Being Appreciated

Today marks the beginning of Teacher Appreciation Week. This is both wonderful and weird.

My day began with one of my students dropping off this envelope at my office, right after I arrived...

Large envelopes are always wonderfully mysterious, aren't they?

Transition Time: Celebrating our Student Teachers

Tonight we had a special event for our Teacher Preparation Program. Our club for pre-service teachers, the Future Active Christian Teacher (FACT) Club put on a banquet. This was a first time event, but I hope that we'll continue to have this in the future! The FACT Club leadership is pretty incredible, and a few months ago they proposed hosting all of the cooperating mentor teachers, the student teachers, the Education faculty, and--of course--all of the FACT Club members for an evening of celebration.

Wow, this was fun! Good food, good conversation, good opportunities to get future teachers, practicing teachers, and Education faculty together in a "not school" setting. Dessert was delicious too, of course...

Thank you, Dordt Dining, for always having my favorite chocolate lava cake...

And we had an inspiring speaker--the superintendent from a Christian school in our area--and several of the students offered words of thanks to the different groups represented there tonight.

I was asked to give a share some words of congratulations for our seniors who are in a time of transition: wrapping up this stage of their journey, and preparing to move into the next adventure...a classroom of their own!

Knowing I'm likely to go off the rails if I just ad lib, I wrote out my thoughts. What follows is what I shared as a blessing and send off for our seniors. This is one of those times when I feel like, "I get to do this!"

Learning from Students

My Twitterfriend, Maggie Bolado (@mrsbolado) shared this image the other day. I love it! She gave me permission to use it for this blog post. (Thanks a bunch, Maggie!)

Image by Maggie Bolado. Used with permission.

It's About the Outcome

One of the fantastic future teachers I have had the privilege of teaching this past fall tweeted this to me just after Christmas...

@d_mulder yo, heard a quote and thought you'd like it. "Teaching isn't about the income, it's about the outcome."

— Lexi (@LexitheTurtle) December 26, 2016

I love this so much, because this is just the kind of stuff we talk about in Intro to Ed. My often-stated comment that students often wind up quoting back to me is, "Teaching is not for the faint of heart." We talk about how the teaching profession is simultaneously elevated and denigrated in our society. We talk about how hard it is to be a teacher today, but what an incredible opportunity it provides for those called to work with kids, shaping the next generation.

It gives me great joy when they get it.

I often make a New Year's resolution, and since I'm at the end of New Year's Day as I write this, I'm thinking about what I should resolve to do this year. So often my resolutions end up being about things I think I should change, like "I should get more exercise," or "I should read the Bible more," or "I should take my wife out more often," things like that. And, I probably should do those things.

But is it weird if I want to resolve to keep doing something this year too?

I resolve to (continue to) keep focusing "on the outcome" with the pre-service teachers I serve.

I resolve to (continue to) make my classroom practice a model for them of what an engaged, enthusiastic teacher looks like.

I resolve to (continue to) have those challenging conversations with my students who are struggling to discern their calling--should they become teachers, or should they look for something else?

I resolve to passionately live out my calling as an educator, because it's about the outcome, not the income.

Image by Dave Mulder [CC BY-SA 2.0]

Three Joyful Moments

This week is a busy one. Last week was too. (Lately, they all seem to be, honestly...) It's advising season as we prepare for registration for the spring semester, and this means extra meetings.

But amidst all the busyness, three joyful moments for me:

1. I had a hallway conversation with a fellow professor who was once one of my middle school students. (Yep...I'm getting old...that the kids I taught when they were young adolescents are now colleagues of mine? Yikes.) But the conversation was so fantastic: brief, but deeply reflective about the kind of learning environment we want our institution to be for faculty. I wonder sometimes how many colleges and universities think of themselves in that way: a place for professors to continue to learn, to develop, to hone their craft, to grow?

