A social studies project (1.0)

A lesson in civics

Just thought of a cool concept, so I thought I would get it out on the interwebs.

I've been spending time thinking about the Hour of Code in the past couple of week, and it just keeps amazing me. It's an elegantly simple idea, and it is helping change the world.

It has inspired me to try a new type of social media experiment

On some date in the near future, I plan on attempting a new form of civic protest. Call it a twitter sit-in. I plan on tweeting 5 different members of the house of representatives. Each of them will get a personal question involving education in some way or another within their district.

And here is the best part. You can try it too. If you have any connection to education (family, friends, whoever) and have a twitter account you can try this. I am not saying it will be easy. It is going to take discipline, but I think we (the people of the internet) can do it, well maybe......

Challenge
You only do 5 tweets a day, each to a member of the house of representatives. To make it easy here is a website that has them all.

Each representative only gets a single tweet, no repeats.

Each tweet has to be related to education.

Have to run, but will clarify this later.

Some Questions

Class One: How many ways can you think of to use a paper clip?

Class Two: How many ways can you think of to use a computer?

Class Three: What is a community?

Class Four: How can you use a computer to teach about our interests?

Class Five: How can we use our interests to teach about ELA?

Class Six: How can we use our interests to teach about Science?

Class Seven: How can we use our interests to teach about teach about Social Studies?

Class Eight: How can we use our interests to teach about Math?

Class Ten: How can we use paper airplanes to teach about each subject?


Final Class: How can you use a computer to help improve your community?

A Challenge

I have to write this before I head into work, so unfortunately I have to be brief and this will likely be riddled with grammatical errors.

The Hour of Code starts next week on Monday, and it is without a doubt one of the coolest things I have ever learned about. Just taking a look at the partners page alone is impressive. Everyone who is anyone in both education and technology is involved. You would think based on who is involved (from the video alone) that everyone in the world would know about this.

But for some reason hardly anyone does. Those in the know of course have some idea (i.e. computer science teachers, tech people, etc.), but it seems to me that the general person has no idea this is happening. How can this be?

The Hour of Code started with a goal to introduce 10,000,000 students to computer science. Ambitious? Yes! Realistic though? Of course. Considering the partners involved this was a very reasonable goal. Yet here we are three days before the start, and sadly they are only halfway there. How is this possible?!?!

Well one guess I have is lack of marketing. While the Hour of Code is partnered with such heavy hitters, none of these partners have the Hour of Code mentioned on their main sites. Google, Microsoft, Apple, and others have no references to the Hour of Code within easy viewing. All it takes is a simple hyperlink on any of these sites, but none of them have it….. How can we change this…?

I decided to make it my goal for the next week to try and help the Hour of Code reach their goal of 10,000,000 students. Crazy? Of course! But at least I am going to try and do something. There is no reason that in this day and age we, as an online community, can not make this happen. How can we start this?

So this is my challenge to the internet. How can we help the Hour of Code reach there goal before Friday the 13th (something about that day feels lucky to me)? If you happen to stumble upon this blog post, how can you share this challenge with everyone you know? How can we make the Hour of Code go viral?

How……?

A To Do List

To do list

1. An art project

2. An English project

3. A math project

4. A social studies project

5. A Lesson Plan

6. A eulogy

7. A new hope

9. A call to arms

10. A challenge

A Shorter Story (1.0 Fiction)

Imagine a world filled with guest teachers. At every school, in every corner of the world, there is a single teacher whose sole job is to be helpful. They help out everywhere they humanly can. Kindergarten to fifth grade, upper school, and high school too. Preschool, special education, and the specials as well. There is no limit to where they can help.

They can play both the role of teacher and student. They can try and teach any subject, rain or shine, regardless of if they are very good at it or not. It’s best efforts that count anyways right?

They can share the classroom of other teachers by modeling what good listening and behavior looks like. But also have the authority to pull a rowdy student aside for a chat.

They can be requested for an hour, a day, a week, a year, and help the school whatever way they can. They are paid like any other teacher, but their salaries come from our billionaires and millionaires.

They specialize in spreading smiles. They are the commanders of creative challenges. They exhibit excellent empathy, and improvise incredible innovations.

They can use butterflies to teach about every subject and create learning in a flash.

There is of course a catch. They have to be patient, kind, and honest. Also they have to be stern, reasonable, and forgiving. But most importantly they have to care. Care about making a difference. From something as small as a fist bump, to as large as a movement.

I like to imagine a world full of guest teachers, no matter how sad it makes me when I know it isn’t real. But then again, maybe we aren’t so far…..

