I read a passage from Robert Greene’s Daily Laws during my morning quiet time today. This morning’s entry dealt with a topic every educator – and person – deals with daily; handling our emotions.
Too often, we make choices based on our emotions. This is true for educators since we see the sides of society others often ignore. Hunger, abuse, indescribable home environments, and abandonment are just a few things we see as our students walk into the building.
We want to do what’s best for our kids because we love them. Too often, we become invested in their success and allow our emotions to take charge.
Of course, even if we can learn to master our emotions (something extremely difficult to do because we’re human), we can’t ever control the emotions of those around us.
The people you work with may not master their emotions. Administrators, other teachers, vital staff members, parents, and students have their own emotions to deal with, and many won’t make decisions detached from emotions. You, on the other hand, will do your best to control your emotions.
It’s not about having no emotions. That, frankly, is impossible. And utterly, completely boring. The goal is to control your emotions and choose not to let them be involved in decision-making. But perhaps even more important to this process is not getting sucked into the emotional whirlpool created by others.
Understand Wizard’s Third Rule: Passion Rules Reason. Most people we meet and associate with allow their emotions to guide every decision.
But not you. You remember Wizard’s Sixth Rule: The only sovereign you can allow to rule you is reason.
Stay focused, stay reasoned.
As always, thanks for reading. This newsletter is a reader-supported publication. The best way to support it is to shop for some of my favorite stuff (I get a cut) or hire me to speak or consult with your organization.
I finished Susan Cain’s Quiet this week and came away with several notes. Of course, my interest in this book on all things introverts was personal. I’m the introvert’s introvert. Yes, I stand in front of students and teachers every day. And I have given more in-person talks than I can remember, but I pay a price for that work.
I’m more comfortable at home. I curl up with a good book or build something in Minecraft. Both are more comfortable for me than being in front of people. I’m more expressive in my writing than I am while talking. I have time to collect my thoughts, and even now, I still worry about sounding like an idiot when I’m in front of people.
I’m much better in public now than when I was a kid, but I still have to put on my super-suit to make it through the day. And I often come home and collapse from the weight of being around people.
Reacting to the World
Turns out, there’s a reason why introverts like me respond to the world in the way we do. Cain presents research on people who have low- and high-reactive nervous systems. At first glance, you’d think that introverts are low-reactive and extroverts are high-reactive.
My friend, it’s the opposite. Introverts have high-reactive nervous systems. We have visceral reactions to the smallest events. Extroverts are extroverts because they’re looking for external stimulation. They need the excitement.
Introverts? We have plenty of excitement walking out the door in the morning, thank you very much. We don’t need anything else.
Now, put yourself in the place of one of your introverted students. How often do we do things in our schools that will throw this student’s nervous system into chaos?
I often think about why we do so many things in education the same way for every student. Yes, we provide interventions when students aren’t meeting achievement standards. But why do we make them sit in overfilled classrooms when we know some of them would rather be alone or in a small group?
We’re stifling great students by putting them in situations that wreck their world. And sometimes, we keep them from learning all they can.
Teachers ask students to collaborate all the time. We’re trained that collaboration makes for great student experiences. And that “we’re better together than we are apart.” I’m the first to admit that I follow that motto when working with students and teachers. Many times we’re right to put folks in groups.
But sometimes we’re not.
Thanks for reading The Eclectic Educator! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.✓
Steve Wozniak, the co-founder of Apple, Inc., created the first Apple computer alone. He worked early mornings and late evenings around his job at HP. No workgroup, team, or other souls to talk with about his ideas. But he created the computer that began a revolution.
Musicians, especially professional musicians, know what makes or breaks their careers. It’s not the time they spend practicing with their ensemble. It’s how much time they spend in solitary practice. Great musicians practice around 4 hours a day alone, then practice more with their group.
Students sometimes don’t want to work in groups because they don’t want to do the work. Sometimes, it’s because they know they work well alone.
Flexible Collaboration
What if we allowed students to collaborate as they see the need? How could we design our classrooms and schools to facilitate this option?
We can use tools like instant messaging or chat tools. These tools create spaces where students can share ideas as needed. Jason Fried from 37Signals tells his employees to practice “passive collaboration.” Don’t meet unless you have to do so.
As a matter of fact, Jason tells people to cancel meetings. If you attend the same meetings I do as an educator; you know this is a good idea.
