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TPT Debate: On Teacher’s Personal Generosity

Earlier this summer, Adam Hill wrote about his views on resources like Teachers Pay Teachers. It was a fascinating discussion, and one I’ve continued to mull over ever since.

One comment that especially stood out to me was from Tonya Kipe:

“I would rather eat the cost just so others could benefit from the resources because most of us already have serious financial obligations to deal with and shouldn’t add work issues to it.”

This is interesting to me, because when you really think about it, the “serious financial obligations” works in both directions — both for the teachers who are trying to obtain resources for their classrooms on minimal budgets, and for the teachers who are trying to make money on TPT because of serious personal financial obligations.

So is it really such a bad thing for teachers to benefit financially from their resources they share?

It’s a complex question that gets really personal for me, so let me share some background…

My first few years of teaching were while my husband was in school. We had an infant. I was commuting through a massive construction zone for over an hour a day, and our evenings together as a family were scant.

When I heard about all the extras that other teachers were purchasing out-of-pocket for their classrooms because their budgets were just too tiny, I felt a bit ashamed. Our little family had only just made it above the poverty line with my new job — our eligibility for WIC (Women, Infants, & Children which provided basics like milk) still hadn’t even expired. There was no way I was going to be able to spend any of my own money on my classroom.

(eventually, I came to realize that my inability to personally supplement my classroom budget was something I neither could nor should worry about. Instead, I endeavored to engage my students in the creative problem-solving process using our existing resources — which certainly had its own merit).

Now, going back to the debate. Had I ventured into TPT to earn some extra money to supplement our supplies, or even our family’s finances, would anyone have accused me of greed?

But of course, I had neither spare money nor time, so that wouldn’t have been a possibility anyway. So, when I instead utilized free resources other teachers had publicly shared, would anyone have accused me of laziness?

I doubt it.

So here’s my take-away from it all. There is a season for everything. Right now, I’m away from the classroom, so I have much more time to fulfill a contributor role, which I love. And when I do return later, I will be in a much better financial position than I was during those first few frenzied years.

Give when you can. Don’t worry when you can’t. And avoid making assumptions and pressuring others. As long as this country habitually underpays and under-budgets teachers and classrooms, understand that no matter how earnestly we all want to help as many students as possible with our ideas, teachers’ personal financial generosity can only go so far.

P.S. As always, whether selling, shopping, sharing, or borrowing, remember to be wary of the resources that “have all the glitz and appearance of learning, but that really promote something…else.” (see An Open Letter: To Pinterest, from a Teacher).

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The Magic of “You Can”

In an article on TED-Ed clubs this last summer, one tip particularly stood out to me:

“Don’t tell them ‘you can’t’ even if the idea is crazy, tell them ‘you can’ and you will see the magic.”

On the same day I read the article, I had also read about a boy who has invented a small device intended to save babies accidentally left behind in hot cars.

It’s clear from this video that this is a child who is told “you can” on a regular basis in a loving environment. But what if he weren’t?

The naysayers in Facebook comments on this story were abundant, insisting that this idea would just encourage lazy parents, or that it would be futile against extreme heat anyway. And while many of these people are just exhibiting the unfortunate behavior typical of those who don’t see themselves as digital citizens (ie, they enjoying the roles of anonymity, consumption, and sidelines over authenticity, contribution, and involvement), they completely miss the beautiful picture here:

A 10 year-old child has actually devised a prototype in an attempt to better the world around him!

It still makes me wonder, how often do we, as the grown-ups, shut down our kids’ ideas, though they might have potential for brilliance? With my own children, I know I can sometimes have a much greater tendency toward anticipating the mess and the the improbability and the disappointment.

The point is, even if there is validity in our grown-up criticisms (it will take forever to clean up; it won’t help as many people as you think; it will be way slower to do it your way), when a child exhibits any kind of enthusiasm, compassion, and initiative, do we really want to shut that down?

So again, I remind myself:

“Don’t tell them ‘you can’t’ even if the idea is crazy, tell them ‘you can’ and you will see the magic.”

