Summer Reading

I plan to do a lot of reading this summer! I think we sometimes overlook the act of reading and reflecting as being a powerful part of our teaching professional development. I thought that since many teachers are looking the end of the school year directly in the face that I would provide a little insight into what a tech savvy pedagogue might have on his nightstand. If you have any suggestions as to what order I should begin with or maybe a top three to start with, please leave suggestions in the comments section.

A green ** next to a name means that the person (whether they are aware or not) is part of my PLN on twitter and/or Google+.

The Curiosity Cycle: Preparing Your Child for the Ongoing Technological Explosion by Jonathan Mugan (2012) – “To get the most from their curiosity, children must build models about the interactions of those around them and the tendencies within themselves.”

The Global Achievement Gap: Why Even Our Best Schools Don’t Teach the New Survival Skills Our Children Need–and What we can do About it by Tony Wagner** (2008) “The skills needed to be a successful knowledge worker today continue to evolve and grow in importance everywhere – except in our schools.”

Boys Should Be Boys: 7 Secrets to Raising Healthy Sons by Meg Meeker, M.D. (2008) author of Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters – “Contrary to popular belief, boys are not born to rebel against their parents at any age. To a very large degree, this boy-hating-his-parents phenomenon has been contrived by popular media with the aid of some psychologists.”

Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us by Seth Godin ** (2008) – “This book weaves together a few big ideas, which taken together, form and irresistible argument. With tribes flourishing everywhere, there’s a vast shortage of leaders. We need you.”

One Minute Super Dad: 99 One-Minute Magic Moments You can Easily Create to Raise Amazing Children and Future Proofing Them by Dr. Prashant Jindal M.D. ( 2013 Kindle Edition) – “There are certain questions you can ask your child to help you both discover your gifts and talents. This way you will be able to provide relevant experiences and encouragement along the way.”

Professional Learning in the Digital Age: The Educator’s Guide to User-Generated Learning by Kristen Swanson ** (2013) – “With beginner-friendly instructions and examples from real schools, Swanson provides digital tools, learner-centered strategies, and exciting resources to help you improve your professional practice and become a lifelong learner.”

Teach Like a Pirate: Increase Student Engagement, Boost Your Creativity, and Transform Your Life as an Educator by Dave Burgess ** (2012) – “Like pirating, teaching is an adventure full of challenges and excitement. The way you approach your adventure can mean the difference between being shipwrecked on Burnout Island or finding buried treasure.”

Flattening Classrooms, Engaging Minds: Move to Global Collaboration One Step at a Time by Julie Lindsay ** and Vicki Davis ** (2013) – “We believe effective use of technology can build bridges between classrooms, nations, and humankind, and that 21st century skills harness not only the power of technology but the power of the people. We need this connection for the future of our planet. It is no longer an option. Students are the greatest textbook ever written for one another and will be travelers on this bridge.”

A New Culture of Learning: Cultivating the Imagination for a World of Constant Change by Douglas Thomas and John Seely Brown (2011) – “Blogs are a medium for learning, but they do not teach. Rather, they generate the space for a collective to emerge. It is impossible to predict what that collective will look like, and once it forms, equally difficult to manage it in any traditional way.”

Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World by Jane McGonigal ** (2011) – “Instead of providing gamers with better and more immersive alternatives to reality, I want all of us to be responsible for providing the world at large with a better and more immersive reality. I want gaming to be something everybody does, because they understand that games can be a real solution to problems and a real source of happiness.”

Why School?: How Education Must Change When Learning and Information Are Everywhere by Will Richardson ** (2012 Kindle Edition) – “The world has changed — and continues changing — rapidly and radically when it comes to the ways in which we can learn, and what knowledge, skills, dispositions, and forms of literacy our children will need to flourish in their futures. Plain and simple, the Web and the technologies we use to access it drive those changes. And those changes are, in a word, profound.”

Now You See It: How Technology and Brain Science Will Transform Schools and Business for the 21st Century by Cathy N. Davidson ** (2011) -”Part of our failure rate in contemporary education can be blamed on the one-size-fits-all model of standards that evolved over the course of the twentieth century; as we narrow the spectrum of skills that we test in schools, more and more kids who have skills outside that spectrum will be labeled as failures. As what counts as learning is increasingly standardized and limited, increasing numbers of students learn in ways that are not measured by those standards.”