Microsoft has offices that offer sliding doors and removable walls. When appropriate, people can chat with their peers on a project. But then, they have the control to retreat into solitude and work.
Cain speaks about the “flow state” that people enter when they can concentrate and work. I experience this myself often when I’m working. It isn’t easy to get there without planning to do so, but when I can, oh my.
For me, I put on my headphones and crank up a playlist of techno, lo-fi, or some other repetitive music. It’s always in the background but never in the front of my mind. Sometimes I’m like Tim Ferris, and I’ll repeat a movie or TV episode repeatedly.
When do we allow students to get into a flow state? Do we ever? Introverts love to get into this flow state of uninterrupted work. They hate distractions.
Yet, we break it up every 50-60 minutes of every school day. Imagine how frustrating this is for some of your students.
Finding Your Restorative Niche
Your restorative niche is the place you go to rebuild your strength. This holds true for introverts and extroverts alike; their restorative niches look different. It doesn’t have to be a physical place; it can be a mental state of being.
Regardless of what it looks like, our students have restorative niches they need to visit. Many times per day. Likely, you have a restorative niche yourself that you need to visit.
What Now?
I don’t have answers for what I’ve talked about, but I know that we need to be more aware of how we take care of our introverts. Because I’m one of them, I know how terrible my school experience was all those years ago.
Is there a place for collaboration and group work among students and teachers? Yes. Is there also a place for solitude and quiet focus? Yes, and yes.
Thanks for reading. This newsletter is a reader-supported publication. The best way to support it is to shop for some of my favorite gear (I get a cut) or hire me to speak or consult with your organization.
There’s a project that I’ve wanted to begin for a few years. I thought I’d have the chance during my first year as a full-time digital learning coach, but then COVID happened, and things went off the rails.
Now, my project is running. I’m working with a group of teachers in my district; the Future Shift Fellowship. The teachers represent grade levels from K-12 and several different content areas. Our focus is on redesigning lessons to create deeper learning experiences for students.
In case you weren’t aware, this process isn’t easy. But, with the right outlook and tools to help, we’re making some headway on this journey.
The Right Tool for Framing Conversations
We’re using the wonderful 4 Shifts Protocol as our guiding light during all our conversations. If you’re not familiar with this protocol, here’s an overview:
The 4 Shifts Protocol is a questioning protocol that focuses on redesigning lessons in four areas: deeper thinking & learning, authentic work, student agency & personalization, and technology infusion.
It’s a simple tool to begin using, but it opens the door to much deeper conversations about what we ask students to do and how those tasks align with meaningful work in settings beyond the classroom.
Before this week’s meeting, I asked the fellows to read through the 4 Shifts handbook to guide our discussions. From the group, here are some of the thoughts they shared and their takeaways from the book:
The 4 Shifts Takeaways
My fellows know that one of my rallying cries about any change we undertake in our classrooms is to “embrace the suck.” It’s a military term used by trainers to get their trainees to understand that you must lean into being uncomfortable and push through difficulties. I use it to encourage teachers and students to keep going despite whatever difficulty they face with technology usage, rethinking lessons, or anything that “sucks” about change in education.
The fellows agreed that this book and protocol give them some support and encouragement to embrace the suck. And to know that things won’t always suck.
Next, they realized that lesson redesign will look different for different people because of the protocol’s flexibility. The 4 Shifts protocol respects teachers as professionals and masters of their craft. There is no dictation to use certain tools or methods in any of the shifts, merely yes/no/maybe questions to start conversations about how to change. It’s up to each teacher to determine how to best change each no to a yes.
One fellow brought up how, when used properly, infusing technology into lessons can give students greater control over their learning. Good technology integration should provide students with greater agency and provide them with opportunities to present their work to an authentic audience and setting. Thinking about lesson redesign with deeper learning in mind makes this possible.
It Doesn’t Have to Be Hard
We talked about our overachiever desire to do something spectacular with our students. If we’re going to redesign a lesson, we thought, we need to do something that’s never been done before and end the lesson or unit with some impressive technology project to show off to as many people as possible.
Of course, that’s not the point of this process. And the redesign doesn’t have to be difficult to implement or require huge changes to lead to deeper learning. Even small tweaks to your existing lessons can open new doors for students. Changing one small part of your lesson can give students a greater opportunity to think more deeply or, if appropriate, lead them down the path of becoming creators of content rather than consumers.
