Author: nshafer

In Ms. Selin’s Art Class:

On one of my observation days, Ms Selin started the art class out by having the students draw their names in block letters, in what is referred to as the ‘wild style’ in graffiti. These openers are part of the daily routine that she uses as a classroom management strategy.  This transitioned effortlessly into a presentation on graffiti art with a video about a graffiti artist named ‘Scape’.  A routine established of watching, discussion, and demonstration kept class running smoothly.  This transitioned into more classwork and a closing routine of putting away supplies in the last five minutes of class.

The transitions between the different sections of class were made much easier through routine, so when new project structures are introduced, the students have a library of behaviors from which to make predictions about future expected behaviors.

In my own classroom, I am very interested in establishing routines that can help students be in charge of themselves and their learning environment (i.e., putting their own supplies away rather than the teacher doing it).

I was not apprehensive at all about the idea of ‘personalized learning’ before I read this article.   Maybe I have been unfocused and the air was not right when I read it, but something in there made me step back a little bit.   Maybe my guards were down and I just took away what I was meant to, without regard for my need to argue with people, as a matter of course.

I love using student choice in academics, it is good for project work and it is helpful that kids are comfortable with it.   It is about not learning to please the teacher, but learning to learn.   Good teachers seem to prefer students creative problem solving to supplication anyways. No one has ever referred back to that great teacher who graded based on the proportional satiation they got when their students academically obeyed their instructions.   But student choice needs guidance, and thoughtful challenge, which is what good teachers do, right?

So many teachers are already doing this, some have been doing it for decades, the integrated technology and adaptive tech stuff has been part of the score for a long time.   The uncertainty and ambiguity of tech integration is hard for a lot of teachers, and there has to be all these extra resources dedicated to helping teachers not only learn new methods, but to be able to integrate them.   Some districts in Alaska have tech or STEM standards that require students to learn how to deal with and work through technological failure and ambiguity issues.   Students are learning how to be okay with not being able to define or control things.   Maybe that is part of the ‘Honoring the complexity’ bit.   Theoretically, I really do love everything about personalized learning.   It is the things that need to accompany it that seem scary to me.   Mostly in integrating and implementing the strategies.   I remember how mad teachers were when the Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) became a district standard in Anchorage a couple years ago.   Literally, they were speaking about retiring because they thought that SEL was going to ruin their ability to instruct. I would imagine that PL would get just as much push-back.

I am currently student-teaching in the fourth most ethnically diverse middle school in the country.  I graduated high school from the third most diverse high school in the country. They are both in Anchorage. The most diverse elementary school, middle school and high school in the country are in Anchorage too.  That is why it really bothers me to hear when our local elected officials play with this “I’m not politically correct” posturing, glossing over for a moment who the people they are representing are.  Anchorage wants to be a refugee city.  The people who live here, really do want to see it be more inviting, less violent, and healthier.

The plain fact of the matter is that most of the crime in Anchorage, and the crime rate really is high, is perpetuated by American citizens.  The immigrants in this town, when you get to hear the stories, are nothing like what is being told in the news or by those who want to cut quintessentially American programs like DACA.  In Anchorage, many of our students of from South Sudan.  When you hear the stories of genocide there, is it beyond the scope of reasoning to think that those people don’t deserve a home somewhere that can help them (because the trauma is real and big, and they need help).  Hmong immigrants are another large part of the population here.  Similar story, the Hmong have never been able to secure their own sovereign nation in southeast Asia.

Dreamers are kids brought into the US illegally and have to qualify for an pantheon of special circumstances that make them absolutely beneficial to our society.  That’s why there was legislation passed, because through no fault of their own, they are dispossessed of a homeland and have tried to do the best they possibly could.

Ending DACA is cheap political maneuvering and heartless.