The World Is Flat [Further Updated and Expanded; Release 3.0]: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century by Thomas L. Friedman (2007) – “It is heartening to see educators now bypassing traditional intermediaries to share resources, best practices, and information…Some other entrepreneurs are now using the flat-world platform to try to improve government in the United States, because they understand that this new platform gives a whole new power to grassroots activists in a democracy – as opposed to party machines or big media.”

Too Big to Know: Rethinking Knowledge now that the Facts Aren’t the Facts, Experts are Everywhere, and the Smartest Person in the Room is the Room by David Weinberger ** (2011) – “Bringing smart people together is an ancient and effective technique for developing ideas. The Net also lets smart people connect and communicate. But the Net brings people together in new and occasionally weird configurations-a weirdness that is now being reflected in how expertise works. . . .”

Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us byDaniel H. Pink ** (2009) – “…at the start of the school term, ask students about their individual passions and areas of expertise. Keep a list of your experts, and then call upon them as needed throughout the term. A classroom of teachers is a classroom of learners.”

And if I have time, I hope to get in the following books too:

Curriculum 21: Essential Education for a Changing World (2010) Edited by, Heidi Hayes Jacobs
21st Century Skills: Learning for Life in Our Times (2009) by Bernie Trilling and Charles Fadel
Qualitative Research Methods in Education and Educational Technology (2008) by Jerry W. Willis
The Art of Explanation: Making your Ideas, Products, and Services Easier to Understand (2013) by Lee Lefever **
Rigor is NOT a Four-Letter Word, 2nd ed. (2013) by Barbara Blackburn **
How To Deliver A TED Talk: Secrets Of The World’s Most Inspiring Presentations (2012) by Jeremy Donovan

Learning, Teaching, Leading, and Having Fun

Hopefully, I will be offered a teaching job soon, but the hiring season has slowed and to be honest I feel that there isn’t an administrator out there that really cares about my particular job situation. It amazes me that I can pour my heart and soul into a profession, make loose connections, and keep developing as a teacher and leader, yet still be on the outside of the profession peering inside. Why do I continue to desire a secondary social studies teaching job? I can’t help it, I am passionate about teaching and learning.

I am also the kind of person who doesn’t settle for mediocrity. I have always been a reflective practitioner, but just recently have I had the courage to

cc – Alaska Teacher

stand up and speak out, to let my voice be heard. Twitter chats and Google + help me engage with world class leaders to discuss current pedagogy trends and how to best serve students. I started blogging this past fall as part of my reflections upon what I have learned and promoting ideas that matter. Engaging in discussions with other teachers and technology leaders helps me to stay relevant as a classroom teacher yet it makes me yearn even more for a school and a classroom I can call home. I curate articles and pertinent blogs on Scoop.It and Diigo. I am as transparent as transparent gets in the digital online world and I am willing to try things out to see how well researched and emerging trends in pedagogy can impact student learning. I engage in action research and I want learning to be authentic so students can see that what they do matters now.

I came into the social sciences via geography. Geography became my “gateway drug” and history became the content area I fell in love with. See history is more than just wars and dead presidents, it is the study of how we came to be the people we are today and in order to understand who we are today, we have to look at how we developed into that person. Everything has a story behind it and as we look at these stories we gain an appreciation and respect for those that came before us and the hardships they endured and the successes they attained. I am only a second generation American and I know that my paternal grandparents worked very hard to establish their roots in this country.

My own history has been a wild ride. After high school I enlisted in the U.S. Air Force and worked as a wing command post controller and took a college course every semester. After my wild and crazy Air Force days, I attended college full-time for five years majoring in Broadfield Social Studies and Geography and a minor in 5-9 Earth Science. While in college, I worked about 20 hours a week as a master control operator for a local television station. My first and only fourteen year teaching job was in Northern Wisconsin where I taught eighth grade students about U.S. History and life. Along the way I also picked up a certificate in public history, certifications to teach history, economics, and psychology. My wife and I both worked on our masters programs at the same time in a Professional Learning Community format. The last three years of my fourteen year career included teaching seventh graders Introduction to the Social Sciences, 9th grade U.S. History and 10th grade World History, and one semester of 11th/12th grade psychology, as well as my eighth grade course.

