Making a Difference

What is your Unique Selling Position (USP)? How do you stand out in a crowd or in social media so you are remarkable and different enough to get noticed by an employer or client?

You can do this by branding yourself. The job market is tough and sending thousands of resumés may not be the right way to get that “job” you want. I am older than most job-seekers but I learned some things about using the tools available to get known. I read this article from AARP and thought I’d share and adapt the tips for you.

1. Find your passion. It’s all about what you believe in and thinking and looking positive about it. Believe in yourself and what you are doing. If you do, others will too. “Accepting yourself is the most important ingredient in the self-confidence formula.”
2. Give an elevator speech.Come up with a short 60 second pitch that comes across who you are, what you do best, and why others should believe in you. Make it authentic, strong, and personal and make it stand out from your competition.
3. Validate your passion.You believe in what you are doing. You are positive about it. Find others that do to. Encourage your believers to share your passion and get the buzz out all over the place. Find your “Google Quotient” using the Online ID Calculator (www.onlineidcalculator.com) to see how many relevant hits your name generates in a web search. Use social media like Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter to build your PLN (Personal Learning Network).
4. Promote your passion. Design business cards that promote you and your brand and give them out to everyone after your elevator speech. Link to your website that promotes you also. Have all of your contact information so people can find you.
5. Come up with your look. Come up with your look and dress the part. You may have a signature accessory, color, or shoes. Just look as professional as you can with crazy boots or wild glasses.

Holidays bring out the best and worst of people. The economy is putting stress on all of us no matter what your income. If you are poor, you are probably having more problems than just not having enough money to pay bills. I work with a high poverty middle school and am so in awe of children who put up with so much. One of the 6th grade teachers is doing “I am from” poems.

I read poems that tore at my heart strings. One boy wrote about living in a house with drunks and his mother dying of alcoholism. He had other things in the poem that I’ll share later when they create their digital stories with their poems. Other students wrote about unbelievable issues of lives unknown to me. I had to go out of the room and cry.

I’m so involved with my own life that I forget what our children are going through. All of us have more issues now than ever before because of the economy. Poor children are going through the most. They have no voice. Social services are overwhelmed and underfunded. They can only do so much. Schools have cut counselors and teachers are younger and don’t have the background or experience to deal with these issues. We are leaving more of our poor children behind than ever.

The reasons why they give up or leave school is more than the school’s problem. It is society’s problem. It is a matter of taking on their perspective and having empathy for their situation. It is our duty as adults to listen and to try to figure out what is happening to the child.

So I go back to my years in middle school: a white middle class 11-13 year old girl in Maryland. I remember wanting to be popular and liked. It was not the best time of my life. I was scared and didn’t know what was happening to my body. I was changing. I cried a lot for no reasons. I loved this boy or that boy. If they didn’t talk to me, I was devastated. So my perspective of middle school might have been the same as many young white middle class girls. I don’t even remember my teachers or the classes I took. I do remember sewing class and wearing one of my creations in a fashion show. But forget math or history. I don’t remember any of that. I remember I lost my best friend to Hodgkinson’s disease. That was awful, but I never knew anyone who had been shot or murdered.

This group of children I’m working with all know someone who has been shot. Many of them had a relative shot, a family member in jail, very rarely have breakfast or food on the table. I cannot even imagine what they go through. One child sleeps in the bathtub because that is the only safe place. Families are in trouble all over the US. If you are in trouble, there’s probably anger, yelling, crying, and everyone in the family is impacted. We cannot forget the children. What adults do in their homes or at school impacts the children.

Some children internalize everything so you never know there’s a problem. They smile on the outside and are so hurt on the inside. What I love about these “I am from” poems is that sometimes one child who is really in trouble opens up and writes what is happening to them. I believe our job as educators is more than teaching to a test especially for children at-risk and in crisis. Help your children to open up and share their feelings. Look at their perspective on life and have empathy for them. That’s what the holidays are about: sharing and loving each other — kindness and compassion.

