This has me thinking that we all have changes that happen and we all find ways to adjust and re-align our life.  This happens constantly in education.  Changes.  New curriculum, new staff, new students, snow days, sick days, new years, new technologies.  The list could go on and on.  How we deal with it is what makes the difference.  We can try and keep things the same or we can try and adapt and work with the circumstances we are given.  In today’s world, technology is making a place and this is changing education.   The focus is not technology, the focus is on how to reach our digital learners.  I posted recently at my Lutheran Tech Teacher blog a little more about this after attending the LEA convocation.  Feel free to check it out.  Because so much is changing, it is hard to keep up with everything.  Find one thing you can try.  Learn it well, use it well and add more as you go.  Make little changes that you feel comfortable with and you may surprise yourself!   Happy Learning!

She says she was blogging out of secrecy to start off.  She didn’t use her whole name, didn’t put a location. And she blogged about anything and everything.

In essence, people are latching onto pieces of what I wrote without A. knowing any back story, and B. knowing the whole story. The student or parents who took it upon themselves to dig up my blog–and be assured that that is what happened, as they were looking for it and didn’t just stumble upon it–are the ones who started this fracas, and they also made sure that only pieces of the whole picture came to light. I’m sure the media helped with that second part, too. After all, a juicy story is more exciting to the masses.

HERE IS THE STORY.  YOUR A TEACHER, YOU WROTE NEGATIVELY ABOUT STUDENTS!  Ask yourself why did students or parents search more information about you?  What was going on in the classroom to make that happen?

Everyone gets angry, even Jesus cleared the temple and flipped tables.  But again, Jesus died for every single person he was angry at.  Would you?

Schools are stressful, Teaching is stressful, life is stress!  WE ALL GET THAT.  The change from teacher to principal has changed the type of stress I have, but I get it.  Life isn’t peachy everyday, and you don’t get a long with everyone.  THAT IS LIFE!

Anyone who thinks when they write a blog is going to be limited to a few is seriously mistaken.  Although I don’t expect people to read my blogs (except this one, YOU MUST READ THIS ONE!), I know people around the globe have stumbled and searched for terms in my blogs, and have visited them.  I remember one of my blog posts talked about English Speaking vs not speaking English.  I got a reader that commented a few times.  It wasn’t expected, but it happens.   THE WEB IS WIDE OPEN!

But the fact remains that every year, more and more, students are coming in less willing to work, to think, to cooperate. These are the students I was complaining about in my blog.

THE FACT REMAINS, YOUR THE TEACHER.  FIND A WAY TO ENGAGE THEM!  FIND A WAY TO CONNECT TO THEM!  EVERY STUDENT CAN LEARN!!!

I am a professional

That is debatable and questionable!

YES THIS IS A BIG DEAL, because our STUDENTS ARE BIG DEALS.  HOW WE HANDLE THEM AND CARVE THEM INTO BETTER HUMAN BEINGS IS A BIG DEAL!

To all the teachers out there, take this to heart, what you say is A BIG DEAL!

To read more of her postings, as she believes she is on a crusade now: http://www.nataliemunroe.com/

What does the word mean? To some it just means what textbook are you using. Usually that is the easiest way to define what our Curriculum is. I  would like to share with you 5 other definitions of the word curriculum:

A course of study (derived from the Latin “currere” meaning “to run a course”)

Course content, the information or knowledge that students are to learn

Planned learning experiences

Intended learning outcomes, the results of instruction as distinguished from the means (activities, materials) of instruction

All the experiences that students have while at school

I really like that last definition. All the experiences. When I was a teacher, some of the best time to learn was in between classes or while at recess. As a teacher and educator, we must look at four different type of curriculum.

The explicit curriculum – what schools list and document as their teachings through course work and school activities, including goals and aims, courses and lessons, knowledge, skills, and attitudes

The hidden curriculum – the behaviors, attitudes, and information that schools many unintentionally teach students such as outlooks toward authority, ideas about “success,” and internalized beliefs about works righteousness.

The null curriculum – what schools do not teach or make available to students including certain courses (such as anthropology or architecture) as well as certain outlooks, attitudes, and beliefs (such as concern for assorted social issues or political perspectives)

The co-curricular program – already acknowledge in the explicit curriculum above for schools who view curriculum in a holistic way; but sometimes distinguished from formal classroom work. (Consider whether or not you want to make this distinction.)