My students always saw me learning and trying new things and they were excited by the things that we did in class. Parents were constantly remarking that their child never talked about school until they had me for history class. Now, that is high praise coming from the grade levels I taught!

The school I taught at was a beta test site for many different technologies and I got to use some interesting equipment, programs and the Internet on a daily basis. I even went so far as to volunteer my time to teach other teachers how to better use some of the new technologies like green screens, streaming video, putting together video clips versus watching entire videos, and the list goes on. Change was ever present and I never taught the same way from year to year. I was somewhat ahead of the curve when it came to PBL because I integrated National History Day into the eighth grade curriculum in my school district.

3 1/2 years ago my mother, who lived about 90 miles away, was diagnosed with uterine cancer. In an effort to be closer and be able to help out, my wife and I looked for teaching jobs to be closer to my parents. My wife was hired to teach in the area only 15 minutes from my parents home. I kept trying to find something to no avail. I had to make a decision about whether to keep my teaching job and see my family on weekends or give it up to be with my family. Well, I thought that I could cash in my retirement savings and work anywhere to be with my family and to help my mother.

I subbed for two years, which meant a paycheck that varied from week to week and jobs that ran from working all week to working once or twice a week. Holidays were stressful, no paycheck, and summers were terrible, lack of jobs, no pay, and even food stamps, and trips to the local food pantry. I hated to do it, but for the sake of my family’s welfare and my sanity, I signed on with a temp agency where I have been working at least 40 hours a week for more than a year now. Paid holidays and one week of vacation pay after 1500 hours of work per year, no other benefits.

My wife loses her job at the end of the next school year because we chose to send our kids to a school where my wife doesn’t teach for their middle school and high school years. I was born to research, to be curious, to love learning, and to enjoy working with teenagers. I was not meant to spend my time as a glorified data entry person who stares at a computer screen for 8-10 hours a day. I was meant to be active and actively engaging with others. I need to have the opportunity to try 20% time and see kids thrive on their passions. I need to see kids finding and solving the problems in our world. I need to see kids engaged with kids from other cultures to collaborate on projects. I need to see kids get up and give TED type talks about the things that are important to them. I need to lead teacher professional development so that teachers can see the power of transformative learning.

I need an administrator who will hire me and trust that I will walk the walk and talk the talk. I am a very passionate man when it comes to education and learning. I want to have a principal who can see me as a leader and not be afraid to let me explore, teach, and lead. I also want an administrative team that will challenge me and help extend my thinking. The only thing I want is for just one administrator to give me another chance to look forward to rushing into work the next day because we’re going to have fun and learn.

For the Love of Teaching: What does it Mean to be A Teacher?

Image courtesy of http://teachersreflect.wordpress.com/2012/06/17/transformers/

What does it mean to be a teacher? To me it means everything. If I would have known three years ago, that giving up my fourteen year career as a social studies teacher would mean three years of trying to find another teaching position, I would never have given it up. To be a teacher means that my life is complete, it means that I am doing what I was born to do, it means that I matter. Teaching goes well beyond the classroom walls. When I am not actively engaged with students, I am still thinking about my students and their learning. Lots of people see teaching as a cushy job, you get all major holidays off and two months off in the summer with a decent paycheck and benefits.

If you are only thinking of all the time off, the pay check, and the benefits, then you will not make it as a teacher. See, teaching is a 24/7, 365 profession. I know this from personal experience. Not a day goes by that I am not thinking about teaching, technology in education, teacher professional development, what’s best for learners in our ever-changing digital world, how can I better convince administrators that I am the best prepared, most passionate teacher they could ever desire. I wonder what my students will be like if I ever get hired again. I think about ways that I can utilize their natural curiosity and their passions to make learning authentic and let students know that they matter, that they can make a difference in the world right now.

Teaching is not for the faint of heart because a teacher can literally go through the whole spectrum of emotions in an entire day. Kids do not just drop their personal lives at the classroom door and become consumers of knowledge. Even with their own emotions and those of 25+ students, a teacher has to put the needs of the students first. I may need more support in my classroom, or be upset that I cannot attend a particular technology conference, or dealing with personal relationship issues, but that all needs to be put aside for the good of those precious students.

