Why I teach!

Today I was in the middle of a history class in which we were studying how the early Christians lived and what made them so different from the Roman culture they lived in. One of my students became intrigued and asked a slightly off-topic question. What followed was one of those teachable moments that you dream of as a teacher.

"What is heaven like?"
"How can there be a good God when bad things happen?"
"How are we saved?"
"How do we know Christianity is true?"
"How can we trust the Bible?"
"Why are people afraid of death?" 

This is why I teach in a Christian school.

I get to answer the most important questions of all, and it's my job! I enjoyed that hour and a half with my students more than anything else. God blessed me with the chance to influence these young people and perhaps help them grow in faith. I love my job!!!!!!!!

I left them with one of my favourite stories. You can read a version of it here.

Authentic Projects

One of the challenges of encouraging students to write is that often their work is only going to be read by their teacher and perhaps their parents. Occasionally it might get read by grandparents or others. Sometimes there's some kind of essay, poetry, or short story competition they can enter. But most of the time their work does not have a real, or authentic, audience.

I have been looking for ways to make the work my students do as authentic as possible.

Like many years before I've given them a writing assignment in which they have to write their autobiography. You can see the outline of that assignment here.

So what's different about this assignment? It's like many other autobiographies before it, isn't it?

This time they have a purpose. I've been blessed by two brave teachers who've joined me in trying to do something a little different. We're taking our three classrooms and having them join together to complete a series of projects collaboratively over the internet. We're going to have the students work in teams made up of students from multiple schools. Then they are going to work at a number of different tasks where they have to work with these partners at a distance using internet communication tools.

The first step is creating their partners and that's where the autobiographies come in. The students are writing their autobiographies with the intent that the classes from the other schools are going to read them. Then the students are going to submit their top choices for partners to the teachers who will then go and craft the teams. Thus the autobiographies have a purpose. The students are introducing who they are as people, as well as demonstrating their writing talents.

Take a look at the autobiographies they've written. You can find them on their blogs here.

Here's a sample of one of the student's work,

"Life is great!  I enjoy hanging and laughing with my best friends!  Ok, lets just say it this way: Life is like a jaw breaker it is good all the way through but still has a few layers bursting with flavor.  Some are sweet, and some sour, but they all have just the right amount of sugar and are full of bright rainbow of colors."

I have no idea how these projects are going to turn out, but it's certainly fun trying!

Grades

I don't like grades.

Don't get me wrong, it's not because of laziness or because I don't like looking at student work. In fact, I find the process of assessing student work, conferencing with a student about their work, providing feedback, and so much more to be incredibly valuable. It's in that process that so much learning can happen.

No, my problems with grading lie elsewhere.

1. It feeds into the factory model of schooling. During conferences with a parent they asked where their child was in relation to the rest of the class. This bothered me. It's the wrong question. The questions ought to be, "Is my child growing and learning more than yesterday? Are they living up to their potential?"
2. To quote one of my students this past week, "We don't come to school to be judged." There's a harshness to grading that I find offensive. Too many of our students have their self-worth wrapped up in grades, especially those who excel in school.
3. It's too final. Learning should be a constant process. The minute you put a grade on it, students stop.

That's all I've got for now, if I think of more I'll come back here and edit some more.

In the meantime, I've got some current events assignments that need to be graded.........

More about Failure

This week I asked students to choose from the following two topics and write a blog.

1. Write about a success or achievement that happened here at school.  Why do you remember it?  How did it change your thinking or feelings?
2. Write about a time that something you did at school was a flop or you failed.  How did that make you feel?  How did it change your way of thinking and doing things?

Here's the interesting question: How many of them will dare to choose the 2nd option? How many of them are brave enough to embrace their failure, or even talk about it?

To often we've structured schools to be places where failure is anathema. I've had many conversations with parents who cannot abide the possibility of their children failing.

And yet, I think that failure is healthy and that we should provide more opportunities for students in our schools to take risks and learn how to deal with, live with, and grow from failure.

Here's a list of my student's blogs. Feel free to check them out. Let's see which ones dare talk about failure. Then let's find out how to encourage the rest of them to be brave enough to look at their failures.

It's not due if I don't Blog.

I'm aiming to have my students blogging once a week. As part of that process I've promised my students that their blogs aren't due unless I have complete my blog.

So, I'm going to complete the same assignment today that I'm giving them for this week.

Our school is a 7 Habits school. That would be the "7 Habits of Highly Effective People" by Stephen Covey. We are inspired by A. B. Combs, a school that applied the 7 Habits to how their school runs. Although, as a Christian school, we take a slightly different angle on some of these ideas.

One of the 7 Habits is "Begin with the End in Mind". In my classroom I have students write their Personal Mission Statements. So I've assigned them the task of blogging their mission statement and explaining it.

So here's mine:

My Personal Mission Statement

Primary:

Serve God.

Love my Wife and children.

Be there for my friends and family.

Secondary:

Be honest.

Be worthy of trust.

Be prepared.

Be flexible.

Work hard.

Admit mistakes.

Fix mistakes.

Listen.

Learn.

Be Patient.

Explanation:

The primary elements of my mission statement: I want to be the best Father, Husband, Son, Brother, and Friend I can be. None of that happens unless God is at the centre. With God at the centre all those other roles that I desire to be fall into place.

The secondary elements of my mission statement: I have not been called to mediocrity. I have been called to excellence. But excellence demands excellent character. Even though these are lofty goals that I fall far short of, it's what I'm aiming for. I want to be the kind of person that someone else can count on, and so each day I strive to live up to these character qualities.

Ok, now let's hear yours.