Before heading off to Namibia for my 2.5 year stint in the Peace Corps, my mom and I sat and chuckled over life’s funny little things. I don’t know the origin, but it was at about that time that we heard the saying “Some day, you’re gonna wake up dead!” From that one conversation evolved her sage advice that has carried me through my adult journey (so far) :
“All you have to do is wake up with a pulse, and you’ll be okay.”
In that hovering time between my job at the now closed Austine School for the Deaf in Brattleboro, Vermont and my departure for Africa, I did a lot of preparing. Who wudda thunk that this was the beginning of a long life of preparing…prepping…planning for…for places unknown, things unknown, people unknown.
And so, I find myself here (alllll day lonnnnng) preparing…prepping…planning for the start of a new school year and the unknowns are just too numerous to list – but it’s okay – I’m good at this. Check out this thing I just made for students I have yet to meet:
A teacher shared her massive archive of these bitmoji classrooms, which I’ve been silently snarking at as a soul-sucking waste of time to cutsie up school, where maybe time might be better spent doing the hard work of education. (okay…something just possessed me…I didn’t just say that. But as another teacher friend of mine wondered…when do we stop being teachers and start banking on our gaming abilities?) Maybe this is the stuff of a different blog post.
This thing – this classroom on a slide – is document that each of my students can have and personalize. I will make a tutorial on how to insert clickable links (don’t bother…this is just a screen shot) in each of the places – so in one location (this slide…or this bitmoji classroom) they can find their first period google classroom (where materials/assignments) are located and the link to the platform where they’ll meet their teacher and classmates. They just have to click on either the google classroom logo or the orange desk/chair to get to their synchronous class. A different set of links for each period. Also we can add in other links they might need, like the social worker, counselor, dean, nurse or anyone else they might have contact with.
On the white board is their schedule with the ability to make them clickable links – “click on your teacher’s email address and your gmail pulls up, ready to write and send. (Lazy cheat or efficient strategy? – the stuff of another blog post, perhaps) There is a calendar and journal….and if there are other things that the student (or parent) wants in one place it can be inserted – harbored on this slide…that looks like a classroom.
H O W C O O L I S T H A T ?
Will I need it? Will they use it? I have no idea – but here is what is cool…something that I noticed. WHO CARES ABOUT THE BITMOJI CLASSROOM? I was preparing, prepping, planning, as I manipulated this slide and I learned tons! This is the point behind probably much of what we do this first month together: learning organizing skills, feeling creative and discovering tech-gems along the way
…and *this* is where things get really good. I have a curriculum and a general sense of what the students need to grasp across the coming months – nothing set in stone or that would directly contradict the idea of student-centered learning…this the stuff of school, right? …the content of the class, right? or is it? What if, in this weird pandemic thing we’re all wading through (and maybe even in the bigger picture of education) the content of our teaching is secondary to things worth understanding. I mean, a student might be able to get a sentence right because they draw from cognates, or they memorize a grammar rule, or they google on the sly. Knowing and getting something right doesn’t seem to be the best outcome of education to me. Understanding seems more important – and figuring out how to convey the skills of the content I’m teaching in such a way so that there is carry over into other realms of learning suddenly feels urgently important.
So, say I’m teaching the English language, or any language…or math for that matter (stop laughing…), what I’m teaching is important sure, but making sure that the students are getting learning skills is even more important. I consider creativity a learning skill.
“Show me, in any way that you want…in any way that you can…that you have mastered (or have an understanding for) this content, and I’m good with that.”
Creativity, Collaboration, Critical Thinking – these are things that they can take from my class to their other classes and beyond the walls (or screens) of their education.
(I know my teacher friends are rolling their eyes…”duh!” – but let me enjoy this – I live for preparing, prepping and planning) 🙂
And so on, and on, and on I go, preparing, prepping, planning, for students I don’t know yet, and my head is spinning from all of the PDs (Professional Development training modules) and meetings with my new colleagues, and designing the tools I want my students to have access to as we co-create our year together…and I can’t *WAIT* to meet my students. That is if my head doesn’t explode first.
Okay – I’ve maxed out my screen time today, and the real test (according to mom, anyway) comes tomorrow when I see if I wake up with a pulse – then I’ll know, I’ll be okay.
A few after thoughts.
- One email reminded us today:
Classroom management is not about having the right rules.
It is about having the right relationships.
- Yesterday I made this: Garlic sesame chicken
- Today I made this: Beef stroganoff
- Waiting for Kiara (puppy) to wake up so I can go for a run with her at the river. #lifeisgood
…later…Kiara woke up and we had a blast running on the trail.
Learning is why. 