Meeting the needs of individual learners

 Since retiring from full-time teaching, I've been tutoring individual students for a public school system. In so many ways, it's a perfect job for me since I really enjoy tailoring the learning for individual students, assessing the success of the teaching, making improvements, and watching a child learn in positive, successful ways. 

This summer I'm teaching small groups of students in an ideal summer camp environment. The support for good teaching as well as the location and environment of the camp is a perfect match for me and for learners. The small class size, comfortable classrooms, super teaching assistants and colleagues, and terrific equipment and supplies makes for an ideal learning environment. That said, the teaching has reminded me of one of the greatest challenges teachers face and that's tailoring lessons to meet the needs of the myriad of learners in front of them. It's truly a challenging combination of science and art to craft lessons that engage and teach all students well. It's obviously much easier to do that in an ideal summer camp environment with small groups of students than in a typical public school environment with large class sizes and often less-than-desirable equipment or supports, but no matter how ideal the environment is, the challenge remains.

So how do we craft lessons that meet the needs of all learners in a classroom? Experienced teachers know that there all kinds of strategies to use to make that happen. As for my summer group which totals about 25 in total, I have been trying many different strategies and to date, I've engaged all the students for the most part with the help of my colleagues with the exception of one student. Today I'll try another strategy in an effort to engage this student who is somewhat resistant to the learning. I noticed a particular talent that this student has and I've incorporated that talent into today's lesson--let's see if it grabs her attention and pulls her into the learning. Time will tell. 

I wanted to write this post to clear my head with regard to how to meet this challenge, and I also wanted to write this post to acknowledge the challenge that good teaching is. It's tough to engage every learner in a positive way, but it's the exactly right aim of every classroom teacher to reach for positive engagement and learning for every student. That's possible and that should be the aim of every school and every classroom. Onward. 

Summer Math

 I'll be teaching math this summer to rising seventh and eighth graders. I've been thinking about the lessons I'll employ. Since it's summer camp, I want the lessons to be lots of fun, and thanks to the fact that I'll be working with small groups, we'll focus on lots of math talk, math modeling, and real-world problem solving. 

Teaching again

 In 2020, I retired from my 34-year teaching career. It was a tough decision, but due to my parents' health needs, my own health needs with respect to the raging COVID epidemic, and my disagreement with how the epidemic was being handled in the school system where I taught, I thought it a good time to retire. 

Upon retirement I responded to my parents' social/emotional and medical needs with the same gusto that I used towards teaching. I helped them to organize their house, attend their medical appointments, and gain a schedule of good care and good living. Like teaching, that work was not easy, but it was meaningful to me--it was the right thing to do. 

After my mom passed and then another couple years of caring for dad, it was time to lessen my parent-care role and think about my life overall. My siblings stepped in and assumed more care for my dad, and after thinking about my life, I decided to teach again. That was a very good decision for many reasons. 

First of all, I had gained tremendous teaching skill and ability throughout my many years as an educator, and to use those skills again not only felt good, but also served to help others. I loved that. Next, it was a stimulating choice--one aspect of teaching that I loved was the learning that goes hand-in-hand with teaching. That learning is intellectually stimulating and that made me happier and more interested and interesting. Also my new teaching position introduced me to new people and places who have enriched my life. 

Before embarking on teaching again, I looked at many types of jobs. First I took a naturalist job at a local garden. That was terrific. Next I took the job I have now as a tutor in a public school system for students who cannot attend school for a number of reasons. I love that job as I'm able to help students learn in a wonderful setting. And now, I may sign on to another position which will find me engaging students in a hands-on summer math program. I love teaching math and I love working with students so it should be another win-win teaching endeavor. 

Rather than volunteering, I like the structure and commitment entailed in a paid position. While my salary isn't great, the money is a nice addition which allows me to support a few causes and do a few things I wouldn't ordinarily be able to afford. 

Now that I'm teaching again, I'm revisiting some of the work I did as an educator for 34 years. Most of the work I did is outlined in this blog, so I've decided to reignite the blog and will add new posts from time to time. It's nice to be teaching again. Onward.