Community Service Day

Today is Community Service Day at GRACE.  That means every student in our high school was somewhere sharing the love of Jesus by serving our community, and our middle school students packed meals for Stop Hunger Now.  Since I am the yearbook adviser, I spent the day driving from place to place, photographing our kids and teachers as they served.   This is one of my favorite parts of being a yearbook teacher. 

One of the reasons I love this part of my job is the timing.  Ask any teacher, and they might tell you (if they are brave) that there reaches a point in the year when they begin to wonder what else they might have been good at or that they sometimes ask the question, "Why do we have students at this school?"  That part of the year comes at a different time for everyone, but for me, it is usually early October.  First quarter is drawing to a close, and I start feeling like Charlie Brown's teacher.  Getting this day at this time reminds me that we really do have great kids at this school.


The other reason I love this is because this generation that is often entitled serves well.  They don't choose this, but they do it cheerfully.  They have fun with each other and with the people they serve.  We usually get very positive feedback from the organizations we serve about how nice our kids are and how they would love to have them again.

I also love that kids get to know about some of these charities they would otherwise not have known about.  It shows them that there are people out there serving all the time.  It shows them that there are people who make service their lives.  The last time I got to serve with them, I discovered something about one of our organizations that I did not know - that they go through several thousand plastic bags a week.   When we returned home, we started collecting them to deliver to this ministry.  We have all learned about charities we never knew before.


Perhaps my most favorite part of the day is watching the kids interact with their teachers.  They have fun serving together and really enjoy each other.  This is always one of the hallmarks of GRACE, but it is even more fun to see in situations outside the classroom.  It happens at other times too, but there is something exceptionally special about seeing it in the context of service. 

Being a yearbook teacher means I get to see our teachers and kids on their best days.  I get to be there for the things they are proud of.  On days like today, they give me hope.


Please support any of the great charities we served today.
- Stop Hunger Now
- Thrift N Gift
- With Love From Jesus
- Food Bank of Central and Eastern NC
- Threshold Club House
- Reality Ministries
- Guardian Angel Thrift
- Mabopane Foundation
- Christian Life Home
- Lanier Home for Ladies
- Mercer Home for Men
- Habitat for Humanity
- Interfaith Food Shuttle

The New Professional Development

I feel like this blog is becoming entirely about how much things have changed in education during my 16 years.  So be it.  This post is about how much professional development has changed.

I started teaching in Oklahoma in 1998.  At that time, you had one day each semester, called Professional Development Day.  I was in a large and well funded district, so our development days happened on campus.  You picked a topic or speaker you wanted to see.  I think there were four sessions per day.  If you found out there was a seminar you might like to attend, that could happen; but that was all the development you were going to get.  I'm not criticizing this.  It was the only way to do it.  The internet hadn't blown up yet into what it is today.

When I started teaching at GRACE, one of the negatives on my end of year evaluation was that I didn't seek out professional development.  I couldn't disagree.  It never occurred to me to seek it out.  Both schools I had taught in before said, "It is professional development day.  Go over there and learn."

Now, there is development opportunity EVERYWHERE!  As I write this, I am listening to a podcast about teaching.  I subscribe to TED talks.  Many of our teachers follow the blogs of other teachers.  My Twitter account doesn't follow the posts of friends.  It follows Fermilab and CERN, Scientific American and Stephen Hawking (He doesn't post much), even astronauts currently on the Space Station.  Our amazing IT people have created professional development for the use of technology tools by giving us missions to fulfill (for which we earn badges) and meeting with every teacher once per quarter to talk about goals.  Even the writing of this blog is part of my professional development because we were encouraged to share as much as possible and talk to strangers.  Some of our teachers follow the blogs of teachers around the world or subscribe to educational hashtags.  Professional development is now a 24/7 experience.

This is a great thing.  The world is changing too fast to expect that you can implement something you learned at a conference without need for constant modification.  The world is changing too fast to only develop two days a year.  The conferences still exist; our faculty will all be attending one this Thursday and Friday.  I was kind of dreading that one until I learned that Harry Wong would be speaking!  For those who don't know, he is Awesome Sauce.  That's not a term I use often, but it just applies to him better than any other word.  The conferences are fine, but they just kind of get me thinking.  The real development happens when I come home from the conference, have a stray thought, and go to Google or YouTube or Free Tech for Teachers or some other great resource.

Develop professionally all the time, every day.  Let your kids develop you.  I have learned about more great tools from them than any workshop.  

Let Them Stress

We are almost at the end of first quarter.  This inevitably leads to one really stressful week for everyone.  Many teachers are trying to get in one last test or one project so that students who haven't done so well on the others can have another grade to provide balance.  It also means that the fall play is this week (and, at GRACE, it means Granparents' Day).  This is the first time in years that I haven't gotten an e-mail of complaint about the stress of this week, so I feel pretty safe posting this blog without anyone thinking I am directing it at them.

Without stress, you die.  Seriously - stress is an important part of being alive.  Response to stressors is one of the criteria that must be met to know if something is alive.  The definition of stress is actually pretty neutral.  It is

"Physiological or biological stress is an organism's response to a stressor such as an environmental condition or a stimulus. Stress is a body's method of reacting to a challenge. According to the stressful event, the body's way to respond to stress is by sympathetic nervous system activation which results in the fight-or-flight response. In humans, stress typically describes a negative condition or a positive condition that can have an impact on a person's mental and physical well-being."

