What Do Teachers Do?

While I do not like the reason that we had to meet yesterday to discuss the low performing school status that is upon us, I did like many of the discussions and thoughtfulness that came as a result. Many of you have become quite adept at evaluation policy and understanding legislation concerning schools. I am proud that you understand what our school does for students and that many of you were more angry at the situation than worried or upset for yourselves. To be fair, it would be easy for you to simply not care. You could decide to wash your hands of the problem and switch schools or professions and walk away from the issue. But that's not what teachers do. Teachers fight the "I don't care" attitude. While that attitude is the bane of our existence, and is probably the #1 thing teachers complain about, it is 100% the reason that you are here.

Much like principals do not have an endless line of "blue data" teachers waiting at their door, no classroom consists of students that all walk in eager to learn and work each and every day. The human element within us all requires leadership, motivation and a personal connection to sustain or even begin hard work. That is where you come in. Any student in the digital age with enough personal drive and ambition can certainly learn anything that they want to know. Google and the Internet put knowledge at everyone's fingertips. So if all of the knowledge is already out there, why do we need people and places to give us knowledge? The truth is that we don't. What we need now and have needed always are people and places that inspire knowledge to want to be learned. And while your position calls you 'teachers' perhaps a more appropriate title would be 'hope dealers,' 'imagination builders' or simply 'inspirers.'

Any teacher that has been around long enough to have a student return to visit them is already aware of this. Students do not remember that fantastic lesson that you wrote on the Second National Bank or the cute rhyme you created to get them to learn the quadratic formula. They remember how you inspired them and challenged them to think. Teachers that grow students are the ones that battle apathy as it walks through the door and make students care. You turn on mental lightbulbs despite a student's best effort to cut the cord. Making a student care at any ability level will always be the deciding factor in establishing student growth on any subject. Despite any label placed upon us, know that you did your part in that arena. Keep growing and inspiring students to care and together we will take care of the rest.



I was reminded last night of this video, and while it was written from a student perspective in regards to frustration with standardized testing (likely a sentiment many of our students feel) I believe that it rings true for us as well.

Making Moves

Over the Thanksgiving break my family and I took the plunge and moved to Greene County. We have been wanting to move here for several months and the right opportunity presented itself so we went for it. (My house in Farmville still has not sold, so if you know anyone looking to buy I'd love you to tell them!) Growing up, my family moved about every four years and I grew to detest moving. It's not the heavy lifting I hate, but the process. Moving forces you to go through all of your old things and evaluate what you need to keep and what you should part with. It's time consuming and sometimes difficult to part with things that you know you have not seen or touched in years. Inevitably, you will end up in an argument with your spouse over an item or where something will or will not go in the new house.  While I hate the process, I have to admit that I am happy with the result. We love our new home and we are much better off having evaluated what we needed to keep and what we did not need. The process was messy but the end product was worth it.

The process did get me thinking about teaching. Teachers are notorious pack rats. We horde things that we think we will use later and things tend to sit around. Maybe a good clean out is good from time to time for us as well. But I'm not just talking about the physical things like old activities and lesson plan notebooks. What old practices do you still have that maybe need to be let go as well? Are there areas where you could clean out and move up?

I attended our District Literacy Framework Team meeting yesterday and we examined some common practices that we saw across all grade levels in our district. While most of the teaching practices had some very good things to offer, I also saw some things that commonly looked like teacher-centered instruction. The teacher was doing all the talking, and student engagement was low. These are old things that hang around in our practice. They are easy practices to keep, but we really know deep down that we should probably throw them out. Take some time to consider what you may be keeping in your practice that could use a good cleaning. Consider making a move up!