BecauseKids.org

This post was originally published in January 2013.

I have been working in education for the past eight years, and I look back and see how I’ve developed my own (very strong) beliefs about teaching and learning.  Many of these have been inspired by things I’ve learned through ed-tech conferences, teaching my own classes, reading, and being surrounded by great teachers on Twitter.  I decided that I wanted to make a list of things I’ve learned and hold very dear to my heart:

1. If you can still do the same thing on a whiteboard/chalkboard, it’s not really technology integration.
2. The ones who I’d honor with the title of teacher love their students and put the students’ learning first.
3. Lessons that infuse critical thinking with student-led, student-centered learning DO take time and effort from the teacher in advance (in planning).
4. Critical thinking does not happen on a multiple-choice, fill-in-the blank worksheet.
5. The final product of a project is just that, a final product.
6. Just because you call it project-based learning doesn’t make it project-based learning.  It’s all about the process!!!
7. Great teachers inspire their students to find out more on their own.
8. Spitting back information word-for-word is NOT learning; it’s memorizing.
9. Googling a topic and printing the first article is NOT research.
10. The Google-print method above is NOT a good use of technology – we did the same thing with books, and it was called copying.
11. Just because you use a computer (or any other device) does not mean you integrated technology.
12. Not succeeding is almost better than succeeding because you can learn so much from failure.
13. Saying things louder when students don’t understand you the first time does not help students learn.
14. Flipped teaching is nothing until you infuse a methodology that incorporates strong pedagogy that supports student engagement, motivation, and learning.
15. EdCamp is the best professional development. Ever.
16. CUE conferences, local and state ones, are pretty darned good too.
17. iPads are not really made for multiple users.
18. Shiny new technology does not improve bad pedagogy.
19. Great leaders challenge you, inspire you, and support you.
20. If you don’t respect your students, they will never respect you.
21. Sarcasm with students is just another way of insulting them in a passive aggressive way.  Don’t do it.
22. Tell your students that you support them and that you believe in them. Often.
23. Don’t ask me to teach computer keyboarding/typing instead of teaching kids how to create using technology.
24. Begin every class session with the thought:  What will my students CREATE today?
25. End every class session with reflection about the positive and negative aspects, and then FIX IT for next time!
26. COLLABORATE with other teachers; let students COLLABORATE with each other.
27. Twitter is your friend. Twitter is your mentor.  Twitter is your PLN.  Twitter is your Pinterest.  Twitter is support.  Twitter is sharing.
28. Follow lots of people on Twitter.
29. Teacher-centric teaching only helps the teacher; that’s why it’s called teacher-centered.
30. Students need to know you’re human. You’re not a robot.
31. You need to know students are human.  They’re not robots.
32. If we continue to teach without infusing critical thinking and creativity, we’ll continue to build a low-skilled, manual labor workforce.
33. Attending professional development in-services does not improve teaching; acting upon what you’ve learned improves teaching.
34. Not sharing good ideas is purely selfish.
35. Change is hard, but you certainly couldn’t live in your mother’s womb forever, now, could you?
36. If you truly are a life-long learner, you will be able to overcome challenge and change more easily than one who is close-minded to new ideas.
37. The Borg were right:  Resistance is futile.  It’s so much easier to accept change when you aren’t running away from it.
38. Kindergarten kids know more about using technology than some 8th graders.  That’s how much technology has changed and become infused with daily life.
39. If you make learning meaningful, not only will students remember it, they will want to learn more and more.
40. Giving letter grades is a waste of time.
41. A mixture of flipped classroom, project-based learning, problem-based learning, and collaboration baked in 100% strong pedagogy is the recipe to a successful year.
42. Letting your students teach can be a powerful experience for you and your students.
43. It is a small world after all.
44. Complaining about that boring in-service/presentation?  Ask yourself if you are viewed that way by your own students.
45. Giving students a wider audience motivates students to shine.
46. If you’ve ever played Angry Birds, you’ll see that getting one star will take you to the next level.  If you get two or three stars, it takes you to the same level, but there will be an additional game or reward for getting all three stars.  Why not treat report cards, grades, standards, and school in general like that?  If you meet the standard, you get one star.  If you do a little more, you can get two stars.  If you exceed it, you get three stars.  The best part:  no stars means you didn’t meet the standard and you have to try a different way to earn that one star to move on. (I can thank @alicekeeler for opening my eyes to this one.)
47. What is the best thing about teaching?  If you answered summer break, you might be in the wrong field.
48. Interactive whiteboards are passe, expensive, and teacher-centric for most classrooms.  Try using something that allows collaboration between students, like a 1:1 laptop or a set of interactive tablets.
49. Give a man a fish, he’ll eat for one day.  Teach a man to fish, he will get sick of eating fish everyday.  Inspire, innovate, and collaborate, and the man will be able to do anything he puts his mind to.
50. These fifty things I’ve listed are sort of like technology, ever-changing and evolving. Don’t expect me to believe all 50 of these in 5 years, 5 months, or even 5 weeks…

What have you learned?

