Refuel our Teachers & Leaders by Celebrating & Empowering Creativity

This weekend I read an article that is making its way around social media written by a Maryland teacher expressing several areas of frustration.  It breaks my heart to hear of an educator willing to step away from what I would argue is the best possible profession available to college graduates. She cited concerns about traditional grading, lack of control over curriculum, and uninspiring professional development.  We, as teacher leaders and administrators, need to actively work collectively to showcase all of the places where education is in fact working and support our colleagues in shifting mindsets and practices so that the voices we hear in the media begin to be celebratory once again.  Our children deserve this from us.

Inspirational Lesson Planning

A Maryland district recently made the news due to concerns regarding county-developed lesson plans being given to teachers with two weeks lead time prior to implementation.  We all understand how challenging it can be to shift to a totally new curriculum and the immense task that our teachers and leaders are undertaking, however, the optimist will realize what a tremendous opportunity has been laid before us.  As you walk through our schools one will see evidence of scrolling in our hallways, classrooms, and professional development areas. Rather than handing our teachers a scripted lesson plan and syllabus, collaboration, innovation, deep understanding of standards, and interdisciplinary connections are being nurtured in an effort to make learning come alive for students.    It will take us time to refine our process of planning integrated units of study and we know that we will see these continue to morph and grow over time. We aren’t going to be perfect on the first go around but the process is building teacher capacity.  It is making us all better educators.

This philosophy of lesson planning is what helps our teachers to truly understand what they are teaching, why, and how to connect learning across content areas.  It is what allows our teachers to be creative and innovative, a huge part of why they went into teaching in the first place. Our teachers need to be allowed to have the freedom to think outside of the box.  What I have seen our students accomplishing this year has been nothing short of amazing. Not only are they learning how to read, write, and problem solve, but they are tackling big ideas and trying to change the world. They are transferring learning and applying it in real world situations. While top-down curriculum writing may make it easier to manage, bottom-up curriculum writing is what inspires.

Learning and Growing Together

As teachers and administrators scroll and create rich interdisciplinary unit plans, each is creating from the ground up in their individual buildings and teams. Our next challenge is to find ways to learn and grow with and from one another. At our school we have just begun to start publishing our units of study on iTunesU.  Imagine the bank of resources that would be at one’s fingertips if every teacher implementing the Common Core across our country put forth their lessons in a place where they were naturally vetted and where a teacher/team could pull the best of the best resources and personalize them for their students.  Our standards are now “common” across most of our country. Let’s start sharing the tools and resources that we are using to help our students achieve these standards.   

Schools generally continue to deliver professional development opportunities in isolation of one another.  We need to share, talk, and learn from one another.  Nothing is more frustrating to an educator than wasted time.  We need to embrace the collective power we have at our fingertips and begin to use our tools to grow together.  There is no place for a 45-minute nuts and bolts faculty meeting in 2014. Gamify your PD, flip your PD, use Appy Hours, provide choice in format, topic, and time….we expect personalized learning for our students. We need to expect it for our teachers.

Celebrate

Finally, it is time to start celebrating!  Our leaders, teachers, students, parents, and communities are working so tremendously hard.  We need to saturate social media with all of the greatness that is happening in our school communities.  We need to champion hard work, success stories, and inspire our school communities.