Should We Pay Teachers More?

Recently, Time Magazine ran a cover story that illustrated the financial struggles that American teachers face. Some of the quotes from that story have gone viral on social media. 

"I have a masters degree, 16 years experience, work two extra jobs, and donate plasma to pay the bills."

"I have 20 years experience, but I can't afford to fix my car, see a doctor for headaches, or save for my child's future."

"My child and I share a bed in a small apartment, I spend $1000 on supplies, and I've been laid off three times due to budget cuts."

Perhaps in reaction to that story, I was recently asked the question, "If we make teaching a more financially attractive career will it improve education?"

The simple answer is, "Yes."

But, when we hear this question, I don't think it's really asking what we think it's asking.

Of course, making teaching more attractive will lead to more qualified people choosing to teach. It will lead to greater respect for the profession. If teachers don't have to take on second and third jobs to pay off their student loans, they'll be able to focus more energy on their students.

I believe the real, unspoken question that is being asked is, "Is it worth investing in our teachers?"

Those who ask this question really want to know, "Is it worth taking money away from all the other places we spend it in order to pay teachers more?"

The only way to answer those questions is to examine what the trade-offs would be.

In the United States, the amount of money spent by states on standardized testing each year has been estimated to be $1.7 Billion. It is also estimated that American parents spend about $13.1 Billion on test prep, tutoring, and test fees each year.

Standardized tests are a great way for companies to make profits off education. They are also wonderful for generating data that can be analyzed in order to figure out how to make even more profit off education.

They are not much use for those of us who are trying to help children actually learn.

The United States has about 3.8 million teachers.

Reallocating money being spent on standardized testing toward teacher salaries would lead to an average increase of about $3900 per year, approximately a 7% raise.

US schools also spend about $7 Billion each year on textbooks, many of which are out of date before they are even published due to the exponential growth of human knowledge.

In addition to their lack of relevance, textbooks often come with scripted lesson plans and standard assessments which prevent both teachers and students from being successful. The importance of creative thinking, collaboration, and personalized learning in our future society are well documented. These textbook programs often create environments void of those skills. A teacher reading from a teachers' manual is not modeling the creativity we need in students and has no need to collaborate in designing better lessons. Standard assessments prevent us from ensuring every student is getting his/her needs met. In fact, many schools tell teachers to stick to the textbook programs "with fidelity" in order to make the data from standardized tests just a little less meaningless.

This is not to say that schools should not purchase books. They should. Books will always be an important aspect of education.

Expensive textbook programs that undermine teacher autonomy are not.

When schools are spending billions on textbooks that prevent teachers from growing and students from learning, while at the same time teachers are forced to work second and third jobs in order to pay their bills, we have a problem.

We could look at how schools purchase technology that is not used effectively, spend millions of dollars on athletic fields, and dozens of other ways that we spend money in education on things that are not nearly as important to our student's future success as their teachers.

Our priorities are clearly askew.

If a society values having an educated populace, a strong democracy, a thriving economy, and healthy citizens, it must put adequate resources into it's public education system.

And, if that society wants that system to be successful, it needs to demand those resources are being used to recruit, retain, train, and support the most important in-school factor in determining the success of our children: their teachers.

Michael Soskil is a dynamic speaker, professional learning facilitator, author, & one of the most highly recognized teachers in the world. The book he co-authored, Teaching in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, has been called "an authoritative guide to teaching practice over the next three decades" and has been endorsed by world leaders in government, education, & business. To learn more about Michael's work or to book him as a speaker for your next teacher workshop or event, please visit his website at MichaelSoskil.com.

Are Robots Going to Replace Teachers?

As computers get faster and smarter, it stands to reason that robots and artificial intelligence will replace any job that they are able to do more cost effectively.

If a robot can do it just as well for cheaper, it will.

What does this mean for teaching? Will robots replace teachers? Some researchers believe so. They claim that artificial intelligence will have the ability to teach children more effectively than humans within ten years.

I believe this conclusion is based on false assumptions about the purpose of education and what teachers do. Teaching is more than assessing students’ academic needs and providing the correct content. Schools are more than places where children are prepared for the workforce. Our educations systems were created to serve society, not to be places where individuals are molded into compliant automatons.

If we want a future where citizens do exactly as they are told, ignore the suffering of others, operate without moral guidelines, and react to stimuli instead of proactively creating the kind of world they want, then robot teachers will be perfect. After all, these are the qualities of computers.

I believe that we desire more than that out of our education systems.

In the book I recently authored with five other Global Teacher Prize Finalist, Teaching in the Fourth Industrial Revolution: Standing at the Precipice, we look at dozens of teachers who are exceptional at preparing their students for a complex, technological future. At the heart of each of their work is the ability to make human connections and to build relationships with students.

Available from Amazon at Teaching4IR.com

This is something that a machine will never be able to do, regardless of how many calculations per second it is able to compute.

Robots will only replace teachers if we allow teaching to become automatable. If we allow our profession to continue the trend toward scripted lessons being read out of teacher manuals, distribution of mind-numbing worksheets, and preparing children for mass-produced high-stakes standardized tests, we will be replaced.

Instead we must ensure that teaching remains a job rooted in humanity, emotionally connecting with both children and content, and love. This will not only prevent machines from taking our jobs, it will also give our students the education they deserve.

As technological innovation advances the possibilities available to us in education and society, we must be very intentional about the learning experiences we provide our children. We must allow them to think critically about their communities – local, national, and global, and encourage them to use new technologies to improve the world around them. Empathy and compassion must be the driving forces behind the way we teach our children to use technology.

This is the way to prepare our students to be leaders in a democratic society. Democracy only works if those who are being governed are empowered. Equity and empowerment go hand in hand, and empathy can be a driving force for closing equity gaps.

As technology continues to advance rapidly, it will have both the power to unite and divide us. The path we choose – unity or division – will largely depend on the choices we make in our classrooms and education systems.

Let us choose to keep education grounded in the best parts of humanity.

6 Things My Students Have Taught Me

Twenty-one years later, I still remember my first day of teaching and how misguided my perceptions were about the career upon which I was about to embark. Like so many others, I thought that the primary role of the teacher was to deliver information to students. I couldn’t have been more wrong. 

