Save the Starfish* (*some restrictions may apply)

I was having a conversation with a retired teacher and she was telling me how the last few years of her teaching career were wonderful because she had gifted and talented students.  I understand why teachers love them. I was one of them.  They are teacher-pleasers and grade grabbers and lovers of As.  But when those darlings reach high school, they are... different.  Entitled, argumentative, they lack as much motivation as the next student.

Source: The Last Degree

Give me the kids who need me.  Give me the struggling readers, the absentee problems, the students who hate school.  I know we can't save all the starfish, but give me a beach of washed up sea stars and I will spent every moment until I collapse tossing them back in to the Sea of Success (or at least the Bay of Makin' It).  To me, those students are the ones who make my job worth it, with the blood, sweat, tears...  Not a lot of sweat and hardly any blood, but there have been enough tears to fill an Olympic diving well.

Not that I didn't love my honors students; I did.  And do.

As I make my shift to teaching teachers, the idea of saving all the starfish... hasn't followed me.  This dawned on me the other day as I was collecting feedback on a PD I delivered.  There are teachers who are eager to learn, those who can and will learn and adapt with or without me.  I might accelerate their shift to technology integration or help them save time by doing the research for them, and may even contribute by collaborating with them, but they will be successful not because of me, but with me.

And then there are the other starfish.

Why do I not feel the same way about struggling teachers as I do about struggling students?  Do I feel they should know better?  Do I feel, as professionals, they should be responsible for staying current with pedagogy and best practices and standards just as every other profession is required?  At least, successful professionals.  There is the analogy of the doctor: would you want to visit a doctor who refuses to learn about new methods, machines or medicines?

Maybe I am scared.  With the struggling students was I scared?  Am I scared of the teachers who struggle?  It's easier working with teachers who want to learn and learn quickly, but I have never been the one to take the easy way out.

Working with struggling students, I was put down a lot and pushed away.  I just held on to them tighter.  They always came around.  Sometimes it was after they left my room for a new year and a new teacher, but in the end they always come around.  I think of Elizabeth.  She hated me.  She would move around the room to avoid me.  She would yell and cuss at me.  And every day I gave her a fresh start and a clean slate.  It was hard and sometimes I let it hurt my feelings.  She left that year ("I am GLAD I am leaving this school and this class!").  And you know what? I saw her the next year.  She was back.  She ran up and hugged me and said she missed me.  She didn't mention our previous relationship and neither did I.  It is water under the bridge and all that matters now is her happiness and her education (She will be graduating this year).

So why can't I do the same for teachers?  Or can I?  Is their behavior as excusable as students?  Why or why not?  These questions are not rhetorical.  They are reflective and need to be answered.  Sooner rather than later.

"Adulthood is Overrated" or "Easy is the New Hard"

I am completely over being a grown up.

I am not good at it.  I can barely manage to get myself ready in the morning.  My husband and my cat are pretty self-sufficient, blessedly.  And my bonus daughter is usually here on the weekends when getting ready for a day is optional.  It seemed so easy watching my mother do it.  Now, as a grown up, I still can't get my morning routine down.  There are so many things to remember.  Every time I do something like forget my deodorant, I feel like an Adult Failure.  So, you know, about two or three (or four) times a week.

Also, I do not enjoy it.  I have more responsibilities than hobbies.  I am not the boss of me.  Well, I am, if I want to be unemployed and single (although...).  When I was younger and had a dream it was fun and adorable and all "Go get 'em, kid!"  Now it's all "how old are you?" and weird looks and eye-rolls and heavy sighs and cough-talking.  You know, *cough* *crazy* *cough, cough*

Source: Cry for Help eCards

It's like the first part of my life was a lie. 

When you are little, the better you are at something the easier it is to do.  Examples: tying your shoe, doing a cartwheel, making a friendship bracelet.  These are things with which you struggle at first, but then, the better you get, the easier it is.  Now I can tie my shoe without even having to think about the bunny and the log (although I still say "to get her" every time I type "together", and righty-tighty, lefty-loosey, and--ok, never mind).

I thought when I graduated college, I would work really hard and become a great teacher and have fun and my job, and therefore my life, would get easier.  

It's was a lie.  It seems the better we get, the more we work.  I don't know. Maybe I am doing something wrong, but it appears that the teachers who are... not as good for kids, have it easier.  They teach the same lessons each year from a filing cabinet where the masters have a red dot on them (so when you copy it you can remember which one was the original).  They seem to always find time to grade papers during the school day and leave as soon as the students do, never taking home more than small satchel.  

It seems the deeper I get into education, the harder it is, the harder I work, the more stuff I transport.  My car is a mobile office crammed with tech, resources, to-do lists and my sanity.  At least I think that's where I left it.  I do feel like I get better each year, but each year I have more to learn.  The more time goes on, the worse I feel about my fallen starfish, the more I lament about those I am not reaching.  Right now I work more with teachers than students.  I try to celebrate the wins, but I am nagged by those who are falling through the cracks.  My head is full of what-ifs and if-onlys.