Ultimately, our goal in lesson redesign is moving students from inert learning to active learning, getting away from simple test prep to acquiring knowledge that sets them up for success in the world beyond our school walls.
What Happens Next
Our journey is just beginning with this fellowship. We’re starting small to spread this work across our school district. We will learn much along the way, and I’ll be sharing our work with all of you as we go. It’s an adventure for us and, we hope, for our students, too.
Change does not happen quickly, especially in education. However, our students are worth whatever changes we can make to help them be successful and live the life of their dreams, whatever that may be. The struggle is worth it because our kids are worth it.
The Eclectic Educator is a free resource for everyone passionate about education and creativity. If you enjoy the content and want to support the newsletter, consider becoming a paid subscriber. Your support helps keep the insights and inspiration coming!
Happy Monday to you all. I’m back after a nice break and ready to get things going this week. I’ve got some cool things to share with you today.
What I’m Reading:
Reversing Learning Loss
There’s a new working paper out of India that discusses the “learning loss” experienced by 19,000 students in Tamil Nadu, a state in southern India. I’m not the biggest fan of the term “learning loss” due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but that’s not a battle I can fight. I’m just diving into this report, but the results from the interventions provided by a government-run program show a significant reduction in the deficits.
Rethinking Exit Tickets
I’m more invested in student-centered, personalized learning and taking the focus of our classrooms from the teacher being the “ultimate source of knowledge,” so when I saw an article from Eric Sheninger on rethinking exit tickets, I jumped right in. Eric presents an example of an exit ticket that isn’t just a “did you learn” activity. It’s a short exercise, to be sure, but it provides a student a chance to reflect on their learning and think about their level of understanding of the topic.
I am, without a doubt, the introvert’s introvert. I thrive in my alone time. Susan Cain’s “Quiet” has been on my TBR list for some time, and I finally started reading it during my break. It’s brilliant.
I’m about a third of the way through it. My first big takeaway is society’s focus on being an extrovert. Extroverted behavior is encouraged in our schools, companies, and governments. Nobody wants to be an introvert. Until you dig a little deeper…
For instance, Cain points out that the ranks of CEOs are filled with introverts. She quotes the imminent business expert Peter Drucker who said when speaking of companies he consulted with, “the most effective leaders had little or no charisma and little use for the term or what it signifies.”
Another interesting point from the book: 128 companies studied showed that CEOs considered extroverts had bigger salaries than their introverted counterparts but not better corporate performance.
I wonder what damage we do to introverts in our schools by not letting them be who they are and working in ways best for them.
Quote of the Day:
The one who has no wounds has never fought a battle.
As a reward for completing some of my coursework, I binged three episodes of Andor on Disney+. Oh my goodness, it’s so good. I highly recommend it to anyone but especially to my fellow Star Wars fans.
Thanks for reading. This newsletter is a reader-supported publication. The best way to support it is to shop for some of my favorite gear (I get a cut) or hire me to speak or consult with your organization.
Thank you for reading PikeMall Tech. This post is public, so feel free to share it.
Thanks for reading. Get access to exclusive content and expert insights on technology, teaching, and leadership by subscribing to my newsletter. Stay up-to-date on the latest trends and join our community of professionals and educators worldwide.
With today’s ever-changing technology and the constant turnover of cables and computer components, it’s more challenging than ever for an IT team to be everywhere at once, or for an Instructional Coach to be available 24 hours a day, seven days a week for minor inventory concerns. For these reasons, establishing a Student Tech Team in your school is an excellent option.
Student tech teams may be used to relieve the burden and responsibilities of both coaching and IT staff, as well as educate youngsters about responsibility, budgeting, entrepreneurship, and marketing.
Any classroom can benefit from having a student tech team. These are the students who help others with technology-related issues and problems. They’re probably also the kids that like to take things apart and figure out how they work. Whether you realize it or not, you probably have a few kids in your class who would be perfect for this role.
How to Create a Student Tech Team
Creating your own student tech team is not difficult. If your school has a vision for what you’re looking for, you may establish a program that satisfies the demands of pupils, instructors, and the community.
Of course, the first step in creating a student tech team is getting your administration’s approval. Once you have that, you can start recruiting members. Let your students know that you’re looking for kids who are interested in technology and who are willing to help others with their tech problems. You might even want to put up a sign-up sheet so that interested students can sign up.
