Global Citizens

To thine own self be true. Shakespeare said it in Hamlet Act 1, scene 3 according to the internet. But it hold true for each country and their curriculum I think. We can learn a lot by looking at what different countries do and then decide what we should do. But we have to do what works for us and for our teaching. I have worked in several districts and in many of them, teachers are tired of trying new ways every time something changes. We have gone through local assessments that were laboriously written, piloted, revised, standardized, and abandoned. We had the MEAs and now we have the NECAPs. It is good that we haven't given up but are we taking the time to find out if what we are doing is working? Change takes time and it seems to me we have had too many changes too fast. I think we need to slow down and see what works.

I think we need a clearer picture of what we want. Do we want good test scores? Do we want creative learners? Do we want to help produce people who will be happy successful adults in society? I think we want it all! But sometimes I wonder if we are seeing the trees for the forest.

The reading and listening has given me a lot to think about this week. I was listening to the Seminar that Linda Darling-Hammond presented and thinking it sounded very familiar then I realized it was linked to the article of her's that we read. No wonder the examples were the same! I like the idea of Assessments for learning. I like the idea of assessing as we learn, not always a paper and pencil way

We need to do what we do well and keep doing it. Zhao said that American schools are respected in other countries and I know this to be true. The University of Maine has a large number of international students. In any class, including this one, I have taken there are usually students from other countries. I have been fortunate to make friends with many of them. Our engineering school has student from other countries arriving and graduating all the time. Many come here for their doctorates. Part of that may be because it is less expensive but still they come. More and more of our high schools are selling themselves internationally. Orono and Millinocket are courting students from China. Lee Academy has a number of students from various countries. So we should continue to do what we do well and fix what we don't do well.

One of the things we don't do well is educate globally literate students. Education majors are not required, as far as I know, to take a foreign language. There is a joke that is ironic that asks what trilingual means. The reply is to speak 3 languages. Bilingual is 2. Monolingual is Americans. Having been involved with the AFS exchange program in the past I have known many students from other countries who spoke more that one or two languages. My daughter Sveta, from Belarus, now has so many I lose count. She came here with Russian, Belorussian, English, and smattering of French. She went to University in Lithuania so learned that language, then married a German, and speaks that language as well. One middle school I worked in did not even teach a language.

We do need for our students to understand other cultures. It could be done in Social Studies classes or integrated into other classes. A current event section would be good even just as a part of the school day. We do sometimes watch Channel One at school and that does a good job of talking about subjects that interest the students. You can always tell when it is really good because the room quiets as the kids listen.

As I read these articles I realized that I am more globally literate than I had realized. I was in Japan when I interviewed for the job I have now. I have hosted in my home students from too many countries to list. I think I am happiest that I have an ongoing program where students from a college in Japan shadow my students for a day. Both sets of students get a tremendous amount from that one day.

Curriculum thoughts

(a) describe a personal definition description of curriculum (at least so far) in ONE paragraph, and...
(b) a short post about chapter 2 from Curriculum 21 that was particularly intriguing.

I see the curriculum as a list of what students need to know.  It needs to connect from one year to another so the student's education is always moving forward.  It need to be interesting and not out dated.  It needs to consist of objectives as how they are taught needs to depend on the student's needs from year to year as each group is different.  And maybe it should be one long list of objectives so what is missed in one year does not continue to be missed.   I am thinking from a mathematics standpoint which makes a difference, I think, as mathematics is like a stair case that needs to be climbed.  But students who are unable to climb as quickly as others should at some point be able to take the calculator escalator. 

There was a lot in this chapter that was particularly interesting.  I like owning the book so I can go back and look at my margin notes to refresh my memory.  That is something students need to be able to do and I know it is possible to do it in school texts with post it notes.