Now, years later, I have come to understand that being a good teacher is as much about building relationships with students while modeling determination, curiosity, compassion, and helping others through the process of learning. I am constantly learning new things from my students. Here are six things they have taught me.

Don’t take yourself too seriously. I don’t think you can be an effective teacher if you aren’t willing to make mistakes in front of your students and laugh at yourself. When I first started teaching I wanted to make sure my students knew I was in control of the classroom. I had great classroom management, but very little classroom empowerment. Now I am much more comfortable allowing my students to see me as a fellow flawed human. There is a culture of respect in my classroom. I respect my students, they respect me, and they respect each other. Within that culture, we understand each of us makes mistakes on occasion, and that they are learning opportunities.

Passion is powerful. Years ago, when I was teaching 5th grade, I started shifting my classroom to be more focused on letting students learn through their passions. Instead of everyone reading the same non-fiction text to learn our reading standards, students were able to choose books on topics that interested them. Instead of each student having to write a persuasive essay on a prompt that I gave them, they were able to blog about an issue they cared about and publish it to a global audience. As they were able to discover and pursue their passions, they became more engaged in learning. They also helped me see how important it was to pursue my passions and to use my voice to share them with others.

Autonomy is necessary for empowerment. When we find ways to give autonomy to students in the learning process they flourish. I’ve seen this many times in my own classroom, but the example that sticks with me happened during a visit to the HIP Academy in rural western Kenya less than 2 weeks after the school opened. I brought with me some donated tablets and an internet connection. The teachers told me that few of the students had ever seen a screen before I arrived. During my visit I facilitated a Skype call between those children and 2nd grade students in Australia. I told the Kenyan children that they were in charge of teaching the Australians the names of different animals in Swahili. After a few moments of nervousness, the HIP students began to shine with confidence as they picked up stuffed animals and taught their new friends. Being given the chance to be in charge of the call allowed those students to take ownership of the lesson.

You can’t change the world if you don’t know much about it. I teach in the small, rural town where I have lived almost my entire life since I was 11 years old. Like all teachers, I want my students to believe that the learning that happens in school matters, and that they can use it to change their world for the better. I have learned to give them opportunities to see beyond our school walls and make a difference in their local and global communities by connecting with community members and using videoconferencing tools like Skype. As a result, my students have taught me how those experiences allow all of us to see ourselves as interconnected like never before. 

Everybody has the capacity to impact their community for the better. Each time we collaborate with a scientist, astronaut, park ranger, international teacher, or group of students from around the globe, it is a great learning experience for students. So many times those connections have inspired my students to develop ways to make the world a better place. They have designed and fund-raised to build a bridge in Africa so that students could go to school. They have started gardening projects to grow produce for the local food pantry. They have worked to provide clean drinking water for children in the Kibera Slum of Nairobi. They have stopped using plastic straws in the cafeteria in an attempt to save penguins from plastic pollution. Through these student-driven projects and so many others, I have learned that children of any age or background can make their world a better place if given the opportunity.

Teaching is the greatest job in the world. Again and again, my students have taught me that there is no better job on the planet than being a teacher. Teaching is an emotional roller-coaster. Because we care about our students so much, we experience the joys of success with them and the pangs of failure. We deal with the anguish when there are situations out of our control that cause our students pain, and we rejoice when we watch them overcome obstacles to reach their potential. But, we get back so much more than we put into it. Each day we are with our students, we have the opportunity to make the world just a little better for each of them. More importantly, we get to teach them how to affect positive change and feel the joy of doing good for others. Over the years, my students have taught me how lucky I am to get the opportunity to love them and to watch them grow.

So What About the Evolution of Blended Learning

Learning is inherently about experiences. Whether in a formal school setting or in our everyday navigation of the world around us, humans learn through experiences that move us emotionally. As teachers and learners, we know this intrinsically. When we think back to the teachers that had the greatest impact on us during our time in school we often remember those who had the ability to make their lessons meaningful to us on a personal level.

In the last decade, technology has changed much about how learning happens in schools. Unfortunately, too much of that change has been driven by efficiency and productivity concerns. Instead of looking at technological advances as opportunities to provide students with new, exceptional learning experiences and emotionally engaging applications of their knowledge schools have focused upon ways to save time, improve workflow, and analyze data. None of these goals are bad for students, but none are focusing on the preparation of our next generation for the unique challenges they will face in a complex global society. 

Blended Learning was born out of the desire for education to be more efficient at delivering instruction and evaluating students on their acquisition of knowledge. Knowledge and assessment will always be important in the learning process, and in that regard Blended Learning has been successful in meeting those narrow goals. Students are able to move at their own pace, receive feedback on their progress, and review content as many times as they need. Because effective formative assessment and differentiated instruction are proven ways to improve student performance on traditional metrics, the use of Blended Learning has gained attention as a possible way to revolutionize education for the 21st century. 

While improving personalization of students' consumption of information, Blended Learning does not address some of the most important needs our children have in order to be prepared for an increasingly global and complex world. Innovation, creativity, and problem solving are best developed when students have agency in the learning process within a culture that lets them experience the joy of using learning to make the world better. 

Teachers know that "delivering instruction" is but a small part of the vital work they do in helping students develop into lifelong learners. Of course we want our students to be knowledgeable, but we also want them to develop into socially minded citizens who can use that knowledge in ethical, innovative ways to affect positive change on their communities. We want them to learn the importance of empathy. In fact, empathy is the character trait that correlates most strongly with success in life. 

When we look at technology's ability to transform learning, we must start by asking what emotionally engaging experiences can be created for students that would have been impossible previously. We must look at how new technologies afford our students the ability to work with those who are different than themselves, solve problems with experts who are using knowledge in practical ways, and experience the satisfaction of helping others. When we do this in our education systems we will see the true power of technology to transform education and develop our next generation of global problem solvers.

Help Wanted - US Secretary of Education

The United States is currently looking for a Secretary of Education. Since I am trying very hard not to get sucked into the negativity surrounding American politics right now, I'm going to stay positive. Here are the things we need to see in our next Secretary of Education if we wish to succeed in meeting the goal of providing a great education and equal opportunity for success for every one of America's school children.