I read Chris Lehman’s post on “What we should remember” about why we teach. It’s all about our kids. That’s it! Thank you Chris for a thought-provoking post! I am in awe of what your students are able to do at the Science Leadership Academy and hope more people get involved in Educon 2.3 end of January.

I work mostly with middle school students. Remember what it was like to be in middle school or junior high. This was my toughest time in school. I remember falling in love with a boy who didn’t even know my name. I remember loving Paul McCartney because I knew he would see me in the audience and want to date me. I remember almost everything but my teachers’ names or even what happened in the classrooms. I remember embarrassing times and scary times. It was an awkward time where friendships meant more than my own family. I remember not feeling smart because I don’t remember anyone telling me I was smart.

What I wore, how I looked meant more than what I learned. So are middle school students different today than I was then? Most of the schools I work with are Title I schools with high percentages of free and reduced lunches. This was the target for NCLB. I’m sorry to say there are more poor children left behind now than ever before. I grew up in a safe environment where we didn’t have to worry about life and death decisions. I love Glee and believe all children are smart and talented. I grew up in a house with artists who never new there was a box to be in or lines to color in. However, Glee represents a middle class school. I’m white and grew up in middle class neighborhoods. I had no idea what children from high poverty schools go through. Yesterday I read “I am” poems and autobiographies from some of the children from one of the middle schools I work with. I cried. I really cried. I was sitting in the faculty room of one school and couldn’t even imagine what many of these students endure.

I don’t want to share their personal stories here but imagine most children in this school had a family member shot; knew someone in prison probably a father or brother; come from a broken home; do not have enough money for breakfast; don’t have a warm coat; may lose their home; some are homeless. When you realize that some of these students sleep in their bathtubs because that is the only safe place from bullets, you wonder if they’ll stay in school. I read about 12 year old girls who believe their only goal is to get pregnant. That way they have someone who will love them. Oh my! I heard this before, when I started with the Technology Challenge Grant in Oakland in 1998. We were working with 4th-8th grade students. I just thought it was getting better. It seems much much worse now.

The dropout rate is higher than being reported because we lose kids in middle school. The numbers reported are only high school dropout rates. Middle school is where we need to focus our energy. If we really want to make a difference, we need to change middle schools around the country.  Teachers only know what they were taught or how they have been teaching or what is asked of them by the administration. Teachers cannot do this without the support of their administration and the district office. My next post will be some ideas for them. Chris writes some great questions in his post for teachers and principals. So here’s my ideas for middle school teachers to reach their students:

• greet your children when they arrive to your classroom by name and shake their hands.
• have compassion and empathy for your students perception and positions.
• realize that all children are smart — find out how they are smart and celebrate it.
• create opportunities for success in every classroom.
• design engaging learning environments where students own their learning.
• be an advisor to several children if there is no counseling program.
• get to know your students’ families and invite them to your classroom or visit their home.
• have students keep a journal for their eyes only — unless they want to share it with you and others.
• bring in content experts either to your classroom or virtually.
• connect your classroom to other classrooms around the world.
• connect your curriculum to real-world applications that make sense to your students and their lives.
• create replacement units that engage your students of some content areas in the pacing guide.
• ask students to ask three other students before asking you.
• encourage questions – lots of questions and post them around the room.
• be more of a co-learner and facilitator of learning.
• take some risks and be okay about failing some of the time.
• if you cannot take risks, then rethink your job there. Go where your core beliefs are the same.
• and if there are no other jobs and you feel lucky to have this job, then use some of the ideas here with your students.

Learning in middle schools of the past for today’s children is an oxymoron. 11-13 year olds have different perspectives on life and what they need to know than adults no matter their situation. Add poverty and crime and hopelessnes and it is an almost impossible thing to ask of these students and teachers. Our current school system is broken especially for these kids at these ages. I am only one person and realize the challenge to make this kind of change is enormous. We cannot lose any more children. They are all precious and special and gifted and smart. They are our future. I will do whatever I can to support teachers as they do what they can to help students reach their fullest potential.

