It's about the kids

Best piece of advice, so far: "Listen with the possibility you will be changed, and Speak, with the possibility you will be heard." If I ever get another tattoo, I believe it will say that.  3 days of orientation down.  Class begins Monday.  So I'm sure you're thinking, "nice, you have the weekend off and then can get to it."  HA!  Not exactly.... In the proverbial words of Martin Lawrence Circa Bad Boys 2, 2003, "Shit just got real".

So let's see, in a week (rather 3 days)  I have received a new computer that will be my bible (Chromebook), 2 new email accounts, one for AUSL and one for NLU, but, pay attention, the NLU one should be pushed to the AUSL one so I only have to check one email, however BOTH Should be on my phone in case one goes down. We check our My AUSL page daily, Google chats, groups in the Teaching Channel and oh yeah, that damn Facebook Page.  I am technologically overwhelmed but diving in!

So we are a google organization as I have recently learned.  I'm down with that.  I mean, 7 out of 8 top Ivy League schools are Google (apparently Dartmouth is the hold out) and 27 or some ridiculous number of the top 50 are as well.  CPS went Google last year so all in all, it's a good move for AUSL.

We had a tech session on our last day of orientation.  The woman who manages this section (called like a google superwoman or champion or something like that) is a riot.  Honestly, I feel relieved to have this time to fumble through new technology so when I get in front of the kids I can be an asset to the kids.  It's all about the kids, ALL THE TIME.

We got to meet and hear from the founder of AUSL, Michael Koldyke, I believe he also founded the Golden Apple.  He was truly inspiring.  Also, the cutest little old man, I wanted to put him in my pocket.
We also met Michael Whitmore, he runs the residency.  He talked about "Transformational Teaching" which is the name of the game when your kids in 9th grade read at a 4th grade level.  He also shared the following which I knew, but still SUPER disturbing to see again in print:

Nationally for every 100 9th graders

65 graduate High School

37 enter College

24 are still enrolled sophomore year

12 graduate with a degree in six years

12.

That's not okay.  

He also shared some AUSL statistics - for one elementary school, in 2005, they were at 26% for m/e ISAT.  AUSL came in 2006.  In 2012 they were at 82%.  There are multiple examples of this in the network of AUSL schools.  I'm in.  If I can even remotely contribute to increasing the number above I am in.  Give me the kool-aid.

Going back to it all being about the kids, we had the pleasure of also meeting and listening to Dr. Donald Feinstein He's the Executive Director of AUSL.  He broke it down into 3 very simple facts.  How do you help kids... how do you become a  Transformational Teacher?  AIM high:

Attitude (attitude drives behavior)

Instructional Strategies 

Management (you cannot teach in Chaos)

So simple to understand, yet so few accomplish, or maybe they do not attempt to?

We went into sessions with the MRC's (mentor resident coaches)  They are people who have taught and now are teaching coaches.  We will all be paired up with one.   Extraordinary people.  I am excited to see who I get paired up with and what school I am working in. (August 19th I start in a school in addition to the full time graduate work)  They do active coaching while we are in the classroom with them, and when I say active, I mean ACTIVE.  Several ways they may do this- From the sidelines, meaning hold up a sign or slip you a note, even possibly from a blue tooth, Shoulder to Shoulder, meaning being up there with you in the lesson, Huddle, pull you off to the side, Interrupt, so just plain hollering out in the moment, or Pull the Plug, you know, take the boat back because you're sinking.  

Some of the sessions we had with the mentors were: 100% - how you must ALWAYS have 100% attention of your students to be an effective teacher.  (and how to do this!); Gregoric- we learned our "learning style" I am, no surprise, a hard Concrete Sequential, which pretty much means I need order and a process and have a low tolerance for stupidity; and then of course, the Danielson model aka "Teaching for Learning framework".  I am not going to lie, I LOVE Charlotte Danielson.  If you don't who she is, you should.  She is an internationally-recognized expert in the area of everything teaching and has advised State education departments, and National education Ministries and Department of Education.  More on her and the framework later!