Teacher Endurance

After 10 years I should know what to expect. What amazes me is that I always forget. I am tired. It is unreal how much teaching endurance I have lost over the summer. One complaint you will hear form teachers is that their voice goes south on them. Luckily, I do not talk enough to my students to make that happen. I try to let them do most of the teaching, or they are busy with an activity. I forget how much energy it takes to manage five different sets of 30 students for an hour each while still making it exciting, fun, entertaining, and even academic. I actually fell asleep on the couch at 8:30 pm when my normal bed time is 11:00 pm. I was shocked when I woke up to say the least.

I think I need to do a study next year on the endurance training that teachers put themselves through in the first two weeks. I wonder if I can become a consultant or something. I can develop a training plan much like runner have for a marathon. The goal is to avoid the need to go to sleep 2-3 hours early for those first few weeks. Hmmm, interesting...anyone ready to give me a grant? :)

Survival Mode

Over the past week I have been a part of some wonderful presentations and discussions about the use of technology in the classroom, been asked to consider producing an online course using the Blackboard program, and brought up to speed with how I should help students read in my physics classroom.

Why do I get all this great stuff at the same point that I am in survival mode?  I want to digest, research, and integrate the cool stuff I just heard about, but students return in seven days.  The only thing on my mind right now is the first day followed by the first 2-4 weeks.

I understand that the timing of this is dictated by our contract if we want to be paid for it.  Maybe by next semester or next summer I will have the time to fully integrate criterion-based grading or establish rubrics for reading for understanding or put all of my physics online.  I don't want to sound like a whiner.  In all actuality, I am going to attempt to do these things during the year.  It just makes me sad that I will not be able to dedicate the time necessary to bring it to the level that I want.

Suggestion:  Have an optional (non-paid) session during the summer.  This would allow more teachers the time to think about, research, and build into their curriculum in a purposeful way.  Or even create a 1-2 week summer course that is dedicated to integrating these new ideas into the classroom.  I just remembered why it is a leap of faith to put an idea out there.  I might just leap right into being responsible for it.

social media revolution

Title post

I believe that I have found the perfect blog name for my life.  If I do not have a reason to get something done, it will take a while to happen.  If I do not have anything to get out of bed for, I will just lay there.  Luckily, I have two little walking alarm clocks that start asking me to help them as soon as they wake up.  Maybe I should lovingly name them Impulse 1 and Impulse 2.  My wife would be Impulse 1, but I am not stupid enough to call her that.

I have lounged for the past couple of months even though I am at a new school this year with new students, new rules and procedures, new schedule, and slightly different courses.  I know I have a lot to learn.  Isn't that a big enough Impulse to get me off my keister?  Well, the day came a little over two weeks ago that the Impulse was looming large enough for me to make the choice to get crackin'.  So I went about preparing my room and finding all of the beginning of the term files that were brought with all the others in boxes from my last school.  I was getting anxious.  I was not sleeping well.  It was like I was driving around without a destination.  I had an Impulse, but no vision.

I have been anxious because the district I am joining appears to be pretty impressive.  I get the feeling that a lot of my physics students will be of a high caliber.  The teacher I am replacing has been there since the school opened around 15 years ago.  Between advising the Robotics team that went to Nationals last year and trying to prepare students for an science project worthy of the Intel International Science & Engineering Fair, I have been anxious.  I get the feeling that just being the physics teacher isn't enough.  How am I going to raise my teaching to a new level?

During the past week a vision has presented itself through a couple of ways.  I read the book, "An Ethic of Excellence" by Ron Berger which helped me think of a bigger picture of education.  Among other things it discusses using relevant projects in your curriculum.  More importantly Berger reminded me that students will produce excellent work if we give them a reason and if they feel accountable for it.  Some of my anxiety was lifted because I don't need to do a lot of new stuff, just take the necessary steps to make it the best I can.


On Tuesday, I went the district's new teacher orientation.  As we met with the superintendent someone's cell phone went off.  He stopped and told us all to turn our cell phones on and put them on the tables in front of us.  I am coming from a district with a policy to confiscate all cell phones for a week if they are out during learning time.  So I was not sure what to think.  A short time later, he presented us with a question and had us text the answer to his phone.  This was followed by a short comment about the possibilities of using cell phones in the classroom.  USING CELL PHONES IN THE CLASSROOM?!?!?

I have since gone to a technology summit hosted by the district and learned that (in addition to cell phones) YouTube, blogs, outside email sites, and social media sites are not blocked and are encouraged.  This is a complete 180 degree shift from my last district.  I have spent the last five days learning as much as I can about using handheld mobile devices in class and learning how to blog.  

All I need is an Impulse

A little teaching philosophy

As a high school senior in Ohio someone asked me what I would do if money and status were not part of the equation.  I wasn't the student at the top of the class.  In fact, I got a D in Geometry because I did not complete much of my homework that year.  Luckily, throughout school I usually had a fairly good understanding of the material.  I have since realized that my understanding did not just magically happen because I was smart.  Although having a good memory will get you very far in high school.  It happened because of two things: practice and teaching others.  Like almost all students, I did not get joy out of doing a bunch of problems (see Geometry above).  I felt most successful when I was able to help someone else understand the material.  When one of my friends would struggle with class, I would love to help.  To me, homework was a social thing and there is no better way to learn something than to teach it.  I knew that my friends could have figured it out on their own, but they could get there a lot faster with a little help and support.  So what did I do with all of this knowledge?

I went to Clemson University and became an engineer.

Clemson trained me to solve problems logically and analytically.  I have used those skills throughout my life, but I never got the excitement, the challenge, the passion that others had for engineering.  I thought again of what I would do if I disregarded money and status.  I wanted to help others be successful like when I helped my friends or when I tutored people in college.

I went to George Washington University in Washington, D.C. and earned a Master of Education degree.  I was trained to be a teacher. 

Anyone who has started a new job understands that the training you get does not usually make you very good at your job.  It just helps you not screw up too bad.  Looking back on my first couple of years, I can't say I was very good, but I don't think I screwed-up too bad either.  By my 4th year, I had put in over 4000 hours of practice with the skill of teaching.  It is not just hours of practice that helped me improve.  I had many mentors who modeled excellent teaching, countless dicussions on education, and the desire to do  better each year than the last.  A while ago, I figured out that it takes me about three years of teaching any subject before I can totally move past WHAT I am teaching to focus on HOW I am teaching it and WHO I am teaching it to.  I think that is one of the keys to being an educator: focusing on the how and the who instead of the what.

I started to become an educator.

I am beginning my 10th year of teaching. I have taught courses in physical science, earth science, chemistry, physics, and engineering.  I have now been practicing for over 10000 hours.  Malcolm Gladwell might think that I would be a candidate for an expert or a master teacher by now.  I would argue that there is no such thing as a master teacher, just teachers who keep asking what they can do better next year.

So we all know how I answered the question. I do not make the money of an engineer.  Regarding status, all the teachers are fairly equal without much possibility for advancement in my experience.  Why do I do this? For the challenge to be the best I can and for that feeling I had in high school when I helped another person feel successful.


Troha