Today was Class Picture Day

In my previous post I remarked that during my interview it was the first time that I had worked with a different group of students in a formal teaching setting. I said that as I turned around from the white board "I saw a group of students that were very different from the ones that I interact with every day." I would like to explain what I meant by this. What I really meant is that kids are really all just the same.

When I tell people that I have work in the morning, people are often like "Oh right, I forgot, what's it like? It must be crazy right?" Seeing how many of my friends are still attending undergrad and don't have to wake up before nine or ten, I get this a lot. I always say no its great, I wouldn't want to be anywhere else, my kids are fun and it is always an adventure. However, reassuring and excited I am when I talk about school and my students, some of my friends still do not understand. And it is in this confusion that I am reminded of the many tensions that are still very much alive in our society. I work in a school, in a hallway, in a classroom where the majority of the students are black and the majority of the teachers are white. People always ask me what the students think about being taught by a "blonde white girl" and how that feels for me. What I have learned over the last several months is that they don't care, it does not matter to them, and it isn't about that. The students just want someone who is nice and cares about them. I truly believe that the color of my skin is not even something that they notice any more, it certainly is not something that I notice any more. At least not until I turned around in the front of that classroom during my interview.

I was not nervous until the second I turned around and the starkness hit me, it was not anything about the kids, but it was instant, like a reaction long ingrained in my mind, and it took me a minute or two to shake myself out of it. I think I became afraid that the students were looking down on me and were judging me because of where I have come from, where my teaching had come from. I was racked with fear and hesitation as I doubted my lesson plan, how I doubted that they would like it , how I doubted that they would learn anything from it. I turned back to the board and cleared my mind. I knew that they would, I knew that it was good, I knew that I had to remind myself of this. I said to myself, you made this because it was fun for kids, because it was empowering, because it is about giving a voice to those who maybe don't or aren't confident enough in themselves to share that voice and about giving the kids who are confident a chance to share with others and help them grow. I calmed down. I turned back and got back my own voice as I remembered that they are all just kids, kids with stories and lives and things they want to be. The lesson was a success, the students felt like they had been treated like adults, and they created some beautiful and though provoking similes, just as I had planned.

Now that I think back to this experience, I have come to realise several things. Because of where I teach, I feel as though I have taken on much of the identity of my students. I was afraid that the way I talk to kids or the way I joke with them would be wrong or inappropriate, but it isn't. I talk to them all the same. I work with smart kids, I treat them like adults, I have expectations for them, and I want them to have fun. This is something that never changes. And the kids don't change. They all have different experiences that make them who they are as individuals, but as a group they are all the same, just kids, trying to make a living in a world they don't understand.

The other question that I have been asked a lot lately is if "Do you feel that I am prepared to teach next year in a private/public school setting?" depending on who is asking the question. My answer is earnestly yes. Because every time this question is asked I know what the asker really means is "Do you feel prepared to teach kids next year?" they just might not always know that is what they mean. Kids are kids, race, social, economic, gender, ability all aside. When you are there with them, none of those things matter, yes they have an impact, but inside that room is a place where they can just be kids and can explore and share all those other things together. That is the place I want to be, be the same, learn the same, change the same, all in their own way.

Today was class picture day. I don't think there are many things that could ever have made me as happy as that moment of a few quick shutter clicks. It meant everything in a way. My first class, my first kids, and me, all together, a group that will impact me every day for the rest of my teaching experience, that has shared so much, and taught me to always remember that kids are kids, all the same.

A First Interview

As I am coming to the close of my internship with only a short 62 days until the graduation ceremonies I have begun applying to different jobs in the area. I by nature am the kind of person who needs to know what is going on in my impending future and have thus decided to apply to different private schools rather than waiting for the middle of the summer for when Baltimore City begins hiring for the next school year. I have applied to four or five different schools through the Association for Independent Maryland Schools and had my first full day interview this past week. I would like to relate that experience for my future self.

After having a forty five minute phone interview with the headmistress of the school, I was notified of a four to five hour interview the following week. I was given a set of different options for a sample lesson and a series of individuals that I would be interviewing with throughout the day. I choose to do my sample lesson on the writing of similes by having a series of instruction cards and a form sheet where students follow the directions from the cards that correspond with the sheet. Students then choose words and constructed sentences from a box of 150 words to choose from.

The interview process went very well. I spoke with the headmistress for forty five minutes, then did my sample lesson for forty minutes, then spoke with the curriculum coordinator, other middle school teachers, the other middle school English teacher, and then the headmistress again for about forty five minutes with each person.

The most important thing that I learned was just to stay confident and to remember that I would not have already been there unless they really had an interest in me. While starting my lesson with the students I got very nervous at the beginning because it was the first time I had ever turned around from a whiteboard and seen a group of students that was not already my own. I saw a group of students that were very different from the ones that I interact with every day, but were really just the same. This note I will expand on later.

I have to say that it was a very good experience for me and that I enjoyed it. A few friends asked me before and after if I was nervous. I had to admit that I was not. Because, just like with nearly everything else, there is only so much you can do. The school is looking for a person who will fit them just as much as you are looking for a school that will fit and support you. And with that all I can do is keep myself knowing that I will wind up where I am supposed to be!

Meaning/Representation/Execution of a Deepened Commitment

I had a conversation with my advisor this past Friday. It was really just a check in type how-are-you-feeling-at-this-moment kind of meeting. I would like to say that I felt better than I did, and then I do, but I guess that it is all about being honest, because that is the only way we can get to a point of change. Anyway, a great amount of my irritation and frustrations and despondence with they system and where I am at right now shone through. And thus, I received the following e-mail.

"I’m finishing up your letter of recommendation and have come to a little problem. Generally I close my letters for students in our program with a statement regarding the individual’s commitment to urban education and public schooling. After our conversation on Friday, I’m not sure how to close your letter. If you were to construct a sentence summarising your area of deepened commitment as you complete the program, what would you say?"

In this meeting I expressed that I do not want to work somewhere where my social life is expected to be aligned with my professional life. I do not want to work somewhere where teachers are always yelling at students. I do not want to work somewhere where students do not have the discipline to learn. I do not want to work somewhere where misbehaviour is a major issue. I also do not want to work somewhere where I feel like I am wasting my time. I live on a series of principles focused on the value of time. Not just my personal time, but time in general. I am not saying that all of these things are true of where I am not, however they are observations and conclusions I have drawn based on my experiences over the past year.

