Something something home something school (Connecting School and Home Experiences)

Much of who I am I owe to my grandmother. She was always there for me growing up. I was lucky enough to have a relationship with her that was just as special as my relationship with my mother. Perhaps she is the biggest influence in why I chose to become a teacher, as she taught grade school herself. I remember riding my bike over to the school where she taught so that I could just talk with her about whatever was on our minds that day, she always had time for me. Life gave me the gift of being the grandchild that knew her best, and spent the most time with her. During summer vacations when she would go to visit her children and grandchildren spread across the country, I was her traveling companion. When my brother and I were causing mischief in our teen years, she patched my brother's new shorts and didn't report to mom when we came to her asking for her confidential assistance. (Note, attempts to launch illegal fireworks from a moving vehicle should not be attempted by three teenage boys.)

One of the greatest gifts that my grandmother gave me was the gift of reading. Because of her I was reading complete books with full comprehension before I was four. Birthday gifts almost always included a book, and Christmas gifts always included a magazine subscription. The magazines were Big Backyard when I was very young, then I started getting Ranger Rick, and as I moved into jr. high I received 3-2-1 Contact. These magazines were some of the biggest influences on my love of nature, biology, and science. Each one would be read multiple times while eagerly awaiting the following month's mailing. I remember taking one of my Ranger Rick magazines to show-and-tell one week in kindergarten (it had a Tyrannosaurus-Rex on the cover, but my favorite article in that issue was the one about Brontosaurus).



There is much more of my youth that has shaped who I am and my decision to teach. My dad was a fireman and a mechanic, both worlds which I was deeply immersed in on an almost daily level. For me science has an appeal that cannot be met by other disciplines. Although I may not have chosen to pursue these other avenues on a professional level they have shaped and influenced who I am today, and that is something that I have to remember about my students as well. They have many influences in their lives that they bring to the classroom. While biology may not be their preferred subject, they still have knowledge that they can contribute. As I said in an earlier post, so many other areas of knowledge are part of understanding biology. Assisting my students to make the connections with what they already know to what I am teaching in my classroom, can reinforce their interest and increase their knowledge in their preferred subjects.

But evolution is only a theory! (Discipline-Specific Reading)

An Ode to the Spelling Chequer

Prays the Lord for the spelling chequer
That came with our pea sea!
Mecca mistake and it puts you rite
Its so easy to ewes, you sea.

I never used to no, was it e before eye?
(Four sometimes its eye before e.)
But now I've discovered the quay to success
It's as simple as won, too, free!

Sew watt if you lose a letter or two,
The whirled won't come two an end!
Can't you sea? It's as plane as the knows on yore face
S. Chequer's my very best friend

I've always had trubble with letters that double
"Is it one or to S's?" I'd wine
But now, as I've tolled you this chequer is grate
And its hi thyme you got won, like mine.

—Janet E. Byford 

 Reading is not a simple task! Simple decoding of the symbols isn't so simple. The meaning must be interpreted in order to be fully understood. But for some reason humans have always found a need to make reading difficult. Whether it be the ancient Egyptians using complicated hieroglyphics to prevent the common person from becoming literate and keeping reading and writing to certain classes of the populace, or persons using L337 5p34|< today to keep others from reading their postings, reading has always at some level been intentionally difficult. Not every difficulty is intentional though. Homonyms, while occasionally fun, are an unintentional side effect of how we speak English and have collectively chosen to  put those words into printed text.

Why did I start with what some may argue is an English teachers posting when I am a biology teacher? Because homonyms and other grammatical games take place in scientific texts. Some words have completely different meanings when used in a scientific setting, and others have multiple meanings depending on the discipline. Mole. I have have a mole on my face, I can have a mole in my garden, I can have a mole of iron. Put only those three uses of the word together and there is a mole of iron in the mole on the tail of the mole in my garden. Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo. (Go look that one up! I'll wait.) No I did not choose two (usually) animal words for the sole reason I am a biology teacher. Well, perhaps I did. But I have a theory on that. NO I DON'T! I have a hypothesis. Whoa! 

Scientific writing isn't written with the intention of being difficult. The reason many people find it difficult, is that it is written with the intent of being simple. Simple in science terms. Simple if you know what the intended meaning of the words are. Sadly most of the scientific texts that most people are familiar with are the dry boring texts from when they were in school learning the uses of different words in science. They were only reading the groundwork without having any useful application or interest. It is as if they were taken on a tour of fancy new expensive homes with all the new fun features they want in their dream homes, but they were only shown the foundations before anything else was built on top of it. I don't blame them for finding that boring!

Just as new readers may get frustrated and find reading difficult, so do new readers to scientific writing. Luckily the "cure" for both situations is the same, reading that is relevant to the reader. Something that the student will find interesting and applicable to his/her own life.

And that is something I can hang my hat on. Or would that be......

Some people can't sleep because they have insomnia. I can't sleep because I have the internet. (Digital Literacy)

There is a journalism class on campus that asks students to track all the methods they use to take in media over the course of a month (e.g. internet, radio, reading newspapers/magazines/etc, watching TV/DVD/movies/etc). Alternatively this post is looking at digital literacy, specifically my own use over the course of a week. I found it much less taxing to keep a record of when I wasn't glued to a screen. I love the internet. There, I said it. It's out in the open. I can stay in contact with friends and family. I talk and converse with friends around the country and around the world. I love being able to get whatever music I want whenever I want. I can watch videos on TED. I am addicted to using StumbleUpon to find new sources of information after I get my homework done. I love not having to carry a notepad around with me to write down all the little questions I come up with during the day to look up when I get to the library later in the week, instead I can look them up on my phone wherever I am. I use my TabletPC in class to take my notes without using paper, and to look things up in class to use for homework or contribute to the discussion taking place that moment. Digital technology is in every part of my life and I love it. I know some of the digital texts I want in my classroom, and have new ideas every week of how I intend to use them, and find new ones to use just as often. This digital era is my golden age, and I intend to use it to the greatest possible effect for my students. Recorded lectures for students to have on their MP3 players, Study guides, class notes, "for further study" and more all available to students and their parents on class websites.
But there is the potential danger to my enthusiasm for digital literacy. I fear it may become a crutch. Now that I get answers to questions right away from my phone, I no longer ponder on them for hours or days. My discussions with others about those said questions are gone, which removes the personal insight and opinions of those I interact with and replaces them with the flat text retrieved from the depths of Google.
Fortunately the outlook is not all doom and gloom. I look further into each answer than I did in the past. I take the simple surface information and move on to something else that I didn't know I had questions about. I start with a question about caffeine content in my afternoon soda, and find myself an hour later reading about how to grow poppies in my flowerbeds. The same opportunities exist for students learning by the inquiry method (YAY science teaching!). Their assignment may be to learn about wolves, they are given a starting point and where they end up is as limitless as their imaginations.
Digital technology creates both bridges and gaps in the opportunities for students and teachers to work in the digital medium. These lead me to make conscious decisions about why I am using or leaving out a particular digital technology in each lesson.