This is me most evenings lately. Spending time reading and thinking about lots of stuff. I am in the middle of a self-propelled wave of inquiry about how best to inspire the kids I work with everyday.
I work in a good school by most accounts. We have great community support, a solid teaching staff and for the most part the kids are awesome. These are all relative concepts, because what I think is good others might think is anywhere from fantastic to craptastic.
Working in an environment where people are happy and kids are doing fine on pretty much everything including standardized tests, you'd think that I wouldn't be spending 2 to 3 hours daily just reading (or sometimes watching video clips) and thinking. However, I can't turn my brain off right now. It's most likely a combination of great learning from twitter, several conferences I have been to lately and the fact I am just a little unsettled about the roll out of Common Core.
So here are some things I have been wondering lately.
1) Can I be excited about the renewed emphasis on writing that the Common Core brings when I am also very concerned that emphasis of argumentative, informational and narrative writing is so high that poetry may become devalued?
Creative Writing beyond Narrative: The narrative category does not include all of the possible forms of creative writing, such as many types of poetry. The Standards leave the inclusion and evaluation of other such forms to teacher discretion.
-From Appendix A of English Language Arts Standards of Common Core, page 23
2) For years I have felt like I guided my students to deeper thinking, but will computerized Common Core assessments really allow for the kids to actual show deeper thinking, especially when typing can still be a struggle for our students?
3) How do we as teachers work to create environments where collaboration is valued, creativity is nourished and problem posing is in the forefront when we are increasingly being asked to raise test scores. And unfortunatly I don't think that will slow down with Common Core.
4) Speaking of creativity, Sir Ken Robinson's TED talk about schools killing creativity is kind of old news, but why aren't we taking his thinking seriously? Can you remember the last time you had professional development about nurturing creativity? I can't, which is probably why I get lost on TED for hours.
5) I consider myself reasonably smart and more times than not I am prepared for what I need to do, but If my principal had a "staff meeting rubric" with this:
Come to discussions prepared, having read or studied required material; explicitly draw on that preparation and other information known about the topic to explore ideas under discussion"
-From the Common Core Speaking and Listening Standards : Grade 4, page 24
I am not 100% sure I would pass. And I am not 10 years old.
6) The group of students I have this year seem to have raised their personal bars for reading this year. All 28 of them exceeded their goals for the first trimester in terms of books read and trying out different genres. I should be immensely excited, but this has been tempered by a few questions like, "Is my daughter really challenging herself as a reader?" Why wouldn't reading 17 novels written for children ages 8-12 in three different genres during a 12 week stretch not be challenging yourself?
7) Is the internet really changing my brain? And if it is, should I be worried?
8) Will public education in America end before I am ready to leave the profession of teaching? If you think that is crazy or outlandish, would you have believed 5 years ago that we would see an assualt on the teaching profession from powerful Democratic politicians and powerful business leaders at the same time?
9) Why do I keep adding feeds to my google reader when I can't even keep up with the over 300 I have in it currently? Especially when some of the feeds post multiple times daily. I feel like I am probably Richard Byrne's worst subscriber. Even though this is not his intention I often skip his posts because he make me feel like a slacker.
10) Is is better to work for change within the system like I am trying to do now or do something truly amazing and move out of the system and create a school like Kelly Tenkely has done with Anastasis Academy or like Andy Smallman and Melinda Shaw did with Puget Sound Community School?
Any advice for me? I'd appreciate it. Also I am curious about what you may be currently wondering.
Later,
Tony
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