One of the roles I have as a teacher, and you should too!

Hello, and welcome to my second post. I have realized a few things since I started four days ago about teaching, and where I want this blog to go, and then almost immediately, unrealized all of them. But, I do want to talk about one thing that I feel is important in urban education, and something that I am trying to get my fellow teachers at my school to start doing here. Hopefully someone, somewhere reads this and starts doing this at their school.

First, I should start with a bit of my philosophy as an educator. I believe that we, as teachers, should view our content as a vehicle to teach skills that are going to help students later in life. It is truly isolating to come to work and believe that you are a social studies teacher, a science teacher, or any other content area teacher, and nothing else. I encourage everybody to look at their content as a vehicle that allows them to convey far more important skills such as literacy, critical thinking, grit, and interpersonal skills (in some ways this is why I like common core standards, but that is a post for another day).

While I believe that many teachers have made the shift to teaching literacy and critical thinking in their content, one thing that is still lacking, especially in urban schools, is teaching manners and social skills.

I realize that most interactions for people born after 1993 are shifting to taking place online, but when you look at people in positions of power they still often have to interact with others. I believe it is incumbent on us to teach kids how to do this. How many times have you had a student come into your room and before they are even across the threshold blurt out, 'I need....'

This drives me CRAZY! I make every student engage in small talk for just a few seconds. Also, we need to get out in the halls and get our students to start interacting with adults like descent humans. Asking how are you, and answering when you see someone, shaking hands with eye contact, or learning how to share a hallway with more than just your group (I know you are thinking of the peninsula of middle or high schoolers at the most inconvenient spot in the school right now).

In the classroom students need to learn to pick up after themselves. They need to pick up their trash, clear off their eraser markings, wipe up spills, and push in their chairs. These common courtesy items are so important. If you look at a list of top skills employers seek in recruits there is not a single skill that denotes content taught at a high school. But, at number one is communication, and at number five is interpersonal skills according to a post by by Randall S. Hansen, Ph.D., and Katharine Hansen, Ph.D.

If this is true, how are you preparing your students to be productive members of society? Give a few minutes a day to teach these critical skills. We are already filling so many other roles, why can't we fill the role of manners coach as well?!

A Teacher's Introduction to the Web

Hello! My name is Barry Smith. I am a special education teacher who works in the Chicago Public School district. This is my third year with CPS, and my eighth year as a certified special education teacher.

Over the course of my career I have worked as a 1:1 aide for students with autism, as a teacher at a separate day school for students with emotional disabilities, as a part time teacher at the high school I graduated from, at two of the highest performing high schools in the state (and country), and as the department chair for a school that is getting its start. Throughout this time I have loved my job, been stressed out because of my job, and at times hated my job! However, throughout this time I have remained passionate about education, and passionate about doing something that I feel is causing a net positive in the world.

Lately, though I feel like this is starting to change. One of the people that I have come to respect most in education and I had a conversation last week and he said something that summed up how I feel exactly. He said that he left the classroom to join central office because he felt like he was 'going through the motions.' I wonder if this is how I am starting to feel, and that worries me. There is so much that I can still love about education, and there is so much that I feel we can do to support students, but I need people's help.

I am writing this blog as a way to share my ideas, thoughts, and feelings in education in both the most public, and private way, possible. I am relying on you, person who is hopefully reading my blog, to comment, share your ideas, and to help remind me of why I am in education. Right now I don't know where this is going. Everything that I read about starting an education blog said that I should have a direction before I start blogging, but I don't have one right now. I only know that I want to share my professional self with the world and see what I get back. I will worry about the direction this will take me later.

Please feel free to comment, suggest, and to ask questions. I look forward to taking this journey with you!