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100 Day Project – Day 14 – Dedication

September 19th, 2011 · 100 Days Project, family, Teaching & Learning, Work

100 Day Project – Day 14 – 12:26 p.m.

A wonderful family weekend  results in Monday morning moments of “Should I feel regretful?” because all of the homework and planning I was going to do over the weekend remains undone. A never ending challenge to my own commitment to good teaching is brought on by weekends when I choose to enjoy my family and home; and end up with a lot to do on Monday to be prepared for the week’s classes.  (I suppose I also ought to be thankful I don’t teach on Mondays, but, then again, don’t think I will go down that road!)

In beginning to think about how I’ll approach some topics that I’d like to write about, I came across this blog entry this morning:   Andy’s Teaching and Learning Blog While you can go there and read the whole entry of course, I’d like to quote a section here:

“Some have mentioned that I’ve gone over to the Dark Side, and in fact, that phrase has come up frequently. Dark Side, implying that the faculty role is one of the positive, good-feeling, health, innocence, the way of the Tao, one of righteousness, virtue and Truth and Justice.

On the other hand, as George Burns said, “Too bad all the people who know how to run this country are busy running taxicabs or cutting hair.” Those who are managing college budgets, processes, reporting requirements, scheduling and providing feedback do not speak with one voice. They work in an environment characterized by ambiguity, compromise, and negotiation while attempting to balance conflicting goals and interests. Their dedication to the core mission of the organization, serving students well and helping them achieve their goals and opening the doors of opportunity, trying to do things right while trying to do the right thing, in the face of some severe constraints is admirable. They are decidedly human. Dark side? I don’t think so.”

This morning one of the first emails I received was the news that our Dean of Faculty and Students (don’t think that’s the correct title, but I’m not one for keeping track.) is stepping down from his work to return to the classroom.  And, this semester, I begin working in a reorganized division with the fifth Dean I’ve had in ten years.  There’s a lot of reasons to be a little unhappy about all this – okay, some days a lot of reasons.  But as Andy mentions above, those who work in the insituttion I work in, have an incredible dedication to their mission and to the students we serve.  Somedays it’s amazing to me.

So on the Mondays where I think, jeesh, I really should have done more college work over the weekend, I know I’ll figure out the week ahead.  I always do.  I always will.  Most of my students will eventually work with our youngest citizens:  I have no choice.  The future of young people is my passion.  I am decidedly human and will work with that!  Today I’m thinking about dedication.

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100 Days Project – Day 11 Take Two – Organization

September 16th, 2011 · 100 Days Project, Musings, My Goals, Teaching & Learning, Work

100 Days Project Day 11 – Take Two

Not that anyone is reading my posts, but I realized that I miscounted already!  As I recommend to my Student Success class students, organization is the key to everything; so take away is that I need to pre-number a calendar and that way I’ll keep track of which day I’m on.

Organization is key to this profession.  I suppose it is to most; although I’ve been on the other side of the desk of a bank manager and insurance officer or two who didn’t look too organized.  And, I really don’t think it was organized chaos either.  I have two desks – one home, and one office – not to mention a briefcase to keep under control.  Most of the time I manage.  In the past, I had a desk job at a children’s writing company where there were lulls in my work and I could really keep organized.  I was fond of that aspect of that job.  My files were always alphabetical, everything got in those files and I could retrieve them!

In my current school office, I made time before classes began to organize my shelves and desktop and only one week in, it has already paid off.  Requests for items, important papers to bring to meetings are readily retrievable.  Now that’s the top of the desk….

The four drawers of file cabinet space are another story.  A number of years ago, it was in order; but not now.  It’s quite awful, and I’m sure I’m reproducing things that already have a file or extra copies for students in there somewhere.  But, I’m working on it.  I’ve been trying to take one file out a day, see what’s in there, correctly label it, and begin to make some sense of those awful drawers.

My home office goes through phases.  The room shares itself with my clothes overflow, my laundry folding and ironing, and my getting dressed in the dark in the morning and don’t disturb the hubby spaces.   So it tends to get a big out of hand faster than my school office as I know not too many people are going to be looking or sitting in there!  And, as I explain to myself it’s multi-purpose.

But the point being that organization and a place to easily get your tasks done, like prepping, grading papers, and just plain thinking on how to get a concept across is really valuable to quality teaching.  Is there research out there to back me up?  Probably, I don’t know, but it’s true for me.   Today I’m thinking about organization.

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100 Days Project – Day 11 – Passion

September 15th, 2011 · 100 Days Project, Children, Musings, Quote of the Week, Teaching & Learning, Work

100 Days Project – Day 11 – 8:31 p.m.

“Ten. At the end of the day, good teaching is about having fun, experiencing pleasure and intrinsic rewards … like locking eyes with a student in the back row and seeing the synapses and neurons connecting, thoughts being formed, the person becoming better, and a smile cracking across a face as learning all of a sudden happens. Good teachers practice their craft not for the money or because they have to, but because they truly enjoy it and because they want to. Good teachers couldn’t imagine doing anything else.”

