Teaching - It's Not Just for the Classroom Anymore

One of the hats I wear at GRACE is yearbook advisor.  This means I show up in a lot of places.  In addition to taking photos in classes, I have been to games, matches, meets, club meetings, pep rallies, dances, NHS and Beta Inductions, art events, theater dress rehearsals, chapels, dance recitals, fundraisers, choral and band concerts.  You name it, I've photographed it.

I was at one of these events this weekend.  The City of Raleigh puts on an awesome artistic event each fall called ArtSpark.  Artists from all over town and students from various schools buy a square of space on a street in the heart of downtown Raleigh.  From Friday night to Sunday afternoon, people use pastels to make amazing designs and pictures in these squares.  There are fashion shows and concerts and a variety of other artistic activities.  Our students look forward to this event every year, and they have a ball crawling around on the street, bringing their creations to life.

It occurs to me that students learn more about art at this event than they possibly could in the art room.  Our art teacher, Elizabeth Walters, is amazing and brings out artistic abilities in our students they didn't know they had, but the most impressive thing she does is arrange actual experiences for them.  ArtSpark isn't easy for her to arrange.  Neither is entering them in competitions, arranging for field trips to art museums or ArtSpace, another great downtown Raleigh location.  Her life would be much easier if she only taught in the classroom, but she knows the value of an experience like ArtSpark.  The kids get to see actual artists produce things they haven't even imagined.  They get to see that there are other people interested in the same things they are.  The four hours they spend on the street is worth weeks of classroom experience, which is why they are terrified any year rain threatens to cancel this event.

Of course, Mrs. Walters is not the only teacher providing students with learning outside of classroom hours.  Our school is filled with opportunities for students to find, develop, and use their gifts.  Trust me.  I've photographed most of them.  We have a student council, a real one, not just one that looks good on your transcript.  Our student council leaders, Mr. Whelply and Mrs. Gill, care deeply about teaching these students to find and use their leadership skills.  Our students plan their own dances (with guidance, of course - We're not crazy.) and our chapel services.  The public speaking class speaks publicly, not just in their safe little classroom.  Our AP Biology teacher, Mr. Smitley, actually takes students to the beach to test the water, the organisms, and the environment because he wants them to get their hands dirty.  Our physics students build crazy things, like hover crafts.  Our English students tweet about what they are reading and participate in online forums.  Today, they have traveled out of town to see a play because they are reading it in class, and it will be more meaningful if they see it acted out.

All of these wonderful and enriching things mean lots of time from teachers.  One of our math teachers was at school helping students until 5:30 last night.  I haven't even mentioned our elementary school teachers.  Imagine what it must be like to wrangle a million second graders (okay, it probably just feels like a million) at the zoo!  Above and beyond is not even a phrase we use here because it is the norm.

What teachers do inside the classroom is important, but what they do outside the classroom is meaningful.

Teachers Never Stop Learning

My last post was about how great it is that teaching is new every year.  As I sit here, typing on a computer, I'm reminded about just how new.

I began teaching 16 years ago.  E-mail had been around for only about five years and was just increasing in popularity as a way for teachers to contact parents.  I was practically considered a rock star because I sent out a weekly e-mail to parents, letting them know what we would be up to the following week.

Google had been invented just that year, so looking something up when a student had a question wasn't really something teachers thought of yet.  YouTube was still a long way off, and no one had heard the terms social media, Google doc, meme, or selfie.  The school I was teaching in at that time (Jenks Freshman Academy - go Trojans!) was at the height of tech because they had a computer lab with desktop iMacs.  We could sign up and take our students to do research for papers.  The library even had three of them!  This was huge.  A student taught me how to use iMovie (thanks, Rick - I still use it), and he was considered incredibly tech savvy..

Sixteen years later, I am sitting at the MacBook Pro that every teacher in my current school (GRACE Christian - go Eagles!) issues to every teacher.  I have written on the board that my 8th grade students should go to page 29 in their digital textbook because each of them has a school issued MacBook Air.  I wrote that book using iBooks Author, and it includes videos that will and links to websites, taking advantage of how their brains are wired in a sort of hyperlink way mine never was.  My physics students have just completed making music videos about free fall in which they took YouTube clips of Felix Baumgartner, Star Trek Into Darkness, and disturbing video of gold eagles dropping goats from cliffs.  Their textbook was purchase from iTunes and include interactive illustrations.

All that description is to make these points.

1.  Great teachers never stop learning.  I was a good teacher in the first years of my career.  I'm convinced of that and have students who stay in contact to confirm it.    However, if I still did only the things I did then, I wouldn't even rate as mediocre today.  The methods of sixteen years ago would bore my students and me.  Students, some of you think your learning will be done when you graduate from high school or college.  This is not true.  As long as people keep inventing new things (and that doesn't seem to be slowing down any time soon), you will continue to learn.

2.  Great teachers don't learn alone.  My school adopted a one to one MacBook program four academic years ago.  We were all a little nervous and didn't quite know what we were in for, but it was exciting because we did it together.  Yes, we stumbled a bit along the way and plateaued a little in our second year.  It has taken concerted effort to keep improving our use of tech.  We don't just want to use it; we want to use it well.  In that light, there are a few people I would like to thank.

- Sean Blesh and Diane Scro - You started this.  I know there have been times when you wished you hadn't, but it has made us all better.  You have made us better teachers, and I have no higher compliment than that.

- Sean Blesh and Diane Scro - Yes, I'm thanking them twice.  They didn't just start this and walk away.  They have maintained over 100 staff computers and over 500 student computers with very few hiccups.  They have suffered through filter conundrums, black screens of death, password keychain nonsense, wind knocking out servers, the implementation of a new MLS, customizing the filters for different groups, dealing with blackouts at Time Warner, and the cranky-ness of teachers.  They have done all of that in the same 24 hour days the rest of us have.

- Laura Warmke and Diane Scro - Level Up was one of the most important things you have ever implemented.  There are things I would never have even heard of without it.  Making professional development fun is no easy task.  Thanks for continuously introducing us to new tools.

- The GRACE board and administration - If you hadn't risked saying yes to this, we wouldn't be where we are today.  It was a big financial commitment, and we know it wasn't easy.

- My Fellow Teachers - We've been in the trenches of this together.  You are never selfish with your knowledge or skills.  You share with other teachers, and you do it enthusiastically.  It has been fun being on this journey with you, and it won't end.

- My Fellow Students - I call you fellow students because, as I mentioned in point 1, I am still learning.  You have acted as guinea pigs for some crazy things.  Some of it has worked and some of it hasn't.  Some of it only works now because you showed me how to make it work.  Many of you have shared things with me that I now use in my classroom.  Thanks for the memes, the photos, the links, and the youtube channels that have now become part of my curriculum.  They are awesome.  Keep them coming.