Week Six - Real World Externship

  Today is the last day of my second Real World Externship through the Iowa Math and Science Education Partnership.  I will say that these two experiences over the last two summers have been as valuable to me as any other opportunity I've participated in with an objective of trying to improve the way I teach.  My perspective on how the world works for many professionals outside the education realm has expanded immensely and I'm not sure I would have ever gotten this exposure if it wasn't for the externship program.  The reality is that not many of our students will be feeding back into the education system, and we do them a disservice when we frame expectation and important skills only from the education arena's perspective.  It's not that I had meaningfully omitted including business-specific skills from my classroom, I just didn't realize how important they were.  Of course some of these priorities have been explained to me in the past, but the value of seeing it all in action, first-hand, should not be understated.

  Science and math, under most circumstances, are not jobs.  They are a context for a certain set of skills that help an individual do a job.  Most jobs dealing with science and math are wrapped up in a business, as are just about any special set of skills we hope to train students on in any class.  I think it is very important that we share this business part of the formula with students more effectively and the externship program has really help me see that this is the case.  I encourage any teacher, administrator, business, community member, policy decider, etc. to try to take advantage of opportunities like this and thank you to those of you who have made current opportunities available for teachers.

Week Six - Financial Literacy

   In my last week at The Principal, I'm getting a chance to work with the IT group for Retirement & Investor Services.  I'm continuing to learn about technological skills that I can put in practice in the classroom.  In some cases, I'll  be reinforcing some of the skills they may be working on in other classes, but I think I'll be asking them to use the tools in new ways as well.  The technology literacy portion of 21st Century Skills is a pretty easy fit for the science classes that I teach.  So was implementing a focus on employability.  While I currently don't have a comprehensive approach to covering the civic and health literacy portions of the 21st Century Skills, these areas do have some easy tie-ins during the course of the year in a science class.  For me, I think finding ways to connect to the key concepts of financial literacy are a bit of a reach.  Part of this may be because we focus almost all of our time learning about the results of science inquiries or how the inquiries where conducted, but almost no time discussing what allowed the experiments to take place in the first place.  This last part has significant financial drivers.

   In the Retirement & Investor Services group, I also gained some perspective on personal finances through the eyes of the business that offers these services.  This added to the perspective gained from working with a Disability Insurance group the previous week.  The company's business considerations are different from the needs of the individuals who purchase their products.  The people who actually sell these products to the individuals also have their own set of considerations.  Ideally, everybody involved gets their needs met, but ultimately, each group will be looking to satisfy their requirements first.  Given each of their positions in the process, the interests seem fair, but I think it's important that we find ways to share these ideas with our students.  This doesn't pertain only to The Principal or retirement considerations in general, but really to any business interaction.  It's another example to share about how important it is to become knowledgeable about your dealings and to learn how to advocate for your own considerations.  These conversations may not have a great fit in a science classroom, but I could see a good conversation about this taking place in an advisory group setting.

Week Five - Economy of Teachers

  During my five weeks at The Principal, I've been surprised by the amount of former teachers that I have come across.  I'd probably say I've met a couple a week and it's been interesting to hear about how they've reached their current career.  As these individuals are striving in this arena, it's easy to see that they possess characteristics that would make them great teachers today.  As I get more and more exposure to the private sector, it's not too hard to imagine what may have drawn them away or what type of life events might have necessitated a career change.  Many of them still have a passion for teaching and have expressed interest in teaching when they retire or want to find more ways of become involved in education.  But it strikes me that these are the types of individuals we want spending the lion's share of their career teaching students and influencing the course of education.  I have a hard time imagining these professionals excepting the static financial or promotional structure of K-12 education and returning to the classroom as a teacher.

   It may be easier to attract these strong candidates for teaching early on.  I think it might be fair to say that teaching is a career choice that students know the most about by the time they start to think about training for their careers.  Not many other careers have that kind of exposure and this might be working to our advantage.  But as these individuals become more and more exposed to different choices, there may be a bit of a "grass is greener" effect taking place and some change course.  I'm lucky to be surrounded by a large number of incredibly hard working, passionate, innovative and knowledgeable educators in my place of work at Carlisle HS and in an organization like IMSEP, but in a way, it's frustrating that the talent pool for teachers seems to be limited to those who aren't worried about big paychecks or titles, those who don't know these things interest them, the altruistic types who are "doing it for kids", or some combination of these.  I'm sure I'm ignorantly simplifying all of this.  I'm just not so sure that K-12 education wouldn't be benefited from a more financially competitive environment with a meaningful advancement structure, similar to what exists in the private sector (grass is greener, right?).  This post could be very unnecessary, as I don't feel this thought process leads to insight that will lead to possible changes to my classroom.  It's just that I'd love to see some of these pros rocking a classroom down the hall.

Week Five - Motto

   While walking back from a meeting today, I randomly read a piece of paper that had been posted at an employee's office.  I really liked its message for myself and my students and will probably post it in my classroom in some fashion.  I thought it was interesting that the employee had one facing herself at her desk and another copy facing those that walk by.  I did an Internet search and wasn't able to find a source to credit, but here it is:

MOTTO

I am responsible for taking action,

asking questions, getting answers, and

making decisions.  I won't wait for

someone to tell me.  If I need to know, I

am responsible for asking.  I have no

right to be offended that I didn't get

the information sooner.  If I'm doing

something others should know about, I am

responsible for telling them.