Everybody has advice for grads. Some of it is even good.

In a recent Wall Street Journal article, an English language instructor at the Showa Boston Institute for Language and Culture, advised graduates to ignore the advice all of the graduation speakers were giving them to "do what you love".   Carl McCoy even titled his article  "Dear Grads: Don't Do What You Love."  No one has ever asked me to give a graduation speech, but I say, "Dear Grads: Don't lisen to Mr. McCoy!"

First let me say that he is trying to make a valid point.  There are some things that you  might love doing that don't make a decent living, and going through life broke, hungry, and homeless is not a good plan for the future.  Certainly the job outlook and the ability to make a living must figure in to the decision.  However, even that is difficult.  We are being told now that 50% of the jobs that will be available to today's high school graduates after college haven't even been imagined today.  It's hard to imagine what the prospects for that job will be when no one has dreamed up what it is at this time.


He even uses himself as an example as a "starving artist".  However, he ignores that there are plenty of paying jobs, many with benefits, from employers who need an artistic designer for their advertising, their buildings, landscape, parks, etc.  Ask any teacher.  Just because your job doesn't pay in the top 20% of all careers today doesn't mean that you can't make a living and that you can't find satisfaction and make ends meet. 


McCoy asks if a doctor loves going to the hospital to see a patient in the middle of the night or a fireman loves going in to a burning building.  Maybe they don't, but I sure hope that - if I am lying in the emergency room - that doctor isn't spending her midnight drive time thinking about finding another job that would be less hassle.  Or that the fireman isn't hoping that the building will stop burning before he has to go in to it. 

Mr. McCoy, when you find a job that only involves doing things that you really enjoy, let me know. I will be the first to apply.  

Following his advice would direct our graduates to only seek what pays well. or will be hiring in the future.  I selected a college major in the midst of the first energy crisis and picked engineering because I thought I would enjoy it. I did, for 20+ years and have enjoyed the past seven helping others get a start in to similar career paths. Many of my fellow college freshmen, however, selected petroleum engineering as a major for the singular reason that they would be paid the highest salaries of any college major at the time.  Never mind that most of these people didn't know what petroleum was or where it might be found and that an engineer to them wore a blue and white striped overalls and hat and sat at the front of a train. 

My point is that, as miserable as being unemployed and penniless is, working just because you need a paycheck isn't much better.  You may have a roof over your head and not have to worry as much. However, you will easily spend 80,000 hours of your life doing work.  It makes them go much easier and faster if you spend this hour looking forward to the next rather than looking forward to 5:00 when you can go home. 

So look to your passion.  Consider what will make you want to go to work every day and then look at where you can use those skills in a paying job.  

Now I will sit by the phone waiting for those invitations to speak at graduation. 

Happy New Year - and a look back

Well, it is that time for reflection once again.  Reflection and looking forward at the same time.  What did I do well or not so well in 2012, and what will I do better with in 2013? 

In the last few months, I continued to push in to the realm of flipped classroom teaching.  I created videos on 13 of the topics covered in my Digital Electronics class this fall.  I may never win an academy award, but the results have been fairly positive.  It did in many cases, as I had hoped, give students more time to work on their projects in class with direction and help available.  I say in many cases because it has taken some time to get everyone in the habit of checking for or watching a video for homework.  Even if they didn't, though, those students sit in class and review the videos with their assignment in front of them.  If I thought it was strange to be teaching a lesson in an empty room to nobody, it is even more so to hear my voice coming from 2-3 different computers in the room while I am there! 

Feedback from the students has been positive.  Many said that they benefited from the ability to watch the lesson, pause and rewind when necessary, and work on the assignment right away.  It hasn't been perfect, but the results were good enough to encourage me to expand my efforts. I added a short review video for the Intro to Engineering class and plan to create a review for them as we come back to school after the Christmas break.  Even if they don't watch it before class, they can take advantage of the ability to watch and do simultaneously. 

Along the way, I have gotten some better at using a few of the tools that helped out.  Those 13 videos are all posted on Youtube, which I had done little more than watch videos previously.  I recorded the lessons mostly using my school document camera and screencastomatic.com with editing using Microsoft's Movie Maker.  All of those are free, but screencastomatic has a premium version that is cheap ($29 for 3 years) that claims to allow editing and direct upload to Youtube.  I look forward to trying that out in 2013. 

In November, I attended a class on flipping the classroom that was very helpful.  I already knew much of what was presented, but there were still some good tips and ideas that I had not yet explored.  Primarily, we used iPad tablets to create a short sample lesson video.  That will work well with my new Christmas present (Galaxy tab 2 10.1" version for the sight-impaired).  I can certainly look forward to using that in the future. 

In short, it has been an exciting year of change in my classroom.  As I had hoped, I look forward to expanding those changes in to new areas and incorporating even more new tools & ideas.  That, I think is the essence of teaching.  As teachers, we should demonstrate for our students that the way it has always been done is not the only or even the best way.  Exploring options; trying new things; learning new ways.  Those are what get me up in the morning excited about going to work. 

