When I was nine or ten, I met with the principal about my grades. She said I was going to be pulled from band (I play the Trombone) because my math grades were too low. I didn't say anything except, "So you're going to take away the only thing I'm good at?" I didn't have any defense. She was right, my grades were low but I was good at playing the trombone. I could read music and understand how to apply my hand to the slide and my lips to the mouthpiece to make music out of notes. I even wrote music. I was given this device with little instruction and began experimenting. I also learned from other trombone players. I eventually joined a ska band in Oregon and played music professionally for four years. I graduated from college with an applied economics degree. I always think back to what would have happened to my life if the principal didn't change her mind. I wasn't removed from band. I can't say my grades improved. I struggled all through elementary school. I couldn't remember enough for the tests. I did okay in high school and excelled in College.
The point of my ramblings is that we create a classroom for who I don't know. It didn't work out for me. The band room was something entirely different. They gave me a device and told I could stay if I learned to collaborate. Hmmmm.
Last year I began looking for a different way to pull it off (teaching). For the students who always did good. They don't need me for explicit instruction. For those who did okay, they also didn't need me for explicit instruction. In fact, I felt that my methods were keeping them back. I had many kids in the class and giving them attention is what they needed. The ones that did poorly in my class were always finding behaviors that usually had them removed from the lesson which, in the end, kept them from succeeding. I see these new ideas from Robinson and Mitra as the frontier that will answer this paradox. I see my own inability to thrive in a common classroom and excel in the bandroom as vision for direction.
I was proud that I never asked a student to leave my classroom but it was still terribly hard reaching these kids in the environment designed around us. After reading other blogs and mine included...especially mine included, I noticed a negative tone placed on our current system. It made me feel slightly uneasy...especially mine. Apart from initially misrepresenting my own school board policy (I stated that we don't allow smartphones when we actually do...I already removed it) it comes across as highly critical of our current system when in fact it is a good system. We (I) take aim at our own education culture when we have exceptionally bright kids exiting every year and wonderful teachers and administrators that sacrifice their personal life for teaching others. A creative tech plan cannot alienate these wonderful members of our community or it will be doomed.
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