This was originally published in February 2012.

The Poverty Project ©2012 is a lesson I created with partial material from Catholic Campaign for Human Development – Poverty USA website.

For the past few years, I have been doing a very special project with the eighth graders at our school.  It covers curriculum in religion, social studies, language arts, science, and math – and it even uses technology throughout the lesson.  For those in non-parochial schools, the religious aspect can be left out of it and replaced with character education or simple compassion and human dignity.

Day One.  We start the discussion on poverty.  What are common stereotypes of people living in poverty?  What do you think of people living in poverty?  Are they lazy, drug-addicted, or drunks?  Why can’t they “just get a job?”  It is here that I tell them a true story:  I was in Santa Cruz with my family.  We went to the popular boardwalk, and we were getting ready to have dinner on the wharf.  It was a breezy summer day, but we hadn’t planned on the breeze being so chilly.  I marched the kids and my husband into a store and put down $150 for brand new hoodies for the whole family.  Outside of our favorite restaurant, a stinky old man sat with a cup asking for money.  Looking in his cup, he had several $20 bills, and I said, “He’s got more money than I do!”

My husband pulled me aside, and he looked very concerned.  “I’m going to buy you lunch,” he told the disheveled man.

“WHAT?! Are you crazy?!?!” I shrieked, “He’s got at least $200 in there.  He’s got bank!”

My husband’s face grew stern, and he looked at me embarrassingly.  “Where do you think he’s going to put that money?  Can you see him at the bank?  Where is this guy going to stay tonight?  Will you invite him into our home?  It’s the weekend right now, but come Monday, he won’t have $200 in his cup… he’ll be lucky to get $5 because all of the tourists will have gone away.  Where is your compassion?  He is a human being.  What if he was Jesus in disguise?  What if THIS was YOUR test on earth?”

Tears filled my eyes, and I felt instantly ashamed of my behavior.  The truth is, this homeless man would probably get mugged that night because beatings and murders of homeless people were on the rise.  He definitely did not have the luxury of spending $150 on stupid Beach Boardwalk sweatshirts to keep him warm, but if he decided to drop all his money on that, would they even let him into the store??  He smelled of sweat, dirt, and urine – no way.  Where would he eat tonight?  Where was his family?  How did he get here?  He didn’t deserve my insults.  He deserved dignity – he is a human, created equal, created for a reason…  Maybe it was to teach me this lesson?

The students are now intrigued by this time.  They are full of questions about what happened next.  They are captivated and engaged… What better way to start our lesson together?

“Imagine this:  You are now 25 years old.”  I announce.  They usually cheer and high-five each other, but I always have to spoil their fun.  I tell them that they are married, have two children (an 8-year-old and an 18-month-old), and they only have an 8th grade education.  They had to drop out of high school during their freshman year because their families were stuck in the cycle of poverty.

The First Assignment.  The students must find a full-time, minimum wage job in Alameda County.  They have to remember that the job must not have education requirements because they only have somewhat successfully passed 8th grade coursework.  Jobs are first-come, first-hired.  Students look at newspapers, Craigslist, and other sources and send me the job through Google Docs (thank you, date/time stamp).  I type in the comment stream and on the document itself to tell them whether or not they were hired and give them the next steps:

1. They must find a job for their pseudo-spouse – also minimum wage, unskilled labor.
2. They need to figure out what hours they will work during the week.
3. They need to figure out if they will be using daycare for the 18-month-old and 8-year-old (if the 8-year-old is not in school at those hours).
4. They need to find transportation.  (If they choose a car, it must be insured AND they need to buy it or find a payment plan they can afford.)
5. They must have medical and dental insurance on the family.
6. They need to find a 2-bedroom apartment (just like the jobs, first-come; first-served), Note: They will be surprised at the neighborhoods when they use street view. Be careful to make sure to warn them that they may see some things that may make them uncomfortable.
7. They have no other family or friends that can help them.
8. Only legal actions may be taken (i.e., no under-the-table jobs, no abandoning your children).

