Educational Blogging

 Educational Blogging: What is it and Who Does it?

Educational blogging can refer to blogs created by teachers or students, but this post is focused on teacher blogs. Teachers of any and all subjects, age levels, or experience levels make blogs, and there are considerable benefits to sharing them. Blogs provide an opportunity for teachers to share what they are doing in their classroom, explaining what works and what doesn’t, which can provide great data for teachers looking to try a new strategy. They also give teachers a voice to talk about the problems they face in education, which is vitally important with the current political climate surrounding schools. The best blogs that have the most impact are ones with authors who freely share their opinions and experiences, and most importantly, write with passion and enthusiasm. One of the best parts about blogging is how easily accessible it is, with many great blog programs being completely free to use and access.

How a Blog can Change a Mind

A black laptop

One of my classmates Eden Marose created an educational blog that features a series of posts about charter schools with some fascinating insights. Her first post explained her own negative experiences with an oversaturation of charter schools in New Jersey that pulled resources from her public high school. Her second post gives a brief history of charter schools and explains how she thinks they could potentially be beneficial if they are held to the same standards as public schools. The third post in her charter schools “saga” shares her frustration at the politicized nature of charter schools. Coming from a rural area myself, I’ve never really been exposed to charter schools and although I knew that they were controversial, I didn’t really know why, since they sound great on paper. Her experiences really caught my attention and inspired me to do more research on charter schools.

Why I no Longer Hate Blogging

Blogging was never something I really envisioned myself doing. I’ve had school assignments in the past that had me create blogs for various topics, but I never enjoyed them and found myself dreading blog assignments whenever instructors mentioned them. Part of the problem I had with blogging assignments was that I was never given creative freedom to talk about topics that actually interested me, rather than what my teachers wanted me to write about. When I started this blog, I assumed that I would make a couple posts and never think about it again, but I found myself writing more and more every time I sat down. Having the freedom to write about my personal interests and opinions made blogging actually enjoyable. What really turned me to the side of blogging was reading Eden’s blog posts. I had no idea how charter schools could personally affect students who aren’t even enrolled in them. Blogs provide a platform for teachers to share their experiences and raise issues that are easily overlooked or misunderstood, which is vital in a profession that is so personal and influential. Students need teachers who are informed on what is going on in the world!

Leadership and Administration

 School Admin 

For students, it is easy to imagine that school administrators spend all day sitting in their squishy office chairs doing nothing. For parents, it can sometimes feel like administration's only job is to promote fundraisers or call and report students' misbehavior. But running a school is a lot more work than anyone can imagine without trying it. The Department for Professional Employees put together a fact sheet full of information about the many tasks and decisions needed to keep a school afloat and the many new challenges administrators face in modern society. Everything from the curriculum, the schedule, the food, the bus routes, and so much more has to be carefully considered and planned every day. 

The Best Principal

A newspaper clipping featuring a black and
white photo of a row of marching band members
with one (Ms. Golden) smiling at the camera.
The text reads "UT's Pride of the Southland Band
was at the Gator Bowl where UT beat Indiana.
Former LCHS Big Gold Machine member
Emeline Golden is a member of the Vols band
and helped play Rocky Top during the bowl win"

I have had mixed experiences with school administration in my life. Thankfully I didn't spend much time getting in trouble and sitting in the principal's office, but I can remember my elementary and middle school principals being distant and vaguely frightening presences. I honestly couldn't tell you if we had assistant principals at those times because if we did, I never spoke to them. That story completely changed in high school. My high school principal was a constant, positive presence in our school. He was always walking up and down the halls, chatting with students and teachers. He came to every sporting event with a smile on his face. He made you feel heard, and his office was always open. If you had a problem at school, you knew you could go to him, no matter what it was. He always pushed to make our school better. When some students complained that our school didn't offer any AP courses, he started implementing as many as he could, getting teachers the training they needed to offer them. One place I can really remember him shining was in standardized testing. I grew up in a low-income area where most students didn't go to college, and our average test scores were consistently low by state standards. He made it his mission to get people engaged in testing and college. He and his admin team were the ones who first made our school an ACT testing location, the first one in the county. They came up with incentive programs for increasing scores, like reimbursing the cost of the test for students who improved or offering movie field trips for reaching your projected score. I was a part of a small group of students who were above their goal score, and many of us felt unsupported in our attempts to increase our scores since most of our teachers were focused on helping students who were below the average. Our principal was the one who called us all into a meeting, sat us down, and asked us what he could do to help us. I remember that day so clearly because it was one of the first times that I felt like I was being treated like an adult by an authority figure. Students who met their projected score or increased their score, no matter what it was, would be invited into his office to take a picture for his Twitter page. And his support didn't stop at testing either. Students were constantly hyped up on his social media for being accepted into college or trade school, and he kept up with students even years after they graduated. When my dad posted a picture of me in my freshman year playing with the band in college on his social media, my principal shared the photo and even got it put into the local paper, saying how proud he was. It meant so much to have him show us that we mattered.

Standardized Testing

What's the Deal with Standardized Testing?

