For our insider groups: Classroom Practitioners in the Great Field of Education

This is a call-out to our Public School P-12 Classroom Practioners only. 

... if your instructional practice is at a college or university 

... if you practice in a private, independent, or charter setting

... if you practice specialty consultations and school programming (i.e. School Counseling of Social Work, Sp/L, OTT, Vision/Hearing Impared, Autism Spectrum, School Psychology, School Administration, Support Staff: PTA, Security, Food Prep, Paraprofessionals)

...then your level of pedagogy/child development/content area training and population experience is inherently different.  THIS IS NOT YOUR SITE FOR DIALOGUE. 

The quantity and quality of the rules, regulations, and resources available under your particular circumstances differ sufficiently from those currently allocated to Public School P-12 Classroom Practitioners. 


Since our research intends to identify the true needs of  of P-12 Classroom Practitioners -as well as all support professionals, our methods strive for fullest integrity.  We know you support our highest intentions ... for the sake of everyone, everywhere.

Our Great Field of Intention at Palladio International Campus needs your utmost cooperation in order to maintain PIC research  purity!  Our many different "gardens" in the great field of education (designated in the qualifying statements above) are in fact different -and require resources and research assessment tailored to those differences. 

We thank you in advance for navigating to your designated site before 

• signing in, 
• identifying yourself/practice category, 
• and engaging in our SPRING campus-wide dialogue. 

Dialogue questions:

1. Which is preferable: practitioners devoted to the reciprocal relationship between instruction and learning? (or selective testing, outside-designed schedules and curriculum presecriptions?) 
2. Which is preferable: principals devoted to the principles of pedagogy? (or outward appearances, schedules, presriptions, selective test results assembled to reassure outsiders that the insiders know what they are doing? )
3. Why would professionally prepared and devoted practitioners be pressed to divert pedagogically sound focus and effort these ways,  when the actual learning needs of our nationally diverse population demands every bit of our focus and attention? (Okay, so this one wasn't brief...forgive me: it truly is the big question to begin with! Unpacking this question leads everyone in dialogue to sources of the real problems with our public education system ...as manufactured over time.)

Teachers Protest Passing Of Education Reform Bills - Local News Story - KIFI Idaho Falls

Teachers Protest Passing Of Education Reform Bills - Local News Story - KIFI Idaho Falls

Schools are not factories, teachers are not machines, and children are not products.

When non-experts (general public serving on decision-making school boards) (government lobbyists, committees, legislators) (media misrepresentations) exert more influence on the content, structure, and direction of social science systems, the system will become more and more incapacitated...this is what has happened since Reagan's interference in 1983 through his committee of non-experts assembled to "study" America's schools. Competition with other nation's performance (a direct legacy of the Sputnik Era) fueled Reagan's assembly which included only one professional classroom teacher. Inflammatory name of their final report? A Nation At Risk...

Like the "Reformation" and the "Inquisition" defamation and bullying and punishment are the tactics used by big guys coming down hard and fast on the "little guys." The little guys in this case by the way are mostly little women...80% of secondary teachers are female; 90% of elementary teachers are women. Women have generally not been looking out for their backs; instead they have been dedicating before time, during time, and after school time to our kids.

After forty-five years of serving teachers and kids and parents and administrators (Preschool through Graduate School) in my various roles, I know without a shadow of doubt that the very great majority of classroom teachers are good professionals with good intentions doing extraordinary work with the greatest range of children worldwide. In no other nation do we find EVERY child arriving at the school door from the truly widest range of backgrounds: severely under prepared to anxiously over-prepared homes.

Let educators once again use the science they spend four to six years studying at the onset of their career choice. That is before recent efforts to fill overly difficult classrooms with teachers who will work under grueling conditions because no one wants to fund these properly! That is before city, state and federal government began recruiting non-educators with ANY undergraduate degree and placing these unfortunate recruits day one in the most challenging classrooms -under supported, under "enculturated," under prepared, under financed, and finally undereducated.

We now have problems in education because as a nation we do not value the development of children, nor do we value the majority of those who daily engage and advocate for children (mothers, teachers, social workers, day care providers, preschool teachers and service providers...the list can go on). This practice is testimony to systematic under-valuing and demeaning of the true experts by those who regulate "the big bucks."

When will America graduate from the industrial era of thinking...and put it's logic, appreciation, authentic support, and money where our future's resources truly are? Children, Families, Schools are our future...handle them with CARE and INSIGHT.

A Teacher's Value=A Mother's Value

Those who "demean" the nature of, intensity of, and dedication required throughout each day, every day by Classroom Teachers are using their childhood-perspective brain.  Take your adult self to school now and shadow one regular teacher for one full day...your brain will update!

Children have no idea what goes into good and dedicated parenting until they grow up and have reason to "review" revisit and revise the nature and calling of Parenthood (...usually when they have a child of their own, or become a teacher, social worker, family counselor).

The same "oversight" occurs with the general public with regard to Classroom Teaching...and those who engage this calling.   We tritely call these altruistic and conscientious adults "teachers." We easily demean their dedication to learning and young human beings by using a little "t" "teachers."