Image Credit: Glassdoor.com

Our next Secretary of Education needs to understand how children learn. One of the ways we have failed our students in the past is by enacting policies that fly in the face of the neuroscience research that shows how kids learn. If we want to build a system focused on student learning, the leader of that system must understand student learning.

Since approximately 90% of American schoolchildren attend public schools, our next Secretary of Education must be intimately familiar with the workings of American public schools. This is no small requirement. Each state has a different way of funding, running, and evaluating public schools.

The leader of the Department of Education must understand the purpose of our public school system. Our public schools do not exist to serve parents. Our public schools exist because our society is better when we have an educated populace. While it is true that parents and families benefit from strong public schools, we have developed a publically funded system of education because it is good for everyone in our communities. If we lose sight of this fact and divert tax dollars to privately run schools for the benefit of parents, we destroy a system that was created to strengthen our communities. There is a reason that you cannot take your tax dollars back that the government uses on the police force to buy private security. There is a reason that you cannot take the tax dollars back that the government uses for road maintenance if you don't have a car. There is a reason that you cannot take back the tax dollars the government uses for the fire company in order to install a sprinkler system in your house. In each of those cases, those tax dollars are being used for the good of the community and removing them for the benefit of individuals would hurt everybody. Our next Education Secretary must understand that the public school system benefits the collective, and that removing tax dollars for individuals hurts everybody in the same way.

Education is Constitutionally a state right. The federal government has a role to play, but our next Secretary of Education must end the practice of coercive unfunded mandate control over state education systems. This has become toxic in part due to lobbying from companies who are looking at their own financial interests instead of what's best for our students. While companies have gotten rich off standardized testing and selling Common Core aligned textbooks, our students have been subjected to increasingly more test prep and have had fewer opportunities to find the joy in learning.

The role of the Department of Education absolutely should be ensuring that the US Constitution is not being breached in schools that receive federal funding. This means that students should be protected from discrimination based on gender, disability, race, religion, or anything else. Students can't learn if they don't feel safe. Our Secretary of Education should be a champion for all students.

Our Education Secretary should have at least a Master's Degree in an education field. If a principal, someone who is in charge of running a school, is required to possess a Master's Degree in Educational Administration, it is fairly obvious that someone wishing to run the entire American educational system should have that level of education.

Within the Department of Education's influence, nobody has greater sway over student learning than teachers. Like any other professional, teachers are better at their job when they are supported, inspired, given autonomy to use their professional judgement, and empowered. Our next Secretary must be someone who understands this. Empowered teachers create empowered learners.

We must encourage our most talented youngsters to choose teaching as a profession. In 1971 close to 21% of American college freshmen were education majors. Now, that number is below 5%. The teaching profession has been decimated by a lack of respect and a lack of autonomy. Those who choose to teach do so because they want to make a difference and help our children thrive. When education policy makes it difficult for those who choose teaching to fulfill those goals, when salaries do not allow those who choose teaching to live in the districts where they teach or pay back their student loans, when those in power emphasize the few stories of bad teachers over the plethora of amazing stories of good teachers so that they can better meet political goals, our most talented youngsters are discouraged from teaching. The next Secretary of Education must be committed to reversing this trend.

Communication will be an important skill for our next Secretary to possess. Policy at the highest levels is nuanced and complicated. The leader of a federal department will have to be able to understand and articulate clearly those policies.

The best interests of America's students should be the primary driving force behind our next Secretary of Education's decisions. The person occupying this position should have no financial interests in education companies, for-profit entities, universities, private schools, or any other organizations that may influence his/her decision making. Our students deserve an unbiased Secretary looking out for their best interests.

Sometimes we need to look beyond our borders for solutions. The American public education system helped create one of the most innovative and knowledgeable civilizations in the history of the world. We are the only nation to put men on the Moon. College students from around the globe have flocked to American universities for decades because of our excellence. American teachers are among the most educated and respected on the planet. However, we must not be blind to the excellence happening in other countries, or unwilling to learn from those who have discovered solutions to problems we face. The Secretary of Education should be willing to look at countries like Finland, Canada, Singapore, and others to see what they are doing well and how we can incorporate their solutions into our system.

Being Secretary of Education is an overwhelming job that requires a lot of expertise and experience. There are plenty of more requirements that I could come up with that I did not list due to space limitations. I haven't even touched upon issues outside K-12 education such as the benefit of pre-K programs, the impact affordable college tuition would have on our country's prosperity, or several other issues. A strong public education system has been the backbone of our thriving, free society. We must choose a Secretary of Education who is committed to strengthening the cornerstone of our American democracy.

Leave Time for Serendipity

Today, my 4th grade students were supposed to analyze data from NASA's Climate Change website. I wanted them to look at real data and to have conversations about what it meant. I wanted them to draw conclusions and make predictions. That's what today's science lesson was supposed to be. It was a good plan.

Unexpectedly, about 10 minutes into my lesson, the distinctive tone of an incoming Skype call filled the room. My students know this sound pretty well by now.

"Who are we talking to today?"

"Are we supposed to be having a Skype call?"

"Who's calling us?"

In a few seconds I had to make a decision. Should I answer the call or continue on with my solid lesson plan? I saw that a teacher in Nepal, Pradeep Sapkota, whom I had been playing the Skype equivalent of phone tag with over the past couple of weeks was on the other end. He and I have been looking for ways to connect our students. His students had their school destroyed by last year's earthquake and are learning English. I wanted my 5th grade students who were learning about plate tectonics to connect with them to learn about the earthquake.

I knew that it was too late for Pradeep's students to be on the call. My 4th graders hadn't learned much about geology. They have the state's high-stakes standardized science test coming up in a few weeks. They were excited to look at the data from NASA. There were plenty of reasons to ignore this call and move along with my lesson.

But I didn't. I answered the call. Sometimes it's moments of serendipity that make the best learning experiences. If we never take the chance to allow them to happen, our students are robbed of opportunity.