I expressed interest in working at a private school because I do not want to deal with a perceived set of problems based on my limited experience, since I have only worked at one school. Let me think about this. I can not say that I am exclusively committed to a public education. I support it and believe that everyone has a right to become educated as long as that is what the person wants and that is what they work toward. I do not believe that everyone should have the same education after a certain point in their life, like post-elementary school, because not everyone is destined for or desires the same educational endpoint in their lives. Many people do not want to go to college, they would prefer to be mechanics, or servicemen, or farmers, thus they do not need the same type of education that someone who would like to be a surgeon, an engineer, an architect, or a teacher need. Thus, we should not waste their time, their teachers' time, or the system's time on providing an education that is rejected and thus wasted. All education should be differentiated, not just the education of a single classroom. Not everyone is the same, not everyone needs the same things, not everyone wants the same things, so we shouldn't be giving everyone the same things. I support public education because everyone should have a chance to make choices for themselves regardless of where they come from. I do not agree with the system as it stands today because I believe that it is hurting more people than it is helping.

In regards to my commitment to urban education, I love living in an urban setting. I believe that living and working and growing up in an urban setting is good for kids because it is real. I grew up in a place and had experiences that were real because I made some less than excellent choices that got me into those situations. However, if I had made other choices I could have grown up in a pintucked primrose dreamland, and probably never learned anything that made me a real person at all. I love working and teaching in an urban setting because there are so many resources that are within reach. There are so many things to see and so many things to do. Students are minutes away from touching the things they are learning about, they just need a guide to get them there. I have no intention of returning to dreamland, or any other glossy version of suburbia. Well not until I am old and move back to Florida to sit on the beach. At this point I fully intend to spend my teaching career in urban education settings. I plan to stay in Baltimore for a minimum of the next five years and then maybe someday teach in the City. However, that is too far away for me to plan at this moment, besides I fully expect life to happen while I am busy making other plans.

While, I did not come to a single sentence defining my current commitment and my current belief system, I think that I made some support from which to draw a single statement. I may not agree with everything about public education as it stands now, I believe in what it stands for, and I want to be a part of aligning meaning with representation with execution during my teaching career in an urban setting.

Good Fairies and Bad Fairies

I think that this is the part where we are tired. Where we are not sure this is what we want to be doing any more. Where we stop and ask ourselves what our alternative was. And then we can't remember.

I feel like everyone in my program right now is completely exhausted. Operating somewhere between insomnia and assignment due dates, I find myself questioning whether or not this is what I really want to be doing. A friend and I have been joking a lot about working at private schools and how that must be the answer, and in all honesty we have both applied to several and are anxiously waiting to hear back from them. We joke a lot about finding a "hippie learning school" and pleading for them to let us in. While we both "love" working with our students, I could not say that I love everything about being here. I guess I have finally learned that just like there are good fairies and bad fairies there are good students and bad students.

I think that this is why people are attracted to working in the young elementary grades, I think that all the kids are still good fairies then, for the most part. The students actively care that you are there, they actively care that you exist, and they are active participants in what you have to say. At least this is what my delusions lead me to believe as I see the tiny creatures bouncing along in the hallway with one hand in the air and the other over their mouths. So with this I would like to explore two questions. Why do some kids turn into such evil monsters? Why is it right now that I have finally reached this point of exhaustion and I think that private school is the answer?

I want to understand why kids turn into monsters sometimes in the middle school, because at this point I do not feel like teaching or working because I do not believe that people who don't want to learn deserve to learn. If you can't put in the time, you don't deserve a dime. If you can't make the time, don't waste mine. I feel as if these are things that I have heard throughout my life that these kids have not. That there is an element of respect and discipline that these kids lack. It might be the way I was raised, which of course you could go off on that I led a privileged life with a great family which is true and that many of these kids do not have that, but that is not an excuse for their behaviour. And right now I do not feel that I can work with that. And this feeling isn't just stemming from my personal experience but from my observations of my co-teacher and the teachers around us. I think this is why I think that private school is the answer.

Many of the values that I grew up with came from the fact that I attended a private elementary school, basically a private high school, and a private university. So that is what I know. I feel guilty that these kids are not growing up in an environment that values education in the same way that I did. And I am struggling with how as a teacher I can affect my students in a way that they come to value education. Especially when it feels like fighting tooth and nail every moment sometimes.

I have another friend who told me the other day, as I was expressing my anxieties in a more colourful fashion, that he thinks that my problem right now is that I need to work with older students, that high school would be much more my scene, and that my brain is just working too fast to do this whole middle school thing. I did not agree with him.I believe that I would like high school students in a different way and for different reasons that I like middle school students. I would like high school students because of their potential abilities for higher order conceptualisation of literature and maybe their maturity level. I like middle school students because they live at a turning point and everything just seems more urgent with them. I like middle school students because they want to be social, and they want to talk, and they want to act up. It is just a matter of figuring out how to channel that energy.

And this brings me back to the good fairies and the bad fairies. For the most part, a class is made up of good fairies, kids who want to make magic happen and who want to be creative and who are positive. But every class has it's bad fairy. The kids who can destroy the motivation and happiness of the entire rest of the class. The kid who is a rotten egg, a bad seed, a negatively spinning black hole sucking the happiness out of the room and the hallway and the whole building. How do you stop this?

YOU BECOME THE ALL POWERFUL FAIRY AND DEFEAT THEM WITH YOUR MAGIC! TRY EVERY SPELL YOU HAVE GOT AND KEEP GOING! I guess why this teaching program is a year long. So, that we have enough spells to make it happen for ourselves and our students.

I guess I didn't answer either of my questions, but I sure do feel better.

Firsts and Lasts

About six years ago my friends and I had a little ritual, a little ceremony if you will. We got on the bus and shared our favourite memories from our bus rides over the previous two years. It was the last day of tenth grade and it was, so we thought, the last time we would ride on a school bus. I don't always remember last days of school but I do tend to remember firsts of different things. I have a very hard time remembering what my last day of regular high school was like, which is sad for me. I think I was too wrapped up in my science fair project and preparing to leave for international science fair that I wasn't sure when that last day really was. I got back on a plane the day before graduation and went straight to school for the practice ceremony from the airport if I remember correctly. Anyways, the point is that today I chaperoned my first field trip as a teacher, and a few funny things happened.

First, we were going to a career field trip at Johns Hopkins and I was the only person who knew where we were supposed to go because it was my school. On the bus I learned that kids don't change. They still write stupid things in the window fog, they still argue about who said what and when when, and they still call "Same seats, same seats!" on the way back, and there still is without fail an argument about who gets to sit in the last row and in that silly awkward chair on the left side.

I think that it was really important for me to remember this lack of change because it reminded me to look at my students objectively and remember that they are the same as I was, they really aren't any different at all than I was. However, there was a fun new thing that happened. There were a few kids who were throwing little paper balls out of the windows of the back of the bus.

