REFLECTIONS OF IEARN MOMENTS IN THE CLASSROOM

 (International Educational And Resource Network)

For over a decade I utilized educational resources, provided by iEARN, to help develop groundbreaking curriculum initiatives in science class.  This effort motivated students to want to learn and it planted the seed of inquiry into their mindset.

iEARN is the link to world-wide collaboration with students and peers that is a hallmark of modern educational pedagogy. This wealth of collaborative resources accessed by teachers can be used to strengthen student cognition between the usefulness of what has been learned and its implementation to real-world situations.

In the late 2000’s into early 2010 my science classes of 50 to 60 students were involved with the iEARN Earth Stewardship Project. It was a project facilitated by teachers at my high school with the goal of developing collaborative relationships with students from abroad on environmental concerns facing our societies.  During the duration of this project, we frequently collaborated with a group of Iranian female students in Tehran that acknowledged our concerns and held the same motivation to want to help protect and preserve local ecosystems.

During this time, students in both countries shared many messages with each other and expressed concerns about actions we thought needed to be taken to preserve the vitality of our environments. Pictures and posters were shared along with data from experimental discoveries to help each other realize the commonality of the struggle of our issue to provide for the well-being of people.

The girls in Tehran used the novelty of our exchanges to promote and garner more interest and support for their efforts during a local food pantry donation champaign.  There remained a strong feeling of support between these two groups of students, from different parts of the world, during this entire collaborative project.

Most recently, students in middle school collaborated with peers from Europe, Asia and Africa on important issues related to fresh water and the protection and preservation of ecosystems world-wide.  The Water is Life / Team Green International iEARN Project, at its core, strived to promote, world-wide, the need to protect soil through regenerative agriculture practices and planting trees, preserve supplies of fresh water through wetland development and conservation and to mitigate the release of carbon dioxide through reduction in the burning of fossil fuels.

Students in grades 5 through 8 worked on different aspects of the project to draw together comprehensive plans to make changes to safeguard our ecosystems.  Students, working on projects from countries around the world, presented at online and real-time conferences to share what they have learned with peers. Facilitators from iEARN helped orchestrate students’ ability to share ideas, explain experimental outcomes, and to learn from each other about how they live their lives across the planet.

These conferences were some of the most exciting events of the school year because it was the culmination of student efforts to solve problems then having the ability, through iEARN, to share results with peers from faraway places.  It was a model of international educational initiatives that is essential in a world more tightly networked than ever before.

Student motivation to learn was enhanced in both these experiences and it is a rewarding feeling for me to have had the opportunity to take advantage of resources that tap into the essence of what it means to be a learner. Students in both situations were able to articulate to peers from across the planet their beliefs, their discoveries and their hope for a better future.

 

Tenure Denied

A reflection of a teacher’s struggle in high school education

 

Getting up in the morning with teachers and students gathering at 7 am is the crux of what it takes to deliver education to our youth.  Just being there day after day is the experience thrust upon me as an aging teacher. It is a learning experience that has no tenure.

For four months this winter, I ventured back to school as a long-tern substitute teacher at Hampshire High School in Hampshire, Illinois. My goal was to contribute to the effort of solidifying societal fundamental elements of education and guide students into progressive futures.  It was a noble goal and a noble calling for me as a retired teacher.

Hampshire High School is a prime example of our American secondary public education system in action.  Raw emotions and academic struggles that bond together in an envelope of grit and resoluteness.  It is morning in America, and our education system is burdened with unsettling and disturbing social, economic and political realities that we face every day.

It is a fact that teachers evolve with their students.  They deliver academic stimulus and adapt it to changes taking place in the classroom to function as instruments of change for young minds. This has been a learning experience for me, even with 30 years of experience, it has been hard to deal with behavior management while striving to deliver effective and imaginative curriculum.  It is a struggle between teachers and students with both advocating for use of technologies but embracing divergent goals. Phone use is an essential tool for communication in a modern technological society, but at the same time, it is completely detrimental to the learning environment in classrooms.

Teachers at Hampshire are heroic in their efforts to deliver a disciplined and innovative curriculum, even as students experience soul crushing economic, political and social unraveling.  These cultural realities leave students angry, anxious and isolated.  Teachers at Hampshire thread a difficult course through this social upheaval and gut-wrenching economic pressures.  School climate and culture can be viewed as bell-weather indicators reflecting the fulfillment of progress or the failures of our society.

