School Years

I was thinking recently about the baggage we carry out of our school experiences. It’s usually a mixed experience. There are some good things and there are always some bad things to remember. For me the good things started to happen when I entered the 5th grade. In the Soviet Union it was moving from one teacher for all subjects to a whole bunch of teachers different for each subject even though we physically stayed in the same building. In the United States the movement from “elementary school” to a “middle school” is also accompanied with the physical movement to another building. So using the American terminology my “good” school years started in my middle school and continued through the rest of the school years up until the senior year when everything fell apart and left me extremely disappointed and unsatisfied. So I never went back, never visited the building, never met my teachers. I still don’t have any will for that. I did free myself of this baggage by the age of 35 or 40 :) but until then my school years experience affected the way I dealt with people a lot. I do know people who believe that the school years were the best time in their lives, I also know people who forgot those years like they never happened. I want us to compare our experiences, discuss what happened then and how it shaped our personalities. Maybe, if we open this jar of worms our kids will have it easier.

Introduction of a PROFESSIONAL

I want to introduce to all the teachers out there Lisa Nielsen. Here is the site where Lisa shares her thoughts and ideas about using technology for education.Lisa created for us to talk and ask questions on “how can we use technology in our classes today.” Thank you, Lisa for all the work you do. So many kids will have more interesting and involving classes, so many students will become active learners, so many teachers will start using technology for their everyday indtructions, all thanks to you :)

We need change too

Have you noticed lately everyone is talking about “need for change”? They need change in the economic regulations. They need change in the incarceration system. They need change in the automobile building and energy production. They need change in building the houses and heating them. I shouldn’t really say “THEY” I have to say WE! We need all these changes. We also need one more change and it is the change in the education. I am not talking about some kind of breaking the old and building something new. I am talking about evolution not revolution There are many new ideas growing within the “old” systems. You can see these processes everywhere. Green approaches in building, constructions, garbage, energy sources etc. are obvious. There are new ideas for the stock market, international relationships, collecting information, learning, bringing up the children, and, of course, the school. New ideas in school are completely revolutionary. In the old school the teacher knew everything. The process of learning was a process of passing the teacher’s knowledge to the students’ memory. That worked for centuries. That worked even 20 years ago. Suddenly it changed. My students do not want my knowledge any longer, they want their own. I think that because of the change in the needs of the students we started to search for new ways to teach. In today’s school I don’t always know all the information and very often I learn new things while reading my students’ projects. That creates fun for both sides. This is why being a teacher now is so interesting. Everybody creates new methods and strategies. Everybody brings success stories to the meetings. Everybody tries new things every day. We make new assignments to keep students interested. We use new tools to keep them on task. We pay attention to their moods, their family relationships, their talents and abilities. We are trained to recognize their differences and adjust the assignments to their individual levels and tastes. I don’t just pass my knowledge onto them any longer, I help them find what knowledge will fit their needs.

What do we expect from each other?

I am a teacher. I have amazing wonderful students, each is talented and each is trying to do something good. Something good is not always obvious to others. When you know the motivation behind some misbehavior you can give some good constructive advice for the parents to try. Unfortunately, teacher’s advice is not always taken in a positive way. I remember the first time I was sitting and talking to a parent of one of my first students. The girl was very nice and shy. She was afraid to make mistakes so instead of trying to solve math problems she used to say “I am stupid, I can’t do that”. She didn’t do complex multiple-step problems because of that attitude, but I saw that she could solve simple one-step problems just fine. I told the mother all of that. I suspected that the idea that the girl could not solve those problems was planted into her sub-consciousness at earlier age, maybe in an elementary school. I told the mother that she had to start telling her daughter how smart and creative she was to encourage and support her in her growth. This woman got scared. She didn’t get used to talk to a teacher about her daughter. All she expected from me was that the girl was good or bad. Either of those comments she could take. She was not ready to hear an advice on how to help her daughter. Can we change our expectations?

can we learn how to be good parents from books?

I am a mother, I don’t want anybody to tell me how to raise my children. However, I did read everything there about pregnancy and labor. I did want to educate myself to be a better mother to my newborn. Just reading was not enough; my mother helped me a lot with hands on and many other advices. My mother learned how to take care of newborns from books, she didn’t have her mother to help her, Dr. Spoke was her advisor :) and she was so sorry later that she obeyed him religiously. I learned that even when you read a book or an article and agree with the content life will always correct and improve your knowledge. Can you learn to be a parent from books? The problem is that the older my children got the fewer books I read. I was lucky compare to others, my job required learning about child development and I have dealt with kids every day of my adult life. I applied what I learned in my classes and at home. When I think back I feel awe, what would happen to my kids if I didn’t learn from books and from talking to my students.

