Find my original posting on flglobal.org by clicking HERE
How on Earth can I continue to stand in front of my students and lecture at them about things that they truly…don’t care anything about? How can I drone on and on day after day staring into vacant expressions and disrespectful behaviors? These were the questions that plagued me in 2012 as I sat at my desk thinking about getting out of education. I could not see a light at the end of the depression I was dealing with every single day I walked through my classroom door. I have had tough students, and I have had tough years, but I was at a different point in my career; I was experiencing hopelessness. It was at this point that two amazing people had a heart to heart conversation with me, and it would change my life. I walked into my administrator’s office and sat down at the conference table. Before me sat my Principal, Sandra Sutherland, and the Dean of Students, Michele Gorman. I looked at both of them and said, “I can’t do this anymore.” I was shocked by their response. They looked at me and said, “We will not let you quit.” I told them, “I cannot continue to do what I am doing.” Sandra said, “You’re right, you can’t continue to do what you have been doing.” “BUT YOU ARE A TEACHER,” Michele said emphatically! I looked at both of them very perplexed, “I don’t know how to teach any differently than what I am already doing. I do projects, integrate technology, play educational games, and it doesn’t seem to matter.” Sandra looked at me and said, “I don’t have the answers, but I do know that you are a teacher, and you just have to find a different way of engaging your students.” I left that meeting feeling depressed, but I at least had a mission or focus…Find a New Way to Teach. I took to the internet a typed in the words: New and Innovative Teaching Methods. Immediately, the search turned up the words Flipped Learning. The more I explored the methodology, the more my depression seemed to fall like scales from my eyes. It was as though my passion for teaching was reignited. I could not read enough about it, and I told everyone about it. I went to Sandra and Michele and explained what I had been reading, and even though they didn’t know much about it, they said…GO FOR IT! Flipping my class has been the biggest change I have ever made in my career, and I could never go back to traditional instruction. I LOVE my job. I won’t say that there aren’t challenges each day, but I now feel like I am doing education the way it was always meant to be done, working side by side with my students helping them master content in a personal way.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Mr. Dan JonesMaster Flip Educator with 13 years experience in the classroom. FLGI Faculty Trainer who trains based on the Gold Standard of Flipped Learning 3.0. Expertise in project based learning. Archives
October 2018
Categories |