Tired Teacher

  Step up to the plate Clay County Florida. A school board member in Clay County thinks that "disciplinary action" should be taken against people who allow books deemed "inappropriate". She goes on to blame librarians for allowing these books into schools. Umm, excuse me ma'am but are you under the impression that the librarian is superhuman. Do you think that they can magically read all of the books in the library and know which ones will offend some random person, at some random time, in the future?  This school board member goes on to explain that she has already identified 75 books containing "pornographic material" that should not be on shelves. They don't provide the list, that would encourage people to think for themselves and that is definitely not the goal. They do however offer some examples, three to be exact. I would have to assume that she choose the most egregious examples to prove her point. The first book is called "Julian is a...

  Okay so I admit I lost it this week! If you read my previous blog, you know what I'm talking about, if you didn't you should check it out (warning there is cursing and stupidity involved). It's a good read. Really Okay so I have been watching the news to see what other counties are going to do. Mostly I have been watching to see what OCPS is going to do. I want to see if I am going to have to run screaming from the building because I have gone completely mad. But anyway, no word on OCPS but I really like what two counties have decided to do.  The premise of this whole idea of parental rights in school involves parents wanting to control what their student learns. If I am being honest, that doesn't really bother me. I think parents should be involved. My issue is when the will of the few gets imposed on the many. That isn't fair. Two counties in Florida have found a creative way to stop this from happening. Polk county has six books that have been challenged. Paren...

  Please excuse my thinly veiled attempt to cover my cursing. I realize that I should use my words better, but to be honest in this case the word is the most appropriate one I could think of this morning. This morning I woke up to this article. https://bookriot.com/florida-teachers-remove-classroom-libraries/ The article discusses how teachers in Brevard Public Schools have been told that they cannot use their classroom libraries this year until they have been vetted by an expert.  I thought teachers were the experts! I mean we did go to school for just such an occasion, but I digress. Let's get back to the real issue.  I would be remiss if I just read one article, so I went a googling. Here are the other headlines that popped up.  https://www.tampabay.com/news/education/2022/05/12/florida-schools-stirred-up-over-library-books-textbooks/ https://www.clickorlando.com/news/local/2022/04/15/brevard-schools-discuss-district-wide-library-book-policy-prepare-for-review-pro...

  Full transparency I thought this produsage assignment would be a piece of cake. After all this is what I do. I have written thousands of lesson plans over the past 27 years. What actually happened, I got a really good wake up call about how teaching and instructional design are not the same. Let me explain. Good teachers think small. They write lessons that are tailor made for the students who are sitting in front of them that year (or class period). The idea of knowing your kids and creating an assignment that is tailor made for them is the goal. The ideal.  When I started the produsage assignment I approached it from this direction. What will the sixth graders that I have in my class this year be able to do? What do I want to accomplish with them? What I have come to realize that instructional designers think BIG ! It's not about what you need for just a few kids who you see everyday. Instructional designers create lessons on a much larger scale. The lessons you create nee...

  Online bullying and harassment is a very real problem, especially for young people. According to the United States government almost twenty percent of teens report being the target of some sort of online harassment or bullying. The graphic below outlines some of the issues that can result from online harassment. These issues have prompted law enforcement agencies, educational policymakers and parents to explore avenues that will help to prevent cyberbullying. Here are a few ways that adults help to ensure that cyberbullying doesn't happen. Raise Awareness One way to prevent cyberbullying amongst young people is by simply raising awareness about the issue. We often assume that students already have the tools that the need to successfully navigate online spaces. This is often a fallacy. Students need to be explicitly taught about online bullying and harassment. Educators and parents need to work together to ensure that students understand what is considered online bullying. Care sh...

  I decided to post my example for my produsage assignment on Facebook. I made the post in my ELA Middle School Facebook Group. I posted it in several other spaces, but here it is in case you missed it.  I wanted some feedback and to see if anyone had suggestions or thoughts. Now I know we know that crowdsourcing is hit or miss. There's always that person. But I was surprised by the really strong adverse reactions that a few people had it terms of this assignment. Their issue was that students would be teased or stereotyped based on their song choices.  I have to be honest, I am a music chameleon. I like all kinds of music and I don't pay much attention to genre (my real spotify playlist is a hot mess of awesome.) Also, I am also a firm believer in providing a safe space in the classroom. We don't tease each other or make fun of one another for our choices. Now I wonder if I need to reevaluate.  The suggestion was made to come up with an alternative assignment for th...

 This week has been interesting. I have been feeling a little under the weather (little kid germs are the worst). I completed the readings, and I have been working on my upcoming assignments. That being said I think I have a little writer's block in terms of blogs. I have a million thoughts but none of them have congealed into a coherent 3rd blog post (post 2 is also kind of thin to be honest). So here is blog number three about not being able to think about something to blog about. Here are some questions that come to mind. If you don't feel well then does that affect your academics? If so how? How do I make sure that when my students hit a wall they have the opportunity to bounce back? Take away, sometimes it's okay to not be okay. Sometimes you have to take the time to take care of yourself. That's it for now folks, I'm off to reenter my Nyquil induced coma in an attempt to shake this illness. Hopefully I will see you guys next week and be back to my sarcastic te...