My kids learned from Pradeep about the earthquake.  They learned that the Nepalese don't eat beef, that students are learning outside because their school is being rebuilt, that Mount Everest is in Nepal, and that the capital of Nepal is Kathmandu. They got a little taste of a different part of the world, which by itself is a wonderful experience and absolutely worth the time we took out of our lesson. When we travel and experience different cultures with an open mind, beit physically or virtually, we get the opportunity to see what parts of those other cultures we can incorporate into ourselves to make us a better person. I want my students to have as many of those experiences as possible.

And then, just as we were about to end the call, serendipity happened. One of my students asked, "We've been learning about climate change. Has climate change had an effect on you up in the mountains?"

The impersonal data that we were looking at just became a whole lot more meaningful. Pradeep told us how rising temperatures are causing avalanches in Nepal as snow on the mountains becomes less stable. He told us that many people were affected. He told us that Nepalese people were dying.

After the call we still looked at NASA's data, although we got to see less of it than we would have had I not answered the call. The data my students did analyze was a whole lot more meaningful to them, though. We also had great discussions about the shape of mountains in the Himalayas and how that relates to avalanches, plate tectonics (they'll have a great head start for next year's learning), and Asian geography.

It's the emotional connections to content that make knowledge stick in our students long-term memory. They may not remember in two weeks how many parts per million the carbon dioxide in our atmosphere has risen in the past three decades, but I guarantee they'll be able to tell you ways climate change is affecting humans.

Sometimes, with all the demands placed upon us as teachers, it's easy to forget why we do what we do. It's easy to focus on the content that needs to be covered, the assignment that needs to be completed, or the assessment that is upcoming instead of the inspiration that we have the opportunity to provide our students. The most important things we do in schools can't be quantified easily, and so it's easy to forget their power.

It's the unexpected, and often uncelebrated, moments of awesome that make all the difference for our students. As teachers, sometimes we just need to let them happen.

Teachers - Shaping Tomorrow(land)

This weekend we went to see Tomorrowland. As a family of Disney fans, we've been looking forward to seeing it for a while.

Image credit - disney.wikia.com

I walked away from the theater with tears in my eyes.  As far as plot, character development, special effects, etc. - the movie was good, but nothing special.  But it still took me a few minutes after the movie ended to be able to talk without getting choked up because of the message at the end of the movie. I'll do my best to not write anything here that will spoil the plot for you. If you haven't seen the movie yet, and you count yourself among the dreamers of the world who see the possibilities ahead instead of the doom and gloom, it'll be well worth your two hours.

I got choked up because I have made this my life's work - to develop the dreamers who will create a better tomorrow for the world. 

To pass on to the next generation the belief that each of us holds within ourselves the power to make the world a little better. 

To show students the power of wondering "what if...", and then helping them do what they have to do to find out.

To inspire other teachers to choose learning over content.

To connect those outside the sphere of formal education who are passionate about making the world better with students and teachers, and to allow those do-gooders to pass that passion to the world changers of the future.

Because passion is contagious. And, we need more of it.  Like "The black thing" in L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time, negative emotions like hopelessness, despair, and inevitability are constantly trying to make us feel as though our passions are unworthy of our time. There is a lot to be afraid of in the future, and the world has a lot of problems.  

As teachers, we face this battle as well. We've been marginalized, suppressed, and disrespected. Many within our ranks have forgotten why they chose to teach and have started to believe that their job is to prepare children for a test at the end of the year. Yet, there is plenty of light pushing back against the darkness.

I get constant inspiration from other Skype Master Teachers who are using videoconferencing to inspire their students to make real, positive change in the world. 

Every day I see new messages on my phone from the Varkey Teacher Ambassadors sharing the amazing ways that they are developing the unique talents and passions of their students.

On Twitter and Facebook I see the way the other Microsoft Innovative Educator Experts from around the world are leveraging technology to bring amazing learning experiences to their students.

Posts from countless other educators on social media sharing the stories of their classrooms, teachers and students who are experiencing the joy of learning so that they can make a difference, give me hope that we are starting to move in the right direction.

And, I see the teachers in my school doing incredible things that are inspiring my own children and the others in the community to grow to love learning.

There is a bright future ahead of us.  Yes, there are big problems.  But there are also big solutions waiting to be found.

At the end of the movie, there is an implication that these solutions will come from dreamers who are scientists, artists, mathematicians, gardeners, dancers, social change agents, and a host of other passionate people.  And, they will. 

But, it will continue to be the teachers of the world who are leading the fight to develop those dreamers and to allow each student to find the spark within themselves that makes him/her want to leave a positive impact. That's what we do. That's what real teaching is.

Teachers are the window that allows dreamers to see the possibilities in their futures. The world's teachers are living Tomorrowland pins.

I feel lucky to count myself among them. 

Now is the Time for Creative, Smart People to Become Teachers

Last weekend Nancie Atwell was announced as the first winner of the $1 Million Global Teacher Prize in Dubai.  She is an amazing teacher, and incredible woman, and a wonderful choice. Her message of student choice, her service to her students, her approach to literacy, and her representation of the profession are inspirations to the rest of us that work with students every day.

After winning the Prize, in an interview with CNN, Nancie made a comment that has gone viral.  I'm sure you've seen it now.  When asked if she would advise kids to become teachers, she said:

"Honestly, right now, I encourage them to look in the private sector.  Public school teachers are so constrained right now by the Common Core Standards and the tests that are developed to monitor what teachers are doing with them. It's a movement that's turned teachers into technicians, not reflective practitioners.  If you're a creative, smart young person, I don't think this is the time to go into teaching."

And, as much as I admire and respect Nancie, I disagree with her on this.

She's not wrong about the fact that teachers have been turned into technicians.  She's not wrong that the culture in public education makes it difficult for teachers to do what's right for students.  She's not wrong that the way the Common Core Standards are being implemented is forcing teachers to value the content to be covered more than individual student needs.

But, it is the perfect time for creative, smart people to go into teaching.

People choose teaching because they want to make a difference.  They want to help students reach their potential.  They want to create a future that is better than the present.  They want to pass their gifts on to future generations.

People become teachers because they want to change the world.

No teacher I ever met went into teaching because they wanted a easy career. If they did, they are a fool. Teaching isn't easy. It's insanely complicated and hard. The most important things always are.

