Differentiating

Finally, we talk about differentiated learning. So, yesterday was my first day back and we spent the whole day in various meetings discussing what it means to be focused on Common Core Standards. My principal said something that I absolutely love her for. She said, "You know, I'm not really all that blown away by the standards, because this is what I've watched great teachers do for years. Most of you are already doing it!" True, so very true. I think, for a long time, that many of the people coming into teaching (myself included) are young, inexperienced, and have a hard time suddenly being in charge of forming people. Which is literally what we do. Whatever students love about their experiences is directly connected to their teachers. Sit back a minute, and think of your favorites. I bet you can picture them right now, supporting you, guiding you, and inspiring you in a direction you might not have gone in without them. We aspire to be these great people. People who are role models, people our students can look up to, and most importantly, people who can actually educate your kids. The last one is the hardest. At the end of every year I take a bit to reflect on what, if anything, I passed on to my students. I pray that they will retain the passage of Harry Potter I read, or that they loved the bird cam so much they want to become ornithologists. But what I don't consider often enough, is if I did enough to differentiate what I taught. If I were effective as a whole group teacher. If all my students left the library with good intentions about how they were going to use the information I fed them. There are, of course, plenty of students who need a completely separate transfer of information. And I always figure out who needs a little extra support during the course of a year. But I also always feel stretched as I try to travel among groups and decide who needs me more. Who can continue on without me as I work towards my own goal of sharing the information they need to grow as students. We spent a bit of time discussing how to differentiate our students- which means how to make a teacher's time as effective as possible during a lesson. Most teachers, maybe I should say all teachers, do not have the support they used to. Teacher assistants are in high demand constantly, and their schedules absolutely blow my mind. I can't even really read them. They spend like 20 minutes in one place and then it's on to the next. So it really is up to a classroom teacher to decide how best to use a students time during a lesson. The typical formula has been a mini-lesson in the beginning, then group work that allows students to work where they currently are or on a slightly higher level. The good news? We are announcing that every student is different, with different abilities and needs. We are saying that we want every student to succeed on a level that matches what NC asks us to do. The downside? Do we have enough support to make this a reality. Personally I really like the Common Core. If used properly it could completely change the way a school runs. But are we ready for that?

Reaching Out

Our building is officially open next week, and I'm almost excited about the prospect of getting in there and starting to catalog some of our new books. They have been sitting in boxes all summer and my hope was to have some new ones available for the kids by the time they came back, kind of throwing them into the awesomeness of the printed word. Of course, this also means considering what my focus will be this year. Do we continue on trying to push printed books or do we focus on how we are going to really incorporate technology into our kids education? Last night I was talking to a friend who just purchased a laptop and was telling me about it. Of course he then pointed out that a five year old could probably run circles around us when it came to computers. This is not only true but seems normal to me now. I'm used to my students being able to figure out how to do things before I can, but I had not considered what this meant as far as their education. What I'm thinking is how much time should we spend teaching them how to physically use the computer skills they need versus how much time we should spend teaching them how to protect themselves within the realm of all the information that is available. This is the first year internet safety is part of the curriculum, part of what we are teaching our students, along with how to type in a web address and create a Prezi. The stories don't scare me- the stories about kids getting hooked up with strange men, and how they bully each other online, and create situations that are dangerous for all those around. I am scared of what they will do with all the information about themselves that is public. I'm not sure they realize the gravity of what they post. That everything they write or say or record or do that is released becomes a permanent part of something we actually don't know that much about. Because they are the first generation to never know a world without the internet and because we don't know that much about guiding them through it. Of course I can tell them that everything they post will become public information no matter what they do, but what I can't tell them is that the picture they have of them out at a bar with their boyfriend might one day be held against them when they run for a public office, or that their politically biased comment that they believed in at age 15 could be brought up again in a job interview at age thirty. I guess what I'm saying is that the stories that frighten me for our children are the ones that haven't even happened yet, but inevitably will. So how do we navigate around something that hasn't happened yet? How do we compare their experiences with our own? And how do we reach out in a way that maintains and balances the benefits and risks of posting online, of looking for answers online, and making sure they check their information over and over again?