What Should We Be Teaching Our Students?

Long Lost Are the Days Where Students Go To School To Memorize Content

5 Tips and Tricks To Keep Focused on What's Important
Blogged while watching #SummerHouse and SMH, giving more support on why we should be teaching our students what's important

When I went to school we were required to learn content, memorize that content, take a test, and move on to the next. Being a teacher today though encompasses bringing in real world issues, relevant situations, technology management, student-centered instruction, with collaborative presentations and projects. It has been said that we are preparing students for jobs that still yet don't exist. Every year I reinvent my teaching style, incorporating different activities, technology, and focus of learning for my students. Being completely transparent and honest, it is exhausting and sometimes it is hard to notice if it's worth it. See my post on How to WOW Students with activities that I completed last school year. You can see my constant quest for knowledge to help my students succeed by attending the GAFE summit last school year as well. As this school year began the hustle was on, and I was over the top with planning great activities for my students to learn biology. Implementing project based learning this year seemed like the most simplest logical streamline way to create student-centered collaborative projects with technological presentations as the product. Something clicked around Thanksgiving. With a week off, I was able to reflect and really think about what in life is important, and if all the efforts I'm making are worth my time, not only for me, but for my students. As the new year rang in, I watched the documentary with The Minimalists (see the sketchnote I made on their TedX talks) and it had explained exactly what I was thinking. The main question that I now try to live by is "Does this bring value to my life?" The answers are different for everyone. I've realized that teaching others is valuable, but in teaching others, sometimes keeping focused on what's really important to teach overcomes the expectations of the content that I am required to teach. What do I think is important? Self-Care and Health, Relationships, Kindness and Giving to Others, and Being a Good Person. So, here are 5 Tips and Tricks to Keep Focused on What's Important, especially while teaching students much more than the process of Light-Dependent and Light-Independent Reactions of Photosynthesis.

1. Model the actions for others. I feel that I am dependable, helpful, kind, and genuinely a good person. I try my hardest to model this for my students. I stick to what I say, I am more than willing to help them, and I try to be kind and care about them as people. I check in with what is going on in their lives, because if they are not in the right emotional state, they will not be open to learning, and in dealing with emotional teenagers, they are constantly struggling with managing their emotions. It is important for me to keep calm, cool, and collected, and to show kindness and care if I want to teach them to interact with others in the same way. Sometimes I wish I could throw content out the window and teach students how important these qualities are. These are daily struggles, so I try to incorporate it whenever I can.

2.  Set your intentions daily. Every morning I tell myself "Today is going to be a great day." I intentionally go to work with the mindset of helpfulness. I am there to help these students learn, not only content, but those things that are important. Coming from a helping perspective allows for the aspect of "Giving to Others" to be accomplished and allows me to set the tone in my classroom. My new classroom mantra will be: "We are here to help each other grow and learn." 

3. Make connections of content to what's of real value. This year the students' research paper for Biology class will focus on Women in Science, and the disparity of women in the scientific field. To put it back into focus, I made the connections of the women in the students' lives. If your mom, sister, future daughter wanted to pursue a career in science, wouldn't you want them to accomplish their dreams and work in a field that makes them happy? All responses were - YES. Even my male students could relate. What is the real value behind this? Encouraging and supporting all types of people to reach their goals and find their happiness in their careers and doing what you can to assist in that process.

4. Refocus your mind on positivity. There is the daily grind of what we need to do. The grading, the paperwork, the lesson planning. etc.  Then there are the pressures from the administration to do things outside of teaching like curricular mapping, babysitting, I mean supervising areas, etc. There are the days that the students are disruptive, distracted, and are uncooperative with each other. It is so important to refocus your mind on the positive aspects of those values you are trying to instill. If you are persistent and consistent on sharing these values with your students and keeping your mind on these values, then it will be easier to live those values. As great of a job parents do at home, some (not all, or many, but some) teenagers tend to be someone completely different at school, and although we are there to teach them content, it is our responsibility to teach them to be good people along with their parents. This is the toughest part. Sometimes you are the only person teaching them how to be good people to each other, and with limited time, you can only do what you can, so it is worth keeping a positive growth mindset that these students will benefit from learning those values from you.

5. Put relationships first. I take the time to ask my students about their lives and I take time to allow them to ask questions about mine. I focus on redirecting students when they speak to each other  negatively and focus on making sure they speak positively about themselves. We need to build relationships. On your death bed, will it matter of you knew that mitosis results in two identical cells? Usually, what matters is being loved and loving others. Being a good person and loving others will bring great love and joy into your heart. This, my friends, is what I believe we should be teaching our students. We need to give them opportunities to help others, give of themselves, and build positive relationships. Instead, grades, standardized tests, awards and honor rolls are the focus. It is within my own autonomy in my classroom that as I'm teaching them about Biology, I must teach them how to care for themselves and for others.

In a dream world I would would create a school that students learned the basics about a lot of different things by discussing issues going on in the world and not sitting in a classroom being talked at by a teacher and allowing them to learn a lot about their passion through service to others. Whether it's learning about children by volunteering in orphanages, day cares or homes. Learning about aging by volunteering at elderly homes. Learning about engineering by building homes or water cleaning systems in third world countries. Learning culinary arts by volunteering to feed the homeless or the visual arts by volunteering at art therapy facilities. The ways of service learning not standardized and structured by adults could allow students to do amazing things and prepare them for those problem solving creative new jobs that don't yet exist.  To allow them to get out there and actually DO things to help others, while teachers guide them in the basic values of being a good person. Content is digital. There is no information I can teach them that they couldn't learn by looking it up themselves. I can only teach how to discern valid information from false information on the internet and how to be a person of the values that are important to them. In a dream world...

Thank you for letting me rant. Please feel free to comment and share your thoughts.