Posts Tagged “passion”

15 10 2009

Learning Well

Posted by: Paula White in Uncategorized, change, critical thinking, engagement, metacognition, thinking, tags: , , , ,

Last spring I saw a tweet about a collaborative venture called “Teaching Well” that was part of the work Darren Kuropatwa (@dkuropatwa) was doing with facilitating PLP work. Basically the idea was that one person started a metaphor/contrast about teaching and the other person finished it. There were some amazing contrasts and pairs of slides that not only showed the creativity of the teachers involved but also the philosophies and thoughts they have about teaching. I wasn’t officially part of the PLP, but Darren let me submit a slide anyway. (See the idea with many links explained here by Tania Sheko.)

Here’s mine.

Teachingwell

It clearly shows I believe teachers have to be learners, and in rereading it, I think that it pretty much encompasses all that I believe about teaching.

Teachers can teach shallowly, to simply pass the tests or we can teach for deep understanding that allows students to ask new questions and thirst for more; we can do it alone or we can collaborate and share with our colleagues; we can do it because we want to make a difference, we want to help kids, we relish the AH-HA moments in our students, we enjoy deep conversations, we like the challenge of crafting questions that scaffold students to new understandings  or we can do it in a way that simply meets the requirements of the job to bring home the paycheck; as we teach, we see knowledge as simply a gurgling up, a beginning that leads to more questions, perhaps different questions and deeper learning as we make connections, synthesize, analyze and use that knowledge to create.

So many of us lament, day after day, that we have no time to talk to our colleagues, that we have no time for reflection, no time to build the lessons we have in our minds and hearts that go well beyond the state standards to the passions we have in our field.  Milton Ramirez (@tonnet) recently responded to another of my blog posts, saying, “Twitter really changed our way of connecting to educators and other professionals. I can not foresee other applications that can bring together so many interesting people at once.” While I’m glad to hear another person say Twitter is as powerful for them as it is for me, I think we have to go beyond 140 characters and commit to having deep conversations, critical questioning and more co-creations that tap into the incredible brainpower of the educators  sharing in the Twitter stream.

We not only have to share our strategies, our finds, our projects, and our methods of using the web with our students as we talk about teaching well, but we also have to have the conversations about how our students LEARN WELL. Let’s challenge ourselves to change the conversation from centering on our teaching to our students’ LEARNING WELL.

I’m wondering what my slide would look like if I borrowed Darren’s idea and changed the phrase to “Learning Well.“  Interested in thinking about what YOUR slide would look like? Want to play?

Learning Well

http://docs.google.com/present/edit?id=0AS2gSADuNRdRZGhkZm1rajNfMWNqcmc5c2Ri&hl=en

Please be sure to cite your source on the last slide.


http://www.unicef.org.uk/tz/resources/resource_item.asp?id=107

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13 07 2009

Playing School. . .

Posted by: Paula White in change, critical thinking, engagement, innovation, learning, metacognition, thinking, tags: , , ,

I continue to struggle with meaningful learning in schools. I continue to think about what Ira Socol said–“Educators often think that school is the point, when it needs to be the path.” I continue to ponder his other statement, “So, it is not a question of whether these technologies add value somehow to education, but the reverse, can education add value to the communications and information technologies of our present day world, and its future?”

Then he states: “It is the job of education to alter itself to prove itself of value to the world which now exists.”

It is the job of education to alter itself. . . .Think about that. . . . Do we ever?

I have been teaching 35 years, and I still see classrooms that look very similar to those in which I student taught.  Teachers are still confusing the verbs of schooling and learning, as Eric T MacKnight responded to my last blog: “Schooling’s main purpose is to produce compliant, homogenous workers and citizens. Learning, on the other hand, has to do with our individual needs and desires for understanding, enlightenment, and personal growth.” (Thanks, Eric, for the contrast of schooling and learning.)

Donna Bills also noted that “If you only learn “school” and learn it well, your expectation is to always be led by the hand “step by step” into all new knowledge and skills.” I believe that too many times we teach students how to “play school” (also known as the hidden curriculum of sit down, shut up and listen) at the expense of modeling learning, at the expense of setting up situations where kids can develop lifelong learning skills or habits of mind or the propensity to WANT to figure things out.