One memory we shared and I still remember to this day, is this. We were riding home after school on a Friday. I always sat next to my friend Matt in the fourth seat from the back on the left side. We were listening to music on his headphones. All the sudden the bus screetches to a halt from going about 55. The driver pulls over, stands up, and yells GET OFF! NOW! GET OFF! YOU HAVE A CELL PHONE! YOU BETTER CALL SOMEBODY TO GET YOU! THIS IS A PRIVILEGE! GET OFF! A boy named Adam, ran off of the bus with all of his stuff and cried. His mom had to come pick him up on the side of the road because he was throwing bottles of soda out of the window and watching them explode. The bus driver continued driving.

Instead of getting away with it, or the driver pulling over, a student texted the other teacher who was chaperoning from the back of the bus to report who was throwing things out of the windows. The teacher simply said in a clearly audible voice for those students to stop or they would have detention. Talk about having eyes in the back of your head. The students were quite surprised and got themselves together. It was hilarious. The following text from the spy student was "Nice. Ms. S." This is just another one of the many ways technology has changed us and the way we work. While this may be insignificant in the long run, what it symbolizes is extremely significant. Technology has perpetrated our environment to the insignificant. We can't go back from there.

Miles to go.

It is an interesting place to be sitting at this moment. Tomorrow is the first day of student's coming back to school for the new semester. I just got back to Baltimore from spending a lovely two weeks in sunny Florida enjoying a 75 degree Christmas with my family. At this point I can not tell if it is the nerves setting in, or the reminder that this should not be so different this time around either. But, somehow I feel like this too is a first day of school again. Maybe it is just because I have not done this before, but really I think I am afraid of asking kids how their Christmas break (Winter break) was. I know that I am extremely blessed and I got many things for the holiday - new boots, a new camera, a gore-tex dry top, a lovely week with my boyfriend visiting my parents for the first time, but most importantly my entire family was together for two large scale home cooked meals, one at my aunt's in south Florida, and one at my own house in central Florida. I had an enormous amount of time to spend with my family, my support group, my sounding board, and my best friend.

I know that I am blessed to have had all of these things happen to me over the past two weeks. I hope that my students had something to feel blessed and happy about over their own holidays. I know that they did, I just hope that they realize it. I hope that it involved family and friends, and whatever that special something was that they really wanted for Christmas.

It is for these things that I am thankful to have in this new year. I am also thankful for my cohort peers and professors that I have yet to see this year, but I can't wait until tomorrow, because regardless of how I feel at this moment, the wheels keep turning and there are still miles to go before this long and winding road reaches its deep end.

"You're bad day could be this kid's lifetime memory."

I had been warned several times when I started school that I shouldnt be surprised if students made me cry. It's hard and emotional I wad told and that kids can be mean. This didn't happen this semester, no child was so mean to me that cried. I always just remember that they are children and more importantly that it is nothing personal especially with middle school kids.

I finally did wind up crying though because of a student the last two days. One of my students and her friend who are notorious for messing around and playing in the hallway, got tripped up and fell face first onto the concrete in the stairwell and busted half of her front tooth off. At the time I was helping another student get her locker open, and then I turned around the teacher across the hallway was running toward the stairwell along with several of the girls and I heard someone crying and yelling. I assumed a fight so I was trying to get all the students back into the classroom. Then I went down the hallway and the teachers holding a student looking in her mouth as tears were pouring down her face. I realized it was her tooth. So one of the girls and I got on our hands and knees looking for pieces of tooth and barricading the hallway from the barrage of tiny creatures from the elementary school trying to enter. We found a few pieces, put them in milk, then took the girl and her friend to the nurse, they were both crying. We got some sugar free gum and put it on her tooth because her root was completely exposed. I felt so bad for her.

So, I had this period as planning and my co-teacher was in an observation, so I sat with the girls in the nurse office and talked to them and just tried to be supportive while they were both crying. The interesting thing about these girls, and what really impacted me the most, is that it was a stunning reminder of how vulnerable young people are at this time in their lives. These girls are tough, they are the girls that other students are afraid of, they are somewhat behavioral leaders in their classes, and they are known by all the teachers for good and bad reasons. The fact to have both of them sobbing and actual hugging and wanting to be comforted was a really powerful experience. I have had girls and boys cry several times over the past months and sometimes we have those students who always have a problem and cry very often, but that is not these students. It was very emotional and very powerful.

I did tear up in front of them but it wasn't until I was alone in the classroom that it really impacted me and I just couldn't hold it in anymore.

These are trying times for kids.

It is always interesting how things seem to be so connected in little but enormous coincidences. Our guest speaker for my last class of Educational Alternatives last night said something that really reasonated with me. She said "You're bad day could be this kid's lifetime memory. Remember we are there for them, this is their school experience, this is just our job. You will forget this a week from now or maybe a year from now, but these kids are going to remember this forever."

Reflections on Myself

Teacher Reflection
by Margaret Roth

Written December 14, 2011 at 9:11pm in the JHU SOE Building, Homewood Campus, Baltimore, MD

There are many things that I have learned from working through the complete process of designing and creating a complete unit from thought to actualization. I have personally learned that I am a driving force in a group and that I tend to manipulate others into the things that I want them to do. I will thank my outdoor leader training for that, however I also realize that it is something that I have to use with care and caution so that I do not discount or miss the opportunity to learn from the thoughts and processing of others. On the flip side of that and in addition to the fact that one of my group mates and I were both working with middle school students, we choose this novel and this age group because it is the novel that I will be working with when I teach my full thirty days of lessons in April. Therefore, I welcomed being a driving force because it was designed with my students in mind, the resources available at my school, and the novel that I would be working with at that time.

Through this process I was reminded several things about working in groups. To use a strategy and summarize - it sucks at times. I found myself having to do a significant about of extra work because one of the group members was unable to self-manage and keep up with the work and their personality is attracted to the technique of procrastination. I will by no means say that I was perfect, if I were to do it again, I would like to start earlier and involve myself in more research, however I find that I was driven to be even more on top of my responsibilities because of the group member who was consistently falling behind. I believe that this experience was extremely reflective for me, and was my responsibility alone. I choose my group mates knowing their strong points and their flaws and this caused me to deeply reflect on how group works and assigned groups impact the learning of students. I feel that our experience was an exemplary model of what can often happen in groups of our students themselves. They work with their friends, they have fun, they fight, but ultimately, at least for us, we all cared and we wanted to get it right. I know that as I leave this assignment and as I look forward to tweaking it and altering it prior to its implementation in April, I will carry the thoughts of group dynamics with. However, I will leave the students with their group choices for it is an integral part of learning how to collaborate and function under the pressure and expectations of others.

