Reflections form the PLC Log

3/30/18

Meeting with H.A. to talk about evidence of progress in student science notebooks across the grade levels. Sort of a last minute request to gather and reflect on evidence since we used funds for PD around science notebooks and e want to continue as part of next years’ PD plans.

In talking over what we want to show and how to organize evidence to support claims of progress as well as areas for growth opportunity, HA said to me, “why do you even work here. You are sort of over-qualified. Everyone’s like,’why does Merrill work at an elementary school?’”

I felt confused and I felt hurt. I wonder if there is some aloofness I am putting off, that I am somehow above the menial task of elementary education. Do I seem impatient with colleagues, or worse- arrogant? The thing is, I am not over-qualified.  I am a PTT with no benefits and no standing in the DOE. My years at a non-profit and my time at a public charter middle school count for absolute 0 in terms of tenure or standing or even professional agency. If I were to apply for a vacant classroom teaching position, I would be at the level of a probationary teacher from the mainland.

My qualifications are in areas that are not recognized by or even particularly valued by the DOE system.  I am not a great rule follower if the rules don’t seem logical. I do not put a lot of stock in system-wide adoptions of curriculum or program that often feel removed from our unique perspectives and traditions. I am here because the school is a welcoming and vibrant place, the kids are a joy, the work of how to work within this system using creativity and community is what challenges and intrigues me because if I can figure out how to do that here (@ Pomaika’i), I can figure out how to help others do it at their place!

So, I am really thinking about that comment and looking for ways that my interactions with other teachers may put off a sense that I don’t belong or that I am wasting someone’s time (even my own). It doesn’t feel like that, but I have only my own lens to look through after all.

4/3/18

During Think About it Now time today, we were thinking about “when was a time when I made a plan? What was I planning for, what did I need to think about?”

I was giving the kids some think time and the teacher offered the following comment out loud, ‘Mrs Hanta was talking to a friend just yesterday and we were saying that many young people now don’t know how to plan for things or think about how to solve  a problem because they solve everything by going online and asking other people to help them or to fix their problem.”

I knwo this teaher has a few teenaged/ young-adult kids so it ieasy to imagine her having this conversation.

I am interested in the extent to which she connected this seeming shortcoming that she and her friend had been talking about to a skill we are trying to teach through STEAM. If there is value in this skill, which the teacher comment seems to indicate, that being pretty strategic and transparent about it in STEAM is probably a good idea. I am not necessarily a fan of pointing out the charts with the EDp represented in a circular graphic which seems a bit artificial and rehearsed.  I am, however, a BIG fan of actively constructing the habit of mind that goes from problem to all possible solutions to what can we do with our constraints to plan of attack to execution and modification followed by reflection and evaluation. If the teachers participate in those discussions with me in STEAm and pick up them in their own science or in an art project or even in planning and end-of-year party then there is a transference of skill happening!

4/4/18

Interviewing JW for Plan B, she made the comment, “I don’t like it (PLTW). It is another digital thing. Why do we need to do projects and building on a  tablet? Following step by step instructions has a place but it is not the engineering process, not the way I think of it at least.”

A few of the teachers here, two of whom have done advanced training with PLTW to be teacher trainers, really like PLTW. At least they must because they use it all year. The school invested in sending these 2 grade 3 teachers to training a few summers ago and did some school-wide PD follow-up and each grade level is required to offer minimum one PLTW module each year.  Not sure why, ROI? Might be as simple as that. Might be- got to try STEM and this directive came at a time before I was in this role so more of the STEM kuleana was left to the classroom teacher. I have heard the comment on too much scripting, too much time on a tablet from other teachers. I also saw one class do a genetics unit that I thought was more relevant to kids, on some level. Still, it was about seed genetic variation through wrinkle variability in pea plants and we have plants like sugar, ti and uala that show incredible genetic variance and inheritance of traits and all that good stuff- and they are in our community!

So, PLTW or EiE or the FOSS kits or the program that grade 5 purchased this year.. These are all swipes at some goal. What is the goal?  More STEM, some STEM, gotta say we have STEM? What does it mean if it follows a script from the mainland or is applied in isolation and never connected to anything that is happening in the students’ world?  Can a packaged curriculum replace, support, be apart of a STEM program that advocates A for ‘aina as essential? What do our teachers even want?