Teaching Philosophies

What I have realized lately, through reading blogs and Twitter posts, and speaking with other educators, is that we all have different purposes as educators.  For example, I feel my goal as an educator is to help prepare my students for life.  Does that include for the next grade level?  Sure.  Does that mean college?  For some.  But what I truly want them to leave with is the ability to read well and write well, to have the skills that will help them get through many situations, whether it be college, a career, or simply 7th grade ELA class.  A co-worker I spoke with, however, thinks that his job is to prepare them for college.  Other teachers may think the goal is to pass The Test.  So, while all of us have goals, and they may overlap, they are still different.  Doesn't this mean that we are all going about what we teach differently?  I'm having a hard time understanding how we can ever improve education when we all have a different end goal in mind. 

I apologize if this is not very well-written.  I was hoping to come up with some answers as I wrote, so I let my thoughts take over, instead of my writing skills :)

Demand Their Best

I've been struggling a long time with the quality of the work my students turn in.  Sometimes I wonder why they bother to do it at all when they obviously put no effort into it, and therefore aren't learning anything.  This morning, it hit me.

I'm not demanding their best.

While I have demanded that they do the work, I've left out the most important part - insisting that they not only do it, but well, with 100% effort. 

I think I've known in the back of my mind that this is what was missing, and just didn't want to admit it.  I know that sometimes I accept what I get because it's easier not to fight it.  I know that by the time 6th hour comes around, I've lost the excitement and, sometimes, the care that I had in first hour. 

Mostly, though, it's because it's easier not to.

I don't like excuses.  I don't accept them from my students.  But I often make them.  I have three kids, and grade papers, and am taking a class.  I have all kinds of stuff going on.

However, the one thing I should not be slacking on, when it comes to my students, is demanding effort.

This year I have been involved in the pilot of a program called Standards Based Learning (SBL).  It has been a bit of a tumultuous year because of this new system.  In the beginning of the year we battled much criticism from the public for changing the way we grade (4,3,2,1 vs. A,B,C,D), and some changes in practices, such as allowing students to retake quizzes and redo assignments they may not have done so well on the first time around. Over time, the controversy has died out, but I continuously think of my personal practices with SBL.

I recently came across a blog written by a woman who is also a first year SBL teacher, and have enjoyed reading about her practices, successes, and failures, as I see them mirroring my own, and those of my co-workers.  At the end of last week I sent the link out to the high school and middle school teachers in my district because I thought some others would enjoy reading this blog as well. I mostly got no responses, but there were a few notes of thanks, and one irate email from a friend who teaches high school science.

When the SBL program was first proposed to us a year and a half ago, this friend was the biggest proponent.  We were part of a team that went to another district to look at how they implemented it, and to talk to teachers about what they liked and disliked about it, and how it was working for the students.  This friend's wife was also getting started in SBL in her district, and he loved everything he heard.

This friend never went through the summer training we did, nor did he do the second round of training.  Instead, he found it was not working for his wife and her co-workers, so quickly changed his opinion of  the program.

After I sent the link out, he was irate about SBL, and could say nothing good about it.  We exchanged emails back and forth, and I received one after another from him about the fallacies of SBL, and how no good could possibly come from it.  He went so far as to accuse me of being anti-union and saying that I'd been brainwashed by people who think education needs to be reformed.

Now, this teacher friend is very traditional.  He has always been of the belief that if it worked for us, it should still work, which is why I was surprised when he was such a huge proponent of SBL to begin with. 

My final response to him said that I was not prepared my kids for college, as he suggested was our job; rather, I am preparing them for life.  I am not preparing my kids to take a test; instead, I am preparing them to work with other people, and how to communicate with one another.  I am not teaching them the proper bubble-filling techniques; I am teaching them how to evaluate all the possibilities.

What he has not realized is that the world we are teaching in is not the same world we attended school in.  I have watched students who entered my classroom in the fall expecting me to tell them all the right answers and to fill their heads with fact after fact become collaborators, questioners and critical thinkers.  I know that they are prepared for 7th grade because of what they show me every day.

And if they pass the test next year, that's just icing on the cake.