Krissy Venosdale is a ten year veteran teacher in Hillsboro, Missouri. Her recent blog post "I'm still learning" is so inspiring. As a thirty-seven year old that will be pushing forty by the time I step into a classroom she gives me hope. She professes to believe that even after ten years she has not learned everything she needs to know. She teaches gifted children that are in grades third through fifth. Her creativity and zest for teaching are impressive and make me wonder how long will it be before I feel like I am where she is. Her blog is chock full of everything to make me get excited about teaching.
After reading her post If I built a School it's truly difficult to think about a follow up. I really wish that we would have been asked to do this assignment without reading Mrs. Venosdale's first. Two of my favorite ideas were her library with the tree house, and the cafeteria that was more like a comfortable coffee house. I imagined hardwood floors with plush seating and students swimming with creative ideas. I think schools need an inviting environment that creates a comforting factor for them.
One of her statements is where I keep feeling I am running into a dead end, when it comes to all of these new ideas of teaching. No state test and students moving forward when they are ready, rather then by age, or grade. How are we as teachers supposed to incorporate all of this creativeness in our classrooms? It seems we will be spending most of out time teaching to test, instead of really teaching. I have had so many educators bring this up in conversations. Most have even tried to persuade me to pursue a different career. Is there a way to incorporate this style of teaching? I know I am veering in a different direction, but I am just full of questions about this.
Eric Whitacre’s Virtual Choir
Eric Whitacre is a brilliant musician. Wow! He grew up wanting to be a pop star. After much persuasion, he joined choir in college. He did not know how to read music until after he started college. By the age of twenty-one he had written his first concert work called Go Lovely Rose. It is just unbelievable. To go from having virtually no experience, to what he has accomplished, he is truly gifted. As a former choir student, words cannot describe the image and sound of the virtual choir that he has put together. Lux Aurumque (meaning Light and Gold) is a beautiful moving piece. One of the viewers on YouTube described it as sounding like the horizon. Even if you are not a music person, you have to appreciate just the thought of 185 people, that have never met singing such beautiful music.Teaching in the 21st Century
This video makes me question once again about change. I have not said anything about this in my previous post. I agree with most, if not all of the ideas in EDM310. I just wonder how an overall change is going to be created in the classroom, schools, or even school districts as a whole. Is everyone truly on board, with the idea of change, when it comes to how our children are learning, and how we as educators are teaching. I agree with the ideas in Kevin Roberts video. I do not understand how we are going to implement this into our classroom? Until everyone agrees that this is the change that needs to come about to get our students up and running, it seems difficult to think about. Are there enough people moving in this direction that it will make a difference, not just in the lives of student, but in the school staff too. I think that when it comes to students it will make my job easier if I can move forward with this idea in the classroom. However, it may make my job harder, if other teachers, administrators, and the like, are not in agreement with this teaching style.
Flipped Classroom
Even after my previous comments in this post, I do believe I could use the idea of a flipped classroom. It really hit home with the example being a math class. I was terrible at math. If I could have utilized a teaching video at home, it would have made my life much easier. Students need that application time in the classroom with the teacher. I can remember many nights of being in tears because I just could not figure something out. There just was and is not enough time in the classroom for a lecture and application of whatever we were learning that day. This is a brilliant idea. It puts responsibility on the student to do their part. I really like that it helped those that might be falling behind, and those that needed a faster pace in the classroom. It's a win-win situation for the student and the teacher. You will always have the occasional students that refuse to comply. I think that just goes with the territory of being an educator.
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