The Budget.  A couple of weeks into this, after everyone has jobs and housing, I start them on a budget process.  I have our school bookkeeper come in and tell them about what taxes and fees will come out of their paychecks.  She provides a handout that has all of the deductions, and she talks about what each tax and fee is – including the big healthcare costs for dependents.  The students then create a Google Spreadsheet to come up with the formulas to create their budgets.  I give them set pricing for electricity, gas, water, and garbage.  We estimate how much money they can spend on groceries.  I also warn them that most of them will end up in debt by a couple hundred dollars – just for the week, and it will get worse with time. By now, they’re usually whining that this work is difficult, and they’re freaking out about how to put food on the table.  My answer:  Millions of people struggle with this daily.  Welcome to poverty.

Food.  One lesson is spent making a food list/budget.  We bring in supermarket ads, and we use online shopping ads.  We figure out a typical breakfast and price for each serving.  We budget snacks for the kids, figure out lunch and dinner, and some brave ones will try to get a dessert in there as well.  All the servings are priced, and we figure out what we’ll pay each day for food.  That’s when we look at what food we chose and how unhealthy it is.  They start to ponder links to childhood obesity and poverty…

Reflect Often.  We have reflection time after each major portion, and we discuss the issues that we encounter.  Some examples:  There are not enough jobs that are available for low-skilled and unskilled workers.  Rent is outrageous in the Bay Area.  The places they can afford to live can be scary and in dangerous neighborhoods.  We talk about Maslow’s Hierarchy, and how kids who are hungry or worried cannot even start to climb the ladder of success at school.  Violence in the neighborhood (and at home) can make it near impossible to concentrate at school. We talk about water and how third world countries don’t have water fountains/faucets with free, clean water. We talk about the federal poverty income limitations, and how hard it would be to make ends meet on even less money than they’ve “earned” in this project. We discuss issues that go along with being in poverty (i.e., correlation of violence and poverty).

The Movie.  After “living” in poverty for several weeks, we watch the movie The Human Experience by Grassroots Films. I saw this movie in its rough-cut version when it toured to a local theater in 2008. When it came to DVD in 2010, it became part of my project.  The students are usually astounded when they see the lack of dignity that people living in poverty experience daily. They see pain, suffering, and fear.  For at least a day, the students are silent for the rest of the day because this movie changes them, keeps them thinking… it makes them want to change the world…

Legislation.  For the next part of the project, they are no longer poverty-stricken young adults, trying to make ends meet.  They have become government officials, legislators that are going to write laws and bills that change or end poverty as we know it.  The students must write it with definitions and limitations all spelled out, so loopholes aren’t created – critical thinking at its finest.  Some past pseudo-legislation done by students included a bus that picks up homeless and needy and takes them to a plot of land purchased by private funds.  They create a mini-community with self-sustaining farms, and they learn job skills.  They are housed, fed, and educated as this village comes together to help each other.  Another idea was to create an after-school program that allows impoverished kids to have a safe haven to do homework, eat a healthy meal, and get school supplies and clothing, all funded by local merchants and large grocery stores.  I tell my students my unbreakable rule of creating legislation:  Your legislation cannot give a person a fish to eat for one day (charity).  Your legislation must give a person the education and skills to eat for the rest of his or her life (social justice).

Lots of Writing. They work on legislative writing skills – collaborating with two to three other senators in their group to create a bill that could actually get some attention from local government.  The students write persuasive letters to convince others to support their proposals.  They work on presentation skills, so they can convince the other senators to help vote it into law.  They gather signatures from adults in the real world that would be affected by such legislation (i.e., teachers, doctors, the mayor, nurses, charities).  They learn how to write letters to the media to spread the word about ending poverty and promoting dignity of the human person.

Presentations.  As the final assignment of the project, the students dress up in their finest business attire and present the legislation to their classmates, the PTA, other teachers, and the Principal.  The students use Prezi, Google Presentation, Glogster, and other online applications to collaborate with their classmates on the final project.  During the final presentations, the teachers and fellow students ask tough questions about the loopholes in their bills.  (For example, if you tax the manufacturers of processed foods to fund healthier food items for the poor, are you still hurting the poor who have no time to make healthy meals?)  We debate the bills, and finally, we vote on each.

