Hero Teacher Burnout

 

In her usual brilliant style, Bianca Hewes once again brings us deep insight into the kind of reform so desperately needed in education.

If you are an “agent of change” in your school site, you must read her latest post, Why I don’t want to be a hero teacher, and maybe you shouldn’t either.

And like so many things she writes, the article popped an educator boil in my own head, so I share with you my reply to her post:

For a short while I worked in emergency medical services, and while I never thought of myself as a “hero,” everyone in that line of work does heroic things on a daily basis. I emphasize “short while” here, as heroic work is indeed humanly unsustainable. I share Ms. Hannon’s evaluation of the hero teacher issue.

The kind of reform we need is not at the level the politicians in any western country have been willing to entertain, but it is one Asian countries have, and it’s why their systems are soundly kicking our collective education asses, both in delivering content and in technology. If they ever find PBL, we’re done for.

Teachers need significant collaborative time, as in hours per day, and they need to work (during their work time, not at night, over weekends and during breaks) with colleagues continually on how learning happens in their classrooms. They need to vet their practice constantly, daily, not just during some ex situ summer institute where students are nowhere to be seen. They need time daily to build collegial trust, to observe each other, to comment, to practice, and repeat. They need the opportunity daily (have I used this word enough?) to be critical of themselves, and time to stay in touch with trends of change, both in their students and in their tools. They need to feel protected in a professional enviroment in which not only are they accountable for student learning outcomes, but also valued for the societally vital role they play every day.

Our current mode of packing as many students into a room as possible and packing as many instructional minutes into a day as can be shoehorned into a schedule and still give people a chance to eat is educationally insane. The pols who hold the strings to the money bags still think we’re educating line workers and field hands. Until they wake up and get a grip on what they’re asking us to do, we will continue to burn through our hero teachers and nothing will change.

THE 21st Century Skill: Ethical Learning

It seems I am on a Bianca Hewes roll here, but that is because the roll is hers.  I do believe that unless a teacher has project-based learning at the heart of his/her teaching, particularly in grades 5 through 12, there is a disservice being performed.

This six-minute video of Bianca, in what is undoubtedly an enviable educational setting, is well-worth your investment…

And teachers, take particular note of what she says about professional development, and who sets the course of teacher learning.

Edmodo

At the risk of revealing my personal lag time for becoming aware of an ed tech tool for which I’ve been pining these many years, I am posting here a few links to information on a service that may well become the transformational tool of the current generation of K-12 teachers who are currently stretched and stressed beyond anything sustainable.Edmodo, simply put, is Facebook for the classroom.  Not coincidentally, Facebook and LinkedIn are major funding sources for this free service.  In this space, teachers can provide streaming interaction with their students through accounts they alone supervise, based on Groups established (i.e. classes) for teaching purposes.  Edmodo is wildly customizable, to the degree that the same application can also be utilized for established PLCs or other more informal interest groups with colleagues.  Edmodo is safe, a “walled garden” available only by invitation, and accessible through any Internet-connected device.  Mobile Edmodo apps allows students to interact through smart phones and tablets, in addition to any Internet-capable computer.

While Edmodo sponsors excellent webinars to get teachers and districts up & running (district-specific subdomains are also freely provided), of the 500,000 teachers and 4.5 million students using Edmodo at this writing, blogger Bianca Hewes has done a particularly nifty job in describing her use of it in her English classes, most recently in this recent post, Edmodo: resource sharing, collaboration, lessons, communication, assessments and organisation.

While Project-Based Learning (PBL) is clearly at the heart and soul of Edmodo designers and its most devoted users, it seems any pedagogical stripe can be accommodated as long as personal interaction is the goal.  Edmodo invites the curious to set up a free account and give it a go.  You just may love it.

PBL from the trenches

Aussie teacher Bianca Hewes reflects on her experimental year of teaching via Project-Based Learning based on her students’ evaluations of her performance.  As any decent teacher knows, there is no more powerful criticism or praise than that which comes from one’s students, so it is with gratitude to her that I pass her reflections on to you… 10-things-year-10-taught-me-about-learning-in-2011