When you are born, light is a stress.  Your eyes haven't adapted to it yet because they haven't needed to.  Yet, no one says, "That poor baby, let's keep it in darkness."  When you first learn to walk, you fall - a lot.  When they cry, we comfort them; but exactly no one says, "My Lord, keep that child sitting.  They shouldn't have the stress of falling down."  Somehow, we get that small people have to experience challenges in order to grow and learn.  Somewhere along the way, however, a lot of people start thinking their children should never be uncomfortable.  While I know that no one wants to see their child upset or in pain or stressed or sad or challenged, I also know that without those things, people do not grow.  No parent sits at home hoping that their child will not grow at all, but they do hope their child never experiences stress.  These are contradictory.

I promise that we, as teachers, do not wish to put excessive stress (which is unhealthy) on your children.  I promise that we are for them and not against them.  I promise that no teacher I have ever worked with has gleefully responded to students being overwhelmed.  I also promise that there is no death certificate anywhere that lists cause of death as "one week of stress" or "too many tests."

Stress is in all our lives and preventing students from experiencing it will not help them as they prepare for adult life.  What will help them is reflection.  Have this conversation with your child next week.  "Wow, last week was really crazy hard, huh?  Look, you are still here.  You made it, and now you have more skills than you had before.  I'm so happy you are growing."

Stepping Up!

About five minutes ago, I was reminded of something I already knew.   It was well worth being reminded of.  This is it.

No matter how well you think you know someone, they can surprise you.

I was sitting in our school's weekly chapel service, and nothing unusual was really happening.  Our speaker was a bit unusual just because he came over from Kenya, but that's not totally weird.  Near the end, our theater teacher got up to announce that tickets for the fall play were on sale.  That's totally normal this time of year.  Part of the cast was going to perform a small selection as advertisement.  We do that every time we have a play, so nothing strange there - until it started.  Then, I was stunned.

Our IT director ran out with two of the cast members, firing a NERF dart gun at imaginary birds.  No, he hadn't lost his mind from students telling him "my internet is broken."  He is a cast member!!!  This man with a reputation for being a lovable curmudgeon is in the play!  You could have knocked me over with a feather.

When I asked him about this later, his response was, "I'm an enigma wrapped in a riddle."  After asking around, I got more of the story.  What made this man agree to do this?  He was needed.  The person who was originally cast in this part was unable to participate, and he agreed to help.

As I sit here thinking about this, it occurs to me - This is what teachers do.  Good teachers do their job.  Great teachers step up.  They do things they would never have imagined doing because it is needed.  In my sixteen years of teaching, I have seen examples of this - not just in the school in am in now - but in every school.

Some examples:
- A teacher who learned a sport she didn't yet know how to play because the middle school team needed a coach.
- A teacher who agreed to take kids on an overnight field trip because the person who usually did it was sick.
- An IT professional who installed all the network cables in the school building in order to save the school some money.
- Teachers who buy hundreds of dollars in supplies each year out of their own pocket.
- A teacher who take on student council because there wouldn't be a student council if he didn't.
- Administrators who put out chairs and set tables for banquets because there won't be chairs and tables if someone doesn't do it.
- Librarians who take on additional clubs because a student asked for it.
- Teachers who stayed at school overnight during an ice storm because busses couldn't get the kids home.
- A math teacher who decided dance was worth teaching.
- Teachers who give up their lunch time to tutor or fill in for other teachers.
- A history teacher who started an AP program and a theater program at the same time.

Schools could educate without this type of drive, but they couldn't mentor.  They couldn't inspire.  They couldn't motivate students to innovate.  Great schools are only great because great teachers, great administrators, great librarians, and great IT people step up in ways even they would never have imagined.

I have left off the names of these people because I think most of them would prefer it that way, but I am inspired by these people.  If you attend the GRACE fall production, you should be inspired as well - by the man who stepped up because something needed to be done.

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.

Pretend Last Year's Blogging Didn't Happen - Because It Didn't

I'm just going to pretend that last year's blogging fiasco didn't happen.  Feel free to ignore all previous posts because they didn't happen.

We have settled in from the first week of school and are now officially in the swing of things.

It's my 16th year teaching, so you would think that by now, I would have all lesson plans, tests, and homework in a folder just ready to pull out.  You would think that I could operate on some kind of academic auto-pilot since I've been to the same destination so many times.  Somehow, however, lesson planning takes me almost as long as it did a decade ago.  I still find errors in the same slide I've been using for five years, and the physics problem I have assigned before turns out to be so much harder than I thought it was when I assigned it.  Writing a test takes less time because I can recycle some of my questions, but I still find that I have to stop kids in the middle of a test to say, "Wait, the correct answer to number 20 isn't there.  Everybody just put A, and I'll put that on my key."

It occurs to me that my students wouldn't want me to have everything exactly under control, and their parents wouldn't either.  They want me to be a competent professional, and of course I want that too.  That's not what I am talking about.  I mean that they would't want me on academic autopilot.

If I could put on an autopilot, I wouldn't be engaging because I wouldn't be engaged.  It would also mean that I hadn't looked for a better physics problem since the beginning.  It would mean that I hadn't changed that slide in ten years attempted a new way of approaching something in a lesson plan.

One of the best parts of teaching is that you get to try again every year.  You get to say, "That didn't work, so I won't do it again."  You get to adapt to new technology, new resources, and new kids.  You get to start again with people who don't know the mistake you made with it last year (unless their brother told them).  There is no other profession that gets to do that.