According to blog spot this is my 100th post! Thought it should be special so I am writing about the amazing teachers here. My goal is not to offend anyone but in US public schools it is really hard to be a great teacher. In a district as large as Cy-fair - we were told exactly what to teach and we had to do pretty much the same things as the other teachers on our teams. There was very little room for creativity. All of our professional development was through the district so we didn't get to see ideas from other teachers. Teaching curriculum was basically the same for everyone. Some teachers were better with kids and following the school rules than others and that was how we determined who was a "good" teacher. Elementary and Middle school teachers are mostly women. All the men I've worked with were ok or bad. Most of them want to coach and they put up with teaching to do the coaching. Just stating facts. I do have a friend from high school that is an amazing 4th grade teacher but those are few and far between in my experience.
This school has a lot of male middle school teachers. They hired 6 new middle school teachers this year - I was the only female. There are 8 core MS teachers - I am one of two women. I am surrounded by male teachers ... but these are much different than I am used to!
I had to confess to Jordan that when I heard my teaching partner was a young Canadian hockey player that I was a little bit afraid that he fell into the "I teach so I can coach field" and when I heard he taught at 4 different schools in 6 years, I was a little scared! no need to be!! He's awesome! He didn't seem too offended about my preconceived notions. He's probably run into a few of those himself. Ha! :) He comes up with some pretty cool things to do with his kids and we stay after school every day but Friday to work with struggling students or to coach high kids.
There is a science teacher here who lives and breathes science. Don't know if I've ever met anyone so passionate about science. He loves teaching the "knuckleheads" like I do! He is really into videos games and has created this elaborate system of homework on a video game and actually presented at an international conference about it. cool.
There is a really intense Social studies teacher here. I have never seen anyone more into school committees and passionate about every aspect of education. I can't keep up with him - sometimes I just stare at him while he talks at lunch and think "I can never be involved in all this school leadership - I'm barely surviving teaching!" He is also really good at incorporating tech.
The band teacher is amazing. This is his second year - he is my resource on all things India. He is so passionate about music and the kids LOVE him. I worked at Habitat with one of his high school girls and she was gushing that he was her hero. One of my Japanese boys who is on my math counts team and LOVES math was really distracted the other day. He said " I am sorry Miss Staley, I just keep thinking about this music we did in band - it was soooo amazing - I cannot do math now" ha!!
There is a high school math teacher who is the tech coordinator but is going back to teaching math next year. I have never seen him teach but I know he's good because he's good with me when I ask him to teach me tech things! He is passionate about math and plays really cool games with his kids. Jordan and I have gotten a lot of inspiration from him this year. He helps us coach the puzzle club and it is fun. It's me and three guys coaching that and it is a funny sight!!!
The other guy that helps coach the puzzle club is Will and he teaches a 10th grade math class, a tech class and an 8th grade math student. He has also been brought in to help me with one of my 6th grade classes. He has been a Godsend. It helps having another body in there and he has amazing ideas for lessons. They are having him do MS full time next year to be an extra body for Jordan and I - help us with differentiation and pulling kids out. We fight like an old married couple because how fast I learn technology and how fast he THINKS I should learn it are two different things!! ha!
The PE teacher is new too and he is awesome. He rides our bus and we are always in awe when he talks about PE. I have never seen someone so passionate about PE and not just about the kids that play organized sports. He's really into getting the kids to try new things and grow as leaders etc.
Of course there are some great women teachers too, but I feel like men teachers need to be highlighted a little :) and I didn't want to bore you with too much.
