Praising the Positive

I try to make regular positive phone calls home to my students' parents, especially those that tend to cause problems and regularly get negative phone calls from the school. I made two such phone calls today. 

The first call, the student thought it would be hilarious to call his mother and pretend that he'd gotten into trouble again in class. I didn't think this was a great idea, but his mouth was moving before I could even think to tell him otherwise. So he hands me the phone and I remind her who I am and I can tell she is very displeased. I just couldn't go along with his plan and told her how awesome her son had done in class today. She started cracking up! Apparently this kiddo knows his mother's sense of humor better than I expected - either that or she was just so relieved she didn't know what else to do. After she was done laughing, she thanked me about 5 times for calling on a good day.

For the second call the student just couldn't contain himself and his mouth was moving so fast I don't know how his mother understood a word he had said. But at some point he did hand me the phone and I informed her what a great day her son had today and how genuinely proud of him I was. This mother reacted differently. Her voice started to shake and crack as she thanked me about eleventeen times and I thought she was going to cry right there on the phone. She then asked me to hand the phone back to her son so she could also tell him how proud of him she was. Poor kid sat there while his mother obviously gushed all over him on the phone, his face getting more and more red, but he was very clearly happy to have made his mother proud.

Teaching middle school is hard folks, but being the parent of a middle schooler is also hard. They've gone from elementary school where everything is in one place and the whole class goes everywhere together to middle school where they have to be responsible for everything - going class to class, managing homework, learning to open a locker, changing in the locker room and so much more. And as a parent of a middle schooler all you can do sometimes is hold on tight to those often few and far between positive moments and hope for the best on the other side of puberty. 

The two mothers I spoke to today definitely needed some positive moments with regards to their own sons and I was so glad I could provide that for them. Those phone calls not only boosted the kids, but it made the day of the mothers and made me smile. On top of this, the next time one of these boys acts up in my class I will most certainly have the support of these mothers when trying to rein in the boys. So, why not try to find some posiitivity in a place where there is usually only negative and sing it's praises? You never know when that will come back to you - it usually comes back to me when I need it most. 


Image courtesy of http://www.liveandlovework.com/ 

My Advice?

I was excited and flattered when an instructor emailed me to ask if she could interview me for a class she is teaching about being a technology integration specialist. Since it is a class early on in the program it mostly covers what it means to be an integration specialist - what skills are involved and such. So the questions were pretty much what I expected: What would you say are your major responsibilities? What is a typical day like as an integration specialist? (This was the hardest question to answer as no two days are alike.) What advice do you have for those looking to become technology integration specialists? It is this last question that was both the easiest and I feel most important question she could have asked. And these are the main points of my answer:

• Expand your Professional Learning Network (PLN) - I learn SO MUCH when I take time to read my RSS feeds and just "listen" to the education talk that occurs on sites like Twitter. 
• Be approachable, but not a door mat. - It is important that the educators and students you support know that you will help them when they need it, but don't do the work for them. If needs support keep your hands off of their computer if at all possible. This may possibly be one of the hardest things I had to learn because "I can do it faster." But, if you fix the problems for them, they will come back again expecting you to fix another problem and won't ever learn the skills themselves.
• Don't let your work take over your life. - It is so easy to sit down "for just a few minutes" with your computer in the evening and then realize that two hours have passed. One of my favorite aspects of my job is that I get to explore the internet for new tools and exciting ways to use them in the classroom. But this can be very time consuming and can cause you to feel overwhelmed if you are not careful.

There were of course a number of other things I could have said, but I felt these were some of the biggest ideas that I wanted to convey.  And of course as soon as I publish this post there will be even more that I wished I had added.


Image courtesy of Flickr and laughlin

Tearing Down the Walls

I've been working this week with some secondary instructional coaches and teachers on learning to integrate technology into their coaching and instruction. We've been discussing using technology for research, creating content and presentations, problem solving, creating and completing assignments, and for communicating and collaboration.
In these conversations I have heard something that I hear all the time. There are so many educators that think that technology is great for research, creating and completing lessons, presenting materials, and reinforcing instruction, but when it comes to collaboration there is a wall thrown in the path. The objection is that texting, blogging, emailing, social networks, and other such types of tools aren't really collaboration because the participants aren't interacting face-to-face, hearing each others' voices, and reading each others' body language. And I hate to sound like I am biased, but it is usually the "veteran" teachers making these objections.
It is at this point I start my retort, and it usually goes something like this: "While it might be true that kids aren't interacting face-to-face, that doesn't mean they aren't collaborating. Texting, emailing, tweeting, and using Facebook is just a small part of what collaboration has become in today's society. Sure, we still want our children to be able to communicate with people face-to-face and be able to pick up on those little nuances of inter-personal communication, but we have to move beyond that. I personally send 800 - 1,000 text messages a month, use social networking tools daily, and send more email messages than I care to even know as a way to collaborate and communicate with others professionally. The nice part about these types of communication tools is that it allows us to get down to business when I finally do meet face-to-face with my fellow collaborators. We have already done the document exchanges, we've already taken care of the agenda and assigned roles, so when we actually meet we're getting so much more done. The world outside school is going to move forward with these types of tools, so we can either follow suit or be left in the dust - as we so often are in education."
Today when I gave this speech I had the most wonderful response. One coach spoke up to the group and said (paraphrasing here) "Guys, this is where our kids are. These are the things our kids are doing and the tools they're using. Nothing we do can change that, so we've got to meet them where they are and move forward. It doesn't matter how long we debate the use of these technologies in education, the rest of the world is using them and we've got to keep up so that we remain relevant in the eyes of our students."
I seriously wanted to shout "Amen!" when she said this. It is all about being relevant. If our students don't think that our teaching is relevant, they aren't going to learn. If they have to continue to "unplug" when they walk into classrooms, they will soon "tune out" altogether and that will be the real tragedy. Educators as a whole have got to "get with it" and keep up with the times, or in the end it's going to be our children that lose in the battle of life - not us.