Frustrations aside, I really loved working on this project and immersing myself in such an emotionally involved group of people whose passion shines through in every element of their work. We never for a moment thought that we were just doing this as an assignment, we never treated it as just an assignment. I truly hope that shines through in our final product, I know that it will shine through as inspiration for me as I design unit plans in my future. When I implement these lessons in April, my group mates will be by my side for any of the days they can come join me, my door will always be open to the collaboration and ingenuity of my friends and my colleagues.

Before we created this unit plan, I was in all honesty completely unsure of what the process would look like. I never seen a unit plan really let alone thought about what would go into the creation of one. I initially approached it as though I was writing a very long term paper, we identified our theme of identity and then I started outlining. Then, I realized that this was the entirely wrong way to approach designing a unit plan. I look back now and think why would I ever plan something in the exact way that most students dread. I know well enough that the idea, form, and function of an object, whether physical or conceptual, are intertwined too deeply to separate, thus this was surely the wrong approach. However, we kept a few elements of this outline system. Each week focuses on a literary element and a thematic element. This is probably the best thing that we did to ensure continuity and effective scaffolding throughout our unit plan as a whole. Now that the plan has been completed, I am fairly certain that I will never not teach in my own classroom through a thematic unit plan design. I believe that it is so essential for students and teacher alike to have one major element that everything is connected to, I’d like to consider this immersive learning. And with all the endless distractions - emotional, physical, psychological, that our students are usually immersed in, it is essential for us as educators to provide an environment that plays to that distraction and fully drowns everyone involved so that we can learn to breathe in a new way. I will see how I feel about this after I actually teach these lessons and this unit plan as a whole.

The process of thinking and designing a thematic unit on the theme of identity for middle school students took a lot of personal reflection and a process of returning and trying to capture the feelings I myself had as a middle school student. I remember these years more clearly than high school in an extremely emotional way. I feel that we truly attempted to harness those experiences good and bad that our students face on a constructive and cognitive level. For myself, I learned that the theme of identity is endless, that the topic itself is so extensive that it can only be captured in snipets, snipets specific to each person it touches. I think that is why it was so important for us to focus on arts integration in the way that we did and I hope for evidence of its success. When I started working on this plan I thought that I knew what identity was and I thought that I could define it, I thought that I knew who I was myself. However, that is the key, that this process forced me to question and attempt to both identity and redefine my identity simultaneously while I worked. This unit plan has and will continue to help me to consider this as a process - one where both teacher and students are learning together and are learning about each other. Remembering that in my future is invaluable and is something that will surely have a lasting impact on my teaching, for I will never fully define myself and my own identity.

Again, there are many things that I have learned from working through the complete process of designing and creating a complete unit from thought to actualization. Ultimately, the most important thing that I learned from this process, I suppose from the assignment directly, is that I still have the capacity to be driven enough to truly care about the content and completion of an academic assignment. I feel that for the past four years I have been in somewhat of a rut in regards to my academic pursuits. Yes, I completed my undergraduate work and loved every minute of it, but it was in all honesty the people that I loved, not the work itself. Occasionally, I would find myself in a class with a professor that I was driven to reach my full potential and to excel in effort and performance, however these classes and in more usual cases single assignments were farther between in time and interest than I now realize I would have liked them to have been. This assignment and this class as a whole truly have rejuvenated my personal drive to work harder and more intently than I have in a long time. I learned that I still have the capacity to organize, to structure, to care about the neurotic little details, and most importantly that I can deeply personally respond to something because I care. I am very fortunate to have had such a driving force this semester. I look forward to exploring this drive in the next semester and from where I sit now, in my future teaching career. This was more than just something that I learned this is a gift that I was granted, and I intend to keep it.

Unit Plan Calendar

Always have something ready, because you always have to be looking forward.

As I sit in the classroom on my last week of my first semester, I have come to a couple of realizations and a conclusion that I would like to hold on to.

I realized that I quit counting the days until this semester and this whole year long internship thing would be over. I am not sure when this happened, but I distinctly remember that for about the first month of being in the classroom I would come home and consciously count down the weeks until graduation. I think that I stopped doing this somewhere around the beginning of November. In the middle of November I quit being just a figure in the room, I believe that I began to develop a sense of purpose and realized that I did not have to be so stark and standardized with the students - that I was allowed to have a personality. This is what I needed. I need to be able to be a person in the classroom not just be there. Even though I was helpful before, I was just an assistant, not an individual. How could I encourage students to be themselves and be individuals when I was not expressing myself.

I realized that students whine about school but they love staying after. I realized that any time that a student is in a classroom of their own will in their own time is a good thing. Students might act a little crazier on their own time, but at least they are being constructive and being dedicated in a positive environment. I really enjoy working with students after school because it reminds me of how much I love it when things are less structured. By the time I had created a scheduled system with the students of snack time, homework time, writing time, they were really getting something out of our after school group. I understand how important it is for students to have constructive and safe free time at school. I also understand now, based on the students that always came, how important it is to provide the option of this time to those students who have less of a safe structure system at home.

I realized that I finally was able to get a system together for myself and still have a life. I do not spend every moment of my free time working on preparation for my classes or on my homework. I know that this program is supposed to be rigorous but it is not supposed to put its students into a state of rigormortis, six feet under a pile of papers (digital or conventional) and I think I have successfully challenged this and succeeded. I have time for my friends, I have time for myself, I have time for my students, and I have time for my work. And I never had a break down.

I realized that I am fifty percent finished with my first set of graduate school. It is incredible how quickly time is able to move by when you are having fun, when you are busy, when you have people are looking toward you, when you have people looking at you, and when you have people looking up to you. There is a serious amount of modelling and pressure and it just seems to make the job more fun.

I truly believe that I have a good understanding of what it means to be a teacher. If I were to summarize the experience down to a short sentence of what it means to be a teacher at this point I think I would say that it means to always have something ready, because you always have to be looking forward.

I would not change anything, because then I would not have my eyes forward.

Critical Literacy, Critical Authority

HYPERTEXT

A set of compiled information showing how digital texts can be actually digitized to increase the understanding and critical authority of students based on content.

There are lots of firsts...

I meant to write this on Thursday, however as with everything, time keeps slipping away.

This past Thursday I had two firsts, one kind of traumatizing and bad, and the second overwhelmingly great, a feeling of appreciation and belonging in a very tiny gesture.

For the first time, I was left to lead class with the upper level seventh grade class at my school. While I have worked with them since the first day of school, I will admit that I am not as close to this class as I am to my other two classes, likely because they do not really need very much assistance or at least as much assistance as the other two classes. My lead teacher had to go to an IEP meeting for one of our eighth grade students and so I said sure I can finish going over the benchmark test with this class. No problem.

Boom, wrong.

I would also like to note that this is the only class that ever has less than three adults in the room with them.