Once you have a few interested students, it’s time to start training them. Partner with your school or district IT department to set up some training sessions with your students. The folks in the IT department will appreciate having help, and I’m sure they’ll jump at the chance to show your students all the cool “tech stuff” they have access to at your school.
Show them how to troubleshoot common issues and problems. Have them practice with each other to get comfortable with the process. Their training should include using basic repair tools with your school’s devices. This is the perfect chance to repurpose old Chromebooks or other devices. Perhaps your kids will even get the itch to build their own computers!
Once your students are trained, they can start helping out other students in the class. They can also act as a resource for you, the teacher. If you ever have a question about technology or need help with something, you can always ask your student tech team for assistance.
Also, your student tech team can be available for other teachers. If a teacher is having trouble with technology in their classroom, your student tech team can help them out. This is a great way for your students to get some leadership experience and help other teachers.
Student Tech Teams Develop Leadership
The goal of any student tech team is to provide students with the opportunity to gain leadership experience. Student tech teams can be used during the school day and year to help students learn how to collaborate as a unit, form a team, and lead digital learning experiences in the classroom.
Any student tech team’s second goal, which is just as important as the first, is to learn about the technologies being used inside and outside of classrooms. Your student tech team can serve the school community by helping during lunch periods, recess, after school, and, if necessary, at after-school events in the community. Imagine having a community night where your students teach adults to use different apps that they use daily in their classrooms!
As your students continue their work, they aren’t just building technology skills but their communication and collaboration skills. Likely, they will encounter new problems along the way that will require them to partner with others and develop creative solutions.
Your student tech team will build become a valuable part of the school and, as they work with sensitive information, build trust amongst the staff and administration. The likelihood that one or more of these students will pursue a career in an IT field will be high, making you a part of navigating a student’s future course.
Creating a student tech team in your classroom is a great way to ensure that everyone has access to the help they need regarding technology. It also allows you to take advantage of your students’ unique skills and knowledge. So if you’re having trouble incorporating technology into your classroom, consider forming a student tech team. It could be just what you need to get things up and running smoothly.
Thanks for reading. Get access to exclusive content and expert insights on technology, teaching, and leadership by subscribing to my newsletter. Stay up-to-date on the latest trends and join our community of professionals and educators worldwide.
“The most important thing a young ball player can learn is that he can’t be good every day”
– a baseball scout to Lou Gehrig
If you’re familiar with the great Lou Gehrig’s story, you probably also know that he held the record for over fifty years for consecutive baseball games. 2,130 games, to be exact. An incredible accomplishment, especially when you know that he suffered many broken bones (pretty much every bone in both hands), injuries, and sickness over his career.
But he never stopped. He was, most importantly, consistent. Early on in his career, he took to heart the words of that wise scout and decided that he didn’t have to be the greatest player every day. He just had to show up and do the work, even if he failed in the trying.
There’s a lesson there for educators…
How often do we think as educators that we must be perfect every day? How many frustrations come from lessons that didn’t work right, technology that didn’t work at all, or the one student who never shows up finally showing up on the day you wished he hadn’t?
Don’t lie. You know exactly which kid I’m talking about.
Of course, we want to do our best. We’ve been given a sacred trust to educate the next generation. We work hard and take our time to ensure our students have great learning experiences. We look for new ways to engage our students, new ways to get their brains thinking and making new connections.
We search for resources that will help the struggling student overcome an obstacle, and at the same time, we’re challenging the student who seems to excel at every task to do something new and creative.
We diligently work to expand opportunities for students who don’t have what they need to be successful. We meet with parents and community members to support programs that reach at-risk students, talk with local businesses, and get their support for our after-school activities and teams.
We spend sleepless nights searching for the answers to prepare our students for a world that we can’t predict. We drive ourselves mad, stay tired, and put up with less and less support from our government officials and budgets that just don’t seem to get the job done.
And we somehow forget that we’re not going to be the best every day. We want to be. We want to scream when we aren’t. We’d rather die than fail our students or for something to go wrong that ruins our plans.
However, our students need to see that we’re not perfect, and that’s perfectly fine. They need to know that we make mistakes, but we learn from them when we do. They need to understand that sometimes things happen beyond our control, but we always try our best anyway.
“It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life.”
