Today, our students arrive. Yesterday, all of the staff in our district convened for our Convocation Ceremonies as a way to getting the year off to a start on a united front (we are a regional district) and the superintendent this year invited fellow teachers and administrators to be the speakers. Hearing those voices was a great way to begin the year, I thought, so kudos to our superintendent for passing the buck to the staff to motivate, inspire and lead us into the new school year.

Here are a few highlights:

• My own building principal talked about coming into education as an idealist (and jokingly admitted how that idealism sometimes runs smack into reality when trying to bring ideas to fruition). He noted that no other professional addresses the needs so such a diverse population, and no other profession has a more meaningful goal in our society. Every day is a challenge. Yes. But that challenge is what we relish. “I pity the cubicle dwellers,” he said, to laughter.
• A mom, who teaches kindergarten, and her daughter, who teaches third grade, took the podium collaboratively and in a very down-to-earth way, they talked about becoming inspired to be a teacher. The daughter: “I thought she (the mom) was the best teacher ever and I wanted to be just like her.” There were more than a few “awwws” in the audience. The two also did a funny bit about teaching styles today (ie, checking out lesson plans online) versus slightly more older teaching styles (ie, pulling out the old mimeograph copies).
• Another third grade teacher, who had a career in the environmental sciences, told his story of how he went from that career into teaching, mostly because “it’s fun.” But that’s not all, he admitted. “Doing meaningful work has always mattered to me. One thing that charges me up … is knowing what happens in my classroom matters. I know this is a cliche, but what you and I do is important.“
• A high school math teacher took the stage to admit she is a full-fledged “math geek” who was a student in our district and came back as a teacher. She noted the many ways that colleagues helped her during her first years, and how she now tries to return the favor to her younger colleagues. And she loves seeing that spark with her students, noting: “I love to see students finding success where they don’t think it is possible.”
• Another high school teacher, who teaches social studies, winged his talk a bit, and told of teachers from his Catholic school days who made impressions on him. One teacher was brilliant, and he still draws on those memories to inspire him as a teacher. Another was brilliant but could not connect with students, and was unfair in grading and unhelpful in nurturing young minds. “He expected a lot of his students but he did not expect a lot of himself. He had the ability but not the desire.”
• Finally, a retired superintendent who now works for our state department of education concluded the Convocation with stories of her teaching days in Texas, and noted that so much of teaching is desire and drive. She also said that building a supportive school community, for staff as well as students, is crucial. “Our job is to be there for each other — to hold each other up. And when we take that as inspiration, we hold up all of our kids up, too.“

What a great way to start the year!

Peace (in the words),
Kevin

Like most schools in Massachusetts, where there is a new law around bullying issues, we spent much of our first day back in professional development sessions centered around bullying and cyberbulling. Under our new state law, there will be detailed reporting procedures, a trail of action taken by administrators, and introduction of a bullying curriculum. It’s an important issue and we need more discussions. But I wonder about the message that was sent yesterday to the elementary teachers by our first speaker.

Cindy Boyle, who is a community educator with the regional District Attorney’s team, was energetic, engaging, funny and clearly has talked a lot and worked a lot with kids. She cares about young people. That was evident.  She was also upfront, letting us know that her perspective on the use of technology to engage in bullying behavior (through messaging, comments, etc.) is seen through the prism of the justice system. She urged us to see the issue through the eyes of an educator, too.

She also made it clear that the fears over predators scouring the Internet for victims is so statistically rare, and happens in certain situations, that those fears are not what should be worrying us. It’s the regular kids that need to be in our field of vision. The kids with a cell phone, or a computer.

Then, she launched into a presentation about how prevalent technology is in the lives of young people, how often clueless many young people are about their “digital footprints,” how she works in small groups to help youths see what digital detritus they leave behind, and how technology can be used to decrease the social interactions of people to such a degree that bullying can take place easily enough. She also took gaming to task for its use of cheating by sharing codes, violence in first person games and anti-social behaviors of users.

A few things she presented were not quite correct. She used a recent Kaiser Family study in which young people were show on average to be consuming media about 7 hours a day. Boyle told us that the study showed that kids use the Internet for 7 hours a day. There were some gasps around me. And she told us that when you load a video to YouTube, anyone anywhere can write a comment saying whatever they want (she had a slide with some vicious comments to demonstrate her point). Another teacher questioned her on this, and she started to backtrack about privacy controls. Just to be clear: you can shut off all comments, all video responses, all ratings when you load your video, just to be clear. And the news articles she shared made their point dramatically, all right, with reports of teachers being penalized and students being reprimanded, etc.

I imagine that the majority of my colleagues probably just shut the door on the possibilities of using web-based technology with that one single presentation because even though Cindy Boyle made it clear that education is a key component to stopping bullying online, I imagine a lot of teachers thinking the easiest way is to not even bring technology into the classroom.

Although she had asked us to view the talk through our own eyes, I think the fears that she put in place may have overwhelmed any considerations of possibilities for Internet-based work, including writing for an audience, connecting with global partners, composing in multiple media, etc. Those positive learning elements seemed diminished in the shadow of worry that she cast over us.

Peace (in the balance),
Kevin

It’s the time of year when I step back from blogging for a stretch and give my mind and my blog a rest. If you are a regular reader, thank you for coming by each day and I will be writing again when September rolls around. If you are a newcomer, welcome to my blog site and I hope you find me again in a few weeks.

I’ll still be writing here and there (on Twitter, at our iAnthology, for various websites where I write reviews — although I’ll be slowing down all around there, too, in August), but not here at Kevin’s Meandering Mind. I find that stepping away from the blog makes me appreciate the act of blogging more on the return, and allows me to concentrate on other things, like my family.

Write to you soon!

Peace (in rest mode),
Kevin