A teacher does more than just teach a particular subject like social studies, or math. A teacher really has to be a specialist as well as a generalist. No, we can’t know it all, but we do need to be familiar with a lot. A teacher needs to be a guide to students. We need to guide students to ask the proper questions and not be so concerned with the one right answer. I was texting with my thirteen year old daughter during lunch a couple days ago. She was home with strep throat for the second time in a month. I would ask questions and she would continually reply with one word answers. I finally started asking the right questions and got paragraphs about the new book she was reading. It was like pulling teeth, but the payoff was worth it. A teacher has to be able to hang in there with students until they can get them hooked into learning.

Teachers need to be able to differentiate instruction, provide quality lessons, and allow for student choice in matters of research and assessment. A teacher needs to be able to handle challenging students and to challenge students all at the same time. No one knows what the world will be like when our students graduate from high school or college so teachers need to make sure that they keep up with changes in technology as well as changes in the workforce. This means that a teacher needs to become accustomed to change and not get set in their ways. Being flexible and adaptable must be a part of a teachers repertoire, because students will need to learn these same skills.

Being a teacher is so much more involved than just the physical act of teaching. Being a teacher means being involved as a learner. Being a teacher means being a life-long learner and a curious soul. We need to serve as models for our students and if a teacher is not continually learning and adapting then they cannot expect the students to just acquire those skills.

Teaching is a lifestyle. When I became a teacher I wanted to have an impact on kids lives, I wanted them to love history as much as I did. After 14 years of teaching I have learned that I can be an expert in history but that isn’t going to make my students love history. I now want my students to love learning and be able to select proper ways to locate the information they need when they want to know it. Kids will see that I am passionate and knowledgeable about my content area and some may come to enjoy that content as well, but the best benefit of all is that they will become curious learners who will also become passionate about what they do.

I want to be a teacher so badly that I feel separated from a part of myself. I want to teach so that I can fulfill my destiny. I want to teach so that I can live my life fully and happily. All it will take for me to teach is for one, just one administrator to have faith in me and truly want what is best for the students in his or her district or school.

I Am A Teacher

Inspired by Nicholas Provenzano’s (@thenerdyteacher) recent post I am Not the Enemy

My life is teaching, I can do nothing about where my passion lies. I need to teach.

My life is not complete if I am not teaching. A restless soul searching for a home. I need to teach.

I do what I say and say what I do. There’s no lip service to the term life-long learner for me. I need to teach.

Students, curious, exploring, designing, learning. I need to teach.

A home away from home, a community within a community, loving, caring, sharing, supporting. I need to teach.

Technology, pitfalls, literacies, safety, digital footprints, social media gone awry. I need to teach.

Being there when students need me most. Helping, crying, sharing life’s journey. I need to teach.

Messy, organized chaos, projects, follow your passion, everyone of you matter. I need to teach.

Modeling compassion and fortitude. Staying focused and not giving up. I need to teach.

Meeting challenges and welcoming each new day’s opportunities. I need to teach.

Teaching is learning and learning is teaching. There is so much I need to learn. I need to teach.

Laughter and joy. Wonder and awe. Beauty and majesty. Making meaning from all. I need to teach.

Questions. More questions. Discovery and failure. A glimmer of hope for all. I need to teach.

A teacher’s job is unending it’s a calling from above. It’s life changing and important your work is never done. I need to teach.

My heart and soul yearns for a classroom and students, colleagues and administrators, meetings and collaboration. I need to teach.

I am unique. I am a teacher. Reach out in support and give me a chance to do what I was called to do. I need to teach.

I need to teach, it is my very life and soul.

Education in North Carolina: Growing to Greatness

It was reported in a recent article of the News-Record.com that education in North Carolina has been lagging the rest of the country Op-Ed: Broken schools or broken reform? As reported, North Carolina ranks 46^th in the nation in teacher salaries, 51^st in income advancement over the past decade, and 48^th in per pupil spending. With these abysmal figures hot off the press what in the world would drive a person to actually want a teaching job in North Carolina?

Teaching has never been a get rich scheme, and people know this going into the field of education. Teachers are people who love kids, enjoy the quest for knowledge, and share the interesting things that they find. Teachers are also curious, imaginative, caring, and always trying to find the best ways for each student to learn. Teaching is a calling in that you have to truly believe that what you are teaching and who you are teaching matters.

