Starting the week on a positive note

This (unsolicited) e-mail came from an elementary classroom teacher in our district. I am sure she speaks for many teachers. I am very glad there are people in the world who stop and take the time to say "thanks."

Hi Doug,

I wanted to share how my media specialist had a direct impact on the teaching and learning within my classroom. I was invited by my media specialist to pick a topic or project to serve as the basis of a slide show presentation consisting of 5-8 slides. Each 5th grade teacher was allowed to select their own topic. One teacher chose important historical events while the other chose to report on a state. I chose "Favorite Picture Book".  My media specialist took the time to create a sample presentation based upon topics we both felt were important to share. THIS MEANT THREE SEPARATE SLIDE SHOW PRESENTATIONS to use a an example for students to model.

Students from my classroom reread and researched their book, author/illustrator on line. Students then created a slide show storyboard which I edited. The students then continued the process of creating a slide show with the Media Specialist. Students were taught how to insert pictures (with citation). They then gave these presentations to their classmates.

BECAUSE OF THE WORK OF MY MEDIA SPECIALIST TO ENSURE PROPER LEARNING TOOK PLACE, my students LEARNED how to create a good slide show. I selected 4 students, based upon work ethic, to EACH create their own slide show representing a portion of Chapter 13 or 14 from their social studies text book. These 4 students spent 2-3 days reading both of these chapters. They then discussed and divided up what they wished to share with the class.

These four students were given class time to use laptop computers. At times, the media specialist provided supervision while the students worked. These slide show presentations were fantastic! They were shared with a second classroom. The students did all the work themselves and they knew how to run the projection device as well (which I admit--I do not!).

Both types of presentations are being shared at conferences. Parents are amazed at what their children know how to do.

Thank you to your staff for helping us educate our students.

Sincerely,
A Mankato Elementary teacher

One needs to have faith that one's work is appreciated whether that appreciation is ever articulated or not. 

How the grandchildren got a webpage

At right, older brother Paul helps little brother Miles figure stuff out.

As part of a class assignment, a college student evaluated my www.doug-johnson.com website. The report was well-done and quite comprehensive and basically boiled down to: your site is useful but dull. (The exact same words, I believe, the LWW uses when describing me!)

I was also taken a bit to task for mixing the professional and personal. While 99% of my website contains content of professional interest, there is The Grandfather's Page. So OK, it looks like shameless grandparental bragging, but the page was begun for a professional reason. And here it is...

In late April/early May of 2001, just about the time first grandson Paul was to make his long anticipated apperance into the world, I was in New York state, doing a series of workshops and presentations.  And primarily because of my own anxiety, I carried (for the first, last and only time during a presentation) a cell phone that was actually charged,  turned on and had a number I'd shared. I explained at the beginning of each talk that the only reason the phone might ring was if I had just become a grandfather. Not that I was excited or anything.

Invariably, of course, somebody's cell phone would ring during every presentation, causing a great intake of breath, followed by a disappointed sigh after realizing the phone that rang didn't have a new father on the other end. For three days, my own phone refused to ring.

Finally, late on the last day of the trip during my very last presentation,  my phone rang. In my excitement, I fumble it and cut off the caller. The phone rang again. It was my son-in-law calling to say...

Well, only to say doctors had induced labor in my daugher. Once again, a sigh of disappointment among the 30 librarians who were in the room.

But before I was allowed to leave the conference, attendees made me swear to keep them posted about this coming grandchild. I said I'd send pictures. And the Grandfather's Page was the result.

As presenters, as communicators, as teachers, we ought not be so worried about keeping our professional and personal lives separate. I know as a listener, I focus in when a presenter goes personal. I often can identify. The person becomes, like the Velveteen Rabbit, real. And often it is my heart that is touched - and my heart helps my head remember. I was reminded of this reading Jeff Utecht's entry "A personal stake in the future" on this Thinking Stick blog. Thanks, Jeff.

 How do you make yourself real to your students, your readers, your library patrons? Or is it really that important?

Creativity without purpose? Experimentation without control?

At the risk (or perhaps hope) of continuing to antagonize a few readers (see once again, the excellent responses to Friday's post "Is Experimentation Ethical"), I am going to wear my conservative hat again for this entry. I'm not satisfied that either experimentation or creativity by teachers is in-and-of-itself a prima facie good. I'm not convinced that teaching is an art, nor should it be. I'm worried that we have the potential of doing as much harm with new approaches as we have of doing good.

Why should we treat our children's intellectual health any differently than we do our children's physical health?

For those teachers who wish to deviate from research-based best practices, established curricula, and adopted resources (and wish to use either technology or leeches), the following requirements ought to be in place:

1. The purpose of the changed practice needs to be clearly stated in terms of a student outcome.
2. There needs to be a quantifiable method of measuring the effect of the new practice.
   
3. The result of the experiment/creative approach is shared with other professional in such manner that it can be replicated.
4. The rigor of the above requirements should be high, all experiments should be externally monitored, and all data should be statistically validated.
   

Would we ask any less of those whom we entrust our kids physical health?

One of the reasons that we have NCLB is that the educational establishment itself never addressed its own accountability to the satisfaction of the public. Now we are chaffing under the short-sighted (but measurable) metrics non-educators have placed on our shoulders. If we are to be creative in our methodology, to use new technology tools, to emphasize new skills over basic skills, we better damn well take the time to make accountability a part of our efforts - and respect parents' and the public's need for it.  Do we really want to continue to be known as good-hearted, but fuzzy headed, artistes?