Week 1: How do we maintain our passion for teaching in the face of so much change?

When I think about my job as a teacher, I'm thinking about it from my insider's point of view - I usually consider it in the here and now.  I think about my challenges today and what they might be tomorrow.  On the (rare) occasions I have the time to reflect on my profession, I find that one of the more enjoyable aspects of my job is the satisfaction I get from creating, planning, and implementing something, and then being able to analyze what factors really made that idea sing from start to finish.  One of the great things about experience is it allows you to look at patterns of things over a period of time.  During my time in the classroom, I've been able to identify some basic common factors that seem to be key in any successful creating/planning/implementation process.  The inclusion of those key factors has become second nature - that's the real beauty of experience, and what I think of as the art of teaching.  So with regard to the question of "passion", I would say a large part of my passion now comes from an understanding and appreciation of that art.

However, when I think about my job as a teacher from the outside looking in, it's incredible to me the changes that have occurred in education during my tenure in the classroom. It kind of reminds me of how we view toddlers - when you have one of your own, and you are invested in them and with them every day as they grow up, they don't seem like a burden to you.  However, when you haven't been around a toddler for quite awhile, and suddenly find yourself responsible one for a short period of time, they utterly exhaust you - you don't know how you ever lived through it! Thinking about the changes in the teaching profession over time is a lot the same.  Since I'm "living" it, I've rolled with it, and the changes, sometimes irksome and sometimes exciting, have seemed like minor adjustments.  However, if I'd left the classroom 15 years ago, and suddenly returned, I wouldn't even know how to function in a classroom today.

Aside from the high stakes testing and scripted curriculums that have obviously put pressure on the more seasoned teachers, and flat out changed the way new teachers come into the profession, the other single biggest change I have seen that has been gaining steady momentum, is the advent of technology in the classroom.  Because at it's heart, it's shifting everything about how we teach and how kids learn. The more we use it, the more we experiment, create, plan and implement, the more we realize that all of our long-held ideas about curriculum and pedagogy are beginning to look a little (and sometimes a lot) outdated.  We've all heard for years the truisms like "good teaching is good teaching", but the fact is our learners have changed.  The kids who enter my classrooms today are quite different from the kids who entered when I first started teaching. They are not better or worse, but they are very different. Change is here.

Aside from ignoring it, the worst thing we can do with new technology at this point is to use it to implement old pedagogy. If you know what your passion is (your "professional passion" as Dave Burgess refers to it), it's important to think about how that passion fits with today's learners, not those of earlier years.  Teaching is still an art, and we must continually be creative and artful in how we practice it. That means using the proper artist's tools and applying them for today's learners.

Resources:

Burgess, D. (2012). Teach like a pirate: increase student engagement, boost your creativity, and transform your life as an educator. San Diego, Calif.: Dave Burgess Consulting, Inc..

Morehouse, L. (2008, March 25). Teaching with Passion: Advice for Young Educators | Edutopia. Edutopia | K-12 Education & Learning Innovations with Proven Strategies that Work. Retrieved September 6, 2013, from http://www.edutopia.org/jonathan-kozol-advice-teachers

Barseghian, T. (2012, March 30). Amidst a Mobile Revolution in Schools, Will Old Teaching Tactics Work? | MindShift.Mind/Shift. Retrieved September 6, 2013, from http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2012/03/amidst-a-mobile-revolution-in-schools-will-old-teaching-tactics-prevail/

Barseghian, T. (2012, June 28). Beyond Technology, How to Spark Kids’ Passions | MindShift. Mind/Shift. Retrieved September 6, 2013, from http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2012/06/beyond-technology-how-to-spark-kids-passions/