Teachers go into teaching to make a difference. Then reality hits. This time in history is hitting everybody. 60% of Americans feel the country is in decline. State education budgets are devastated. Teachers want to make their lessons engaging but there are so many reasons or excuses that they find to go back to what is safe and easy. Actually, I’m starting to understand their position.

I’m a coach who comes into their classrooms and shares with them strategies to engage students and then I leave. I set up a way to virtually support them. What I see is a different teacher than when I worked with teachers 20 years ago. The world is different. Their training is different. The curriculum is different. The pressures they have today are overwhelming. Teachers are told to follow the pacing guide. Why are you not on page 262 on Thursday? This is impossible if you want to engage students in the learning process. Reading from a script is boring for the students and the teacher. It creates a power struggle between the teachers and the students. Teachers become more isolated in their classrooms instead of where we were going – a more collaborative network of professionals learning from each other. When you read from a script, you don’t need collaboration.

Changing the learning environment depends on the school, the administrator, and the willingness for the school community to take risks. Risk-taking and being okay with failing is the way we learn. There cannot be one right answer if we want to solve global issues.

What if we stop and rethink what school is all about. It’s all about the kids. Their future is at stake. It’s a moral issue. It needs to be about learning not teaching. Our children are not prepared for their future. Pacing guides, meeting the standards, teaching to the test, are just not enough anymore. So if you are a teacher who wants to make a difference in kid’s lives and are in a situation where you and your students talents and creativity may be stifled, there are several things you can do before you give in or give up.

• Start your digital footprint by following people who believe in the same things as you and follow them.
• Build your personal learning network (PLN) using social media i.e. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Classroom 2.0 on Ning, and more.
• Join My eCoach and voice your challenges and successes in the Conversation Corner. Look for projects or lessons in the eLibrary and clone and adapt any of them.
• Write a blog or comment on people’s posts so there are trackbacks to you. Quote and link to those people who write and talk the way you want to write and talk. I welcome your comments and invite you to follow me.
• Attend conferences virtually if you cannot go to the conferences in person. Some conferences include: K12 Online Conference, Connecting Online Conference (CO11), Global Education Conference, and Educon 2.3. If the conferences are over, then watch the archives.
• Check out collaborative global projects like iEARN, Global Schoolhouse, and ePals. Your students want to make a difference too and need a way to connect the curriculum to the real world.
• Find, clone, or create and implement one lesson that infuses some creativity as a replacement unit. You can use the Universal builder — it’s easy. Or use Google Sites or Wikispaces. Just take a risk to publish online.
• Capture moments using digital media of students working on a unit without creativity and comparing it with the replacement unit. If you don’t have a camera, ask your coach to capture it for you.

Start small. Change takes time. Learning is all about change. Learning never ends. It means that your students as  learners want to grow and add skills or knowledge to what they know and do to reach their learning goals. You are their co-learner, guide, coach, mentor… facilitating the process. They may not have goals so you may be guiding them to learn how to question, be a critical thinker and problem solver. Your learning never ends either. That’s why you are reading this.

To be an agent of change (that’s what this type of teacher is), you cannot do it alone. Ask for help. Find a coach or mentor to work with you on the backend. A coach is there to guide you to success. It only takes starting with one project. It may not be an overwhelming success where you see gigantic breakthroughs, but take into account the tone in your classroom– where it is and where you want it to go. You still may need to do direct instruction. The forces and atmosphere are still traditional teaching and direct instruction but this is where you can make a difference.

One teacher at a time — One classroom at a time — One PLN at a time –All of us sharing why we need to change so we have evidence — real evidence that this works.

So what does success look like to you? How are you making a difference in a child’s life? How can we help you?

