I have many passionate thoughts and ideas about teaching and learning.  I think, daily, about schools and classrooms and what they should be.  I am often weighing in my mind whose job it is to ensure children are educated, taught responsibility, and are prepared for the organized world of work.  I realized it had been awhile since I wrote in my blog, essentially sharing all of these thoughts and ideas with the world…or the few people who read my blog.  I began to form an idea, to shape my thoughts, when scrolling through my Facebook page I found this video from Kid President.  As I watched the video I realized that what he says may seem to some to be silly or unimportant, but there is an underlying message that that strikes at the heart of the relationship between teaching and learning.  “You are here, you take up space, and you matter.”  “We can’t just study history, we have to make history.”  “You have to understand the world to change the world.”  “No matter who you are, somebody is learning from you.”  Teachers have an area of expertise, they are professionals, and their skills can add to students achievement, increase student engagement, inspire creativity and a passion for a skill or a subject area of learning.  But, before all that, parents need to inspire learning in their children, and children need to want to learn.  We need to create a culture of achievement, a curiosity for the unknown, and drive to make a difference.  In the end, if parents are more concerned with the childcare needs filled by sending their kids to school, than be the learning that takes place there, if children feel like school is an interruption to what they are doing that is really important, and if they do not believe that they are fundamentally important in shaping not only how the world is today, but what ultimately it will become, then all of a teacher’s efforts are for naught.  The chain of learning is broken, and we all have to work together to fix it.

http://www.upworthy.com/a-really-cute-kid-shares-his-super-awesome-knowledge-that-everyone-can-use

I was recently reading a friend’s blog and it struck me that there is more to learn from this blog than just the adventures of an ADD mom.  She spoke so eloquently about the struggles that life can be for those of us who are less than perfect. Who, with all our flaws, are just doing the best we can and trying to make it through the day.  The judgments of others can be harsh, but the judgments that we have for ourselves can be much worse.  I used to wrestle daily with feelings of inadequacy.  I would look at these moms, or these teachers, or these women, who just seemed to have it all together, and I wondered why I couldn’t be quite so flawless.  My hair always a little out of place, my lessons a little scattered, and did I just send my kids to bed without brushing their teeth?

Some people have the gift of beauty.  Their homes are beautiful, they make elegant cards, and throw flawless, colorful parties.  They decorate beautiful cakes, and cook healthy meals that they serve up on hip, sleekly designed plates, at cultured and exquisitely set tables.   Then they take photographer quality pictures that they scrapbook like Martha Stewart.  I used to wonder if my kids would grow up and wish their mother was more…more organized, more on-top of their schedule, more of a gardener, more hip, more beautiful…

Then I learned that my house is always going to be a bit messy and a little unorganized.  My kids are always going to be a little late and miss the odd gymnastics class.  I was always going to have weeds in my garden and McDonald’s drink cups in my car.  It doesn’t mean that I get to stop trying.  It just means that I get to accept who I am today, and what I am capable of today, while keeping an eye to where I want to go.  And I do go, one step at a time, one breath at a time, one second at a time, always moving in the direction of my goal.

I may never be perfect but I will always be good enough.  My efforts may not be lovely, but they will always be loving.  We don’t have the choice of what talents we have , or whether we got five talents, two talents or simply one.  All we can do, is the best we can do.  When faced with the “hills” of life, when we are struggling to breathe and thinking we don’t have enough to get us to the top, we can quit, or we can humbly get off our bikes and walk to the top with everyone else awaiting our slow ascent.  The latter choice takes courage, and it is all anyone can ask.

All of us need to remember that no matter what our talents are, or how many we have, we will all be presented with a situation that will require courage and humility.  When those moments come, if they happen to us, let us hope that we have what it takes to do what may seem like the bare minimum to someone else, but is every thing we can do in that moment.  If it happens to someone else, let us be the kind, old, man in my friend’s story, who offers words of encouragement.  Let us bolster those around us, to build in them a capacity to do what they could not do alone.

