A New Appreciation For Kindergarten Teachers

I have always had a healthy apppreciation for all members of the teaching profession. I believe that a career in education is one of the noblest professions of all, regardless of whether the career is spent in the elementary, secondary, or post-secondary level. Despite my admiration of teachers of all levels, I have to admit that I haven't understood much of what is involved in teaching some age groups of students, such as Kindergarten.

I've had the pleasure of working on staff with many terrific Kindergarten teachers, people who work long hours and seem to have a genuine warm attitude for the young students in their care, but I've never had a true appreciation for the work that goes into the job until recently. You see, for the past month I've had a chance to "walk a mile in a Kindergarten teacher's shoes." My job assignment for the month of September was unusual to say the least; I taught Junior Kindergarten in the morning, and grade 6/7 in the afternoon. Anyone who has performed a double duty such as this knows how tricky the job can get.

District reorganization has resulted in me being reassigned to a grade 5/6 class for the rest of the year (I'm quite happy about this!), but one thing that I've taken away from my original job assignment is the amount of work that goes into a Kindergarten teacher's day. I was shocked by the amount of time I had to spend to get the room ready for the start of school, not to mention the amount of time I spent planning and preparing every single day once school started. I am being completely honest when I say that I was more exhausted after teaching 4 year olds than I was after teaching the grade 6/7's! Teaching young children requires an enormous amount of patience, especially when the students are brand new to the routines of a structured school environment.

This was a great opportunity and learning experience for me, and I can honestly say that it has made me a more well-rounded teacher. Most of my time has been spent with older students, but I take my hat off to all Kindergarten teachers. I admire and respect the work that they do, and they deserve to be recognized for their contribution to the education system. They are special people!

Photo Credit: Kindergarten in Session http://www.flickr.com/photos/wwworks/2885861465/

Student Reactions to Obama Speech on Education

In class today we spent a significant amount of time focusing on President Obama's education speech, delivered yesterday to k-12 students across the United States. Although we are in Canada, I felt that the message contained in the President's speech was universal and certainly relevant to the message I try to pass along to my students.

Before viewing the footage, we discussed what we thought the message might be, and the key words that the President was likely to focus on. There was an incredible amount of class participation as words such as education, school, learning, students, studying, and curriculum were suggested as possible focal points of the speech.

As we listened to the speech, the students listened attentively and took notes. I was hoping that the President's message would stimulate a productive conversation, and I wasn't disappointed. Many of my students felt that the most significant point was "not letting failure get in the way of your goals", while others felt that an incredible amount of pressure was being placed on students when President Obama said "If you quit on school you're not just quitting on yourself, you're quitting on your country." A handful of students identified what I felt was a key point of the speech, when the President challenged students by asking "What's your contribution going to be? What problems are you going to solve?" (A full transcript of the speech can be found here.)

I find it fascinating that a group of Canadian students would be so transfixed on a message being delivered by the president of a foreign country. I wasn't sure how this activity would go, but I think one of my students summed things up best when he said "When the President of the United States speaks to us, we need to listen."

Apparently some people weren't as open to this idea, and some refused to hear the President's message, but I for one am glad that we had a chance to be a part of it.

What A Difference A Year Makes!

A new school year started last week, and it didn't take long for me to catch on to some interesting developments in the classroom. You see, I have the unique opportunity (for part of the day) to teach many of the same students I taught last year. Naturally, I can't help but notice the growth that these 6th graders have shown since September of last year.

We placed a heavy focus on using web tools in the classroom when they were with me in grade 5. We created our own class podcast, we created digital stories using Photo Story and Windows Movie Maker, we blogged with each other and with other classrooms, and we made live video connections (using Skype and Adobe Connect) with other students and educators from around the world. It was a modest start compared to the efforts of other, more technologically experienced educators, but we were able to learn together in an environment that focused on project-based learning, character and service initiatives, and rigorous curriculum standards.

This is the interesting part. Throughout the summer holidays some students continued to create podcasts, and make edits and updates to the wikis that were created in class months earlier. I find it fascinating that students would even consider doing this while on their summer vacation! Then, during the first week of the new school year (last week), I got another surprise. I gave the students an opportunity to explore the web for a few minutes, with very little guidelines or instruction from me. I wanted to see what sites the students would gravitate to, expecting them to try to do what they did last September (get past the Youtube blocks, or go on gaming sites such as Miniclip). Not one student tried to do these things! What they really wanted to check out were the blogs we created and the clustermaps of our websites. They were surprised to see that the clustermaps continued to get "red dots" even though no new content was created throughout the summer, and to be honest I was pleasantly surprised as well.

If there's a point to my rambling, it would be that my students have shown me that they want to be engaged with opportunities to create and connect with others in meaningful learning experiences. Not only do they want to have a voice in future conversations, but they want to follow up on conversations that have taken place in the past. I realize that I'm not exactly breaking new ground here, and I'm certainly not adding anything new to the conversation on 21st century skills (apologies to those who are tiring of this term), but I'm convinced that we are making a huge mistake if we're not considering these learning opportunities for ourselves and our students. I know of several grade 6 students who would agree with me on this one.

I'm curious to know if others have seen similar transformations in the learning attitudes of their students through the implementation of these collaborative tools. What next steps are you planning to put into place to continue the learning? This is the question I find myself trying to answer now. I'll let you know how it's going!