Affirmations

Upon returning home from my Partners in Education experience at the Kennedy Center, I feel affirmed. In the past year I have been privileged to attend two major education conferences. At both of them I found people saying, "We'd like to take our school in this direction..." And it was always nice to hear someone say, "Talk to Nate, his school corporation is already doing that." I'm fortunate to have been in a school that not only let me experiment with ideas like Arts Integration, but also provided me with great students and colleagues who were willing to take the journey with me. We learned so much together and these conferences continue prove to me that we're on the right track.

When you're out front, it can be scary. People don't like change and they are often afraid to risk - especially when their child's education is at stake; but I have been allowed to work freely with students and I feel like we've had great success. Key to that success, though, is staying current with trends in education; quickly assessing and filtering what is working from what isn't. It's important to find what fits your student's learning mode and your teaching style. I was relieved to find that...

Rigor, Relevance, Relationships = still the best teaching strategy.

Knowing your students is still the number one way to reach them. By offering them challenging problems and relevant instruction we can make them ready for a world that is changing so fast that they will struggle simply finding a job. Through helping them understand who they are, themselves, and in what direction they are going we can continue to help students find their own road, their own answers, even when we are unable to help. Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day, but teach a man to fish...

I was also affirmed to find... Technology: still the best platform for learning. 

Using social media to enhance lessons, poll students, connect students to each other, and to specialists outside of the classroom and the school system isn't going to go away. Harvard, Yale, Stanford, and other big name colleges are already offering audits of programs on-line for FREE. Our students have access to the entire world at their fingertips. They have computing knowledge beyond our wildest dreams. Teachers will need to be around to help students apply this knowledge, and also to inspire students to use it properly. We can't run from technology. We must embrace it.

Another take away: We are SO ready for the Common Core Standards.

Bring on the applications problems! I'm not sweating these at all. Why? Because my students are already synthesizing and creating. Like it or not, the Common Core is upon us, and we will be challenged. I got a preview of the English and Math Common Core Standards. Arts people have nothing to worry about. We are the expression of these subjects. We are the locus of how these subjects operate. Students will be reaching to the arts for help. Also, with the limited educational resources, the arts will be the best and most poignant way to demonstrate knowledge. Math people will be looking to the visual arts for several pieces where "demonstration" is concerned. We need to be ready to embrace them.

And finally, Differentiated Instruction is a capability now.

With all of the technology available to us, if we are still standing in front of students spoon-feeding the middle 60% we are failing. We have the capability - and therefore, the responsibility - to flip the classroom, to divide the ranks, to work with struggling students, or push high ability students forward. It is nothing, now, to say to a group of students, "I want you guys to work on <insert assignment>." While you take a group that is struggling OR a group that is far ahead on to the next piece. If a kid really has the content and is an expert, why not let them flex their mental muscles a little bit and try their hand at teaching? Giving students opportunities - even small ones - could inspire them in big ways.

Until next week...