I Have a Dream

Six years ago, I had a dream.  When the new math text books were adopted, a wealth of videos and online resources became available to help students learn the subject and to help teachers help students.  For our books, a full copy of the text was available online.  Now anyone with an internet connection could do their math homework.  Not only that, but the author of the book himself made videos available where he taught each and every lesson in the book.  I requested a speakerphone for my room so that I could call in at the start of class; instruct a trustworthy student to press "Play" on the computer; and let Dr. Berger teach the class.  I could spend my whole workday lying on the couch eating popcorn! 

Well, I still have to get dressed and go in to school each day, but I am taking advantage of some of the concepts from that dream.  My Digital Electronics class involves a LOT of problem solving and trouble-shooting.  You just can't tell how long an assignment will take because you can't predict how many gremlins will reside in a circuit which a 16 year old constructs.  To be successful, my students need as much time practicing what I preached as I can get them.  This class is perfect for flipping.

 Flipping the class means that you switch the traditional learning environment.  In a normal classroom, the teacher delivers the material in the classroom.  With whatever time is left over, students work on their problems ("homework") and then finish at home.  However, parents are often incapable of helping with that homework.  This leaves students helpless and frustrated as they are unable to get answers to questions they have.  In the time between learning the subject and sitting down to practice it, so much more has happened and crowded out that knowledge that they thought came so easy a few hours earlier.  What could be worse is that a student could think he/she is doing great, only to discover much later that they did everything wrong.  Now, they have to unlearn all of the mistakes before they can pick up on the correct ideas.

To flip a classroom, students learn the theory outside of class so that more of class time can be spent practicing under the guidance of a knowledgeable teacher.  Presumably, that is me.  On four different lessons now, I created a video to explain what the students need to know in order to complete the next assignment.  When they get to class, they can start right away (or at least, more quickly) in to practicing what they have learned.  I am available for when they get stuck, and I can monitor their work so that they don't repeat mistakes over and over again. 

At first, it was odd: standing in the front of an empty classroom to deliver a lesson to -- nobody.  The thought that someone would come by and ask if I needed to go see the nurse - or a psychiatrist - did cross my mind, so I was a bit subdued in the first ones.  After a few, though, I think I am getting more comfortable with it.  My voice is becoming more relaxed, and I am becoming more of the "me" that my students would see live in the classroom.  Response from students has been generally positive as well.  One even thanked me today for making the video so that he could do the work even though I was absent from class today.  (No. I was not at home on the couch, and I did not still have on my bathrobe!) 

I've always said that my goal was to get my students to the point that they didn't need me anymore.  If the only thing they ever know is what I - or some other teacher - teaches them, the world is in big trouble.  I want students to create their own knowledge and even challenge mine from time to time.  This concept helps with that.  Even without me there, they are capable of picking up a new and challenging topic.  I may never win an Academy Award or become the next YouTube sensation, but I am enjoying doing this and like the results, so far.  I'll keep you updated as to how it goes. 

The Modern World

Apparently, this doesn't apply to me since I haven't updated the blog since August, but I am getting better.  I have spent time in the last year thinking about how different the world is today than ... five years ago.

It is estimated that half of the US households will own at least one smartphone sometime this year (if we are not already there).  It is not uncommon to meet people who no longer (or never did) own a land-line based phone.  My use of our own home phone is becoming more limited each day.  Just a year or so ago, I protected my cell phone number like it was a national security secret, but I have given it out more and more frequently recently to businesses and others.  Ninety percent of my phone calls to and from friends and family these days is made through my cell phone - enough so to make me question if a home phone is at all worth the monthly charge any more. 

It still aggravates me to see a family of four at a restaurant with every member - kids and parents included - texting, gaming, or surfing the web on their cell phone while waiting on their meal (and maybe even after the meal arrives).  The number of text messages my son sends out is easily 100 times the minutes he uses on his cell phone month after month.  It is obvious (or so it appears) that people today (not just "kids" as some of us would like to think) prefer to communicate via text message versus face-to-face. 

In a recent survey of 1000+ thirteen to seventeen year olds, for Common Sense Media, reported some surprising (at least to me) results.  I say surprising because some of the findings are reported that the students surveyed would prefer face-to-face communicate or feel that it takes away from their personal relationships.  While the percentage reported is significant, 49% is not a majority.  I take comfort in knowing that a sizable group of our future recognize there are some drawbacks to communication via a non-personal albeit convenient method even as I slip more and more in to the trap of this convenience. 

The current trend is poised to usher in some significant changes in how we approach teaching.  More and more, we are adapting new technology in the classroom setting.  While technology can offer up the same conveniences in the classroom that they offer at home - and any where else we go, as educators we need to make sure that we include teaching how to use technology responsibly and productively.

For the past 4 years of teaching, I have been committed to introducing more and more technology in my classroom, and I have done fairly well.  It started with using the Smart Board instead of a blackboard (literally, it was a blackboard) and ended with an almost exclusive use of an online classroom site to communicate with students last year.  This year, my commitment is to use MOODLE for more interactive communication with my students and seek to find a use for Twitter.  I am grateful that I teach in a school with a pretty good concentration of tech savvy faculty.  I am hopeful that we can bring more of our colleagues along. 