I am not an amazing teacher yet, but I am headed in that direction. I would have stayed the same had I not moved here. My predecessor said he grew more here as an educator than anywhere else. I can see why. I came here completely lost. My experience in US public education is far different than here. I have a curriculum to follow of course and my kids are expected to learn math, but I can do it in any manner I chose. I'mhaving a hard time letting go of the idea of planning everything for weeks at a time and not straying from it. Jordan usually decides the night before what he's doing! ha! I can't do that. and I feel I need to be prepared in case I wake up vomiting :( I felt so intimidated at first - many of these teachers have published articles, written chapters of books, spoken at international conferences, did major project based learning units, incorporated amazing technology into their lesson..... I haven't done any of that. I started crying at the tech training in Memphis before I even got here!!! because I had so little experience with computers every word anyone said to me was foreign. Some people had a lot of problems adjusting to Mumbai - I was fine with Mumbai. Less than 6 weeks into school we had a MS faculty meeting focusing on like three more tech based things we had to do. Tears started sliding down my cheeks and the tech people were trying to tell me how "easy" it was but I didn't understand anything they said. I started sobbing. so hard my principal had to remove me from the meeting!! ha! She said "It's only been a few weeks and if technology is stressing you out this much, drop it. Make the kids use paper. Add technology it when you feel like you can. What you do best is love kids. so love them and don't worry about anything else" So that's what I did. At parent conferences so many parents thanked me for the relationship I have with their kid and the positive relationship I got them to have with math. and for how hard I push them in math. Not one of them complained about my lack of technology skills or not being published. Several have suggested that I present at a conference about building relationships with kids. Some of the teachers that I admire for so many reasons have complimented me to say they wish they were able to reach kids like I do. I had the talent in Houston - I just didn't get to use it fully due to constraints. Here I can. I'm still working on the other things. I'm doing small technology things, I'm learning about how NESA and Math Counts works. TTP is a committee I'm on. Our school partners with NGOs and helps train Indian teachers. A different set of teachers run the Saturday program each time - mine was a few months ago. but one of the teachers doing the next one asked me to present soon because he heard I did a lot of differentiation. It will be small - like a half hour and to a very low stakes group, but I figure it will help ease me into it.
I'm still really far behind :( I constantly have to ask a million questions because I don't know what the heck is going on!!!!!!!!!! Andrew, the principal that hired me (he moved to another school), called me the "question queen" He said I asked more questions than any new hire but that it showed that I wanted to make sure this was a good fit for me and that I wanted to do a great job. Will gets frustrated with how little I know, but he didn't work with me at the beginning of the year!!! Jordan knows that even though I have much farther to go, I have made drastic improvements!! I need to realize it isn't going to happen overnight and baby steps count. As long as I keep moving forward, I will be as great as these teachers some day. Hopefully :)
This school has a lot of male middle school teachers. They hired 6 new middle school teachers this year - I was the only female. There are 8 core MS teachers - I am one of two women. I am surrounded by male teachers ... but these are much different than I am used to!
I had to confess to Jordan that when I heard my teaching partner was a young Canadian hockey player that I was a little bit afraid that he fell into the "I teach so I can coach field" and when I heard he taught at 4 different schools in 6 years, I was a little scared! no need to be!! He's awesome! He didn't seem too offended about my preconceived notions. He's probably run into a few of those himself. Ha! :) He comes up with some pretty cool things to do with his kids and we stay after school every day but Friday to work with struggling students or to coach high kids.
There is a science teacher here who lives and breathes science. Don't know if I've ever met anyone so passionate about science. He loves teaching the "knuckleheads" like I do! He is really into videos games and has created this elaborate system of homework on a video game and actually presented at an international conference about it. cool.
There is a really intense Social studies teacher here. I have never seen anyone more into school committees and passionate about every aspect of education. I can't keep up with him - sometimes I just stare at him while he talks at lunch and think "I can never be involved in all this school leadership - I'm barely surviving teaching!" He is also really good at incorporating tech.
The band teacher is amazing. This is his second year - he is my resource on all things India. He is so passionate about music and the kids LOVE him. I worked at Habitat with one of his high school girls and she was gushing that he was her hero. One of my Japanese boys who is on my math counts team and LOVES math was really distracted the other day. He said " I am sorry Miss Staley, I just keep thinking about this music we did in band - it was soooo amazing - I cannot do math now" ha!!
