Re-re-inventing the Wheel

Education is kind of like going to church sometimes. Someone is always telling you that you can be doing it “better”. Their version of better. While I feel this is the case, both in my church life, and my teaching, part of me rebels against this notion.

I want to do what’s best for kids, even if it doesn’t appear to be “super innovative”. Do I constantly have to reinvent the wheel to be considered an educator that wants what is best for their students?

Sometimes it feels like the education reform movement has been using the same language for many years, but in slightly different ways, so that as educators we’re somehow not living up to the current standard. “That is so last decade…”

Kids do deserve it. They also deserve to not constantly be experimented on or with. Somehow the two need to co-exist and after 20 years I’m not sure how to make that happen all the time in my class.

 

Kids Deserve It Rx’ns.

I’m reading Kids Deserve It, by T. Nesloney and A. Welcome. I just finished the 3rd chapter “Innovate! Be Different!” and instead of just writing in the margins and highlighting some stuff, I thought I’d write a bit about what I was thinking as I was reading.

The authors say “don’t walk around your school writing notes on a yellow legal pad. Grab a tablet and digitize your life!” (pg. 27)

Why is a yellow legal pad necessarily bad? I know that the item itself isn’t bad and I don’t think it shows that I’m a luddite if I use that particular piece of old-fashioned tech. I don’t think it shows disrespect for a desire for students and teachers to use technology. Just b/c I use, or don’t use, a piece of technology doesn’t make me advanced or behind.

The authors also assert that “People don’t instigate great change or significantly impact others’ lives by choosing the familiar path.” (pg. 34) Is being different and innovative the only way to be significant or to initialize great change in people’s lives? I would argue that for every trail-blazer you need 5 stalwart and “steady” professionals who teach with quiet enthusiasm and care for kids on a level that would never be regarded as “different” or “innovative”.

I am constantly looking for ways to be innovative and help kids where they are, but I’d be crazy to throw out everything I’ve learned each I time I teach a familiar course. After teaching science for 10 years the scope of what we were trying to help students understand finally dawned on me and it clicked together. Maybe I was slow on the uptake, but my practice improved and grew the more I tied in the content in each grade to provide continuity. I don’t think I would have seen that if I was reinventing the wheel each day.

Moreover, teachers who do a familiar experiment or lesson each year build an audience for that “event”. Now, that might have been different or innovative the first time it was done, but maybe it is expected now. Does that lessen the educational relevance for kids today?

I did feel that the encouraging student voice section and question challenged me in what I could be doing differently in the Learning Commons work I do. There’s an area to focus on next school year.