(Page 3) “Mastery involves strong initial teacher education and career-long staff development…There is a ceiling effect to how much we can learn if we keep it to ourselves.”
To me, so much of this article supported Airport’s mission in becoming a professional learning community. As educators, we’ve got to be able to admit that there’s always room for improvement, and we need to continue to learn new things (kudos to all of y’all for already doing so by taking this course!) and work together. Think about how much we’ve learned from each other in this class by having the opportunity to share our successes, concerns, and strategy spotlights. And how much have we accomplished by having time to work with our colleagues during delayed start? I don’t think there ever comes a point to where we don’t need to take another class because we already know it all. How would we feel if our physicians took this stance? Would we want to go to a doctor who was doing things the same way he did 15 or 20 years ago? What if he didn’t use any of the latest practices in his work? We would think such a doctor was outdated and couldn’t possibly serve us appropriately. When my husband and I were having all sorts of medical issues with Ava and she didn’t seem to follow the textbook on a diagnosis, I was thrilled when my pediatrician (who is absolutely wonderful) told me that he spoke with a few of his colleagues about her case to try to see if there was anything he was missing. By using that same method in education, we can become even better teachers and take our students to the next level.
13 comments:
I am in complete agreement with everything that you said, Diane, about the necessity of being a professional learning community and sharing with colleagues. I do believe that good teachers always work to learn to become better teachers and you cannot learn in a vacuum. Collaboration is key. That being said, this article was a very strange read for me. While I agree that moral purpose is generally a requisite for teaching, and that mastery is crucial, I’m not sure that this whole article is worth the time it took me to try to understand it! I kept trying to find some concrete suggestions for improvement, rather than lofty rhetoric, and I didn’t find much. One of the most telling sentences (at least in my mind) was “I do not have the space to elaborate – indeed many of the details have not been worked out.” Hello… If you don’t have the space to elaborate, don’t write the article! Write a book! And perhaps he did. And I realize that this article was taken from the journal of the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development and perhaps college professors don’t need as much detail as I do. And perhaps this was cutting-edge thinking fifteen years ago when it was written. All of the talk of restructuring (and I really do like the use of the term ‘reculturing’ in relation to ‘restructuring’) didn’t seem to give many specifics. Oops – this post sounds pretty negative. I’ll end on a more positive note – I do agree with the premise of this article.
February 25, 2008
“Why Teachers Must Become Change Agents”
Anna, I knew you and I got along for a reason. Amen! I struggled with this article, too. While I agree with the points made, I felt it took a lot of energy to get through it and to wrap my mind around everything. On the other hand, I will agree with what Diane wrote, too. The main points that stood out to me in this reading were the emphases on collaboration and continuous learning. I know that there’s no way I will ever know enough to stop learning. I feel like I have so far to go even now. How on Earth would I feel I’ve got everything I need? How would I expect my students to be good learners if they don’t continue to seek information? In the same way, I have to be an example for them. I thought it was interesting when the author pointed out that education programs emphasis collaboration till they’re blue in the face, but many of the professors never collaborate themselves. Another statement I highlighted is: “The professional teacher, to be effective, must become a career-long learner of more sophisticated pedagogies and technologies and be able to form and reform productive collaborations with colleagues, parents, community agencies, businesses, and others.” Diane, you’re right. We do a good job of this at Airport!
Ok, so first, let me just say how relieved I am that I was not the only person who struggled with this article. It didn't help that I read it during SSR and I have a student who often acts as though she feels it is her life's goal to be disruptive during that time! But after spending several days to read the article, I wasn't sure that anything stuck...
... until I was driving yesterday (of all things!) and the quote "everything a teacher needs to learn can be taught in one summer..." (or something very close. I don't have my paper with me) came to mind. I'm probably a bit odd in this, but I kind of agree with that statement. I went through 2 years at the University to be prepared to teach - and almost nothing prepared me for what I faced! So much of my training was focused on preparing lesson plans and theories about language learning, etc - little of which I consider on a consistent basis. So much more of my energy was spent on classroom management, dealing with teen angst, growing a thick skin, etc. Even if we had discussed THESE things in school, it would have had no relevence because I had no concept of what it would be like on the teaching end of this. It just seems to me that teaching is something that is best learned by doing. However, the catch is getting adequate support and training (or having the time for it), once you're on the job. That's one thing I really appreciated about the induction course that I took last year as a first year teacher. Things like learning disabilities and classroom management issues were discussed after I had had time to encounter them and was asking myself, "what do I do?"
Ruth Anne, I like the quote that you pointed out about how professors preach "Collaboration," but rarely consult each other. I remember wondering about that at USC.
And Diane, the quote concerning learning being capped if kept to oneself is very interesting. In my own experience, it has been when I've taught something or passed it on that I've truly learned something. And our own learning is meant to be an experiment.
Just some random thoughts. I'm sorry they're not very cohesive.
This article has addressed concerns and feelings I’ve been reflecting on for some time.
