Being Prepared

Being Prepared
So one of the most important things in anything we do in life is being prepared. This is especially true for teachers, or when teaching something to someone. I am not saying every detail must be etched in stone from the beginning, as spontaneity is extremely important for keeping both students and teachers engaged. But good teachers will have contingencies simmering in their kettles of tricks in order to keep a learning experience that takes an unexpected turn from going bad, and scarring the students.

For example:

I was at the park after school with my youngest daughter Bella (8 going on 14) and our dog Tika. While Bella was playing with her friends I noticed a family fishing at the park pond. The mother looked to be in her early thirties and had two small kids; a girl maybe 18 months and a boy 4 years old. The father was in his early thirties also, and was showing his son how to fish. They were casting the rod with a bobber and reeling back in. What struck me strange was the father was wearing khaki slacks and a green, pin-striped polo shirt. I thought to myself “he doesn’t look like your typical fisherman??” but who am I to judge; maybe he just got off of work and met his family at the park.

About 15 minutes later a bunch of kids at the park were making a fuss and my daughter Bella ran over to see what was going on. Well, somehow the family caught a 24” catfish and the hook was stuck in its mouth. I am not a nosy person so I stayed back with Tika, and just kept an eye on Bella. The father seemed out of sorts and kids from the park were pouring water on the fish to try to keep it alive . Finally the mother had to ask me if I could get a hook out of a fish’s mouth. I, being the animal rescuer that I am (I told Bella she must now refer to me as Diego since I have saved a baby rabbit, a humming bird, a zebra, and now a fish) said “sure.”
Now I have been fishing maybe 100 times in my life, but I have only been fish catching 3 or 4 times in my life. The only thing I seem to be able to catch when fishing is mosquito bites. However, as a chef I have cleaned and filleted thousands of fish of all sizes and colors, so I felt pretty qualified at handling this fish. It took me two or three minutes, but I was able to remove the hook and send the fish safely back into the water.

The point is: why was the father teaching his son to fish if he wasn’t prepared to handle the catching and releasing of the fish. The mother said in the background “well I guess we will be retiring fishing.” As teachers it is good, even necessary for us to learn along with our students, but this father was a wreck, and may have ruined fishing for his kids forever.
When teaching something you aren’t experienced at take some time to practice by yourself a few times, or at least mentally run through the activity and try to anticipate any issues that may arise. “Frustration begins where knowledge ends” –Clinton Anderson.

Tales from Finlandia

What makes good teaching?

I have been researching this idea for the last year or so, as I have noticed a discrepancy between the quality of teaching/learning from one classroom to another; even within the same school and subject matter. It generally boils down to the teacher, but there’s a saying leftover from my restaurant days that I love “The fish stinks from the head.” In schools the head is the principal, and/or the school district. The teachers have to be motivated, inspired, educated, and held accountable to be good. In any other industry people are fired if they become complacent and quit producing results. The integrity of the corporation is on the line.

I read a great article in the Smithsonian Magazine the other day titled “Why are Finland’s Schools so Successful?” by LynNell Hancock. I have read other accounts about how good Finland’s schools were, but most gave statistics and didn’t really surmise the magic formula. I have provided a link so I won’t reprint the whole article but I do want to point out some interesting points and quotes.

Before any of you start suggesting that National funding of education is an act of communism or socialism, consider this: More citizens educated = more citizens employed = fewer citizens on social programs = fewer taxes. So overall the investment in improving our educational system would actually call for less social program funding.

The Finns recognized this as the article states, “The transformation of the Finns’ education system began some 40 years ago as the key propellant of the country’s economic recovery plan… ‘If we want to be competitive, we need to educate everybody. It all came out of a need to survive.’”

Ultimately they discovered that they could spend less per student, “Ninety-three percent of Finns graduate from academic or vocational high schools, 17.5 percentage points higher than the United States, and 66 percent go on to higher education, the highest rate in the European Union. Yet Finland spends about 30 percent less per student than the United States.”

So what is the magic formula? Well the culture does play a role to a certain degree, but in my opinion the smallest role. What seems to matter, according to the article, is that education and teaching are respected fields, “teachers were effectively granted equal status with doctors and lawyers.” Pride in their jobs is a big motivator for Finnish teachers. Additionally they despise competition between schools and standardized tests. They focus their time and energy on teaching and finding better ways of teaching and making lessons instead of creating tests, administering tests, grading tests, analyzing test scores, and publicizing test scores. I do feel tests have a place: to identify students and schools that might require more resources. But I don’t think funding should rely on achieving particular scores, or that students should get stomach aches from the intense pressure exuded by all school staff during test time. As a Finnish teacher commented “’We know much more about the children than these tests can tell us.’”

Clearly we can’t just imitate a bunch of Finns and walk off, hand in hand, into the sunset, but there is a lot here to cause us to ask how and why we are doing things they way we are. With this blog I plan to leave little nuggets of ideas that I feel could direct our schools to better serve our children, and ultimately our communities.

Tales from Pukelandia

It's been a few days since my last post. I want to try to post at least every other day but as the blog is titled: notenoughours! My wife Marcia is recovering from her 15th surgery and I am helping my oldest daughter with her online-home school. Then two days ago my youngest daughter brought home from school a stomach virus (:-, Every year, two or three weeks into public school and the stomach virus hits. If that wasn't bad enough today my oldest daughter started hanging her shoes out of the toilet as she caught the bug.

So now I'm trying to manage the household chores, take care of my wife tend to the dog's needs, keep the fish from going belly up, comfort two puking kids, all while attempting to maintain my own sanity. Now that my youngest is starting to recover, she is now complaining that I am doing more to help my oldest daughter through her sickness than I did for her. Seriously? Sibling rivalry is one thing, but catching flack for helping one child get over the flu is ridiculous.

(After writing this and saving as a draft, my youngest started throwing up again so I am running up and down stairs between the two toilets trying to keep the vomit out of everyones hair and from making my girls look like rastafarians; not that rastas look bad, but my daughters don't fit the look)

Well, what keeps me focused is realizing that no matter how bad I think I have it, someone else has it worse and I shouldn't be selfish and complain. A painter I respect, Carol Marine, has just lost her house to the wild fires around Austin, Texas. I would much rather be in the predicament I am in right now than have to deal with her troubles.

Let's just hope I don't get sick!

(I originally wrote this post on Friday night. Before I could upload the photos and post, I started to get sick and spent a miserable weekend throwing up with stomach cramps and a raging headache. Not fun.)

Normally I like to post photos with my blog posts, but I don't think anyone wants to see anything that's happening in our house right now; so I will post a photo of my recent painting from my painting blog.

Update:

OK, so this photo is kinda' cute; Nurse Tika looking after Briar.