Right now, it comes down to mechanics and the process of delivering learning experiences to students immersed in a sea of futility, lost opportunity and social demise. It is now a rallying time for educators and shareholders in education institutions to address the vitality of our nation.  Our nation’s position as a world power relies on educating our youth.  Is there no greater need or critical expectation?

Technology in the classroom is twin-bladed.  It invigorates the learning process in the classroom by teachers, but it also unleashes immense disruption.  Technology helps teachers deliver curriculum in a more efficient and equal manner.  It also can disrupt the fabric of social order in schools; driving people apart, alienating individuals and instigating hate toward one another.

Phone use in the classroom is one of the most disruptive forces that inhibit learning. Phones distract students from learning and create for them a new set of priorities with learning, in school, ranked low on the scale of student concerns. Academic success and indulgence are secondary to students’ efforts in addressing self-induced perception of themselves online. 

This decline in learning in the classroom will continue as students’ motivation to remain engaged in societally generated orders of events, like schooling, gives way to the need to access applications on smart phones and maintaining continual feeds of real-time connections with peers.

There is a grudge match between teachers and students conflicted between achieving academic outcomes and remaining immersed in social interactions on phones.  A gulf of online interaction with phones in the classroom has decreased students’ ability to focus for long periods of time on projects, solving problems or when they design new ideas dealing with engineering challenges.  The immediate rewards of online instant access are just too seductive for our youth. They are mentally addicted to phone use, and it crowds out motivation to complete school projects on time and with quality.

Student reflection on conceptual understanding or achieving outcomes on projects is a process of learning that develops critical thinking and creative thought within individuals.  It is a process of reinforcing understanding, and it takes time to develop. Phone use cuts into time needed for this learning process to materialize, while at the same time deemphasizes the need for deep thought.  The disengagement of academics by students in the classroom results in an immediate stimulant to them with their phones online. It leads down a road of lost opportunities to learn and a delivers a lack in the development of abilities to think creatively and produce critical thought in their personal development. This is a lack of education.

Without education, potential dies a slow death, and prosperity is diminished for all.  A lack of education results in a decent into a third world nation status.  We are poised as a nation to excel into prosperity or plunge into despair.  It is always up to us.  It is our choice.  We dictate our future; we live with our decisions, we live or we die as a nation. 

It has been an unending learning experience for me at Hampshire High School this winter.  For over 30 years, success as an educator for me has relied upon continued evolution of my teaching pedagogy.  It is tenure denied because the final threshold of teaching students can never be achieved and one can only keep pace with ever-changing situations in life that have impact on us all.

 

It Is All About Culture

 

The meaning of culture leads to shared values, perspectives, beliefs, ethnicity and
historical lineage. Culture is a culmination of social structures that include shared
economic considerations, segregation of socioeconomic groups of people and political
alliances between generations.

Culture sets the stage for social, political, and economic continuity in our society. It is
the social anchoring of our existence. How we perceive different relationships in our
lives (personal emotional, financial and work-environment) determine our means and
our ability to alter life-fulfilling outcomes.

To be progressive is to house a mindset that originally stems from anarchism and is
later transformed into ideas for change. As quoted by Nathan Schneider in the book
Chomsky on Anarchism, “anarchists figured out how to organize themselves in a
functional egalitarian and sufficiently productive society”. Cultural norms are an outcome
of many perspectives by millions of people. It is fundamental to ensuring society’s well-
being and continuity.

Change is the upending of cultural norms as society becomes emboldened to act on the
inevitability of progress. Schools must deal with cultural norms across society. It is a
blend of generational thinking from Boomers, Generation Xer’s, Millennials, and
Generation Zer’s laying foundational guideposts for which schools can function as
educational institutions.

Classrooms provide the template of thinking and deliver learning environments that rise
to generational expectations. The collage of different thoughts, perspectives, and
expectations makes development of progressive educational initiatives, at times, at
odds with student needs. Students brought along a pathway of least resistance
established in schools and at home will deal poorly with developing their ability to foster
resiliency in their lives.

Differences in generational expectations, within school learning environments, cause
conflict in the deployment of curriculum. What cuts through this maze of competing
expectations is a consensus for fundamental concern of students’ well-being. Student
preparation in schools must deal with addressing development of the mental fortitude to
surmount challenges that they face in their lives and to develop their ability to work
collaboratively with peers and solve problems. This is the goal of education.

