Helping Your Students Learn from Everyday

Wow, this past week and a half has been filled with a ton of dramatic and fun news.  Sports have consumed my time this past few days.  My twitter project for the summer has really dwindled down.  Not having student followers has made it very challenging.  I should have started early before the school year ended.  Yet, I have continued to learn, and learn on purpose.  Creating some wonderful experiences with friends and my family.
This weeks post is mostly about some events that have popped up in the news these past few days.  Of course I am only going to mention what news I caught while I was switching channels from reality shows to Sports Center.  So here goes:
        
          First:  This past week Derek Jeter of the New York, Yankees hit his 3000th hit with a home run on home his home field.  How cool is it to see a MLB player complete such a task and complete it without cheating. The person who caught the ball only gave up the ball for season tickets and a few autographs for the rest of the season.  Oh no, not this guy.  Jeter would be at my school every year till I retire giving a keynote,  I would have some college funds for my kids and at least 10 years worth of season tickets.  All kidding aside, I hope that most of my students were able to see this milestone and notice that with hard work and not just talent alone you can achieve great things.  Which leads me to my next lesson learned

          Second:  Pacman Jones is in the news again.  No ladies and gentlemen you are not going to hear good things.  He was arrested again and most likely will be punished by the NFL or not.  You may think because of the lockout Pacman  is out of the reach of the league but not at all.  What a lost talent.  Unfortunately I also blame alot of it on his upbringing.  Pacman was so talented that he was always praised for how great he was, how well he did it and how his talent will get him into the NFL.  His teachers and parents should have praised his hard work and recognized his good choices.  All the talent in the world can get you the job and money you desire but it won't help you keep it.  WORK HARD kids!!  Teachers recognize these things in class let them see how talent is not the end of the story.  For the first couple of years of teaching I always brought up Ricky Williams football career, the intelligence of Jeffry Dahmer, and Michael Jackson's path from King of Pop to a weirdo.  Please teachers give your students examples in the classroom of  people seeking greatness not success.

Third:  This is a competitive world and it just isn't in the marketplace.  It begins in the classroom.  I know it is not a new idea but it really clicked with me watching the U.S. women's world cup team play in the early rounds.  These players are training and dedicating their lives to win something bigger than themselves.  They are representing a people, a country, and idea of democracy.  Are we instilling that kind of mindset in the classroom or are we just leaving that up to sports only.  Create your class to be a global classroom.  You may think it is hard but it is not.  I teach 8th grade U.S. history.  When you think about of course it is global but 8th graders just think about what is happening on the mainland not the influence we have on the world, the big Why am I learning this question should be answered with a global mindset.  Competition and global learning should be an everyday expectation in your class.

I hope that in the coming years of my teaching my students and co-teachers will grow to be competitive global thinkers.  I hope you do too!  Make Good Choice, Do Great Things!

Learning About the Space Shuttle Program

My son has a stuffed animal that I gave him that belonged to me as a child.  It is a grey pound puppy named Brandon.  I named him after the famous golden retriever from Punky Brewster.  I am sure some of us grew up during the time of the adventurous Punky Brewster.  Punky had spunk.  She was  a character who I looked up to, even though she was  a girl.   In the 80s boys were meant to be boys who looked up to characters like He-Man, and Voltron.  Yeah, all of these shows were make believe but they played to something that public education has deadened, our creativity and imagination with Science and Math.

Today marked the day of the last NASA space shuttle launch.  It was amazing to see how far we have come in technology to see every moment of the flight set up.  It might be the wannabe nerd in me talking, but it was so fascinating.  I woke up at 7 a.m. put Benjamin back to sleep with his pound puppy Brandon and turned on my phone, laptop, and the television to see the launch.  I remember learning about the NASA from that famous show Punky Brewster.   I still remember the Career day scene where Punky walked in wearing the coolest astronaut costume.  Her explanation of an explorer made everyone in her T.V. classroom want to be an astronaut including the little boy watching it on a 10 inch television from his mothers bed.

When I went to school I always wanted to spend time in Science and Math, and I was terrible at them both.  I still remember having to spend my tutorial class,  homeroom, and my off period studying for my Science classes in high school.  I do not recall ever making above  a B in any of my Science classes.  When it came to projects I did well, I was a bit of a procrastinator so my grades could have been better on the projects, but my creativity always gave me a fair grade.

Having things like the NASA program shown creatively on television made me want to learn more.  It made me realize other than Buzz Lightyear what creative alleys will my son go down to learn about space and science.  How do we teach my kids about the space shuttle program when now it will be privatized.  Soon, we will have to watch the shuttle launch on Pay Per View.

So here is what I have learned from Punky Brewster and the NASA shuttle launches:

1. Be observant:  Science can be eye opening even for those who don't like it.  Hey, I thought punky's friend who wanted to grow up to be Rambo was  a great idea.
2. Create a constant learning environment:  Learning can be created with any medium: TV, Videos, walks in the park, trips to the museums, sports, and yes even water balloons.  I could go on with tons of ways to apply science and math.
3. Be a creativity advocate:  My wife comes up with the most creative ways to celebrate holidays and birthdays.  She is a poet and a problem solver.  Her creativity and gusto helped organize and create a lot of fun for our church week long day camp.  Yet, she believes that she is not creative.  This coming from the women who wanted to be a pro-wrestler and Isaiah Thomas when she grew up.  She even told me school killed the creativity in her.  It was about making good grades.  I try my best to encourage the process and her ways of thinking.  The same will go for my students and children.
4. Be a Learning Engineer:  Learning is one of the only things you continue to do as you grow in life.  
1. An learning engineer is a professional concerned with applying high yield instructional strategies of scientific knowledge, mathematics, humanities and ingenuity to the educational environment.  A Learning Engineer creates materials, structures, machines and systems that encourages and utilizes whole brain learning.

So the question is who is going to teach my son about the space program.  I am!  Make good choices do great things