I'm in the middle of a 2 week class... after 2 weeks of conferences/presentations... after days of moving classrooms... after two end-of-year PD days... after the last day of school.  I'm exhausted.  I'm in need of a vacation.  I'm so glad I do what I do.  The vast majority of the teachers you know also are glad they do what they do.  

I got made at Education Week last week.  I even publicly commented to them about it - I'm not a big FB comment proponent because too often you run into crazy there.  But I saw a post with a provocative title and caption that compelled me to click after spending a week with 900+ education professionals who spent an intense 4 days focusing on innovating teaching and technology.  And that's just one of hundreds of conferences going on throughout the year.



Yes... do those teachers out there know what to do with it?  No doubt we will find one more thing that teachers aren't doing correctly.

The first comment was by a teacher who described the PD her district offered for technology that had EVERYTHING to do with standardized testing, and nothing to do with innovation teaching - for the past 2 years... it broke my heart because I know that teacher wants more for her students.

So I was feeling a little annoyed when I went to read the article.  Imagine my surprise when I read it and agreed with it 100%, because THIS is what the article was actually about - inequity in Tech training and use due to socioeconomic differences between schools and districts.



So, geez, Ed Week, what is the message you're trying to communicate?  A continuing monologue about unskilled teachers the media has been perpetuating since A Nation At Risk was published in 1983, or the dialogue we must have if we are to address instructional inequity due to wide variances in school funding?  Because those are two different things...

This has been one of the black clouds growing over me the past decade, fueled by social media: The widespread notion that our nation's schools are filled with poorly trained and ineffective teachers.

Here is what I believe.  The media loves to report on the ends of the bell curve and call it the norm (if it's negative), or what the norm should be (if it's positive).  And I can't prove it, because I'm not a statistician, but I believe the bell curve exists all around us - some are just flatter than others.

Here is what I know.  I just spent this month in the presence of hundreds of teachers working on their skill set, collaborating with other teachers, and spending hundreds of their "summer break" hours to be better teachers.  There are dozens if not over 100 various PD trainings going on all summer long around the country.  tens of thousands of teachers are constantly working at sharpening their skills for the sake of the learners coming into their classrooms next year.  Yes - there are teachers who don't unless required to.  Some of them are also good teachers - certainly proficient.  Many are at the low end of the bell curve and we all work with them and wish for leadership that would either provide effective coaching or get rid of them.  But they are not the norm.

Read articles carefully.  Pay attention to what is being shared and watch out for words like "many" and "most" and "always" without offering any evidence.  Don't treat research as definitive.  Look for meta analysis of research.  Pay attention to what you do see and do the math yourself.   I think the true story about education is not being shared and it's up to us to call our "reporters" on the carpet for clickbait story titles and weak reporting.  We must be better readers - what our teachers hoped we would grow up to be.

kando

I knew it would happen some day.

In 8 of my 10 years, I have taught 2nd grade - except most recently in 2011 when I went to 1st, but then blissfully looped back to 2nd.  The @mssecondgrade moniker worked. But knowing how much I really like 1st, I knew the day would come again when I would need to rethink my digital identity because the idea of teaching one grade for the rest of my career didn't sit well with me - change is good. Change provides a good kick in the pants.

Eduguru - the one who told me to blog, was also about marketing yourself.  I'm really not one to do that, even as a former business degree graduate.  I come from Asian stock, where the collective is more important than the individual.  But I did need to come up with a new online "branding" for myself because change.

Googled all sorts of possibilities - I wanted to be identified as a learner and teacher, and especially primary because I have a firm belief that our primary students lack consideration.  Everything is geared towards 10 years and older because I guess they can read and write for the most part...

I have a pet peeve (not to be confused with disgust, or angry annoyance, or protest against) in the world of education.  It's the asterisk that primary education receives.  At conferences, writers workshops, science, social science presentations, etc, there is usually a little asterisk that notes *can be adjusted for primary students, or *appropriate for 3rd grade and up, or *see this basic, stripped resource to use for younger students... Of course, there are events geared for the primary level, but too often it's stiflingly structured and lacking in excavating the full potential of our youngest learners.  And it's boring.  There.  I said it.

Back to researching what "brand" would reflect what I actually see happening in my classroom and the thing I wanted to direct my focus - what's good in education - because there is a hella good going on.  All the usuals were already taken - primary innovators, innovative little learners, primary learning, hacking the primary classroom...blah, jargon, blah, educationese, blah.

What about a play on words... What will communicate what my students can really do?

Can do.

Kan do.

Kando.

"...we find that it’s not just functional value that people desire, but the deeper and more elusive emotional value.  Emotional value.  And in Japanese culture, we call this kando.  Kando translates to mean emotional involvement.  The power to simulate an emotional response.  The power to make people say, “Wow.”  All Sony products must be inspired by a spirit of kando."  -Kazuo  Hirai, president/CEO Sony

"Creating kando* together.   
*Kando is a Japanese word for the simultaneous feelings of deep satisfaction and intense excitement that we experience when we encounter something of exceptional value."  - Yamaha

"Kando" is something that inspires the heart and spirit ... That which deeply satisfies ... Appreciation ... Admiration ... An emotional impression or sensational feeling that touches the soul ... Emotionally moving."  -Kevin Asbjornson, author & speaker

Japanese-English Dictionary - sensitivity/severity
Swahili - beside, aside, next, side
Nepalese - slang for buttocks

This.

