Blog post #1
In life we are told it is important to know about and to travel the middle path - the middle way- a balanced life. But what is balance? What is the middle path in life? What is the middle path in life especially when educating and working with kids?
Educators nourish wisdom and promote wisdom and awareness in our students. We know it is important to care about our students and be supportive of and have compassion for them (one side of the path) and we know it is equally important to have a challenging and rigorous curriculum full of wisdom (the other side of the path) especially today with curricular and pedagogical practices where both students and teachers are assessed and evaluated.
Can educators have too much compassion and be too caring and be too supportive and not have enough rigor? Can educators have a curriculum and pedagogical practices too rigorous and challenging and have little or no compassion or student support? Can educators walk the balanced middle path of being supporting and challenging?
I was thinking about this concept and practice the other day while walking my two dogs – Lizzie who is 4.5 pounds and Schooner who is 9.5 pounds. Frequently we walk a common path and we travel the dog walk path mutually comfortable, happy and in harmony.
But sometimes Lizzie is pulling on her lease and me one way and wants to go that direction (caring – supportive) but Schooner has no intention of going that way and is pulling his lease and me the other direction (rigor, challenge, assessment). And there are the three of us – at a stand still – not being able to travel the dog walk path. So, I have to determine a middle path to balance Lizzie and Schooner and their wants and needs on our daily walks.
Educators need to balance our daily dog walks between the needs and wants of our Lizzie and Schooner. Every day is a new day with some familiar paths on our walks in our classrooms and other days there are new adventures and expectations on our walks in our classrooms. As an educator, everyday, I have to make sure the middle path with my classes and students is met as I do on my daily walks with Lizzie and Schooner seeking a middle path and a balanced walk where we are in harmony.
How do you now or how will you meet the balanced middle path of Lizzie (compassion – support – caring) and Schooner (wisdom, rigor and challenge) in your classes? How do you seek harmony between being caring and supportive and providing rigor and challenge? Please provide specific ideas and practices not generic ideas of how you provide a middle path in with your classes and with your students?
If you do not think in terms of the middle path provide your position of how you work currently or plan to work within your classes and with your students.
Blog post #2
Other educators' blogs
In your blog
Go to other educators’ websites and explore what they are doing with their blogs and some on the ideas they are sharing in their blogs.
Take three educator blog sites and write what you think is exciting and cool with what they are doing.
Monday, September 20, 2010
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Pondering and Reflecting
Blog posting #1 - Reflect to the first time that you remember having your own first thought – not something a parent/guardian shared with you, or a sibling, or a teacher. Something that you know was your very own thought. If you are comfortable and want to share it – that would be great.
Have fun
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
There are no recipes - What are your ponders, questions and curiosities?
Blog posting one:
One thing in class that I encourage as a student in class, as a student in life and as an educator is to ponder, ponder, ponder and to question, question, question. Rarely are there definitive answers in life as well as in education and being an educator. The more one teaches the more questions one has. The more one teaches in different settings the greater range of questions and ponders one has – there are no two school alike, there are no two students alike there are no two classrooms alike. One may teach in the same classroom all day – but each group of students that come into that classroom changes the complexion of the class and how one goes about teaching. Therefore it is really hard to teach each class the same way and that there needs to be theme in variation in how one teaches.
Please reply to this blog posting on this blog.
I like to ask students to identify favorite websites that they think all educators should know and why these websites all so good. I then compile these websites and make a list for the class. So on your blog site please reply to this blog posting.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Thinking
In your blog response to this blog posting reply to my three requests:
One of the most important things you will need to do but may not have time to do once you are in the classroom is thinking of about thinking and thinking about learning. Do you spend much time thinking about thinking and thinking about learning?
Ponder how you are building your own philosophy of teaching and ponder on how you are building you own philosophy of learning. Share some of your ponders and how you define thinking and learning.
To be a successful educator each educator has to have his/her own concepts what learning and teaching - share yours.
Share what your beliefs are - beliefs about life – about schools – about teaching - about students and about school leadership.
3. Explore two - three Websites that I share at the end in this blog posting and share you thoughts about them and then provide three- four of your own websites that you think other middle level teachers should know about – and a little about them.
One clip at a time - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1ZByPflgJ0&feature=player_embedded#t=445
Is Anybody listening? - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPAO-lZ4_hU&feature=player_embedded
Larry Lessig - how creativity is being strangled - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Q25-S7jzgs&f
Twitter and the world malaria day - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZADez_MIr5I&feature=player_embedded
I look forward to reading your thoughts.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
What excites you about education and being an educator?
Hi class,
As you are starting your education career or well into the depths of being an educator I know and hope that you are excited about being an educator. I know after being an educator for well into my forth decade - I am still excited about being an educator. Throughout the quarter I will share many of my passions with you as well as some of the current frustrations that some teachers experience.
One thing about being an educator today that excites me is technology - which has come along way from the days when I started teaching and using the dito machine - and 16mm films. There were no overhead projectors - let alone LCDs etc. I remember back to those as the new young teacher who became the advisor to the AV club and was in charge of the AV department - go figure that I was already interested in what would become a staple in many schools.
We have come along way - with types of technology and the use of it in the classroom. In this class we will be using and creating projects using media and technology. As a middle level educator you will be expected to know and to use media - technology experiences with your students. Some of your students may know a lot about using different media forms - possibly more than you know - so you need to know some of the basics.
Please check out the following website and ponder a bit about it and share your thoughts in your blog response to me.
