This is a blatant self-promotion post. The local news did a nice story about the #MyParty12 election project which you can see here.
Side question: Why do I feel uncomfortable promoting what we are doing? Why don't teachers share more the good things happening in their classrooms?
Side note: At my current job at the county level, we have a marketing department of three employees. They are the ones with the connections to get the media in our school. How many districts have marketing staff? Should they? How can we change the education conversation in this country without sharing what we are doing?
Monday, October 29, 2012
Sunday, October 21, 2012
Student-created Political Parties
So here is the follow up to the What My Students Believe about Politics post. For phase two students formed groups based on common ideas as discovered from isidewith.com. Students then created their own parties including name, slogan, logo, campaign platform, and 30 second commercial. They then premiered them this week in front of state representative along with a 2 minute stump speech. Overall they did a great job and I feel like the energy and interest in this project was the highest I have seen. Students definitely made an impression on the representatives. Check out their commercials and their party platforms are linked in the YouTube descriptions.
Which one is your favorite? One of these is going on to our network wide competition.
Which one is your favorite? One of these is going on to our network wide competition.
Saturday, October 13, 2012
MEAP Me Maybe
A local school made this to "pump" kids up to take the state tests this week called MEAP in Michigan. My daughter was shown it before she took her tests.
Most disturbing lines:
"I'm crazy worried"
"I fill the bubbles in and hope that it's right. I can't sleep at night."
Most accurate lines:
"MEAP, Since you came into my life I didn't miss you that bad."
There is so much about this that is disturbing to me. Why should elementary students be stressed by high stakes testing? Teachers are reaching at anything to motivate students because of the over-emphasis on these one time tests.
As for my own children they were not even allowed to read books or draw when they finished testing. They just had to sit there.
When the testing was over for the week they did have time to watch a Disney movie. Sigh
What on earth did they learn this week?
Most disturbing lines:
"I'm crazy worried"
"I fill the bubbles in and hope that it's right. I can't sleep at night."
Most accurate lines:
"MEAP, Since you came into my life I didn't miss you that bad."
There is so much about this that is disturbing to me. Why should elementary students be stressed by high stakes testing? Teachers are reaching at anything to motivate students because of the over-emphasis on these one time tests.
As for my own children they were not even allowed to read books or draw when they finished testing. They just had to sit there.
When the testing was over for the week they did have time to watch a Disney movie. Sigh
What on earth did they learn this week?
Thursday, October 11, 2012
Why we have trouble mobilizing our voice.
This post is a response to Scott McLeod's post Why are we educators having so much trouble mobilizing our voice in ways that are effective.
Scott's post really resonated with my thoughts this week. I want to share a personal story that I think addresses Scott's questions.
I teach in a PBL school that is part of the New Tech Network of over one hundred schools. Our class is participating in the #MYparty12 election project across our network. Students are creating their own political parties and voting on them based on their platforms and campaign commercials. Students are also watching the debates and tweeting about them, inviting in state politicians, and collaborating with other schools in different ways.
Yesterday I received an email and later had phone conversations with a producer of a national TV program that is interested in doing a story about the project. We are very excited about the possibility of this happening although it remains only a possibility at this point.
What I would like to share is the effort it took to get to this point. I was at New Tech training that they provide for us this summer and met many of their amazing staff. I also volunteered to do an Ignite talk at the conference which led me to develop closer relationships with both New Tech personnel and other New Tech teachers. I also network with many educators both in and out of New Tech through this blog and Twitter. While at the conference I had the crazy idea of a network wide project centered around the election. I immediately shared it with these teachers and staff.
We all agreed to make this happen and over the summer and into the fall we had numerous emails sent, virtual meetings, and created many documents to share with other teachers. The classroom teachers worked hard to develop the project and the supporting materials and dreamed up crazy ideas to implement it. This was a lot of work and time consuming but we would have done this work for our classes anyway.