So there I was alone. With the most intelligent kids in the school. And they could not get it together. We made it through about one half of a page, I tried several times to get them back on track, and then I did the only thing I knew how to do. I walked across the hall and asked for help from the math teacher. He wasn't there so I came back over and told the students that since we could not handle working through the benchmark together, they would be reading silently the rest of the class period and that they would have to do the benchmark tomorrow. This only kind of worked, so I went for help again. He was there and I asked him to come over and sit with me and the class.

The room was silent when he and I came back in. They were being angels, terrified angels. Looking at their pages then looking at us. He did a once around the room and then came back over to me. We had a little talk about how to clarify rules and expectations with students, we decided that when he left I would announce to them that the next student who talked or was off task would go to his room and they would get an afterschool detention. He then told me that sometimes I have to sacrifice a student and that it is okay to do so, especially if they probably really deserve it anyways. He left and I made this announcement.

This worked for a short while. I let some students who did not have silent reading books go back to the library and get one. I had a girl go get a book and then return to her desk and start mumbling about how much she hates the book. I left this to slide, and then once I walked back around the room she was still mumbling and was now drawing in her notebook. I reminded her that everyone needs to be on task and the task was reading. She told me she didn't care and I told her then she can make the choice to go to the math teacher's room. She said can I bring this with me, and I said sure. She said fine, I'm leaving, I don't care. The girl next to her said "No, don't, you know that's an afterschool detention." She said I don't care and left. I propped the door open on her way out.

For the next fifteen minutes or so, the class read their books silently, and listened to the math teacher give the student a piece of his mind as she tried to blame things on me and then eventually relinquished and accepted the decision as her own and accepted her faults. I had my own diatribe with the class based on the fact that I have never done anything to disrespect them as individuals, people, or as students and I had done nothing to merit the total lack of respect they had shown me today. I also told them that they gave me no reason today to believe that it was worth designing lessons for their class if they could not respect me in the slightest. Then my co-teacher returned and returned with a fury as soon as she realized what had happened. She then gave them her own lecture and prepared them for a miserable Friday.

The student who had left then returned. She returned by slamming the door and slamming her books down. My lead teacher then told her to go wait calmly by the door for her to let her in after she dismissed the class. She did not, she left and went to her next class, with her books still all over our floor. This became a referral to the assistant principal.

This was the first afterschool detention I issued. This was the first referral I was involved in issuing.

This was also the first day I got a key to a classroom. My first key to my first classroom.

In the afternoon we had an articulation of Digital Harbor High School where a woman came and gave a presentation on the school for the seventh and eighth graders. At the end of it, my lead teacher came over and said "Well you know since all your stuff is in there, I don't want you to feel dependent on me to get in and out. And what if something ever happened and I couldn't get to school, then what would you do?" and handed me a key to the room, a shiny gold, made just for me key. I honestly had not felt that accepted and welcomed and appreciated until this moment. Such a trifle. And it made me feel like I knew we really were going to be a great team by the end of the year and that yes, despite my shortcomings, my fears, and my inability to arrive to school prior to 7:32 with consistency, she wants me to be there.

I guess really everyday of this year is a first of some form. These were a few really worth remembering.

Teach Like A Champion: What Worked

When I first told my parents that I was considering becoming a teacher and that I had started applying to grad school, they were interested but maybe on the verge of skeptical. However, when I told them that it was in lieu of becoming a whitewater kayaker professionally and moving to Asheville, NC, they became more intrigued. My dad told me one time that the only other thing that he ever wanted to be was a history teacher, however my grandfather said an engineer or the army were his options, coincidentally he wound up doing both. I did ask my dad if he regretted it. He has always told me that he doesn't regret anything because then we wouldn't be where we are now. This is a value that I hold true every day.

So, after this announcement to my parents last year, the first thing my dad gave me was a copy of Teach Like a Champion - he is the master of finding "the best resources." I had read this book prior to arriving in my program, so as we started working through from the Digital Classroom course to the Baltimore as Your Classroom course, I began recognizing elements from the work. I was less than surprised that it was our text for our seminar. Little did I know how both effective and difficult some of the strategies are, not just to implement but to be consistent. However, if I have learned anything from the past months in the classroom - consistency and ultimately predictability is absolutely key.

For the past two weeks I attempted to effectively implement some of the strategies outlined in Doug Lemov's collection Teach Like a Champion. I focused on No Opt Out, Cold Call, and Wait Time.

No Opt Out (A student is called on and does not answer, the student is then returned to for the final answer) - The first time I tried this strategy was while I was doing the class warm up everyday. I started it with a class that is very quiet when they get called on and sometimes will simply just say "I don't know" for everything, and of course that results in about two students answering everything. What a surprise. Anyways the first time I did this I think I received the closest mortal equivalent to the eyes of satan drilling through my body in a way only an eighth grade girl is capable of. But she answered. And she does nearly every time now, or at least I receive the truly confused eyes not eyes of the laser death ray. More interestingly, it created more of a class culture of helping each other find the answer to questions. I use the phrase "Can someone help him out." And then once the answer is reached, I return to the student and for the most part they then elaborate on the answer if possible.

Cold Call (Calling on a student regardless of it their hand is raised) - I found this technique both tricky and effective. There are some students who when called on are not paying attention and it becomes a refocusing tool as they scramble for a response or look to their peers for assistance. On the other hand there are many students who have answers that they are prepared to respond however for whatever reason, being shy, looking cool, not feeling like raising a hand, then have the opportunity to answer and let their voice be heard in the classroom. I believe that this technique was familiar to the students because their science teacher also uses this technique both straight and through the use of popsicle sticks with the students names on them. He says "I am drawing an opportunity."

Wait Time (Delaying a few seconds after asking a question to give students a moment to think) - I believe that this was the most important technique to use with students because it gives the students who are eager to answer a moment to actually think of what they want to say other than just that they want to answer, you know the flailing hand waving type, and it gives the students who need time to process a moment to work through the question. I found it very important to use care with this when coupling it with Cold Call because I did not like it when I knew I caught a student who was still working out their thoughts. This really resonated with me because as a kid I would not talk in class because of this very thing, it is something that I still have issues with.

Conveniently enough I received comments from my university observer that I was using these strategies well and that she specifically noticed me use them during one of my observations. That definitely made me aware of their effectiveness. Additionally, for the students the use of these strategies has made an impact in their understanding of the expectations for the class. They have demonstrated their understanding by being much more inclined to be on their toes and paying attention during the warm-up and I have definitely seen a substantial increase in the number of hands raised.

Oh, and the Death Star has not been present in the classroom in a while.