Larry Lessig - how creativity is being strangled - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Q25-S7jzgs&feature=player_embedded#t=831
Teachers today need to build on the power of the traditions on education in the past - but we cannot teach purely "the old fashion way" - that was yesterday - today is here and tomorrow is where our students will live and work and we have to be visionary enough to prepare them not only for the present but also the future. These youtube videos address these issues.
one clip at a time - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1ZByPflgJ0&feature=player_embedded#t=445
An anthropological introduction to youtube - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPAO-lZ4_hU&feature=player_embedded#t=22
The machine is using us - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLlGopyXT_g&feature=channel
Ever since I started teaching in the 1960s an interest and passion I have had is student voice. This is a powerful video a HS teacher created last year - it demonstrates how powerful student voice can be.
Is Anybody listening? - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPAO-lZ4_hU&feature=player_embedded
The power of media - technology - is awesome - we can all make a difference large and small.
Twitter and the world malaria day - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZADez_MIr5I&feature=player_embedded
Carrot mob makes it rain - http://vimeo.com/925729
So in your blog response to this blog I have two requests:
1. As you watch these videos - write in your blog what your thoughts - and possible applications to your classroom. Make sure you make direct references to the videos you are referring to. I do not expect you to respond to each of the videos - chose what is of interest to you.
2. Share what excites you about being an educator. What motivates you to go into a classroom everyday and face with your students with smiles - laughter - hope - vision and expectations ( expectations for you and for your students).
I look forward to reading your blogs.
Monday, June 29, 2009
So what does it mean to you?
Every once in a while a profession is blessed with someone who truly is leader and visionary for that profession and guides others in it to what it really means to a member of that profession. To be John Lounsbury is that very special person in the academy of education. Lounsbury, with a few other educators, started to study young adolescents as a special population almost four decades ago. Young adolescents were once misunderstood by so many and therefore not appreciated or respected as the special population they are – it was through Lounsbury’s passion that those who work with young adolescents now know how special they are.
His wisdom and passion for young adolescents opened the doors to working with and respecting them that was once dreaded.
One can experience his profound respect for-young adolescents in an online NMSA article Understanding and Appreciating the Wonder Years. In the article he reminds us that “….
Young adolescents are a wondrous group, eager, enthusiastic, curious, adventuresome, full of life, fresh, and refreshing. They are genuine and do not shine in borrowed plumes. Their honesty is often disarming. They have a sense of humor, albeit one that is sometimes a bit weird. We should celebrate this stage of endless discovery during which youth come of age. Their capacities for thinking and reflecting are unfolding. Their outward behavior may belie the seriousness of their inner thoughts, but those who work closely with these young people know of their concern for the less fortunate, the environment, and other national problems. They worry about nuclear war, HIV, family disintegration, and moral issues. Their penchant for service is expressed in such things as can-a-thons, service learning projects, and campaigns to save the whales. They seek heroes and heroines, individuals of character and conscience, ones whose examples can be emulated. This is not the time for adults to abdicate their critically important guidance role, yet this is too often what happens as adults assume that the peer group takes over.”
So my questions to you are: “What does this quote and the respect for young adolescents that Lounsbury has defined mean to you as one who chooses to work with the young adolescent population? How do you plan to respect and celebrate them and guide them and to stand with them in the present and move towards the future they deserve?”
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Pondering about: Education technology teaching and how teachers go about thinking
Over the years I have been teaching there have been many profound changes in pedagogical practices - ideologies - and expectations. Over these same years I have observed many educators keeping up with and even some educators leading some of these pedagogical changes.
I have also observed teachers who have decided not to keep up with changes - who have decided they already know all they need to know to be a teacher - who have decided not to advance their learning - who have decided to give those educators who want to stay current and be effective educators a hard time - even making teaching in the same school a horrible experience, frequently driving the effective teachers away - who have decided not to take any additional classes to advance what they might have learned 5-10-15-20 years ago as current and appropriate for todays' students.
I have always wondered why such teachers remain in schools. Why don't they leave? Sometimes I think they must be miserable and want others around them to be equally as miserable. Do such teachers really think about their teaching and learning? Do these teachers really care about their students and their students' learning and their students' success? Are these teachers happy not keeping current with new research and discoveries about teaching and learning and knowing? Are these teachers happy being nay sayers and trying to prove other teachers wrong and in doing so prevent their students from enjoying learning? Do these teachers really want their students to succeed or do they secretly want their students to fail?
I frequently ponder what teachers and other people think are obstacles in schools. What are the obstacles that teachers face that get in the way of successful teaching and learning? What are the reasons behind teachers' resistance to change? The last couple of decades the use of technology and media in our daily lives has grown faster than most of us could have imagined and their use in schools contribute to recent pedagogical practices - ideologies - and expectations. What is going to happen to teachers who are resistant to changes in the use of technology and media strategies in their classrooms especially because they do not want to learn technological and media classroom strategies?
Online videos like Did You Know, What If, Pay Attention and others demonstrate how media and technology are critically used in our daily lives and how their impact and influence are not going away rather that they are increasing. How then can teachers accept the need to embrace media - technology strategies in the classroom with their students? How then do teachers learn such media technology strategies? What happens to the teachers who resist learning such media - technology strategies?
What kind of teacher are you? or are you going to be? One who accepts that media- technology are here and not going away and are willing to learn or are you going to be a nay sayer teacher who resists learning and being engaged with them and will only find fault with their place in the classroom?
Are you or will you be the educator that other educators, students, parents and community members look to with respect? Or will you be the teacher who takes the easy road by resisting change, by not moving forward and by digging in?
How do you decide or will you decide to be the type of educator you chose to be? What factors contribute to your decisions? Why do you believe or think you have the right to be an educator? Or do you think you have the right to be an educator? Or do you just want to go into a classroom with students sitting in chairs, in rows with you in the front of the classroom telling the students what to know and then give them tests?
You have the power to decide. What is going to guide you?
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