Teacher
Councils: Tools for Change
“In order for
policies to actually affect classroom practice, you need teachers to develop
strategies, try out resources, collaborate, and share their successes. This was
done and led by teachers. That’s why the councils were so powerful.”
Summer Camp for Teachers: Alternative Staff
Development
"Instead, the Institute is led by Portland teachers,
with the goal of developing a collaborative, ongoing staff development process
that relies on local teacher-experts to lead future workshops and in-service.
Too often, teachers are subjected to staff development that involves outside
experts lecturing…" (Christensen and Karp pg297)
Race, Testing, and the Miner’s Canary
“Unfortunately, our society takes the view that we don’t
need to worry about the losers; we just feel sorry for them. We pathologize the
canary, as if the canary’s distress is caused by the canary.” (Christensen and Karp pg225)
These three quotes really jumped out at me because of my
position at a PLC (Professional Learning Community). Our collaborative teams of
teachers meet weekly to talk about new resources, develop strategies, and share
our successes and our not-so-successful attempts. Our staff also welcomes
‘expert’ teachers to give PD on topics they are highly trained in. Another
thing we do, is we analyze data. By doing so, we can see what areas a student
or group of students may struggle in. Also, in doing this we know if a teacher
teaches a certain topic in a way that reaches more students. If that is the
case, that teacher is given time to go in and observe a lesson and then
collaborate on what they saw.
Mr Ivan Ellis
Cannock Chase Heritage Trail
I
love the mining example, growing up in a town where mining is/was a major part
of history and commerce. Oftentimes with all the talk about testing we forget
that society needs critical thinkers and questioners. With more and
more people getting their NEWS from posts of Facebook® and tweets on Twitter®
we need to be sure we are educating people to think critically about
information (or “information”) they are presented with.
21st Century Learners-
I found an interesting video that I have posted on a prior blog post here: http://nellgardner.blogspot.ca/2013/12/what-60-schools-can-tell-us-about.html
Each week during my
collaborative team meeting, we fill out a Google(R) form stating our goals and
achievements for the meeting. One of the requirements is to share a lesson you
used the past week incorporates 21st century learning. This gives us time to see what other teachers in our content area are doing to meet this need. We share ideas, websites, and resources and often, all together, come up with an amazing lesson to meet the Essential Learning Outcome.
As a person who spent over 10 years training as an Educator, I have complex feelings about Teach for America. The rate of persons who enter the field and leave are:
- By their fifth year, 14.8% continue to teach in the same low-income schools to which they were originally assigned.
- More than half (56.4%) leave their initial placements in low-income schools after two years.
Is the best way to reach our high-poverty schools with persons from elite universities? In my experience, the person who is a life-long learner becomes the better teacher. The person who in constantly evaluating themselves and their practices. The person who attempts new and innovative ideas, assesses the data and then decides if the lesson was successful or not.
The fundamentals of poverty are profound. We can't 'fix' our schools until we have propped up all the other social forms of support. Healthcare is a major issue in education reform. Our students need access to healthcare, family services and support and only then will they be more likely to have success in school.
References:
Christensen, Linda, and Stan Karp. ReThinking Our Classrooms. Milwaukee: Rethinking Schools, 2003. Print.
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