What a fun day! I enjoy math, so I am, of course, already biased towards liking a presentation on Numeracy, but the presentation itself was inspiring when considering the “heart of the teacher”: Joseph Jeffery (Palmer).
“Whoever our students may be, whatever the subject we teach, ultimately we teach who we are”
– PARKER PALMER
Joseph really captures how “good teaching cannot be reduced to technique” and instead, “comes from the identity and integrity of the teacher” (Parker Palmer). Though he models excellent teaching techniques for us student teachers, such as the fluid and well-paced back and forth between instructional time and experiential learning, the way he draws connections between the content and his interests is what makes his teaching so good. Because Joseph makes these connections whenever he is instructing, he can draw from his passions and infuse the learning environment with an authentic sense of wonder and love for the subject–even if the subject is Math, and to many people’s dismay, coding!
Check out this cool open source website, Make 8-Bit Art, which lets you draw in pixel. The website was created by web developer and artist, Jenn Schiffer and the drawing tool is also accessible on glitch.com. https://make8bitart.com/
The image is of a screenshot of some art I was able to make on the site.
During this presentation, there was a thematic focus on coding, with activities that required manipulation of numbers in binary, and multiples of 8 as in 8-bit coding, as well as general discussions about the relevance of technological know-how, and the Math necessary to form such comprehension. All this got me thinking about how my knowledge in this area is rather weak, and how much my attitude about what to do about that has shifted since the start of this program.
Half a year ago, if you told me I was going to teach my class coding, I would have started researching the topic, trying to learn as much as I could, and all without learning much. Through cramming–a known waste of time studying technique–I’d collect information only superficially, in my memory, for short-term use. Plus, as I know from experience, I’d inevitably become rather overwhelmed during my learning, and compound my stress with the responsibility I’d burdened myself with of becoming the coding encyclopedia for my students. With few connections and experiences to ground that knowledge into my network of knowledge, I’d then likely resort to creating a research-type project with classically boring criteria, or a worksheet–beautifully designed, and void of conditions or catalysts for any good learning. Ew.
Pixel art by Invader
Read more about Pixel art here: https://pegboard.fr/en/blogs/createur-d-interactions/decouvrez-les-meilleurs-artistes-de-pixel-art?_pos=2&_sid=f2d189cb6&_ss=r
Today, I see this lacuna in my knowledge as an opportunity to learn with my students: if I wait, I can show them, in real-time, the value of a growth mindset, vulnerability, mistakes, community, responsibility, humility, collaboration, respect and kindness in learning! Strangely, I am coming to wonder whether what I know content-wise matters much with the technology advances we have today: there are so many wonderful educators creating content online. I’d say I have a plenitude of co-teachers, but given the tools to overcome their learning challenges, my students can be, and are, their own best educators.
That’s because my job as their teacher isn’t like programming a computer: inputting code that they may be able to reproduce into their hardware, and calling that teaching. Rather, my task is to make my students into lifelong learners, or in this analogy, programmers! Then, I hope that they will find that the only limitations they have are those they set for themselves, since they are writing the code!
Thank you, Joseph, for the inspiring learning and teaching!
Works Cited
Palmer, Parker. “Good Teaching: A Matter of Living the Mystery”. Change Magazine, Jan/Feb, 1990. www.CourageRenewal.org
Palmer, Parker. “The Heart of a Teacher: Identity ad Integrity in Teaching”. Edited excerpts from The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher’s Life. Jossey-Bass Publishers, San Francisco, 1997.