“I Touch the Future. I Teach.”

Recently, I had the opportunity to speak with students at the University of Hawai`i. I started off with this quote by Christa McAuliffe: "I touch the future. I teach." These words have been my "why?' the reason I stayed in education for 45 years - to positively impact my students for their futures. None of the university students knew who Christa was so I shared that she was selected from over 11,000 applicants from around our nation to be the first "Teacher in Space" back in 1985. All of us who were teachers at that time were excited that one of our own would be on the Challenger space shuttle, sharing lessons from space. But 1 minute 13 seconds after blastoff, the Challenger exploded. Christa and the rest of the crew did not survive, but her words live on and are just as meaningful today as they were when she spoke them nearly 40 years ago. 

These students are taking a College of Education course, but they are unsure about whether they want to  teach. They had read my book, Leading with Aloha: From the Pineapple Fields to the Principal’s Office, and Professor Scott Robinson asked them to write questions they had for me on a Jamboard..

I was pleased to see two questions about teaching. How can future teachers become better prepared? and What advice would you give someone who is going into teaching with little experience leading an elementary classroom? In our conversation with students in the class, it was evident that they were considering going into teaching, but they also had other interests. Could I convince them to give teaching a try? 

I shared this Instagram post from a former Teach for America teacher at our school. (Read the blog here.) Unlike many other TFA teachers, Kat stayed for five years, and in that time, we learned as much from her as she learned from us. She moved on and as she shares, her teaching experience was invaluable in preparing her for her new career as an entrepreneur and business owner. 

There are many Kat's out there who started teaching and then pivoted to other careers. Recently, our College of Education Alumni Association honored Glenn Furuya as our 2024 Distinguished Alumnus. Glenn received his BEd and MEd from the University of Hawai`i and taught special education in Hilo. While teaching, he discovered a passion for developing leaders which led to the founding of Leadership Works. In that role, Glenn has impacted thousands of people, not just in Hawai`i, but in other countries as well. And he, like Kat and so many others, started as a teacher. 

I told these University of Hawai`i students that they would grow and gain invaluable skills if they chose to spend a few years teaching. In today's world, there are so many options for them, but teaching for a few years could give them the confidence and the leadership skills to venture into another professional opportunity if they choose to do so. 

I believe very strongly in developing teachers to be the best they can be for their students. We want teachers to be creative, to use their own strengths and interests to engage their students, to try new ideas in their classrooms, and to work together as a team to learn with and from each other. I believe that students should be active learners, to discover their strengths and their interests, to learn and to work with others as part of a team, and to create their own learning opportunities with guidance from a caring adult. 

Recently, the Hawai`i Department of Education shared this article about two of their youngest-ever teachers. I was excited when I read it because last year, Skye was one of the student teachers I supervised at the University of Hawai`i West O`ahu. (I had no idea back then that she was only 19 years old.) When I texted Skye after reading the article, she shared that it's been challenging but that it's a learning process and she loves her students. And I’m sure her students love her, too.

We need our young people to become teachers. Too often, we discourage them by telling them all the negatives - not enough pay, disengaged students, difficult parents, etc. - but there are so many positives, too many to share. These young people can be the best role models and coaches for our students; let's support and encourage them. Don't our kids deserve that? 

And if you or your child is considering going into teaching, remember Christa McAuliffe's words: I touch the future. I teach.

 

The World Was Passing Me By . . .

 . . . and I was okay with that. But I realize that I was missing out. 

July makes six years since I retired. I am still involved in education issues and will continue to do so. But I realized that I don't have to "keep up" with the new technologies like I tried to do when I was a principal. 

When Chat GPT came out, I was intrigued. There was chatter on social media, I read blogs and articles about it, and I heard from others that it could make work for teachers easier. Given guidance, ChatGTP could write lesson plans, emails, letters of recommendations, and so much more. It seemed that the possibilities were endless.

I also read comments from teachers who said that Chat GPT was banned  in their class or their school. "We don't want students cheating," was the common theme. And yet,  I thought, we have always had some form of "cheating." What about Cliff's Notes? Was that cheating? What about kids Googling to get answers to questions? Can we ban students from using the Internet to get answers to questions?

I know that AI and ChatGPT weren’t going away in education. But I wasn’t sure how to use it as a retiree. So I didn’t.

Recently, my husband and I were the opening speakers at the first National Kidney Foundation of Hawai`i summit. We shared our personal story about our son Jarand. This was my first experience listening to speakers and panelists discussing medical issues, and while much of the information was over my head, I realized that the medical field is no different from the educational system I was a part of for so many years. One of the panelists shared this challenge that they needed to work together on these health issues that impact our communities,  and then he added, “And AI is here to stay.” 

AI is here to stay. It got me thinking. Alexa is an AI tool, and we’ve grown to rely on her to let us know what the weather will be like the next day and whether we’ll be able to golf or not. If we have a question, we ask Alexa. We get our answer quicker than if we Googled it. She can tell jokes, play our favorite music, tell us when an Amazon package will arrive, and do a myriad of other tasks that we haven’t even explored yet. 

So this morning, I was determined to learn more about ChatGPT’s capabilities. I typed this question on the free website: How could a principal use ChatGPT?  In a few seconds, I got an answer: A principal could use ChatGPT for various tasks such as drafting announcements, creating educational materials, generating ideas for school events or initiatives, providing personalized feedback to students or staff, and even offering virtual tutoring or homework help. 

That was quick! I asked a follow-up: Show me examples of how ChatGPT can help me to generate ideas for a school event to showcase student use AI. (Note that I accidentally eliminated the word “of” between use and AI.) Here’s the response: Certainly! Here are a few ideas for school events to showcase students’ use of AI, and they shared 7 ideas ranging from a showcase to an art showcase to AI in sports. I continued to ask follow-up questions about helping teachers and other principals learn more about AI, and the answers came almost instantaneously with a variety of ideas. The whole process took less than 5 minutes; I was impressed! I was also hooked.

I started asking all kinds of questions just to see what kinds of responses I could get. The responses were so much faster than I get when I Google those kinds of questions. And with Google, I had to search  to see which ones were relevant. 

That got me thinking about the role of ChatGPT or AI in education. We want students to be complex thinkers, not just regurgitators of information. That means that teachers need to ask higher level thinking questions or do projects where students apply what they know to address current issues. I asked ChatGPT  questions about cheating, and here are the responses:

AI is here to stay so as educators, we need to figure out the best way to engage our students so they can use tools like ChatGPT to enhance their learning in order to complete their assignments. And as teachers, we can use these kinds of AI tools to help students engage more deeply with their assignments.