As educators and caregivers, let us remember that these burdens are no less weighty when they fall on the shoulders of young people, and our responsibility to bolster, encourage and build capacity is far greater.  Beauty may not be my talent, but then how can I expect it to be anyone else’s?

http://addgoddess.wordpress.com/2013/06/14/atta-girl/

I was watching my daughter do gymnastics at the private club we take her to.  She loves it, the running, the jumping, and the climbing.  I was remembering a class I took in university where we learned that these are essential movements for children’s development.  We also talked about how schools have made the decision to take these skills out of physical education programs along with Canadian Climbers, climbing ropes, most gymnastics, and anything else deemed to be dangerous.   I started to try to imagine what effect this would have on our society over time.  Could this change human physical bodies and what people growing up in our society are able to do, or not do?

There are so many things that kids learn in school, and those things vary from school to school.  Every school has the basics math, science, language arts, and social studies.  In addition to the core classes, a school might teach art, drama, construction, robotics, outdoor education, computers, visual communication, leadership, French, and Spanish…just to name a few.

Even with all of these options, there seems to be a push toward schools doing more ameliorate social ills.  We use schools to give needles because we don’t expect parent to take their kids to get them themselves.  We use schools to teach about bullying, because clearly that was not happening at home.  We use schools to teach about a variety of issues from teen pregnancy to hygiene. It seems as though schools have become a warehouse for us to use to house our children in when we are working or have better things to do.

It never ceases to amaze me how in the decades of perpetual cutbacks, with fewer and fewer resources, society has come to expect schools to fill-in the gap where parents fail.  We cannot teach kids the essential skills of movement, but we are expected to teach them how to eat right, exercise is important, how to write a resume, that showing up, preferably on time and with all the materials you need, is important.  Parents are even surveyed on whether or not they feel that their child’s school is doing enough to prepare their children for the adult organized world of work.  It is like taking your clothing to the dry-cleaners.  You drop it off in the morning and expect it to be magically all better by the time you pick it up again.

Here is an idea, take responsibility for YOUR OWN KIDS.  Take YOUR kids to the park YOURSELF, and give them the opportunity to develop these essential skills, that they can no longer learn in school.  You can teach them about sex, sexual health, orientation and abuse.  You can teach your own children about healthy relationships and how to be assertive.  YOU can prepare them for the organized world of work, while we just use our knowledge and experience to create an environment for your child to learn facts, details, critical thinking, understanding multiple perspectives, along with reading, writing, and some arithmetic.

If there needs to be cuts to education, shouldn’t it start with all the things that parents should be doing themselves anyway?

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The old adage, “you can bring a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink,” has never been more true than in an average, everyday public school classroom.  I attended a PD earlier this year and they used a term I had never heard before, yet it seemed to fit a number of my students.  The term is ‘intentional non-learner.’  This is a student who chooses not to learn.  When I was a new teacher, I assumed that all students wanted to learn, and if students were doing things that were contrary to learning, then it was because they did not believe that they could learn it.  Everyone would learn if they could, right?  But no, the longer I teach, the more I realize that there are some young people who just don’t want to learn.  Even if you show them that they CAN learn it, they will choose not to.  They are not motivated by praise, they are not motivated by success, they are not motivated by achievement or a sense of pride or accomplishment.  What do you do with an intentional non-learner?  We are in the business of teaching, it goes against our very essence to accept a condition of non-learning.  But just because we do not accept non-learning, do THEY need to learn?  The environment that we create, is it about us, or is it about them?  Should they be allowed to not learn, if they choose not to?

I love teaching!  I am Passionate about the education of children!  I love having “ah ha” moments with my students.  I live for the privilege to shape a young person’s thinking, to light the candle of their understanding, to help put in place the building blocks of their achievement.  I have little patience for teaching health, options, or even physical education.  It is not that I don’t think those things are important, in fact, as a parent, I am very grateful for teachers who love teaching those subjects to my kids.  However, as a teacher, it is not what lights my fire.  I want to be involved in the daily battle that learning can be.  Therefore, I think one of the most frustrating things for me as a teacher is when the students start to check out two months before the end of the year.  It makes dragging myself to work each day harder and harder.  Those moments that feed my soul getting further and further apart.  It becomes easier and easier to say, “Why bother?”  I have not yet submitted to the easy, casual routine of showing movies because the kids don’t want to learn and I have too much work to do.  Yet, each day, it gets easier for me to consider it.  How can I stay true to my belief that everyday of the school year is important for teaching and learning, when all those around me are giving up? How can I keep seeing the purpose and potential of each day for each student?