Final Reflection.  The students have one final reflection after all is said and done. They give me ideas for the next class that will do the project, they offer ways to improve and things to consider for the future, and most of all they tell me what they learned:  All humans should be treated with compassion, respect, and dignity.  Often, parents will come to me and tell me that they love what this project teaches their kids.  One parent shared with me that at Halloween, her son decided to skip having a costume.  He thought that spending $50 on a costume was ridiculous, and he thanked his mom for all her work and effort and for sending him to a good school.  Another parent told me their daughter asked her if she could have ten dollars from her allowance so she could buy food for a person who was begging for money outside of the supermarket. After the mom tried talking her out of it, the girl told her mom, “Mom, what if that’s Jesus in disguise?”  You can’t argue with that, now can you?

This post was originally published in February 2013.

Today, I told fifth graders in my tech class that their homeroom teacher (Ms. Flynn) decided she wanted to be greedy.  Normally very kind and happy, Ms. Flynn had changed overnight into a mean, grumpy tyrant.  She was going to start taking Flynn Bucks (her positive reward system) away from the students.  She was going to force her fifth graders to feed all of the 4th graders daily, and the 5th graders would need to share their desks and supplies with those 4th graders.   5th graders would no longer be able to play on the entire schoolyard; they would only get a small fraction of the yard for recess.  When the 5th graders go home in the afternoon and evening, they would still have to live by Ms. Flynn’s rules.  Money as they knew it would no longer be available for buying items; 5th graders had to use Flynn Bucks only.  All foods that taste good and yummy would now have an extra Flynn Buck charge, and half of the students’ income of Flynn Bucks would go back to Ms. Flynn, to help pay to enforce her rules.

I told the students that they could use any type of media they’ve ever used in the tech lab.  With their creations, they needed to spread the word, to do something to stop Ms. Flynn’s tyranny.  Some kids chose to write documents about why it was unfair.  A few created journals to voice their opinions and frustration with Ms. Flynn’s new system.  Other students chose to make presentations on Prezi.  One amazing student created a Google Form and sent it to all his classmates, making it a petition-type form to vent student grievances about the new rules.  Some students used Kidspiration to draw and write about the awful new rules.  Words like taxation, rebellion, boycott, and protest were being used, without my prompting.

At the end of the session with 5th grade, I asked them what this scenario resembled from their recent curriculum.  Students brought up some connections to their social studies classes.  I told them that they’d be learning more in Ms. Flynn’s class about conditions in the colonies that lead to the Revolutionary War.  The students completed the explore portion of the lesson with me, and Ms. Flynn was going to pick up the rest (flip and apply).  Now, they’ll have some background experiences – some strong feelings, especially – to go with their future colonial rebellion lesson.

In 2013, I attended the most incredible professional development of my life. Every time I talk about MERIT, people might think I’m exaggerating its benefits — but then, after they experience it, they are on the “KCI junkie” bandwagon. MERIT originally was the acronym for Making Education Relevant and Interactive through Technology (and before that, it was called “Earn While You Learn”). The thing is, it really never focused on tech… it definitely offered a bunch of technology tools for students to use, but MERIT does way more. The program helps teachers become more student-centered, focused on learning, and builds a tremendous network of innovative and creative educators that become lifelong friends.

Before MERIT, I was shy and lacked a lot of confidence. You can ask every single person who witnessed my presentations in 2013-14 during the program. They saw me shaking, sweating, and glasses fogging up. Put me in front of students, and I was fine; I couldn’t do it without anxiety and panic when I was in front of adults and colleagues.

The summer intensive was two weeks packed full of instruction and relationship building. The MERIT Director was one of my edu-heroes, and she brought creativity, inspiration, and fun to the program. The Assistant Director and instructional team were also key to bringing in different areas of expertise, and it was so evident that they truly loved being educators. I kept a journal of every day as part of the process, and it’s fun to go back to see how inspired and excited I was at the time. We had four follow-up classes after the two week summer session, and we graduated in April 2014.

I don’t think I learned more about using technology tools, but I definitely learned that I don’t want to be a two-by-four teacher (staying within the two covers of my teacher manual and the four walls of my classroom). I also learned through MERIT that no matter how much I teach skills and regurgitation, my kids will not remember it after the test. When I make learning meaningful, personalized, and REAL, it stays with my students. I still have students who remember their poverty project work, their Digital Diva work, and more. They remembered when they had voice and choice. They remember when it was related to their future careers and interests or real-world scenarios.