 There is little doubt that I social media can have profound effects on education as we know it. Social media sites give students the opportunity to expand their knowledge by giving them access to experts outside of their immediate circles. This has the potential to be great, but in order for this to work we need to revamp the educational system as we know it.  Students cannot be left to figure out social media on their own. They need to be explicitly taught how to navigate online spaces. They need to be taught how to think critically. They need to be taught how to analyze the information that is presented to determine if it is accurate or credible. They need to be taught how to communicate effectively when they are not in the physical presence of the person that they are talking to.  The question becomes who is responsible for teaching the students these skills? When should we start teaching them and how does one teach them?

Some of us are old enough to remember when journaling was all the rage in school. You had to write everyday and (if you had my teacher) if you didn't have anything to say you just wrote I don't have anything to write over and over again for the entire writing time (it was probably ten minutes but it felt like hours).  Fast forward to today when I am reading the Yang article on blogging and I thought Ah ha, this is what they were trying to do. They were trying to give the quiet kid who never raised their hand a voice. They were giving the kid who needs a little time to think a moment to collect their thoughts and put them on paper. This was a good practice. Blogging is an updated form journaling but technology makes it even better for students. Here are some of the benefits of blogging as outlined in the article (I added a couple of my own). They can serve as portfolios that show student learning over time. They are easily shareable. ( Raise your hand if you have ever stood in f...

  This week I made it my goal to visit every class blog. I did not comment on all of them, but I did go through  and read at least one post from each person. As with most things in this class it was a learning experience. Here are some takeaways... 1. Push yourself outside of your comfort zone in terms of what you read. I found myself gravitating towards blogs about teaching. I was missing out. This class is so diverse and there is much to be learned.  2. Jason you may or may not have sold sponges to my entire family. My sister in law is Nigerian and when I asked her about the sponge she had not heard of it, but she looked it up a purchased a couple.  3. Kalei Holt you have the most beautiful blog. I am jealous of your beautiful pictures. 4. I love how the design of a blog oftentimes reflects the personality of the person blogging. My favorite examples are Leelocin & Blog a Diem. 5. I need to step up my blog game. I have questions... How do I get a live Twitter f...

  If you are an educator like me you probably came to instructional design out of frustration. Most educators that I know have googled some version of "What can I do with my teaching degree other than teaching?" It's kind of a right of passage in the world of teaching. Instructional design pops up at the top of the list and I will admit that I did not have a clear understanding of what an instructional designer did until I was a few classes in.  Now that I am nearing the end of my program I see instructional design everywhere. I am also feeling more confident about where I want to end up (or my new starting point) when I finish this journey. I can't wait to merge my love of education with my newfound understanding of design. Look out for a inclusive, technology forward curriculum that is engaging for students. Whew that is a tall order!

 I just finished reading the Prestridge article on how educators use social media as their own professional development communities. Yes, this is me!! I spend hours scrolling through various social media sights when I am developing lessons. My timelines are filled with classroom decoration ideas, lesson plan ideas, book recommendations, and crowdsourcing questions about classroom management (I think there might be some family in there too). I think for teachers that are digitally adept, this is fantastic. I cannot tell you how many times I have "found" an activity on the internet and used it in class. As an added bonus I get to see how the activity worked in other teachers' classrooms. I have an army of like minded people, who are refining and remixing the activity. This type of professional development is much more meaningful than the traditional sit and get/ one size fits all way of doing things.  So that begs the question, why do we still do things the old way? Well th...

  So I wasn't able to go for 48 continuous hours without the internet due to other coursework, but I did manage to carve out some chunks of time throughout the week. Here are some of the observations I made. 1. If no one is on social media then car rides are more fun. My fiance and I drove around to all of our favorite places and picked up our favorite dishes. We had so much fun listening to music and talking to each other. If we had been on our phones, the driver would have been driving and the passenger would have been scrolling through TikTok or Facebook. 2. Pedicures are even more relaxing if you are off social media. I may have dozed off.  3. Pool days are still just as much fun when you don't have one million pictures of what happened.  4. It's all still there. The school work, the social media, the cute memes.  All still there. 5. Spend time with your family. You won't regret it. I took a second to write this post because I know it needs to be done. Now I am o...

  Test scores are back. Here in Florida we have officially entered into "What else could you have done?" season for teachers. For you non-teachers out there, this is the time of year that you hold classroom teachers responsible for all of the woes of the world. You hold up the test score of a random student and ask them why the student didn't meet the arbitrary standard set forth by the state. Most often teachers will have an explanation, after all we spend a lot of time with these kids. Most often that explanation involves things that are out of our control. Invariably we are asked the question, "What else could you have done?"  Don't misunderstand me. I understand that in many business situations this is a very valid question. But in education it is more of an accusation. If every student didn't meet the standard then it has to be your fault. You must have not done enough. You must not have done enough to close the gap, or build the plane while you are...

  Umm, excuse me Governor Desantis but last year you said that you had a issue with standardized testing. I was like okay, this is a cause that I can get behind. The way we are currently using standardized test in the education system is abhorrent. In many cases these tests are the only measure of student and teacher success. Standardized tests don't allow us to celebrate the small wins. If a student read 2 books last year and 15 books this year, that's a win. If you learned to write your name in cursive, that's a win. If you know how to divide or understand fractions that's a win. I don't care what the test says. When did kids become standardized. My oldest daughter could read before she went to kindergarten. Her sister learned to read in kindergarten. My son could read when he was four. They all turned out just fine. Kids are not standardized.  I was excited to hear that we were doing away with the FSA. As an educator, I felt like someone was finally paying attent...