Big Head or Pirate

Very often I tell my students stories that aren’t always entirely true.  One of my favorites is the one about my wives.  You see, my first wife was a pirate.  She died 21 years ago in a bungee jumping accident.  That’s right, my first wife was a bungee jumping pirate! I tell my students.   My second marriage was a total disaster.  She had a tiny head and criticized me about everything I did.  Nothing was ever good enough for her.  I should have never gotten into that marriage so quickly but I was on the rebound from the death of the pirate. Small Head’s name was Snydley.  My final and current wife use to work at hickory farms.  She was the lead cheese cutter there when we met.  She has an abnormally large, but beautiful head…and only one eyebrow.  I am attracted to large headed one eye browed women…and a mullet, curly on the top, straight on the sides…with a little bit of acne.  She is extraordinarily humble and always open to new ideas.  She was one of the subjects in the Habit of Mind study done on highly successful people by Dr. Arthur Costa.  She is the kindest woman I have ever met…the antithesis of Snydley, my second tiny headed with a string bean body wife.

That is a rough synopsis of the stories I tell my students about my wives.  At the end of each year, I ask my students to describe which of my three wives is their favorite.  A very insightful student I have wrote the following in his response to the question.

I like Big Head because to me she almost represents the changes that you have made. I’m not sure if it was intentional or not, but your wives almost seem like an allegory to the evolution of you as a person. At first you were reckless and perhaps less thoughtful(pirate wife), but then you evolved to someone who is too critical of themselves(small head), and then finally you became Big Head, the person of today who is a practitioner of thinking and living in the moment. Big head is my favorite because she is thoughtful, humble, and embraces change, just like you.

My student, Ashlen, is way too kind.  I guess he learned about allegory somehow, and as important or even more importantly, so did I.

Blogging from my iPad

This is my first post from my iPad. I wrote this post as a guest blogger on my friend, Gerald Aungst’s blog quisitivity. I titled it “I Don’t Know”.

My name is Jeff Agamenoni and I have been teaching for 17 years in a variety of positions, mostly middle school, in Great Falls, Montana.  I am only in my second year as a gifted and talented specialist and I learned a ton in my first year.  I hope to continue learning about how to be more effective with my students as I move into my second year.

When Gerald asked me to guest blog, he posed the question, “How are we going to meet the needs of the gifted population as we continue moving into the twenty-first century?”  My initial response was that we need to be changing the way we deliver instruction for all kids in much the same way.  I told this to Gerald and he said I needed to think it through more thoroughly.  So I did, and the truth of the matter is, I really DON’T KNOW.  There are a couple of things, however that I am fairly certain of.

I believe the answer lies somewhere within the concept of Connectivism.  New technology, to me, is not about the machines, the applications, or the search engines; but about its ability to connect us to others.  Most experts I have read, talk about the importance of grouping gifted students as a means of providing them with increased learning opportunities.  They also talk about connecting gifted students to experts in their fields of interest.  Not only do current technologies increase our capacity to connect gifted students to one another, but they increase our capacity to connect our students to other great teachers and experts in a variety of fields.  I believe I have begun doing this on a small scale and I believe my job is to continue to try and increase the scale at which I connect my students with each other, to other great teachers, and to experts in a variety of occupational fields.

The second thing I began thinking about last night is sometimes it seems in education we focus more on what we need to be doing differently instead of what we are doing right.  I believe most teachers really want to do what is right for kids, but every year, no matter what happened in the previous year, it seems it has never been enough for some people, usually people who haven’t been in the classroom since last century.  So teachers who are reading this, you did a great job last year and keep up the good work.  I am certain that in some way, you touched a kid’s life.

Finally, I love connectivism and having a PLN.  I connect to my PLN in a variety of places including twitter, blogs I read, and second life, among others.  I believe that without it (my PLN), I would be lost and extremely unsure of how to approach issues like the one that Gerald asked me to guest blog about.  I think it is important to continue looking at and discussing how we can improve the way we deliver instruction to our students.  Having a strong PLN and a willingness to be a little reflective gives us the ability to accomplish that very important goal.