Vicki Davis: A Woman of Many Talents

Vicki Davis, A teacher, Blogger, Radio Host, Author, Technological Innovator, Wife, Mother, Volunteer, Speaker, Award-Winning, self-proclaimed "Country Girl," and human being.  (Where I found out all these adjectives). She is also the Edublogger who I made two comments to recently. The reason why I picked her is because she is one of the high school teachers who leads a classroom of students in AIC, a simulation course run by U of M graduate students like myself (Read more about AIC here). I work with about 15 of her students, who do some of the best work of all of the students in my simulation. As a class, we skyped Vicki a couple weeks ago to hear more about how she runs her classroom in relation to AIC. She was so enthusiastic and friendly, I was delighted to find out she also blogs regularly!

The first blog post I commented on is titled "The Right Tough and F’s in school: are we failing kids?" She wrote about how many teachers brag about failing students, and questioned if it was something to really brag about. She discusses what failure in classrooms really means, and what is doesn't mean - i.e. failing to be an A+ human being. I really identified with this post. I told her that I completely agree with the point she makes - that an F is a bullseye to give a student more attention. I stated that I truly believe we should devote our time and energy to not only changing struggling students' grades, but also their perception of themselves! She also write about how students put up walls that stop them from achieving in school. I elaborated on her idea by sharing that there are so many kinds of walls. It is so hard to get in touch with every single student and help them make little doors in their walls to let certain people through, but we continue to try. Once the breakthrough is made - success happens!

The most important part of her post, for me, was when she wrote about the support of administration and how important that is. A segment of my comment to her is below: 

"You say that you are lucky your administration has always supported you in failing students when they earn the F, and the idea that some administrations don't makes me sick! I was just talking to my mentor teacher today who stated that she would get questioned, and reprimanded for not reaching her "goal" if she failed a student whose parent pulled them out of the school, but didn't "officially" disenroll the student, so they were being counted as "absent" and their assignments were "missing." She said that F would be looked at just as any other kid who is just skipping school, or coming and not paying attention. I can't imagine that a teacher would be in trouble for things like that. It makes me so sad!"

I ended with a few questions for her: How do you tell the difference between someone who won’t let you help and someone who just takes time? How long do you pursue them in this case? I asked because in my ideal future, I will never stop pursuing a student even if they act like help is the last thing I can give them. However, I know how frustrating and discouraging that must be. 

I love that she writes about things that are applicable to all teachers, regardless of the "content area." As Maria Coolican always says, "You don't teach French, Science, or Math. You teach kids." I can see that shining through in Vicki's blog.

The second post I commented on was one about enjoying the silence of the morning and being alone. This was so important to me because I am so caught up in all of the work I am doing in and outside of school. In undergrad, I often forgot to take time for myself. I have gotten much better at this during grad school (when I have less time to give up, of course), but now I often feel guilty about it. Vicki's post made me realize how important and essential this time is to leading a happy and (mentally) healthy life. 

I haven't heard back from her yet, but part of that is my fault. I didn't realize she moved her site to a new address, and I commented on the Failure post at the old address. I copied on to the same post at her new address so hopefully she will be able to find it and reply. I will comment back on this post when and if she does! 

I have subscribed to her blog in order to see when she updates it, and I plan on checking back on it regularly. She truly is an inspiration and I encourage you to check out her site. Let me know if you find any intriguing posts (how could you not?) and what your thoughts are! 

In case you're interested, her twitter handle is @coolcatteacher :) Have Fun and a Good Holiday Break, everyone!

FaKeBoOk

      In an age where students are excited by, and distracted by, any type of social media, it can seem hard to reach them. Teachers employ many strategies, including bad jokes and "cool" band t-shirts, in order to try and get in touch with their students. Much to their dismay, this doesn't always work. I had a student tell me he didn't like his math teacher because she didn't "GET him." Upon further investigation on that point, he said "She doesn't talk about anything besides the math. She doesn't connect to my life at all. I don't want help from her because she doesn't connect with me." While that made me sad, it also opened my eyes. These teachers, though they are failing, are at least TRYING to connect with their students, which is so important. Luckily, I was presented with an ingenious tool called Fakebook which would not only let teachers attempt to integrate course material with students lives, but help them succeed!
      Small anecdote....Senior year of college I took a French creative writing class. I loved everything about it because it allowed me to use my French in ways that allowed me to be crafty and allowed me to write about things that were interesting to ME! We turned in a writing piece every class period, three times per week, for the entire semester (that's a lot), and I can count on one hand the number of times a certain subject was required. The rest of the time, we wrote about whatever we wanted, as long as we implemented a certain grammatical structure we had just learned. Shoutout to Prof. George Hoffmann for making this class ROCK.
      Anyway, one of our assignments was that we had to make a Facebook page for a person of our choice - book character, celebrity, movie character, etc. They were all shared with the class on the big screen so the pressure was ON. The product of my efforts is below....
   

     You probably can't tell, but I slaved away on this piece of art. I couldn't make it in microsoft word because it was too hard to add all the little graphics. What graphics you see? Oh, well every little "like" thumb, relationship heart, location stamp, calendar date, or picture, was a screenshot taken from the one and only real facebook. I had to copy and paste them into whatever program I used so as you can imagine, formatting was a NIGHTMARE. I ended up doing it in Powerpoint and had to make three different slides because it wouldn't all fit on one. Oh yeah, and that blue and bold type-face? By hand. As you can imagine, I wasn't upset about all this work in the least since I loved the class so much. Additionally, when I finished, I was super excited to have my work and dislike of Taylor Swift's recycle-dating-program projected onto the big screen.

      HOWEVER. What if I didn't like the class this much? What if I didn't care about the teacher or the assignments and I didn't want to put that much effort in? Doing this and coming up with even a decent project would be beyond the scope of things.... Until FAKEBOOK. With fakebook, you can make a facebook account that is more complete and better looking than the one I created myself with less than half the time! I even went ahead and did it for you - go on - It's much better - just click it - Make sure you check out the L-side bar - 

CHECK IT OUT!

        In total, it took me 20 minutes to create that. Okay, maybe 25. That is nothing compared to how much time I spent on the first one - and it looks better!! 

     Obviously, my reactions to the presentation were many and they were all very excited and very happy. I think this is a fun thing to do which can be incorporated into many disciplines. Personally, I think I will definitely use this with my students in the future. Possibly in the way I learned it, to try out new grammatical structures. I like this idea because I can TAYLOR (Spelled wrong on purpose - get it? get it?) it to my students needs. For instance, first year French students would only write in present tense. Second year could do this switching between present and past tense based on when she posted the update. Third year can switch between the two different types of past tenses which often confuse students to no end. Fourth year and AP can use past, present, and future! It is a great way to assign the same assignment but change it based on skill. Another way to use this would be to document French culture or French history. For instance, Students could make a page for the European Union that goes through the timeline of history of when countries joined, when currency changed etc. Or, Students could make a facebook for a special French holiday - such as bastille day - that dictates what would happen in the preparation of and throughout that day. 

     Even though I had created my "fake" facebook before, I didn't think I would consider it for high school students simply because of the required workload. Now, however, it is much easier and  I will DEFINITELY let my students do this for homework - notice I said "let" not "make" because it really is that much of a treat. 

     Let me know your thoughts! Would you use it? For what discipline? How? What differences did you notice between my first and second fake facebooks?