North Carolina is so very fortunate to have some of the biggest stars in education working to help all students and teachers succeed. The following list is not all-inclusive and I know I have probably left out some very important people. I put together this list based upon a simple twitter search of people I follow. I was seeing North Carolina pop up quite a bit and I started keeping track. Of any state in the union the most people I follow are from NC. This was not intentional and I began to notice the magnitude of teachers from North Carolina, after I applied for and interviewed for a high school social studies job at North Moore High School near Robbins, North Carolina.

For me a teaching job in North Carolina would mean not only the ability to teach but to also collaborate with some of the best teachers in the world. There are awesome things going on in education all over the state. Even though statistics show that teachers aren’t worth much in North Carolina, the statistics seem to hide the true value that lies within the teachers of the state of North Carolina. I hope that by the end of the week I will be able to count myself among these hidden gems of the Tar Heel state.

20 HIDDEN GEMS

North Carolina has some true hidden gems among the ranks of teacher leaders. This is true success through involvement.

Jeff Carpenter         @doccarpenter                     Elon University                                                       Durham, NC

Dr. David Stegall     @davidstegall                      Newton-Conover City Schools

Cindy Geddes          @cindygeddes                       Newton-Conover City Schools

Heather Mullins       @Carolinablondie              NC Department of Public Instruction                Hickory, NC

Jayme Linton           @jaymelinton                       Lenoir-Rhyne Univ.

Jennifer LaGarde   @jenniferlagarde                New Hanover Schools and NC Dept. of Public Instruct

Andrew Thomasson @thomasson_engl          Forestview High School                                       Gastonia, NC

Jill Thompson          @Edu_Thompson              Adjunct Prof, CEO of Edulum

Steven Anderson    @web20classroom             Educator, Speaker, Blogger                     Winston-Salem, NC

Dr. Aaron Spence   @MCSDrSpence                 Superintendent Moore County               Southern Pines, NC

Austin C. Parker 8⃣  @theone_AP                                                                                                          north c-ville

Robert Breyer ‏         @rbreyer51                           H.S. Assistant Principal                             Moore County, NC

Craig Smith              @CSmithGoBlue                 HS Assistant Principal                 Huntersville/Gastonia, NC

Dr. Reida Roberts   @ReidaJane                       Elem. Principal                                            Bladen County, NC

Dr. Cathy Davidson @CathyNDavidson          Duke                                                                           Durham, NC

Barbara Blackburn @BarbBlackburn              Keynote Speaker, Author, & Consultant

Bill Ferriter               @plugusin                            classroom teacher, author                                      Raleigh, NC

Timothy Gwynn       @tgwynn                              Tech Facilitator                                                      Charlotte, NC

David Warlick          @dwarlick                             30+ year educator, author                                      Raleigh, NC

Nancy Mangum       @nmangum                           Instructional Technologist                                     Raleigh, NC

GO MUSTANGS!

Today I have the honor of interviewing with Mrs. Jennifer Purvis for a Social Studies teaching and football coaching job at North Moore High School. Technology don’t fail me now Skype is the medium we will be using for today’s interview. Wish me luck! 8-)

The interview went very well! Mrs. Purvis is delightful to talk with and assistant principal Mrs. Carla Neal is very supportive. I hope that they saw that my family and I can bring a lot more to North Moore than just a teacher. I truly hope that they got a sense that we would be involved in every way possible with the school community within and outside of the school day. I hope that my passion for helping kids achieve their goals came through clearly. I also hope that they saw me as someone they could call on whenever they need any help.

Education is one of the highest callings that there is and being a teacher means much more than closing the classroom door, lecturing, reading, and filling out worksheets. Education is about community. Teachers are community builders and what they do and say can have lasting consequences. I take my role as teacher, facilitator, and coach seriously. To me teaching is not a job it is a life. Teaching is my life, my passion, my calling, my love.

There is so much to learn, so much to do, and so much to experience. Passing on this excitement for life and learning is what a teacher need to be able to do. No book and pencil test is going to do that for many students. A teacher must, absolutly must model the excitement and joy of life. It was truly a blessing to speak with Mrs. Purvis and Mrs. Neal this morning. I hope that they will think of me often when they think about filling their open social studies job. Wish me luck and keep me in your prayers (hopefully my next post will be titled, look out North Carolina here we come)!

Too Much Education!