I experienced a wonderful day of teaching today.  Four classes, a little short of  80 students, between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m.  Each class began to interact in really important ways.  The reluctant student spoke to others.  The student quick to volunteer to speak thought before speaking today.  In one class, a student visably had a lightbulb turn on with only two articles under her belt.  Others were drawn into her enthusiasm as she came to a (I suspect) transformative moment in realizing the real task of early care and education.  Fabulous!

Are all days like this?  Nope, no how, no way.  Even if I was as prepared as I was today, thought through the rhythm of large, small group discussion, free writes, mini-lectures, participation activity, and expected brain cells to pop all over the place.  Somedays the energy just isn’t there:  perhaps life is too stressful for too many in the classroom to pay attention to the material or to me, someone that they know is usually at least interesting and as I was called today, “creative in presenting the material.”  (Loved that compliment!)

Great days, like today, make teaching “easy.”  The excitement of watching learning is infectious and joyful.  Not so good days are the ones where every being of your professionalism must come to bear.  I must be understanding of the student who I’m sure has asked that how to question at least four classes in a row.  I must guide that student who talks way too much to give others air time.  I must notice that the reluctant student, after coming out of the shell a bit, has suddenly retreated.  I must figure out what to do about the two cellphones being used to text under the table.

Even on those days however, days when the classes didn’t go well, and I’m so tired that if I were four years old, I would sit down and cry, I do it.  As the quote mentions above, good teachers can’t imagine doing anything else.  I certainly can’t – and I’ve tried other things – so I know of which I speak.  Today I am thinking about passion.

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100 Days Project – Day 10 – Individual Student

September 14th, 2011 · 100 Days Project, Musings, photo of the week, Quote of the Week, Teaching & Learning

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Some days I’d like to be a teacher of long ago (okay, I’d like to believe it’s long ago, but in fact I know there are still teachers who teach this way) who gave the same lesson to all the students each day.  I am always surprised each September (why is it I forget?) how long some preparation can take.  It takes longer for me not because I’m inefficient.  Although I do admit my filing system leaves a lot to be desired, but that I’m willing to blame on not enough time alone in my office to file – have to blame something!   It takes longer because as I get to know my students I rearrange what subjects to cover and in what way.

I work hard to keep Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences in mind as I prepare my daily lesson plans, and that can make presenting some material pretty challenging.  Keep in mind that I teach at the college level.  What’s interesting is that there are many students who have never experienced being asked to learn in their own style, and we spend a few classes adjusting to this.  Students are a bit “weirdid out” (to use what they say although I think that’s misspelled) by my asking them to do something like talk to each other about their thinking about what they just read or I just explained to them.

It’s been a long day of meetings and preparations; it’s late and I’m not done.  Could I just figure out how to give standardized lectures wth standardized quizzes?  Today I’m thinking about teaching to the individual.

 

“It’s not how smart you are that matters, what really counts is how you are smart.”

~ Howard Gardner

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100 Days Project — Day 9 – Prioritize

September 13th, 2011 · 100 Days Project, Musings, Teaching & Learning, Work

100 Days Project – Day 9 – 8:23 p.m.

The long days of teaching are certainly that, aren’t they?  Long days.  I just took a quick look around the web for  work/life balance information for teachers.  Quite a lot is out there, even some interesting self-assessments with accompanying suggestions for readings or how to seek support.  Almost too much – you could get stressed out trying to figure out what is the best article and information to read!

I did some good research around the issue of burnout for my doctoral research and although it’s about 6 years old, I recall enough of it to know the issues haven’t changed much.  In fact, I do wonder if the threat of burn-out isn’t even worse given the economic challenges that more and more of us face – but that’s for another blogger to cover.

What I was reflecting upon today is the huge prioritizing act I must do to put my teaching first.  I’m decent at it when I’m at home.  I work hard not to grade papers or prep every single night at home; this means really being efficient during the hours I have at school.  But it’s challenging.  What is especially challenging is  balancing the requirements of my chair duties with teaching with community service expectations and more.  Sometimes the meetings are endless and inefficient – I suppose these are the ones that try me the most – as sometimes, okay, maybe more than sometimes, meetings have inefficient leaders.  And, in this world of email, attachments, learning platforms, etc. I do think there is a fair share of material that can be discussed asynchronously via some electronic format.  But I suppose again that’s another blogger’s sound bite to chew apart!

Teaching four classes today was invigorating, and exciting, and add any other labels you can think of in the arena of providing joy and pleasure in one’s work.  However, and but, I have to prepared in order to have efficient, interesting, involved learning experiences for those students.  And preparation takes time.  As a colleague said to me today, it’s early, we’re still organizing and getting rhythms.   I would really be content to do nothing but prep and teach classes – but, again the but, there’s this requirement for other moments that support the running of the learning environment for the student.  And, I do think this is important.  I still have the goal of getting some reading and reflection done around particular books and articles I want to spend some effort on, and I’ll get there.  This week is about relearning how to work in a restricted number of hours per day:  today I am thinking about how to prioritize.

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