Weird that I’ve gotten so much done the last few days since it’s technically “summer” for us teachers. But I find that keeping busy with consulting work, aquarium building, and taking notes on what I’m reading (to make myself a better person and teacher!) helps me keep the “I miss my students” blues at bay!
I wasn’t particularly sure how my teaching year would go this year. I knew I was teaching Physics and Physical Science. Both of those are right in my wheelhouse and I enjoy teaching both of those immensely, and I’m incredibly passionate about the topics in those subject areas. However, the big question was Earth Science (and teaching 6th grade, which I’ve never done for an entire year).
Turns out, I fell in love with my 6th-grade classes and Earth Science has become something of a new passion of mine. I did not see that coming.
Lately, I’ve been reading books on geology and geologic time scales and catastrophic events and listening to audiobooks on plate tectonics and seabed composition, and subscribing to Apple News topics about geophysics, and hydrology… weird.
I’ve always been somewhat interested in Earth Science adjacent topics, obviously. I remember enjoying my own time in an Earth Science class in 8th grade and then in basic geology in college. But having to plan out an entire year and helping to motivate 11, 12, and 13-year-olds to get interested in the water cycle helped me realize just how incredible the topic can be.
Reminding young people that Earth, as we know it, is an incredibly and rapidly ever-changing system and not some static immovable rock where things have always been the same has been such a joy and a privilege. Plus, it’s a humbling reminder of our own human place in the Creation and the Cosmos!
I can’t wait to explore some of these topics with our Upper Schoolers next year in our new Earth & Space Science class that we’re launching next year at TSA!
So, when Hagoromo announced that it was going out of business in 2014, it caused a rupture in the math community.”
I referred to it as a chalk apocalypse,” Conrad said. In a panic, mathematicians across America began stockpiling resources in preparation.”
I calculated how many boxes I would need to last 10 to 15 years and I bought that many boxes,” says Lieblich.Dave Bayer took things even further. “I single-handedly bought the rest of the Amazon supply in the middle of the night,” he said.
Source: How a brand of chalk achieved cult status among mathematicians – CNN
I was gifted with an old sliding blackboard in my 2nd year of teaching (and my first year of teaching Physical Science). I loved that board and was sad to leave it later in my career when I went to a new school.
There’s something special about chalk covered hands and the feel of writing on a blackboard to make a point about F=MA or the structure of an atom.
Now I want to go stock up on some Hagoromo and find a good blackboard for my children.
Wholly new forms of encyclopedias will appear, ready made with a mesh of associative trails running through them, ready to be dropped into the memex and there amplified.
I get it, but I still want a paper copy.
Even the concept of a “dictionary” is no longer the same. OCD5 exists solely online. This means that we can do a number of things.
— Read on classics.oxfordre.com/page/eicletter/letter-from-the-editor/
“I’m here to manage a team, not make rules,” Maddon said. “I learned my lesson from that.”
http://m.cubs.mlb.com/news/article/168278928/cubs-joe-maddon-talks-policies-with-leaders
As a fan of economic theory (by no means an expert), I’ve always tried to rationalize the chasm that exists between private school and public school teacher pay.
Having been both a private school and public school teacher, I’ve had to rationalize this on a whole different level.
Though there are lots of generalities in this article, I do agree with the concluding paragraph here:
The biggest lesson public education can draw from the salary gap isn’t to cut wages, or quash unions, or hold open auditions for unlicensed teachers. The lesson, in fact, has little to do with salaries at all. The moral is that not all teaching jobs are alike. Different school environments make for radically different work, and many teachers find private schools offer a more rewarding experience. Attracting and retaining teachers, then, means more than just raising salaries. It means taking disciplinary obstacles and bureaucratic nonsense out of teachers’ paths.
via Why Are Private-School Teachers Paid Less Than Public-School Teachers? – Ben Orlin – The Atlantic.
My only caveat is that not every private school is the same Dead-Poets-Society engendering experience for teachers. I taught at three very different private schools over the last decade and I had three very different experiences. There were varying levels of responsibilities, overhead, bureaucracies, call for standards etc.
In general, I’ll say that the best schools are where the teachers are happy and passionate about their jobs. How to accomplish that? Get out of the teachers’ way and trust them as the professionals they are (or at least they are hired to be).
You can use Note Taker HD to take notes, sketch diagrams, quickly and easily jot down names, phone numbers, to-do items, directions, and more. Pages are flexibly organized by date/time last modified, tags, favorites, and more, with thumbnail images of part of each page to help you find them later. Pages may be grouped together as multiple “sheets”. You can also email one or more pages as a single PDF file. VGA output is supported with zoom and pan.
I’ve been using Bricklin’s Note Taker app on my iPhone since last December, but the Note Taker HD app on my new iPad is simply extraordinary.
I cannot wait to get into the lab with my 8th grade students and jot down notes and observations that we can use to better communicate their findings in our Physical Science class next year.
Thank you again for all you do, Dan.
But the meat of the argument is about how the best explanation for many of the group phenomena we see online, from ICanHazCheezburger to Wikipedia, is that people like sharing with each other and collaborating. Not always, of course. But there are architectures of participation that encourage the kind of sharing and generosity that enriches us all, and by experimenting with them, we can create media and social change that harnesses millions of people to help and amuse each other.
Just got this on my Kindle/iPad/Desktops/iPhone (have I mentioned I love the type of portability the Kindle platform offers and hope that iBooks can replicate that type of cross-platform experience?) and can’t wait to dig in today.
I’m a big Clay Shirky fan (click the link if you need a sample), and I’m hoping this book, along with Daniel Pink’s ongoing work, becomes a pointer I can use when folks ask about the “effectiveness” of my teaching style.
I love the idea of the Teacher/Learner as an Architect. There’s something inherit about teaching that lends itself to the type of mystical and very practical practices of masons-meet-Howard Roark.
We’ll see and I’ll, of course, keep you posted.
Find out what basic safety equipment is in the lab. This affects what kind of activities you can plan. Ask ahead of time if notebooks and other consumable materials have been ordered. Once the school year starts, it’s often hard to get things that are not in inventory. Ask what technology will available to you in the classroom, such as an interactive white board, “clickers,” probeware, cameras, or projection attachments for microscopes. If the school does not provide a laptop you can take home, invest in some USB flash drives you can use to take files to work on at home.
Question from a new teacher
Very relevant and timely info for those of our species lucky enough to be entering the teaching profession but that have no clue what they’re in for…