Is it possible to have too much education? I have been wondering about this question for a couple of years now as I search in earnest for a secondary education social studies teaching job. I’m beginning to think that having an advanced degree is actually handicapping my job search.

While growing up, getting an education was a very big deal. I remember my dad saying to me one time while I was in high school something along the lines of, “you’re going there to learn, it’s not a fashion show.” My dad was always pushing me to be self-sufficient, a self-advocate, hard working, honest, and educated. My dad was very successful in his field with an associate degree in accounting, a good work ethic, and loyalty to his employer. He raised four children and his wife (my mother) was able to stay home to try and mold these children into respectable citizens.

I had a dream of becoming a fighter pilot protecting our country’s skies from Soviet communism so I joined the U.S. Air Force right after high school. My plan was to work my air force job and take classes part-time until I had a bachelor degree and then apply for officer candidate school and go through the process of flight training. The tide turned one night as I was confronted with a decision. The decision was whether to stay in the air force and pursue my dream or leave the air force to attend college full-time. See, the job I had in the air force required me to work a rotation of different shifts every week, which made it very difficult to take more than one course per semester. I had worked with pilots very closely every day in my job and the reality of being a pilot became not as glamorous as it once had appeared.

I was talking to my dad on the telephone one night and I asked him for advice about what I should do. He told me that he could not make that decision for me, but it would be advantageous to do something that I enjoy and something I was good at. Looking back on that night, I really wish that he had told me to stay in the air force for sixteen more years. At this point in time I would have been retired for seven years on a full pension. Well, I took my dad’s advice and decided to pursue a degree in geography (I have really good geo-spatial abilities) and become a teacher.

As I was in college, I decided that I would also pursue a major in social studies, and since I really enjoyed physical geography, I would get a minor in earth science. Those of us pursuing degrees in the social sciences were told and advised to either not go the social studies route to teaching or to make ourselves very uniquely qualified as it would be difficult for us to find jobs as social studies teachers. I was the first person at the university I attended to become a 5 – 12 certified social studies and geography teacher with a 5 – 9 certification in earth science (this qualified as a unique qualification as all other secondary teachers were certified 6 – 12 and I was the only person with a 5 – 9 endorsement). Over a five year time period, I had a double major, a minor, and teacher preparation it all amounted to a Bachelor of Science degree with a whopping total of 179 undergraduate semester credits.

My mom and dad were both proud that I graduated from college, and I’m sure my parents were just as proud that I had financed my way through college debt free by receiving a combination of scholarships, GI Bill benefits, and working at least 20 hours per week as I attended school full-time. I did it myself. I was what was considered at the time, a self-made man. I landed my first teaching job one month after graduation and I was ecstatic to begin teaching as a career.

The more I taught, the more I learned and that pursuit of knowledge lead to a 30 semester credit Master degree in Education – Professional Development. Right after my master’s program, I received a fellowship from the department of education to pursue a twelve-semester credit graduate certificate in public history. By this time I had enough credits to become certified to teach not only social studies, geography, and earth science but also psychology, economics, and history. I had also taken some student teaching supervisor courses and attended a summer institute in geography education. When I left teaching just over three years ago I thought that with my degrees and varied experiences working since I was twelve, that I could do just about any job that someone would hire me to do because I had proven that I could learn and that I was a good teacher and learner. Couldn’t be further from the truth. Once I left college and began teaching the quest for knowledge became an unquenchable thirst for knowledge a hunger to learn more.

Today, I have 179 semester undergraduate credits and 75 semester graduate credits. I hold a Bachelor of Science degree, a Master of Education – Professional Development degree, a Public History graduate certificate, an Instructional Design graduate certificate, and half of an eLearning graduate certificate.

What does all this mean? It means that I have priced myself out of my own field! Not only is it seemingly impossible to find a job as a secondary social studies teacher, but no one wants to hire a secondary social studies teacher with a Master degree plus 45 graduate credits. Schools are in a tough spot economically and they apparently are hiring only candidates with bachelor degrees. According to the education department at my local university, very few people in education are seeking master degrees any more.

I have been job searching for over three years now and I have had only one interview for a teaching related job. What is the sense in pursuing further education as a teacher if no one wants to hire you because of how much education you have? I thought that as teachers we were to model life-long learning? Is it truly life-long learning, but without the credits, please? Is the message that school boards, human resource departments, and administrators sending to teachers, develop professionally, but don’t take too many credits? What am I to make of all this? Is it just me or is it true that I have attained the impossible?

