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Stop asking what you want to be when you grow up, please.

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We live in an increasingly global society. Communication has never been faster or easier, and exposure to other countries, and cultures is available from almost any digital platform. The kids in classrooms have more worldly exposure than we ever did at their age. This exposes them to a slew of new experiences, but also highlights some problems that they may already see as something they want to address. For me, this is where the book Teaching Boldly illustrates what we should be doing as educators. To provide students with  “goals and frameworks that can offer them inspiration, as well as design thinking principles that can help them devise and implement actions” (Williams, 2020, p.1).  So many students begin to see the classroom as an obstacle between them and what they want to do in life, but we need to establish a classroom that shows them that they can use what they learn in class, and what they do in class to go achieve their dreams, and solve the problems that they want solved. T
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Effective teaching in the age of Social Media: When you think you already know the answer

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 Social media is easy to hate. I certainly do. I have seen some of the absolute worst behavior imaginable on multiple platforms. I have seen the emotional toll it takes on my students, and I have seen how hopelessly addicted they still are to it. I have seen the effect of someone receiving thousands of likes, and the inevitable spiral they take as the new posts don't receive the same attention. I have seen the eagerness to engage in online arguments, and I have watched relationships destroyed because of those arguments. Unfortunately, most online and social media arguments do not follow the framework of good argumentative writing. As a result, as Turner & Hicks (2017) point out, "Individuals often respond emotionally to what they read in social networks, posting, or reposting without critically analyzing the argument being made. (p.104). For example: Obviously, this post will elicit a very emotional response, and for good reason. We are in the midst of dealing with mass sh
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If a picture is worth a thousand words, what about videos?

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 When trying to figure out how to reach a broader audience, but with a specific message, it can sometimes be very difficult to accomplish within a shortened timeframe. Either you have to build an audience with broad topics, and eventually retain that audience for the detailed messaging, or create niche content that eventually gathers enough followers to make a larger impact.  Check out this video to see how we can potentially increase our impact, while providing the best information available, in a timely manner all while engaging the audience in a way that they may never have been approached yet. While an educator may only focus specifically on fact-based arguments, knowing the audience may reveal other tactics as well. As Turner & Hicks (2017) point out, students "might also consider expanding the kinds of evidence they include, either with voice-overs or text, to bolster their argument. At the same time, though, we might consider the students' strong audience awareness;
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Selling Education

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 As a public educator, I realize that whether we like it or not, our jobs are essentially sales jobs. We turn over the audience every 50 minutes or so, and we face a new crowd and try to sell them on learning a skill or particular content. Quite honestly most of them have no interest in buying what we are selling, but we are responsible for them buying it. On top of that, there are countless organizations offering new ways to improve your selling capabilities, and they are selling those programs to you. I work for one of those organizations myself, and I fully believe in what we provide teachers and students, however the legislators that determine our funding have not always seen our value in the same way. A few years ago I contributed to the graphic below: In all honesty, it was hard to create a single graphic that truly encompassed everything that we do. While I think this image is helpful and informative, it does nothing in the way of influencing a legislator to see the value in wha
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The challenge of "Proof"

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 When I think about the difficulties of teaching now versus when I was a student, the greatest challenge is the availability of information. When I was a child, getting information was the difficult part of school. If I could explain, or demonstrate, or even just retell information, it meant that I had learned the skill of finding information, and processing it. This might take weeks of searching through a card catalog, microfiche, periodicals, and encyclopedias. If information was out there, it was almost assuredly good information because not everyone could become a publisher, editor, content creator (I'm not sure this title even existed then) like they can today. I graduated high school before Google existed, and if you had a burning question you needed answering you either called your smartest friend, or you called Foy Student Union at Auburn University because the folks operating that phone bank were required to give you an answer. I can still remember the sort of jingle we ca
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