After spending 18 years teaching in the private school system, I found myself without a job. I was a teacher without a classroom. I spent the next year and a half substitute teaching in the Napa Valley Unified School District. I subbed at every high school, middle school and nearly every elementary school in our district. I worked nearly every single day, and learned a lot about the schools in Napa. All of which is a really long way to say that I discovered that Phillips Elementary isn't like any other school in the district. I was so happy to be added to their staff four years ago, and three years ago my principal tasked me with creating and building a powerful tech program for our students. As a result, we've spent a bit of time talking about technology and the ways we want to empower our students. Most recently, we discussed the impact of tech on our youngest of students, who are coming to the Technology Design Lab for the first time this school year. Our emphasis for this young students is to build both literacy and computer literacy. We learned just last Wednesday (Sept 27th) that we have been given a grant and now are a magnet school. Our emphasis will be on leadership and technology . We had so many discussions last year as we went through the grant process about the role of technology in connection with the idea of leadership. The conclusion that we came to was that students today must have strong digital skills if they are to be effective leaders in their community. They must not only know how to use technology, but must understand the social, emotional and academic impact of technology. As students lead in their community, they can utilize their digital skills to communicate, rally and share their projects, ideas, and plans. We have relied on the ISTE standards for students, and they have been our standards. As a result of this grant, we are working on creating a clear, and succinct statement of what a successful graduate of Phillips Magnet School will look like. We are writing our mission statement as we begin this new journey. However, this mission statement has already been lived out for the past few years, as we already have embraced the idea that we must include a powerful digital toolbox in order to educate leaders. As a Title 1 school, we have spent many years trying to provide equity for our students. Creating a strong technology program was one way that we felt we could level the playing field for our students. Over time, I recognized that having strong digital skills could take my students from catching up to their peers, to providing them with an edge. Beginning to introduce them to the world of script languages: Java Script, html/CSS, SQL and Swift, provides students with a more advanced understanding of computer science, but also begins to introduce them to a new field. Students become exposed to all the many job opportunities associated with those skills. This is significant in a community such as ours.
One of my 4th grade students was able to spend the afternoon at Pixar studios, as result of our work in computer science. I had to wait outside the gates while she attended this amazing day, but on the ride home, she shared what she had learned with me, and her words demonstrate the powerful impact that technology can have on my students. "They have basketball courts, and a pool, and an exercise room for their workers. I think that is really cool." Here is where I expected her to talk about the fun of having those available to you, but my students seem to always surprise me. Instead she said, "It's like they care about you. They think it is important to be healthy, and so they have places for people to exercise. I want to work for a company like that. A company that knows I'll work better if I feel better. It's like you matter." She was 10 at the time. I try to keep this conversation close to me as we develop and craft our final, official tech mission statement. As with all other things in education, humans are at the heart of all our words, objectives and plans. Technology is just one more way to allow our students to express themselves, so that they can build a powerful, new world for themselves and their families. This is our mission statement: HOPE.
3 Comments
Nancy
10/3/2017 11:07:34 pm
Jen,
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Patrick
10/4/2017 05:46:16 pm
It is crazy to hear about all the wonderful stuff happening at your school! From involvement in film to visiting Pixar itself, your school's story is strong evidence of what deliberate focus on technology can do. It really is inspiring how quickly your program took off. It should be encouraging to any teacher at any school. You were only there for one year before you took off running with tech. I'm sure there is a lot more nuance to it than that, but ultimately what it takes to create something wonderful for students is one person passionate/crazy enough to go for it and inspire others. I really enjoy how the mission statement is focused on opportunity. So often mission statement could feel like boxes to check or, like Nancy said, list of skills and tools to use. Instead, yours feels more open ended and more focused on the human. I feel like your concluding thoughts are really insightful. Even a technology mission statement should ultimately be about the humans using the tech.
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10/8/2017 08:16:32 pm
I love your statement about how our students must embrace technology within 3 countince, social, emotional and academic impact of technology. "They must not only know how to use technology, but must understand the social, emotional and academic impact of technology. As students lead in their community, they can utilize their digital skills to communicate, rally and share their projects, ideas, and plans." you have a way with words and thoughts.
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AuthorJen has been teaching school for awhile now. She's learned some stuff, but she's got tons more to learn. Archives
October 2017
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