And we infantilize them by talking down to them and about them because the great majority of them are women who are expert in adapting to children's needs... in multiple ways (vocabulary and tone and pitch).  As informed and naturally-adaptive parents use their child-tuned voice to speak with and encourage learning at home, teachers do the same in the classroom.  And as we stereotype seniors by talking down to them...or very loudly because we think they are as a class hard of hearing, we do the same to teachers ... we demean the nature of their work (without even knowing the nature of their work-not from an adult perspective that is, or an informed perspective to be sure!)

Yes, teachers are bewildered right now in Wisconsin and Indiana...as we should all be all over the planet...because the amount of scorn leveled at "teachers" comes from a few not very honorable sources:

1. unupdated childhood (an adolescent) perspectives on the actual nature of teachers' work 
2. personal projections from other "workers" who mechanically go each day to do a "job" in which they are not personally and professionally engaged
3. unfulfilled wannabees who detect a mismatch between the person they are becoming and the value of the career they've invested in already in so many ways (not to mention the house and the car payment and all the gadgets and loans and credit card debt ...just going through what seems to be the motions in order to get paid and then pay out of all the stuff they've acquired).

As professionals (Masters are earned in five years of entry), Classroom Teachers have a NAME/LABEL problem we need to address:
... brains are funny things. Brains categorize and then the human behavioral system is tempted to think of all entries in the category as if they are all alike.  Hmmmmm.  "teacher":  my mommy, my daddy, granny, swimming instructor, piano tutor, day care assistant, lady at the gym nursery where daddy drops me off while he works out?

Each of these role exemplars are readily thought of as "teachers" regardless of dramatic and organic differences among them in the nature of their work and relationship with a learner, not to mention that professional classroom teachers engage a large group of very individual learners who are learning to learn.

As professionals, Classroom Teachers have a Public Acknowledgement problem we need to address:
... As we stereotype seniors by discounting the background, inculturation, training, and experience that got them where they are now (and all the mastery and wisdom acquired along the way which we could now benefit from if we purposefully pursued inquiry/learning outside the formal workplace to systematically learn from the experts who have earned their retirement from 'on demand performance")  we do the same to teachers.  Our hierarchical government, and the underinformed media, and the general public demean the nature of Classroom Teachers' work from insufficient inquiry, minimal interviewing, non-existent dialogue and shadowing.

Classroom Teachers have relied on professional unions to do the speaking, representing, bargaining, and marketing about the nature of our work...perhaps we each need to speak up for ourselves and the nature of our preparation, commitment, and career paths more purposefully, publicly, intentionally, systematically and collaboratively.

Waiting for Superman...heading west via American Airlines!

Wow... American Airlines is showing a film WAITING FOR SUPERMAN...basically it does honor good teachers, even average teachers, and does reveal systemic problems that impact schools's success because of home factors, motivated and unmovtivated parents, neighborhood, and states rights problems that foretell real issues schools can do nothing about.  It also makes a huge deal about Unions and tenure as the real problem with fixing everything else.  Such a shame to "educate" the public through Americal Airlines, during this time in Wisconsin.  One fact that slipped by and should be the focus is that if the lower performing 6% of nations teachers could be replaced just by average teachers, kids performance would soon match the performance of kids in Finland (who are highest in the world).  
This says to me we need to be honoring the amazing work 94% of our country's teachers are doing with problems created by home factors, motivated and unmovtivated parents, neighborhood, and states rights ...we need to look at what these 94% accomplish and make  movies about this.  Focus on good generates, multiplies  greater good. And so it is!

David Whyte's Crossing the Unknown Sea..: Teacher's Journey ... exploring the work that stru...

David Whyte's Crossing the Unknown Sea..: Teacher's Journey ... exploring the work that stru...: "Welcome, Journeymen and Journeywomen! Our purpose here is to have a forum for asking questions, reflecting on experiences, sharing tentativ..."

Top 10 Things You Don't Learn About Teaching in College!

Two more "classics" for the classroom: Brown and Vygotsky

Google Ann Brown and you will discover the wealth available in the field of "metacognition. " Google Lev Vygotsky to incorporate another crucial illuminary into your practice with learners, "Zone of  Proximal Learning."

Our exercise for this week illuminates how to use both to supercharge your instructional practice!

Activate Our Journey into Ambitious Teaching

Nexus in the City Ó2009

…where Ambitious Learning X Ambitious Teaching = Nexus Academy

Dr. S. Heidi Bach -Professor Emeritus

Palladio International University

Albert Einstein noted,  “Problems cannot be solved by using the same level of thinking through which they were created.”

Your Experiential Study of “Metacognition” … a process to develop through the following instructional design:

Educator’s Aim: Metacognition means ‘thinking about thinking’ (Google: Brown, 1987). The exercise below allows entry into the vast store of information internally represented in mind ... our minds, our students’ minds (Google: Faulkner, 2000).