– Jean-Luc Picard
We’re not superhuman. We’re not perfect. We will fail. We will fall. But so has everyone else who has ever set foot on this planet of ours. We won’t be good every day. But we don’t have to be, because our students won’t be good every day.
Sometimes, we just have to remind ourselves that it’s okay if we’re not good every day. Because our students need us to be human. They need to know that even the best of us make mistakes and that even the most prepared can have a bad day.
Because what they really need to learn is that it’s not about being good every day. It’s about being good enough and trying again tomorrow.
Our students need us to be real so they can be too.
We have good days and bad days. What’s important is that we learn from our mistakes, strive to be better tomorrow than we were today, and never give up on our students.
And when they see us struggle and move through problems, they see that they can do the same. And that lesson is more important than just about any other we could give them.
“The most important thing a young ball player can learn is that he can’t be good every day.” The same is true for educators. We must continue to learn and grow to be the best we can be for our students. They deserve nothing less.
If you enjoyed this post, please consider signing up for my free newsletter. You’ll get weekly updates on new articles, tech integration strategies for your classroom, leadership thoughts, and tips to organize your crazy teacher life. It’s free and (I think) pretty cool.
How much time do we spend on inert learning daily in our classrooms?
I’ve been asking that myself a lot lately as we’ve had more and more discussions in my schools and across the country about deeper learning and what our students are learning in schools. I’m watchful of any inert learning happening in classrooms I visit and in my own practice as I work with teachers.
Before we can determine exactly how much time we spend on inert learning, we must define inert learning.
With inert learning, the student learns and remembers facts or procedures without understanding or being able to use them. So, they can regurgitate the information back to you on a test or quiz, but after the fact, they’ve forgotten it and moved on. We can also think about inert learning as surface-level learning.
There are two types of inert learning- declarative and procedural.
Declarative inert learning is when students learn and remember facts without understanding them. For example, rote memorization of vocabulary words without being able to use them in context wouldn’t be considered deeper learning.
Procedural inert learning is when students learn procedures without understanding why or when to use them. A great example of this is students who can solve a math problem one way, but if you ask them to explain how they did it or why that particular method works, they can’t because they don’t understand the concept, they just know the steps to get the answer.
So, how much time are we spending on inert learning in our classrooms?
The answer may depend on what level you teach. To support younger learners, elementary teachers will spend more time on inert learning to empower their students with the knowledge to make deeper connections. In later grades, teachers can more easily move students to deeper learning opportunities, applying that surface-level knowledge to more practical applications.
This is an important shift. Certainly, before any deeper learning can occur, the facts and information from any surface-level learning must be in place. John Hattie speaks about the transition from surface-level learning to deeper learning in this video and how vital both are to students.
As educators, we can consciously make decisions about the content we’re teaching and the instructional methods we use to ensure that our students engage in deeper learning.
Here are some things to consider as you reflect on your own practice:
Do my students have opportunities to construct meaning or create something new?
Do my students have opportunities to apply their knowledge in authentic ways?
Do my students have opportunities to think deeply about their learning content?
If you can answer yes to these questions, then you’re likely doing more than just teaching inert knowledge. Keep up the good work!
Too often, students are taught inert knowledge- facts and procedures without understanding or being able to use them. This type of learning results in surface-level understanding at best and leads students to forget what they learn shortly after the fact.
On the other hand, deeper learning is when students learn and remember facts with understanding. They can use the information they learned in various contexts and see how it connects to other ideas. Deeper learning also allows for critical thinking and creativity.
It’s important for educators to make a conscious effort to move away from teaching inert knowledge and toward deeper learning. We can do this by providing opportunities for our students to construct meaning, apply their knowledge in authentic ways, and think deeply about their learning content. If we do this, we’ll be setting our students up for success in college and beyond.
Can you remember a time in your own educational past when you learned something new, and then, as soon as you took the test, you forgot what it was you learned?
How often does that happen in your classroom with your students?
I don’t want to ask myself that question because I’m afraid of what the answer might be. You might feel the same way. I know how many times it happened to me during my own time walking through the hallowed halls of public K-12 education.
Those facts you forgot, the ones that had no practical application to anything you were doing at the time? That’s inert learning.
Inert knowledge is “learning that was superficially acquired, never really understood, and promptly forgotten” (McTighe & Silver, Harvey F., 2020). Standardized tests are built on inert knowledge. As a matter of fact, most forms of assessment I can think of are specifically designed to measure inert knowledge.
