Notes From an Accidental Teacher

Article Author name(s): Carol Ann Tomlinson
Title of article: Notes From an Accidental Teacher
Title of journal: Educational Leadership
Date of publication: December 2010/ January 2011
Volume of the journal: 68
Issue number of the journal: 4
Article Page numbers: pp. 22-26

http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/dec10/vol68/num04/Notes-from-an-Accidental-Teacher.aspx

Summary: Forty year veteran teacher never had an itch to teach until she stumbled on a rural teaching job by chance. Over the years, this “accidental teacher” considers five beliefs to be useful in the positive structure of an educational system. Find a place that fits you: Find an environment that nurtures fearless practice and discovery. Work in schools that mirror your own development and value your goals and creativity. The place you teach at will have large influence over the type of teacher you become. Understand teaching as a calling: callings challenge us to be more than we think we can be and to draw on capacities we didn't quite know we had. Effective educators connect content and kids; they dignify whom and what they teach by making the act of learning dynamic and compelling. Know that you don’t know: The best teachers I have known are humbled by how much more they need to learn and seek professional development opportunities. Associate yourself with quality: Develop friendships with colleagues who set high standards and value those who constantly remind you of what excellence in the classroom looks like. Develop a keen sense of what quality looks like and expect quality from students and finally, Generate your own energy: All teachers feel they work hard, what makes the difference in the work ethic of high-quality teachers is that their work is regenerative; they draw energy from what they do. Finding this energetic balance of finding task is in itself what Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi (1990) calls “flow”. Passions outside of the classroom will help to fuel a teacher’s sense of balance, and will re-energize the teacher.

Relevance: I loved these main points because they are insightful and not often voiced among the educational community. As new teachers it’s helpful for us to examine the most commonly passed advice, but it’s also useful to utilize the advice that may be “outside of the box” but especially effective.

Old School Math

“The Way You Learned Math Is So Old School”
NPR, March 5, 2011

Topic: Elementary math is being taught in a much different way than in the past.

Summary: Less emphasis is being placed on arithmetic than in the past. Even though “arithmetic is the gateway to algebra”, elementary math lessons are being taught differently and are now geared towards teaching students to think algebraically at a very young age. “There is nothing elementary about elementary mathematics education.”

Intended audience: Teachers, parents, general public.

Key Points:

• Students are being taught math in a way that makes them think algebraically at a young age.
• Often, parents don’t understand even elementary math homework, because it is so much different from the way they were taught as kids.
• Everyone is capable of understanding math and kids are brilliant!

Relevance: I know only a few of us are going into elementary education, but I thought this piece was really interesting. I took a couple of elementary math classes over the Summer/Fall at Portland Community College and noticed many people struggling with the ideas and methods. I think the way I was taught and the way kids are taught today was a mix of the “old school” and the “new school” methods. Good to remember as teachers that parents might not always be able to help students with some of what we may perceive to be easy topics!