Standardized testing is a topic that students, parents, and educators have become extremely familiar with. Nearly every grade level utilizes some form of state or national standardized testing, and an SAT or ACT score is essential to a college application. Chris Mumford at WGU put together a fascinating graphic of statistics about standardized testing which estimates that students spend an average of 25 hours a year on standardized testing. Spending so much time on testing can be frustrating for students and teachers because it can be so incredibly draining to administer and take these tests. And since tests like the ACT or SAT cost money to take, they can create a harsh financial barrier for low-income students interested in applying for college. 

My Long and Arduous Testing History

A yellow wooden pencil

By my calculation, I have spent a total of 16 hours of my life on the ACT test alone, not including studying or practice tests. I took the test 5 times, once with the optional essay section, starting when I was in the seventh grade. I was a part of the Duke TIP program from Duke University that invited young "gifted" students to take the test in seventh grade. I then took the test again my sophomore year, once my junior year, once the summer before my senior year, and a final time as a senior. The most frustrating part was that I got the exact same composite score 3 out of those 5 times. I found it incredibly difficult to find support for increasing my score at school. I came from a low-income district that historically did not place much emphasis on testing, so my school had an average score goal, and if you scored above that goal, teachers were not interested in helping you improve your score for college. When I looked into taking the SAT test to see if I could achieve an improved score there, I found out that the nearest testing center that offered the SAT was a 2-hour drive from my hometown. This experience was quite disheartening because it often felt like my family and I were the only ones interested in seeing me succeed, with one notable exception of my high school principal. He made a real effort to encourage all students on these tests, and whenever I had an issue, I always felt comfortable going to him. I hope he continued to make improvements after I graduated.

 

The Arts in School

What are the Arts and why do they matter?

As many readers likely know, the Arts are a collection of activities in the creative fields such as theater, music, painting, etc. In schools, the Arts are experienced through classes such as drama, art, band, and choir, or through extracurricular activities like film clubs, dance classes, and more. They appear as the topic of this post for a simple reason: many schools do not give students enough opportunity to study them. The organization Americans for the Arts was founded on the belief that all students should have access to Arts education. Their Arts Education Navigator e-book is a concise and easy-to-follow explanation of the Arts and their importance in schools. They explain that the Arts provide new ways to connect with students who may not be otherwise engaged in school or with their teachers. The Arts are consistently underfunded and understaffed, especially in rural or low-income areas, depriving those students of the chance to connect with their teachers and their peers.

My experience with the Arts

A beige mobile home

My own personal experience with the Arts is extensive because I have participated in them for the vast majority of my life, especially in music performance. I have always been extremely invested in my experience in the Arts, and they were incredibly important to me. There were times when I felt like the only place in school where I belonged was in my Arts classes. I grew up in a low-income, rural area in Tennessee, so my experience with the Arts may be very different from others, but it always felt to me like the Arts were the last priority. None of the programs I participated in received any funding from our school. Any money we needed for anything (music, instrument repair, transportation, etc.) was raised by us and all of our finances were managed by our teachers or parent volunteers. A consistent problem I experienced across four different programs was finding somewhere to rehearse. When I joined my elementary school chorus group, my music teacher's classroom was a mobile home that had been parked outside of the main school building. Our school had two of these mobile homes, and the other one housed the art teacher's classes. Both of the buildings were old and run down, and it was a legitimate worry that having too large of a group inside might cause the floor to collapse. When both mobile homes were finally removed due to having extensive and dangerous mold problems, my music and art teachers had to put all of their teaching materials on rolling carts and wheel them to whatever classroom was not currently in use. When I joined my middle school band, our rehearsal space was a collection of metal folding chairs and music stands set up in the lobby of the gym. All of our equipment was stored in a small closet, and the most unfortunate part of the location was that the only restrooms in the gym were located on either side of us, so students in gym class would constantly come in and out while we practiced. We had to pack up all of our chairs and stands at the end of class because we were set up in front of the concession stand. High school was slightly better at accommodating our Arts programs, as we did have a permanent rehearsal space, but there were still problems. Our band room was simply not big enough. Both the choir and the band constantly found ourselves needing more space to accommodate the many students who wanted to participate. The marching band frequently had problems with our rehearsal space outside. We were allotted a large grass plot in front of the building to rehearse on, but administration constantly complained about us using it because marching over the same spots over and over again to learn our show made the grass die in strange patches. I never once felt like my school wanted me to participate in the Arts, but they were the place I felt the most comfortable. I always had trouble making friends in school, but the Arts programs helped me to connect with my peers, and I still have lasting friends to this day that I met in high school band. What strikes me most about my story about the Arts is that even through the difficulties I have listed here, students still participated in the Arts en masse. Our elementary school and high school choirs were huge, especially considering our relatively small school sizes, and students were extremely passionate about all of the programs. I was constantly selling something, volunteering to stand outside by the road and raise donations at our roadblocks, serving food at our various fundraising dinners, and even working twelve hours straight at a long event we hosted at our high school. Students care about the Arts!