During MERIT, I became more involved with East Bay CUE, eventually becoming their President and Past President. I was nominated as their emerging teacher of the year. After MERIT, I earned a CUE Gold Disk in 2016. I became a MERIT instructor and a mini-MERIT director and instructor. I also jumped into public education and obtained my California Administrative Credential. I worked as a district technology integration coach and was promoted to be their Director of Innovation, Design, & Technology. I also became the Director of MERIT in January of 2017. In August, I was hired as KCI’s Innovator in Residence. And this upward career surge is all because of MERIT.

MERIT builds confidence. It validates good teaching, and it creates a PLN of great educators that you cry, laugh, and learn with beyond the program.

Learn more about the MERIT program here.

My name is Lisa, and I am a wife, mother, educator, and trainer. I was born in Japan, and I moved to the United States when I was four years old. I consider myself an English language learner because my mother, who speaks broken English, was the one who primarily raised me. My biological father was in the US Navy, and he was always overseas; he also died when I was eight years old. It took me many years to figure out the differences between Rs and Ls; TH and S; and lots of funny words my mother made into her own version of Engrish (i.e., toweru paypa = paper towel). Don’t get me started on idioms. I remember asking my friends in high school why I had to keep up with the Jones family when I didn’t know them.

I received my first computer when I was eight years old. It was a TRS-80 (Radio Shack), and I learned how to use BASIC to write simple programs. My mother always made sure computers were part of my life, whether they were part of a video game console or a desktop. She also made ballet a part of my life (her dream, not mine). I should be more thankful for my mother’s intentions, but I digress…

Fast forward to the late 1990s: I was new to the Silicon Valley, attending school, and I was homesick. I drove home every weekend to visit my mom in the Sierra Foothills and my friends in the Central Valley. I was constantly on dial-up AOL ($2.50/hour!) and eventually, my PacBell.net account trying to keep in touch with new and old friends. In January of 1997, I went into mIRC (internet relay chat) to access the California chat room, and I asked if anyone else was new to the SF Bay Area. Dozens of messages plastered my screen, but one screen name caught my attention: PsyPhi2. I cleared all the other direct messages, and I focused on PsyPhi2. Little did I know that 20 years later, I’d still be chatting with this guy nightly. We fell in love, got married, and have two (now adult) sons.

When I went back to work, after being very lucky to be a stay-at-home mom, I found myself in the educational environment. While working as an instructional aide at a private school, I went back to college to get an Masters in Education with a concentration in instructional leadership. My first teaching job was in a small Catholic school in Alameda, and I taught there for six years. I taught 3rd grade, 4th grade, middle school language arts, 8th grade religion, and K-8 technology. I became their Director of Technology in my 5th year there. During that time, I had also obtained a graduate certification in Network and Communications Management.

In 2013, I became the Director of Instructional Innovation and STEAM Programs at a private, all-girls high school in Oakland. There, I taught computer science, media and information literacy, and creativity in the makeHERspace. Eighteen months later, I was given the amazing opportunity to join the California public school systems, and I was hired as Technology Integration Coach for a public school district. Six months later, they promoted me as their Director of Innovation, Design, and Technology. In 2017, I became the Innovator in Residence at a community college, where I trained teachers in student-centered pedagogy and ed-tech tools. I also created and professional learning programs for educators and administrators, and I was an adjunct professor to college students through Learning In New Classrooms (LINC) courses.

After 14 years of being in the educational arena, a public school district in San Jose was hiring for a Director of Information & Instructional Technology. The CTO/Associate Superintendent of Learning & Innovation was a man named Andrew Schwab, and he was the visionary educator and administrator that made me want to take this role under his leadership. While I came to the job to learn under Andrew’s unique vision and guidance, I chose to stay because this district is so special. The teachers, staff, students, and parents make it an incredible place to make a difference and be creative, innovative, and fun at the same time.

2022 is my 17th year in education. I am a Google Certified Innovator, a Microsoft Innovative Educator, a CUE Gold Disk winner, a CUE Lead Learner, a KCI MERIT13 fellow, 2021 Common Sense Education Honored Educator, and a forever learner.

In 2015, when I was the Director of Innovation, Design, and Technology at a small, public school district in the East Bay, I created #BecauseKids. The really amazing Assistant Superintendent and I were trying to come up with an easy-to-remember hashtag that basically summarized why we (and the district) did what we did. We both immediately thought of our students, the ones we all passionately supported each day, minute, second… and #BecauseKids was born.