Decline in Education Degrees

My response to an article on NEA's website about the decrease in number of students graduating in education majors. The link to the article can be found below.

http://bit.ly/1SBgps7

I don't think it's just the pay. Educators have been getting paid the way we have for a long time. The part I think is driving people away or not even driving students towards is the job satisfaction. Being a professional teacher is tough for a lot of my colleagues outside of Belle Isle ( the school I teach at). They are being asked to fit in a one size fits all box, to teach the way the schools have for the past 100 years. They are held accountable for things in which they have been granted very little autonomy to discover solutions for. Everyone from the teachers to the admin are afraid to do anything new and that leaves no hope in the hearts of the teachers that they can make the difference they came to make in the beginning. Students that have grown up in this system hear teachers complain about the low pay and how "crap" the job is and they believe it, and sometimes see it, and don't get involved. This results in less interest in teaching as the years go on, and less teachers. The problem then compounds itself. Students have gone through many an uninspired classroom and have never had a chance to see a teacher throw out the boxes that we are asked to teach in. They have never seen us say "screw it we are going to learn and let the test take care of itself." We are afraid of the scores because we do, in fact, feel the students' scores reflect on our teaching in spite of what we say to the contrary. We are afraid that those scores will tell someone else that we are ineffective or that we suck at our job and we still care what other people think because that's why we got into the job in the first place. We care. When you care, this job drains you down at times because we stand up everyday and do the thing other people don't want to do, and we do it even when we are instructed how to do it. I want to see teachers mobilize to take back the creative, caring, personal side of teaching. I want to see us rally for what's important instead of talking about what isn't. I want to see us change education instead of being afraid that we might not be up to the task of walking into that unknown world of future education. We need to ask ourselves what that world will look like. How do we educate more kids with fewer teachers? We are educated people, that is not an unsolvable problem. We have to step outside the box, keep trembling through our fear, and see that we can't do it the way we have always done it. We are at a time where we will look back and see this as a moment when education shifted, we have the power to make that a positive one. What will we do?

Growth Mindset and Changing the Way We Talk About Learning

I cannot stress enough how important growth mindset is as an educator and parent. It has to go to our core. We have to change the way we speak as adults, that's parents and teachers. When we say "your smart" we are saying that it is inborn and fixed, but if we open ourselves to look at the real effort and energy that leads to learning and not some innate ability, we begin to praise the work and energy. We stop allowing students to stop at not being able to do it and help them realize that it is not "I can't" and is instead it's "not yet." You will begin to realize how ingrained the fixed mindset ideas are in our culture when you begin to try to take away phrases like "your so smart" or "your so artistic" or "your so good at math" or "your good at science." when we are good at something those phrases overlook the real fact of the time we have spent on those things. When we are born we can't do anything on our own, but time and practice gives us the abilities we have today. Learning hasn't changed since those moments, only that we stopped thinking of time as the major factor influencing the amount we know and are able to do.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/withmathican

Restless

The point in my career that I’m at is strange. I work at a school that has allowed me to grow into the teacher that I am. We have a culture at the school that people, including myself, love to work in. We have an administration whose actions and words say, “ you are the professional, do what you do and we’ll get out of your way.” We have tons of parents who support what we do and what we need to do to get their students to the next level. We have incredible science facilities. We have 1:1 Chromebooks in the science classrooms and a non profit board that supports everything we do in our school. I shouldn’t be restless, but I am.

The restlessness is an internal thing for me. Most teachers would gladly take my place in our school. The school is named Belle Isle and like its name it is a beautiful island for teachers and the group of students that find themselves part of the school.

I started teaching because I want to change lives. I feel like I do that in some small way every day. I know the old platitudes about “you never know how you are impacting the kids in the class” and “every small change makes a difference” and all those things people say to teachers when they want to do more. It’s not even that I want to do more. I want to do it differently and more efficiently and with deeper meaning. I want to change education, I want to get in the lives of people who don’t have supportive families at home, that don’t have someone telling them everyday that they are worth something. I want to be in the thick of students who need a teacher/leader/mentor/adult that is passionate about telling them that they are more than the labels and that they are greater than their current reality. I want to show them with my time and talents and teaching that they are people that deserve to have someone care for them and want the best for them. I want to show them a different way of learning, a different way of education. I want to throw out the old model and start over. I believe education changes the world. It changes the opportunities that we have in life. It may not guarantee us a job, but it opens the doors for greater options.

As I get older, and am now two years into my second decade of teaching, I have less time and less energy so when I do my job I want to do it more efficiently. I think we work really hard as educators to provide a product that is not very effective for most of our students. I want to be in a place where I can invest in a more open way and be more than a curriculum deliverer who has a few moments here and there to be a person in the lives of the kids. I want to be in an environment where stopping to deal with something in the life of the student is what we do and not an obstacle to what we do. I want to be in a place where school is the community for these kids that supports them, feeds them (physically and emotionally), makes them want to get up in the morning to come be with people whom make them feel welcome and necessary. I want them to feel needed at school when they don’t feel needed by the world.

I’m just thinking here, and I don’t know what this all looks like. The personalized learning thing is a component but it should be focused on personalized. Personalized P.E., personalized art, personalized core subjects, personalized growth, taking young people who haven’t had anything that feel like their own and educating, one could say discipling, them into a world that they would have missed if it wasn’t for us not missing them. I’m restless. I don’t do this for the pay, I do it because even the education that I received allowed me the opportunities and choices to travel the world, grow, meet people, and make my dent in the world. I’m restless. I want to take the idea of the educator to the next level. I’m restless. I want to be part of a whole team of people who are restless to make this world a better place by investing in the lives that need us. I feel restless because…...I feel gifted to do a job that many wouldn’t sign up for and I feel what I am doing is just the safe almost there option. I feel restless because I know where I’m at right now is predictable and I’m a little scared that my anti status quo brain wants that to change. I’m restless because I want deeper education and change and I know that my personality is that I will eventually have to do something about it and that is a little scary. Where are the restless people and the place we need to be with the students whose lives we need to be part of? I know I’m not alone in OKC.