Focus on students’ comprehension of reading material this week.  Begin with teaching a class lesson, but restrict your analysis focus to the content performance and process performance of just two students. Add particularly interesting students as you gain a sense of competence and enthusiasm.  Never frustrate yourself by making your own pedagogical learning too complex, too soon. Operating in the frustration zone only obstructs learning and leads to discouragement.  Discouragement leads to “dropping out” (Google: Margolis & Fisher, 2003).   Cultivating discouragement is counterproductive, regardless of a learner’s age!

For your case study, select two students –one who is readily able to complete any particular assignment and one who is particularly challenged with comprehension and process skills. What you learn from exercising in new ways below will develop your capacity to better develop all students later. Therefore, select two with whom you have fluent working relationships.  As you exercise your thinking during the week, these students will be expected to individually share their thinking about their own thinking (i.e. metacognition) with you.

Technology:  a microphone recording devise with USB connection to download/save/review data.

Preview, prepare as needed, then use the chart below to guide your thinking about these two types of student work samples. The chart helps you apply what you know so far about the nature of the subject matter content/process, the nature of the pedagogy selected (the what, how, and why) to transmit content or processes, and your students’ interpretations of this “nexus.” In other words, what was their experience of the pedagogy used in relation to the knowledge and know-how they actually received through this transmission?

Refer to http://teachersjourneyinourcities.blogspot.com/ for further discussion of Zones of Proximal Learning, introduced conceptually through the work of Lev Vygotsky, Russian Educational Psychologist from the thirties

A. What is the ‘nature’ of subject matter? How does pedagogy (instructional design/ presentation, and activities) support this nature? (List the types of thinking and behavior required in order to be successful in your assignment.)	B. After a brief introduction to content (and processes), ask each student to verbalize (then write a description) of what s/he understands and how s/he knows that she understands/doesn’t intended learning.	C. To what extent did pedagogy  transmit content/ processes effectively for various types of students? What adjustments are needed to reinforce/repair learning according to students’ learning needs?
D.  From the lists in “C,” note Independent Zone Skills (already in secured place), Instructional Zone Skills (those still in formation and needing outside support/structure), and Frustration Zone Skills (those as yet “out of reach,” thus bringing symptoms of frustration.	E.  Instructional Zone Skills must be ‘scaffolded’ for each student now in order to correct inaccuracies, allow sufficient supported practice leading to sufficient  practice on the independent level. Frustration Zone Skills must be ‘scaffolded’ with a sequence of instructional lessons (perhaps Units) for each student now in order to reach independent zone target mastery.	F. What forms of pedagogy will work well to achieve target performance/mastery along this sequence of scaffolding? How might we group different types of students at various points along this sequence?

Apprenticeship-To-Go

As Ray Charles reminds us,  “Don’t go backwards.  You have already been there.”

Recommended Best-seller

Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson. This extraordinary mountain climber and exceptional humanitarian received the AAUW award this year (2009) for his efforts to establish schools in extreme, remote, and rugged circumstances. Starting schools in compromising environments and within unfamiliar cultures (Pakistan, Afghanistan) required grit.  Greg encountered the roller coaster of discouragement and persistence, engaged in literal and figural mountain climbing among disparate cultures.  Themes addressed: mobilizing community involvement, cultural differences and bridge building, practices of gender socialization, negotiating the balance of power, the power of devotion and perseverance, the power of alliance and support, the power of desire to learn, social dynamics that inculcate self-efficacy in students.

Recommended music for thinking through these exercises with fellow apprentices:

Google “World Music” then select from the subcategories of your choice.

Africa, origins of humankind, offers African Drumming, uses the Djembe creating the master flow –contemporary and folk- African rumba, jazz, Ethiopia, Senegal, Gambia, Ivory coast, Mali, Guinea.

Websites your find helpful during your process:                                       

Music to purchase? Contact:

Putumao World Music 411 Lafayette St, NY, NY 10003 (212-625-1400)        

Classical Music:

Ferde Grofe’s Grand Canyon Suite (1921-1931) “The richness of the land and the rugged optimism of its people has fired my imagination.  I was determined to put it to music some day.”

Pop Music:

Dar Williams – When I was a boy

Film for Reflection

The Kite Runner (2007) – Various circumstances contribute to at-risk conditions. Comprised of at-risk circumstances, conditions entail more than type of readiness. Circumstances have long-term and cumulative consequences, whether positive or negative.  If society’s ultimate educational goal is preparation of citizens capable of lifelong learning and contributing to the greater well-being, then conditions which shortchange our capacity to set those children at-risk of failure. 

Set in Afghanistan, the narrator flees the Taliban as an adult. Through flashback, we witness damage done by class discrimination, loss not only to a boy, a family, a friendship but also to a nation. Most of our at-risk students, from one generation or another, come from other cultural backgrounds.  Generational transmissions structure perceptions that affect learning. To what extent does a child’s relocation process influence his perception of self, other, surrounding resources, self-efficacy? What projections and inferences might adults engage that confront or sustain inequities?

Content Websites

www.CarnegieMellon

www.Vygotskyzoneofproximaldevelopment

www.brownmetacognition

www.bloom’staxonomyofthinking

www.at-risk

Quote in conclusion, by Pascal:

“There is a reason that reason does not know.”