2. During a group advising session last night, one of my junior (3rd year) advisees and one of my freshman (1st year) advisees were talking across the table while waiting for me to come over and talk with them about their 4-year plans. Both are future middle school teachers. As I walked toward them, I overheard the junior said to the freshman something like, "I'm glad it's been a good experience for you so far in Education...but just wait! It gets better!" This made me feel so proud of our program, and the future we are privileged to have a hand in shaping. We start them off well...and they find it just gets better the further they go in their studies in Education.

3. My Elementary Science Methods course is a little odd this semester: I typically have about 20 students, but due to the foibles of scheduling, I only have 5 students taking the course this fall. This has been a wonderfully weird experience for me, and I find I run the course much more like a seminar than a lecture-based course. Today we went far off topic (we often get a little off topic...) because they were asking such great, deep questions about how to get students engaged in learning, and what we can do as teachers to help support them in this. The conversation was so rich that I totally lost track of time, and when I realized that we only had five minutes left, I exclaimed in dismay: I had only taught about a third of my intended lesson plan! But my students--these amazing scholars!--immediately suggested a solution: none of them have a class after our scheduled block on Friday, and they suggested that we plan to stay late on Friday afternoon, to not only participate in the hands-on activities planned for Friday's lab experience, but also to complete the lesson discussion from today.

I am blessed to be part of this place. I am honored to serve alongside these amazing faculty members and to work with students of this calibre.

I have my moments of stress, for sure. I have moments I am overwhelmed by the challenges of professing.

But these joyful moments were a great reminder for me of just how blessed I am to be here.

The Prairie at Dordt College, September 22, 2016. Image by Dave Mulder [CC BY-SA 2.0]

I'm Going to Be the Most Mediocre Teacher I Can Be!

I had a less than stellar moment while teaching yesterday. (Oh, what a good reminder that I am still learning even though I am the teacher!)

It happened in Intro to Education. I was explaining an assignment. My students--freshmen, mostly--are about to undertake their first research project, and I was elaborating the expectations for how to conduct good research, as in, "googling for websites is search, not research." We were talking about the library collection, and Encyclopedias of Education, and reference librarians, and excellent academic resources available online. I closed my explanation with an encouragement to be excellent: "Think about it this way: are you in college to learn? Or to just 'get by?'"

I noticed several students turn to a friend seated next to them and mutter: "I'm trying to just get by..." with a grin.

I did not grin.

On Teaching "Christianly"

It is the end of the semester, and I have students beginning the review process for their final exams. In Intro to Education, this means reflecting on all that they have read and discussed and studied in light of our essential question for the course: "What does it mean to teach 'Christianly?'"

This is a novel concept for some students. Most all of my students would self-identify as Christians, and most all of them are planning on becoming teachers. So they might well wonder, "Why does Mulder make such a big deal about this 'teaching Christianly' stuff?" And I do make a big deal about it in class. While I don't specifically ask that question each week when we meet up, I allude to it often, and I strive to both challenge their thinking through the things we read and discuss as well as model a distinctively Christian approach to teaching when they see me at work in class.

Welcome to Intro to Ed. Image by Dave Mulder [CC BY-SA 2.0]

I don't do this perfectly, of course. I'm still figuring out how to teach Christianly myself. I've been thinking about this for some time now, and I even shared my thoughts about teaching (and living) "Christianly" on inallthings.org this spring. But I am far enough down this path that I am convinced this is the right way to work out my own discipleship within my teaching practice, and I am trying to demonstrate it for my students.

Sometimes I think they are even starting to "get it." :-)

Planting Seeds...Seeing Sprouts

Image by Denise Krebs
[CC BY 2.0]

I have been marking (grading? correcting?) like a madman these past few days.

It's the end of the semester, and I am--as usual--feeling behind the 8-ball.

How does it all pile up like this at the end? It seems to always end up this way. Unit plans, papers, portfolios, final exams...it all has to be reviewed.

I tell myself it won't happen this way again next time...every semester.

And then...