As a Christian school we must have essential Biblical imperatives.  We must blend intentionally faith and Scriptures into our daily lives.

Source: Planning for a Lutheran High School, The Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod. 1997.

I am fed up that computer classes across the nation are 1 time a week for 45mins.  INTEGRATION!  As Chris Lehman has said many times, “Technology should be like oxygen – Ubiquitous, necessary and invisible.”  My son is learning that there are certain tools that do a job better.  Just like he knows ask mom a question about cooking and me a question about sports or technology.  My son from an early age knew that our iPod was for music and movies.  He knew that cell phones was to talk to grandma and grandpa.  My younger son is learning these tools and what they are for now.  My older son knows that my iPod touch has his spelling game on it and he knows how to unlock it and get to his game.  I do not fear he will delete anything of mine.  My son knows how to trouble shoot technology… as he knows one of his DS games you have to blow in (reminds me of my days with the original NES) to get it to work.  Each classroom should be a trouble shooting department.  We should be troubleshooting curricular issues that will touch on the main topics we want to discuss in each class.

Schools need to be rebuilt, Teachers need to be retrained, Parents need to be retaught, Students need to be the most important aspect of Education and our lives… Sorry about the Rant, I just wanted to get it off my chest.  The picture is of my older son as he graduated from Preschool last night!

Secular teachers who happen to be members of WELS churches near schools may be called to teaching positions with the understanding that they complete the WELS Teaching Certification process through MLC. In my case, I do not live close to any WELS school, but have decided to dedicate myself to getting WELS Teaching Certification and move to where the schools are located via the calling process. You could say our family is taking a “leap of faith”.

I made contact with some personal contacts at Bethany Lutheran College in Mankato, which is part of the ELS (Evangelical Lutheran Synod) and in fellowship with WELS to inquire about teaching in the Lutheran school system. I was given the information to contact Martin Luther College (MLC) and did so in January 2009. My experience in finding out about the WELS Teaching Certification process took a long time. It was a 9 month series of email from April 2008 to around Christmas 2009. The process of how to become involved in Christian education without our Lutheran synods is not well disseminated. I hope I can change that a bit, so others wanting to serve can find the path more easily.

I requested the information from MLC in January 2009 and received it in early February 2009 in an information packet. I prayerfully considered the path I was considering again. The WELS Teaching Certification process required me to send a detailed application, transcripts and a letter of recommendation from my pastor. I received acceptance in March 2009 and planned a visit in April 2009 to New Ulm, MN.

I learned that I would be taking 18 credit hours of classes to provide a solid foundation that many secular teachers would not have taken in their past coursework. These courses include: three Bible Lit. and History courses, two Lutheran doctrine courses, a course on Luther confessions and also Principles to Christian Education. Lastly, after the coursework is complete, candidates will participate in a 5 week student teaching experience.

I will be finishing my coursework this summer, which include 2 weeks on the MLC campus to take the Principles of Christian Ed. course. All the other courses are online via Moodle, a course management software system that MLC uses for online teaching of courses. Next fall, the plan is to spend 5 weeks at some town with a Lutheran high school where I can complete student teaching. I am hoping, for logistics sake, that perhaps I can go to Minnesota Valley Lutheran near New Ulm, MN. where I can live in the dormitories at MLC.

Upon completion in this program, I should be placed on the WELS Teacher call list and my name passed to all the 12 WELS District Presidents for consideration of positions that become available. I have already communicated my path to a couple District Presidents in the Minnesota and Arizona districts, but will be happy to consider calls from any of the 26 WELS high schools across the country.

With God’s blessings, I will continue to relate my experiences going forward in this process, and also be called to a teaching position in our Lutheran school system.

Therefore, the Guild formally extends an invitation to any pre-service Lutheran educators (planning to teach in Lutheran or public schools) to join our community of fellowship and encouragement.

Further, the Guild is looking for several pre-service educators who would be interested in regularly blogging about their experiences on the journey to becoming a Lutheran educator.  If you are interested, please email me at webmaster@lutheraneducators.com.

