Vacation Syndrome!!

Almost two weeks into the vacation and a sense of normality has returned-if ever you can call the world of a teacher normal.  I do not like the word normal, in fact I despise it! To be normal is to be a sheep and fits you right into the little box of expected behavior. I will have none of it!!

One of my favorite quotes comes to mind as I sit here and think about the next school year, the challenges I will face, the opportunities there will be, but above all how I will get the best out of my department and the students I will teach.

Where The Mind is Without Fear

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;

Where knowledge is free;

Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow

domestic walls;

Where words come out from the depth of truth;

Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;

Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the

dreary desert sand of dead habit;

Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought

and action–

Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

Rabindranath Tagore

One of the most exciting developments for me this week was the discovery of the Google+ project. I’ve only been fiddling around with it for a few days, but the potential is quite obvious. It seems to me that Google+ has taken elements of FB, Twitter and LinkedIn and off course a whole spoonful of their own ingenuity and created a great platform for organizing, managing and sharing content. The best part for me at this stage is the potential impact on education. The following article goes into more detail:

Why Google+ is an Education Game Changer 

As the world changes education is faced with a critical question: Adapt or Die? I believe that schools and educators who will taste the most success in the future are the ones willing to change with the times and adapt their teaching styles to teach for change. I read an article a while ago that mentions a large portion of the students in our classes will do jobs in the future that have not been invented yet. WOW!!! So what do we teach then? Context is becoming increasingly more important than content, yet some nations still follow the standardized testing recipe in their quest for assessing who goes to which school. It is part of this drive towards high test scores that lead to the debacle in Atlanta, “Atlanta Schools Created Culture of Cheating,Fear, Intimidation.

The "Joy" of Education

Education need not be a race to the top, rather a journey in discovery and understanding. That is what I believe and why I love teaching in an IB school. The past year has been a remarkable journey for both students and myself. As I adapted my teaching style towards a more constructivist approach, I saw My students getting more involved, taking ownership of their own learning, but above all enjoy learning and being in class. Once students understand that there would be no percentage grades-EVER-they can focus on what education is really about-mastering skills and gaining knowledge in order to be better prepared for a future that is always changing.  My MYP Humanities class became a melting pot of ideas where students worked in groups, pairs and individually to discover meaning for themselves. Throughout the year we practiced skills that would be helpful as they progress through school and life. We did not practice memorization of content, rather how to respond to an issue. Why memorize mountains of information when most of it is readily available on the internet? The ability to use knowledge and skills to solve problems or analyze situations is far more valuable and useful than the ability to regurgitate fact upon fact.

Part of successful education in the 21st century is rooted in the use of technology in the classroom. The use of blogs, wiki’s, FB, Twitter etc. has already had a massive impact on modern day education. With the arrival of Google+ we as educators have yet another tool at our disposal-one which I believe we should all learn to use effectively. I, myself, am a Google+ newbie, but I’m exited and ready to learn, explore and become a better educator. Are you?

Here is a great link to get you started with Google+

Introducing the Google+ Project: Real Life Sharing, Rethought for the Web

This is my IB world.