Two thoughts I have for teachers to ponder:
1. Who are you surrounding yourself with professionally?
It can be incredibly draining to be a teacher at a school site and even grade level that may not share your views, passions, and practices. Proverbs 13:20 NKJV states it best, "He who walks with wise men will be wise, But the companion of fools will be destroyed." Therefore, teachers need to take advantage of outside resources such as Twitter and Google + Communities to tap into a wealth of information and connections that will rejuvenate the soul.
And # 2. Are you willing to try something new in your classroom?
I make it a point, now, to always walk away from any form of training or professional development opportunity with at least one idea that I can implement into my classroom immediately. Sometimes I walk away with too many and have to choose one or two and other times I feel that I have to build on what I gleaned to make it worth trying. The fact is that I am willing to try.
It wasn't always that way though. I remember the desire of just getting comfortable into the standards, routines, testing, etc... But I realized that I was getting bored and more importantly the kids were getting bored. They were mastering skills but geared more towards passing a state test rather than existing in real life situations that will come up for them to face. I had to change something and getting into the enhancement of learning through educational technology came just in the knick of time. Reading about 21st Century Learning by authors Marc Prensky and Tony Wagner shook me up and gave me that slap to the face to revamp my teaching and learning approach.
These past two years have been the most memorable years of teaching and guiding these kids towards being the problem solvers and critical thinkers that they are. Their school experience with me was not just about passing tests but it was about enjoying their own learning and building memories with their own development of skills.
A risk I took this past week was participating in a Mystery Hangouts with another class in Illinois. I became part of this community a couple of months ago but did not go past that step. Now I am ready to fill up my calendar and schedule one hangout a week with a different class around the world! A short but fun packed 30-45 minutes had so many skills built in and don't you think these kids are going to remember this for the rest of their lives? You have to watch this to see that memory being made.
I leave you with this, "Teachers need to get over their 'fear' of modernity and reject the simplistic notion that children are 'much better at technology' than adults. If there is any truth to this myth, it is because children use the technology. Doing develops expertise. That should come as no surprise" (Martinez & Stager, 2013). I would love to hear what you tried and how it went.
Book References:
The Bible
Martinez, S., & Stager, G. (2013). Invent to learn: Making, tinkering, and engineering in the classroom. Torrance, Calif.: Constructing Modern Knowledge Press.
Prensky, M. (2010). Teaching digital natives: Partnering for real learning. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Corwin.
Wagner, T., & Compton, R. (2012). Creating innovators: The making of young people who will change the world. New York: Scribner.
