Let Them Teach

As part of this #IMMOOC experience, I was exposed to hundreds of educators and their thoughts, trials, and triumphs. If you are looking for your people, stop by and check out these fabulous educators that make me have all the teacher feels.   Kristen Nan-True Grit : She really spoke to my soul in a post about golden glue.    Theresa Ducassoux-Off the Beaten Path in Music : A music teachers is giving me serious competitive collaboration for how to push my students to take their learning to new audiences.   Kristin Houston-It Starts With A Screw :Kindergarten engineers. She proves there is no age requirement for innovation.

I had the pleasure of reading the book that lead to  Barry Schwartz TED talk on the Paradox of Choice  before I ever entered education. I thought about it in terms of decision making for life, but hadn't made the connection to education, innovation, and sharing. *Kicks rocks* I am so guilty of sending a million emails over the course of the year for this thing or that thing that I think could be powerful in our classrooms. George, I hear you. I have felt no one was listening. Now, I know why and I don't blame them. It is clear that our campus and district are pushing three tools: Google Apps for Education, Schoology, and Twitter. I use these fluently, I think. Now that I have a focus, I can be more intentional about what and how I share. I also have ideas on how to share others' ideas, not just mine. We need to show how our staff is smart. We are all smart, we just need to expose it! Less gives focus. Focus gives intention. Intention breeds action. 

A new role model of mine, whom you can find on Twitter @TechNinjaTodd, stood up at our most recent PD and announced that everything he was showing us that he had done was an idea he learned from someone else. He did not present a single unique idea. Except that he totally did. Unique in the way that no one in our district talked about developing themselves through social media. He gave us permission to seek out greatness even if no one supported our movement. He gave us permission to teach 50% academics and 50% life. He is a game changer. I want to be a game changer. It's so refreshing to hear that someone that amazing (super high testing scores in a very low SES population) is simply copying his favorite ideas from other people. When I meet someone so great, I tend to immediately throw myself into this other category of "not good enough." I was on a personal high on Friday from co-leading a Math Workshop PD. My teammate and I had gotten some great feedback that had us ...

There is absolutely nothing revolutionary about me starting a blog. In fact, this is not the first blog I have ever had. I had one in college, and one when my husband and I started our family. No, the creation of the blog itself is not revolutionary. The potential it has is.  Yesterday, I sat through my school district's Inaugural Learning Together Conference. It was the first of its kind because we had over 120 presenters, most of whom are teachers in our district. For the first time, the C&I department allowed our own to teach what they had learned about best practice. Also for the first time, the C&I department allowed the staff to choose what sessions we attended. Over the two day conference, we were able to choose where we spent 6 of those 12 hours. That was revolutionary for us.  A quick back story on me, I am a bit of a narcissist. Not because I had a privileged life and have a misplaced sense of entitlement. No, quite the opposite. Through the help of key ...