Day Two of a week of lessons for 8th Grade

Content Focus: Louis Sacher’s Holes
Topic Focus: The Influence of Character and Setting on Plot Development
Standard Focus: 7.3.A.3.f - Analyze the actions of characters that serve to advance the plot.

Essential Question: How do multiple plot lines affect the flow of a novel?

Source for Lesson: Sacher, Louis. Holes.  Random House Inc., New York: 1998.

Objective -  Students will be able to identify critical plot points and explain in detail how the actions of the characters effected the movement of the plot of Chapter Seven in the novel Holes.

This lesson had too many pages of work to do for one ninety minute class period. However, because of the fact that the library was closed today for the book fair, I was able to give it to the students for an extra forty-five minute period. I gave the students the option to work on the packet or to do a different activity and they chose to do the packet so that we would have the computers the next day. All students except for one were not able to finish the packet, this may have been due to the distraction of group work, or the student’s own drive to finish.
Three things that went well:

• The students were repeatedly drilled on how to pull main ideas out of text and then summarize that information successfully.
• The students were able to have a more immersive understanding of the text.
• The students were prepped for future activities with the text where we will be reading selections of the text as a class that they had already read for homework.
• This assignment will be saved and used for the ARP as a writing assignment before intervention.

Three things that could be improved:

• The packet of work was too large and was overwhelming to the students. The activity would have been more beneficial if I had only used one or two sections of text for each plot line to compare. This would have enabled students to get more into the interactions of the plot rather than into the interactions of main ideas and plot points.  
• I somehow managed to turn off spell check on my computer so there were about 500000000 mistakes in the text of the story. This turned into an editing activity as well and the students circled or corrected the many mistakes in the worksheets. This turned out to be both good and bad.
• My time understanding needs to be improved because I am having trouble differentiating between the amount of work that I could do in a time frame and the amount of work my students can do in a time frame. I think that I have figured the correlation to be a 3:1 ratio and I will test this as a model on next week’s lessons.

Reflection from first day of a week of lessons for 8th Grade

Content Focus: Louis Sacher’s Holes
Topic Focus: Understanding Web Learning Interfaces and Sourcing from the Text
Standard Focus: 7.1.E.4.b Identify and explain information directly stated in the text.
  7.1.E.4.c Draw inferences and/or conclusions and make generalizations.

Essential Question: How can I interact with our digital classroom? How can I use information from a text to justify and support my generalizations and opinions?

Source for Lesson: Sacher, Louis. Holes.  Random House Inc., New York: 1998.

Objective -  Students will gain a familiarity with the technology that will be used in the classroom. Students will be able to use information directly stated in the text to form opinions, make generalizations, and draw conclusions based on the text.

REFLECTION:

The lesson today did not reach the completion level that I expected.There were several issues involving the computer logins and Google thinking that we were spamming them due to the high volume of accounts that were being made all at the same time. Additionally, the lesson was rather ambitious due to the fact that I am still learning how much to plan per day and am underestimating the amount of time that it takes to complete different tasks as a whole class. However, I think that I learned several things about the way these kind of things will and can confuse students. I think that in many cases, it was difficult for the students to translate the information presented on the projector at the front of the room to their own screen. It was also difficult for students to jump between the lionslanguageartsppcs blog homepage where the instructions were written out and other windows. It is important to incorporate the idea of opening two windows side by side to the students.  

Three aspects that went well:

• The students were excited when they came in and many wanted to check that we were still using the computers and expressed excitement to know that we were.
• The students, confused or not, were engaged.
• I did not feel upset that things went not as well as I had hoped. Mrs. Shaw has really shown me and encouraged me that even if something seems like it will never work, through dedication and repetition of process things will succeed. I think that is an invaluable lesson that I am very fortunate to have been exposed to so early in my internship.

Three aspects to change:

• Tomorrow, I think that while the students are working independently in their groups, it would be beneficial to call them up one or two at a time to one of the teachers’ computers and walk them through the process of creating an account if they were unable to do it for homework. I believe that vocal mass confusion exacerbated the confusion of the group as a whole.
• It might have been a better idea to make the Google Accounts for the students ahead of time and then allowed them to change their password, this might have prevented the Google override that made it so we could no longer make more accounts at the time of our class.
• Because we have so many adults that come to work with this class (between 4and 6 on any given day), next time we are doing an account login of some kind or introduce a new procedure, I think that moving into group tables and having a worksheet outlined for the adult to walk a small group of three to four students through the process would be much more beneficial than having all attention focused on the board and increasing the confusion.

Lesson Plan Formats: UGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

After my university supervisor came and observed me I realized I had one major thing that I really needed to work on at this point.

MY LESSON PLAN FORMAT SUCKS AND IS SUPER CONFUSING!

I am an English Major. I am a Writer. I have to write everything out in a narrative and paragraph style. That does not work for other people. And that is not a clear way to concisely explain to others what I am intending to do in a lesson. I really wanted something to still write things out in a narrative, but it was suggested that I use a format that is more visual and has bullet points of important information. In classes I have been given chart type lesson plans and that is what my co-teacher uses, however that is a format that I look at and I get confused and frustrated with so I know that I am not a chart person.

So what do I do?! Duh. I went to my favorite trusty place - Google Document Template Database. I found a huge amount of different styles of lesson plan templates and a huge database of teacher designed materials that is easily searchable. I went through about thirty different ones, opened them all up in mini-windows on my desktop and eliminated them one by one. The one that I now use has bullets, distinct visual section breaks, and still allows for my narrative style to be used. Additionally, it has a specific section for teacher reflection which I really like because it ensures that I really think about how every lesson went and make notes for the next time that I use the material.

Aren't we fortunate to live in the digital age when we have these type of resources.

A Reason to not Break

Last night I went to sleep crying. This morning I woke up and started crying. Then I made it halfway to school before I started crying. And I was crying because I was trying to think of every possible way to get out of this, to not have to go to this school ever again, because there is some ingrained complex I have that if you can escape it, it has to be better on the other side. The other side is what or of what or where, I do not know. And I was crying because I do not disappoint people, I do not do things wrong, or I have not been in the position in a long time where I could be doing something wrong, because there hasn't been anyone to tell me that I am doing something wrong.

Then as I was sitting at the desk in the back of the room before class started, the door opened, and all those loud kids with all their shirts messed up and yelling about their weekend and sheepishly turning in their projects to the back of the room, face down or up and talking about how they don't like how their project looks. And I couldn't help but smile, and remember that this is about the students. And they are fun, and with all of their idiosyncrasies, they make me happy and they make me have a reason to be driven. Their spirit is a reason not to break, even when you feel broken.

And I was crying because it didn't seem worth it, and I'm still waiting for it to be mentally worth it, at least being here. But, at least there is a reason, a reason that is more important than anything else.