It's especially hard to be a public school teacher right now for all the reasons Nancie talked about. That's why we need creative, smart young people to flock to the profession.  And, it's all the more reason that we, as teachers, should be encouraging them to do so.  If we don't have an optimistic vision that we can overcome the profiteering off education, the political strife hurting our students, and the short sided view that numbers matter more than children, then who is left to fight for our kids?

Are things bad right now?  Absolutely.  But, the pendulum is swinging.  Parents are objecting to oppressive testing all over the country and opting their children out.  Students are organizing sit-ins and walk-outs all in brilliant displays of civil disobedience because they recognize what's being done to them.  Teachers are organizing to fight against anti-student policies. Just like so many other times in history, passionate people are affecting positive change.

The tipping point is coming.  And when it does, teachers will be in a position to help define what education should be and what learning will look like in an age of information abundance and connectivity. We will be part of the conversation about how education can be a tool to create a better world instead of creating higher corporate stock prices.

When that time comes, we need the most creative, passionate, visionary teachers speaking for us - teachers like Nancie and the other top-10 finalists for the Global Teacher Prize.

If you are a creative, smart young person who wants to be a teacher now is your time.  There's never been a better opportunity to change the world.

Maybe I'll Quit Teaching and Try Being a Lawyer

This morning, as I was having my cup of coffee I opened up Tweetdeck like I do every morning. As I was checking my notifications and updates on some of the lists I follow, someone I follow posted this:

"A friend of mine is a lawyer and is thinking of quitting to teach English. Does anyone have any advice for her?"

"Yes." I thought to myself. "Go back to college, spend some time student teaching, and get a teaching degree."

I didn't reply to the tweet, though.  I thought better of it, and being snarky rarely leads to any kind of positive outcome on social media. All day, that tweet has bothered me, though.

What on Earth would lead someone to believe that they are qualified to teach when they have done nothing before that qualifies them to teach?  Maybe I'll quit teaching and try being a lawyer for a while.  After all, I've seen lots of episodes of Law and Order and watched Legally Blond 2.

As someone who has dedicated my adult life to my profession, it makes me angry that our job is viewed as something anyone can do.  Having a law degree doesn't make you any more qualified to teach English than it does for you to practice dentistry.

People don't seem to understand that teaching isn't about the content - it's about kids. Think about the best teacher you ever had.  Think about why they were amazing. It wasn't because they knew more about their subject than anyone else, was it?  As Yeats said, "Education is not the filling of a pail, but a lighting of a fire." Amazing teachers know how to light fires.

Great teachers aren't great because they know their content better (As I'm typing this I'm thinking of the Big Bang Theory where Sheldon bombs as a guest lecturer).  Great teachers understand how learning happens.  They understand child development, brain science, and most importantly they understand students.  They know how to inspire, motivate, and bring out the best in each one of their students.  They know when to use formative assessments and what feedback will help students most.

Last I checked, they weren't teaching those skills in law school.  Then again, I haven't really checked lately.  I figure, I won't need to go to law school if I decide to switch careers. There's bound to be a Law and Order marathon coming up on TNT sometime soon.

Edcamp USA at the US Department of Education

Let me start out this post with an apology. I should have shared more in the past few months. There have been many blog worthy events and topics that have presented themselves. Unfortunately, there have been so many of those opportunities that I've been too busy to write about them. As time went on, I felt like I had so many blog posts to write that I was a bit overwhelmed to even start catching up. And, so I didn't write.

As someone who preaches to others the importance of telling the positive stories in education, I am sorry that I didn't share some of the incredible things I see teachers and students doing around me.  Here are a few brief descriptions with links to catch you up on some of them:

• Our 4th grade students have been collaborating with 6th grade students in India to put together an awareness campaign to stop child labor in Asia and Africa
• The South Elementary School students wrote a school-wide collaborative book and recorded it digitally.
• Our 2nd graders had an amazing virtual field trip to Colorado to learn about snakes
• South Elementary students have visited many national parks, including Agate Fossil Beds National Monument, Yellowstone National Park, and Biscayne National Park
• The 4th and 5th grade chorus had the opportunity to participate in a 3-continent cultural and musical exchange with students in South Carolina, Venezuela, and Kenya via Skype
• Our 4th grade students learned about weather from meteorologist Gian Villamil and NASA/NOAA scientist Bill Brown.
• South Elementary students have started a "Distance Teaching" project in which they will teach students in Kenya using math materials we have here in Pennsylvania through short videos.  In return, Kenyan students will be teaching us Swahili. I just received word last week that I have been approved for a grant that will allow me to travel to Nairobi at the end of next school year to put together a documentary showing the learning gains by both groups of students as teachers and learners using this pedagogical model.
• 6 other organizers and I ran a very successful edcamp in Northeastern Pennsylvania in which amazing conversations, great professional learning, and excellent networking took place among teachers in the region.

There are other amazing things going on at school, but that list gives you some idea of the things we've been doing. Because of those projects, Skype in the Classroom took notice of our school and asked me to represent them at a media event in New York City last week, and at the Social Innovation Summit, which is hosted by the United Nations. Being able to share stories of the amazing things our students and teachers are doing in front of thousands of the most innovative problem solvers and do-gooders from around the world in New York is definitely one of my career highlights so far.

Edcampers gather for a group picture after #EdcampUSA

So, that brings me to Friday.  The US Department of Education and the Edcamp Foundation collaborated to bring teachers from around the country and policy makers from the Department together in an unconference format to improve education for the first time. There was overwhelming demand among teachers to get a free ticket to the event, and I was fortunate enough to get selected in the lottery. I am also grateful that my district agreed to allow me to take a professional day to attend.

Anyone who follows this blog or knows me understands that I have not always agreed with policy decisions coming out of the Department of Education.  I can honestly say that I did not have high expectations that USDOEd would put much weight into the ideas that teachers shared at this event, and I was a bit worried that they would use it as a publicity event instead of an opportunity to really hear what teachers are saying.  Reflecting back on the day, I believe that the Department was very interested in hearing what we had to say.  I know that policy changes slowly.  I'm not expecting RttT to end tomorrow due to our discussions, but I think this was a positive step forward.  Welcoming teacher input and inviting teachers into the building to have discussions with policy makers was a positive.