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Inquiry Into When “The Human Need to Calculate Runs into Messy Reality”

As an avid organizer myself, I completely understand the human need to categorize, calculate, and classify. But as a teacher (ie, a laborer among messy human beings), I also completely understand when “the human need to calculate runs into messy reality.” When we act like everything can be neatly sorted and identified — even the content within our curricula — we do our students a major disservice.

Because the truth is, every field still has its frontiers, its disputed claims, its square-pegs-&-round-holes. Inquiring into this concept can help our students think more deeply and with more nuance as they navigate the sometimes rough seas of human wisdom.

Resource #1: What Counts as a Mountain? (via The Kid Should See This)

Resource #2: Icelandic is Untranslatable by New Age Creators

#Resource 3: The Little Prince (the book or the beautiful new movie!)

Provocation Questions: 

  • How has human knowledge changed over time? How does it continue to change?
  • What is our responsibility in understanding the limitations in human knowledge?
  • Why is reality sometimes “messy?”

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Provocation into Cities

With as much wonder as a new city provides, you can bet that an inquiry into the concept of cities would lead into a rich discussion about culture, change, growth, community, and more. Check out these resources for a broad concept-based provocation to stir up your students’ thinking!

Resource #1: MOVE by Rick Mereki

Resource #2: 

 

Resource #3: Eighty Years of New York, Then & Now via The Kid Should See This

Resource #4: Last Stop on Market Street by Matt de la Pena

via Amazon

While you’re at it, check out these other picture books, too:

The Gardener by Sarah Stewart

& Home by Carson Ellis

Provocation Questions

  • How are cities organized?
  • How are cities different, even in the same country?
  • What are the points of view on living in a big city (compared to living in the country)?
  • Why are cities so busy?
  • How are cities changing in the 21st century?
  • What is our responsibility to take care of our cities?

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4 Reasons We Just Can’t Break Up with Basals (& How to Finally Move On)

The typical basal-reading program lesson frequently boils down to something like this:

  • Assigned shared text read aloud.
  • Definitions of carefully-bolded vocabulary words copied down.
  • Comprehension worksheets filled out.
  • Students and teachers alike feeling bored to tears.

The truth is, putting kids through this kind of soul-less exercise will produce authentic readers no more than the mastery of connect-the-dots sheets will produce artists.

And we know it. Master teachers refer to the need to “finesse and hybridize” basals to make sure they’re effective. ¹ (which also makes basals’ claims at “research-based effectiveness” shaky since there’s real possibility they take credit for master teachers’ adjustments).

There are so many other ways to help our students develop the reading skills they need while protecting and nurturing their love of reading. Here are a few of the messages I believe we keep getting from basal program companies to convince us otherwise.

#1: Inexperienced teachers need me!

Basals assert that new teachers won’t be able to navigate the waters of literacy instruction without their careful direction. However, if our solution for offering literacy support to new teachers is to let them muddle through a sub-par program, we’re doing a disservice to both our teachers and our students.

Furthermore, even with all the details of a basal program (many of which supply ideas for differentiation, activating background knowledge, etc), “only a well-trained teacher can make the multifaceted decisions involved in developing such instruction”² anyway. Outsourcing this training to a one-size fits all manual is simply inadequate.

P.S. Going basal-free doesn’t mean you have to/should abandon a framework. One phenomenal example is a a workshop framework by Pam Allyn that I reviewed a couple years ago.

#2: You can’t be sure students will develop skills without my guidance.

In a workshop/units of study model, not only do students develop literacy skills, but they do so with a greater degree of context and response to the ongoing trajectory of student learning.

