Do Not Lump Our Students Into One Category

It is a sad turn of events when an educator starts to lump our children into one category by making haphazard statements that every child of a certain race, ethnic group, or physical or mental disability cannot accomplish what other groups or communities can. This educator is indiscriminately grouping all of our children together instead of looking at their unique strengths and abilities.

Some of our students may not have the exposure or rich experiences as some of their counterparts. It should be our mission to give them exposure and rich experiences by weaving it into our lessons. Make every day an interesting and exciting journey into ‘undiscovered’ topics. Pull out all the stops, grab their attention and take them on an adventure! Reading alone is okay but bringing that book to life is better.

Our students, even those who lack in exposure, are on different levels of learning. Figure out their learning styles and deliver your information in a way that they can receive it. We must meet them where they are, finding common ground, and taking them to where they can stand on their own amongst their counterparts.

Do some of our students have great deficits? Yes. With all of the focus on assessments is it hard to find the time to give them what they need? Yes. Do we need to overcome those challenges and find ways to make the most of every moment that our students have with us? YES.

For those of you who may have forgotten, ALL of our children CAN learn!!! Will you be the one to invest time, energy, and your resources to ensure that it happens? Will you be the one to choose to not focus on the deficits or behaviors but focus on the possibility? I hope your response is a resounding YES.

New Year, New Zeal

Writing the blog and the book is an outlet to encourage the masses that although we face many challenges we cannot give up on the dream. We must get to the final act and be able to look back and say that we gave it our all. We will beam with pride and relief as we watch our students go to the next level, ready for the new challenge.
This is the time when we need to hold ourselves accountable for what goes on in our classrooms. Yes, I know you may not have everything you need or want but that is irrelevant. You must press pass that and find ways to give your students what they need! Leave the pity party and get in the game! Renew your zeal and passion for teaching. Become contagious and the leader that your school so desperately needs. It's up to you!
Craig Harper list fifty things that highly successful people do, here are four:
7. They rarely complain (waste of energy). All complaining does is put the complainer in a negative and unproductive state.
21. They don’t believe in, or wait for fate, destiny, chance or luck to determine or shape their future. They believe in, and are committed to actively and consciously creating their own best life.

26. Their desire to be exceptional means that they typically do things that most won’t. They become exceptional by choice. We’re all faced with life-shaping decisions almost daily. Successful people make the decisions that most won’t and don’t.

37. They are resilient. When most would throw in the towel, they’re just warming up.

Do not give up on yourself or the students that you teach. I hope over your break you have taken time to refocus and renew your mind. In the midst of the battle sometimes it is hard to know whose winning, but as long as you keep fighting for the one everyone else has given up on, you win!
Have a great new year!

Are You Someone's Superman?

I just finish watching the documentary, "Waiting for Superman." If you have not seen it, you should make a point to watch it soon. One of its main messages is that any student can learn if they are taught by a "good" teacher. It made me think about how effective I am and how much more effective I could be if I tweak a few things.

The film sheds light on the red tape that prevents us from moving forward in our education system here in the United States and how we are behind in Reading and Mathematics. There is a discussion about public schools versus charter schools and what they call "dropout factories." The differences in them all are teachers that are effective. My question is how can we become effective within our own schools.

I would venture to say that it has a lot to do with our attitudes. Currently and in the past, I have worked with many teachers that are frustrated with the system or comfortable with the minimum. There are teachers that seem to thrive on complaining from the time they enter the building until they leave with some taking it beyond the school house and complaining in any forum they can find. I wonder how so much complaining affects their ability to teach and deal with their students. If they are always mad about something I am sure that it is seeping into their classroom.

The film spoke on teachers’ tenure and how hard it is to fire someone who is not producing. In my opinion, these are teachers that either have a lack of training and accountability or those who have been teaching one way for so long that they are out of touch with today's realities.

The "fixes" discussed did not focus on changing the paradigm of teachers so we need to change it from within and ask ourselves some questions. Why would you want to be mediocre? Why would you not want to give a child hope to go beyond whatever his/her living conditions may be? Why wouldn't you want to be part of the solution? Certainly complaining about and continuing to do what you have always done is not working? Do you believe that one person can bring about change for a community? Are you the one who can do it?

There are parents out there that know that they are not in a great environment and want more for their children. We can be a bridge for those parents and their children right where they are. We should purpose to partner with these parents and teachers that have not given up and make a difference.

For those that would like to strive to go beyond the average teacher there are steps that you can take. The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards has a program where you can become a nationally certified teacher. It helps teacher become more engaged and a master at their craft. The process forces educators to evaluate and analyzes the “what”, “why”, and “how” they teach in the classroom. It is designed to make educators the best at what they do, building collaborative relationships, videotaping lessons so that the teacher could analyzes what was effective and what was not, as well as examining what could have been done differently to reach every student. This isn’t the only way but the concepts used in the program causes you to really think about what you are doing.

Whatever direction you take purpose to become a “Superman” for some child who needs hope injected into their life. Be the catapult of success for someone who may not see a need to read or do mathematics. Show them that they can make options for themselves.