The problem with inert knowledge is that it’s, well, inert. It doesn’t do anything. It can’t be applied to solve problems or create new understanding. It’s just there, taking up space in our heads until we forget it and move on.
On the other hand, deeper learning is learning that sticks with you, that you can apply in different contexts, and that helps you build new understanding.
It’s the kind of learning that allows you to take what you know and use it to solve problems, think creatively, and communicate effectively. Deeper learning is active; inert learning is passive.
There are a few reasons why inert knowledge assessments still exist. For one, they’re easy to grade and don’t require as much engagement from the student as deeper learning assessments. Additionally, inert knowledge is often seen as a precursor to deeper learning, so educators may use these assessments to identify students who need more support to move on to deeper levels of understanding. Finally, there’s a tendency for people (educators and policymakers included) to value things that can be easily measured, like grades or test scores. And because inert knowledge can be assessed fairly easily and objectively, it has become a staple in our educational system.
Now, let’s go back to the question I opened: How much time do we spend on inert learning daily in our classrooms?
Is there a better use of our time?
If you’re looking for more ways to move away from inert learning and toward deeper learning in your classroom, be sure to sign up for my free newsletter. I’ll update you weekly on the latest deeper learning strategies supported by technology integration. I’ll also include links to helpful resources and provide tips for making the most of your teaching time. Sign up now and start moving your classroom in the right direction!
First things first: I appreciate the need for peer review and understand why we have academic journals. I’m not the person you need to convince that any work any scientist or academic publishes needs to be scrutinized with as many eyeballs as possible.
My issues lie in how that work is disseminated to large audiences to be put into action and influence the world.
Thanks to the way most academic publishing works, it’s almost impossible for anyone other than another academic to read your work if it’s published.
Its complete bull💩💩💩💩 when you spend untold hours writing a paper and then you dont get access to actually read your damn paper on the publisher's website. I did all the work–they did nothing but format it! (looking at you Taylor & Francis and Emerald)
It’s hard to overstate what a scam academic and scientific publishing is. It’s run by an oligopoly of wildly profitable companies that coerce academics into working for free for them, and then sell the product of their labors back to the academics’ employers (often public institutions) for eye-popping sums.
As I begin my doctoral studies in the fall of 2022, I hope to have more experience with academic publishing myself. I mean, that’s part of the academic process.
Over the years, my articles, tweets, presentations, podcasts, etc., have been viewed or heard by multiple tens of thousands of people from all over the world. I’ve made that work freely available to others for a long time (thanks, Creative Commons) and seen many take advantage of what I’ve “published” in one form or another.
Sadly, any work I may produce and publish in the academic tradition may never see the light of day.
In K-12 education, we talk a lot about having students create work for an authentic audience; work that will be seen and critiqued by people outside of their school environment.
Shouldn’t we try and do the same with academic publications?
Universal truth: COVID-19 changed education forever. The pandemic affected every area of education. Weaknesses were exposed, kids were left unconnected for months, systems failed, administrators panicked, students felt abandoned, and teachers just had to do more and more every day.
As a result, teachers are leaving. And I mean leaving in a hurry.
For months on end, teachers have been in survival mode, doing their best to meet the same expectations that were in place pre-pandemic and dance the world’s most epic dance from virtual to in-person learning (multiple times for some).
Students still had to take tests and meet all graduation requirements while learning how to talk with each other behind masks and appreciate short outdoor mask breaks a few times per day.
And the teachers had to keep going. They’ve had to deal with administrators who pressured them to try new things (some necessary and some not so much) and adopt more technology in less time than at any other point in educational history.
Three minutes. That’s all the time Lanee Higgins, a Baltimore County Public Schools teacher, had to herself during a typical day of coronavirus-era remote learning. On her computer screen were middle-schoolers, scattered across the county, running through their lessons — while at home, Higgins, age 29, was trying to maintain her authority over her classroom and her life. Sometimes her potty-training toddler, refusing to nap, would wander into the frame when her entrepreneur husband wasn’t there to corral him. When she just couldn’t hold on anymore, Higgins would announce a three-minute break. She’d leave her students staring at the screen while she scurried off to use the bathroom or steal some time to just think.
