There's An App for That

By Guest Writer Mindy Thierolf

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Recently I was watching one of those early morning news programs, and they were interviewing a man that was giving a list of the five best technological things that could come along in the very near future.  One of those five was an app for teachers to be able to find the placement (academically) of a student at the beginning of the year without having to spend an entire semester “getting to know them.”  It would discover, for instance, if a student was dyslexic or had some other form of learning disabilities.

The app concept was interesting, but I had to wonder to myself, how often do children slip though the cracks in those and other ways because we feel so overwhelmed with the lack of time that we have to ” get to know them?”   How often are we just too busy in our jobs because of the ever mounting expectations of paperwork that is continuously growing on the average teacher to see the needs of our students? What DO we miss because we don’t have time to “get to know them?”

Recently, on a year-end semester final, I ended the test with the question, “What did you enjoy or not enjoy about this classroom? What could I (if anything) do differently to help you learn better?”  I got many answers such as “I wouldn’t change a thing…everything is perfect,” but many said, “You took time for us…you helped me when I needed it.”  Very simple, yet impacting words, but basically what they were saying is that I took time for them.

So, while you’re waiting for that app to be developed to make teaching much easier, remember your best tool is time; time used wisely, time used efficiently, time prioritized, time taken to notice those who may be “slipping through the cracks”. Wouldn’t it be great to have an app to give us more time? We don’t, but we can take what time we do have and use it to the best of our ability.  Time…it’s always appreciated when we share it with others and no, there’s no app for that![/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]