Live, Love, LEARN...

You hear nowadays about how our students are behind other countries in math, science and technology education.  The government talks about how we need to come up with ways to help our students excel in these subjects, and then they put mandates on the states and threaten withholding federal money if our schools don’t meet certain standards of achievement and yearly annual progress.  How are we, as teachers, parents and community members supposed to promote learning among our children and, at the same time, help them to succeed in school and, ultimately, in life?  We need to excite our children about learning through real-life examples, not the standardized testing that has been utilized in the past decade.  

As a STEM teacher, I see my job as one of exciting my students in science, math, technology or engineering.  I have been lucky the past two years to have been able to attend two programs designed for STEM teachers.  Last summer, I attended the Honeywell Educators @ Space Academy program.  For one week, I got to run through exciting lessons on math, space science and engineering.  I got to be the pilot on a Space Shuttle simulation and go through some astronaut training.  I spent a week with another 100+ STEM teachers who, like me, had the time of their lives.  When the week was over, we all went back to our schools thinking about how to excite our students using our week long experience.  Two of my team members even went back this June to the Advanced Camp (I was a little upset but was unable to apply - maybe next year!) and got to expand their experience as part of an elite group of teachers that Honeywell has chosen for their ability to excite students and promote STEM learning.  

This week, as I write this, I am at a workshop in Idaho Falls, ID, on Nuclear Energy and Nuclear Physics.  This workshop is covered by Idaho National Labs, which is affiliated with the US Department of Energy.  I get to learn about nuclear energy, risk assessment, and run through a bunch of labs on the atom (like M&M atoms) and radiation (I just learned that some ceramic plates are radioactive!).  I am with 41 other teachers from across the US and Canada, once again, teachers who care about their students and exciting them about the STEM subjects.  I feel awed and excited to be a part of each of these groups, and am thankful to both Honeywell and INL for sponsoring these programs.

As a teacher, I see value in these programs.  I can take the information and lessons I get in these programs and use them in my classroom.  This past year, I taught Space Science and Engineering as a result of my Space Academy experience.  I had students asking me if they could just take science all year and drop math and humanities.  I got to collaborate on some lessons with the math teacher and the humanities teachers to give the students a more comprehensive education, and I know they learned it.  As a result of their excitement, they went further than anyone ever expected they could go, especially with their learning difference and/or Asperger’s Syndrome.  I hope next year to be able to incorporate the nuclear energy into my teaching.  It is my job as a teacher to do this.  As a parent, I can also share my love for learning with my own kids and, even if they could not go with me to Alabama or Idaho, I can take them to local places and museums.  My daughter is itching to see the CT Science Center (as am I).  My whole family LOVES the Roger Williams Park Zoo (I also like the natural history museum in the park!).  I plan on going with my children to these places, but also talking with them about nature and everything around them.  It is my job as a parent to promote a love of learning in their lives.  That way, when we are done borrowing the world from them, they can learn how to treat it in trust for their children.