There are times I think about doing it the easy way.  I imagine what life would be like if I could knit when I wanted to and not have to pull out all of my stitches every third row because I had so much on my mind I couldn't count my pattern.  I dream of Chromebooks and updates and Flipcharts and Google an dam woken often with a feeling of dread--I could have done more

Source: Workplace eCards

Focusing on the "could-haves" does help me get better.  There are so many things I want to do differently next year.  I heard a teacher after a PD recently say "next year my kids will be so lucky!"  She had found something new and was already feeling bad for the kids she had this year. 

I heard a quote, "You can either change the world, or you can enjoy life, but you can't do both."  This is a concept of which I have become painfully aware in the last few years.  

I will change the world.  So that others may enjoy life.  Easy is the new hard.  Welcome to Adulthood.  Who's with me?!

*(A special thanks to my editor, who wishes to remain anonymous...)

School is Not a Job or The Airplane Analogy

"School is like a job for kids"

Teachers say this.  Administrators say this.  I used to believe this.  Kids come to school, they have a job (to learn), they get paid (grades).  Wait, not grades.  That's horrible.  They get paid with the education they get! Um, no.  I still don't like it.

This is why: 70% of Americas hate their jobs...  Click here or Click here if you want to read more.

So kids see their parents come home hating jobs (not you of course), and then we tell kids school is their job. 

What is their job?  To learn?  What if they don't? Is that on them? What if their jobs were to be kids?  To experience?  Are our students experiencing at school?  Hmmmmmmmm.  

School is a job for teachers, though, right? Well... I do not consider it a job.  I would call it a career, a passion, a commitment.  Calling it a job puts it at risk for the 70%.  It puts it at risk for something you do from a start time to a finish time for which you get paid.  

If a teacher told you teaching was "just a job", what would you imagine that teacher's class is like?

My first year of teaching I took a group of freshman from an urban school on a field trip to see an updated Romeo and Juliet play.  They were horribly behaved and even threw things on the stage at the actors.  I was horrified.  I was embarrassed and disappointed.  All of the students weren't mine, but the field trip was.  By the time we got back to school I was sobbing.  An assistant principal called me in her office in an attempt to calm me down.  I explained how disappointed I was and laid before her all of my failed expectations.  "It's just a job," she said.  "There is no reason to get upset."

Just a job? I didn't talk to her again after that.  These were my children! I mean, is parenting just a job?  I counted on these kids like they counted on me.  Or I hoped they did.  I have learned a lot since then and have taken successful field trips with similar students.  But I will tell you one thing.  It has never been nor will it ever be "just a job."

"Stuck in a simulator"

Let us, for the sake of argument, pretend school is a job for students.  A job maybe like... an airplane pilot. We teach them theory and vocabulary and we even simulate flying experiences.  But are we stopping there?   Are we keeping our pilots in the simulator?  What are we scared of? Wasting time? Students crashing?  We learn from failure, but I believe we also learn from success.  At some point they have to fly a plane to be a pilot. Would you want to be on the plane who's pilot has never flown a plane? "Oh, but I have flown the simulator a hundred times!"

It's not the same... is it?

It's time we take risks.  At some point we have to pull the plug and let the students take the plane out for a drive.  Let them create.  Let them explore.  Let them do their own research.  Let them make their own rubrics.  Let them, *gasp*, make their own rules (she finished in a whisper).

There are a ton of apps and web tools students can use to create.  Here are some Pinterest boards to prove it:

• Web 2.0 Tools for Educators by Eric Sheninger
• Web 2.0 for Teachers by Nichole Carter
• Technology Tools for High School Students by Brandy Gerber
• Web 2.0 & Cool Tools by three different people (that's right, you can collaborate on Pinterest boards)

What are we waiting for? Why aren't our kids creating? You do not have to teach them how to work these apps and tools.  Trust me.  I have done lessons where I don't teach a thing.  Give them 3 minutes.  Student experts will emerge.  Use them.  Or lose them.

If you are ready to take risks, model that and ask your students to take risks.  Take the simulator away.  Have them fly.  If school is a job, you have to let them out on their own.  If it's not, let them out on their own anyway.

"Most of my airplanes fly"

If teachers built airplanes, would it be OK if some of the planes flew?  If only a few crashed?  People who design and build airplanes take precious lives into their hands.  As teachers, so do we.  I know we can't save all the starfish, but image if every student lost was felt by every teacher as a loss.  Imagine if every failure was taken as personally and with as much responsibility as crashed planes?

I hope it's more than a job, whatever you do.  I am one of those people that go head first into everything. I am not scared of breaking things or of failure.  Not because it doesn't happen.  I break things all the time and fail daily.  But I learn so much. Imagine what our students could learn and create if they were given the opportunity to fly.  Imagine what teachers could do.