Philosophy Without A Home

My letter to my local representatives concerning  education  reform.  It has come to my attention that a special committee on education reform has been created to hold hearings on education reform.  There has also been some mention of Geoffrey Canada and his new education reform movement called Stand for Children.  In my years as a teacher, student, education specialist, and education blogger I have done much research and writing on the topic of education reform. You are welcome to read my  blog . I suggest searching for key terms such as firing teachers, quality education, and reform.  There is no doubt that education is changing along with just about everything else in the world. However, making changes quickly and expecting fast reform is a sure recipe for failure.  I know that Mr. Canada has had some success with the Harlem Children's Zone (HCZ). Though not as stellar as we are sometimes lead to believe. However, what is less publicized is the  true cost of his private ref

Norman Rockwell paintings look cool. The quintessential American life. They are a moments captured in time, but they aren’t flowing emotions. They evoke emotion, but attempts to recreate what you think the participants are feeling fails and fails miserably. We have everything we need to create our own Norman Rockwell painting. We just don’t realize he didn’t paint reality, he painted ideals. “He had the ability to paint things not the way they were, but the way people wanted them to be ,” Clemens said. Photo and quote from Denverpost.com The most memorable moments are not the scripted scenes or the moments we imagine. No, the most memorable moments are when something happens unexpectedly and instead of getting angry the people let go and enjoy the moment. Happiness in life can only happen when we give up control.

My rewritten philosophy of education, cross posted at my student blog . Comments encouraged. Educational Philosophy           Schools can and do influence most aspects of their students. To effectively educate students schools must reflect the attitude of the local community and build a vision derived from these values. At the same time not compromising on the needs and expectations of a larger community.             It is the responsibility of the school to teach the curriculum, but more importantly schools must engage students in becoming life-long learners.   Schools should be safe places for students to experiment and take chances, to follow their interests, and learn independently beyond the normal scope of the curriculum.             With the curriculum as a concrete foundation to build on, teachers can guide students as individuals in learning the basic skills of deconstructing problems and creating solutions. With patience and care students will learn the skills necessary fo

I've highlighted the parts of my educational philosophy I still like. I've also added a short rewrite I did about two years ago while looking for a job. (mostly just a copy paste job) We must teach our students the skills to think and reason critically. Critical thinking is taught through the vehicle of other subjects when we ask students to solve problems rather than memorize answers. Students are given time to explore concrete areas on their own until they discover regular patterns on their own. As these patterns are discovered the teacher gently pushes towards formalizing the rules. For example students are given blocks to count with; the physical presence of the blocks is something they are familiar with and they learn to add by putting blocks into a pile one at a time. The blocks are concrete and easily understandable to the children. As they become more familiar with the results they move into adding with fingers and eventually to doing it in their head. As

I hope everyone has a great Winter Break. Stay safe and we will see you next year. A little something for your reading and viewing pleasure. Lockhart’s Lament .  - The views of a middle school math teacher who also spent many years as a math researcher and college professor. Alan Keys Ted Talk . boring for about the first 10 minutes, but then he gets into some thoughts on teaching math. What do you think? Should we change the way we teach math? How would it work? I've thought about it before here .

My philosophy of education from 10 years ago. I am required to rewrite and condense to 150 words by January 3rd, 2011. It will be interesting to see how much of my philosophy has changed after having actually taught. Never in my wildest dreams did I think reducing the number of words would be the most difficult part of a writing project. Philosophy of Education Schools are a major influence on the lives of almost everyone, whether they like it or not. Many of our basic notions of good and bad are in part formed by our early education. Take for example “All I Ever Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten.” One of the reasons this book was so popular was because so many people can identify with the premise. In our early years we learned that good people share, wash their hands, put away toys, etc... From the very beginning we learn some of our most basic mores in school. Are our school trying to teach this? Should we be teaching this as educators? Do we have a choice? The average A

Image via Wikipedia Ok so a couple of videos have been floating through my PLN this week.  I followed them to their youtube home and found one mathmusician .  Oddly enough I remember one musician spending hours , or what seemed like hours, telling me how chords in music aren’t random but based on mathematical principals. So I’ve always known there was some sort of connection between math and music, I’m just not really sure of the connection.  You won’t either after this blog post, but I hope someone figures it out and explains it to me. Anyway, the videos she creates are pretty cool and do a great job of connecting real world mathematics to doodling.  After watching the videos I thought it would be great time filler for those half days when you can’t really teach anything and the students just don’t want to learn anyway. Show them the video and turn them loose to be creative. Just be sure to ask them to explain what they can of the math before you hang them on the wall. If you do

