"This is hard!"

"This is hard!" one of my students exclaimed in class this afternoon.

It is my middle school curriculum and instruction course; in the catalog, we call it Planning, Instruction, and Assessment in Middle Schools. Basically, it's a general methods course for thinking about what teachers do (plan, instruct, and assess) and it's tailored to folks who are hoping and planning to teach in grades 5-8.

It's a new course for me. I have a strong background in curriculum and instruction (my masters degree was in this field) and I taught middle school for 14 years before beginning this adventure of teaching future teachers. But it's a new course for me. And, the first time you teach anything, you can't be quite sure how it's going to go.

I'm thankful that I have some fantastic colleagues who are teaching the elementary and high school versions of this course. (Ed and Mary Beth, you are gems!) The three of us are able to share ideas and resources and try to keep things more or less similar in structure between these three courses, while also recognizing that there are some differences in the way elementary, middle school, and high school teachers conduct their work.

However...all teachers, regardless of the age of their students, have to plan, instruct, and assess.

Image by David Muir [CC BY-NC-ND 2.0]

We have done some reading about these three elements, and I've lectured a bit, and we have discussed these topics a bit. We have looked at some curriculum materials and textbooks. We've done some initial examination of standards documents, such as the Common Core State Standards. I have shared with them Wiggins & McTighe's Understanding by Design framework for thinking about planning, assessment, and instruction. We have examined a few different lesson planning templates.

But we've really only had a taste of each of these so far. And, at the encouragement of my colleagues, I figured it's time to start pulling things together, and putting it into practice.

So, in class today, I sort of tossed my students into the deep end of the pool.

The More Things Change...

We had a family gathering yesterday, and I wound up talking with my wife's 90+ year-old grandfather for at least an hour or so. I think my wife felt a little sorry that I was "stuck" with Grandpa for so long, but it was actually really, really great: he was sharing memories from his childhood and adolescence growing up in the ranchlands of the Great Plains.

He told great stories: a train ride from Chicago he remembers well. Breaking horses when he was a hired hand on a ranch. The amazing amount of dust that would seep in through through the cracks of the house during the years of the Dust Bowl. Grasshoppers and locust that would strip the wheat fields of anything green. Hitch-hiking 400 miles when he left home to move to Minnesota at age 16. His first paying job, where he worked for three dollars a day, and felt good about the money he made.

And--very interesting to me--he told about the country school he attended from grades 1-8.

There were about 30 students in the school at a time. Teachers rarely lasted for more than one year. He was humble about his academic work--didn't want to brag--but he completed the first and second grade in one year's time, and skipped the fifth grade entirely, because he would have been the only student...and the teacher asked his parents if they would be all right with him moving on to sixth grade early, so he would have classmates studying the same material.

Image by bdinphoenix [CC BY-NC-ND 2.0]

Backwards Is Better

Mutemath is one of my favorite bands. These guys are quirky showmen, but they have a ton of heart behind their music. The videos they have released for some of their songs illustrate their odd sense of humor. I think this video for their song "Typical" (released back in 2007) might be the best example I can provide. It's worth the four minutes to watch:

Into the Deep End of the Pool

My kids had swimming lessons this morning and it got me thinking about how much I used to dread swimming lessons when I was young. As we were heading out the door, I had a strange pit in my stomach, and I am pretty sure it was just that feeling of remembering my fear of having to jump into the deep end of the pool, which is still a strong association for me with the whole idea of "swimming lessons"--even 30 years later.

Which is silly, I know...I'm a grown-up now, and I know how to swim, and I actually enjoy making a big splash off the diving board and all that.

But there's an analogue here...

Image from VentureofFaith

Scrounging: Designing a Course

Image by Marcin Wichary
CC BY 2.0

I had a professor in my teacher education program who once told us, "Great teachers are scroungers. They are always on the look out for materials, curriculum, and techniques that they can scavenge and bring into their own classroom."

I didn't appreciate this as much at the time as I do now.

I've been participating in an online workshop this summer for faculty teaching online courses; it's been a great experience, and I've learned a lot already in the weeks we've been working together. I'm excited that I have the opportunity to put my newfound learning immediately into practice. I'm teaching several online courses this summer, and they start today! One of these courses I've taught several times online before (whew!) and the other, in two sections (high enrollment is a blessing!), is brand new, which is exciting and a little terrifying at the same time.

A View of Curriculum from 30,000 Feet

Image: Jorge Royan [CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

So we had a quick trip to a warm, sunny spot (lovely) and on the flight home I was doing some reading to prepare for a course I'm teaching this summer. The book was Curriculum 21: Essential Education for a Changing World, edited by Heidi Hayes Jacobs. I'm enjoying the book very much, and challenged by it at the same time: it's well-written, compelling, thoughtful stuff about the curricular needs for students, teachers, schools, and society in the 21st Century.

As I read, we hit enough turbulence that I was feeling a little airsick and put the book down for a bit. It got me thinking about flying.

School and Life

I saw this online today, and it got me...

Tried to find a source for this one. Found it here, here, here, and here.
I wish people would make it easier to give proper credit for great images.
With thanks to @delta_dc for sharing it via Twitter.

What do you think?

Truth?

Or Fiction?

Please comment to share your reaction!

Geographic Ignorance

I was talking with a friend and fellow teacher the other day and she was sharing how appalled she was at her students' lack of geographic awareness. Can't find Paraguay on a map. Not sure where Normandy is. No clue where the Romans were from. We sort of laughed about it. But our laughter was the hollow sort where you are confronted with something so unbelievable you can either laugh or cry.

C'mon people...the Romans? Ugh. Geographic ignorance is rampant in America.

I'm sort of fascinated by people's lack of geographic awareness. Given how interconnected global events have become, you would think people would be more interested and aware of how geography shapes culture, and politics, and economics, and a host of other aspects of our modern life.

Image courtesy freedo

I think this should put a burden on schools to do a better job of increasing students' global awareness. I know the curriculum is already overstuffed--that's another whole blog post in the making. It surely would take some pruning of the curriculum to make room for teaching more geography, culture studies, and world languages, but I think these are only going to be of increasing importance.

Here's a fun little map quiz for you that I found online today. Just 15 countries for you to find where they belong on the map. My challenge: time yourself and see how long it takes you to figure out which one is which. If you're feeling really brave, comment on this post with your time to match all 15 countries.

What do you think? Am I blowing this out of proportion? Or is this a real shortcoming for 21st Century citizens?