Our Blog: The Standard

We have all had teachers and moments in the classroom that have altered and shaped our education and, ultimately, our lives. I have been in the public education system for 12 years, beginning with public preschool, and have had many teachers. Some of my teachers I will never forget because they have had a lasting impact, and some, sadly, were not the best. The difference between the two were their abilities to get to know me both as a student and a person, collaborate with me to ensure I was getting a meaningful education, and encourage me to meet my…

“Be the change you want to see in the world.” Too often we distill solutions to challenges into catchy slogans like this misattribution and expect miracles from teachers working in isolation.  This is wrong.  Gandhi actually said, “If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him…We need not wait to see what others do.” This suggests a more interactive process: As we work to improve ourselves, others see us in new ways.  We gain credibility by virtue of experience…

One of the biggest joys of teaching comes from the conversation that you have with a former student who comes back to find you, letting you know that your work helped to ignite their love of something. Sometimes that love comes in the form of a book, sometimes it’s a problem they had to solve. We hope that ours is a bus. The NYSTEAMBus is a mobile STEAM classroom designed to travel to schools, challenging and motivating students to think in uncommon ways. This project started in our media center between myself and Steve Wolfort, our Media Center Specialist, considering how…

My earliest experiences in the workplace occurred back in high school, and each setting provided some memorable failures. As a volunteer in our local hospital, I made mistakes like goofing off in a wheelchair trying to improve my speed going up and down an isolated basement corridor. A more unsettling mistake was my clumsy and protracted effort to tell an elderly, agitated, blind patient why I was delivering a newspaper to her room. My first paid work was doing some filing in my dad’s medical office. I developed a crush on the office accountant and when work was slow I…

My journey for National Board Certification was a long one! I felt the sting of disappointment three times. The first two I questioned myself as an educator. Was I in the wrong profession? Was I not an effective teacher? I was following the guidelines down to the letter. Why wasn’t I certifying? Still, I tried again. I knew I could do it. I just had to work a little harder. Results came on my third attempt, and, yet again, I did not certify. This time I was not only disappointed, but, I was angry. At myself, at National Board, the…

As a 7th grader, I’ve had lots of teachers. Some have known me well and others not so much. Some teachers make learning fun and others don’t. I recently talked to my friends about why Ms. Kaiser, my World Studies teacher, is so good – why do we like her, why are we learning so much and why do kids who don’t normally participate in class pay attention during this class? My friend Will said that Ms. Kaiser is funny and makes lessons really interesting. Amanda Kaiser, NBCT Ethan told me that she relates to her…

Becoming a National Board Certified Teacher (NBCT) can seem like an insurmountable task. It is a process that pushed me out of my comfort zone as I began to write and reflect on my teaching practice.  I quickly learned I need to allow myself to be “teachable” to be successful through the process. An important step I took in reaching out to others was to join my district cohort. Here, I met people going through the same process. We were fortunate to have many excellent NBCT’s leading our cohort, including Bobbie Faulkner and Susan Leonard. Faulkner is one of the…

I was broken down and defeated. I did not love teaching anymore.  I was doing the same thing over and over and was bored. I needed a change.  I even contemplated changing careers. Then, one day, I was assisting in a 2nd grade classroom.  I look back and remember where I was in that room and which desks I was standing beside when the thought came through my head:  I need to do something!  I began thinking back to my college days when our professors spoke to us of National Board Certification.  I knew I always wanted to achieve this…

I clearly remember when I first heard that phrase, regarded as a rapidly tiring cliché by many working in the Hawaii public school system. I was at a lunch meeting a few years ago, when about 20 other Hawaii State Teacher Fellows and I were joined by then Deputy Superintendent Stephen Schatz. We were discussing the forward direction of the Hawaii DOE and hoped for change in the paradigm that predominated educational administration in Hawaii. The crux of Schatz’s belief is shared ownership over the school system, from teaching to curriculum to school design to administration. “Everyone a leader, everyone…

In some schools, a great teacher can be used to do more harm than good. Where there are clearly identified “good” and “bad” teachers, often parents demand their child be placed in certain classes, staff members feel jealous, leaders are perceived to pick favorites, and achievement gaps develop across differing levels of instruction in the building. Where greatness is celebrated in isolation in schools, only a select group of kids benefit. Additionally, the principal who allows great teaching to remain in isolation must then accept the responsibility of choosing which children to exclude from the best his school has to…