Today, I attended a conference for being an effective facilitator for our District Leadership Team (DLT). The focus was on the creating and maintaining the three structures of a district; the DLT, building leadership teams, and teacher based teams. At the conference I ran into my former principal and he offered a way to truly get people riled up. He said to go into the DLT meeting and ask the members if all students can learn. Undoubtedly they will say yes. After they say yes tell them they are all wrong. It isn't that all students can learn, but instead all student learn.
He was right. All students learn. The bigger and more important question is what do we teach them? When do we teach it? Students will learn that you do not care about them, or that you feel sorry for them because they are poor, or that they will never be successful because of their zip code.
When you are with your students or your children, think about what you are teaching them at that particular moment. Are you teaching them something you want them to learn?
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Friday, March 5, 2010
March = Mid Season Blues!
Our students, much like those you work with, are preparing for their state graduation test. The tension is building with each day. The teachers are cramming material into each lesson and the students are sponges absorbing as much educational "water" as they can.
Is this where we are as educators? Cramming as much in as possible in the short amount of time we have until T-day--test day. I miss the science classes that have experiments, labs, and dissected worms. The science class that I see has packets of endless pages and word banks of 50+ words. Where did we go wrong?
The inquiry in education has been set aside for the comprehension of vocabulary. How boring! The challenge of the educational leader is this: How can I move the school statistically, as reported in state grade cards for schools AND have classes that stress inquiry, synthesis, and other elements of higher order thinking? Who will be the first to move the class away from the memorization of test questions that may be asked on the annual assessment, and move into the realm of deep and developed thinking? Our country has decided to assess each school by assessing each child, and has done it as cheap as possible. This builds our production of mediocre learners with limited thinking skills. Can we afford to wait for the country and the states to change their testing? I think not. Go out and make a difference today. Don't wait. Challenge the trend of memorization of vocab. and develop the thinking of our teenagers.
-Aric Thomas, Assistant Principal
Is this where we are as educators? Cramming as much in as possible in the short amount of time we have until T-day--test day. I miss the science classes that have experiments, labs, and dissected worms. The science class that I see has packets of endless pages and word banks of 50+ words. Where did we go wrong?
The inquiry in education has been set aside for the comprehension of vocabulary. How boring! The challenge of the educational leader is this: How can I move the school statistically, as reported in state grade cards for schools AND have classes that stress inquiry, synthesis, and other elements of higher order thinking? Who will be the first to move the class away from the memorization of test questions that may be asked on the annual assessment, and move into the realm of deep and developed thinking? Our country has decided to assess each school by assessing each child, and has done it as cheap as possible. This builds our production of mediocre learners with limited thinking skills. Can we afford to wait for the country and the states to change their testing? I think not. Go out and make a difference today. Don't wait. Challenge the trend of memorization of vocab. and develop the thinking of our teenagers.
-Aric Thomas, Assistant Principal
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