A Short Story (1.0 Non-Fiction)

The advantages of being a substitute

There is a formula that each of us has for the first conversation when we meet someone new. Each of ours is different, but there always tends to be one question that ends up in everyone's formula. What do you do? It is the inevitable question that comes up in some form or another. How do you spend your days? How do you bring home the dollar bills?

I am a substitute teacher, and when I share this with people, the response is generally the same. “That must be hard. I bet it's difficult because the kids must not treat you like a real teacher.”

Too be fair it is very hard and that does happen. But in no way does that make me any less of a teacher than my co workers. In fact I personally believe that there are actually advantages to being a substitute teacher.

One

Every time I substitute is an opportunity for me to learn. Every school, every class, and every student is an opportunity for me to learn how to become a better teacher. At each school I see hundreds of examples of projects plastered on the wall. In every classroom I see thousands of examples of ways to encourage learning.

But it's the students that I learn the most from. Every student teaches me not just how to become a better teacher, but more importantly how to be a better friend. I try really hard to learn as much as I can about every student I get a chance to work with. Their names, their hobbies, what they’ve been working on at school, just about anything I can.

All this time I spend learning about students is time put in to being a better friend. Being a really good friend can be difficult, because it means that most of the time you view each other as equals. The structure of traditional teaching unfortunately discourages this kind of view. But thats one of the great things about substitute teaching. It gives you a different perspective than a normal teacher.

Two

Substitute teaching inspires me to become a comedian because I get to practice improvising every time I teach. Sometimes when you sub you get lucky. The teachers left you a thorough and descriptive lesson plan, with notes about certain students that may need more help. It is almost like getting a data sheet from the NSA. But that’s if you are lucky.

Most of the time it’s pretty meh. You get a skeleton of a lesson plan, with a handful of worksheets and activities. Worksheets…. I could write a critical essay on worksheets alone, In fact I think I’ll do that later. Anyways while those lesson plans are helpful, they always leave something to the imagination.

And then there are my favorite days. The days when you go into a classroom cold. I like those days best because they are a challenge. Who are the students!? What is in the classroom!? Where are examples of students work?! Why is there a strange smell in here!? When is recess*(critical)!?! How am I going to do this?!

It’s a rush. Pure adrenaline. Question after question in my head. It always feels like an hour but is usually only a minute. Pure Panic. But I pause…. and take a breathe…. and think…. and plan. Every single time.

But that’s why I love those days. How can I challenge myself to challenge kids.

Those days are also awesome because they let me use one of my favorite teaching techniques, student created challenge questions. I ask students to create a problem for me about what we just learned in class based off of whatever they are interested in. The best days are when I get to try those challenges for the whole day.

Four

So what does this all mean? How do these points all add up? Well one of the best things about substitute teaching is that I get to be that “cool guy” teacher. Every time I fill in for a class I've subbed in before I get greeted with a verbal wave of “Yeses!”. When I get the chance to sub at one particular school long enough I start getting “Hey Jake!” in the hallway from every student.

It’s a fantastic feeling being someone’s friend. It’s cool to know that I can help brighten someone’s whole day with something as simple as a fist bump or a smile. And this is what ties points one, two, and three together.

Something we have lost sight in with education is every child is unique. Lots of children may be similar by some kind of measurable standard, but even within that group each student has a different background, their own interests, and their own story. And that's what I try and learn by being friends with everyone.

Don’t get me wrong, everyone involved with schools is trying to help children, but it is cut up into sections.Teachers, Principals, Specialists, Administration, Food Services, Sanitation, everyone that is involved in schools is there to help children. But each of these professions has their own agenda to work with.

What happens if we introduce someone new into the equation, whose sole job is to serve as a friend specialist…..

Five

I forget who first called me a guest teacher, but there was something I liked that about that term. I thought that was a really cool way to look at my profession.

Sadly my profession does not get the applicants, nor the respect it deserves. Too often these days substitute teachers are viewed as a placeholders, just some person to pass the time till things can be back to “normal”.

And then there is the catch-22 of good substitute teachers. Most of the time when you are really good at substitute teaching you only end up doing it for a little bit of time. Someone will take notice, and offer you a job as a full-time teacher, which thins out the quality of substitute teachers.

What if we re-invent substitute teachers, and turn them all into guest teachers? What happens if we raise the standards, and tighten hiring practices? What happens if we make it a privilege to become a guest teacher. What happens if rather than being a place holder they become challenge experts? And what happens if we try this in every school?

This is not a new concept, and there are examples of how to get started. And you can call them whatever you like. It’s just important that we get started.

Speaking of getting started let’s go back to where this started. When people tell me they think it must be so hard to be a substitute teacher I smile and politely nod. I agree it is hard to be a substitute teacher. But I am also smiling because there is no reason it doesn't have it’s advantages as well.