There is a high school math teacher who is the tech coordinator but is going back to teaching math next year. I have never seen him teach but I know he's good because he's good with me when I ask him to teach me tech things! He is passionate about math and plays really cool games with his kids. Jordan and I have gotten a lot of inspiration from him this year. He helps us coach the puzzle club and it is fun. It's me and three guys coaching that and it is a funny sight!!!
The other guy that helps coach the puzzle club is Will and he teaches a 10th grade math class, a tech class and an 8th grade math student. He has also been brought in to help me with one of my 6th grade classes. He has been a Godsend. It helps having another body in there and he has amazing ideas for lessons. They are having him do MS full time next year to be an extra body for Jordan and I - help us with differentiation and pulling kids out. We fight like an old married couple because how fast I learn technology and how fast he THINKS I should learn it are two different things!! ha!
The PE teacher is new too and he is awesome. He rides our bus and we are always in awe when he talks about PE. I have never seen someone so passionate about PE and not just about the kids that play organized sports. He's really into getting the kids to try new things and grow as leaders etc.
Of course there are some great women teachers too, but I feel like men teachers need to be highlighted a little :) and I didn't want to bore you with too much.
I am not an amazing teacher yet, but I am headed in that direction. I would have stayed the same had I not moved here. My predecessor said he grew more here as an educator than anywhere else. I can see why. I came here completely lost. My experience in US public education is far different than here. I have a curriculum to follow of course and my kids are expected to learn math, but I can do it in any manner I chose. I'mhaving a hard time letting go of the idea of planning everything for weeks at a time and not straying from it. Jordan usually decides the night before what he's doing! ha! I can't do that. and I feel I need to be prepared in case I wake up vomiting :( I felt so intimidated at first - many of these teachers have published articles, written chapters of books, spoken at international conferences, did major project based learning units, incorporated amazing technology into their lesson..... I haven't done any of that. I started crying at the tech training in Memphis before I even got here!!! because I had so little experience with computers every word anyone said to me was foreign. Some people had a lot of problems adjusting to Mumbai - I was fine with Mumbai. Less than 6 weeks into school we had a MS faculty meeting focusing on like three more tech based things we had to do. Tears started sliding down my cheeks and the tech people were trying to tell me how "easy" it was but I didn't understand anything they said. I started sobbing. so hard my principal had to remove me from the meeting!! ha! She said "It's only been a few weeks and if technology is stressing you out this much, drop it. Make the kids use paper. Add technology it when you feel like you can. What you do best is love kids. so love them and don't worry about anything else" So that's what I did. At parent conferences so many parents thanked me for the relationship I have with their kid and the positive relationship I got them to have with math. and for how hard I push them in math. Not one of them complained about my lack of technology skills or not being published. Several have suggested that I present at a conference about building relationships with kids. Some of the teachers that I admire for so many reasons have complimented me to say they wish they were able to reach kids like I do. I had the talent in Houston - I just didn't get to use it fully due to constraints. Here I can. I'm still working on the other things. I'm doing small technology things, I'm learning about how NESA and Math Counts works. TTP is a committee I'm on. Our school partners with NGOs and helps train Indian teachers. A different set of teachers run the Saturday program each time - mine was a few months ago. but one of the teachers doing the next one asked me to present soon because he heard I did a lot of differentiation. It will be small - like a half hour and to a very low stakes group, but I figure it will help ease me into it.
I'm still really far behind :( I constantly have to ask a million questions because I don't know what the heck is going on!!!!!!!!!! Andrew, the principal that hired me (he moved to another school), called me the "question queen" He said I asked more questions than any new hire but that it showed that I wanted to make sure this was a good fit for me and that I wanted to do a great job. Will gets frustrated with how little I know, but he didn't work with me at the beginning of the year!!! Jordan knows that even though I have much farther to go, I have made drastic improvements!! I need to realize it isn't going to happen overnight and baby steps count. As long as I keep moving forward, I will be as great as these teachers some day. Hopefully :)
The secret of a great teacher is loving what you do. I LOVE hearing you have found that place....so awesome. God is awesome to send you there. You go girl!! Proud of you. Loved your insight. The sky is the limit in what you can do!
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