My two high points were different and not really connected in my mind at this point.  Page 27 quotes Jay Mathews as saying,"It calls for student to learn to think and work creatively and collaboratively." That reminds me of when I took a course called "Building Bridges between Schools and Communities".  The part I really remember from the businesses we visited was they wanted and needed people who knew how to work in groups, to work collaboratively.  It also connected to the TED talk where he found that the students worked better with one computer per group so they were forced to collaborate and not work independently.  Our students are social beings and will be more motivated when they work together. I used that this week when I challenged groups of students in my math class to find all the combinations of a certain kind of problem.  I offered a prize to the group that got the most and only gave them 5 minutes.  I was shocked, and pleased,  when 2 groups got all 16 combinations.
The second bit that was really intriguing was near the end where they mentioned replacing dated assessment types with newer forms of expression.  I don't love tests.  I am really good at taking the multiple choice kind but that's because you can get rid of some answers and up the chances of guessing the correct answer.  We have lots of students who don't do well on typical tests and yet, in the classroom, they can participate and answer questions.  While I know that not all teachers might be comfortable with only formative assessments, some done informally during class, I am still not in favor of assessing our students as often as we do.  I know when my class is understanding and when they don't.  It is written all over their faces.  Other forms of expression might take less time and show more of what they know and can do.

Shoes

I think a lot. When I need to solve a problem, I don't necessarily focus on the problem but it is always cooking in the back of my brain. Curriculum and how to teach integers so my students really understand them have been perking back there all week. I watched the TED talk and have talked to co-workers. One of my fellow teachers was commenting that the students had no idea of how to connect what they read to their experiences. Those were the spices in my stew this week. 

It is a snow day today (we are adding days in June at this point) and I just got back from cross country skiing. I was skiing along a flat straight section and thinking about connecting and integers and thought of shoes. When subtracting integers, zero pairs ( a positive and a negative) are vital to the understanding but my students are still confused as to when they need them. They have experience with shoes and that they must be in pairs to be useful. I need to try it on them but I am wondering if we talk about adding left shoes and right shoes and how many left over shoes we have that might help them with the addition. With the subtraction, I could ask for left shoes or right shoes so they would have to add in some pairs of shoes to give me what I am asking for. We could even use their shoes to do the problems. 

Integers are part of my curriculum and I want my students to understand how they work so that when they take algebra they don't make so many mistakes. It hasn't really worked for me yet. I have yet to send students to 8^th grade who can still add and subtract integers when they get there. I need to teach this concept but how and when I teach them are up to me as the teacher. After watching the TED Talk, maybe what I should do is ask the students how to add and subtract using their shoes. I think I will and let you know how it came out next week. Wish me luck!

Curriculum

We have spend so much time at my school working on developing a curriculum but I don't feel like we have made enough progress. Having said that however, I have to admit that I think my students now know more when I get them and are better thinkers. I think there is more to learning than just a curriculum and WHAT you teach. I think it also matters HOW you teach but that isn't as far a I know, part of the curriculum. 

I also think there really needs to be more thought and/or action on the implementation of the curriculum. It matters that the students are exposed to material that they don't have to master at an early as well as any age. I deal with math so that is what I always think about. If younger students heard the word variable and the teacher referenced that word with out any pressure, I think it would be easier for older students to accept it. I feel the same way about basic fractions. Many of my students don't have any number sense when it come to fractions but I wonder if they had heard the words and seen how they fit together at younger ages it might be easier for them. 

We had a discussion in my math class about number sense and common sense. We agreed that it is necessary but cannot be taught. It must be experienced. I think that is what is so great about the newer math series. They give the students experiences. Is that in the curriculum or is it in the teacher or materials used? 

I guess my final thoughts are some questions. Is a curriculum an easily definable thing? Does it look the same in every school? Is the the curriculum or the implementation that matters the most?

Beginnings

Beginning a new course is always exciting for me.  I never know where I will go.  It is a bit like a journey to a new destination.  Maybe it's a foreign country or an unexplored state.  Maybe it's just a new place in this state I haven't been to.  Either way, beginnings are exciting.