Professional Development - A Request

Often we go to a training, we take notes, we think on it, and we implement pieces of it. I would like for the readers and contributors of this blog to think about adding one more step. I would like you to post your notes, reflections, concerns, ect. as a result of your training to this blog for several reasons. 1) Writing about what you are learning crystallizes the learning in the writers mind. It helps the writer to organize and understand more deeply what they learned. 2) It shares with others the content and value of various trainings so that their interest may be sparked and they can choose to go to said training when it is available in their area. 3) What one person took from a training, may have been overlooked by another who took the same training. It is helpful to read other peoples reflections - as they can extend our own understanding. Not that we all have to see things the same way, but the dialogue that can arise can help us to understand our own thinking better and be more intentional in the way we use what we learned.

Locally - our kindergarten teachers (and contributors to this blog) just attended an Orton-Gillingham training. I wish there were enough slots for me to attend as well, but I didn't want to take the slot of a teacher. I am curious to find out what your biggest take aways were from this training. What will you bring back to your classroom? What will you do differently as a result this year? We will also soon be receiving training in "Every Child a Writer" and web 2.0 tools. I would like to know the answers to these same big questions for these trainings as well.

Globally - What have you learned recently? What were your big Ah-has? How have you/do you plan to use that learning to increase your effectiveness with students?

Kindergarten Quotes

My favorite quotes that frame my philosophy about kindergarten (no particular order):

• Imagination is more important than knowledge. -Albert Einstein
• Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving. - Albert Einstein
• Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution. - Albert Einstein
• Setting an example is not the main means of influencing another, it is the only means. - Albert Einstein
• As our circle of knowledge expands, so does the circumference of darkness surrounding it. - Albert Einstein
• Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts. - Albert Einstein
• If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed. - Albert Einstein
• I think that only daring speculation can lead us further and not accumulation of facts. - Albert Einstein
• The search for truth is more precious than its possession. - Albert Einstein
• The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives. - Albert Einstein
• Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever. - Mohandas Gandhi
• We cannot be speakers who do not listen. But neither can we be listeners who do not speak. - Mohandas Gandhi
• Find purpose, the means will follow. - Mohandas Gandhi
• Satisfaction does not come with achievement, but with effort. Full effort is full victory. - Mohandas Gandhi
• Speak only if it improves upon the silence. - Mohandas Gandhi
• Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel. - Socrates
• I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think. - Socrates
• The true delight is in the finding out rather than in the knowing. - Isaac Asimov
• Knowledge is indivisible. When people grow wise in one direction, they are sure to make it easier for themselves to grow wise in other directions as well. On the other hand, when they split up knowledge, concentrate on their own field, and scorn and ignore other fields, they grow less wise — even in their own field. - Isaac Asimov
• All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them. - Galileo Galilei
• You cannot teach a man anything, you can only help him to find it for himself. - Galileo Galilei
• Bodily exercise, when compulsory, does no harm to the body; but knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind. - Plato
• I would teach the children music, physics and philosophy, but the most important is music, for in the patterns of the arts are the keys to all learning. - Plato
• When you make the finding yourself — even if you're the last person on Earth to see the light — you never forget it. - Carl Sagan
• The aim of education is to enable individuals to continue their education ... (and) the object and reward of learning is continued capacity for growth. - John Dewey
• Try to learn something about everything and everything about something. - Thomas H. Huxley
• Liberty without learning is always in peril; learning without liberty is always in vain. - John F. Kennedy
• Education’s purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one. ~ Malcolm S. Forbes
• Think wrongly if you please, but in all cases think for yourself. -- Doris Lessing
• Reading without reflecting is like eating without digesting. — Edmund Burke
• When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I come to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing positive knowledge. -- Albert Einstein
• A mind stretched by a new idea can never go back to its original dimension. - Oliver Wendell Holmes
• The loftiest edifices need the deepest foundations. - George Santayana
• All children are born artists, the problem is to remain an artist as we grow up. - Pablo Picasso

1) What are the main philosophical themes that run through these quotes?
2) If you had to pare this list down to the 5 quotes most reflective of your philosophy, what would they be?
3) What quotes would you add to the list?

Why Do You Read?

I had two ah-ha moments this morning. One about teaching reading and the other about blogging.

I just spent two days watching some full day kindergarten programs. Both programs were pretty different in terms of their curricular programming and instructional delivery, but both had their kids reading at high levels. I saw a lot and took many notes. As I was rereading my notes and reflecting on what I saw, I took a break to catch up on some of the blogs that I follow. On Stephanie Sandifer's blog Change Agency, she wrote a post titled Love of Reading… and my fear…. In her post, she was actually reflecting on another blog post by Angela Maiers. In her post, Angela describes a scenario of watching her son “get through” his weekly reading assignment, after which he tells her:

“Mom, I hate reading. I did not want to tell you that, ’cause I know that it’s your job and reading is a big deal to you, but I really really hate it. I dream of the day when I will never have to do reading again. If I was on a dessert island, I would rather die of starvation, than read a book. And, if you think I am weird or something, you gotta know, all my friends feel exactly the same way.”

Stephanie reflected on this quote and wrote:

My beautiful 15 month old twins are voracious “readers” right now. They LOVE their books and will spend a great deal of time every day “reading” as many of their books as they can. Not only do they love to crawl into my lap with a book and demand that I read it to them, they also sit by themselves, flipping pages, and babbling as they stop on each page. They point to the pictures and tell me the story in their own words. Of course they aren’t reading the words on the page — but they get the concept and most importantly, they LOVE the concept of reading a book.

My biggest fear is that someday, somewhere, some teacher will destroy their love of reading by giving them “reading assignments” that make reading feel more like a chore rather than a pleasurable activity.

I have never met Stephanie or Angela. Neither of them know who I am or that I am currently trying to digest my observations of two full day kindergarten programs. Nevertheless, their reflections based on their own experiences help me to crystallize my first ah-ha on what I had experienced.

Although both programs we visited had their students reading at high levels, I am not sure that the levels of intrinsic interest to read were the same. I think if you asked the students from both classes "Why do you read?", the answers would be different. How would you want your students to respond to that question? Would you want your students to say "to discover new things" or "because Mrs. So-and-so thinks it is important". The boy in this picture is my son Evan at age 4. He already loves reading. I would be devastated if he came home and told me what Angela's boy told her.

In education, because of the length of time it takes to achieve our final product (13 years) and student motivation being an integral part of achieving a quality result, the processes we employ to achieve each step along the way are critical to achieving our long term goals. I wrote a post titled Long Road Trips & Education: An Analogy on my other blog "blogkhead" back in August where I take this issue into more depth.

The other ah-ha about blogging... I'll leave for you to "infer" from what I've already written.

...Cross posted at blogkhead.