Where is the Substitute Teacher and the Overhead Projector? Back to School 2014

 

Backpacks, pencils, and paper: Oh My! After 23 years of teaching, the start of Fall is always filled with the anticipation for a brand new school year. It seems that I have spent the greater part of my life either in a classroom as a student from grades PreK-12, then undergrad for four years, Master’s for 2-3 years depending on who’s counting, and finally doctoral studies for almost 4 years. That’s not the end of it; however, because in between all of the latter years, I was always teaching and STILL in a classroom.

 Schoolyards and college campuses have been the constant theme in my life.  Even on days that I did not have class or was off work, I found myself volunteering in one or both of my children’s schools all throughout their years. If I had to add up the number of minutes that I have spent at a school, college, or university, I have no doubt that it would be greater than the time I have spent anywhere else. School has been my life!

As I reflect back on the many years that I have spent in education, so much of when I began has changed over the years.  Most have been gradual changes, but others have been sudden and shocking. For example, who would have thought a day would come when there was NO pencil sharpener in a classroom? Yes, that’s right. Many of the classrooms today don’t have the little metal thing on the wall that everyone wanted to walk to in the middle of class just so we could say “hi” to friend across the room, show off a new outfit, or just get up for the fun of it to make class go by just a little faster.

Books? What books?  When I attended school, everyone had a set of books. That meant we had a books for math, reading, Language Arts, science, social studies, and even a SPELLING BOOK. Now, each student is lucky to have a workbook…that’s if the budget allows.  Several schools are now buying book sets for the class in which teachers allow students to “use “ the book in class and “check it out” {maybe} for homework…that is if there are enough in the set.  Thank God for e-books, right?  I am sure my late Grandmother would really get a laugh off of that one… an e-book. 

Everything is moving towards electronic and technical or “smart” as we like to call it. Smart boards and smart classrooms replace the whiteboards and chalkboards of the past.  I distinctly remember student teaching on a chalkboard. When I was hired the next year by my first school, I was highly impressed that this school used whiteboards with markers instead of “outdated” chalkboards.  That was progress to me.  So to see whiteboards move over to Smartboards has been a career shock and wake up to me that I have been in this education game for a long time.

Who remembers being excited to see a student ROLL in the television on a cart? Or maybe your instruction for the day was done on an overhead projector?  What about the map that pulled down from the wall?  Yes, sad to say that these too are on their way out the door. Who needs a television when you can project the movie from YouTube or Netflix from the smart work station onto the screen? Who needs a map that stays the same when you can download virtual maps that show from satellite the exact place and address you are teaching in real or asynchronous time?  Who  needs an overhead projector and those messy  pens that you spend wiping with wet paper towels when a smartboard lights up, beeps, chirps, sings, and dances…well it doesn’t do all that, but I am sure one is being made right now that does.

So as this new school year started, I had to think about all of the” then’s and now’s” over the course of my career.  The one thing that I have found that does not change much is that students adapt to whatever change happens in and out of the classroom.  Students still are excited on the first day of school.  It’s a new year….  Students love to see that it is “Movie Day”….And finally all students still get excited when they see a substitute teacher when the real teacher is absent. Now that will probably never change.

Have a Happy School Year!