Meanwhile, basal programs tend to spend disproportionate amounts of time drilling specific skills, such as the ones involved in reading comprehension. Consider this:

“It is critical to note that these and other reading programs allocate as much or more actual time to rehearsing comprehension skills than they allocate to teaching any other element in their language-arts program…In reality, when children experience problems comprehending text, it is much more likely due to the child’s lack of knowledge of the subject matter…The notion that we can teach students a set of skills that they will be able to apply to new and unfamiliar texts or situations is a process that cognitive psychologists call “skills transference.” This is regarded as an inordinately difficult task for our brains to pull off and, therefore, is not a practical educational goal. But it is a goal set forward by every major reading program on the market.”³

In addition, even if students develop said skills, if they never apply them because all those basal worksheets suffocated their love of reading, what’s the point? As educator Ross Cooper wrote, “First and foremost, we must promote a love of reading, not a culture of literacy-based micromanagement.“4

#3: You won’t have ready access to ability-appropriate text!

Twenty years ago, this may have been the case. But just consider this small sampling of today’s possibilities:

  • Shared texts via projectors/document cameras
  • Newsela (engaging, level-able text at the click of a button)
  • Wonderopolis (text based on “more than 90,000 Wonder questions submitted by users” and differentiation features such as selected-text-to-audio and hover-to-define-vocabulary)
  • DOGO (kid-friendly news that’s also leveled at the click of a button and includes assignments, vocab, and Google Classroom integration)
  • Savvy multimedia librarians that can help identify/pull relevant texts during the immersion phase of units.

#4: You won’t have as much time without me to meet students’ individual needs!

Basal models assume that most kids’ learning takes place right at the top of the bell curve, with “differentiation tips” for the few kids on either side of the curve. But the truth is, every journey is unique. The sooner we disentangle ourselves from all the micromanaged requirements of a basal, the sooner we can spend our time where it really counts: 1-1 conferences, responsive mini-lessons, mentor text studies, student ownership/agency, etc.

No matter what promises are made to the contrary, we need to remember that “there’s no simple solution, no panacea, or miracle cure for reading. The range of ways to solve reading achievement challenges is as broad as the range of student profiles.”²

Sources:

1. http://digitalcommons.brockport.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1507&context=ehd_theses

2. https://www.naesp.org/sites/default/files/resources/2/Principal/2009/J-F_p26.pdf

3. http://www.aft.org/sites/default/files/periodicals/Basal_readers.pdf

4. http://www.bamradionetwork.com/edwords-blog/3-reasons-to-rethink-your-basal-reader

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5 Thoughts on Raising iGen Kids with Opportunity over Fear #TeacherMom

“Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?”

The attention-grabbing headline pulled me in, but nothing seemed terribly unexpected as I scrolled through the article. I nodded through passages like, “hanging out alone in her room with her phone…” “dramatic shifts in behavior…” “proportion of Americans who owned a smartphone surpassed 50 percent…”

Until I got to one phrase that made me stop short.

“I call them iGen. Born between 1995 and 2012, members of this generation are growing up with smartphones.”

It was the identification of my own child, born in 2010, as a member of this iGen group.

In a brief episode of primal fear (after all, this article says the iGen are in mental health crisis), my mind flicked through every contact my child has ever made with a smartphone, like some kind of frenzied mental Rolodex.

But as I slowed, regrouped, took a few deep breaths, I remembered something: exposure is not the issue here. It’s connection.

I’ve written many times about the importance of cultivating digital citizenship (see 3 Reasons 1st Grade Isn’t Too Early to Teach DigCit, 3 Reasons HS’s too Late to Teach DigCit, Digital Citizenship: A Richer #Edtech Perspective) and the conclusion is always the same: we must view digital citizenship with a lens of opportunity instead of with a lens of fear.

This, of course, requires purpose, balance, and prudence on adults’ part. And with the very real and weighty issues presented in The Atlantic in mind, I would like to share 5 ways we can cultivate a sense of opportunity over fear as we teach our iGen kids digital citizenship.

#1: Recognize that their childhoods won’t mirror ours — and that’s ok.

As some neighborhood kids recently got together to play in our backyard, I noticed them huddled around a smartphone:

If I were to share such a photo without any background, people might jump to the same conclusions they did when the photo below was shared of kids in a museum (ie, “Kids these days!!” or “Look at them glued to those devices!!”)

