?), Stephanie, Ryan, John Aleksak
The bottom row from left is: Daniel, Carol, Tom, Denise, Don, Julia, Brian

They were from upstate New York, the Bronx, San Diego, New Orleans, and San Francisco, in no particular order. Just to protect their privacy, their last names and schools have not been listed.

Also, on the last day we had a session with Ted and Nancy Sizer, who are very prominent leaders in progressive education. So I learned from them also. There's a picture above of me asking them questions.

So here are things that I will take away from the seminar:

-I need to set up individual learning plans for many of my students who may take a longer road to college.
-Help instill the belief that each student should have their own individual tracking
-Respect each student's journey
-Understand that the achievement vs. equity balance isn't necessarily a battle but something we need to balance as a school
-We need a more precise description of PBL.
-Assess the effect of PBL.
-I need to be a part of team leadership and help the leadership team more proactively
-I need to see what the gap between my vision and practice is and work on the gap.
-I need to work on strategies that will help me reach lower-skilled students.
-I need to help install protocols that are valuable for our school.

Monday July 2, 2007

Okay, so the last two days of our scheduled sessions had mostly to do with our problem statements. And they told us to think about our problem statements through the course of the seminar. The thing is, most of the time I felt like I was absorbing the various insights of experts that came to speak to us about educational reform. But after a little thought the problem statement I came to the table with was:

1) What strategies (as a teacher) do I use to reach lower-level students?

2) How do you (as a teacher) help install protocols to pass on the school's vision?

The areas that directly affected my own teaching were the following:
-Leadership Skills
-Graduation Portfolio
-Internships
-Graduation

As one of the few teachers at this seminar, this problem statement did not relate to most of the people, as they were superintendents, principals, vice-principals, or other administrative people.

So I felt that I couldn't relate my problem statement most of the others at the seminar, but at the same time, the other people's problem statements gave me much insight to what it was like to be on the administrative side of schools and they were vastly different. As I heard more and more people, I felt that the one common thing was that the educational institutions we all worked in isolated people into the "admin-side" or "teaching-side".

We didn't come to solutions on how to make people see each others' sides, but it is something that needs to be discussed within education. Also, I feel that teachers need to be more aware of what happens in a principal's day-to-day routine and vice-versa.

I can go into all the various things that teachers and administration people need to see about each other, but it would be a long list and I being a little lazy about it. But it's something that needs to happen so that teachers understand how much not doing grades on time affect a principal's week. At the same time, the principal may need to understand that a teacher will not be absolutely engaged in a professional development day when he or she had to deal with a student who was either a disciplinary problem or a student who is having academic issues.

Sunday July 1, 2007

Today's session had one of the most powerful effects on myself as a person versus an educator. The session started off with Bob Kegan who concentrated the session on transforming our thinking so that we were more open to change. The picture you see above is the metaphor he made about learning. He said that there's a type of learning that is to only inform your mind, but there's the other type that makes learning transformative. So the idea of his session was not to fill our minds with more information, but to expand our minds so that there was the "possibility of the growth of capacity".

The session that we took part in is too long to explain here, but it was an interactive, brainstorm session about our problems as professionals and what to do to help combat our problems. He asked questions like, "what would happen if you actually tried to change your outlook? Would it be as bad as you thought? Or would be better? Or worse? Etc."

At the end of the session, he told a great Russian folk tale that I have to let everyone else know:

There was an old wood chopper going out to chop wood on a chilly, snowy morning. As he goes through the forest looking for the perfect tree to chop, he finds a bird who is cold and freezing. His conscience getting the best of him, he feels the need to pick up the bird and put it inside his coat. So as he keeps trudging along the forest, he finds a tree to chop, but realizes that he would have to put the bird back into the snow in order to chop the tree. So he has a dilemma. Again, his conscience gets the best of him and he now starts looking for a warm place to put the bird. As he looks into the horizon, he sees a herd of cows under the rising sun. So he walks towards the cows and finds a big, warm, steaming piece of cow pie. So he places the bird in it and goes off to chop wood. The bird is so thrilled, that it begins to sing. As the bird sings, a wolf comes by and eats it.

That was the end of the folk tale, but there are three morals to learn:

1) When you are knee-deep in "stuff," it doesn't mean the stuff is your enemy.

2) Someone who plucks you out of the "stuff" isn't necessarily your friend.

3) If you're knee-deep in stuff, don't sing so loudly.

I'll leave it at that.

Saturday June 30, 2007

Today's session started off with Richard Elmore once again and I went into it thinking I wouldn't get a lot out of it, but he connected to much more today with a graph he made which stipulates that as a school garners more technical knowledge more cultural change will occur within the school. I took a picture of it above with Apple's Photobooth, so it is a mirror image of what I had on paper.

Ronald Ferguson was the next seesion and he asked "how do we reach lower-performing students without having philosophical changes?" This is something that did connect to me deeply as it is something that I've had to go through as a teacher in order to be a better teacher for my students. One example is not being so caught up in getting through every little bit of content standard and starting with the student instead. If I can't get a kid to even see that I care, why the hell would he or she listen to me about anything? Is it really more important to force them to learn some boring facts versus getting to know the student as a person?

Ferguson brought up some values that were most important according to his research within a classroom. They were the following: trust, cooperation, embracing a mastery of goals, diligent work, and achieving satisfaction.

Lastly, Ferguson said, that students will not care what we as educators know until: the student knows the teacher cares, and the student knows the teacher's motives.

Some little nuggets to draw changes from.