Results now

Setting: Faculty Meeting
Role: Principal

As your building principal, I want to welcome you back for the start of a new school year. With each new year, we can look to set new goals for ourselves and for our school. It is a time where both students and teachers can start fresh and look to make a difference. I have thought long and hard this summer about ways of improving our school. This cannot be done alone. I need you all, the teachers, the most important piece in this process to take ownership and try to embrace change. There are certain practices that have gone on in the past that quite frankly have not been effective from both an administrative and teacher standpoint. I am going to read you quotes that I believe have happened in this district and I am going to address the changes that should be made.

1. p.24 "...isolation marks the starkly different results achieved by different teachers. Without any point of comparison, the isolated teacher never has to confront the fact that (1) the teacher next door has three times as effective as I am, or (2) much of my teaching is inferior.

We need to share ideas as teachers to promote what we are doing in our classrooms rather than keeping our methodology private. We can help each other better than any workshop or outside source can in my opinion. Within each department, there needs to be harmony and collaboration rather than privacy and isolation. We can embrace feedback and constructive criticism which will in essence improve every department in our school.

2. p.24 "...isolation ensures that highly unprofessional practices are tolerated and thus proliferate in the name of...professionalism..." what works " morphs easily into what feels good, or keeps kids occupied or, "what I've always done and gotten good evaluations for."

This deals with both our teachers and supervisors. We need to supervise with a purpose and give the necessary feedback in order to improve our teacher's methods. If we as supervisors say nothing and keep teachers in isolation than we are doing a disservice to both the teacher, the student, and the school district. We are in the business of teaching students to think critically instead of trying to teach with the sole purpose of keeping them occupied.

3. p.24 "We have created a system in which generations of talented, hard-working teachers have engaged in inferior practices without receiving feedback that would alert them to this fact."

Once again it comes down to feedback and proper supervision. If I am a teacher that has been giving ditto sheets for my students to work on and stay occupied and have never been talked to about this during supervision, then the teacher is going to continue this ineffective classroom practice. We have isolated ourselves as both teachers and administrators for too long. We need to communicate and know what practices should and should not be used in our school district. There must be leadership and guidance for our teachers. Teachers need to embrace change and take ownership of the process. They should want to share, communicate, and be dynamic for their students.