One Week of School Completed

The first few weeks of school are so telling.  I am starting my  20th year of teaching...I don't think I am old enough to be an "old teacher" but  20 years says a lot.

I have spent  5 days with all of my classes.  They have told me a lot about themselves whether they know it or not.

I have found the  "leave me alone...I don't need any help" students.
I have found the "I need help with everything I do" students.
I have found the "You need to  watch everything I do or you'll be in trouble" students.
And I still have a contingent of  students that I do not have pegged yet but every year some of them just scream their needs during the  first days.

I also seem to have the most focused group of 9th graders I have seen in a long time.  They have been working like mad all week on their first assignments.  They also seem to have very engaged parents who have written me  notes and emails about  how they like what I am doing.

I feel a good year starting!

Is It Really Broken????

The other day, I was listening to Harvard Ed Cast, a podcast through I-Tunes University and the speaker stated that the public school system is "broken". Is it really broken?

I work in a public high school.

I don't consider it to be a "broken" place.

We have served 1,850 +/- last school year. We served approximately 220 students with exceptional/special needs. We will graduated a class of 450+ students. Of those about 50 were students with exceptional/special needs

It is a first-ring school (a suburban school district that borders a major city) with a significant transient population. Fifty percent of the population qualifies for free and reduced lunches. The city where my school is has also becomes home for refugees from wherever the latest war or genocide has occurred. When I started teaching 20 years ago, there was a significant Arab immigrant population, then an Albanian influx, and most recently, Burmese and Nepalese refugees. These Burmese/Nepalese refugees in many cases were born in refugee camps and never attended school. They are not literate in their native language, let alone English.

We have two classrooms dedicated to students with severe emotional problems. These students have grown up under some of the harshest conditions. The three staff members who work with them provide daily encouragement, paths for helping them make better decisions about their lives, and a place of security when they have made a mistake and need to regroup. Some days, reading, writing and arithmetic are the least of their concerns as they battle addiction, homelessness and mental health issues. They are not the easiest students to work with, but my colleagues are tireless and positive, and see the potential that each of them possess.

Some of these students will be the first high school graduates in their families.

Doesn't sound broken to me.

We have three classrooms dedicated to students with the most significant cognitive disabilities. The needs of these students are more than most people can imagine. Some of them are so medically fragile that most of them will never live independently, because their needs are so significant. The teachers and paraprofessionals in these classrooms probably have the most physical teaching jobs, as they change diapers and work on physical therapies - let alone teach content. These staff members work tirelessly to make sure that these students are engaged and active. The ages of these student may be that of their typical peers but their functioning is much like that of lower elementary school students, pre-schoolers or younger. The herculean effort that goes into educating these students is beyond what I could ever do and the staff members in these classrooms love what they do...every day.

Doesn't sound broken to me.

One of the major movements in school today is teaching "21st Century Skills" with and emphasis "Four C's" (critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity). My school has piloted a 1 to 1 computing initiative. It has continued over the course of the last three years. Two hundred students, through grant money, were provided with netbooks, access to iPods and iPads. The teachers teaching these students worked to create collaborative opportunities for students to work on projects/problems to be solved. Students were provided opportunities to demonstrate their creativity. With the devices and software platforms they are using, they have been communicating differently. Yeah, I just used all buzz words. But really? Where in life, in what job, are you given a paper to complete that the boss already knows all the answers to?

One year students were charged with developing an Earth Day project that helped with an issue in the community. One of my students showed me his video as he and his group created a game by putting basketball hoops on the trash cans in the local park to entice people to get their trash to the can. Wow...out in the community, talking to people in the park and asking them what they thought.

Doesn't sound broke to me.

This 1 to 1 computing initiative has opened new doors to the entire staff in the district as there have been in house grants to bring netbooks into more classrooms. More and more teachers are getting their hands on the technology and using it with students. More and more teachers are using the technology that real people in the real world use daily. Make a poster? not so much any more...how about a Prezi? Write an essay? How about a Blog that not only the teacher will read but anyone with access to the World Wide Web? You usually put on your best if "everyone" can see it.

These initiatives have been slow to roll but the purchase of technology is becoming cost prohibitive. We are currently engaged in conversation about BYOD/BYOT. But we have come a long way.

Doesn't sound broke to me.

If test scores are a measure of the "broken" public schools, none of this is ever measured on a test.

It's been a while....

II resolve to post more blogs and then I don't.
I am encouraged by my husband to post my  ideas, thoughts, and reactions and then  I don't.

So, I am, under the encouragement of my husband, resolving to post more blogs.  Let's see how this goes!