2 out of 5 or 3 out of 5

In the blog, On the Shoulders of Giants had a post titled "Great Expectations and the Disheartened" focusing on a report titled "Teaching for a Living: How Teachers See the Profession Today" in which it was emphasized that 2 out of 5 teachers are disheartened in their profession with other choices being content or idealistic. This to me is not a bad thing. As a pre-service teacher I see this as uplifting and commented so as it means that 3 out of 5 teachers are NOT disheartened, either being content or idealistic about their profession. Moreover I appreciated seeing that even after many years of experience a teacher is still thinking about how she can be a better teacher for herself and her students. This verifies my idea that there is no perfect lesson and as teachers we need to be constantly changing our lesson plans/ideas to fit the needs and development of our students.

In self evaluation as teachers we can add another level to our profession I think, of respectability and accountability not to mention just over all good for our students and ourselves. Furthermore when we self assess AND share (through blogging!!! woohoo!) it can build community between teachers in our profession not limited to only our classrooms, schools, or districts. This kind of community can be very powerful and uplifting for teachers in building a voice in the world of education, as a part of building a professional community.

Death by Powerpoint

Brain Rules for PresentersThis video is great! Not only does it tell us how to use our brains better to communicate (throw away the power point with tons of text!) but it also applies to teaching. If people learn better and remember more through visuals than why in the world as a teacher would I load my power point slides up with text. This is only one application for educators from this slide show embedded from Glen Malone's blog Almost Monday adapted from Dr.John Medina's book Brain Rules.

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Bird By Bird by Anne Lamontt

Anne Lamontt writes on page 103 in her book, Bird By Bird, "If you find that you start a number of stories or pieces that you don't ever bother finishing, that you lose interest or faith in them along the way, it may be that there is nothing at their center about which you care passionately. You need to put yourself at their center, you and what you believe to be true or right."

I identified a great deal with this passage. It created a bridge for me from my experience as an artist and the struggles I have to the less understood struggles I have when writing. There are many times I will be working on multiple paintings at once and sometimes leave a painting alone face-up against a wall (I don't want to have to look at anymore) for months before I work on it again. Usually I don't work on that particular painting for awhile because I can't figure out what is wrong, and why I don't like it. Lamontt gave me the idea that I may not like this painting because there is not enough of myself, my ideas and beliefs in it.

Maybe this is why writing has always been a challenge for me. It is hard for me to put myself in my writing so when I do write creatively or not, the writing to me seems very contrived and incomplete. I need to do what I do when I paint; give the passage a break and come back with new perspective and the idea that I am going to put more of myself in it. Is this really what I want to say? What I believe? What exists for me?

With concerns to teaching, I think it would be very beneficial to my students to know that I struggle too and how I deal with those struggles. Also I would want to be able to give them the time to not be happy with their writing, walk away for a bit, and come back with new motivation to put more of themselves in it. Is this possible? If I'm teaching language arts for 50 minutes a day to 6-7 different groups of students is it possible to let them set it aside and come back to it next time? Or if I'm teaching 4th grade and we only actually have 4 hours of teaching time from transitions, specialists, lunch and recess and a need to teach math, science, arts, social studies, health, and other aspects of literacy besides just writing.

I think my answer to this dilemma of time is interdisciplinary teaching, where two subjects are taught at once. For example maybe after studying the planets and researching one, each student will write a creative story using aspects of their planet about what life is like on their planet. In this way I am combining their knowledge of science in a certain subject area with their skills of writing. Awesome! Even more, what if we make a class wiki or the students made their stories on a classroom blog (only if available through the school district server of course). Now there is technology too and way more excitement and engagement without being too contrived.

In the end I think it would be important to help students realize that the writing process is not something that comes easy or is quick, it takes time and dedication to an overall idea and belief. Whether the belief is policy on health care or that there are martians who swim on Neptune in a society similar to that of the story of Atlantis, students need to be able to feel that their writing is not something I as a teacher have contrived for them to do but is creatively their own!

Creativity in Schools

Check this out! It is about 20 minutes long but very thought provoking.