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• Facebook: bit.ly/barbarabray
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It is really tough today to have the confidence you need to be successful. If you are out of work and been unemployed for over 6 months, then you question if you have it anymore. When you have trouble paying your bills, you lose confidence. When you are being bullied at school for being you, you lose confidence. I was talking to my sister, Sandy, last night and shared with her a story of a project I did almost 20 years ago and how it helped a student build confidence. She said I should write about it. So here goes…

I helped write a Technology Innovation Grant for middle schools in 1990. We got it. I was contracted to work with teachers to build projects that integrated technology into the curriculum. The schools in this particular grant were Title I schools with diverse ethnic groups. In the 6th grade core classes (Ancient History and Language Arts), we needed some ways to engage the students and bring history alive. I mean how do 12 and 13 year olds relate to Ancient History? So one of the projects I came up with was Channel Nile News. The students would create a news show going back to Ancient Egypt with commercials. We would put on several segments where students worked in teams assigned real world tasks. Some of the shows resembled the Today Show and the Tonight Show. The teams had to write a proposal on what they would like to do, the roles each of them would play, and time. Some of the shows included:

• News report about Hatshepsut, Female Pharoah of Egypt
• Weekly weather report using a green screen
• Mummification (How to using a stuffed animal)
• Selling a pyramid

This last one on pyramids changed a student’s life. This team decided that one of the boys (who was overweight and shy and being bullied at the school – name withheld to protect the innocent would be the pyramid salesman. This came from the group. No questions. He wanted to sell the pyramid and the rest of his team said “okay.” They watched commercials of car salesmen to use as an example of how to sell his pyramid. The artist created a detailed drawing of the outside and inside tombs of the pyramid. The graphic artist and writer created a storyboard and wrote the script out on a poster board to be held below the camera. The camera and audio crew set up the stage and practiced with the actor. All of this was going on while other teams were working on their projects. It was pretty cool! I was watching the process and saw this actor grinning, laughing, and changing right before our eyes.

When the classes saw the video of him selling the pyramid like a real car salesman — pointing to this tomb as a place for the special rendezvous — and those steps to a secret room as an added value — all of us saw something in him that we never saw before. He was funny. He was clever. He was not the person they thought he was — a timid, shy, sad person. He changed everyone’s opinion of him with that video. His confidence changed also. When the video was over, the room went wild with clapping and excitement.

I wish I still had that video to show you, but it’s not the video that matters. It’s this process that finds the strengths of each individual, and a team that is willing to take risks with each other, so each member can shine and show who they really are.

You cannot find that with a test.

I thought about the things that are important to me after reading “15-minute writing exercise closes the gender gap in university-level physics.” The article shares “Perhaps you care about creativity, family relationships, your career, or having a sense of humour. Pick two or three of these values and write a few sentences about why they are important to you. You have fifteen minutes. It could change your life.” So here goes…

Family

My family means the world to me. My children and granddaughter were here over Thanksgiving and the house was warmer (not only because the heat was up higher than I usually put it) but the feeling in the house was warm and special. My sisters and their families were here also. The love we have for each other is something you cannot really hold or touch. It just is there. Always. Being with people that know you and have history with you means so much. You can bring up something that happened years ago and see their smiles because they experienced it also. I do have some challenges now but it doesn’t matter when you have love and people that love you no matter what. Some love is always there even though you have to let it go. My granddaughter, Cali, has a sparkle in her eye when she sees me, her Baba. She giggles and shows me pure love. Wow! How lucky am I!

Friends

There are some people who are there for you in good times. But it’s the people that are with you during the tough times that you know are really your friends. Like I said earlier I have a few challenges right now that I am processing and working through. Everyone has something to deal with especially during these tough economic times. I hope my friends don’t think I take them for granted. I want them to know how much I appreciate them. I don’t want to list them here but you know who you are. Even though I may have loads of Twitter and Facebook friends, there are some real special people in my life who believe in me and want to see me successful.  I would do anything for them too. To have a business now in difficult times means that you have to be tough — tougher than I’m used to. I like to do things for others or I wouldn’t have created My eCoach. I tend to bend over backwards for people instead of doing what I need to do for myself. Watch out world! I’m growing and changing to be something different and stronger. But don’t worry — I’ll still be there for my good friends.