I was pleasantly surprised at the feedback I heard from those in the Department. Emily Davis, a Teacher Ambassador Fellow at the Department is amazing.  She spent the day attending sessions, providing input, and taking notes to pass along to others in DOEd. We need teachers like her in higher policy positions.  I know she is looking forward to getting back in a classroom, but voices like hers are needed in rooms where education policy is being decided.

Right before lunch, Ruthanne Buck, a Senior Adviser to Secretary of Education Arne Duncan (who made a brief appearance in the morning) sat in on a session in which digital leadership was being discussed. She seemed very impressed with the quality of the ideas being discussed and debated.  I had the opportunity to talk with her over lunch about educator-led professional development like edcamps, the need for teacher voice to be heard by those in senior policy positions, and the need for our best teachers to have avenues into those top policy positions.  She was genuinely interested in finding ways to give teachers more influence, which was a pleasant surprise for me.

The discussions at this edcamp were excellent.  Unlike many of the other edcamps I have attended, the sessions were more geared toward bigger issues and action rather than classroom pedagogy and tools.  There's nothing wrong with the latter topics, but this venue called for deeper and larger thinking, and those in attendance definitely recognized that.  The first session I attended, entitled "We're here. Now What?" was a great discussion about taking action to improve education.  Another session on building digital leadership also talked about actions we can take to help develop leaders who will take risks, push back against poor policies, and share success stories.  Both of these sessions made me realize that I have been shirking my responsibility to blog about the good things happening in my small corner of the educational world. In addition to continuing to share the positive stories I encounter at speaking engagements, I committed to doing a better job of documenting those stories here on this blog.

At the end of the day I accomplished another goal of mine for the visit.  As part of the grant I mentioned above, I would like to do some professional development for teachers in the Kibera Slum of Nairobi (more about that in a future post), and work with the Kenyan Education Ministry to put on a STEM summit in which teachers from Kenya have the opportunity to share their best practices with me, and I, as a PAEMST awardee, get to share some of the best practices I've seen in the US in return.  Emily was kind enough to take me upstairs in the Department to the International Affairs Office (I'm not sure if that's the official title) to make a connection who will help me coordinate those activities.

At the end of the day we were asked to commit to blogging about the day and committing to action going forward on the things we discussed.  Here are my committments:

• I commit to blogging more often about the good I see around me in education
• I commit to developing the potential leaders around me to be voices for student-centered, learning-focused educational policy through graduate course offerings, professional development opportunities, encouragement, support, and by sharing their success stories with the media.
• I commit to fostering the connections I have made at the Department of Education, United Nations, National Science Foundation, the corporate world, and non-profit organizations doing social good to promote positive changes in education policy here in the United States, and internationally.

Talking Education on the David Madeira Show

This morning I had the enjoyable experience of being a guest on the David Madeira Show, a local morning talk show in Northeastern Pennsylvania.  It was my first live interview, and despite my nerves at the beginning, it really was a lot of fun.  We're always critical of ourselves when we see video or hear audio recordings, and listening to the interview for me is no different.  I "ummed" and stumbled over words a bit more than I would have liked, and committed a few grammar sins.  Despite that, I think I did a pretty decent job of getting a few points across.  Since he invited me to come back on the air after the trip to D.C., I'm going to assume that I did alright.

I'm happy that being a PAEMST recipient is opening these opportunities to me.  For years I've been writing about the need for non-standardized student-centered learning in schools and it's nice to be able to share that now in other ways.  I'm appreciative to David for having me on the show and for the kind words he spoke before, during, and after the interview about me.

After the interview David also referenced my post explaining why the Common Core State Standards Initiative puts our educational focus on the wrong things and actually prevents students from being prepared for colleges and careers.  I hope that people listening were intrigued enough by the conversation to check out the post.

While I was doing the interview I recorded the live stream using Garage Band.  You can listen below.

Live Interview on the David Madeira Show

This morning I accepted an invitation to an on-air interview about winning the PAEMST award on Monday morning, December 30th, with David Madeira on his morning talk show.  I'm appreciative for the opportunity and looking forward to talking with him about education.

David Madeira

You can listen to his show by streaming it live from his website, or by tuning in to 94.3 FM in the Scranton, PA area.  His show airs on weekdays from 6-9AM.  I'll likely be on during the 7 o'clock hour. 

Teacher Disengagement

We talk a lot about student engagement in schools.  Probably not as much as we should, but it's still a topic that comes up rather often.  "My freshman Algebra class looks at me with glazed eyes while they drool on their textbooks" is probably a sentence that's repeated in high school faculty rooms all over the country on a regular basis.

Lack of teacher engagement is something that's discussed far less frequently, but it's a huge problem.  Disengaged teachers probably don't create amazing learning environments.  Disengaged teachers probably don't inspire students to be engaged.  Disengaged teachers may or may not be drooling on their teachers' manuals.

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons/Flickr - Jayegirl99

Last night I had a tough time falling asleep.  Sometimes this happens due to stress.  Other times it happens because the New York Giants played a night game and found a new, creative way to lose in the last few minutes.  Last night it happened because I was really fired up about all the great things that are happening in school.  Kindergarten kids are sharing their learning on individual and class blogs.  First graders are using Blabberize to share what they've learned about different animals.  Second graders are blogging about different types of communities.  Third and fourth graders are Skyping kids in other states to learn about geography.  Our fifth graders are building room-sized models of plant and animal cells.  The grad class of teachers I'm working with is excited to radically change pedagogy to be more student-centered. 

