by Tracy Rosen, teaching & consulting since 1996, blogging about it here since 2007. All views are my own and you should take them with a grain of salt, I do.
(brainstorming. getting closer to what I want to examine… see v.1 and v.2 for context)
Bridging theory and practice.
Bridges. Sun rising. Strong metaphors for change in education. Photo taken by dogra, made available on flickr through a cc license. Click image to view source.
There is a lot of theory around education, around the best way(s) to teach children.
Often theory is presented to teachers as an end-product, in the form of curricular reforms or technological reforms that are expected, at times mandated, to be used in the classroom.
Researchers question – why aren’t our findings being transferred into practice?
Teachers question – why are we being asked to do something new, something else again?
Policy makers question – why are teachers being so difficult?
How can we change these questions?
How can we bridge the gaps?
I believe it comes down to
competing value systems between the different stakeholders that create
difficult relationships
fragmented culture
unstable ground
The feedback I received from my doctoral seminar group and from Chris is helping me to bridge the gaps in my ideas. Interestingly, as I do that I’m also discovering that my ideas are about bridging gaps.
True story. This is what I have witnessed over the past 2 weeks.
Students stress, get upset, cry or just give up and check out – there’s more than one way to deal with stress.
Teachers stress, get upset, cry – at least those who care about being accountable for how they report on their students’ progress. Others smirk, throw a dart and submit their marks on time with no lost sleep (those are the ones who give up and check out).
How has this become normal?
We are all connected.
Don't tell me that we are not connected. Don't even try.
Education reforms say they focus on process (espoused theory – what we say we believe in, we value), that curriculum is student-centered, favouring communities of learning, communities of practice.
Yet professional development related to Education reform is focused on assessment and evaluation (theory-in-use – what we actually do, not what we say we do), we focus on the end product. We spend so much time focusing on it that process is entangled in the end product. When PD is all about evaluation, then our professional lives become obsessed with it.
Don’t tell me that students are not stressed because their teachers are. Don’t tell me you wonder why students always ask – will we be graded on this? Will this be on the test? Don’t tell me that there is no relationship between our obsession and theirs.
Don’t tell me that the system is not sick, is not creating learning situations wrought with anxiety and frustration, wrought with obsession with the end result.
I originally posted these quotes (see bottom of post) over a year ago. They resonate deeply within me.
Love and Affection by Today is a Good Day on Flickr. Click image to view source.
Love and affection can not be bartering tools. They just need to be. I believe they are conditions for learning, for real learning to happen. But what is real learning? It’s learning beyond the test. Learning beyond the classroom. It’s collaborating with others to move forward in whatever you might be working on – for students it can be learning about work ethic and motivation by spending extra time to make sure you are on the right track, to make sure you will be successful. For teachers it can be the same thing when we spend extra time collaborating with each other and with our students to make sure we are all successful.
I want my students to believe that my love and affection is there whether they do well or not. Of course I want them to succeed, but I certainly hope they do not seek me out after school in order to ‘win’ love and affection. I hope they seek me out because they sense the caring and because they want to succeed for themselves.
It’s report card time. I have a love/hate relationship with these times of the year. Because I have some students who are going to fail this semester. At least, they are going to fail on paper. But these same students have made such amazing advances compared to where they have come from. Advances that have nothing to do with the number that just might crush them on that government mandated piece of paper that reports on content, not process called the report card.
“The children must get plenty of love and affection
whether they deserve it or not: they must be assured of the basic quota of
happy, recreational experiences whether they seem to have it coming or not.
In short, love and affection, as well as the granting of gratifying life
situations, cannot be made the bargaining tools of educational or even
therapeutic motivation, but must be kept tax-free as minimal parts of the
youngsters’ diet, irrespective of the problems of deservedness” (1952).
“Boredom will always remain the greatest enemy of school disciplines. If
we remember that children are bored, not only when they don’t happen to
be interested in the subject or when the teacher doesn’t make it
interesting, but also when certain working conditions are out of focus
with their basic needs, then we can realize what a great contributor to
discipline problems boredom really is. Research has shown that boredom
is closely related to frustration and that the effect of too much
frustration is invariably irritability, withdrawal, rebellious
opposition or aggressive rejection of the whole show.” (1966)
I found out today that the teacher I am replacing for the year has handed in her official resignation. This means that I can possibly stay in my position permanently. HOT. For real! Why is this? Because I feel that I am doing real work here. Real work with kids that shows I am we are making a difference.
The change is significant. It’s my duty to honour it. It’s as beautiful and natural as seeds becoming flower. (click image for source)
We are the 50 students and 4 teachers in our alternative program for Grade 10 and 11 students. It’s long, hard work – today I arrived in my classroom at 7:30am and left it at 7:15 pm. We are in the middle of an exam week and I saw kids who were tired and frustrated sticking it out, staying late to make sure they get it – whether ‘it’ be math, English, History, whatever. These are kids who are in our program because up until they were accepted into it this or last year they spent more time skipping class then attending it. These are kids who used to walk away when things got tough. They’d still like to, I know it because they tell me, but they don’t. They don’t.
Not all of the students I have this year are showing this same commitment, and some may not make it until the end of the year because of this lack of commitment. But those that do, they are going places. Because if they can make such deep and significant personal change as choosing to succeed rather than fail, choosing to tough it out rather than give up, in such a short time, then they can do anything. For Real. And imagine, these are only the seeds.
My inbox has been very active of late, with submissions to this week’s Carnival of Education.
Carnival at Annandale, Virginia made available on flickr via a CC license. Click on image to view source.
As carnival host, I have control of the content and form of this week’s post and so I have made the decision to leave out the numerous postings I read that are either trying to sell a product/service that I felt did not have to do with education, or are providing a service that rubs me the wrong way, such as the selling of term papers ;)
So…without further ado… except to point out that the posts are organized solely by order of reception…
— Rachel Rambach sings us a social story/song she wrote for one of her students: Marissa’s Guitar posted at Listen and Learn. She even offers to send you a copy of the story if you contact her. Great stuff!
— Lorri begins her post with this quote that echoes my own concern for the future:
It scares me to know that I will be raising a family in a society were gangs are so prevalent and out of control. Knowing the influence that gangs have on teens and the violence, drugs and general lack of respect they have for society scares me to death. -Bree
— Denise offers a boatload of free math teaching resources: More Free Math Resources posted at Let’s Play Math!. As a first time math teacher (I usually teach English, History, and Ethics) I’ve subscribed to the site!
— OKP has an existential crisis and asks, What do you think is the purpose of high school? Existential Crisis #1 posted at Line 46.
— Matthew Ladner exposes something previously unknown to me – the benefits of illegal private schooling in India, Ghana, Nigeria, and Kenya: Black Market Private Schooling in the Third World posted at Jay P. Greene’s Blog. Makes me want to think of alternatives to some of our own public school crises and reminds me that it needs to take a village, not a commission or board, to raise a child.
— I love that Carol Richtsmeier writes about the things you should never learn to do so you won’t have to do them! I never learned how to work those diaper things. You see, my nephew’s visit last summer coincided with a nasty tummy problem… Scanners, Mowing Lawns & Things You Just Shouldn’t Learn How To Do posted at Bellringers.
— Nancy Flanagan writes, ‘We all lose when kids perceive politics and voting as dirty and dangerous’ in this commentary on children’s perception of the voting process: One Vote Samba posted at Teacher in a Strange Land.
— Matthew Needleman reviews the K12 Online conference and is ‘…in awe of the thinking, planning, and creating that has gone into creating the K12 Online presentations’: K12 Online: Week One Review posted at Creating Lifelong Learners.
