Being a good parent and teacher

      So this week in my Exceptional Learners class I was part of a group that presented on the chapter in the textbook on gifted students.  My portion of the presentation dealt with how the classroom needs to be an inclusive setting for the gifted student just as it is for students with other exceptionalities or learning disabilities.  As part of my presentations I conducted a mini interview with my son Kye.  Kye is a smart kid, not to seem like I am bragging or saying my son is gifted, but he just is a smart kid.  Before he started grade 3 this year he had already taught himself how to multiply; not just by memorizing a chart but by figuring out how to multiply using groups to figure it out and has since grown comfortable with it.  In fact he is so comfortable with it that a couple weeks ago started asking how division works since he knows how multiplication works.  In his math class at school they are doing 3 number subtraction currently, which he finds incredibly easy.  Now this is only a small sampling of what he is like...he loves school and learning and would love to be in school more and is sad when there are days off that he feels are not needed or too many days off in a row.  Summer holidays can drag for him if he does not have enough learning activities mixed into it.  So right around the time I am reading this chapter he comes home and is all serious in the fact he feels his teacher is holding him back - his words exactly.  This isn't the first time he has had issues with teachers who don't seem to want to allow him to work to his potential.  His home room teacher finds it funny that he likes to work so fast and that he loves to read and will actually make him sit and wait while she is explaining worksheets to the class when he already understands what needs to be done and just wants to work.  During the 3-way parent/teacher/student conferences his teacher says he needs to work on his reading which dumbfounded my wife and when she questioned it his teacher just laughed and said that they just put that down for everyone.  Kye reads extremely well, over last summer he read the entire Harry Potter series and can answer pretty much any question from any of the books; I don't even have that sort of retention ability with what I read!  His reading level, without being formally tested, appears to be in the grade 6-8 level and we have managed to get the teacher librarian to allow him to take books from the young adult section of the library so that they are to his ability level.
     I feel like I have rambled on about this a lot already but my point is that this morning I talked tot he principal while walking the girls to school and just gave him a heads up that I am cc-ing him in an email to Kyes teacher in which I want to know what can be done in the classroom and school to help keep Kye interested in being there and learning.  He has made mention more than once that he would like to be home schooled so that he can be learning at his level and to his full potential - again these are the words coming from his 9 year old brain not mine.  There are many things done to help the students that are on the lower end of the academic scales but why is it that the students at the upper end often get left out in the cold?  As a teacher I understand the challenges especially when you can have such a varied range of student abilities in a single classroom and the instruction time is not enough to intensively cater to the all but just as supports are put in place for the disadvantaged so must challenges be placed to support the advantaged student as well.

Tell me...who are you?

                 One aspect to teaching that I feel can sometimes scare people a lot is how much of a public figure you become as a teacher.  Everyone will want to know everything they can about you and within rights I agree.  I want to know as much about my kids teachers as I can, especially when someone new joins the staff.  After all this is a pretty big responsibility they have, working with the children and future of our planet.  This plays into so many aspects of the classes we have been taking but I honestly feel there has not really been any concrete informed information about the idea of digital citizenship presented to us.  Some profs will tell you to change everything about you on the internet so people can’t find you on there while some more level headed ideas prevail with a pretty simple but striking line – think about what you post and who really needs to see it.

                       I love some advice I got while just getting started in the College of Education - while many of my peers were changing their names on their facebooks and hiding themselves online a friend and established teacher and school administrator said to me, "Why try and hide who you are in any parts of your life?  It seems like a rather dishonest action for someone who is in charge of teaching the future of our world.  If it is not something to share with everyone why share with anyone to begin with."  Yes the internet and all that entails can be a fun place to be connected with friends from everywhere but at the same time this is just another extension of who you are and is who you really are something that needs to be hidden away?  If so is this really the profession you should be trusted to be in?  So to you, my readers, I ask…who are you?

 

Who I am

I am

            Who I am

                        and

                                    Who I am

                                                I am

I’ll never tell you

            sorry

for being who I am

            because

that is who I am

                        nothing less

                        always more

Just as you are

            who you are

and they are

            who they are

We are all the same,

            as different as the

                        colours of the rainbow           

Like lightning...

Well this is a bit embarrassing.  It is Friday morning and I have not yet posted a new blog post.  I will not hide behind my life and its many roles – who am I today?  A student; a teacher; a husband; a father; an artist; a poet; a friend; a comic and toy geek, the list really can go on and on.  It is not that I have not had anything to say but much rather had too much to say.  I have started a new post numerous times only to get diverted by something more pressing and by the time I get back to it something else has tickled part of my brain.

One of the things I have been doing at some moments of downtime is watching various TED Talk videos, and finding that they do exactly what they are intended to do – inspire.  In this video from Simon Sinek the idea of inspiration for me is focused into a single phrase:

            “People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.”

What a great line and very true on so many levels!  While organizing my thoughts around this I came across a new blog post from George Couros, also talking about the same video and focusing on the “Why” concept.  In his post one of the lines that caught my attention was:

            “…if we do not clearly articulate “why” we are doing what we are doing, the “what” and the “how” are lost.”

Another great idea that covers so many facets of not only teaching but truly life in general; if we don’t know why we are doing something are we really going to gain and retain anything from it?  This led me to think about a link I found through Shelley Wright’s twitter which caught my eye and then again I was directed to it the very next morning in class.  Not only was it awe-inspiring to see what Shelly was doing in her classroom with technology but the fact that she was nationally recognized for it is amazing and very well deserved.  The first thing Heather said to me when showing me this news in class was:

            “This is your future.”

Wow what a statement right there.  Then she follows that up with telling me that not only is Shelley an amazing teacher, which I have gleaned since starting to follow her blog and her twitter, but that she is also a current graduate student.  This is something that has been eating away at my mind ever since it was pitched to me, not once but twice in fact, by two different teachers suggesting I should pursue a Masters Degree in different areas both of which interest me greatly.  Honestly I never considered myself Masters Degree material and really am ignorant of the process of being one but have wrongly assumed that to do it I would not be able to be a teacher at the same time.  Obviously that is not the case and now the idea has really taken root in my head and I am going to have to find the time to get all the answers I need to figure out if this is something that I can truly do.

So what this post really boils down to in my mind is inspiration.  Inspiration is the fuel, the spark and the explosion to make things happen and the best part is it can come from literally anywhere and everywhere.  As a student I am inspired by my teachers and how they bring new ideas to class as well as my classmates and what they share.  As a parent I am inspired by my kids and how they see the world and are growing, learning and evolving.  As a teacher I am inspired by how students learn and the look in their eyes when connections are made or inspiration hit them.  As a photographer and poet I am inspired by literally anything I see around me from simple frost patterns on concrete to clouds covering the sun to a random series of words overheard in others conversations.  Without inspiration change can’t happen and the ideas can’t grow, life does not move without inspiration.  So I ask you:

            What inspires you today?