I have to continually remind myself why did I become a teacher and that answer has always been clear to me. I agree with the article that teaching is a moral profession and that we can make a difference in the lives of our students. This sense of pride that I have keeps me from feeling the burnout and disillusionment that can occur when facing the many challenges and difficulties of this profession. This article states and defines well that we have to have a natural alliance not only with just moral purpose but with the skills of change agentry. “Moral purpose keeps teachers close to the needs of children and youth; change agentry causes them to develop better strategies for accomplishing their moral goals.” So it’s vital that we continually seek professional development for constant improvement in our career.
This article points out dilemmas that we face, but it also implements solutions: 1. “To break the impasse, we need a new conception of teacher professionalism that integrates moral purpose and change agentry, one that works simultaneously on individual and institutional development. One cannot wait for the other.” 2. It breaks down and explains the 4 core capacities in building greater change; personal vision-building, inquiry, mastery, and collaboration.
This article fed us and gave us the meat to digest ways to make changes in the future of our educational system. I look forward to elaborating and discussing further with my colleagues about this article. GREAT ARTICLE!
I'm lovin' y'all's comments on this article...should make for great conversation this afternoon!
I must admit, I read through this article twice and then left & came back to it a third time. Definately not an easy read for me either. I do agree about the necessities or being a professional learning community and sharing. Learning and growing outside of the 8:15-3:25 classroom is part of what motivates me to try new things and be a better teacher during those hours. I also believe that in this profession, if you expect students to continue to learn, teachers must be the example in career long learning. I think Airport has a good community in which we feel comfortable sharing and growing in and out of the classroom.
It is so cool to read everyone's comments and hear what everyone else has to say about professional issues! Definitely one of the perks of working at Airport is having Diane facilitating this class.
Teachers being change agents or collaborating, I wouldn’t think this to be a new concept. Or a concept that would be ignored. In the automotive industry, technology changes every four to six months. I have to change with it. Since I am no longer in the industry, to do this I have to collaborate with industry people and maintain industry certification. Knowing that our basic job is to help these young people to become successful productive citizens we as, conveyers of knowledge, should make every effort to be sure we supply the tools that are needed. By exchanging ideas among ourselves we increase our own toolbox to share with them.
I found the article hard to read, especially the beginning. However I did agree with key images for teacher preparation. It is important for teachers to become effective at managing change. When you have teachers that can’t manage change or refused to manage change it can keep the school from improving, and it can hurt the quality of education that students receive. I think the biggest thing that teachers struggle with is the changes in technology.
Another part of the article that stood out to me was the twelve guidelines, especially guideline number nine (balance life and work). I had to learn how to do that this past year since I changed roles from a teacher to an administrator.
I agree with Ruth Anne that an important aspect of this article is the need for life-long learning, especially for teachers. If teachers are not willing to learn new things and change with the changing nature of education, then they essentially become hypocrites. What I mean by this is that teachers who expect students to learn and change but are unwilling to do so on their own are being hypocritical. I think it's a shame when teachers get stuck in a rut and refuse to keep up with the changes and new curriculum in education.
I also agree with Anna that "collaboration is the key" to becoming a more effective teacher. It is true, as Nicole points out, that teachers tend to focus on collaboration for students, but rarely for themselves. Teachers need to realize that sharing ideas and piggybacking off of colleagues is one of the best ways to expand curriculum and better educate our students. Teacher must be willing to accept change in order to keep up with the needs of our students.
If there was one thing that I learned during my graduate program, it was the best teachers continue to improve upon their knowledge. I really do not see how you can be a professional in this field and not continue to learn professionally. I really enjoy that I've entered into a profession where I can improve my intellectual knowledge in regards to teaching. It makes me feel like I've accomplished much more as an individual and professional.
As far as the actual article, and not its message, I did not like it. The author used terms in what seemed to be an effort to make her sound smart. The language of the article made it dry, dense, and boring.
If we stop learning, we stop growing as educators and how can we tell out students to expand their learning capacity if we do not? The article itself had some good points that in all purposes has been visited and revisited many times. We all know we need more professional development courses and we all know we need to collaborate more so that we can grow as a community of learners but it does boil down to one road block and that is time. I was really hoping within our own community of learners that we could use the Wednesday morning time to try and "collaborate" across diffrent disciplines but I guess that is just not going to happen. If we lived in a perfect world, we would even get paid over the summer to collaborate! ha ha.
I would never want to think that I have quit learning all there is to know about teaching. There are all kinds of new ideas ready to be tried in my classroom. I love new ideas. I love to be creative (even thought it does take a lot of time and energy to do new things).
I would be lost without collaborating with my colleagues. I love subject area meetings on Wednesdays. The other physical science teachers and I are really co-dependent on one another. We are always sharing ideas and strategies. We are a total support system for one another. We are the masters at collaborative planning.
I really love the sharing that we do in study group as well. We have all gained a lot of new strategies to add to our lessons. But we have also heard how to implement them. We have discussed what works and doesn't work. Anyone can buy a text with sample teaching strategies, but we all have discussed how to relate them to the differnet content areas and how they work and don't work with different students.
I love being part of a team, and I really think teaching is all about being a team player.
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