Here is my main point: New Tech Network made this project huge in ways we never could have by ourselves. Three of their staff have committed considerable time and energy to this project: a professional marketer, a social media expert, and a person who has just organized the collaboration and done all of the "dirty work" behind the scenes. By myself I never would have had the time, energy, or connections to pull this off and then "advertise" it to get the attention of a national network. I am busy teaching my students in my classroom.
I blog; I tweet; I share at state and local conferences. But I do not have the ability to influence the national policy on education. New Tech Network does. And it has professional marketers / lobbyists who are making the connections in the media and in Washington D.C.
I am not saying that New Tech Network is going to solve all of the education problems in this country by itself. What I am trying to show is that the average classroom teacher, me, does not have the ability to have a loud voice in isolation. The power of a large network of schools is that we can mobilize large projects and have professionals market them. If I was to pick from Scott's choices of why we are having trouble mobilizing our voices I would say we are being outspent and need to do a better job of marketing.
My conclusion is this (which I have said before) I think we need lobbyists in DC who represent progressive, student-centered inquiry as a model of education. We need money and someone who can build connections with both Congress and the Department of Education and "sell" a better way to do school than test prep and standardized tests.
Any takers??? I would donate $50 for that person's salary and if everyone on blogs and Twitter that says they care about these issues pitched in I think we could afford a few lobbyists.
Scott's post really resonated with my thoughts this week. I want to share a personal story that I think addresses Scott's questions.
I teach in a PBL school that is part of the New Tech Network of over one hundred schools. Our class is participating in the #MYparty12 election project across our network. Students are creating their own political parties and voting on them based on their platforms and campaign commercials. Students are also watching the debates and tweeting about them, inviting in state politicians, and collaborating with other schools in different ways.
Yesterday I received an email and later had phone conversations with a producer of a national TV program that is interested in doing a story about the project. We are very excited about the possibility of this happening although it remains only a possibility at this point.
What I would like to share is the effort it took to get to this point. I was at New Tech training that they provide for us this summer and met many of their amazing staff. I also volunteered to do an Ignite talk at the conference which led me to develop closer relationships with both New Tech personnel and other New Tech teachers. I also network with many educators both in and out of New Tech through this blog and Twitter. While at the conference I had the crazy idea of a network wide project centered around the election. I immediately shared it with these teachers and staff.
We all agreed to make this happen and over the summer and into the fall we had numerous emails sent, virtual meetings, and created many documents to share with other teachers. The classroom teachers worked hard to develop the project and the supporting materials and dreamed up crazy ideas to implement it. This was a lot of work and time consuming but we would have done this work for our classes anyway.
Here is my main point: New Tech Network made this project huge in ways we never could have by ourselves. Three of their staff have committed considerable time and energy to this project: a professional marketer, a social media expert, and a person who has just organized the collaboration and done all of the "dirty work" behind the scenes. By myself I never would have had the time, energy, or connections to pull this off and then "advertise" it to get the attention of a national network. I am busy teaching my students in my classroom.
I blog; I tweet; I share at state and local conferences. But I do not have the ability to influence the national policy on education. New Tech Network does. And it has professional marketers / lobbyists who are making the connections in the media and in Washington D.C.
I am not saying that New Tech Network is going to solve all of the education problems in this country by itself. What I am trying to show is that the average classroom teacher, me, does not have the ability to have a loud voice in isolation. The power of a large network of schools is that we can mobilize large projects and have professionals market them. If I was to pick from Scott's choices of why we are having trouble mobilizing our voices I would say we are being outspent and need to do a better job of marketing.
My conclusion is this (which I have said before) I think we need lobbyists in DC who represent progressive, student-centered inquiry as a model of education. We need money and someone who can build connections with both Congress and the Department of Education and "sell" a better way to do school than test prep and standardized tests.
Any takers??? I would donate $50 for that person's salary and if everyone on blogs and Twitter that says they care about these issues pitched in I think we could afford a few lobbyists.
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