Image via Wikipedia Today, I don't have a resource so much as a request for collaboration. If you haven't noticed yet the country is under a strong push for common standards. What they call Common Core Standards . On June 10, 2010 Illinois adopted the Common Core Standards. These standards will be adopted in three phases according to the Illinois State Board of Education. I know there are people who are spending a lot of time getting us ready to meet these new standards. However, I don't see any reason why we should leave all of that work to the administration. I also see a lot of reasons why we should, at the very least, show what we know. With that in mind I would like everyone, or as many people as possible, to share their favorite lesson and align it to the new Common Core standards for mathematics.  Please, don't spend four hours making a new lesson and getting every little detail perfect. Take a lesson you already have and show us how it meets

This one is just cool and not just because I love The Lord of the Rings.

This is a great Ted Talk http://www.ted.com/talks/conrad_wolfram_teaching_kids_real_math_with_computers.html The basic question is should we teach students how to do stuff by hand or is it better to teach concepts? This isn't to say calculators should be introduced in kindergarten, but honestly let's question what is important when teaching math.

Image by dendari via Flickr The 2010 K12 Online Conference (blocked in district) just ended. The most useful presentation I saw was this one by Chris Betcher , about using scratch in the classroom. He has a little more information and the complete 20 minute presentation on his web site (open to the district) and some further information on a wiki . (also open to the district) After about two minutes into the video I think you will find that programming in Scratch is not only easy, but can really enhance learning.  Scratch is a simple programming language developed by MIT specifically to help middle school and high school student learn math and computer programming. If your students find Scratch too easy or want to stretch their wings they can also try Alice . Originally developed by Randy Pausch at Carnegie Mellon University. Scratch and Alice are separate free downloadable computer programs. However, I am assuming that if requested it can be downloaded and insta

I’ve heard a lot about brain-based research, but haven’t really puzzled out what it might look like in the classroom. Then I read a blog that suggested Kenneth Wesson .   Evidently he is a brain researcher and a Science teacher. (college) I’ve gone through some of his slides. I’ll share a couple of interesting points, but I don’t want to be rude and share too much when you can easily go to his site and look at them yourself. • More brain cells must fire actively to keep the body still than are required for movement.  Keeping the brain’s inhibitory neurons active requires more concentration of valuable brain resources than executing physical movements.  When cognitive energies are diverted from learning to keeping still , we need to decrease our expectations for learning outcomes •A 5 th grade class in Charlotte, NC -  increased attention spans and facilitated good posture. The classroom - a sea of motion - children bob and weave, sway and bounce their way through lessons per

Image via Wikipedia A two-piece post. Look for the second part at my other site .  I observed an 8 th grade Science class. This specific class was a lab to determine if temperature changes increase chemical reactions and whether a reaction is endothermic or exothermic. For the post-observation conference I pulled the teacher out of her lunch period, because we had had so many scheduling conflicts it wasn’t funny. She was very good-natured about it.  She choose to sit next to me instead of across the table, but that may have been just so her back wasn’t to the camera. We both share space in the “new teacher” office, so we know each other fairly well. She is normally a very reserved and quiet person. During the conference she was also trying to eat lunch.  Halfway through the discussion as I was asking her questions such as “why did you choose that method”, and “how could you have done it differently” she became noticeably more animated. She stopped eating, made direct eye

A slideshow presentation I created about a year ago. I still love it. Teacher Skills 2 View more presentations from Brendan Murphy .

Are the same students answering all the questions in your classroom? Would it help if the answered were anonymous? Would you like to poll the class, but don't have a set of clickers? It is as easy as pie just use http://www.polleverywhere.com/ While not perfect this can at times take the place of a $1500 set of classroom clickers. How do students answer the poll, well that is a bit tricky. responses are logged using a web browser, twitter, or text message. Twitter of course is blocked in the school. The web page should work if each student has a computer. the cell phone of course is supposed to be turned off and in the locker. The exact policy is " Cell ular tele phone s or PDAs that also are tele phone s (collectively referred to as Cell phone s) are for emergency parent/guardian contact purposes only, unless otherwise authorized for use by school administrators." ' I would suggest talking to your building principal about a test run. Just make sure