Can we talk?

The most powerful emotion that we ever experience is, probably, love to our children. I think majority will agree with me. Because this is such a strong emotion it is so hard to talk about anything related to it. Every time somebody talks about our children we feel “attacked”. Even from teachers who spend so much time with the kids and know them pretty well we want to hear only the good things and we dread any kind of other than praise input because we take it as criticism and nobody likes to be criticized for the way they bring up their children. We all are like this. I want my children be “the best” I will criticize them as much as I like, but nobody can criticize them with me. You know what? I agree with that. So I for years I have not criticized other people children. They all are wonderful. Sometimes much better than their own parent know ;) How can we learn to talk about our children constructively?

New Definition for Success

Why is that so many people associate success with money? If money is a measure for success how much does a successful parent make? Or how would you compare a successful teacher and not so successful one? What kind of success do you wish for your child? Do you want your child to make a lot of money doing something he hates to do or find an occupation that makes him happy and satisfied? I really think that it's time to redefine success.

"Good" student and "Good" teacher

I often think of the society's view on who we consider a "good student". One, who sits straight, follows instructions, obeys the rules, raises hand to talk, does the homework, etc. Right? And then who is a "good teacher"? One, who makes the instructions, can enforce the rules, will assign the homework, and knows all the answers ahead. Pretty accurate description of the society's view on school and how it should be. This view on school and schooling stayed unchanged for over 2000 years and everybody was happy. So, why is that today neither students nor teachers feel happy about that ideal picture? Maybe because we don't want to live in an ideal picture; we want to live our real life. Reality is not perfect, it's not clean or quiet. Reality is messy and complicated. In reality nobody knows the right answers and very often what you thik is right for you turns out to be very bad for someone else. How can we teach that?

Readers and Writes

I used to love to read; couldn't live a day without reading something. I was addicted to the process and very seldom I ran into something I didn't want to finish reading. Same with movies I could watch anything: 2, 3 even 4 movies a day: in the Soviet Union tickets were very cheap and here I could always rent. So I was an absorber of information :) Things started to change. First, I realized that I could not read newspapers. Then I found that there were books I just could not finish. I remember one day I stopped the movie in the middle, I think it was "Something about Mary" I just couldn't watch it any longer. Now I am a new me. I know by the first paragraph if I am going to read the book or not or just by the first scene I know if I am going to watch the movie or not. The process continues in the internet. I am reading blogs and by the first sentence I know if I am going to finish it or I just will move on. If I didn't develop this ability to move on I would be still reading Walter Scott and Balsac. There is another change in me I want to share my thoughts with others. I was always a very private person. What is going on with me? I think I am becoming a writer ;) We have a joke in Russian: an interviewer is asking a new author if he liked a book by another author and he answers:"I am not a reader I am a writer!" So, here I am a new writer.

Am I becoming my Mother?

Every woman thought. Some of us are thinking of that in awe, some of us are thinking of that with pride, some of us mean the character, some of us think of the appearance, or voice, or gestures, or moods or ..... Each of us had her personal experience with her mother and each of us will repeat this experience with her own kids sometimes without even noticing because she acts on subconscious level. Your mother started to teach you before you can remember yourself or even before you were born.
I love my mother very much. She is a very good person, dissent and kind. She had the best intentions when bringing up my brother and me. We had a very good and traditional family. What happened to us when I turned 18? Now, when I am 55 and have my own adult children, I think she had a hard time to let me go. She suddenly tried to control, allow, or prohibit whatever I did or wherever I went. And I, in turn, suddenly wanted my privacy which I had never needed before :) The problem, normal for many families turned into political conflict and involved authority figures, political hunger strike, courts, and ended soon after I found myself in jail for 10 day for civil disobedience, not violent crime :) I am a pacifist ;)
This was a process of me becoming an adult.
Do you remember the time when you became adult? Do you remember the role of your mother in the process?
I really need to collect different experiences. I believe that if we share our experiences and our mistakes and our successes the next generation will have it a little easier. It was almost impossible before the computers. Let's use them to improve the lives of our children.