This intersection between school curriculum and school culture places educators in the
crosshairs of conflict. Divergent values, traditions, and identities clash with educational
goals. Curriculum can reflect the importance of knowledge, but multigenerational perspectives cause discourse in what is determined to be the most important to teach students. A multigenerational society will struggle when deciding desired educational outcomes and the legitimacy of presented pedagogy.

 

As a seasoned educator for 30 years, I see this struggle played out in classrooms.
Content may be eternal, but the delivery and expectations teachers have for students
becomes a collegial multigenerational interpretation. This decade of immense social,
economic and technological change will tax our education system to its breaking point.
Hopefully this crisis in social, environmental and economic foundational pillars of our
society will ultimately drive consensus among educational shareholders.

 

Corporate lawlessness, threats of fascism, unchecked executive governance and an
economy lacking resources to see to the needs of people lay the groundswell for an era
of crisis for our country. From Boomers to Generation Zer’s, the consequences of a
crisis faced by society call upon people, from their position of legacy experiences with
knowledge and understanding, to bring forth a commitment supporting and fostering
needed change. Education of our youth is the challenge, and change will require
empathetic relationships between educators that act as the rudders of a ship, thereby
helping to steer a progressive course through this tumultuous time in history.

 

 

Memories of a Dog

It is important to realize that the bonds we form with animals have real meaning.  It is, at times, the only thing in life that seems to be normal and consistent.  Relationships with family members and colleagues can be stressful and challenging as we go through life, but it is relationships with animals, like dogs, that provide refuge from these trying times.

I loved my dog. She was a companion that I had great affection for and I respected her presence in my life.  She died the day before Thanksgiving this year and I still feel her presence in our home.  For over 13 years she was part of our family. Her influence on our lives was positive and heartening. She was our family, and we very much appreciated what she brought to us in love, loyalty and affection.  She is now missing from our lives every day. Life continues without her with us here at home.

I have often written and published in this blog about the need to protect living species. It seems like this calling for me, at times, is like shouting into the wind, which is unsustainable and seemingly futile. Except now when you equate it to the love of a dog, I feel it has more meaning. That life, with all its complexities and mysteries, is an endless struggle for relevance. Love for family and for the influences in our life has meaning.  It gives meaning to us.

I have turtles, fish and a gecko in my home.  I watch birds flying overhead, engage with backyard garden-marauding rabbits and I witness high dexterity squirrels. I see flocks of soaring geese and I watch ducks land gracefully onto nearby ponds. The environment we have been given supports all living creatures so they can live their lives. This includes humans and how we navigate through what we do in life. It seems that living is more conceptual than ever. To live means to have cognition and a sense of being that becomes increasingly viral as complexities manifest themselves. To have life means to have beaten back the chaos of the universe for a time and to hold your ground as the cosmic orchestrations of existence plays out around you.

I want to express my love for life on this planet and my concern for its fragility. The complexity of it all can be taken away in an instant and it is part of what it means to be human to acknowledge this and to see the need to protect and preserve life-supporting ecosystems everywhere.

 

 

 

PUBLIC EDUCATION IS DEMOCRACY

From the book, Why Fascists Fear Teachers, by Randi Weingarten;

“Public education is an idea as old as democracy and inextricably linked with it.  The radical idea that instead of being a nation that gives power and knowledge only to kings, we invest in education for all and the common good.

Fascists and autocrats fear what teachers do because they know their brand of greed, hierarchy, and extremism cannot survive in a democracy of diverse, educated citizens.”

Teacher pedagogy defines the vitality of learning experiences for students.  It is a foundational act of solidarity aligned with the beliefs of free people living within a democracy. 

Young minds experiencing learning opportunities in the classroom, that spur imaginative thought, will develop a zeal, within each student, to solve problems and think creatively.  Groups of students working on projects in the classroom can galvanize strong incentives to collaborate and cooperate on vexing issues and problems. Independent thought and collegial relationships are important outcomes that result when students work on project-based educational initiatives at schools.

Empowering students with a good education lends well to the boundless promise of a fulfilled life.  This gives students the potential and opportunity to reach their full capacity as citizens within our country.

