Thanksgiving for Educators

In honor of Thanksgiving week, I thought I would take some time on this blog to thank many of the people who have shaped my educational journey.  Whatever I am as teacher, I owe to these people.  I feel certain I will forget some, so please charge that to my head and not my heart as it is 7AM on a Monday morning.

Mrs. Doane 1st grade) - Even though I was almost as tall as you were, I looked up to you because you showed me that you not only loved us, but loved teaching us.

Mr. Tom Dorrin (6th grade) - You taught me that I didn't have to take myself so seriously.  I know other people thought your teasing me was terrible, but I loved every minute it of it.

Mr. Jim Freeman (8th grade science and PE) - You taught me that you can be serious about important  things and silly about others.  My favorite memory of you was this conversation:
"Beth, you throw like a girl."
"But Mr. Freeman, I am a girl."
"Well, that's just something you're going to have to overcome, now isn't it."
I still can't throw, but my memory of this conversation teaches me that I don't have to use something as an excuse just because it is true.

Mr. Danny Watkins (7th and 8th grade history - homeroom for many years) - You taught me that if you teach what you love and show how much you love it, others will love it too.  As an adult, I stood in a museum with tears running down my face as I looked at the crown of Empress Alexandra because of what I learned from you.  You are the reason I look forward to convention every year.

Mr. Don Sandberg (9th grade science) - You taught me the power of curiosity (mostly by putting up with all of my questions).  You weren't afraid to treat a freshman like they were capable of deep thought.  As a result, I wanted to think more deeply just to impress you.  I now teach the same subject you taught me, and I think of you often.  Sometimes, I ask myself, "How would Mr. Sandberg teach this?"

Mr. Jim Barbara (physics)  - I teach with a photo of you hanging over my desk.  When I hear people say they don't like physics, I know it is because they didn't have someone like you for it.  You taught me that this very difficult subject was also really interesting and fun.  You made me look forward to last period every day.

Mrs. Catherine Klehm (college chemistry professor and science education adviser) - You taught me the structure of teaching, without which I would just be flying by the seat of my pants.  Thanks for teaching me how to evaluate textbooks, how to plan a lesson, and how to convey bigger issues than just the factual information.

Dr. Stephen M. King (college government professor and briefly my pastor) - You let me enroll in your class even though you weren't sure why a science education major was taking a higher level government class.  I think of you often (particularly when the Supreme Court issues any kind of opinion).

Mr. Stephen Matthews (my first principal) - I wouldn't have survived my first two years without your grace, humor, and humility.  No matter how badly I had blown it, you always had a story about a time when you had done the same thing.  You made me feel like I could always be a better teacher than I was.  I'm glad I didn't throw up on your shows at our interview because I couldn't have asked for a better first principal.

Mrs. Teresa Alsbrook (my first principal at GRACE) - Thanks for taking a chance on hiring me when you had no reason to (other than thinking I would be a good fit).

Mrs. Kathie Thompson (the elementary principal at GRACE) - Thank you for assigning the yearbook to me when I had no idea what I was doing.  My life changed that day in ways I would have never dreamed.  Thanks also for bringing me to camp every year and showing what love of children really looks like.

All my school friends (teachers, librarian, IT people, administrators, etc.)  - You inspire me every day with your energy, imagination, love, passion, and willingness to try new things.  Harry Wong said, "Great teachers aren't born.  They are made by the teacher next door."  To all of you, thanks for everything you have taught me about teaching.

Traditions in Education

Most of the talk at education conferences, TED talks, education blogs, and curriculum planning meetings is about innovation.  How are we using 21st century tools in education?  What are we doing that is different from the way we did it.  All of that is good and right and valuable and will be the topic of a different post.

This post is about traditions.

I am a physics teacher, and today is Egg Drop Day.  If you teach physics, took physics, or know a physics teacher, you do not have to ask what I am talking about.  Egg Drop is so much a part of
physics classes that it borders on cliche (okay, it is well across the border).  Despite the fact that it is  freezing on the roof, it is one of my favorite days of the year.  Have we innovated in this assignment?  Sure.   I now require video evidence of their building the project themselves.  Will I ever change it to a different project - absolutely not.  I would never cancel or eliminate this project from the curriculum.  The only way I wouldn't go on the roof is if I were physically unable to climb the ladder (even though I am terrified of the ladder).  There are certain staples in certain classes without which you cannot claim to have taken that class.  For physics, this is the one.  Pick a class, and you can think of them as well.