Did anyone think about starting a lesson study group? As I have traveled around my schools and asked people if I could observe them either for a full period and just a couple of minutes I have tried to make sure everyone has understood that my observations are for my own personal studies and not used for any part of their formal observations. Yet some people have still intimated that in their experience there has never been any sort of observation happening that didn’t involve evaluation of the teacher’s skill set. The philosophy I am developing though is that the best way to truly excel as a teacher is to observe and be observed. The difference is that observations change focus from what the teacher is doing to what are the students doing. If anyone wants to start a group I am more than happy to be the guinea pig.  I don’t get the opportunity to teach much these days and I love to do so when I get the chance. If two or three people want to get together and design a lesson with me

My wife always seems to complain that I think I know every thing and I think I’m perfect. I’m not sure where she gets that because I usually think of my self as a sort of humble guy. It occurs to me that some of these resource emails might make it look like I think I know everything and want to explain it to everyone. That is not the case. Most of these resources do not come from my personal in class experience. I haven’t taught regularly in the classroom for a few years now. I get to teach a lesson here or there, but really I spend most of my time as the second teacher in the room. Most of these resources though come from what is commonly called a PLN or a personal learning network. These are teachers and administrators who are using these activities in the classroom. So no I don’t use these things but some people whom I think are pretty good teachers have used them in the classroom. With that in mind I want to go back to videos in the classroom. Students aren’t the only ones who lear

I started getting into computers around 1995. Back then I thought it would be pretty cool to carry my computer around with me. I wasn’t thinking about the early laptops, but literally rebuilding the desktop computer stuffing it into a backpack and carrying it around. I thought I could break the keyboard into two pieces and strap them to my thighs. I would put teeny tiny projectors inside dark sunglasses and that could be the monitor. Way back then everything was dial up so I thought the portable modems of the day could be used as a mobile dial up. Then of course everything would have to be hooked to a giant car battery or something. Obviously I never pursued this, but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened. I-O Keyboard from http://nexus404.com/ There are small Bluetooth keyboards  Though I don’t see why they don’t make them so you can split them into two pieces. 3-D glasses from Zetronix http://www.zetronix.com/ There are wearable monitors.  http://cdn.slashph

Hello Teachers, Speaking of resources I can't believe I didn't give these to you last week.   http://www.khanacademy.org/ http://www.jogtheweb.com/ I've showed how to make simple videos using Jing Project. The sites JogtheWeb and Khanacademy specialize in videos for edcuation. Unfortunately, like most video sites they host their actual videos on Youtube so you can't access them on from the school. To use videos from these sites at school you will probably have to use a laptop, open the video at home and let it load all the way, then bring the laptop to school without closing the browser or turning it off. The video will still be loaded and ready to play without an internet connection. There are other ways to download Youtube videos but none that are legal as far as I know. There are some sites that are open on district servers. They include Academic Earth. A collection of university lectures. Teacher Tube Basically a youtube specifically for

I spend a lot of time in different rooms in different schools. I see many different ways to arrange desks. (Pictures are representative and not actual rooms mentioned) There is the standard arraignment of desks in a row. (Why is that considered standard?) This is a great way for every student to be able to see the chalkboard. (yep chalk) The teacher in this room does like to use direct instruction a lot, but she will also ask the students to move into groups of four at least once a week. When working in the room I often stand in the doorway and watch the students. The teacher is forced to work at the board at the far corner and I think sometimes the students at the back of the room are don’t feel like part of the class. Then there is the arraignment of groups of four desks. In most rooms this feels crowded, but it does allow students to work together, which is what our math curriculum requires most of the time. Some students need to be situated so that they face the teacher mo

Did everyone enjoy the professional development Tuesday? I know I heard some mixed reviews, but nothing out and out negative. Perhaps I’m too optimistic. I know some people in felt starting with addition was too basic for middle school teachers, but then again I heard some comments about how some students would make simple mistakes like answering twelve for: 4 + 8 = _ + 5 I think I remember helping to revising curriculum at a school last year and someone saying something to the effect of “if they don’t learn it in previous grades I don’t care if its a standard or not we need to include it.” If our students are making addition and subtraction mistakes then a quick lesson, or differentiation, on strategies for addition is something we might consider doing. More importantly knowing what students are, or should be, thinking can help us identify misconceptions. Inquiry based math. I don’t make it a secret that I like the Connected Math Books. It isn’t because they have great