Science Leadership Academy Adventure with @TeachPaperless and @ChrisLehmann

Yesterday my cohort group was fortunate enough to be able to travel to Philadelphia to the Science Leadership Academy to visit the school and speak with it's principal Chris Lehmann. It was amazing. I have several things to say about it, but I will save that for a more articulated post. However, I thought it might be interesting to share my notes and observations on the day.

Assignment for the Day: Select several questions you have about the school or the environment that creates/created the school and then record your observations and look-fors related to your questions.

Core Values: inquiry, research, collaboration, presentation, reflection

SPECIFIC NOTES:

• What if high school wasn't preparation for the real world what if it was the real world?

• It's not about the courses it's about the process learned, learning how to adapt and interact with your environment.

• Wednesday breakdown at 1:00 so two hoirs for the following. Freshmen go to the Franklin Institute to take classes with scientists.  Sophomores and Juniors have ILP individualized learning plans where they are interns in the city. Seniors have year long projects. Teachers have PD.

• Twice a week students go to their advisor meetings, they have the same advisor for all four years. -purpose seems to be to write an involved college recommendation letter and so that the student has a specific point of contact for the whole time.
• Try to make it very hard for this to be a place where students want to be. It shoud be the best eight hours of their day because you don't know what they are going back to or sometimes you do know and you want to make them want to be here. Why will SLA be a better place because you came here - is one of the questions they ask students when they apply for their interview. 150 out of 1000 applicants are accepted. In the interview they present a project from their 7th or 8th grade. They ask how why SLA would be better - they are looking for enriching students not the kids with DAF answers.
• What is the best way to get your thoughts across? Don't make the project around the tool. Focus lessons on understanding by design and project based learning.
• School is not something that should be done TO students.
• 94% matriculation rate, 80% four year college rate would have higher if there was scholarship for the kids to go to college.
• *****is it worth it to go to Syracuse in a premed track and get out with 70$ thousand in debt and then more? Or go to temple which will pay for your education? AYFS??? What is the ultimate success rate if you settle, what are you teaching kids through this whole experience? That in the end they don't have to try their hardest?
• Ultimate goal for these students is college though which is good.
• Essential questions for each year: Freshmen - Who am I? Because of the transition to being in an environment of All the Smart Ones, the midlife crisis.
• Some kids plug into the system, some kids don't, the ones here do, we don't let them drop out, we care about them and they know that. Very community based. Tutoring program of seniors tutoring freshmen and sophomores to build back into the community.

• How is college as an ultimate goal represented in the classroom and by the teachers?
  • I did not observe anything related to this in the classroom directly.

• What liberties do the students have and how do the students show their respect for them?
  • Students instantly get quiet regardless of who is speaking to them. Sat in an 11th grade history class tht was led by a 12th grade teacher aide instead of the substitute. This student was respected as the teacher. Class making a presentation using the best way they saw fit as a group many groups used Prezi in the last period. the substitute left the senior in charge of the class as though he was a teacher or an adult.
  • A graduated student came back and told us about how one of the major differences he sees is that he wants to come back that he feels like a person not a number. Students seem to desire very hands on learning.
  • We have so much freedom that there is no reason to act like a jerk.

• What is different about the teachers here than at other schools?
  • They seem to have the freedom to care.
  • I was only able to actually observe one teacher because the other teachers were not there during our exploration period. However, maybe that was better, or the point - it's not about the teachers here, its about the students and the school community as a whole, no one specific person is the key to success.
  • He wasn't my teacher he was my friend 
  • The teachers have a completely different quote understanding of what educational terms are. For example one teacher told us that this day was a little more direct instruction than he would have hoped for us to see, except the thing that we saw was nothing related to direct instruction.

• How is tech language used in the schools?
  • Just text her and ask where she is.
  • Did he put it on the moodle?
  • Many groups used a Prezi but there are lots of ways to do this.
  • One group used a google drawing. Here is my phone number it's 321-300-Jeff it's my Google Voice. Call me or text me if you have any questions.

Classroom Observations

History class - create a timeline using whatever presentation format you feel best.

All students are on their laptops no transition necessary very easy no time wasted. No one needed to tell or teach them how to get online and do the work. Ahead is another Prezi type program.

Student said that the technology I'd integrated in October of their ninth grade year and the fact as ninth graders that they are still using paper and still writing really makes them want to integrate into the technology quickly, the technology is built on over time and the classes are extremely interdisciplinary

National archives, ebscohost, SLA students and tech knowledgebase for resources

There's no teacher in the room and the students are just doing their work.

9th grade engineering classroom

Interacting first and if hadn't wouldn't have formed the friendships that they have now. They don't really talk now that they have the technology unless they have to talk to each other. They are an extension of ourselves.

Presentation by Principal Chris Lehman

The students are extrememly outgoing and motivated very confident.

We have unbelirbabley impowered kids thewprst part is that we have unbelievably impowered kids. It is our best ideas that so deceives of our destruction. Then you have 500 kids that feel like it is their job to challenge everything. So I asked the teachers to bring me two weeks worth of their work, it was a huge amount bound all up together. It was only two weeks , sometimes their well be weeks where the students do not think that your ideas and work match up the importance of the ideas. Y u are asking a lot of the students. Be gentle and kind when you set incrediblyhighexpectwtions for kids, be gentle and kind when they stumble trying to reach those incredibly high expectations

First rule, don't break the children.

With luck you will be in schools that understand the difference between coligality and collaboration.

Something you should ask when you go look for jobs, is what is the vision of your school and how do you help facilitate the teachers get there. How do you ramp up to that?

Why are you yelling? The best tools for inquiry is humor.

Every lesson based on how students will interact with those five core values. We use the same language. We all use understanding by design. Sometimes the best tool is the tolls we all decide to use together.

One teacher asked the students to reverse engineer the unit. All the teachers use the same rubric for major projects.

The ninth grade is about teaching process so that by the eleventh grade they can just go, and theycna go do amazing things. Our biggest complaint from students who come back to visit from college is that they feel they are taking a step back.

9th grade - week before school starts of half days low pressure Summer Institute the students have a one one one with an upperclassman who goes on their explorations with them and helps them understand the core values.

Advisors the students seem to create a family that maybe a lot of them do not have at home. At graduation they call up by advisory group not alphabetically.

Guided inquiry to open inquiry. A blank page is a terrifying thing.

Ninth grade is designed to help the students get all of the processes together before they can be released to go figure things out all by themselves. By seniors the project is to go do something interesting. Most schools don't have a theory of action where by their senior year students can do things independently they can stand up and say this is who I am and this is what I can do.

How did you prepare your first group of teachers to be in this environment?