- Earth Science has volcanoes and solar system models (now sans Pluto). 
- Everyone in Physical Science builds a model of the atom.  
- Art has self portraits.- Who goes through Biology without making a cell model?  That would be nobody.
- English has Shakespeare and the five paragraph essay.  - Everyone who got through fifth grade has done a state history project.
- What school wouldn't take their kids to see the dinosaurs at the natural history museum?  
- You probably grew a sunflower in second grade science.

You did these.  I did these.  Your grandchildren will do these.  Why do teachers assign the same projects year after year?  And not just one teacher, all the teachers in that subject area round the country?  Students probably think it is because teachers are lazy, not wanting to think of new ideas.  I assure you that it is not that.  We actually love coming up with new things.  We live to innovate (later - I promise).  There is a reason that we read the same papers and grade the same models year after year.

Tradition matters.

As we learned from Fiddler on the Roof, tradition matters.  It gives us landmarks.  It gives us shared stories.  Traditions connect people.  If you and I both memorized the Marc Anthony speech from Julius Caesar, we have a shared memory - even if we recited them twenty years and a thousand miles apart from each other.  As soon as someone mentions "Train A and Train B" and the speed they are traveling, all adults conjure up memories of algebra.  What my kids got from today (aside from a knowledge of impulse and wind burn) was a connection.  They are now connected to generations of physics students past and future. 

Cognitive Dissonance

Cognitive Dissonance is just a fun term to say.  Try it.  Say it out loud right now.  What does it mean?

According to Wikipedia, it is "the mental stress or discomfort experienced by an individual who holds two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values at the same time, or is confronted by new information that conflicts with existing beliefs, ideas, or values."

According to Dictionary.com, it is "anxiety that results from simultaneously holding contradictory or otherwise incompatible attitudes, beliefs, or the like."

To teach is to live your life filled with contradiction.  Each and every day, you are given confusing and contradictory messages by students, parents, administrations, brain research, and the community.  Some examples:

- Research shows homework to be either critical, damaging, or irrelevant - depending on which study you read.
- Adolescents should sleep later, but high schools start earlier than elementary schools.  - Students want hands on learning, but they want you to tell them what they should have learned from their lab so they can write the report.  
- Parents want their child to have hands on learning but then complain when their kids have projects.
- Parents complain if their child has too many assignments.  If their average is too low, however, they will request extra work.
- A parent who was also a board member once told me that I was keeping his son/daughter off the honor roll.  In the next sentence, he told me that we weren't challenging our students enough.
- We keep adding to the curriculum because of new skills that need to be learned.  We don't want to take the old things out of the curriculum.  No one wants to add days to the school year or hours to the day.
- I teach 8th grade.  Several years ago, a parent who called a meeting about their child's grade told me that 8th grade "doesn't matter anyway."  
- When one student makes an 85 on a test, I jump up and down and e-mail them to celebrate.  When a different student makes the same grade, I brace myself for the tears that will surely be cried at my desk.   
- I am in a one to one laptop school, but the research says we should limit our screen time.
- Don't make your classes to hard, but make sure they are fully prepared for college. 
- Every study of learning says that you should connect all new knowledge to previous knowledge, but Common Core says that is unfair to those who haven't had the opportunity to experience things that would give them prior knowledge.
- We are told daily to differentiate instruction, but we assess them with standardized tests. 

There are more examples.  If you are a teacher, you can think of more.  There are probably some that are specific to your grade or subject.  They actually come up every single day.  For sixteen years, I have held multiple contradictory ideas in my head as I teach.  No wonder I am so tired at the end of the day.  According to the definitions above, I should be suffering from an anxiety disorder.   

Now, I am going to go observe another teacher in order to tell them what they are doing well but not to evaluate their performance.