Morning Pages: The Hot Button of Technology, Ouch!

I am of the mind that technology is a power and tool that we should be able to make work for us, and not vice versa. I believe in education, it has the possibility of allowing students of different learning styles to be engaged and stimulated.  At the same time, it allows students the ability to learn how to present their ideas, research, and work in a way that is stimulating and engaging to their peers.

I think of technology as a convenience, as a vehicle, as a tool. It's something that we can try to avoid or not keep up with, but it seems to make it a whole lot harder if you don't keep up to date with it.

In terms of schools and their use of technology, I believe that having the basics for presentations and research use is important. but I also think that some of the essential ingredients in schooling consist of non-technological resources and skill-training like learning how to work with peers, which can be enhanced and facilitated by technology, but can be just as potent without. Students are so entrenched in screen time throughout their days and lives, and I think time away from the screen is even more important than time in front of the screen. I believe that socio-emotional and socio-cultural skill building is very important in education at all levels.

With this said, I think that what a school has in terms of technology is enough, and we work with what we are given. A school can strengthen student's skills in other mediums like art, theater, outdoor education, physical education.

What does teacher advocacy look like? Why should teachers be educational advocates?

What does teacher advocacy look like? Why should teachers be educational advocates?  Read How Do You Know If You’re a Teacher Leader? by Precious Crabtree and How to Become a Teacher Advocate by Jessica Cuthbertson. Write a blog entry that explores why/how/whether or not young teachers

In Jessica Cuthbertson's "How to Become a Teacher Advocate," she states "The social and mass media chatter is all too quick to point out flaws in our system but often falls short on highlighting teacher-created solutions and successes." 
I think this reminds us that we have to pride ourselves as teachers on our solutions and successes.  We also have to work to redefine the strengths and powerful characteristics of teachers, own them and work to change how teachers are profiled in the media.  After reading these blogs, I realized that not only are we urged to work as advocates as teachers to share student's voices and needs, but also we are urged to advocate for the teaching profession.  

In our time and age, it is even more important for us to redefine what and how teachers are the center of education, and that they are not a voiceless body, but are working with the youth and students themselves, and are the key to knowing where they are coming from, what they need, what they are attracted to, how they communicate and understand best, and who they are as individuals and people. 

Morning Pages - "The Big Wait"

Waiting, looking at the calendar, counting the days, weeks, months, years. The calendar is something I am very in tune with, whether it is my google calendar on my phone, or the National Conservancy calendar in the hall next to the kitchen, or the calendar next to my desk, I seriously am a calendar person. I have always loved setting goals, and having something or somewhere to look forward to, whether it is a staycation or an international trip, a wedding across the country, or a family holiday, it gives me hope that the hard work will pay off, and some sigh of relief and relaxation, as well as fun and laughs are ahead. 

As an adult student having taken a hiatus while following the Eastern arts teaching path for many years, finishing my degrees at this point in my life has been a major waiting game and lesson in patience. It is hard because as a student my income is very low, and this puts pressure on other parts of my life. So, the biggest piece to waiting is waiting to make some money! I am really looking forward to having a more lucrative job, in order to be more free and flexible with my finances, as well as my nights and weekends, which now are infiltrated by homework, writing, and research.  

At the same time, it has been such a blessing to delve into the area of study, learning, connecting with other students and professors, and really take an invested interest in the subjects I've been introduced to. Yes, I waited quite a long time to go back to school, I had a family, a career, and a child since last going to school!  But, it has been humbling and so eye-opening in many regards. Although I've been waiting and counting down the years, months, and weeks to graduation, I am also going to miss just learning for learning's sake. 

It's a bit nerve-wracking at the same time, to have been out of the job market for a while, and to be ready to take on a full-time full-responsibility occupation. Going back to work full time also represents the end of my son's babyhood.  He is 4.5 and will be 5 going on 6 by the time I go back to work full time. As a single parent for the past four years, my full time unpaid job has been caregiver and guardian for my son, and shifting into him being in school and me being at work full time will be so huge for both of us.  I am so ready for it, but at the same time it feels bittersweet, a rite of passage, a time that we can never return to. 

So, while I am anxiously awaiting getting into the work world, and field of communications, I am going to enjoy the days over the next year with my son, with my classes and with the research that will help guide me to the right organization or company.

Tick, tock, tick, tock.

Morning Pages 3-24-16

Since I did not get to class in time for the Morning Pages, I am here catching up on Friday night! And since I already wrote a letter to the future President, I will choose another topic of my own interest.

I'd like to write about what I think are going to be good topics for my Teacher as Advocate Badge.