This kando is what keeps me in the classroom.  This is the thing that happens every day when I block out the sounds of the politicians, the media, social media, my own frustration...

This is the thing my colleagues and I talk animatedly about at happy hour, on hikes, and much to the patient chagrin of our spouses...everywhere.

This is the magic that happens in public education every day.

This is what I need to focus on as I move into my next 10 years

The magic is in my little kando learners.

This is the kick in the kando I've been looking for!

It's not you...it's me.

One of my professional overdevelopment opportunities said I should blog.

An acquaintance once commented about a popular religious blogger "*** has the worst attribute that a blogger can have.  He is not insightful or original.  Instead he drones on in a judgmental; and superficial manner.  Sigh!"  

I replied, "I thought that was a defining feature of the blogging genre..."

That's what I discovered after my initial enthusiastic foray into the blogging culture.  I loved the variety of bloggers, the bravery of putting themselves out there, and the authenticity of sweary moms who drink wine, compulsive cooks, people living their final days, and middleagers who have no more f**** to give.  There were also the cheerful and enthusiastically obsessed classroom designers, inspiring old souls, and Mike Rowe.  Mr. Rowe is the only one I still look forward to reading.

I've always been reflective.  I get high scores on reflective practice in class and on my teacher evals.  I can spend hours reflecting.  I'm typically reflecting even before I'm done doing.  What I'm bad about is using reflection to affect change.  I change things up often, but it's more intuitive and lacking support of the data I've stored in my brain just behind my to-do list, the long-term plans, and stuff I've remembered I've forgotten and have to remember again tomorrow.  

I've been telling myself for 10 years I need to journal for the purpose of documenting the data... I hate journaling, especially if it requires pen and paper.  And it seems too easy to be vague and disengaged with the audience of just me.  I get bored with myself easily.  

So the suggestion to blog seems reluctantly appropriate.  The audience aspect gives me some accountability to be thoughtful and organized.  The INFJ, introverted, conceptual learner me sort of likes the challenge of writing for others, but I'm not looking for feedback.  I'm not looking to inspire.  I'm not trying to be unique, deep, or nonjudgmental.  It's not really for you, it's all about me.  But I do hope that if you come across this self-indulgent blog/reflection, you're able to see the magic I'm about to share...hang with it - it gets better.

Salty

Ten years.  My how time flies.

I'm moving classrooms and grades again and I just found my portfolio from my masters program.  Although I'd wanted to be a teacher since I was 5, I took the roundabout way and started in my 40's.  The benefits of starting late - life, wisdom, maturity.  The drawbacks - I don't know how many more years weeks I'm going to be able to get down on the floor with the kids...

Colleagues who started at 22 are retiring.  Others are going into admin or considering out-of-the-classroom opportunities.  Someday I may need to, but for now, my heart is still in the classroom.

The greatest changes over the past ten years have not been the Common Core, or even standardized testing, although what and how we teach and assess has become more challenging as education continues to be a hotbed of competing political platforms - everyone wants to help us, bless their hearts.

For me, the biggest change has been how social media fuels the fire.  It's not just from political sources who want to save education. It's not so much the media, whose sensational headlines about our inability to score the highest compete improve our scores on international tests makes us clutch our collective pearls and fret about the future of other people's kids and wonder if public education is good enough for our own.  In my effort to use social media for good, I've sought out "positive" educational sites that provide articles and information I can use.  Additionally, there are some great educators who've become teacher entrepreneurs who provide great resources and professional development.  I've created a professional learning network of some top notch talent and inspiring edugurus...

and yet...

I've discovered this nagging pain in my teacher side.  I'm being carpet-listed with 5 things to do and 8 things to stop doing.  I'm professionally overdeveloped with a smorgasbord of learning opportunities that resemble a church pot-luck; it all tastes great, but I've got too much piled on my Chinet plate.  But the most annoying irritant comes from swimming with an undercurrent (riptide), of fear factor facetwitting.  It's not just the layperson who complains about the dumbing down of the "new math", or the pseudo research that shows maps of states with more new teachers and pie charts of where most of the education dollars are spent (hint - it's staff, because educating), but also the "educational groups" who seem to like to create drama with provocative titles and opinion pieces presented as news articles.

As a teacher and a learner, I find my frustration growing as I see educators judging a half-cocked post and not asking more challenging questions - why aren't we smarter about this?  Why aren't we practicing what we teach?  Frustration grows and overflows into a blog dripping with cynicism and sarcasm, and a sad story of a portfolio of wide-eyed hopes and idealistic dreams scattered in the dust of the crumbling public education system...

Then she set down her wine glass and said, "Enough of this bullshit."

...to be continued.