Education leads to students being more resolute in their persistence to be engaged in critical thinking to solve real world problems.   Living a good life requires abilities of individuals to transverse nuances of life as we tread our way through the gray areas of the world with blurred boundaries. Education provides skill and abilities that are essential to the process of creating a society that addresses needs of the most vulnerable among us and creates equal opportunities for everyone.

Teachers need the support of the many shareholders in education such as parents, community leaders and administrative governance that can help enfranchise innovative and devoted talents necessary to get students to want to learn. The design and implementation of learning by teachers, taking place in creative learning environments, will produce outcomes that are rewarding to all students.

 

A Calling to Increase Learning Experiences in the Classroom: 

iEARN Project-Based Educational Initiatives.

(International Educational and Resource Network)

This week begins the Water is Life Project in iEARN (https://us.iearn.org/).

 It is scheduled to continue until the beginning of summer in June!

It is now an important time for teachers to commit time and effort of themselves and their students and become involved in this project.  The goal is to become involved in the methodology of doing this project by completing both the Introductions and Pathways posted in the project and obtaining achievable outcomes. The collaborative nature of this project will manifest itself as students share their ideas, analysis and solutions of real-world problems.

Commitment by educators to deliver scientific inquiry, as the means to construct learning experiences, does achieve greater understanding by students of fundamental concepts and increases in their development of analytical skills and abilities.

Recent educational surveys, given to students in middle school and high school, have presented a need for teachers to deliver curriculum that explains concepts in more understandable ways, which leads to increasing the number of highly motivated students doing STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics).  Research has proven a direct relationship between inquiry-models of learning, within curriculum, and resulting increases in average grades achieved by students in the classroom.

Teachers who commit their time, effort and resources to involve students with iEARN projects will benefit by creating learning environments that are highly engaging and produce high-quality academic outcomes. There is no substitute for these hands-on collaborative learning opportunities delivered by teachers to students in the classroom.

I am looking forward to help orchestrate this effort to engage students in high-quality learning experiences within this international forum provided by iEARN.  I have years of experience conducting this effort in iEARN and I look forward to sharing my experience and insights to foster a tremendous learning experience for students around the world!

 

FREEDOM

Developing Sovereign Free People

To be sovereign and free means to be open to the needs of others.  It involves embracing an openness to new ideas and diverse thinking.  It means having an eye to see ways to improve life and to incorporate this thinking into living unpredictably, to have mobility in one’s life and have an insightful expectation for change. This is an advocation expressed by Timothy Snyder author of the book, On Freedom.

It is an extraordinary advocation for what makes us free.  The realization of our needs is a consequence of having critical thinking skills and abilities developed from the experience of excellence in education.  An education that develops investigative and analytical abilities, develops and open-mindedness for new ideas and a shared commitment for the protection and preservation of local ecosystems world-wide.

People in free societies have expectations for their own political, social, economic and spiritual discourse. An outcome of this discourse is the safeguarding of lives, preservation of resources and the delivery of a secure and prosperous future.

Education provides individuals the power to seize their chance for a better life for themselves and for those within their community.  Education develops a resistance to acceptance of bleakness.  The societal goal is to prevent the dissolution of values intended to prevent blaming victims and refuges for their own suffering.  Without sovereign thoughts of discourse by the populous, then solutions become nullified, and continual crisis becomes normalized.  It breeds contempt for others and fuels an unholy acceptance of climate catastrophe outcomes.

Climate catastrophe is not an inevitability.  It can be adverted by conscious action taken by sovereign and unpredictable people.  Educated people, with developed critical thinking skills, will enable individuals to acknowledge past catastrophes and create solutions more numerous than can be imagined. Our values can lead us into a prosperous future by first reflecting upon the past, then dealing with challenges of current realities and finally seizing the chance to develop a more fulfilling good life for everyone.

As this new school year begins, we face new challenges brought upon us by both internal and external forces.  As a society our ability to surmount these challenges and forge a more prosperous equitable future is dependent upon how we present education to our youth in the classroom.  The avenues available to educators to deliver learning opportunities must include a pathway to sovereignty.  This is the course of action that can deliver a lasting progressive impact on how we live, how we deal with each other and how we prepare ourselves for the future.

The vocation of teaching is the crucible from which a sovereign society can rise from and thereby seize the chance to make a better life for everyone.