Like many teachers out there, this blog comes out of a need to document my thoughts with reforming the way education is done in my class and possibly hold me accountable to change things. I also need a place to document my struggles to change more than myself.
Since the beginning of my teaching career 10 years ago (9th year of teaching now) I have always felt like something about the way we were doing this thing called school wasn't right. I was just too ignorant to even know exactly what to do about it. I am alternatively certified. What does that mean? I never planned to be a teacher. I didn't sit down and teach little stuffed animals when I was a kid or anything like that. In fact, nobody would have looked at me any different if I had chose not to go to college, but yet I did.
I went to college to become a veterinarian, so chose zoology/pre-vet as my major and thus graduated with a BS degree in zoology (I love BS, but the degree is real). Graduated with a 3.45 GPA but that was not good enough for the extremely competitive world of veterinary colleges, so home I went to deliver flowers for the florist that my sister worked for. I eventually found my way back to a veterinary clinic and that's what I did for the next bunch of years, eventually working my way up to vet-tech. Throw in a world changing trip to Denver and an attempt at seminary, and wham, I went from Seattle to Oklahoma City where I found myself working as a youth pastor and a vet-tech (I know, what a crazy church that was).
After I brought up that I wished I could combine my passion for working with teens and my passion for science, somebody at church told me that Oklahoma had a process for people to get certified as a teacher even if you didn't have a degree in education. I looked into it and because of my experience in the research labs as an undergrad, my experience in vet clinics, and my years of experience working with teens already, they gave me a certificate to teach and sent my on my way. I needed to be under the supervision of a college evaluator and I was assigned 9 hours of college course work that I needed to take to make that certificate official. Got a job in an urban school 3 months into the school year, and yep, TEACHER (or something like that).
What a fricken' eye opening experience. I had no idea what I had gotten myself into, nor did I know what I was doing. In fact, I would have fired my first year self. The thing that got me through was that the kids mattered to me. I Had some really big ideas when I came in to see these under used (not used at all) courtyards in the middle of the school redesigned as outdoor classrooms, but that was shut down because they didn't want another space to have to watch students. I realized pretty quick that the focus wasn't so much on learning but more like managing and getting them through. I also realized that I had to get better if I was going to change anything. I dug into everything I could to try to learn about teaching, and since I knew nothing except how to research I found some stuff to get me started.
My early years looked like every class I had ever been in. After a year off (after my second year of teaching) to work with an orphanage in Africa, I landed at a suburban school. A little less stressful of a job and I found a science teacher that was good at what she did. She challenged me without even knowing it because I have an inner need to compete. I wanted to teach as well as her if not better, but I was an amateur and she was the professional. I wasn't re-hired at that school because I was not the assertive discipline type that the principal was looking for, and since I was on a non-continuing contract, I was allowed to leave. That's where the story get's good.
I get a phone call near the end of the year and the lady on the other end says "I know this sounds weird, but I got your name and number from the lady in the office at your school, we're friends, and I was asking for contact info about another science teacher that had worked there before, and she said that she had a science teacher that I needed to talk to that wouldn't be coming back the next year and so I gave you a call and would like to see if you would want to come interview." I said yes, and now I have been married to that school for 6 years. I have found my home.
Belle Isle Enterprise Middle School is an application school in the the Oklahoma City Public School district (back where I began my career). Kids apply from all over the district and beyond to come to our school. These kids need to be challenged but are not getting it in their neighborhood schools. So, here we are. This school has changed everything about my teaching thanks to an awesome principal and a group of science teachers who care about being good. They stuck their necks out to get us involved with a research group at the University of Oklahoma, where we received heavy duty PD in inquiry and launched us back into the use of FOSS (Full Option Science System). Honestly, I learned the basics of how to teach science and what assessments should be from using that curriculum.
In one interaction we had with the K20 center staff at OU a suggestion was made about expanding the rubric idea to every part of the class, and at the time I had no idea that this was the idea of standards based grading. I couldn't even wrap my head around that because it was so different from how things had been done.
I started looking up using rubrics and landed on standards based grading. I didn't fully get the idea at first and tried to implement it anyway. I created a rubric for every question on the assessment (no multiple choice ever), took an average and and used this to assign a percentage. This resulted in a 100, 4-95%, 3-85%, 2-75%, 1-65%, and no evidence score of 50% (base 50). This got thrown in to our standard online gradebook for the district, I weighted the grade 80% tests, and daily work 20%, students got 100% on daily work for completion and I gave them feedback on it without taking off for anything. That's where I functioned for the last few years. I was only partially happy with the results, but I didn't know there was a whole other level.
Recently we began looking at a change that was coming at the state level in Teacher Evaluations using Marzano's stuff and assessment resurfaced in my mind as something that I was just not totally happy with. I was also tired of being bored along with my students at "dead spots" in my curriculum. Being husband, dad, coach, and teacher has been my excuse for not making changes the last few years but now it's time to dig in again because it matters that I get better. I will not be a teacher that is satisfied with good enough, especially when I am fully aware that good enough isn't good enough for me or the kids in my class. Long post but that gets me to where I am today.
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