Five Key Elements from Flat World Education
1. Meaningful learning goals
This is an important aspect of teaching and understanding your students. What types of learning goals can your students do. I know in my case, I have to push the bar very high because I will see my students thrive through lessons and new content and go deeper into what they enjoy to learn. As for in the past with students in a more poverty stricken background, my learning goals were much more basic to the knowledge of those students. I knew how to make them thrive, but in the respect of other students in the same grade level in a more affluent school and background; the poverty background students were not getting an equalized education. However, in both cases, there were a small amount of students who could keep up or slow the class down.
2. Intelligent, reciprocal accountability systems
My students that I teach today, are very intelligent, I'd say their parents think more highly of the students, but these students are very much down to the books and understand how to pass tests. However, their writing can be much more improved, and yes, I might be too hard on these kids and have high expectations. But the reputation of these kids is very high and I honestly don't think they are meeting them as much as they can. However, when it comes to reciprocal accountability, simply put that reciprocal accountability means that if we are going to hold the student accountable for something like retaining the knowledge learned in class everyday, the teachers have an equal and commensurate responsibility to ensure that the student knows how to do what we are expecting them to do and learn.
3. Equitable and adequate resources
In the cases where I have taught both low and high students the adequate resources is really interesting to see. The school I am at now, the PTA is very strong and can provide teachers whatever is necessary to teach. However, some of the supplies the PTA gets might be too much of something and not enough or lack of another. For instance, did I really need 400 glue sticks at the beginning of the year? I am sure there is a school out there who needs at least 300 of of those glue sticks. But my point here is that adequate resources is not equitable school by school. I can go down the street and tear up because the school can't even provide pencils for the students to learn, and the priority of buying school supplies is not the culture for most families in the flat lands of Oakland,CA.
4. Strong professional standards and supports.
My school district tries really hard to have professional standards and support systems for their teachers. So I will give them that credit, however, when I have to go to these meetings they are very informative, but they don't reach to all circumstances of all the teachers. I am in a very diverse school district and my school culture is much different from many of the school cultures around town. For example, I went to a classroom management professional development, yes everyone was very nice and inviting and there was a lot of information that was great for me being a first year teacher, but the situations that most of the those other first year teachers was much different. The group who was presenting didn't take into account of the difficulties that most teachers in Oakland go through on a daily basis. I'm not sure what they stance was on the presentation, but I think they were going for the ideal. Ideal classroom size, ideal students, ideal parents, and ideal principals. I can tell you right now, ideal is far from where every school in my community is.
5. Schools organized for student and teacher learning
This is an important aspect of teaching and having an effective classroom and school cultures. Teachers learning from students while students are learning from teachers, this is a great way to learn all together. Teachers learning about their students their strengths and weaknesses. Students learning to respect and gather knowledge from their teacher. Teachers need to be mindful of making their learning environment a safe and effective learning process.
1. Meaningful learning goals
This is an important aspect of teaching and understanding your students. What types of learning goals can your students do. I know in my case, I have to push the bar very high because I will see my students thrive through lessons and new content and go deeper into what they enjoy to learn. As for in the past with students in a more poverty stricken background, my learning goals were much more basic to the knowledge of those students. I knew how to make them thrive, but in the respect of other students in the same grade level in a more affluent school and background; the poverty background students were not getting an equalized education. However, in both cases, there were a small amount of students who could keep up or slow the class down.
2. Intelligent, reciprocal accountability systems
My students that I teach today, are very intelligent, I'd say their parents think more highly of the students, but these students are very much down to the books and understand how to pass tests. However, their writing can be much more improved, and yes, I might be too hard on these kids and have high expectations. But the reputation of these kids is very high and I honestly don't think they are meeting them as much as they can. However, when it comes to reciprocal accountability, simply put that reciprocal accountability means that if we are going to hold the student accountable for something like retaining the knowledge learned in class everyday, the teachers have an equal and commensurate responsibility to ensure that the student knows how to do what we are expecting them to do and learn.
3. Equitable and adequate resources
In the cases where I have taught both low and high students the adequate resources is really interesting to see. The school I am at now, the PTA is very strong and can provide teachers whatever is necessary to teach. However, some of the supplies the PTA gets might be too much of something and not enough or lack of another. For instance, did I really need 400 glue sticks at the beginning of the year? I am sure there is a school out there who needs at least 300 of of those glue sticks. But my point here is that adequate resources is not equitable school by school. I can go down the street and tear up because the school can't even provide pencils for the students to learn, and the priority of buying school supplies is not the culture for most families in the flat lands of Oakland,CA.
4. Strong professional standards and supports.
My school district tries really hard to have professional standards and support systems for their teachers. So I will give them that credit, however, when I have to go to these meetings they are very informative, but they don't reach to all circumstances of all the teachers. I am in a very diverse school district and my school culture is much different from many of the school cultures around town. For example, I went to a classroom management professional development, yes everyone was very nice and inviting and there was a lot of information that was great for me being a first year teacher, but the situations that most of the those other first year teachers was much different. The group who was presenting didn't take into account of the difficulties that most teachers in Oakland go through on a daily basis. I'm not sure what they stance was on the presentation, but I think they were going for the ideal. Ideal classroom size, ideal students, ideal parents, and ideal principals. I can tell you right now, ideal is far from where every school in my community is.
5. Schools organized for student and teacher learning
This is an important aspect of teaching and having an effective classroom and school cultures. Teachers learning from students while students are learning from teachers, this is a great way to learn all together. Teachers learning about their students their strengths and weaknesses. Students learning to respect and gather knowledge from their teacher. Teachers need to be mindful of making their learning environment a safe and effective learning process.