Now I am truly in a pickle. People are actually suggesting that I lie, that I hide the fact that I have more than a bachelor degree! I am supposed to cover up my credentials in order to reenter the field that I love, doing something I am passionate about, doing work that matters. I like Angela Maiers’s saying, “You matter,” very much, but school districts have been saying to me for over three years now, you do not matter because you are too expensive! So, in my profession I do NOT matter and I CANNOT make a difference because no one will let me.

Some of you might be thinking that maybe my resume or cover letters are the reasons I am not getting any interviews. Well, I have had human resource directors look at them, recruiting professionals look at them, and they have been reviewed by some of the best administrators and teachers in the field of education and they all give both the letter and resume a thumbs up. So, where does the problem lie? Too much education!

Image courtesy: http://mcacesblogs.wordpress.com

A Day in the Life

SOME BACKGROUND

I was a full-time social studies teacher for fourteen years. For the last five years of that time, my wife, also a social studies teacher, stayed at home to raise our four children. In 2009, my wife wanted to get back into full-time teaching. I thought that it was now my turn to give since my wife has always given so much of herself. I told my wife that if she landed a full-time teaching job that was more than an hour away from where I was teaching that we would move for her job. I would give up my teaching job and be able to find a full-time job in teaching, business, or industry if I had to. After all, I have marketable skills and a Masters degree and I had never been without employment since the time I was twelve years old.

Needless to say, 2009 was the wrong time to leave a job of any kind, especially that of a social studies teacher. We have struggled for the past three-plus years and I have broadened my teaching job search to include ALL English speaking countries. Unfortunately, there appears to be a dearth of social studies teachers world wide. No one needs social studies teachers. The market is flooded!

My wife teaches at a private, Catholic, classical academy and because we are sending our children to the other Catholic school in town for middle school on, my wife will be asked to leave her current position at the end of next school year.

After spending some time over the past three years as a contract writer, copy writer, editor, and substitute teacher, we desperately needed full-time employment for me. I have been working as a credentialing coordinator through a job agency for the past year and I long to be back in the classroom.

TYPICAL DAY

I usually get up around 5:00 am and I am at my desk by 7:00 am. I basically do data entry, staring at a computer screen until lunch at 11:30am. At 12:30 pm I return back to my desk and computer and stare at the screen manipulating data until 4:30 pm.

From 5:00 pm until 5:30 pm I have supper with my family. After supper, I generally watch one television show for a half hour to an hour. I do this in order to prepare for my attention to shift to my laptop for the rest of the evening. If I’m not working on tasks for an online course, then I am doing research on social media websites for educational technology topics. If I’m not engaged in one of those activities I am looking for and applying for teaching jobs anywhere in the world, except the places my wife refuses to move to (Afghanistan, Pakistan, pretty much the entire Middle East, and China).

This process lasts until somewhere between 10:00 pm and 12:30 am. And then I try to get some sleep. The weekends are a little different in that I usually only work four hours on Saturday (we need the overtime to make ends meet). We occasionally will do something as a family like go out for coffee or visit the local Barnes and Noble store or visit my parents or my wife’s parents. Sunday includes, church and maybe a family game late in the afternoon. Other than those brief distractions it’s research, class, or networking and job searching.

That’s it! That’s a day in my life. A former colleague of mine recently asked me if I was happy. As a person, I am happy for all that God has given me. As a teacher I am frustrated in having to continually look for a job. The pressure is really on to find something permanent and full-time with benefits because next year my wife will be out of her full-time teaching job which we literally sacrificed for.

I hope and pray every day that I will find full-time with benefits employment soon. I hope that God still wants me to teach but He has not opened any doors in that direction which confuses me to no end. At the end of the day I can be happy in the knowledge that I have put in a full day and that I am trying my hardest to find out where God would like me to be

Stories – Using a New Technology to Tell My Story

The past couple weeks #etMOOC has been focusing on storytelling. While that was going on, I was focusing on my instructional design for eLearning course that I am taking from UW-Stout toward earning a graduate certificate. I highly doubt that the certificate will help me get a job but the course is keeping me occupied. I have spent the past week trying to get the other students and the instructor to understand connectivism and rhizomatic learning. The e-learning course tries to be student centered but it really is not. It centers around a textbook, other readings selected by the instructor, there is a syllabus and an outcome map. Kind of the antithesis of what we are trying to accomplish in relation to 21st Century learning.

