Online Professional Development Sessions

Get Up, Stand Up

When We Falter…

Over the past week a number of teachers have looked at the #MTBoSblogsplosion for their blogging inspiration. These teachers rose to the challenge in this week’s theme, “We all fall down.” Their posts talk about the kinds of failures they deal with in and out of the classroom and their response.
 
In Cathy Yenca’s response she described a couple of classes whose ambitious, “discovery/constructivist” lessons fell apart. She writes about the disappointment in having to take over the class and offer direct instruction in order to cover the material. Certainly an understandable mistake, Cathy ends her post with the same question I’ve wanted to ask #MTBoS when faced with this situation: “I haven’t figured this out yet, friends. When this happens to you, how do you handle it?”
 
Gregory Taylor used his response to offer a reasoned analysis of what failure looks like as a teacher. This post, Failure is Relative, contains lots of interesting ideas about how to approach failure, such as: “Create your own little offline failure journal for learning purposes, and get the negativity out of your head. Then picture that others are doing the same – maybe they are!”
 
Laurie Hailer’s post Feeling Overwhlemed, Math Teacher? offers lots of practical advice and interesting insight in a post that is centered around self care. Laurie suggests: “When things start to feel really intense, take a break. Let your mind and body relax. You’ll actually handle the work demands better, once you forget about it for a while.”

For some, the way to deal with falling down is not just to get up, but to help other do the same. If you are one who is interested in doing more, then you should read Tina Cardone’s post about standing up for education. In the post What Can I Do Tina lists a number of proactive ways to lift yourself off of the mat and make a difference for math education.

Written by Carl Oliver (@carloliwitter)

What a Week It’s Been
                   
PIthy but on target, Jessica Hagy at Indexed reflected how I have felt for the last week.
 
…which is why I was so glad to read Anne Schwartz’s post, Things I am doing.  Anne’s post is a great game plan for getting through some rough times.
 
It’s difficult to look anywhere online and not be confronted by the news, the reactions to the news, and the accusations of fake news.  Perhaps because I haven’t been teaching for the past week (Regents exams in New York), I have been less able to distract myself from current events.  In any case, many in the MTBoS are using their blogs to speak up about and to reflect on what has happened in the 10 days since the 45th president took office, and I think there are some great pieces to read out there.
 
Sara Vanderwerf, who has become a hero of mine in the last year for so many reasons, has made her commitment to justice explicit in How Will I Stand Up?  She remind all of us that the permitting the exclusion and targeting of any group of people is opening the door to targeting every group of people.

Michael Fenton, Instructional Designer at Desmos, usually writes about just that – amazing things being developed around our favorite calculator EVER.  But today, Silent No More, Michael reflected publicly about his faith and his practice of keeping politics out of his blog.  And, like Sara Vanderwerf, he committed to speaking out against injustice when he sees it, and using his website as a platform when he feels compelled to do so.  
 
In case you are anxious about leaping into the fray and creating (or joining) a ruckus, Annie Perkins describes her experience of dipping her toe in the water, in For Those Hesitant to Protest.  She ended up going for a great big swim.
 
Peace –
Wendy Menard  (@wmukluk)