Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Today is the First Day...

Yesterday I held a department meeting excited to introduce the latest tool I have come upon, “Success at the Core”. This is a great website that offers video footage of Professional Learning Communities in action. Absolutely fabulous! You get the opportunity to witness research-based methods and best practices right in the classroom.

Since we are in the process of creating common assessments in the Math and Science Department I decided to work through the Common Assessment Module with the department. So I start the discussion, explain the excitement behind “Success at the Core”, roll the video…and dialogue, right?

I see blank faces just looking at me as if to suggest, “What’s next!” I ask, “Does anyone wish to make any comments about a strategy seen in the video that we might be able to implement or utilize?” A comment here and a comment there and more silence than anything else. I rephrase my questioning and get a few more responses here and there, then realize it’s time to dismiss and regroup. Then that glimmer of hope shines through! A new teacher thinking she hasn’t been at this teaching thing long enough to “verbalize” her thoughts, gives me three written pages of comments and suggestions from the video.

My immediate thought, “Still have to work on the department culture, she was afraid to speak out.” My immediate action, I grabbed a few teachers to ask, why the silence? The responses, “We get it but we are spent”, “Paperwork, documentation, it’s taking its toll on us”, “With all the external forces looking down on us the joy of teaching is now stress, it’s not you.", "Christie’s disdain of the education system, State agencies on our backs, budget cuts on all levels, district wants and wishes…stress!” I feel as if I just ran up against the “Buffer” in full effect (read Results Now by Michael Schmoker)!

Yes! Today is the first day in my nine years of being an educator that I felt I am working at a job and not working at my passion. I still believe collaboration and quality teaching makes the difference. I still support and believe in PLCs; just got hit with a reality check that change takes time... How much time?!