I have begun to seek out help in how to manage my time and communication avenues more effectively. How many have you been inundated with communication to point of being paralyzed by it! This month in Tech and Learning there was a poll result that was astonishing. The average tech director gets between 200 and 300 emails A DAY!! How many of you can say that? Add that to text messages, voicemail, and phone calls on three different devices it feels like I am a walking device myself. I have been reading Michael Linenberger the author of a book called “Total Workday Control.” http://www.michaellinenberger.com/I took a course a few weeks ago called “Project Management.” I am constantly being interupted at work and the only time I can really work is in the evening or on my weekends. I worked for at least 20 hours this past weekend. I am trying to find a solution to manage more effectively. I really feel I am organized and work well under pressure but the tasks and demands are mounting. I am going to try a program called Smartsheet that is a cloud solution for project management. It will give me the ability to share projects with specific tasks and timelines. But most importantly for me is I will be able to see all of my projects on one screen.
Have we created this environment so we are more accessble? How did this happen? How do I manage my time better? How do I sit in a meeting and not be distracted by the 100 people trying to contact me while I am in there? Well I am happy about what has happened. I would always want to be accessible and I feel that I serve my district and clients. Teachers are sometimes isolated and email gives me direct access into the classroom. I don’t want anyone to think “I am too busy.” But I have to find a balance. It is really consuming so much time. It is tough to defend when no one really understands what our jobs are. Administrators have been cut and I have lost most of my professional development team. Oh well. Give me your ideas.
I have recently been in a position where it is necessary for me to research and find medical care that has taken me on a long rode of networking, medications, jargon jargon jargon and knowing people…. I have been down this journey before with my husband when he had open heart surgery.
At that time I was very concerned about how our medical system works for those in real need, might be of “average” education and resources – not to mention those living in poverty and those that are alone.
Most the doctors that happened to be the higher end specialists do not take medical insurance. It is up to you to negotiate with them to make sure you can be within a window of affordability. I was told by one of the nurses that “they don’t have to.” Those are the “top notch” specialists. Most of them are fair and reasonable but how would you know that when you enter into these agreements. Ahh but it doesn’t end there – the insurance mumbo jumbo – if you are an inpatient then this if you are outpatient and then are all of sudden needing to be admitted you have 48 hours to let the insurance co. know. So if you are really in pain or maybe unconscious you need to let your insurance company know or you pay a penalty. Alas how do you do it if you are alone. I haven’t mentioned the reason why I have the privilege of seeing a great doctor – who I know…… But then the aftercare and meds. I had to build a spreadsheet to decipher what my husbands medical needs were. Take this pill three times a day only in the morning, take this one every other day in the afternoon, take the next one only at night for 2 weeks, etc. It was so confusing. On top of it all the pharmacy gives you the generic without telling you so you can’t match up the name of the Rx the doctor gives you with what it is.
Need I go on and on. So as educators. How do we even begin to prepare our young people to work through this system. We feel it is important to fill out a job application or even taxes. My concern is those that have more get more. We perpetuate the system as we take advantage of the services we can afford and leave others out. It isn’t because they aren’t eligible it is because they can’t figure it out.
Problem solving and project based learning in the context of the core subjects does not teach us this. It is another argument to think more deeply about a social curriculum based on actual life experiences where students integrate the core subjects into advocacy, negotiation, knowing your rights, inquiry and finding the resources you need to have what is going to keep you healthy. We can’t do it by teaching about the Korean war but we can if we connect with those outside of our own society, become more global and perhaps take on an actual case of someone that was victimized by the war and weaving in reading, writing and social studies into learning about the time period and having a cause.
We have begun to reach new heights in what we are being told as being “important” for our students to be successful. How many roads have we gone down and how often can we be expected to adjust instruction to respond to those ideas? Well read and study carefully because now I would say we are being asked as educators to stay current, research, and understand how we are connected to the rest of the world. I have had to be a life long learner as I assume the position of technology director for 15 years. My job is to stay current and be extremely well read and knowledgeable about what is and how to engineer for it. I have had little professional development and my job requires me to think critically and find the answers I need. School provided me with the ability to read but the rest has been up to me including the ability to build teams, get along, work in a collaborative environment where everyones contribution is necessary, create something that is useful and navigate through information constantly. As I listen to Tony Wagner and Milton Chen in a webcast from this year I am reminded that schools work in isolation of the world. There is a template or list of standards that we are to follow but we do them in isolation of what students need to know to be successful. Tony and Milton will say that our students learn and are motivated in totally different ways, they need to be connected and learn to think critically. Those connections will lead to collaborations and the creation of something that is meaningful and purposeful. So what is the deal with our classrooms? Are we afraid to merge or “crosswalk” the two? Do we think that if we don’t teach to the test our students will not succeed? In my job I would never be successful if I didn’t have a full understanding of where I want to go and what the end or outcome is. Tony and Milton are high level researchers and companies telling us what the end needs to be but we make excuses like the state wants this, I can’t do that because our students can’t think, I have too many students, I need more help and professional development. All of those reasons are valid but many many teachers are succeeding in bringing the two worlds together. What will you do to make that happen? Do schools need to retool a bit to help this along. Are our teachers also isolated and not given ample time to reach out. They are required and want to be with students allday. I agree their desire is there but how do we look at the structure to get them “out.” They are at the mercy of what we bring to them. There is little opportunity to seek, discover and find this understanding on their own because their jobs are so defined and prescribed. When watching the webcast I am reminded that we need to understand our clients and what their needs are. Tony talks about “new skills” and why we can’t avoid them. Every job expects this level of skill. In the past it was elite to have this level of sophistication but now every company wants their workers to think critically and contribute. Not every student has to go to college and if they don’t the training comes from us. But so we model that for our teachers and encourage them to think.
I am torn by think that teachers can make the differences they need to without looking at our physical infrastructures they work in. “Common planning time” is a nice attempt at promoting collaboration and communication between colleagues but what are we doing for them so they learn and be global themselves. Leaving them allday in a classroom with 125 students teaching and trying to keep up doesn’t provide the structure that will work. I think we need to begin with our teachers and administration to retool what a school looks like physically and philosphically. It would look so different and you can bank on the fact there would not be “4 walls!”
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