Learning

I once told my children “I love learning” and they laughed at it. My granddaughter said that to me this weekend and I just smiled. Every day is a new day. Each day I hope to learn something new. I am so curious about the world and what I can find out about it. Cali is almost three so the world is her playground. Watching how she is curious and creative brings out the child in me. I love technology but I want to learn so much more about the world as a scientist, researcher, and artist.

I am joining different groups now to stretch my mind, my world. I’m spending each day reading and researching ideas and topics that I’ve always wanted to learn about. I’m teaching a course on “Learning in Real Time” for UCSC this Spring and putting on webinars that stretch my mind. Just did a webinar with Roxanne Clement on Joy in Learning Matters for the Global Education Conference (see all the archived recordings here). I tried to go to as many webinars as I could during that conference and going back to check the archives there and other virtual conferences. So cool! I’m running a book study for Sig ILT on Web 2.0: How to for educators just because I want to.

I am a Micro Awardee from the Make Me a Million $ Competition for Count Me In for women business owners. I am learning about being more successful at what I do and how to do that. I plan to share what I learn with you. It’s all about attitude. I get it. When you get that feeling that you can do anything you want to do, it’s so rewarding.

_____

So back to the article about gender gap… I didn’t believe enough in me especially being a woman who grew up in the 60s and 70s. The last few months have opened my eyes that if I don’t believe in me, then why would anyone else? I do now. I do get it.  I’m learning.

I watched Forrest Gump again. When you look at Forrest’s life, he was in the right place all through history. I know it was not real, but this movie brought home to me  why it’s so obvious what is happening in America. It’s a dumbing down of America for a reason: MONEY. Even though Forrest’s IQ was low, his mother believed in him; he had opportunities and took them; and he never gave up.

No Child Left Behind sounded like a good idea but was never funded completely and then focused on testing and standards. I don’t disagree about accountability and determining how students are progressing. BUT… no student is the same. They start out different. The problem with NCLB and standards is that everything is based that all 6 year old children across the country are the same. Textbook companies created the tests that met the standards for Texas, California, and New York. Forget the rest of the country. So a 6 year old in West Virginia was tested on information based on New York standards. Public schools are losing money so administrators are making hard choices to retire high quality teachers early, get rid of bonuses for teachers who work toward a Masters (article), and hire inexperienced teachers from programs like Teach for America (TFA) where they are placed in low income schools after 5 weeks of training. We need teachers. People need jobs. It’s just that these inexperienced teachers need help and that TFA prepares them with the attitude that they know more than experienced teachers. What??? How can that be? If all of your new teachers feel this way, then forget change… forget creativity. That is, unless some of these new teachers take the high road and want to learn more and partner with an experienced master teacher or coach. Read Carolyn Foote’s post about master teachers.

Now we’re moving to Common Core Standards that are pieced together skills that inexperienced teachers teach with worksheets because that’s all they know. Teachers may only know what they were taught. Reading from the textbook doesn’t work for today’s students anymore. Testing on these standards does not mean students have real understanding of the concepts and how they relate to the real world. We need experienced teachers, mentors, and coaches to develop engaging innovative learning opportunities for our students. If not, we take away the opportunities for our most vulnerable children in public schools. Maybe we need to rethink the motives to compartmentalize teaching and learning now and why we are going back to this industrial model when we know it doesn’t work.

Do you really want mediocre citizens that will not be able to compete in a global society? Keep this up and we’ll be the developing country led by a few very wealthy people. China, Korea and India will be leading the way unless we stop the direction we’re going.

I’m looking for schools, teachers, districts who want to offer the opportunities so any child can reach their fullest potential.

Are you ready to get creativity, joy, and the focus on learning instead of teaching to the test?