Despite my lack of sleep, I couldn't wait to get into school this morning to do more of this stuff with kids.  I'm engaged and passionate about what I'm doing, and this lead me to a few thoughts:

1. Sometimes when teachers say "I'm exhausted", they really don't mean "I'm exhausted."  They may think they are exhausted, and I'm sure they're tired.  But, what they really mean is, "I'm not excited about what I'm doing right now."  When you are engaged and passionate about what you are doing, you often ignore tiredness.  Eventually we all need rest, but when we're in that zone of passion, doing the amazing supersedes the need for rest.
2. Too many times disengaged teachers will be resentful of others who are passionate.  That teacher who stays at school until 6 getting incredible stuff ready for the next day, that teacher who won't shut up about the stuff they learned in a Twitter chat the night before, and that annoying guy who routinely gives up his weekends to go to something called an EdCamp are not trying to show you up.  They aren't trying to gain brownie points with the principal.  They are just lucky enough to be engaged.  Try asking what has them so excited.  You may just find something that flips your switch from turned-off to turned-on.  And, tell them that there are many brands of decaf on the market that are just as tasty as the real thing. (If you recognized that as a Real Genius reference, you get bonus points.)
3. Nobody went into the teaching profession to be the best deliverer of test-prep.  If you are disengaged, and that's what your job has become, there's probably a correlation.  So stop doing that.  I understand that moving away from this is much harder in some places.  This testing culture is responsible for a great many disengaged teachers.  So, do what you can.  Step outside your comfort zone and do one thing a day that bucks the system.  Take one action that reminds you of why you chose to be a teachers.  That one act of civil disobedience may just be the thing in your day that reminds you why being a teacher is the best job in the world.  It also may be the one thing in the day that stops your students from drooling on their textbooks. 

Math - Draw More Chickens, Write Fewer Numbers

Today I had the pleasure of being asked to work with 4th and 5th grade special education students.  Their teacher had explained to me that they were having trouble understanding multiplication.  Even though my new position is technically supposed to be helping teachers incorporate 21st Century Skills into lessons, I will never be able to pass up an opportunity to teach math.  I love it too much.

I started by asking them what multiplication was.

*Crickets*

I said, "OK.  When I say 'multiplication', what comes to mind.  There's no wrong answers.  Throw some words out."

One student said, "Times tables?"  Another said, "Skip counting."  After a pause another offered, "That line with two dots around it."

I'm guessing she meant the division symbol.

Here's the thing - I don't think the answers in most 4th and 5th grade regular education classes would be much different.  Kids think that math is about tricks we do with numbers, and that the key to being good at math is learning those tricks.  Special ed students, and lots of other kids think that because they are bad at memorizing rules, they'll never be good at math.  That's wrong.

Next, I told those kids that multiplication, and math, was not about numbers.  They looked at me like I had three heads.  At least I had their attention.  I reiterated, "You've been lied to your entire life.  Math is not about numbers.  And I'm going to prove it to you."

They were hooked.  Probably because they didn't believe me and they couldn't wait to see the head teacher crash and burn in a fiery mess.  Figuratively, of course.  Well, maybe literally for some of them.

So I told them, "Draw a picture of three chickens on your white boards.  I'm going to draw chickens, too.  Please don't laugh at my chickens.  I'm a mathematician, not an art teacher."

I'm a Mathematician, Not an Art Teacher

They were nice.  They didn't laugh at my chickens.

I said, "OK, each chicken just laid 3 eggs.  Go ahead and draw 3 eggs under each chicken.  You see, multiplication isn't '3x3'.  That's just the numbers and symbols we use to describe multiplication.  Multiplication is all about groups.  '3x3' just means that we have three groups of three."

The light bulbs started to go on.  They stopped looking at me like I was crazy, even if they didn't totally understand yet.

We modeled groups of airplanes with passengers.  Cookies with chocolate chips.  Flying saucers with aliens.  My flying saucers rocked.  Much better than my poor attempt at chickens.  Each time we talked about how there were repeated groups of the same number.  I only showed the multiplication problem in number/symbol form after we had figured out the answer to "How many do we have in all the groups."

I was pretty sure they understood, but I wanted to make sure.  So I told them, "Now, I'm going to give you a multiplication problem.  I don't care what you draw, but I want to see you express the problem as groups."  I gave them 7x4.

Some drew cookies, others drew flying saucers.  One kid drew seven tornadoes with four cars being mangled in each cyclone.  A bit graphic, but mathematically sound. All of them were able to model the problem without help.

For years I've talked about teaching math differently.  I've talked about the need to solve real problems, that there needed to be relevance behind everything that we teach - even basic facts.  I've talked about helping kids to understand before asking them to memorize.  Some were receptive.  Most thought I was crazy.  Many told me that I'd think differently if I didn't only teach the high math group.

They were wrong.  There's no reason that we shouldn't expect almost all students to have understanding of math the way we expect almost all students to learn to read.  We just have to stop expecting kids that have trouble memorizing to have no problems memorizing stuff that has no relevance to them.  In 40 minutes these special education kids went from thinking that multiplication was "the line with two dots around it" to being able to model multiplication problems.

Math isn't about numbers any more than writing is about the alphabet.  Numbers and symbols are just our way of expressing the quantities in the world around us just as the letters we use to write are the symbols we use to express our thoughts.  When we take away that context of that world around us, we take away students' understanding.

We'd never tell a student that they should do 40 letter manipulation problems for homework to get better at writing.  Or at least we shouldn't. (I'm not a big fan of spelling workbooks.)  That's not going to turn them into a writer.  Heck, it's probably going to turn them into a kid who hates writing.

Math is no different.  It shouldn't be about following rules to manipulate numbers.  It should be more about drawing chickens.

I Don't Instruct. I Teach.

Too many times I read about teaching and I see the word "instruction."

Let's get something straight.  I don't instruct.  I teach.

Instructions are followed blindly.  Nobody learns from following instructions.  They simply comply with them.

My students learn.  Because I don't instruct.  I teach.  I support them, strive to inspire them, and help them do things that are meaningful.  I design situations for them that foster creativity, critical thinking, and collaboration.  I encourage them to share their learning with others in order to get meaningful feedback.

When you call what I do "instruction" I am offended.

The key to improving education has nothing to do with improving instruction.

It has everything to do with eliminating it and replacing it with good teaching.

This I Believe

Yesterday Chris Lehmann posted a list of his 10 core beliefs as an educator on his blog, Practical Theory.  He asked his readers to post their core beliefs.  After some self-reflection, here are mine. 

What are yours?

This I Believe

1.  The most important things we do as teachers:  the moments that our students will carry with them for the rest of their lives, the truly meaningful actions that define who we are as teachers – cannot be measured.  If you think they can then you don’t understand what we do.

2.  Learning to love learning is more important that any information with which we can try and fill a child’s head.

3.  Children are born learners.  They are naturally curious and creative.  Teachers should do everything in their power to avoid participating in practices that stifle that curiosity and creativity.

