I've been wondering this a lot lately-- given the exponential increase in work necessary to do flipclass (or any teaching, really) well, are the gains I see in my classroom really worth it?
Given the amount of blowback directed towards flipclass teachers lately, much of it unwarranted, I wonder, really, is it worth it?
Given the long workdays (I probably spend 85 percent of my waking hours thinking about school or actively teaching it), I wonder, while stealing a moment to cook dinner or play a bad cover of "Fake Plastic Trees" on my guitar... is it worth it?
I go to bed thinking about schoolwork. I wake up thinking about it. I fight with people on Twitter about it and open myself up to criticism--local and national--because of how I want to run class, and how I try to run it everyday. (And by "run it," I mean "let students have control of it as much as possible.")
Sometimes, as I look in the mirror at the multiplying gray hairs in my beard, and as I touch the spot on the crown of my head where hair used to be, which now looks increasingly like I have taken a friar's monastic vow, I wonder.
And that's where it stops.
In years previous, faced with classes of students with personal, home-based, and academic difficulties, I would have largely checked out. I am not proud of this.
In years previous, I didn't have a group of people watching my back and pushing me on to greater things.
In years previous, I didn't have people filling in the gaps of my skill--teaching me how to use structure, how to scaffold lessons up so kids could actually attain heights they never thought they could reach.
In those years, I wouldn't have gotten to be there as what amounts to my academic dream slowly, then suddenly, appeared on a labyrinthine Google Doc right before my eyes.
There were no Cheesebuckets then, not that I knew of, nor would I have considered that I would count among my primary inspirations a Biology teacher in British Columbia and a Chem teacher in South Bend.
And I definitely wouldn't be able to say that the same classes, the difficult ones, would have had their fourth consecutive good day today. I would have never gotten to that tipping point.
The answer, then, CO-llaborators, is yes.
Yes it is worth it. It's worth it because of your friendship, your support, your passion, and your skill. It's worth it because we're better together--as teachers and as people--than we could be apart. It's worth it because I get to see the sunlight slowly start to grace the cheeks of students in classes that were once deeply buried underground, through no fault of their own.
Given the amount of blowback directed towards flipclass teachers lately, much of it unwarranted, I wonder, really, is it worth it?
Given the long workdays (I probably spend 85 percent of my waking hours thinking about school or actively teaching it), I wonder, while stealing a moment to cook dinner or play a bad cover of "Fake Plastic Trees" on my guitar... is it worth it?
I go to bed thinking about schoolwork. I wake up thinking about it. I fight with people on Twitter about it and open myself up to criticism--local and national--because of how I want to run class, and how I try to run it everyday. (And by "run it," I mean "let students have control of it as much as possible.")
Sometimes, as I look in the mirror at the multiplying gray hairs in my beard, and as I touch the spot on the crown of my head where hair used to be, which now looks increasingly like I have taken a friar's monastic vow, I wonder.
And that's where it stops.
In years previous, faced with classes of students with personal, home-based, and academic difficulties, I would have largely checked out. I am not proud of this.
In years previous, I didn't have a group of people watching my back and pushing me on to greater things.
In years previous, I didn't have people filling in the gaps of my skill--teaching me how to use structure, how to scaffold lessons up so kids could actually attain heights they never thought they could reach.
In those years, I wouldn't have gotten to be there as what amounts to my academic dream slowly, then suddenly, appeared on a labyrinthine Google Doc right before my eyes.
There were no Cheesebuckets then, not that I knew of, nor would I have considered that I would count among my primary inspirations a Biology teacher in British Columbia and a Chem teacher in South Bend.
And I definitely wouldn't be able to say that the same classes, the difficult ones, would have had their fourth consecutive good day today. I would have never gotten to that tipping point.
The answer, then, CO-llaborators, is yes.
Yes it is worth it. It's worth it because of your friendship, your support, your passion, and your skill. It's worth it because we're better together--as teachers and as people--than we could be apart. It's worth it because I get to see the sunlight slowly start to grace the cheeks of students in classes that were once deeply buried underground, through no fault of their own.
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