Spark!

It's almost midnight, jazz is playing in the background and I'm sitting at my computer because of my 15 minutes of reading before bed has my mind spinning.

I was fortunate to grow up in a home where both parents read. My dad read two newspapers a day and my mother always had a book next to her recliner. She loved westerns and harlequin romance novels. I have never been a fast reader and when I was young I struggled with required reading in school. I could not keep pace with other students and didn't enjoy the material. However, at home, I could not get enough comic books to read. Which lead to reading sci-fi and fantasy novels. I was in college before a professor said he thought I had a mild case of dyslexia and had me tested.

Today I read a lot. A college professor advised a class I once took that is we wanted to be lifelong learns we should always read 15 minutes minimum a day. I took his words to heart. I read way more than 15 minutes most days. I almost always have 2 or 3 books going at the same time. Usually some piece of fiction, something related to education and at times history, political, biography or business book. Most days at lunch you will find me read from my Kindle app on my phone.

So why up late tonight and writing this entry?

I started "Sparks In The Dark" by Todd Nesloney and Travis Crowder tonight.

On page 12 they say the following:
 
  The current trend is to require students to follow the same reading pace, complete worksheets for arbitrary grades, and respond to questions that do not inspire creative and critical thinking. Completing a worksheet or graphic organizer just to fulfill an assignment does not equate to learning. It only equates to compliance.

They go on to say change is needed. Also, change isn't meant to be easy. If it were, everyone would love and seek out change.

Interlude:

I spent the first 25 years of my career as an educator teaching music. Always encouraging students to read what they were interested in to grow to love reading. Two years ago I made the change to a District Tech TOSA.

Final Act:

As a TOSA I have been working with our Deputy Superintendent on redesigning classrooms to make spaces that are more conducive to collaborative inviting learning spaces. In this process, it has been painful at times talking to teachers about minimizing the stuff in their rooms.

We had conversations over 'you really need 10 filing cabinets?' 'What is in them?' - yep, you guessed it copies of packets of worksheets. I will pause here and say I understand doing worksheets at times but this is a bit extreme.

Another conversation was over how many bookshelves of books are needed in a classroom. When twenty-five percent of some rooms are taken up with bookshelves. In one of the rooms on a second visit, the teacher said I heard you and have weeded my books and taken some bookshelves out. I wanted to make sure the teacher knew I understand the need for having a variety of books in easy reach of students is important. I'm jazzed that this sites library is getting a major overhaul this summer and will also be an inviting place for students in the fall.

This blog has my list of what I have read recently and logged on Goodreads because I do believe it is important for folks to see that as an educator I do read. I might be slower than my colleagues and get a bit frustrated when I'm tired because that is when I have the most trouble with my dyslexia and have to stop reading even when I'm really into a book and sleep.

THANK YOU! Dave Burgess Consulting, Inc. for publishing books that inspire me to be a better educator for students!

It is now time to sleep.......