Student Reflection.

This student was chronically late every morning.  I was teaching Information Technology in the first period which meant a 8:00 start and a early morning bus ride.  Because of this the student was almost always late and sometimes not even bothering.   I was trying to motivate her to come early, trying to do a hook that would make her want to go through the extra effort of getting up early (and not for pay!!) and be awake enough to learn.  I tried Photoshop with personal pictures, web designing (absolute dismal failure with her) and along came Genius Hour (20%) every Friday.

The first challenge was to get her to come on a Friday (our Genius Hour Day), and when that didn't work, talking to her about Genius Hour when she did show up.  I kept explaining her options, discussing her interests, and what was possible for her to try that would be of interest to her as well as what I could support in my classroom as her mentor.  In the end she shows Audacity, a program that lets you edit music and has a manual on the website.  Once she saw what the program was capable of, once she had success right away in editing a song, that was it.  The power of SUCCESS, the look on her face when she realized she could accomplish something was priceless.

The power of Genius Hour transferred over from Genius Hour slow but steady successes to the rest of her work.  It was amazing to watch.  She not only started to do work in Photoshop, but she also was doing 110% in effort that was reflected in her work.  She wanted one on one help, but she paid attention, she listened, she came to class.  To assess her  learning I observed she teaching a friend who also was not highly motivated.  It was almost like the movie "Pass it on", students teaching students.

Most people talk about the motivation of choosing what you want to learn, or "Passion Learning" (http://www.passionforlearning.org explains their philosophy on this means of learning and I concur) .  But although I witnessed was the phenomena of "Passion for Learning",  mostly I believe it was the  success of knowing "I did that, I'm capable, I'm smart".

Realizing that you are capable of anything as long as you try is a lesson that is priceless.

Genius Hour:

To be honest when my teacher Mrs. P had brought up the idea of genius hour I was kind of like what the h*@l is she talking about this sounds so stupid, I don’t think I’ll be interested nor have any fun doing this. Eventually my partner and I had to pick an idea and I’ve always thought about how music is a big part of my life and I don’t go a day without listening to it, so I thought why not learn how to remix music myself because I usually listen to remixed music rather the original song anyways. So my teacher had downloaded audacity for us and I honestly had no idea what I was doing the first couple of days we had the chance to work on our project. I felt like it was way too confusing at one point, but there was a manual to help you and clips to teach you how to use audacity which made it a lot easier towards the end. I loved discovering new things about audacity, things I never thought I would even learn, for an example how to crop a certain part of a song, adding two or more songs and making it one remix, using effects and making it your own style. There was days where my partner and I would get frustrated because some things wouldn’t work out the way we wanted it too, so sometimes I did feel like giving up, but I felt the end result was great and we did remix two songs and made it our own. I would definitely do this project again. 

http://quotesnsmiles.com/life/images-16-socrates-picture-quotes-to-get-you-thinking/ 

Passion for Motivation

What is your passion?  Why is it important for a person to feel passion about what they do?  This is a simple question to answer and to understand.  Have you every seen a teacher that was not passionate about the subject they were teaching?  Have you seen one that is?  Does that not answer your question?

A teacher needs to feel appreciated for the passion they show, and that means telling them.  Lately you don't see this, what with the news or the comments on blogs and news site in regards to the teacher's strike (not a first time occurrence in my teaching life time).   I feel battered and bruised, beaten down with negativity.  How can you feel passionate with so much hurt being hurled at you.  The most common one "Fire them all and hire new ones" doesn't make sense since the number of enrollment for people going into the teaching profession has lowered, and who can blame them.  It is a hard job, long hours of volunteering and or keeping up with your own homework of assessing students right away so they get instant feedback, developing your network of people, updating your learning of new innovations, etc.  The needs you have to meet are constant and as a 'giver' you the teacher wish to meet everyone's needs.  

But what is this passion? Passion creates excellence when mediocrity will do. Passion makes you laugh, when you feel like crying. Passion makes you open your mouth and proclaim something, when a whisper will do. Passion allows you to sit still, when you feel like walking away. Passion makes you close your mouth, when you want to talk.  Passion will make you stay up all night long, when you want to sleep.  Passion makes you continue on when most will give up.  Passion is a MUST for a teacher

Passion comes from within and what starts the passion is our inner desires, making the fuse for the ignition of this passion differs for each individual.  Passion comes from our belief and value system, which, in turn, creates a purpose for our very existence, both in work and in our personal life. A desire is something that you long to see or have happen, a desire to cause change to happen.   This is the passion that drives most teachers, a desire to help or change the life of a student. It's what drives me.

Observing passionate people is very uplifting and exciting. Working with someone passionate uplifts your creative drive and helps you to enhance your own passions.  People who are passionate don’t let anything stop them. They have a “do or die” attitude. They don’t accept “no” for an answer. They are first "to get bloodied", to try something new.   

Is passion necessary for life and living? No, but it is necessary for a better life, a life with purpose, not just going through the motions. It's the reason to get up in the morning and to look forward to going to work and making a difference.  To stand in front of 30 - 35 students every hour each day, to motivate them and to get them to feel passionate about something requires great strength and motivation.  But as they say, passion is contagious, and if the students see you passionate about something, they too will feel this. That's what makes a good teacher exceptional.  

So what do you do when you lose this passion?  You go looking for it again because being a teacher without the passion will hurt you and your students.  

And so to my colleagues and to my students, I dedicate this video that I found on YouTube.  I also thank Secrettosuccess for uploading this video.  Spending a day with my students today, seeing the growth in their learning for the past two months and their accomplishments has helped me to slowly recover my passion.  This video helped to put a smile on my face and to remind me where to look for that passion.  Thank you both.  

Uploaded by secrettosuccess on Nov 5, 2007

Although this web site is for the research and learning in my school, with the different means of learning (eportfolios, self-assessment, and Bloom's Digital Taxonomy), I believed I learned something today about myself.  I need to feel passionate for my students to grow as well.