I recently was introduced to the movie "Bully" and it was really intense and moving. I didn't realize how serious bullying is these days, and it made me scared to think how many kids are bullied that don't even talk about it to anyone.  That is where the danger lies, and that is when they are most at risk. I think it is important for kids who are being bullied to have some friend, family member or ally of some sort whom they can share with, and get help in standing up in some way to the bully.
From the film, I realized that it isn't a matter that one person can remedy, it takes a whole community. Peers, teachers, mentors and school administration has to be on board to eradicate bullying in schools. There has to be an open and clear message that it is not acceptable, it is hurtful, and detrimental to the whole school.
But in this day and age with social media, so much bullying now has gone faceless, when kids create profiles of fake people and use those profiles to do the damaging act of bullying. The kids who are bullied in these circumstances do not have anyone to blame.  They are just seeing a fake name and the hurtful words or images that come with the cyber bullying.
I think if educators and parents took more initiative to stop bullying by showing films, media, and talking about bullying then there would be a better chance to raise awareness around it in students.
No child deserves to hurt themselves or be hurt in the hands of a bully or bullying.
Children who are encouraged and lifted up can really take on anything, but the opposite causes such pain, anger, and danger that it is a serious problem that our society must face.  It seems it is the country towns that are not doing enough about this problem, and are in a way supporting bullying to continue.
People need to consider who they are voting into office and hiring into their schools so that there is a shared prerogative to really weed out the insidious seed of bullying.

Study that I Used to Know Response

After watching the video, "Study that I used to know" I felt very much in line with what the parody was saying.  It was speaking on the experience of education as being a feeding of useless information.  Much of my experience in school was a whole lot of memorization.  There were whole years in grade school that I don't have more than a couple memories from. I attribute this to the teacher and teaching style.  At that time, the teachers had been teaching for more than ten years, and were very stuck in a didactic teaching style.  For this reason, the information was not as retained.  I think it is important to have a varied education with a diversity of topics and subjects covered, in the hopes that a student can find their niche. But it is unfortunate that some of the subjects we learn are not really useful in our day to day lives. I think if schooling was more holistic, which I think it definitely has changed and grown over the years to encompass more experiential learning, then students can practice a number of disciplines all in the same lesson or project.

I think this video and message was really relevant and true for many people's experiences.

UGP, Haiku, empathy

I think that the UGP, Haiku have something very much in common.
The whole premise of writing in an unfamiliar genre is to get familiar with something unfamiliar, and remember what it is like to be uncomfortable, to wobble, to be uneasy, and ask a result to feel empathy, as a writer, learner, and teacher.

I feel like the more I read in the genre of Haiku, the more I feel that empathy is a huge piece of it. Almost like music, it evokes sentiment, and with that sentiment, we relate to the artist, whether a musician, songwriter, singer, poet, or writer.

I have been reading Haiku by very famous poet, Matsuo Basho, who lived from 1644-1694.  I feel like I am taking a walk with him or with him sitting looking at the moon or the clouds or the sky with him when I read his haiku.  I also have read more about him as an individual. He was known to withdraw from society for periods of time, in an bare, austere hut with no luxuries with only simple necessities.  I feel like he invited the simple into his life and his poetry so that he could see the magnificent in the simple, free things in life. I also get the feelings that he could empathize with poverty, with hunger in several of his haiku. Here is one I especially love.

For a lovely bowl

let us arrange these

flowers...

Since there is no rice

So, how can I produce haiku with empathy in regards to education?  I think of what is hard in education about being a teacher. Many tests, many students, struggling students, stressful nights of grading stacks of papers, little resources and time to work with, parameters and standards to compete with and align to, work-life balance, equality in education, social class stratification.  Then I also thing of the beautiful things, student's laughter, student's aha moments, group energy, student's compassion for each other, students' compassion for their teachers, student's helping each other out, student's being proud of their work and accomplishments, achievements at the end of the year, pride as a teacher, sharing curiosity, brainstorming sessions, student-teacher heart to hearts, teacher aha moments, attuning to a parent for the benefit of a student, getting support from the school in new ideas or programs.

Classroom question marks
Swirling like fish in a bowl
Hooked by teachers hearts

Giggles and pencils
Scribbling dreams and passions
In the shape of school

Courageous souls meet
paper and pencil, classmates
Fearlessly building knowledge

Compassionate rules
Giving room to grow grander
Make mistakes and rise

Seeing you see me
Makes my heart and soul tickle
School rocks when I'm seen

Fear, mistakes, growth, steam
Going forward sometimes slow
Supported, meet me.