In the spirit of the #etMOOC, I humbly submit my story via Haiku Deck.
http://www.haikudeck.com/p/FLY7rPrR5F/filled-with-disappointment

Uncertainty of Abundance and Choice

It has been one of those wild and crazy weeks. Work has been stressful and now I am taking two courses, one on e-learning instructional design for credit and toward a certificate, and the etMOOC. I thought for sure that my blogging would take a hit this week, as I also need to plan a presentation on teachers using twitter in the classroom.

Using twitter and other social media networks has become an intricate part of my every day life. If I’m not sharing then I’m learning, if I’m not sharing or learning, then I’m either reading off-line, spending time with my family, watching old episodes of Boy Meets World (trying to get teaching pointers from Mr. Feeny), or at work. Whew!

The main ideas that have dominated my thinking this past week has been the idea of learning styles and the idea of personalized learning. For some reason Sue Waters has been on my mind as well as how the main presenters for etMOOC have been either Canadian or Australian. I looked up the education rankings by country online and found that the U.K., Ireland, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand (English speaking countries) are all ahead of the U.S.

LEARNING STYLES

The controversy over learning styles continues. I have come to the personal conclusion that there are not different learning styles. ‘What this means for instructors, Mr. Pashler says, is that they should not waste any time or energy trying to determine the composition of learning styles in their classrooms. (Are 50 percent of my students visual learners? Are 20 percent of them kinesthetic learners?)

Instead, teachers should worry about matching their instruction to the content they are teaching. Some concepts are best taught through hands-on work, some are best taught through lectures, and some are best taught through group discussions.” See article here. Deb Peterson wrote a nice piece for About.com on the controversy over learning styles. You can read her article here.

I do know that we learn through our senses and that a web based digital world changes the way that we think and learn. Involve more senses in real situations and learning is more apt to take place. Restak, a researcher in the UK has the following to say on the topic, “What does seem to be important is that learning activities should stimulate several parts of the brain simultaneously since this promotes the increased neural interconnectedness associated with the development of increased cognitive capacity. Repetition and practice also seem to be important since they bequeath thickening of the myelin insulation on the axons of the neurons and this favors future thinking speed and accuracy.” See article here.

Now it may seem like splitting hairs but all of the “multiple intelligences” that are quoted by Howard Gardner can be found with varying degrees within every individual. To me, I think that as teachers we should focus on making sure that we include as many senses as possible when teaching and assessing students and teach using various modalities.

PERSONALIZED LEARNING

I have become a very vocal advocate for personalized learning. Whether it is self-learning by reading books, blogs, and papers or watching YouTube videos I learn something. Dave Comier gave a presentation on rhizomatic learning that gave me pause to think deeply, I know, it did hurt. Dave states in his most recent blog post, “Our challenge was in learning how to choose, how to deal with the uncertainty of abundance and choice presented by the Internet. In translating this experience to the classroom, I try to see the open web and the connections we create between people and ideas as the curriculum for learning. In a sense, participating in the community is the curriculum.”

Just by participating in the form of reading, blogging, watching, listening, curating, thinking, I am learning. What bothers me about rhizomatic learning is how to measure that learning, how to quantify that learning, how to have learning evaluated? I guess that this can be a personal choice also.

There are people willing to help others achieve their goals of personalized learning. One example is Peer 2 Peer University where courses are taught, badges can be earned, and learning credentialed or validated by peers. Wikiversity is another way to learn collaboratively using Open Education Resources (OERs) and Wikipedia. I do not know enough about this form to tell if it has true value or not. Another source of personalized learning is WikiQuals. This is true democratic personalized learning. Using affinity partners that can range from family members to peers, learning can go in any direction and validated through peer review and openness.

What can I say about Sue Waters? She is Australian, blogs a lot, and teaches teachers how to use blogging in the classroom. She is also pretty good with technology and its educational uses. You can follow Sue’s blogging exploits at http://suewaters.com/ trust me, you will want to follow this educational leader.

Cat Meme by http://tainith.dailykos.com/

Rhizomatic Learning via Flickr by giulia.forsythe