Ideas on teaching

Having taught in a public school for going on 2 years, I've started to see feel great about some things and concerned about other things. I love the idea of the 21st Century Learning. Its core concept is to help facilitate students learning, to motivate good questioning, to catalyze passion for subjects and to make the classroom student oriented, not teacher directed. I love these ideas. However, I am very concerned about public education. There are several things that I worry me. First, teachers are not happy. I walk down the halls and most of the teachers' heads are down. Inside our office, the teachers are focused on computers, correcting and grading. I think they are all wonderful people, but they are worn out, overworked and caught up in the daily requirements of a teacher. The second concern I have is the bureaucracy without vision. I had an interesting experience.

So, here is what I'd do in an ideal world of teaching:

• No teacher would teach more than 3 days a week. They would work a full week, but two of the days would be time to create, prepare and organize. The students would have "computer" days or hands-on days where the teacher is not present in the classroom, but the students are still in class. The days the teachers work would be staggered so the students each day would have some classes with teachers and some classes as work times.
• All administrations would have a goal to help teachers with innovative ideas. This would include having grant writers at every level of education to help write grants, and to help find organizations who would be interested in grants. This would encourage thinking of projects that the teachers would be interested and thus naturally increase not just the passion of the teachers, but also the energy. When creativity is increased, energy increases.
• Classrooms would be arranged so the students can move around easily. The goal would be to have students sit for less than 20 minutes at a time. The teachers would work in roat

Girls 4th year Backpacking 2008

With backpacks on our backs, and excitement in our hearts, we started up the Wheeler Lakes trail.