Embracing and Sometimes Challenging Change
When I was a newbie teacher,
When I was a mid-career teacher,
As a "long-in-the-tooth" teacher,
I have tried to be "open-minded" to the
Many waves of change
Sweeping endlessly through our profession.
"There is no one way to teach everyone,"
I've assured myself as I've embraced
Whole Word, Experience-Based,Phonics,
Whole Language, Basal, Student Driven,
Teacher Directed, "Balanced" Literacy
among other approaches to reading.
I've used many an assessment:
Standardized, Normed, Formative, Summative,
Standardized, Normed, Formative, Summative,
Curriculum Based, Curriculum Driven, Turn-and-Talks,
Student Centered, Note-taking, Stop and Jots Exit-tickets
Running Records, Portfolio-Based,
among other approaches to assessment.
This year,
I'm trying to embrace
CBM-R and Aims-Web,
Even though I have concerns,
Approaching change with an open mind.
Looking beyond my comfort-zone,
Looking beyond student-centered
Running Records, Conference Notes
Then, my ol' mentor Peter Johnston writes this:
It pops up on Twitter,
I smile.
"Don't forget to look critically at all you do,"
I remind myself with a smile.
"Approach change with an Action-Research-Frame-of-Mind,"
I remind myself.
5 comments:
Yikes! What an extraordinary summary of educational jargon and the ever-changing best practice, summarized in a playful poem. To see all these tools/curricula/approaches in one place is really sobering. A lot of time is spent reinventing the wheel!
Wow, brilliant way to share your journey! Thanks for the inspiration!
This post is a reminder of my own past as an educator. We were recently reminded to look at our reading program with a critical eye - sometimes we become robot-like and forget that.
I have not had to do many of those kinds of testing because our school is independent one, and we are not required to administer the state tests, etc. However, we have moved through the years learning new kinds of individual evaluation, looking for the ways to move students into next steps. You make me admire those of you who have had so much to do and then been given mandates to change so often. Whew!
This is why teacher's are so stressed out - change after change after change. It's hard to remain positive and energetic, because one more change is just around the bend...always.
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