But the context they’d be missing would be that this is what it looks like when digital citizenship becomes woven into the fabric of daily life. Right before I snapped the photo, these kids were darting around the yard creating a stop-motion movie of their make-believe play (and the context of the above tweet is that these kids were using an interactive museum tour app).

Of course, this can also be what zombie-land phone addiction looks like, but that’s why it’s so important to seek out and be aware of context.

#2: Model appropriate balanced use.

There are those who feel the need to altogether keep devices out of their young children’s physical sight-lines — and while this may be a temporary solution, it removes the opportunity for open dialogue with our children about how we use our devices. They need to hear not only what we do with our phones, but what strategies we employ to keep obsession at bay, especially in the face of social media.

#3: Make the good you do with your device louder than the bad they hear about.

Speaking of modeling, educators Edna Sackson and George Couros have inspired my thinking time and again about this concept:

Cyberbullying, white ribbon week, internet safety — these are all good and important concepts to cover with our children. But if they are exclusive, then we are missing a huge opportunity.

#4: Emphasize creation over consumption.

Videos like the one below help convey the incredible ways we can view, express, and share the world around us.

And resources like this might help them comprehend the sheer creative potential they hold in their hands (and to appreciate how far we’ve come in a short period of time):

Of course, consumption has its place and we should have honest conversations about our sources and habits there, too. But an important part of citizenship in general is that in a community, people need to both give and take.

#5: Emphasize the personally meaningful ways you are using tech to enhance relationships.

This “Dear Sophie” video inspired me so much back in 2011 that I decided to do the same with my own kids. This is a beautiful example of how we can leverage the technology to connect with our loved ones in historically unprecedented ways.

Our iGen kids are part of an exponentially shifting period of history — and of course, this is just the beginning. Our best bet for helping them navigate safely is to embark on the journey together.

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The Power of One Young Digital Citizen–Again

I started off my daily Twitter review yesterday with a post from @Sue_Crowley with several intriguing comments:

and


I decided to check it out. It appears that source of all the hubbub centers on phenomenal new customer service rep managing the Southern Rail UK Twitter account. His name’s Eddie, and he’s a 15 year old receiving some work experience. 

Not only did he do a fabulous job fielding ordinary customer service questions, but he interacted with customers in a way that definitely caught Twitter’s attention. And young as he is, several interested parties already appear to be trying to poach him for their organizations:

This is definitely one young digital citizen that has his 4 C’s down: communication (fielding hundreds of comments), critical thinking (figuring out helpful responses), creativity (engaging with people in a fun way that got the attention of thousands), and collaboration (working with Neil).

Ultimately, this thread brought me back to reflecting on digital citizenship and literacy yet again. While we know that the jobs of the future will little-resemble the jobs of today, we still often treat the very devices and platforms that will carry our students toward that future — as nuisances. Banning phones, blocking Youtube, insisting on a single way of note-taking.

But here, we have an example of what happens when our students are given authentic opportunities to engage with those devices and platforms and audiences instead.

The fact is, digital citizenship empowers students to amplify their voices for good. Shunning it for fear of the distraction, cyberbullying, etc. perpetuates the very mentality that encourages abuse of these resources: namely, that they are not part of the “real world” and are therefore relegated only for entertainment purposes.

So next time you encounter a blanket ban of a digital resource that seems to favor adult convenience over student ownership, here are a few questions you might ask:

  • How might teaching digital citizenship help students treat the resource with more responsibility?
  • What are alternative courses of action to remove the nuisance factor?
  • How often do you personally treat this resource as an opportunity to create, share, and connect, vs. simple entertainment?
  • How often do you share with your students the ways that you use this resource to create, share, share, and connect?
  • How can you re-envision my students using this resource in a powerful, meaningful way (both now and throughout their lives)? How can you help your students see themselves using the resource in that way?
  • Will this ban help or hinder students in their development of the 4 C’s of 21st century learning?

featured image: DeathToTheStockPhoto