The thing about stories is that they don’t have to fascinate the storyteller. I mean, the event doesn’t have to be fascinating or extraordinary to you to have meaning to your audience.  Sometimes it’s the mundane that provides a lesson worth telling. I tell stories to my students all the time, some entertaining some not so, and I’m often struck by what they connect with in the story.

A story I have shared often with my students is the story of a bowling class I took in college. It’s not an interesting story, but I tell them how when I learned how to throw a hook and count boards, I immediately lost 30 pins on my average. I share that story with them to say, “Sometimes when you learn something new or develop a new skill your overall ability suffers in the short term, to make you better in the long term.” I tell them I’m a better bowler now than I would have been had I never learned these skills, but I was a frustrated bowler as I continued to practice. I use the story in math or coaching basketball because sometimes students need to know that learning often comes out of struggle. You backslide and grasp to old habits, but when the challenges get more difficult, you realize the old habits don’t help you, but the new skills and knowledge will. Once I tell the story to a room of fifth graders they start asking me about what my average bowling score was and is now, and I tell them my scores and say, “I’m far from a professional and I don’t play much anymore.” That’s irrelevant because usually when I tell that story it’s for the  benefit of the kids who think “Why do I need to show my work when I can solve it in my head?” or “Why should I shoot the ball from above my head when I make plenty of shots shooting it from my hip?” As teachers and coaches we can see the bigger picture, and our stories, especially ones that tell of our struggles, can help them learn a little more about that picture. Share.

I believe in lifelong learning as a goal. Sure, since I teach, I talk to students about becoming lifelong learners and that seems like the right thing to do, but I don’t do it because it’s the right thing to do, I do it because I believe in it. As a result I don’t believe in summer homework assignments or summer reading. I do believe that kids should read in the summer and I do hope that they flex their mental muscles with ideas, but schools shouldn’t be the ones to assign it. Summer is a good chunk of time to test the chops of lifelong learning.

For me, every summer is a chance for me to explore. I walk into the time off with a list of things I want to do, ways I want to expand my knowledge. Sometimes it’s curriculum driven and sometimes it isn’t. Take last summer, for example. I was staring down the exciting beginning of a 1:1 iPad program and the potential for me to get a Smartboard in my classroom. I focused my summer on technology by playing with ShowMe and Khan Academy, attending a workshop on using Smartboards in math classes, and became very familiar with the ways I could use the iPad. All of those activities were full of learning experiences, but I never allow my summer of learning to be limited to “school stuff.” For the past several summers it has been a goal of mine to become a better cook and expand my cooking horizons and skills. On the technology front I further explored Twitter as a tool for marketing and found that I could use it as a way to bring me information I never knew existed. My love of music and my former life as a college radio dj challenged me to explore podcasts and create a thirty minute radio show to get a better understanding of how they work. Every summer I learn so much to continue to grow as a person and to live the thing I believe.

This summer started early for me, as I began my paternity leave last week. My summer list is a little different this year. At the top of the list is to spend time getting to know my young son and create a bond with him that will serve the both of us well for the future. I want to develop better habits for buying food in order to spend less and waste less. I want to continue to explore the best uses of technology in the classroom as well well as expand my knowledge and experience with what’s out there. This blog is a learning experience for me, as I find a way to use my voice to interact with educators who happen to read these posts. I challenge you to make a summer lifelong learning list and make progress on it every day. You may find out things that you never knew, and that makes it a worthwhile activity.

What is it that makes technology something to be feared? One of my biggest disappointments in sports is that as leagues have embraced the use of more and more technology when it comes to showing you the games, they have often been very stubborn to use that technology as an officiating tool. I have often said, to the few people who listen to me, that at the elite level of sports, the camera can serve as a means to slow down the action and double check the accuracy of moments that are too fast or at an angle that is too severe for the officials on the field to see. Instant replay has allowed the missed calls and the wrong calls to be shown dozens of times and shines a light on human error that is unnecessary.

This is no different in the classroom. Technology expands the classroom. It is a tool to make learning more interactice, more accurate, and more pertinent for our students. A tool like Today’s Meet allows teachers to set up a short term chatroom where students and teachers can engage in a silent conversation with one another. I have used this tool when watching a movie during class, allowing students to engage with the movie, without interrupting the experience for others. They can ask questions that not only get answered by the teacher, but other students are empowered to respond. It is a potential way to get the student who rarely speaks during class to get out their thoughts by writing them down. It takes us away from the “sage on the stage” and allows students to answer questions for their classmates, allowing them to be the “sage.” It makes learning and teaching more collaborative for all involved, which is a goal that more and more classrooms strive to reach.

Technology reimagines the classroom, just as I suggested officiating should be reimagined using technology. Like athletes are bigger and stronger, students are coming to us with other skills and more knowledge than ever before, and we need to use the tools available to us, to meet their needs effectively.