Mentoring, Mentor Letter, UbD - Differentiated Instruction

One of the assignments in my 639 Mentoring and Leadership class was to write a letter to a mentor I've had in my life that has positively affected me. I selected my principal, Joyce because of her support and encouragement throughout my first two years of teaching. Because of her, I still have a job... who knows what the future will hold for me next year... although I have been dreaming middle school. :)

Anyhow, I wrote the letter... but found it really hard to release it to my cadre of OMET students. There is a part of me that faces difficulty sharing my feelings with others as in my brain, I feel a sense of weakness. I didn't, however, have any problem with handing the letter over to my mentor. She was grateful and expressed her gratitude with a few words-- me being a light, sunshine to the staff and coming with confidence and fresh ideas-- something of which I also pride myself with and hope that I will remain for the duration of my teaching professional years.

I have been reading some of the books on our agenda and have been getting a bit out of each one. The information in UbD and the Differentiated Instruction book is not necessarily new information to me (I would struggle a great deal without being an educator) being recently trained in a teaching program and seeing the "new wave" design of curriculum that our education system is morphing into, but I do pick up a few pieces of encouragement for what I do read: On page 22 of Integrating Differentiated Instruction-UbD, I loved this quote:

"Learning happens within students, not to them."

This quote remains an eye-opener of sorts for me, being so new to the profession and observing so many teachers I don't want to emulate in the way of teaching. There are others, however, who remain to be a light for me (unfortunately lesser in number).

One final story: A friend of mine, Jen, of whose personal blog is posted as a favorite on this blog site to your right... is a high school math department chair and teacher for an inner-city school just a couple miles from the ritzy, pretentious schools in our beach city area. She has been driven to want to quit multiple times within her 6 years of teaching and has quickly worked her way up the ladder. She has gone through 3 principals and 2 superintendents of her school district that is in utmost turmoil--in addition to the gang shootings and lock downs which are commonly in the news. It is also the school in which students from Lennox, a city with the highest murder rate per capita in So. California, attend. So, as you might guess, teaching and learning isn't much of a focus for these students. Surviving is. Jen has recently had it on her heart to investigate other options in areas of Redondo Beach because of the difficulty of teaching in her school... apparently attendance is a joke as kids simply don't come to school. She has been looking into RUHS - the high school in which I attended in a pretty nice area. By no means is it a Beverly Hills type of school, but it certainly sits in a nice part of town. She has good rapport with the principal and sat in during a math meeting and observed some math teachers to get a feel for the team and job she may be entering. As she left, she expressed to the principal that there was a lot of "untapped potential" within the staff and overall, her experience was "boring" -- which brings me to think that learning should always be fun. I really truly believe that there are ways to help students see the passion that YOU have in teaching what you love. IT IS CONTAGIOUS. Anyhow, I encouraged Jen that although she may feel like teaching there would be a difference, there is an obvious need for teachers to spice things up a bit. It requires someone to take a leap of faith.

Finally, my fiance was also in this conversation with Jen and he talked of his pretentious high school in Middletown Maryland of whose AP Calculus scores were through the roof... but having "smart" kids who can teach themselves does not necessarily mean that the teacher is the root cause of success. As he put it, "the teacher was boring, but with the textbook, we taught ourselves" -- and then test scores go up, no one complains and teaching is just the same as always, boring.

Back in Action, The Art of Possibility

I'm back!
It's been awhile since the last blog...

Just finished reading The Art of Possibility and there are a few pertinent points I'd like to make:

The authors did a great job at offering examples of their "practices." Among these practices include a few I found to be interesting and helpful:

"Giving an A" - I've heard this before when a few of my professors in my undergraduate degree used this method. I always thought it was a very positive way of teaching. Giving everyone an A and letting them be held accountable for their own learning is just another way to skip the grading process altogether. Students are more in charge and they often grade themselves more stringent than the teacher would! I've had this experience with students involved in group work. Whenever students give feedback about their peers, they are very critical!

Believing that others will do well... and they will! Having the mindset of positive thinking can produce positive results. This reminds me of the saying "you're as happy as you want to be"--it's very much a mind game. You have to want it and it will happen. You have to be positive and a believer and things will fall into place.

Be a contributor, lighten up and don't let things bother you so much, be passionate, and involve yourself with others and change your mentality from "I" to "WE."

The book was inspirational and had some great insights into how to work with others, how to mentor others to believe in themselves, their cause, and to take action of your own behavior to benefit the WE method.

My favorite story from the book (that was the best part): Ben is a conductor for an Orchestra and he was nervous about a performance with a few of his viola section players out. Then, another woman was out and to his surprise, did not tell him. He found her later and expressed his anger and in turn, she quit (it was a volunteer orchestra). He then wrote a letter to her, Cora, apologizing and expressing his interest to change his behavior.

I love it when the boss is not afraid to admit wrongdoing. It makes the team that much stronger.