Treebeing - the birth of consciousness

Treebeing

See it through your mind's eye... Life is beautiful around the edges, it's placid, pristine, flawless yet volatile, shiftless, anathema to our hopes and dreams, yet composed by magnificence of power and lucidness, if we could only see it from outside the windows of our limited, worried selves. I often think my emotions are the key to this view, the world is not without me, it is within and all around. This body is my vessel, but I am the only destination for which I'm destined. Meet me there and I'll see you for real...

Inside Our Shells ~ multimedia by Cambria Simm, 2008

Sometimes we all get lost inside our shells... we need those moments to step back, withdraw to our core, and reflect on life; to reconnect with the center of our existence and renew ourselves. This piece symbolizes these things to me.

Earth Day!

My seventh graders brainstormed all the things they could do in their daily lives to help keep the earth clean and healthy. They filled the entire white board with ideas, as you can see, and this was not even all they came up with. Every one of them agreed that they loved our planet - loved the food, the trees, the animals and the seas - and wanted to keep it safe for the future. This was our Earth Day, and it filled me with hope for our future.

What High School Taught Me

During my time teaching high school, I grew significantly as a teacher in numerous ways. I had, for the first time, the full run of the classroom without interference or help from my cooperating teacher. Questions, comments, and concerns were all addressed to me as the classroom authority, and I rose to the challenge required by that position. I came to see myself as more of an expert in the field than I had previously believed myself to be. I also found my passion for politics was communicable. The back-drop of the primary elections and caucuses spurred daily debate and interest in my room in a way that I found reassuring. I really believed that I had a purpose in teaching these young adults about their government, as they would soon be leaving the school environment and finding their places in the larger world. This unit helped me connect my personal mission with my profession in a lot of ways that were meaningful to me.

That said, I struggled a lot with the student population that I encountered in this high school setting. These students challenged me, not so much in classroom management, but in their perpetually disaffected attitudes which made me question the relevance of the entire discipline. I responded by challenging myself to find new ways to relate the material to these students’ lives. I fastidiously organized and prepared for my lessons, anticipating their questions and confusion on the subjects. What I could not anticipate was the lack of preparation and organization on the part of students, and that was a daily disappointment to deal with. My lurking fear and doubt was that students truly did not care about their country or government, or even their own education, enough to show up regularly with a pencil and paper. Most students disproved my misgivings, but several reaffirmed them and ended up dropping the class, a requirement for their graduation only one term away. I could not help but feel that my students’ failure reflected some of my own, but I had to take a step back and instead focus on helping the students who showed some amount of effort in my class. I really believe that I did all I could do at this point in my profession, giving infinite chances to make up work, but I still cannot help but feel disappointed in my inability to change the minds of those who dropped out.

In this class I learned that I am a tenacious person who is also sensitive and flexible. I learned that no amount of planning can prepare you for the very real circumstances that students bring to class with them. I learned that I really love teaching, and I love the spark of inspiration reflected back to me in the faces of my students. Politics is everything – its any issue, problem, or concern that people care about and thus it should include the interests of everyone. If only I could communicate that to every student I get the privilege of coming in contact with.

The Future of Computers in Classrooms

In response to Larry Cuban’s article, “Public School Teachers Using Machines in the Next Decade,” I would just like to say:

The question of why information technologies have not been as successfully integrated into schooling as they have been in every other major institution in our society seems to be at the heart of Cuban’s inquiry into the future of computers in schools. As he notes, public expectations for schools differ substantially from other institutions, such as business, and there is considerable resistance to changing the status quo of teaching, especially in an era of reform that is reductionist rather than progressive.

Moreover, teaching with innovative technology conflicts with popularly held beliefs about what constitutes good teaching; beliefs that are anchored in our society by a generation that grew up with a relative deprivation of information of technology. However, the same constituency aspires for greater productivity in education of the masses, and thus desires the results that technology-based educational reforms could bring about.

The preservationist doctrine seems to deny the necessity for changes to the underlying structures of schools in order to facilitate greater productivity, even though the basic structures of every other social institution (banking, commerce, communications, travel) have been completely altered by the advent of information technology. I think Cuban is right then when he points out that, “The nature of education must inevitably adapt to the nature of work in society” (p. 8).

It seems clear that the potential for greater efficiencies through technology will eventually be made plausible through, what Cuban calls, an evolutionary scenario of slowly altering school structures through creative uses of technology. Hybrid schools, those that use a combination of time-tested methods and new technologies, have the potential to help “bring schools more in sync with the technological imperatives of the larger society,” (Cuban, p. 11) and thus are a model for the future.

Teachers as Catalysts in the Digital Age

It was interesting for me to find out that it is not computers that are compelling change in teaching practices towards a more constructivist approach. I was set up to believe the premise that technology was the agent of change, to which teachers must inevitably adapt. It made sense, initially, because of how learning is changing among the generations that grow up avidly using new digital technologies.

It was welcome news, then, that teachers have a say in the matter, as the main decision-makers in their respective classrooms. It makes sense that teachers would view technology only as a tool towards their own ends – employed to achieve the goals teachers make with respect to teaching.

I think the most critical change involved is the mindset concerning the role of teacher. By relinquishing their roles as ‘information giver,’ and instead seeing themselves as facilitators of student learning, teachers are able to embrace computer programs which allow their students a greater deal of autonomy in constructing their own understandings, which is what constructivist practices are all about. Relinquishing this control, however, can be difficult for some teachers.

The facts show, however, that more progressive teaching practices are ones that can successfully integrate more technology into them. Computers allow for more student participation, getting them actively involved in their own learning and keeping them interested. It seems like every teacher would want that for their students. However, not all teachers have the same access to technology.

As many teachers’ experiences and reflections lead them to embrace the idea of more student-centered instruction, I think they will embrace computer technologies for the structure and support they can bring to the process. It is still up to the teacher to make these changes, but a supportive environment and more exposure to educational technology could help them along the way. In the end, however, teachers must see technology as helping to accomplish their personal goals for teaching, in order for it to be viewed as a worthwhile means.