So, as the title of my post states- “Are we getting anywhere?”  In teaching?  Well, are we?  I would say yes when it comes to the technologies that are available.  We have so much at our fingertips, literally!  But are we using the technologies to get anywhere?  I sometimes struggle with this.  There are so many websites, devices, software and hardware choices to choose from that it is hard to know what can be of the most benefit to our students.

There are new things to learn, new technologies to try, and students who crave the interaction with these technologies.  They crave engaging learning and interactions.

“It takes time to learn new technologies”

“I have enough to worry about”

“I don’t think I would use it”

So, I ask again- Are we getting anywhere?

Integrating technology isn’t about using technology to teach.  It’s about engaging our students.  It’s about changing something in the way we teach.  Instead of reading about the people in Russia, we can  talk to them via Skype.  Why not engage the students in fractions via You Tube.  It means taking our teaching to the next level.

Does this require some work?  Yes!  When we decided we would be educators, we committed ourselves to life long learning.  And if you didn’t, well…maybe you should take a second look at what you are doing with your life! It is part of the calling of being in education.  There’s learning involved.  What I am writing is probably not a shock to anyone.  However, there aren’t too many who may say it out loud.

Looking back a the photo above, I can tell you that both phones will get us in touch with the people we try to contact.  The old ways of engaging students versus the new ways of technology- both ways will get the information across.   Are we getting anywhere?  Yes, slowly.  However, how we get to where we are going is up to us!

So, what is your passion?  What do you most want your students to learn?  How does this all fit together?  Do you ask yourself this often?  If not, start.  Our students are not the same as they once were.  The way we educate our students is and should be changing.  I would venture to say that we will see more 1:1 classrooms in the next 10 years if not sooner.  Technology is shifting education.

Now where does that leave you?  Are you willing to shift your teaching?  Are you willing to learn?  Are you willing to teach the students in new ways?

Hmmm……

Something to ponder if you aren’t already.

What did I learn from making French Fries for 3 hours?

Our school had the opportunity to work at McDonald’s today for a fundraiser.  We had to work for only three hours.  Some teachers were at the front counter.  Some were walking around trying to sell pies and cookies.  I was on the fries.  There were two other teachers with me.  The only task  I needed to do was put the basket of fries into the fryer, push a button, when it beeped shake the basket and put it back into the fryer, then when it beeps again take the fries out and let it drain a little.  Finally I dumped it into the pan for the other two teachers to salt and dish them into their containers.  That was it.  There was a little machine that put the fries into the basket automatically.

So what does this have to do with education?  Besides the fact I made a promise to myself when I was in High School that I would never work at a Fast Food place.  Although it was only 3 hours, I was dreading the night, but it was good for our school.  We made a lot more than I make in three days of teaching.  As the night went on, I let my mind think about things and one of the things I thought about was, “How can I make this experience benefit my educational pursuits?”  I was thinking more how I could use what I witnessed and thought about as making me a good administrator, but it is also had some “teacher” lessons here.  This is what I am going to talk about.

Although what seems like a simple task, making fries is and can be a tough job.

The first thing I found out was you need to pay attention.  You need to know what beeps mean and what the words on the fryer mean.  There were two different fryers for the fries.  One fryer would say “Shale” and the other would say “Duty” at times.  Both of those words meant that I needed to shake the basket.  If you are not paying attention, you might ruin the fries.  In school we need to pay attention to the students if we don’t read the signs our students are giving us, we might ruin them or lose them in a very important learning opportunity.

The next thing was you need to keep remaining fries away from the new fries.  That is pretty self explanatory, but it goes with the first fries made, the first fries served.  In education we need to take care of the tasks students do not understand before we move on to new concepts.  Master a concept before we let a student move on and be lost with the students that are on new material.

The third thing I learned was you need to adapt and adjust.  This was the hardest part of the night.  You never want to have too many fries and you never want no fries.  You have to go with the flow.  Each batch of fries took about 3 mins to make.  Some times fries could fly out of the waiting section and at times they can be just sitting there.  One part of the night I got finished making 6 batches.  The fries sat for a few mins, and we didn’t have any more room to put the fires into their containers, and in no time they started to go very fast, so I added another 8 batches to replace the ones we just sent out.  As soon as I was done making that last batch, no one else got fries the rest of the time we were there.  So we were sitting on a lot of fries.  As a teacher we need to be adaptable!  We have to go with the flow of what our students are ordering.  We need to give them concepts and projects as they need and want them.  We can’t overboard them with work all the time and we can’t give them no assessments.  It is a fine line.