While I am in the thick of marking, a student stops by. She is one of my advisees, and so I've gotten to know her quite well over the past three years. She has recently completed her student teaching, and she is graduating tomorrow. And she stopped in, just to chat.

Marking can wait.

Why I Will Never Be a Great Teacher

I.

It's Christmas break. I'm halfway through my 16th year of teaching.

I thought I would be better at this by now.

Oh, don't get me wrong. I know I'm a good teacher. I accepted that after the first decade or so. (But even that was hard for me...as a Dutch Calvinist, it's in my cultural DNA to not think too highly of myself--total depravity and all that.)

The thing is, I'd love to be a GREAT teacher!

How do you become great? I read a lot. I try new things. I refine things that are working well. I stop doing things that are clearly ineffective. I talk to colleagues and find out what they are doing that engages their students. I reflect on my own teaching practice.

Am I better at this than I used to be?

Yes.

But am I "great?"

Nope.

And while I keep working on it, striving to improve, I'm not sure I'll ever be a great teacher.

We can't just hand them computers...they might learn something!

I confess it...I went through a kick sometime in the past year or so where I made a bunch of snarky graphics at someecards. In the batch someplace was this one:

I had used it to illustrate my point for a blog post about the way so many 1:1 programs are structured--very similar to what Cuban (2013) argues--as if the use of educational technology is some kind of magic bullet that will suddenly cause amazing learning to happen.

Actually, as I reflect on this, I think the silly graphic here isn't telling the truth. I think we can expect that kids will learn things if we hand them a laptop connected to the Internet. The problem is, in formal educational settings, we generally want to control just what it is that they learn, and ensure that it is focused on some broader educational goals or standards or scope & sequence of prescribed learning outcomes.

And this seems to be just the opposite of what Mitra is arguing for. Mitra et al. (2005) emphasize this in their very hypothesis: "if given appropriate access and connectivity, groups of children can learn to operate and use computers with none or minimal intervention from adults" (p. 2). For me, the question remains "Is this good enough?"

Moving Middle School from the Back Burner

Now that I teach in higher education I have joked to colleagues that I might look like a professor, but I'm still a middle school teacher on the inside. I taught in middle schools for the first 14 years of my teaching practice, and while I love what I do now (teaching future teachers), I do miss working with young adolescents on a daily basis.

That might sound crazy to you, if you aren't a middle school teacher yourself. Actually, it might sound crazy to you even if you are a middle school teacher. Teaching young adolescents is not for the faint of heart--and it isn't for everyone! But for those of us called to teach middle schoolers...wow. It's amazing!

The other day in my Introduction to Education class, I asked my students to participate in a poll as a hook to bring them in to the topic of the day (student development.) I asked them, "Which is the most difficult age group to teach?" Of the 30 students who participated in the poll...15 answered "Middle School."

Here it is--the actual poll results.

HALF OF MY STUDENTS THINK MIDDLE SCHOOL IS THE MOST DIFFICULT.

Clearly, teaching in the middle school is not for everyone!

What Does It Take to Become a Teacher?

"Teaching is not for the faint of heart."

I think I said this at least half a dozen times in Introduction to Education this semester. One of our themes in the course was to get a handle on what the profession really looks like--both the joys and the challenges. Education is often seen as a catch-all major: "Oh, you don't know what to do with your life? Consider becoming a teacher!" or "Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach." I feel pretty strongly that people who say things like this are basing it on their experiences in school, rather than a true understanding of the requirements of the profession.

So we discuss the professional requirements and societal demands on a teacher quite a lot in Intro to Ed. I want my students to come into the profession with their eyes wide open. So it makes sense--I hope!--that on my final exam for for the course I asked this question: "What does it take to become a teacher?"

It's an open-ended question for sure, with lots of possibilities for an answer. Many of my students included things in their response along the lines of "you have to like kids" or "you have to know your content really well" or "you have to complete the requirements to earn a teaching license"--or even a combination of these kinds of ideas.

One student, however, knocked my socks off. Here is part of his answer: