Current Wonderings

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

 

Comments

[Katsok]

Love your post, Tony. I find myself wondering along the same lines. I teach in a school that has good scores, but with the students we have, we should. I am working for change from within but creating my own "fantasy faculty" is often a dream.
Katherine

[MMBrothers]

You especially have pushed my education pondering lately as I wonder am I doing enough to professionally develop myself in the areas I need and want. I am also wondering how I can achieve better balance in my work life and personal life (as I sit here typing and listening to my husband ask me if I am done working yet).
I, like you, have been doing some wondering about Common Core and am trying to keep an open mind. Am hoping that it brings me a breath of fresh air and tightens up my focus.

[Mandyrobek]

I had a great post written here and I lost it somehow. Let me see if I can capture it more quickly this time. I think 300 in a reader is a wow number but if you treat it like a newspaper or magazine you wouldn't read everything most likely in those formats. Just read mine, LOL. I just got TEDAir for my phone, where do I start? Do you follow people? Any tips?

I wonder if we keep searching and reading because we have an internal drive that is different. I think passion was mentioned a few times at NCTE.

Your number 10 I wrestle with too. There a days I want to drive change within and there are days I want to escape and go somewhere unique but grounded in philosophy. When do we stop and collaborate on beliefs and then the outside can't get in unless they prove worthy.

[Tony Keefer]

Katherine, Mary and Mandy,
Thanks for the feedback, it is appreciated. Dream faculty is an interesting concept indeed. Clearly focus is something I could use right now. I would hope that an internal drive is not so different, maybe some people just haven't tapped into yet.

As far as TED goes, I really don't follow people, but I have seen lots of the videos tagged education, design, and creativity. Some blew my mind, some just made me go "mmmmmmmmm, this is not that great."

Later,
Tony

[Cathy Mere]

Tony,
I'm glad to know I'm not the only one that wonders about these things. Sometimes I'm not sure the best way to make a difference. My two Twitter identities are a perfect example. My @PublicEd4Kids posts concerns about the future of public education as politicians decide to play with the futures of our children (and our country). I follow a lot of people who stay informed about public education on this account. I find I cannot read posts on that account late at night or I will never go to sleep. I had hoped the account would be a balance of public ed information AND stories about all that is going on in public ed classrooms across the country.

My other account reflects conversations of literacy, learning, and positive work in schools (hopefully, most of them public). Which groups make a bigger difference? I think it's important to know what is happening to public ed politically and am continually surprised by the number in our profession that are completely uninformed. However, I feel like the group of people working positively within are the ones really making a difference.

I suppose for the "greater good" it is better to keep working to change things within a system. However, I'm wondering about that even as I type this. I really enjoyed this post, Tony. So many interesting things to ponder.

If you solve the "reader dilemma," please forward your solution. I'm continually amazed by the amount of smart thinking shared on the internet. If only I could keep up with it all.

Cathy