Drinking From a Fire Hose

I was told the Master in Teaching program would be like drinking from a fire hose and so far, this has been an accurate analogy. I continue to feel overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information coming at me and today was no exception. I'd like to be more like my peers taking things in stride, but instead I feel paralyzed by the gap of where I currently am and where I need to be as a teacher. My head is spinning trying to contemplate how to effectively integrate technology in the classroom when I don't even know what the common core standards are for my grade level. This all seems like too much too soon, which is ironic because as teachers,we are taught to scaffold learning. At least I know what not to do to my students. Having said that, there are some positives that I can take away from today's lesson. 

One of the things that remains in my mind without having to refer to my notes is realization that succeeding generations have never known a world where the internet and social media did not exist. Many of these kids have been raised with tablets in their hands before they could even formulate sentences. Older generations would do well to remember that children haven't changed, but the way we communicate and express ourselves has. It isn't our job to shame children for something they had no control over. Rather, it is our job to teach them the interpersonal skills that are not inherent in this technological age. And honestly, we adults don't have much more self-control then our younger friends when it comes to our devices.

The second thing that I took away from this mornings discussion was the teaching shift from processes and memorization to chaos and discovery. I love this change. The way we have tried to facilitate learning for the last few centuries is completely backwards to how we learn naturally. In life, we are faced with a challenge or obstacle and have to figure our how to solve it with the information we currently have. We draw upon the skills and knowledge of others and collaborate to solve these problems. In school, the traditional model has been to provide students with the answers from the beginning and facilitate mastery through repetition and wrote memory. This method, however, doesn't allow for higher levels of thinking such as applying, evaluating and creating, which are the very things that the world needs and expects from us. As a future educator, I want to operate in these higher planes of thinking not only to prepare my students for life after school, but because it makes learning so much more meaningful.