The kids we need and the kids who need us. They have you all wrong downtown, you didn't build a schoolf or the the smart kids, you buit a school for the weird kids. Well every kid is a weird kid if you let them be a weird kid.

If you assign a project and then you get back thirty of the same things then you gave a recipe, if that is what you want then that is what you should assign them. How do you apt each students to ask good questions?

There is one question that you never know the answer to, that question is what do you think?

What do you teach? English, wrong. I teach kids, students should never be the implied subject of their education.

My goal that in a few years where we have a deep enough alumni base, every student can Have an email in their ninth grade inbox where someone says they graduated in 2006 and I'll be here on the other end of this email for the next four years.

This is their home, and that doesn't change when they leave.

Steve- different schools made and tailored to different types of students.

Visual Self-Reflection on Recording of First Lesson

For my first lesson I did a review of the chapters of The Giver that we had read so far as a class. The review was structured around the fact that I had noticed that the students had a disconnect between the text and questions they were asked. It seemed that the students did not really understand that when a question is asked it is often directly stated in the text especially when it is a content related question. Or the students simply did not want to look to the text. Regardless I designed a review activity to deal with both issues.


The review activity was that students had a set of questions that were on slips of paper in a bag in the middle of a group of four. The students also had a chart that had question numbers and then corresponding page numbers on which the answer would be found in each box on the chart.  The students had too choose a question and then find it's number on the chart and then turn to the corresponding page in the book to quote the answer from the text. As the students worked, I traveled around the room to assist in their small groups. 


Observations from 7B Video Recording:
I noticed that I smile a lot when I am talking to the students. I also either kneel or sit in a chair at their group so that I am on the same level as them thus giving a sense of working together rather than instructing. The students enjoyed the competition of searching for the answers and demonstrated this by encouraging each other to work faster. The students would say things like OOOHHH I found it, middle of the page! This was encouraging for me. The students demonstrated their engagement in the material by completing almost the entire chart. I noticed that at the end of the lesson I did some sort of weird voice intonation increase that is very unlike me and I need to not do because I believe it would be highly annoying. 


Observations from 7A Video Recording: 
I noticed that this class was much more against the assignment and showed by dramatic eye rolling and comments such as "But we've already read this." that they were not thrilled about returning to the text. There were several instances in the class where a student called me over to argue a point with them or a wording of a question. I think that my responses to the students were successful because instead of arguing back with them I just asked them more questions and got them to realize the detail they were actually looking for. It was nice when the students saw the "AH HA" moment and realized that they were arguing just to argue. The lower level students required more guidance and I could hear them getting off track until I came around to them on the video tape. This explains why the higher performing groups were able to finish their material and self-focus.  


Observation from 8B Warm-Up Recording:
I had begun using the strategy Cold Call with the students. I noticed that I tend to call on the same students and that I call on students whose names are easier to pronounce. So, I ultimately reverted to just calling on the students who raised their hands. I remember feeling nervous about saying the students' names wrong. This was evidenced in the fact that I would gesture somewhat shyly toward the students who raised their hand or make eye contact with them when I was unsure of how to say there names. I did however intentionally state that "I need a volunteer" rather than requesting one. The Cold Call strategy did work in the fact that I was able to call on students randomly and they responded. I need to improve my confidence in pronouncing the students' names. 

Wanted to share a link to my published article: @TeachPaperless.blogspot.com

To Have a Digital Soul

Margaret Roth is a secondary school teaching intern in Baltimore City Public Schools. An MAT candidate at Johns Hopkins, Margaret is interested in leadership and all sorts of avenues of education beyond the traditional classroom. This piece came out of her work in my Paperless Classroom course at Hopkins; it's context is Baltimore, but the theme is pretty universal. I thought it would make a good fit in the pages of this blog, and so I offer it to you. To read more of Margaret's writing, check out her blog: teachingdaisies. -- Shelly

by Margaret Roth

Is there a place for 21st Century Technology in Baltimore City Public Schools?

This is a stupid question. Of course, there is place for social media and digital technologies in Baltimore City Public Schools, maybe not that there is a place, but there should be - there has to be, and we, as educators and parents, have to make it.

I have spent the last five weeks of my life in a class titled “The Paperless Classroom.” Day one I was told to make a Twitter, a freaking Twitter. At first I freaked out and I grasped for remnants of my pre-college too-cool-for-Facebook-MySpace-hating-self to justify my life up to this point. I was then forced to answer the question why? And I didn’t have an answer. For the next five weeks, I signed up for more digital media programs than I ever thought for a second existed. I found out that an entire universe of information was living all around me and that there were people who could breathe it, and I was suffocating. And today, maybe, I finally learned how to breathe in this world. I realized why all of this new media is important, what all this has led up to: I have created my digital soul. I have entered the digital age, and I am a more complete individual because of it.

Yet, this digital world is being made inaccessible to our students. 

Why do we send our children to school, if we are not going to let them learn to breathe on the outside? If we send students to school to lock them up in a building, to take away their phones, to restrict them with web filters, to forbid our teachers from forming relationships with them, what are we teaching them?

Nothing. 

Nothing but to be afraid of the rest of the world, that the rest of the world and the digital universe are only there to hurt them. We are cultivating ignorance by fueling our students with disconnect and starving them with a lack of resources.

Right now we have the opportunity to give students a global classroom, to connect them with the rest of the world, all of our history, and all of our future. If we don’t make changes and get our students connected to this digital world, we will leave them behind, without a chance of changing. Students in this city have enough problems when they start out, they are already dealing with things that no child deserves to face. How can we knowingly deprive them of the resources to make themselves better?

Our students have the right to extend themselves and we have the responsibility to give them the tools to do so. To extend themselves they need to have an understanding of digital technology, they need to create and have an ownership of their digital soul. 

We need to start acknowledging the fact that what we do and experience digitally defines us just as much as the things that we do in our sensory life; that the comments we leave on a website, or photos we upload, are a digital record of ourselves - they are the ultimate journal, a record of our thoughts, saved universally, something that we can never loose, showing how we grow, and pending disaster, never erase. We need to embrace the fact that there is nothing wrong with this - we need to quit teaching our children to be afraid of this. 

The digital soul -- the record of ourselves and the redefinition of our personal space -- may be the most important advantage of social media and digital technology.

But due to the culturally created fear and the resistance of our current school policies to change, we have limited not only our own lives but the opportunities for the success of our students. Unless we enable them to move into the 21st century classroom, we are locking them out of success in our rapidly changing world, we are leaving them on the wrong side of a rapidly rising wall - a wall that they can not even see.  

Baltimore City students see enough walls. We have to give them the tools to build a place in the digital universe where their digital souls can be just as real as the ones we see dreaming inside of them.

Posted by Shelly Blake-Plock at 9:16 AM