Saturday, May 01, 2004
It has been a while since I made an entry. This is due in part to the Easter break and partly because Marilyn and I have been working hard to get the KOOL grant NGO written and filed with the state.
Today we had the first of three five-hour training sessions. I put together an agenda for today's session that I knew was extremely ambitions. In many ways my agenda with this group of teachers is closer an old fashion Chinese menu. Teachers picked a few common dishes and we broke into groups to work on a variety of side orders. The main course was the Star-W web site.
Even though the 5th grade teachers don't come under the grant until next year, two of them joined us in today's training.
Marilyn, who has been the driving force behind the teachers and the Star-W program in general opened with here unique brand of support and motivation. She spoke of the work they were doing, our goals for next year, our summer training, and what we need to accomplish this year. All of this was enhanced by breakfast and lunch goodies.
After Marilyn wrapped up, we looked at the agenda and discussed what was important to cover first. The web site and Contribute were on the top of everyone's list. We had three distinct levels of expertise in this area. About half of the 3rd & 4th grade teachers has taken off and created significant content on their site. The other half had only one or two pages, and the 5th graders had zero experience on the site.
The workshop process from this point on was a joy to behold. Brook sat down with the Mrs. Clark and Mrs. Smith and began showing them how to work with Contribute. I worked alternately with Kelly, Debbie, and Kristin to refresh and reinforce their Contribute skills. Janine and Jen worked independently on updating their pages and creating new activities. When not working directly with a group I would be bouncing from person to person offering assistance as needed.
The bottom line is this. During our first workshop in October, everything we did was turnkey and step by step. Today, they took charge and moved faster than I could work to keep pace with them. I was no longer guiding step by step. My role was providing conceptual frameworks and helping them over rough spots in roads they had selected to travel.
I can see the tremendous change in the skill and productivity level of the teachers and have observed similar growth in the student technology literacy skills. It will be very interesting to see the impact that all of this is having on student achievement. I'm confident that there will be significant gains.
Everyone is growing and learning. I am certainly learning a great deal from these teachers. My first year of teaching was as substitute in Philadelphia's inner city schools, but my next 30 years were spent in white middle class schools. I'm learning that there is a significant cultural difference that has to be take into account on a day to day basis and methods that focus on just hire order thinking skills without putting the appropriate emphasis on basic skills are doing a disservice to the students. Conversations about this phenomena with Janine have caused me to reexamine some of my ideas and methods. While I instinctively agreed with her, it wasn't until I began reading Other People's Children Cultural Conflict in the Classroom by Lisa Delpit, that the reasons behind this became clear.
This has been a wonderful, uplifting, and exciting year. It certainly wasn't all smooth sailing, but life seldom is. I'm looking forward to more growth and a new set of experiences next year (not to discount the remainder of this year).
Art
Today we had the first of three five-hour training sessions. I put together an agenda for today's session that I knew was extremely ambitions. In many ways my agenda with this group of teachers is closer an old fashion Chinese menu. Teachers picked a few common dishes and we broke into groups to work on a variety of side orders. The main course was the Star-W web site.
Even though the 5th grade teachers don't come under the grant until next year, two of them joined us in today's training.
Marilyn, who has been the driving force behind the teachers and the Star-W program in general opened with here unique brand of support and motivation. She spoke of the work they were doing, our goals for next year, our summer training, and what we need to accomplish this year. All of this was enhanced by breakfast and lunch goodies.
After Marilyn wrapped up, we looked at the agenda and discussed what was important to cover first. The web site and Contribute were on the top of everyone's list. We had three distinct levels of expertise in this area. About half of the 3rd & 4th grade teachers has taken off and created significant content on their site. The other half had only one or two pages, and the 5th graders had zero experience on the site.
The workshop process from this point on was a joy to behold. Brook sat down with the Mrs. Clark and Mrs. Smith and began showing them how to work with Contribute. I worked alternately with Kelly, Debbie, and Kristin to refresh and reinforce their Contribute skills. Janine and Jen worked independently on updating their pages and creating new activities. When not working directly with a group I would be bouncing from person to person offering assistance as needed.
The bottom line is this. During our first workshop in October, everything we did was turnkey and step by step. Today, they took charge and moved faster than I could work to keep pace with them. I was no longer guiding step by step. My role was providing conceptual frameworks and helping them over rough spots in roads they had selected to travel.
I can see the tremendous change in the skill and productivity level of the teachers and have observed similar growth in the student technology literacy skills. It will be very interesting to see the impact that all of this is having on student achievement. I'm confident that there will be significant gains.
Everyone is growing and learning. I am certainly learning a great deal from these teachers. My first year of teaching was as substitute in Philadelphia's inner city schools, but my next 30 years were spent in white middle class schools. I'm learning that there is a significant cultural difference that has to be take into account on a day to day basis and methods that focus on just hire order thinking skills without putting the appropriate emphasis on basic skills are doing a disservice to the students. Conversations about this phenomena with Janine have caused me to reexamine some of my ideas and methods. While I instinctively agreed with her, it wasn't until I began reading Other People's Children Cultural Conflict in the Classroom by Lisa Delpit, that the reasons behind this became clear.
This has been a wonderful, uplifting, and exciting year. It certainly wasn't all smooth sailing, but life seldom is. I'm looking forward to more growth and a new set of experiences next year (not to discount the remainder of this year).
Art
