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.
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