Jack's Blog TEP 305

Teaching, like many professions, requires a lot of on the job training and experience in order for one to be successful at it. One way to get this on the job training is to ask questions of your veteran colleagues, the difference between a three-year teacher and a first year teacher is immeasurable, I know that even as a paraprofessional. For class this week, we looked at a lot of tips and tricks from veteran teachers for new teachers so that they could be better prepared for their first year. One of the things that stuck out the most to me was the idea that you learn as you teach, which sounds like an oxymoron, but I think there's a lot of wisdom to that. You should own up to your mistakes, you should pay attention to the way you're teaching your lesson and see if the students are interested in what you have to say. Don't enter the classroom as a first year teacher thinking that you know everything you need to know about how to be a teacher. The biggest piece of advice tha...

When I was doing my undergraduate, I did an observation at a school in Wauconda, Illinois called Da Vinci Waldorf. This is a Waldorf school that centered its curriculums around what the students were interested in. Almost in a democratic manner, students and parents were able to discuss the curriculum before the school year started with the teacher the students will have that year, and make suggestions on what the students would like to learn about. It was one of the most interesting experiences I ever had in college. It also opened my eyes to the world of alternative teaching curriculums. Prior to going to college I did not know that there was another way students could be taught. I grew up going to public schools and I was aware that Catholic schools had a little bit of a different curriculum, but ultimately the way the classroom was organized was the same as a public school. The Tedx talk by Kayla Delzer re-awakened this idea in me, the way we've been teaching students in our sc...

For my blog today, I decided to watch the TED talk by Conrad Wolfram who argues for the teaching of math using computers. As someone who has "struggled" a great deal with math I spent my childhood telling myself I wasn't good at math so it could excuse the fact that I didn't understand math the way it was being taught to me. I genuinely used to think that there were people with math oriented brains. Granted, there are people who are just naturally better at math, just like there's people who are naturally better at basketball or tennis. But I wouldn't say there's such a thing as a "math oriented brain". Wolfram talks about the falling interest in math education, however our world is becoming more and more dependent on technology, which consequently means the world is becoming more and more dependent on math. Wolfram argues in this TED talk that the reason why people are feeling the way I just described is because we're not teaching math in sc...

 As education feels as thought its shifting towards a more "business" model its becoming increasingly more apparent that the powers at be seem to "not care" about the school districts that seem to be, based on test scores, not producing future business leaders. However when Ken Robinson say that if these struggling school districts and demographics are assisted in the way the should be we could add $1 trillion to the US GDP, when I think about this Im ask myself, what gives? Robinson argues that its not that the powers at be don't try to help these struggling demographics, it's just that they're doing it the wrong way. To sit a child down and expect them to work on an assignment. They're not interested in diligently and quietly is a difficult ask. It's not that children can't do these things, in fact, there are many children that thrive in these types of environments. But this is not a "one-size-fits-all" solution. Robinson argues t...

Sir Ken Robinson speaks to the idea of talent and talented individuals in his talk at Tedx Liverpool but one major point resonated with me. The idea that teachers do not have all the answers and need to learn the power of "I don't know". Often educators feel a need to have an answer for every question that is asked to them, however, when you sit back and learn with your students you can build a relationship with them that is remarkable and possibly even draw out some of their talents in the process. The story of the music teacher who had two of the Beatles in his class remarkable because the teacher thought both of them to be untalented, this teacher believed that they had all of the answers when in fact they didn't, and as a consequence, missed a possibility to be a mentor and a coach to some of the most influential musicians who ever lived. I've been working as a paraprofessional and use wrestling coach for three years now and the lessons I've learned from t...