Baby Steps

Confession time. My work day is planned out before I step into my classroom with no space for flexibility. I stand at the front of my classroom and expect students to listen to every golden nugget of wisdom that slips from my lips.  I frequently make the trek to our school office for the sole purpose of creating copies of worksheets for my kids. I scold students for talking to their neighbors when I have deemed it inappropriate.

If you're thinking to yourself "Well, what's wrong with that? Isn't that what teachers do?"... feel free to move on.

If you are sitting at your computer, shuddering in horror - Stay with me! If you're doing the same thing in your classroom and it's killing you inside - Stick around!

I've spent the last three days at an incredible "technology" conference with Angela Maiers. I came with the assumption that I'd be leaving here with a new way to build a unit of study around technology. I'm leaving with an invaluable understanding that technology in the classroom is nothing without the right point of view. I can slap a phonics worksheet on my document camera and say I'm using technology, but what in the world are my students actually gaining from it? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

I understand now that children are geniuses. Truly! What do huge companies like Google and Amazon and Apple look for in their workers? Innovation. Creativity. Confidence. The ability to play well with others. If that's not a Kindergarten classroom, I don't know what is! What is happening to these amazing little citizens between their first year of school and their last? We, as educators and role models, are telling them that it is NOT O.K. to color outside the lines. Purple trees don't exist and are unacceptable. Your writing doesn't have the prescribed parts I demanded of you - you fail. You absolutely may not speak while I am speaking, and if you dare to talk to another child about how to solve a problem, you're a cheater.

What have we done?! What am I doing to these precious children in my room? And most importantly, how can I change myself to give them what they deserve from me? That's what this blog is going to be all about. I'm embarking on a new journey. Not for myself, but for all of my students. And I do mean ALL of my students... I've only been in the world of education for two years. Think of the hearts and souls and minds that I will be privileged to come into contact with in the next thirty!

If you've made it this far, thank you so much for reading! I hope that you'll join our journey as a community of learners and give us tips and encouragement along the way. I can't wait to get started!