I've been plagued with gloomy thoughts about public education lately. Seems that everywhere I turn people are putting public education down, budgets are getting cut at alarming rates, and comparisons to other nations has us looking quite bad. I know I can't change the world, and I certainly can't change public education across the nation, but I can change what is happening in my classroom and make sure that it is the best it can possibly be.
I've given much thought to how I can better myself as a teacher. There are two great things I've done this year for my career that are having huge impacts and the first is joining Twitter and the second was to introduce my classes to Edmodo. Both of these groups have pushed me to become a better teacher by creating a PLN whereby I'm always searching for better ways and better ideas through my communications with other teachers across the nation and - probably more importantly - across the world.
I probably should be doing all of this work and putting it toward a doctoral degree, but quite frankly, I don't have the money to get one right now and I certainly don't need any more debt, so I'm moving forward with the hopes that I will become a better teacher through this all. Huge ponderings have been flooding my brain in the past several months. What makes education in Finland (ranked #1 in education) and Singapore (ranked #2 in education) the best places in the world for education? I want to know. I want to know what the magic is there that is allowing students to reach their potential and move beyond the normal to extraordinary.
I've had the pleasure of working with a teacher in Singapore through Edmodo. We created a class called Global Classroom in Edmodo where we allowed our students to communicate and learn more about each other's cultures. This was monumental in my teaching as I'm sure it was in my student's educational careers. What we learned through this classroom cannot be taught through books. My passion to learn more about their education system has their teacher and me communicating long after our classes are out of session. I'm hoping to share our educational system with her, and in return her with me. What could be a more perfect way to find out what I can do to make education better in my classroom than to speak personally to an educator from Singapore?
Through Edmodo, I also met a teacher in California who was wondering what teachers across the nation were planning to read over the summer. After conversing a little, we decided to create a professional book club using Edmodo. We're hoping to communicate about various topics in education, but more specifically in reading. She started out by reading Readicide by Kelly Gallagher. I followed suit, and just finished the book yesterday. What I learned in that book changed the way I think about teaching Reading.
How do we prevent readicide? It's quite simple. Quit teaching to the darn test! We're not doing our students any good by worrying about these state tests (which are supposedly assessing student achievement so as to leave no child behind). We've lost sight of the real goal - to produce life-long learners. We're killing the passion of education by worksheeting them to death. We can still teach reading by balancing between teaching too much and too little and still have our students do well on state-wide testing.
I'm completely in. I need to worry about killing the readers in my classroom and instead focus on nurturing them. Feed the plants, nurture them, water them, give them nutrients they need (books, lots of them) and they will go from wilting (under the current conditions) to vibrant, fruit-producing plants.
Next up? The Book Whisperer by Donalyn Miller. I expect this book will only help me to find more ways to make learning happen in my classroom. Between now and September when I go back into my classroom, I anticipate I will be a better teacher from the connections I'm making with the national and international teachers I have in my PLN.
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