Much of this week has been spent in conversation with teachers and administrators who are beginning to unpack the Common Core Learning Standards and determine entry points into meaningful work with them. For this reason, I was happy to find this invitation in my inbox today. Interested in receiving the newsletters in the mini-series described below? You can sign up here. Conversations about the Common Core will begin unfolding on the Learner Centered Initiatives Ltd.…
Listen. It’s not just about the kids. We don’t get to choose the teachers we work with either. We don’t get to pick the ones who meet our ideal. We are called to serve the educators who walk through our door each day, so they may serve their students well. Want to help them? Watch them. Listen to them. Think about them. Create for them. Let them create for you and for others. We need…
It’s been interesting, what I’ve learned about the schools and the kids and the teachers that I’ve worked with since I’ve made walk-throughs a fundamental part of planning professional learning experiences and assessing the impact that the work might be having. Might is an important word. I began asking to walk through buildings and visit classrooms prior to beginning staff development a couple of years ago, when I realized that I needed more information before…
One of my friends retired recently, and while we were out celebrating her new future, she got to thinking about the number of kids she taught during her thirty year career. Her estimated total hovered somewhere around 3500, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she still remembered every student’s name, where they went on to work or learn or play later in life, and what their favorite books were. She was this kind of teacher,…
A few weeks ago, I was invited to share the progress of a curriculum design and mapping initiative I am facilitating in a local district with the members of the Western New York Middle School Principals’ group at their monthly luncheon. As I began planning for this conversation, I was tempted to focus on the driving forces behind this work, the processes that we’re using, and the core map that we’ve recently drafted. This isn’t…
One of the greater challenges that people in positions like mine often face is creating alignment between what learners, administrators, and teachers need in order to be successful. Sometimes, people have different perspectives about what is truly needed. They may not share a common view of what success will ultimately mean or what it is supposed to look like. They have different thoughts about how it will be achieved, how quickly, and to what degree.…
WNYLIT is a forum for local literacy coaches and leaders held four times a year at the Carrier Center in Angola. Eager to meet and learn from those who share my passion and interest in literacy and instructional coaching, I began facilitating these sessions last year at no cost. Despite the beating our districts sustained budget-wise, we’ve managed to keep moving forward as a group and even grow our membership a bit. I’m looking forward…
I’ve been coaching in several districts over the last two weeks, beginning conversations with teachers who are thinking deeply about what student-centered learning communities are and what they can do at the start of the school year to begin establishing them. We’re realizing that transformation can begin to happen in simple ways. For instance, consider the different approaches taken by each of the teachers below. Which leverages the collective expertise of the group and enables…
The Beginning of a Writing Process, WNY Young Writers’ Studio 2010 It happens every year. “We’re only here because our moms made us come,” they told me. “We hate writing. Seriously.” Seriously? I wonder if most kids are given much of a chance to consider what writing really is anymore or why they would even want to do it outside of the classroom. And so I suggest that writing isn’t just about linear text. It…
I just finished the last of five very different but very meaningful “opening week” sessions inside of the schools that I work in long term. It’s inspiring to watch teachers begin the year by engaging in collaborative goal setting and planning for a year of individual or team-directed professional development, particularly when not so long ago, conversations like this seemed close to impossible. Everything from wonky scheduling to tight resources to lack of protocols to…