You know what to do. You just don’t do it. It is so easy to find excuses to not do something that is really important because it is hard to do. It is easy to find excuses why you need to do the little unimportant things and put off the difficult stuff that really matters. So I say “stop making lists, delegate the little stuff, and take the first step to be a success.” I read Seth Godin’s post Sure but what’s the hard part and got me thinking about this and how it home for me.

I’ve heard this from others telling me over and over again that someone else can do this or that for me, but it was easier for me to make excuses or to presume that I was the only one in the whole wide world that could do something. I remember hearing and believing “if you want something done right, do it yourself.” The problem with that is that there is only one of you. You cannot do it all.  It’s that indispensable thing we tend to do to ourselves. Today is the day to let go.

Society has always been impacted by technology. Each invention has affected how people relate to one another and how cultures have expanded or ended. Technology impacts how cities grow, where people live, and who owns what. Technologies are the reason a few people are very rich, that people are more social, and that teaching and learning is changing. We are at a crucial time in history where educators can make a difference in how our students interact with one another and make a place for themselves in society.

Historical Perspective

People developed a language so they could communicate and learn from elders through their stories. They invented tools for agriculture, to build homes, and to create weapons for hunting and protection. Civilizations have been impacted by natural disasters, encroachment from other civilizations, and from problems within their own community. Technology not only increased humans’ life span but how we live, how long we live, and how many there are of us.

[Human population growth over time]

The population doubled from 2.5 billion to 5 billion in only 40 years after 1950. The world population passed 6 billion just before the end of the 20th century. It is estimated that the population will reach 8-12 billion before the end of the 21st century. More people means more technology.

People migrated to find a better life. For most of history, only the wealthy had access to literature and a good education. The printing press allowed the masses to receive news, read books, and attend school. Inventions changed the way we worked like the cotton gin where slaves were stolen from Africa to be used as free labor with no rights, and the railroads that were built with Chinese labor who had little or no rights, no property, or a fair wage. Communities developed within large cities to protect and sustain the different cultures.

After World War II, freeway systems led to the suburbs. Public transportation changed when the automobile became part of every family. Television shows replaced dinner conversations. We saw man walk on the moon and the horrors of war in our living rooms.

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2003/iraq/

So Where are We Now?

The Internet and mobile technology are changing the way people interact, work, and learn. Everyone can report the news or share a picture from their cell phone. You can produce your own music, publish your own book, blog your thoughts that you usually keep to yourself, create a website with even personal information, Twitter what you are doing right now, and talk on your cell whenever and wherever you want. We are using technology for our own use yet it infringes on others. Does this technology allow us to respect each other and value each others’ time and work or do just the opposite?

Consider these questions about today’s technology:

• Do you answer your cell phone when you are at a party, in line for coffee, dining with friends, etc.?
• Would your children rather text message instead of talking to your friends face-to-face?

Image from Consumerist

• Do you post to your blog your thoughts and link to others without researching if the information is valid?
• Do your children have a FaceBook profile with links to friends they don’t know?
• Would you rather visit a museum in SecondLife than visit a real museum?
• Do you believe that all music, art, and literature should be free?

Our connections seem personal, but are they? Many young people value the number of friends they have more than the quality of those friendships. The appeal of technology is real. Do you have an iPhone or a Droid? What about an iPad? Today, the arts, artists, and culture do not seem as valued as in the past. Who owns the work? How would the Beatles promote their music today? They probably would create a FaceBook site and give away samples of their work. With a Creative Commons license, they would probably allow others to use but not modify their work. How do artists make money? How does the viewer find this artist if the artist is not tech savvy? How do you know if the artist is the original artist? With the proliferation of social networking tools where everyone can share and publish on the web, artists will have to be innovative and entrepreneurial to be successful.

Web 2.0 allows us to be self-absorbed yet more connected than ever.

