Blogging on the Bay

“the tendency of classrooms in high-poverty areas to focus on teacher-directed instruction with drill-and-practice being the primary activity of the learners. This learner-passive environment all too often leads to student disinterest, high drop-out rates, and teacher burn-out.” from the McRel Blog: Using Web 2.0 to Counter the “Pedagogy of Poverty”.

Here I sit 18 years later in education and today I read this blog post and another blog post titled “Looking at the classroom from the other side.” Now I am frightened that this evidence that is data driven and researched of something we as educators have know for a very long time. In the same hallways I see kids that are bored and could care less about what is going on in the room. They are so far removed from the foreign language the teacher is speaking they go through the motions or they wander off inside themselves.

I have worked with some of the best teachers and many different levels in the career from a newbie to an old-timer. Not much has changes except the constant faculty lounge talk and dictitoral and leaderless adminstrations. One colleagues  believed that a student had be able to identify parts of speech and sentence first before writing a sentence. She spent her career teaching parts of speech and sentences before allowing them to write a sentence much less a paragraph. She could not understand why and how her eighth graders were so bored and disruptive in this one Title One school in the rural south.

I am reading Sara Kajder’s book, Bringing the Outside In, Sara write that reading needs to be an engaging and powerful experience, but it does not come unless we teach students how. (Kajder, pg. 9) To take Sara’s thinking further, it’s not just reading but learning. If we don’t teach them how, model for them, teach them strategies, and show them tools that will scaffold reading and learning, we fail them. It is not done by lecturing for 20 minutes, followed by some type of guided practice, independent work- a worksheet (of course), and an assessment. It is done by allowing them to do, create, reflect, think, make and share inferences, and assess everything they do.

I am ending my twenty first year in education and in many ways not muched has changed. We have more technology that not many educators understand or appreciate the real value they have in the classoom. Classrooms still exist as they did way before I entered the profession and I see around the world where other country’s educational system are soaring. Where does leave us……Behind…..

In writing you have to honor the process not the final product. I think that is why I like the concept of blogging because I know deep down it is not a final product from my perspective. But I wonder what the reader thinks when they come to this page and read my thoughts and wonders why it is filled with so many holes and gaps. I know readers wonder why the thoughts are not supported or complete. I wonder what the reader really thinks some days. There are days I feel a sense of satisfaction with what made into the blog post. Some days I am please with what makes into a blog post. Other days I don’t feel as pleased. I think when I look back at what I wrote today I will wonder why I even published this post.

I found this video over at Dangerously Irrelevant… Very powerful

To Meet the Demands of a New Age from Steven H on Vimeo.

I have just finished reading the Interpreter, the  United Methodist Church (UMC) publication.  The recent issue expanded upon the them “What if we…Rethink Church?”. It focuses on the term Church being a verb instead a noun. Church being an action we take six days a week and resting and reflecting on the sabbath. This them Rethink Church is part of a new national ad campaign that will be kicked off tomorrow, May 6, and it’s primary focus is to get local congregations to start a conversation about church. Two website focus on this conversation are www.rethinkchurch.org and www.10thousanddoors.org. I believe the conversation is important and I have always believed that Chruch is about living the Gospel in the world, not a weekly attendance thing. Church is about discipleship and Sunday’s are about worshiping, reflecting, and resting. This Sunday I plan lead this conversation in my young adult Sunday School Class.

Social media is changing how everyone communicates. I am bombarded by Facebook friends which is a good thing and slowly my friends are trying Twitter. Social networking is a solid way of communicating and reaching out to people. This month’s Interpreter discusses the role of social networking in the church. New media is changing traditional solid architects. I am not opposed to any of these methods as I have adopted communicating church events and group pages to reachout to people in our local UMC in Andrews.  We are definitely in a time where new media is changing traditional ways of getting work done. The mission of Jesus Christ is no exception.
On page 17, there is an artcle about some pastors who are blogging and find that blogging is demanding. One writes, “You have to write whether you feel like it or not, for the practice, until something come out that you are pleased with.” This statement is a reminder that blog posts are not a finished product but a work in progress for something greater. It is the same with people’s relationship with Jesus Christ. You have to practice the faith whether you feel like it or not. What we do is never a finished thing but a a life time work.

During Spring break I decided to take a break from Blogging on the Bay. I have taken a break from reading over 50-60 blogs a day. I have not even looked at my RSS feed since Spring break. I keep asking myself have I missed writing publicly for last few weeks and my answer at this moment is no. I have not missed sharing my thoughts to a larger audience. I keep asking myself if I am ready to return, and I am not sure. I do miss reading blogs and keeping up with what all my friends are learning and thinking. I really go into a slump after the Spring break and focused more on my other passion besides my family is my pernianal garden. I am still not satisfied with the progress I have made with my garden, but as I have always said it is my work in progress. Gardening has never been a chore. I really have enjoyed messing with the soil, dividing plants, pulling weeds, tilling, fertilizing,

I think with blogging I reached a point I made it a chore and during Spring break I realized that to be so true. April 22, I celebrated a year of journaling almost daily. I have had to reexamine that practice to make sure it was not a chore, but I realized I missed the time I spent in my journal. I don’t know if others out who blog wake up one and realized you made it into a chore. I have. I am in the process of reconditioning my thinking and slowly moving back to writing transparently.

I am back and I have deleted my RSS feed and have started over. I have two professional books waiting on me to open the cover and begin learning. I did read Reinventing Project-Based Learning by Jane Krauss and Suzie Boss. I highly recommend that book to everyone. I started rereading The Differentiated Classroom by Carol Ann Tomlinson. Have a great day every one!!!!