Next, I Will No Longer Teach My Class

At the end of my first year of teaching, I heard from another first year teacher, Mr. X., who taught a special education class with some really big challenges. He had some experience with technology and film production and so his fresh take on teaching was to:

1. Record his lessons in advance, and play them during class time
2. Work closely with his students who required the most personal attention during the time when the class learned via prepared video

Amazingly, this teacher was running his own focused Khan Academy in class. And then provided individualized special education service, while his lesson was being taught simultaneously. By him!

Now what does this have to do with me?

This year I am teaching a small class that needs a different approach to math. (Which I am fully intending to provide.) While I am teaching this class, I want to do the same thing that Mr. X. was doing. And I think, via a Technology PD session at my school, I've learned the way that I can do it.

VoiceThread

Here's what I know already I can do with VT:

• Post images
• Connect audio and video to those images
• Set up a slideshow presentation
• Write on the slides/images with colored pens (Just like Khan!)

I don't yet know what my capacity limits are for this site though. Can I do a whole lesson? Can I do a week's lessons? For how many classes? Semesters? The whole year?

What else can I do with this? Anything better out there that I've been missing?

So excited for the potential to clone myself in the classroom!

Teachers Unite! Let's Stop Grading!

Teachers are amazingly talented professionals with a wide range of skills from delivering content instruction to all types of learners to offering support and consulting to troubled youths. But, nearly across the profession, one particular skill has way too much time being devoted to itself: GRADING.

I want to cut my grading time down to nothing. I might not make it all the way, but the closer I get the better I'll be at every other thing, from lesson planning to instruction to advising and on.

How Am I Going to Start:

1. Watch YouTube
2. Get together a team of dedicated teachers, who want to plan smarter and grade less.
3. Try and try again until we succeed.

Who's with me?

Now, What I Want To Do as a Teacher

I spoke today with two incoming seniors about some topics that I felt hit the core of what it is I want to do as a teacher.

1. Teach like an economist, not like a teacher. Economists think about opportunity cost and would teach the lesson that makes best use of the given time, attention and other precious resources. But some teachers will teach a lesson just because they taught it before, or because its part of the curriculum, or because its on the test. I don't want to get trapped in the mindset of being a teacher like that.
2. Teach students the things they need to know to succeed anywhere and everywhere. Again, teaching to assessment criteria and curricula are essential. But how about teaching what they need to know to succeed in other classes too? How about prioritizing? Time management? Leadership? Critical thinking? Problem-solving? Aren't these the things we need to know to succeed throughout high school? And in college? In our careers? In any endeavor we undertake?
3. Know what each individual student wants to be, know, and do and then teach this to them. I know that I like math and that history teachers tend to like history. I also know that these subjects are meaningful to us because they not only pay the rent but also give our lives purpose. Does this apply to every teenager who walks into a classroom? Aren't there some students for whom sports, dancing, magic, painting, etc. give the purpose to their lives? Won't some of these same students also one day pay their rent from something related to their experiences as athletes, ballerinas, card sharks, and artists? Shouldn't we encourage "extracurriculars" as having meaning beyond an after-school activity? Isn't that last history assignment displacing some time that a student could have spent on developing their hobby into something greater and more meaningful? What comes first? What the student wants to know or what I want them to know?

Of course there is a balance to strike between what I want to do and what I have to do as a teacher. I'd never want a student to fail as a result of a selfish desire to teach them more of what I want them to know. Still, I'd rather try and fail at these goals for my teaching career than never consider their importance and limit myself to a narrower view. I couldn't work like that and I won't.

Why Do I Want to Be a Teacher?

Late last night I had an excellent conversation with a student who came at me with one of those questions that you usually provide a short tweet-like answer to: "So how did you decide to become a teacher?" Often I might answer this with a "Well, I never studied to become a teacher. I actually studied economics." Or a, "I just really enjoy it." If I were interviewing for a new teaching position, of course I would be asked the same question and provide an answer similar to the latter, "I really enjoy teaching and the challenge of working with interesting young people...".

Truthfully though I already know the answer here. I think I value certain qualities in my work, those being (in no particular order):

1. Creativity
2. Freedom
3. Challenge
4. Intrinsically Rewarding

On #1, as a kid I always pictured myself becoming a writer or film director even though I never devoted much time and practice to those pursuits. On #4, I remember in college having a moral dilemma with every career I considered (business/economics didn't seem to be helping the world enough, even medicine seemed like I would only be helping a few people and the good I did would depend on the good done by others).

With teaching however, I get to hit all of these core values right in the sweet spot:

• For #1 and #2, I have learned over the years how much creativity and freedom is involved in teaching and I think this would be very difficult to give up. Once you have a job that allow you to indulge your myths of being a lone wolf and visionary artist that it a tough addiction to break.
• For #3 and #4, obviously teaching teenagers to enjoy math, science, or any subject that isn't eating or chatting is a challenge is a great challenge, but where this job gets truly rewarding is when you get to learn who your students are, what they want to be and can help advise them on how to get there.

If I have students who share my values and get to find studies and work that connect them with those values then I'm excited at that possibility. But the greatest thing will be if they are able to realize their own persona values and discover a path to transforming those values into decisions that affect the rest of their lives.