What if we....DO instead of KNOW?

In this article, Bill Ferriter of The Tempered Radical discusses just that: creating a school culture based on doing instead of simply knowing. 

He mentions that grading would have to change from a "...focus on content mastery to a focus on demonstration of an ability to apply content in novel situations." This is something I get frustrated with when entering grades all the time. There is such a disconnect with students applying the skills we teach to NEW and novel situations. But if students felt that it wasn't about what they knew and instead knew that the focus was on the way they carried out assignments, it might be easier to join the two worlds of what they practiced on and what they need to apply the skills to.

Ferriter also encourages his readers to make a change. Obviously if you are "just a teacher" like little ol' me, you cannot up and change the whole system. But, as Bill points out, you can "[f]ind a step you can take tomorrow.  Find a step that you take a week from now.  A month from now.  A year from now."

It would be interesting to hear from others; what steps will you take?

Rachel's Challenge

Finally, a program that can get more people involved in focusing on the good things instead of combating bullying from an offensive aspect!
We had our kickoff assembly today and couldn't keep kids from volunteering to be part of the changes that need to be made.

My wish is that we embrace this, but many teachers were not very informed about it, so I fear there isn't a lot of buy in. It's going to take one Friday a month away from afternoon classes. This means we have to change our schedules, something teachers really don't like to do. But if we could get everybody on board with this I think it will really make a difference. It feels like I've been trying to get kids to take bullies by surprise by being nice to them forever but it doesn't make much of an impact. With a program like Rachel's Challenge I'm not just some crazy teacher giving bad advice it's actually something that many kids are saying actually works at their school and changes their community. The thing that I worry about is that it's still not going to make enough impact... a program is only as good as the people who are committed to it and unfortunately in this case we don't have a lot of commitment yet. This post didn't set out to be a negative one, in fact it set out to be positive. I can already see my kids recognizing things that they do for each other. We already have a chain going, a chain of action and reaction of all the nice things that kids are doing for each other. Rachel was obviously a very special kid who saw things in a way that a lot of others didn't really see them. I'm sure she wasn't perfect but we can learn from her example either way. If either communities can be changed by this why not ours?

So Learning How to Learn Increases Learning?

Do Students Know Enough Smart Learning Strategies? | MindShift

How to Become an Elementary School Teacher

Being a self-proclaimed data junkie, I LOVE infographics because they contain lots of data! This was originally posted on schools.com and I thought it was totally fitting for this blog.
Click to view :)

 
Courtesy of: Schools.com

The Damon's Take a Stand

In this article the actor Matt Damon and his mother, a professor of education, turned down the opportunity for an award after reading an opinion article that the union’s president had co-authored with the founder of Teach for America.
I particularly like the part where she points out that "...you wrote about a first-grade teacher who was retiring because she wouldn’t teach to a script...  teaching to the test strips teachers of their professionalism. Yet it is the best-trained, most knowledgeable teachers who can offer the most meaningful, excellent education in this test-driven climate. It’s the under-prepared teachers who are most often teaching to tests and using scripts because they don’t have the knowledge base to do otherwise."
In making the best of this test-driven climate, are you scripting your lessons to the test? Or have you discovered that scripting doesn't work and using the test as a tool to get your students to think critically, form their own opinions on societal standards and expectations, and teach themselves job-survival skills (biting the bullet and getting through what isn't ideal to preserve themselves and their job) is making the most of the situation?