This is my first class in a 2 year regimen to get my teaching credential. I proves to be a very tricky classroom environment; teaching teachers. There is a sense that I need to be skeptical of the education system when I am taught that the system is broken. How does this translate to the part of the system that I am in(NAT UNIV) to learn to teach and enter the system as a teacher. My mond gets caught right into the systems thinking I apply to all other endevours, the global system is broken and this is just one corner of that system. It happens to be a dense intersection of the foundations of society.

I left class feeling frustrated and disheartened. This started earlier in the afternoon as I was grappling with my own seeming inability to process and boil down assigned reading and dropping the ball on my group and individual work. Later on this frustration turned to the education system in general and my seeming inability to adhere to it's demands both systemic/adminsitrative and academically.

I have continually been frustrated with the education system's almost complete lack of understanding of the role the internet/electronic communications can and will play. The system passes out entire forests worth of paper each day, while more forests are written on in notebooks, only then to be gathered in often closed and isolated document formats. The Web is never going away and we need to jump all the way in, NOW!

I keep asking myself why I find myself in the back of the line to get a teaching credential when I have spent the last 4 years proving my worth and learning how to be a teacher in the classroom! I start doubting that the education system can be changed, especially by someone who can not even play the system's game, because it has to be that change attaches to the existing system. I called it quits after class and went to bed. After a good dose of "glass-is-half-full" from my dear wife, and a good(but short) night sleep, there is no sense in thinking the thoughts I was stuck in last night. Those thoughts end there. Those thoughts give up a chance to change the system. I was taking care of organizing this content management system, and not taking enough time to create content.

Tonight's anxiety had something to do with the fact that I am trying to speak about something that I have not yet developed a strong conviction for, and hadn't put enough thought into. but I am going to turn the tides on this one a little bit now that I have the time. I will remake my slides and presentation. I will find in this week break, the energy that I know I exhibit under certain conditions. I will create those conditions. Sometimes it will be uncomfortable, sometimes it could even head me towards tricky situations, but I must be honest with myself. Education is teaching through showing, creating the environment for revelation together.

The Student interview was a great part of this course so far. It was striking! Since I on;y teach middle school, I was picturing middle school-mentality, but these students were incredibly mature and sharp. There was a wide variety of questions, but I only asked one. My further observations are in no way judging their competence, as I have no recent experience with high school students (except for my cousin from Monte Sereno who is in the private school system) so I have no grounds to anyway. The four of them(Kimo incl.) were sensitive to the fact that electives were for the students that are perfect and high achieving in their other academic classes. This might seem obvious since it is basically how all schools function, but in Ramon's case the rare chance to take photography probably offers him respite from his academic classes that he is likely struggling with for various reasons. It is a chance to use his mind in a freer and more creative way. Bluntly, the kids who need it most are put as far away from it as possible. Could we devise a system that integrated the academics into electives, so that they can earn merit while making something with our hands?
I need to be bold. I was not bold tonight. I didn't ask another question. I did not put myself on the line, and did not allow them to push their own boundaries of what is right to talk about and why. Maybe they can come back for a second interview? Maybe, one day these three students will attend a credential program. National? Could they afford it? Can any teacher/candidate afford it when districts are shedding teachers by the hundreds?

Today I was more relaxed

in the classroom, almost too relaxed, since it was my intention to create the conditions that allow me to be easy in the classroom, as if I were subbing. I jumped in on more commenting instead of just listening and thinking my own thoughts. I ate the food I brought from home throughout the 4 hours which probably helped keep blood flowing to my head a little better. One thing I forgot to do from this past week was to bring up the budget issues(districts laying off 12%), and what it means? Fortunately it came up in a round of comments, and the overall feeling was that "[we shouldn't worry because there will always be teaching jobs available. It might not be the right position, but there are jobs.]". But my shop mentor is telling me that they have no idea what they are going to do to meet budget cuts next year. With the 12 percent of teachers who lost their jobs this year, they will likely be required to be the first hired back when possible. So that leaves a pretty bleak outlook for teacher/candidates for the next 3 years. atleast!? And I'm thinking, how much more before the great public stands up in solidarity and uproar at how we are treating our teachers? This is not even a Job issue at first. It is equal parts Education issue, System issue, and our Democratic principles at play in the wrong direction; break down.

This website

(Plumbob.org/ted615) is something I am really proud of. I have had one classmate and one middle school teacher give excited comments on how it was organized(in book format with the navigation menu on the left). For those of you who don't know already, I am a Drupal evangelist, I think they call us. Drupal is Free/Open source software that is built by amazing people all over the world. They are creating web infrastructure that this site is running, and it is nothing short of an amazing human feat to create publicly available tools of this quality and power. It is definitely my aim to help bring open source infrastructure to education, starting with using it myself where I can. Part of my philosophical core is that all information needs to be kept as easily available to any human in proximity of a public internet connection. (One quick community plug, FunnyMonkey up in Oregon is doing great things with the Drupal Community and their schools)
A very intriguing condition

present as I organize my coursework and professional life on this site, is this sense that I am also a journalist investigating the entire profession, even though it is not officially recognized as a profession, and I am not always delivering an unbiased journalistic point of view.

The simple act

of checking in with members of this community is very uplifting and makes me feel more connected and aware in class. I had some good talks with fellow students tonight just about the program in general and how we are doing with it. Also, commenting in class is important for our collective sense of belonging and ownership, and not simply being receptors of information. This is a very important lesson for understanding the classroom. We need to create an environment where we are at first inspired to share ideas; past people's, our peers, and also our own. I think I am understanding this as my initial anxiety for returning to the classroom. I had personally never achieved this in a classroom through college and naturally had this view returning. It is for the teacher to create an environment that allows the student to open to it because it makes them feel good and more whole to participate in the sharing of ideas and feelings, thoughts and theories, about all aspects of life and living.

It is almost not viable to become a teacher in the United States of America.

The U.S.A. does not make education a priority other than demanding it or feeling entitled to it. We are much less enthusiastic when it comes to thinking of ways to free up more time for it, or more money, or any other resource. However understandable the situation may be, we are shooting ourselves in the feet. I think teaching should be as easy as declaring your interest and starting to follow/apprentice with a teacher that inspired the revelation. Also, I think that education could benefit from reforming to also incorporate into the penal system, or really stemming off the penal system and taking the at-risk youth under the wing of a willing teacher and force them to teach what they know. In my onion, there is no better way to build respect for teachers and education than for people to stand up and give it a go with something they know.
The training of teaches should remain in the public system and be more integrated. That is education/teaching should revolve around itself, rather than be a product oriented one way system which is now relying more heavily on private institutions to produce teachers.
As you can see my mind was a bit absent from the rest of this class. I tend to plow into my thoughts a lot, which is something I am getting better at since the first class. But this was just too important and too temping for me to pass up. I hope to turn parts of this reflection into my core philosophy, which is