The next concept I learned goes with the whole making sure we have enough fries but not too much.  According to McDonald’s rules every 7mins you need to get rid of the old fries.  They are outdated and stale.  I think you can see where I am going here for education.  We need to get rid of our old and stale methods.  If you are teaching exactly the same the last 5,10,15,20,40 years it is time to change out the fries and make some new ones.

The last thing I learned was things don’t always go as plan.  I mention earlier that there was a machine to put the fries in the basket automatically.  Well, I found that machine isn’t always reliable.  Maybe it was the grease and fry particles floating around, but this machine would fail every so often.  So you had to troubleshoot a little and take time to get it back on track.  Not to mention you needed to refill it after so many baskets.  In school we know lesson plans don’t always go as plan.  Some teachers can’t deal with this, others need  to deal with this.  If the fry machine stopped working, we could still make fries, I could fill the baskets myself, but that would not be feasible for my time.  This goes with technology in the classroom.  Many teachers don’t want to shift because maybe technology will go down and they think it is easier for them to do it themselves.  Recently I moved my spelling tests to the computer.  I use Spelling City (http://www.spellingcity.com) to administer my tests.  This online program will say the word, say a sentence, and then grade the work.  While students take turn taking their spelling test we work on other projects or reinforce some concepts we are having trouble with.  As a teacher I need to troubleshoot not just technology issues, but troubleshoot students.  Especially in third grade, the students do not always know why they don’t understand something or why they get a problem wrong.  I have to troubleshoot their thought process to help them understand.  Plus sometimes you need to do the maintenance or take the time to create a project for the students, to make your lessons more engaging.

It was an amazing opportunity for me to learn something new and in the end, when everything works the fries taste amazing, just like when in education things go the way you plan about the students turn out amazing.  So go into your classrooms and make some great student fries!

Here is my list in no particular order:

Textbooks:  Most Lutheran schools I know of have a system where each subject or class gets new textbooks every so many years.  One school I know of uses a seven year rotation, but I’ve also heard of schools on a fourteen year cycle.  A case could be made that knowledge in subjects like Mathematics and English doesn’t change very quickly, so a more frequent replacement cycle is not necessary and would be too costly.

However, have you ever done a side-by-side comparison of a new textbook and one that is fourteen-years old?  I have, several times.  Even if content hasn’t changed, presentation of that content has.  Modern textbooks are very visually appealing and tend to be much easier for students to understand.  They also include tie-ins to websites and other online content.  Even more importantly, they are based on our current understanding of students’ brains function in the learning process.

So, how do we get updated textbooks into students’ hands and make sure that each incoming class also has the most up-to-date books possible?  Is the answer requiring students to purchase their own books, just as they will in college?  Or could the solution be in online and electronic textbooks?  Or, alternatively, do we even need textbooks any longer?

Decline of Liberal Arts

The length of the school day was an issue within the public school systems of my community a few years ago.  As a cost-saving measure, several class periods were cut from the public school day.  As a result, graduation requirements were adjusted to fit the now shorter days.  Graduation requirements are now 4 years of English, 3 years of mathematics, 2 years of Social Studies, 2 years of science, 4 years of PE/Health (with waivers offered), and 1 year of Fine Arts/Foreign Language.  Students would also need to take approximately 3 elective courses to fulfill the graduation requirements.

These requirements emphasize English, PE/Health, and mathematics, while de-emphasizing science, fine arts, and foreign languages.  First, let me state that I am glad to see that English and math requirements were kept high.  However, I am saddened that the science requirements were reduced to only 2 years (Biology and Chemistry or Physical Science).  I am also concerned that students are able to graduate without taking both a foreign language and a fine arts course.

I feel one of the strengths of the American educational system is liberal arts, the notion of exposing all of our students to a wide variety of topics from many disciplines.  This eclectic mix fosters the formation of higher thinking skills and also creates well-rounded citizens who are better able to appreciate viewpoints different than their own.

Let me know what you think on the issues I’ve identified or on the issues that you think are critical in education today either in your comments below or through email to jbiddle@lutheraneducators.com.