I have a friend who up to a couple of years ago when teachers began to retire in a certain school in our district swore she could have gone back to that school and had the exact same schedule in the same rooms withthe same teachers she had as a 9th grader (and she is over 40 now.)  She also said, that as a district administrator, she had been in some of those classrooms and it appeared they were using the same lessons she sat though in the 80s. So, if it’s the job of education to alter itself, why hasn’t it happened?

What if. . .

* we all decided to incite passion in our students. .  .  To find out what they care about and give them a chance to interact about it. (My fifth graders RAVED about using wikispaces, but it wasn’t wikispaces or our activities that they mentioned–the comments they made were all about connecting and interacting and wiki-mailing each other and sharing and learning from one another.)

What if. .  .

*we all decided to use pre-assessments and actually used that data to compact the factoids we have to teach and THEN used the time we save to set up connected learning situations for our students?

What if. .  .

* we all decided to give each other (as teachers) feedback on what we’re doing so that it becomes more meaningful and richer for the students. (I want to engage my students in some true collaborative projects this year, NOT just parallel play ones. I want my leadership, at all levels, to reduce the silos and the parallel play in which they engage, as well!)

What if. .  .

*we did as Chris O’Neal suggests and build in “some simple sit-down times with individual teachers where we ask some of those “tell me about the students in your room” and “what does the typical flow look like” or “who do you sense isn’t as engaged as you’d like.” Then, as a team, what can we do about it…?” I’m working with my 3rd grade team tomorrow on their math curriculum maps, as simply yet another member of the team.  Will what I say and do make a difference in how we all look at teaching math this year, and more importantly will it make a difference in how our students LEARN math??

Will we think twice now about putting such an emphasis on teaching, or such an emphasis on schooling?

Will we look more to learning, both our own and that of our students?

Will we pull those backchannels out of silently happening in their brains and make them open?

Passionate educators are everywhere.  Will we pour that passion into helping our students show their passion to us, so we can support their learning better and help them connect to others who will help them think deeply about those passions?

Can we

Will we

live up to the job of education to alter itself to prove itself of value to the world which now exists?

If we can, we’ll engage those kids who have checked out, who have disengaged, who have no use for the stupid game of “playing school.”

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18 04 2009

Passionate Educators Are Everywhere

Posted by: Paula White in Blooms, engagement, learning, metacognition, teaching, thinking, twitter, tags: , , , ,

This morning  I read a tweet by @e_shep who quoted “Inventing Creativity” http://bit.ly/b2kYT The true pain of being passionate is encountering people who are not.

I think that’s a true statement because so many of us who are passionate are often perceived as dogmatic, or intense, or our passionate contribution to a conversation is misconstrued as “it has to be my way.” One reason I tweet is because I find like-minded individuals on twitter who are also passionate about teaching, learning, technology, students, quality interactions and real, honest, direct and sharing/caring relationships. So many times I have seen people who do not know each other face to face express incredibly kind sentiments to one another, and I have marveled at the ability of strangers to connect so deeply across this microblogging platform.

Today I tweeted out a question: “In thinking of passionate educators, are people on Twitter more passionate educators than you typically encounter day to day?”  I didn’t mean it as an either/or question, but as more of a continuum, or to help me think about the passion behind the educators on twitter.  In 140 characters, I certainly didn’t say all I was thinking, and the responses I got broadened my thinking even more.

Here’s a sampling:

  • UltimateTeacher@paulawhite I love what I do, and I happen to work with some people who don’t feel the same…twittering allows me to help and be helped


  • cwebbtech@paulawhite re: Passionate teachers – I think the teachers who are on Twitter tend to “share” their passion more frequently-globally. (And I’m appreciative of that sharing!)


  • icklekid@paulawhite hard to say if educational twitters are more passionate but tweeting and sharing ideas makes me more passionate about education!





  • tbrewstertbrewster@paulawhite Educators that use Twitter are passionate about sharing ideas, and modeling 21st Century technology skills for their students.29 minutes ago from web





  • melhutchmelhutch@paulawhite passion can seem more evident when you are excited and learning so twitter people seem more passionate- others can be just as p.34 minutes ago from web











So what I’m sharing is that it’s not that teachers on Twitter are MORE passionate than other educators.  Teachers who are passionate about teaching and learning are everywhere and show those passions in lots of ways.  Those of us who do it on Twitter may simply be more overt or public about it in this particular venue.

P.S. and being limited to 140 characters is probably a good thing for many of us!

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