I love how this project has been like a group of circles overlapping, creates a flower, a circle of life. It has overlapped teaching methods, being a learner, growing from making mistakes, writing, writing, writing, reading other's work, and creating a final portfolio.

I am excited to see the final product.

I am also grateful for the site Haiku of Basho that let me dive into the feeling of ancient pristine haiku today.

Reflections and How to Reflect

As I am thinking about and reflecting on the process of reading and learning about Haiku as a genre, I like what authors Sarah Andrew-Vaughn and Cathy Fleischer have written on the topic in regards to the Unfamiliar Genre Project on page 105, "Just as Sarah introduces other aspects of this project using the tools of immersion, inquiry, instruction, and integration, she shares past students' reflective letters in order to draw out of her students what might be involved in writing this genre of reflection."
I love how she uses these tools, "immersion, inquiry, instruction, integration."
I'd like to examine each of those and what I have done with them.
Immersion
I have been reading a lot in the genre of haiku since I chose it.  It has helped me expand my idea of what haiku encompasses.  It is all inclusive at this point in history, when it first began with more contemplative and nature oriented subject matter. I've also realized how much it has grown in the U.S. and in the English language, after originally being from Japan.

Inquiry
My biggest questions that have arisen since first thinking about haiku and learning of its characteristics and structure were, "Do my haiku have to address nature? Do they have to always speak of the/a season/s? Must they be zen like and peace-inducing?"
At first, I found that it seemed like the answer to these questions were yes.  I found that that might cause me quite a lot of challenge in being able to cross those parameters and cover the subject matter that this UGP has asked of us, to address what it is to be a teacher, what are our writing touchstones, and what is our process as we identify as writers, and teachers of writers. All these things do not normally evoke in me a sense of calm, or a sense of nature and seasons.
But, the more I thought about it, the more I realized like anything, things happen in cycles. Just like the book, Pose, Wobble and Flow speaks of, we go through cycles, cycles of comfortability, risk, and achievement, or flow, where what we have been learning and pushing ourselves to conquer becomes familiar.
I then think that teaching can be likened to seasons and cycles as well. With every new year, we are going to have new classes full of some possibly old but mostly new students.  Just like with the spring come new flowers, new students come in the fall. We have crunch time, withering and crumbling time, maybe in the winter, or at the end of the year, and this can be likened to the seasons as well.

Instruction
I didn't realize how strict a discipline haiku can be and was historically.  So, not only am I learning how to pose and wobble and flow with the genre of haiku, but I am also going to be instructing in the future.  I love that it comes from a strict history of instruction as well. On scholastic.com's website on haiku, they describe how the most famous haiku poet, Basho was a Samurai in the late 17th century in Japan.  He came from a family of Samurai, and "to become a Samurai, Basho served a local lord who was fond of writing." I love that becoming a Samurai included this intellectual and very artistic genre of instruction.

Integration
 To me, writing is an art, and energy work, just like yoga or tai chi or chi gong, are also arts.  I love that Basho's discipline included the two.  And not only is writing haiku an art, but also a meditation. I wonder how I can incorporate the instruction of meditation and calming the mind with writing and the genre of haiku.

For this blog post, it was helpful to take author Sarah's words and apply them to my own process in my UGP. 

I think this is such a multi-layered and beneficial project that lets us as pre-service teachers take on three roles as student, teacher, and writer. It helps us empathize with each of those roles, and all the while helps us practice writing in a new genre.

Here's a Haiku for the day:

Calms my spirit now
Writing Mediation Mix
Balance Yin and Yang

Some more words from the book on metacognition which have been helpful to me in my reflection process, "Why would I ask you to write about your metacognition in the project? Well, I want to know how you were thinking as you were learning this genre for the first time. What things were you paying attention to? What were the lightbulb moments? What were your moments of complete confusion and frustration, and how did you work your way out of those times?" (Pg.107-8) 

I absolutely love these questions that she poses for her students doing the UGP and they are definitely questions that I continue asking myself as I am working through the last week of the UGP, and I will address more of them in my next blog of reflections. We don't always think to tease out what are our frustrations; I know I tend to push them aside as cumbersome and unworthy, but I think teasing them out and writing about them will help overcome them.  Also highlighting lightbulb moments will make them more real and discernible and memorable I am hoping.  

I really hope that future generations will learn to use metacognition in education from the get go, because I feel like it will help them flow through the cycles of wobble and confusion, and unknowing, and make it okay, and make it really awesome to know oneself and one's own process, one's own clockwork.