Teacher shortages were already a reality pre-pandemic but now the shortages are reaching critical numbers. Stress was listed as the primary reason why teachers left the field before the pandemic and the pandemic only made it worse.
The pre-pandemic teacher turnover rate was 16% but by January 2021 nearly one-quarter of teachers were thinking about leaving their jobs by the end of the school year.
And now, as we near the end of the 2021-2022 school year, over half of all teachers are thinking of leaving.
Teachers are tired. They’re tired of changing mandates from state and local officials. They’re tired of dealing with politicians who have little to no respect for the work teachers do every day. They’re tired of misinformed parents who accuse teachers of indoctrinating their students.
Trust me, we’re not indoctrinating any students. If we were, they’d be much better at following directions for turning in their work by now.
We figure out how to support teachers. While a pay increase would be welcome, it’s certainly not all about the money. Even when you understand that from 1999 to 2021, teacher salaries decreased in 27 states, thanks to inflation.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. That means you can use it any way you like, including commercially, provided that you attribute it to me, Mike Paul, and include a link to pikemall.tech.
Quotations and images are not included in this license; they are included either under a limitation or exception to copyright or on the basis of a separate license. Please exercise caution.
Cory Doctorow’s work at Pluralistic inspired the layout, focus, and work displayed here. Hat tip to Cory for all his fine work.
It’s time for educators to make honor a core value in schools. It’s time to build honor into our curriculums and establish it as one of the primary social and emotional learning goals we work to help students achieve.
Thomas Guskey
Full disclosure: I am a reformed honor roll student. I made that list all the freaking time, save for my middle school years.
Why not in middle school? Because I refused to do homework. It was pointless for me. I didn’t need the work and did just fine on any and all exams. But my middle school teachers insisted on grading homework, of which there was more than a metric ton each night.
I had better things to do, like read comics. Or watch Jeopardy. Or Star Trek reruns.
So, like many other students, I missed out on the perks of being on the “honor roll” that many of my friends were enjoying. As a matter of fact, I’m pretty sure I lost some friends because I wasn’t on the honor roll.
Personally, the idea of the honor roll disgusts me. And it’s probably time we get rid of it.
Students don’t make the honor roll for any number of reasons. Whether it’s because they simply don’t care about getting the grades because they realize for most people the grade they got in 10th-grade geometry is no indicator of success in life or because their life away from school isn’t set up to support a great learning environment, many students just don’t care about the honor roll.
Let’s also think about the lengths that some students are willing to go to earn a spot on the honor roll. Yes, some will cheat. I’d venture to say that a student’s desire to cheat is directly proportional to their pressure to get good grades.
And how many students will lose precious sleep to stay up and cram information so they can “brain dump” on a test to get the grade?
Trust me, folks, sleep is way more important than a high GPA.
Perhaps it’s time we either get rid of the honor roll altogether or rethink the purpose it serves. Maybe we should focus on teaching students what honor really is and how to do work that is worthy of honor, not just a grade.
I admit I have taken recess time away from students. OK, maybe not recess time since we didn’t have recess in my middle school but we certainly incentivized certain achievements with a “recess reward”.
Yes, we even used recess as a reward for students who achieve our version of the honor roll.
What a horrible policy. Kids need time to play, at every age level. And using the excuse of placing them in an “activity” class doesn’t cut it.
They need time to decompress and just goof off. I’m 45 and I need time to do that every day.
Recess is an essential part of childhood (and adulthood) and we have to stop taking it away. Some states are moving to create laws to protect that time.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. That means you can use it any way you like, including commercially, provided that you attribute it to me, Mike Paul, and include a link to pikemall.tech.
Quotations and images are not included in this license; they are included either under a limitation or exception to copyright or on the basis of a separate license. Please exercise caution.
Cory Doctorow’s work at Pluralistic inspired the layout, focus, and work displayed here. Hat tip to Cory for all his fine work.
“Today, various pathways exist for future success that value all learning. We need to move beyond a narrow focus on success as only a four-year college degree that ignores entrepreneurial opportunities, career and technical education, and the evolving nature of work… When we expand our vision to encompass all these pathways, we see that social and emotional skills, such as the ability to collaborate effectively and cultivate relationships, are a foundation for future readiness.”
CASEL CEO and President Dr. Aaliyah A. Samuel
Another reminder that a college degree isn’t for every student but those “soft skills” that employers want (as does the rest of society) are important for every student.