“The consequences of Web 2.0 are inherently dangerous for the vitality of culture and the arts. Its empowering promises play upon that legacy of the ’60s–the creeping narcissism … with its obsessive focus on the realization of the self.” . [Andrew Keen's reference to Web 2.0]

Every day there are new Web 2.0 tools that let you create, publish, and share. This is a time in history we will look back and say either “I wish I had created my own Web 2.0 or mobile app”, “I lost everything because I gave it away” or “what is Web 2.0?”

Okay – so I twitter [twitter.com], blog [barbara.bray.net], and have my own learning community [my-ecoach.com]. I’m not alone. People are leaving landline phones, books, and television by the millions. They use Internet-based services like YouTube or Hulu to watch their favorite shows and Skype to virtually connect — for free. It is a generational shift with even older generations jumping on board. Companies are marketing to a new kind of multinational and navigating the digital Silk Road. The growth of technology in China and India already affects how we use technology just because of the numbers of people involved. Video games have professional leagues with international online contests and self-made celebrities [Major League Gaming: http://www.mlgpro.com/]. Digital fads that are global may work in one country and not in another. Student tutors mentor students in another country. The old hierarchical system is falling away. Textbooks are starting to become open source such as Curriki.com and MIT OpenCourseware. Even marketing is changing. Viral marketing launches companies like Threadless T-shirts where the consumers design what they want. Will our students design what they need to learn? Will teachers learn how to be the digital guide?

Value Arts and Culture

With more people and crowded conditions, new technologies will be necessary to support and sustain us. Let’s also make sure we use these tools to tell and protect our stories. Video, audio, images, and interactive features open doors to worlds and cultures that children could never learn in a book. We need to allow for private spaces for confidential discussions and provide guides for tentative and eager participants. It is our duty as educators to guide students and other educators as they become innovative producers, teach them to become cautious consumers, and learn how they can use these tools to reach their fullest potential. We need to support the arts and artists and value each others culture. Let’s take these next few years to design digital ways to connect us not only to each other but to promote our values, to respect each other, and to encourage innovation as we develop a place for ourselves in the 21st century!

This post was updated from the original post on Rethinking Learning September 2007

Professional development does not have to be work. Same with the classroom. I hear teachers talk about their work that day or the workshop that made their brain hurt. Where’s the joy? When you teach to the test and focus on increasing scores, just watch the faces of the students. Are they engaged or motivated?

Look back at preschool and what Kindergarten used to be like. The room was set up with learning centers and students were talking and laughing together. There was learning going on. You could hear it and see it. I used to put on professional development sessions that were more like this type of Kindergarten room. I taught claymation to teachers where they worked in teams, created a storyboard together, assigned each other characters or objects to create with the clay, and so on. The giggles and laughter that ensued was pervasive. The whole room was laughing during the session. Then they would video and lay music over the video. When we were all done, we had a show… with popcorn.

Real learning by doing… and FUN!!! I miss that. There seems to be a whole generation of teachers that missed this type of professional development. For the past 8-9 years, all professional development seems to be focused on data, improving scores, and accountability. I know we need that, but here’s my take on it. The scores are based on standardized tests and our kids are not standardized. They are all different. Teachers are all different. So we use the scores to determine our improvement on AYP and the gaps. We use that data to help us design and drive the curriuclum. But what about supplementing these tests by following a student’s progress by collecting evidence of learning along with reflections in an ePortfolio? Authentic assessment where the student analyzes what they learned and now understands. Teachers could then correlate the test scores with actual evidence and share their own reflections to help the student improve.

I taught a project on advertising for multiple grade levels where I remember the kids saying to me “I didn’t know learning could be this much fun.” I loved that. Think back when you were learning something where you walked away feeling really good and it was fun. Remember that? I do. I remember making a paper maché map of the world with others students and then doing a presentation. That was hard but fun. I remember walking home feeling a joy in my heart that I did it. I know it now.  I had struggled with the concepts, but that project made it real.

We need to make the concepts real to our students and bring the joy back to learning.

What are your priorities in learning?