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Paul Andersen talks about three ways to improve education and how it is reflected in what we are doing at Bozeman Public Schools.
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Transcript Provided by YouTube:
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hi my name is Paul Anderson and I’m a
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science teacher at Bozeman high school
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I’m the 2011 Montana Teacher of the Year
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and I’m one of four finalists for the
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2011 National Teacher of the Year today
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I’d like to talk to you about three ways
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that I think we can improve education
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and how that’s reflected in what we’re
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doing at Bozeman high school first of
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all I think we need to see make
00:25
connections within our community I think
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we secondly need to optimize the system
00:30
and learn from our failings and make the
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system better and finally we need to our
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we need to bring the appropriate level
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of rigor back to the classroom so the ce
00:40
o– r or core of what i want to talk
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about is how we make schools better and
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it’s important because we serve the
00:46
community and so we want to make our
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schools as efficient as we possibly can
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so first of all how do we make
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connections with the community well
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about a year and a half ago I started
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uploading science videos to YouTube and
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the number of views have grown in a
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typical day I might lecture for a few
01:01
hours at Bozeman high school but I might
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lecture for 500 or 600 hours on YouTube
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that gives me a huge amount of feedback
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from students around the world makes me
01:11
a better teacher and it makes the world
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a slightly better place we can also form
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connections just within our County
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so in Gallatin County our district is
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working with all the districts in the
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county on superintendents and school
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boards to make our systems more
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efficient to form those connections
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between schools and to see where we
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overlap and where we could make the
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system more efficient for example one
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Career Center could be used by all those
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schools we’re also making connections
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within the community so we’ve added a
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biomedical sciences class at Bozeman
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high and what it gives our students is
01:43
relevance they’re actually reading EKGs
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they’re doing high cholesterol tests
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they’re meeting with health
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professionals from the hospital and from
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the community and so they see not only
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the importance of what they’re learning
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that day that they can see a clear path
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to a future career and we’re even
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forming connections within our schools
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so Gallatin college program in Bozeman
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high school is sharing a welding
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facility and so the welding machines are
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used by students during the day those
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hi and they’re used by students in the
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gellan college program at night at those
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two things first of all it saves money
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by having one facility but secondly kids
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can see in a non-threatening way that
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they could be in a welding class this
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year they could be a welding up at
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Gallatin college program next year and
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then they could be a welder the year
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after that and so we’re giving them the
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importance of a career path but we did
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that by forming connections between
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different different schools okay
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secondly I think we need to optimize the
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system that we have today the
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fastest-growing tech company over the
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last five years has been Twitter and if
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you went to twitter.com just a few years
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ago you would normally be greeted by
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this picture of a huge whale floated up
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by tiny birds this is the dreaded fail
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whale and it meant that their servers
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were overloaded now Twitter didn’t see
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this as a problem they saw it as an
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opportunity and so there’s a saying
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going around Silicon Valley right now
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and it’s that not only should you fail
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you should embrace failure and you
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should fail as fast as you can to make
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your system efficient so how do we
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optimize schools well as I talk to
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people the one thing I hear over and
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over again is that you want to improve
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schools you have to improve the quality
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of teachers how do you do that well let
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me tell you about what worked in my own
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career about two years ago I helped form
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a group at the high school called the
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tech junkies it’s teachers
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administrators students community
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members and we meet every Wednesday
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during lunch to talk about technology
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and how we can use it to improve
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education this idea of self-reflection
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where I can talk about what I’m doing in
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my class here with other people and get
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feedback is incredibly important and
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making yourself a better teacher we’re
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also doing that at the elementary level
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so we’re using instructional coaches
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which are teachers helping teachers to
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become better at teaching in other words
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they’ll sit in on a class they’ll share
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resources with the teacher they’ll share
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research with the teacher but
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essentially they act as a sounding board
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and so you get that self reflection in
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our elementary teachers they can ask
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somebody questions in a non-threatening
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way and it makes them better I’ve never
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met a teacher that doesn’t want to be
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come better but we have to give them the
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time and the opportunity to do that and
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so we need to optimize the system and we
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do that by embracing things that we’re
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bad at and making them better finally I
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think we need to our bring the rigor
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back to the classroom this year I’ve
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been teaching a gifted and talented
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physical science class and it’s given me
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a new perspective on how far we can push
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kids
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I’ve got thirty talented students that I
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can push as hard as I want and we’re
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achieving amazing things last week I was
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teaching calculus to freshman and they
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really understood what a derivative was
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now I’m also a parent and you know this
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as you become a parent that everything
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becomes much more important when your
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own kids are involved and so this is a
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big deal to me I think each kid has to
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achieve and I think each kid has to be
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challenged but we shouldn’t just be
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challenging the kids at the upper end or
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at the lower end we should find the
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appropriate level of rigor throughout
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that whole group of students in our
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school and so how do we do that well the
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first thing you have to do is you have
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to figure out where they are and so
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we’re using testing throughout our
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district in social studies and math and
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science and reading to figure out where
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kids are not as a high stakes test to
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see how we’re doing as a school but to
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give that individual feedback to
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teachers so they can give the
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appropriate level of instruction and
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place appropriately all the kids in our
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school I believe that we need to set the
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bar high enough to figure out how high
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kids can actually climb but that bar is
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going to differ for each individual kid
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and each of their individual talents I
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think that we need to set up education
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so that we are challenging each of the
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students and we’re finding the kids
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where they are if we’re not willing to
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do that then we’re not willing to give
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them a quality education I’ve talked
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about a lot I’ve talked about how we
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make should make connections with our
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community and we should optimize the
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system by embracing failure and learning
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from it and finally that I think we
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should bring the appropriate level of
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rigor I would love to get feedback from
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you if you agree with this if you
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disagree or more importantly if you have
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other things that you’d like to talk
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about ways that you think we could
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improve education I’d love to get an
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email or get a comment
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thanks so much for watching
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This post was previously published on YouTube.
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Photo credit: Screenshot from video.