Build a Bridge & Get Over IT

I remember hearing once a quote from an editorial piece complaining about how rude and disrespectful today's youth are; how they dress so inappropriately; how they just don't respect authority. After listening to it, I then learned it was written in Plato's time over 1500 years ago.

Similarly, the speaker at the opening session of Denton ISD's TIA called us to think about a time when the ink pen was "new technology". Educators must have had reservations such as:

• "Students shall use them to doeth disruptive things such as poketh each other with them" (King's English added by me - eth)
  
• "How will they ever learn just how much ink to dip on to the quill if we let them use this new gadget"

Well ... you get the idea. However, it really set me to thinking about my own reservations on some technology uses. Don't get me wrong, I am all for it. I think of my self as being ahead of the curve when it comes to adopting new technology. It helps if you aren't afraid that you'll look a fool if it doesn't work.

Still, I face those reservations when I start something new. What if it doesn't work? How will the kids mis-use it? What would happen if they use it to cheat?

So, how do I overcome that? Well, in the words of at least one administrator, "Get over it." That is the simple truth. Technology brings us so many options today that weren't available even a few years ago, it is difficult to quantify. Daily - at least it seems - someone could tell me about a new tool, web site, or application that has possibilities for finding, dissecting, organizing, and reporting information. These are the tools that our students will be using in their personal and more importantly their professional lives a few years from now. As long as we (present company included) look only at the possible negatives, we will never walk in to it on faith.

Certainly, there will be problems along the way. The ways in which it could be turned for no good may be as long as the list of new things coming out each day. However, as educators, I think that we need to take the risks. As someone said today, "embrace the technology and address the problem". Don't suppress the technology out of blind fear.

You may be surprised to find out just how anxious the students are to actually embrace this new knowledge that you have for them and maybe even teach you something about it. If not, we may find that we are in the same place as the buggy whip makers in the age of automobiles.

Of Tuna Fish and Education

So, while I am making tuna fish for our lunch sandwiches one morning, the idea for this post occurred to me. To someone of my generation, home cooking involves simply opening a box and mixing the contents with either water or milk. That, however, was not always the way. Only a generation or two prior, our grandmothers fixed absolutely fabulous meals truly from scratch. In between, people learned to cook by recipes. Great inventions, but something I now believe affected the state of education today.

You see, the recipe was supposed to make it possible for anyone to cook a great meal. One only needed to follow the directions, down to the exact amounts of ingredients to include. Along the way, we came to awe our grandmother's ability to fix meals with no more directions than "a dash of salt" or "a pinch of flour".

So here I am standing in my kitchen making tuna fish for lunch. I'm not saying this to brag, but it was completely without a recipe. I did what I've done many times: mix together the tuna, 2 eggs, "some" mustard and "a little more than some" mayonnaise. If the mixture looked too yellow, I added more mayo. If it was too white, I added a bit more mustard.

That is when it hit me. I was problem solving right there in the kitchen just like I expect my students to learn to do. The era of cooking by recipes and standardized testing (among other things) has ushered in a generation to whom learning is synonymous with memorizing steps. As teachers, we seem to constantly fight to get students to think on their own, but they regularly want to gravitate back to the cookie cutter approach with which they seem to be most comfortable.

I even had a colleague a couple of years back who had a student say, "Don't teach me how to do this problem. Just SHOW me it." Learning to him was memorizing a set of steps to solve a particular problem instead of looking at what was given and creating a solution from what he had available. If the problem changed or was presented in a different manner, then he would have to memorize a completely different set of instructions.

It turns out that my grandmother was one one of the most educated people I would ever encounter, but I never realized it at the time.

As you go about your daily life, look for ways to throw out the recipe. Try something new and creative - especially something that you don't have a recipe for. Sit back and evaluate,or "What would make this better?" or "What is available to me to work with?" Along the way, you just might resurrect the long lost art of problem solving.

Here goes Nothin'

Ok. I am going to finally try this out. I've been thinking about it for a while now. I even started it a time or two but never got this far before. I did have one excursion in to this brave new world with my classes late last year. However, this is going to be much bigger than that - or at least that is how I have it in my mind.

What am I talking about? Well, this blog, of course. When I got in to teaching, it was with a fervent belief that the teaching profession was going to undergo a radical change and that I wanted to be a part of it. Blogging was not quite what I had in mind, but I do think that teaching looks very different today than it did even 4 years ago.

The amount of information given to us regarding blogs, "cloud computing", online learning communities, etc. has increased dramatically over the past 2 years. I believe that it has gone from a novelty that a few would adopt to extensive training and encouragement, leading "several" teachers to take the leap with their classrooms. It's not easy, even for a tech lover such as myself. It is hard to give up the familiar and known for something new and (personally) un-tested. Still, eventually, I give in to the wave of technology that is pushing me out to sea. This blog, is just one among many new steps that I am taking this year.

If you want to join in, then comment on my posts; follow my blog; and follow other similar blogs. I hope that you will join me on the journey.