4.  Measuring learning is significantly less important than actually learning.  It should be done only when doing so when the measurement is helpful to the learner.

5.  Grades do not help students learn.  They help adults rank, sort, and judge students.  Students need meaningful feedback from others to learn.  Numbers and letters placed on top of a test are not meaningful feedback. 

6.  The decisions we make in schools should be based upon what is best for the children we serve and not upon what is popular with parents, politicians, colleges, and corporations.

7.  Teachers need to get better.  Every teacher should be pursuing the goal of improving as a professional.  Teachers should be models of life-long learning.  If we focused our energy on providing the support, resources, and inspiration for EVERY teacher to constantly improve instead of identifying and firing those teachers who are “bad” using sketchy test data, every student would benefit immensely. 

8.  Math is not a series of procedures to be followed in order to arrive at correct answers.  Some think they are not good at math because they couldn’t memorize procedure.  Others think they are great mathematicians because they could.  In reality, there are many great mathematicians for whom calculation is not a great strength.  And there are many great calculators who are not good mathematicians.  We need to change how we present mathematics to our students so that “school math” and “real math” are one and the same.

9.  We live in a time of ubiquitous technology.  Student learning should happen in an environment that reflects that fact, but technology is just the tool of our time.  Good teaching is not determined by the technology used but by the quality of the pedagogy.  The basis of good teaching has been the same for millennia, but it may look very different in the 21^st Century than it did when Socrates was teaching Plato.  Just as the Socratic Method was grounded in inquiry, our pedagogy should be student centered and driven by inquiry.

10.  Decisions should be based on data, research, and experience.  Too often decisions are based on data that is most convenient to obtain, cheapest to gather, or cherry-picked to prove a political point.  This does a terrible disservice to our children.  Using data incorrectly is more harmful than not using it at all, and some things cannot be quantified.  Just because we cannot measure what is truly important (see #1) does not mean that we should put importance on what we can measure.   

 

Twitter May Not Be for All Teachers, But PLN is Vital

This morning, Royan Lee asked in a blog post, "Is Tweeting for Everyone?"  Having taught several PD sessions during the past few weeks on using Twitter to build a Professional Learning Network, I found this question to be interesting.  Here's my response (left as a comment on the post):

I don’t think that one needs to have a presence on Twitter to be an effective educator. But communicating with technology is a vital skill that we need to model for our students. If we are not collaborating and communicating with 21st Century tools, is it reasonable for us to think we are preparing our students for their futures? Twitter is simply one of many tools that can be used to tap into the collective wisdom of millions of educators around the world. The blogosphere is another avenue. Some like Plurk, others have found their PLN in more specialized places for music teachers, librarians, etc. There’s no right or wrong way to network. The days of being able to teach effectively by closing your classroom door and doing what’s always been done are over. The world is changing more quickly than it ever has before, information is exploding at exponential rates, and that information is more accessible than ever before. Good teaching looks different than it did 50 years ago, or even 5 years ago. It will look different 5 years down the road. Good teachers need a way to keep up with that. 

Allow Teachers the Chance to Be Excellent

Everybody wants excellent teachers.  Parents want their kids to have the best teachers, politicians claim to want teachers to be excellent, communities want their schools to have excellent teachers, and teachers themselves want to be excellent at what they do.  Regardless of how we feel about how to reach this goal, the desire for excellent teachers seems to be a universal desire.

Every teacher certification program spends time teaching us Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.  (I used the term 'teacher certification program' and not 'teacher preparation program' because I'm not familiar with what gets cut when 4 year college programs get squeezed into crash-course 5-week teacher prep programs like those offered by Teach For America.)  It's widely accepted that people cannot reach the higher levels of the Hierarchy without having their needs met at the lower levels.  We're taught this so that we can help our students learn.  Students who are hungry, sleep-deprived, unhealthy, etc. cannot learn until those needs are met.

Yesterday I was reminded of Maslow and his Hierarchy of Needs by this Tweet from R. Turner:

The answer is obvious. Teachers, just like any other people, cannot be effective at anything without having their basic needs met.  I got thinking about Maslow, his Hierarchy and how it relates to teachers in today's education culture.

When we look at the Hierarchy, the qualities we find in excellent teachers like creativity, problem-solving, and lack of prejudice (objectivity) are all found at the top.  In order to reach that top teachers must have the needs below them met.


As we look at the needs below the top, we start to see some of the things that the reform movement of the last decade has targeted: teacher job security, respect of the teaching profession, resources available to teachers in schools.  It's clear that teachers are incapable of reaching their full potential without these necessities. 

The question we've got to ask then is, "What is the purpose of this reform movement?"  Either those pushing for these reforms believe that excellent teaching does not include objectivity, problem-solving, and creativity, or there is a motive other than excellent teaching behind their policies. 

Either way, we need to look in a different direction if we are to provide our students with the excellent education they deserve. 

Math Education: We Need New Answers

Someone in my PLN shared this cartoon on Facebook this afternoon. (I'm not posting a picture of it due to copyright).  That, in combination with a discussion stemming from a blog post entitled "What is UP with Multiplication Tables" by Lisa Cooley in the Innovative Educator Forum on Facebook recently, led me to this thought:

We ask students to add 2+2 and expect them to answer that it equals 4.

They'd be better off if we asked them to find examples of when it doesn't.  

Want Great Schools? Start Simple.

No teacher ever became great by being the best at following the textbook, being the best at reading from a script, or being the best at passing out multiple choice tests from the back of an assessment guide.

No school ever became great by having the best textbook programs from which their teachers read, the best benchmark tests, or the best canned lesson scripts for their teachers.

No country ever became great by having schools that were the best at selecting textbook programs for their teachers to use and the best test-prep programs.

A great national education system starts by having excellent public schools.  Public schools are excellent when they have excellent teachers facilitating learning.  Teachers can only be excellent when they have the autonomy to be.

If we want excellence, we need to start by thinking more simply. We need to start by allowing teachers to be great.  Then encourage them to share what they are doing to inspire others.

Because the current direction of demoralizing them and having them compete against each other simply isn't going to get us there.