Byron's Babbles

Me passionately teaching Adhesion & Cohesion

The word “Passion” comes from the Latin word “pati,” which means to endure, submit, or suffer. This past week I was really able to make the connection between what we usually think of passion being and the Latin word pati. We did a professional development that involved our entire student body providing a list of reasons why students were unengaged. One of the top reasons was some of our teachers having a lack of passion. Interesting that our students realize it, but some those very same teachers don’t see it in themselves. Gives validity to doing 360 degree evaluations.

It really saddened me to hear that said about teachers in our building because I consider myself very passionate. Then when I started thinking about it in light of how I view passion – powerful or compelling emotion and having a strong desire to accomplish something – I thought, wow, passion is really hard work. If we have passion it is really intense. It drives us and sometimes its painful. Sometimes it even eludes us.

Our professional development exercise reminds me, however, that it is important to our students to come to our learning environment prepared and with passion every day. This past week I finished reading the incredible book, Class Warfare: Inside the Fight to Fix America’s Schools by Steven Brill. In this book, Brill really drove home the fact that, “Truly effective teaching, could overcome student indifference, parental disengagement, and poverty – and, in fact, was the key to enabling children to rise above those circumstances” (2011, p.1). When I see that in print it really drives home the importance of what I do every day.

Brill (2011) went on to say, “successful teaching is grueling work. It required more talent, more preparation, more daily reevaluation and retooling, more hours in the class day, and just plain more perseverance than many teachers, and most teachers’ union contracts, were willing or able to provide” (p. 2). After seeing the thoughts of our students I would say Brill is spot-on right.

All of this reminded me that my continued passion is important, and all teachers need to self-evaluate and see if they have the passion it takes to do the work of educating our students. Guess what? If not, it’s probably time to find something else to do. It’s not an easy profession, but an important profession that deserves to be done by only the best and most passionate professionals.

Brill, S. (2011). Class warfare: Inside the fight to fix America’s schools. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.

The achievement of U.S. students is becoming increasingly important for our nation’s ability to compete successfully in the world economy (Braun, Coley, Jia, & Trapani, 2009). As the Department Head of an Indiana Agriculture Science program who is successfully achieving academic integration I am continually investigating the problem of low student performance and achievement in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) and English and the impact of real-world and relevant application of Career and Technical Education courses on student achievement and performance in these core subjects.

Education has become competitive and my school is striving to meet this environment head on and with success. Simons (2010) wrote, “Today our economic well-being, not just military defense or advantage, is dependent on math and science. All of the world’s major countries are our competitors. So far we are not exactly winning” (p. G-1). The latest global rankings using high school test scores show China significantly beating us on science and math scores (USA Today, 2010). These rankings show the United States at number 15, and Shanghai at number one (USA Today, 2010). It is important for us to study those areas where the STEMs can be taught in a relevant context.

To that end it is very important that academics be fully integrated both vertically and horizontally into all course work. There is no research or evidence to support that non-core, non-academic elective courses, including Career and Technical Education courses, contribute to improve student achievement or performance. There is evidence (Reeves, 2008), however, that emphasis on the core academic subjects promotes student learning. Therefore integration of the STEMs and English is very important for Indiana students. Reeves (2008) said, “This does not make a brief for a curriculum based only on the ‘three R’s,’ but rather insists that every class, regardless of its label, owe a duty to the student and community to reinforce academic standards in math, language arts, social studies, and science” (p. 10-11). The consistent integration of the academic cores into Indiana’s Career and Technical Education disciplines is paramount to student learning. We cannot afford for these courses to be “soft” (Reeves, 2008, p. 11) in terms of including reinforcement of the academic cores.

 References

 Braun, H., Coley, R., Jia, Y., Trapani, C. (2009). Exploring what works in science

      instruction: A look at the eighth-grade science classroom. Princeton, NJ:

Educational Testing Service.

Reeves, D. (2008). Making standards work: How to implement standards-based

      assessments in the classroom, school, and district. Englewood, CO: Lead + Learn

Press.

USA Today (2010). “Our view on education: ‘We’re no. 15!’ doesn’t cut it in today’s

global economy. Retrieved on February, 26, 2011 from: http://usat.me?41746426.

Simons, J. (2010). “Education imbalance: U.S. needs top-notch math, science teachers

to compete in new economy. The Buffalo News (261) 35. Buffalo, NY: OBH, Inc.