I enjoyed this article for it's clear cut objectives. I also was thrilled to see that so much of what my school does is in good practice according to this article. I actually shared the article with my principal today and he agreed that our lessons need a better strategy in their delivery. I didnt have the nerve to ask him how he was planning on doing that!
I started teaching again, after an 11 year break, and found myself in an old school. Old in it's teaching style, it's curriculum, and it's management. I was a part of a gifted team that served 6 schools. We, as a team, were innovative and shared every week our curriculum ideas. Luckily, after two years of teaching and never being observed....our principal retired. In walked my savior. He moved all the teachers to new grades and began his schedule changes to accomodate 2-5 periods a week of common planning. He has weekly meetings with grade level teachers and is contantly present in the classrooms and hallways. We follow our curriculum guides to make sure we cover what is expected but we are given freedom to cover them how we see fit.
Our school has retired in the last 3 years seven teachers. We are now filled with vibrant, creative educators. But I feel this is where we are lacking. Our lessons are all over the place. I see that our lessons dont have a clear cut objective ( I started to revert back to my Madeline Hunter after this article). My principal said he felt we dont close our lessons well enough and I feel as though we need to incorporate time for children to work together.
The biggest down fall of my school is that we have all the components in place but we are at the point of staying quiet. My administration needs to work on it's role as leader. As Schmoker said "No one can lead effectively where constructive feedback is regarded as an invasion of privacy, an affront to professionalism". When we start giving feedback, accepting the feedback as a learning tool, I believe my school will become the best school in New Jersey.
3 comments:
Sounds like you are in an ideal place that just needs a few pointers here and there. Imagine schools with none of the above! I agree with Schmoker where he states that constructive criticism the key to a good school/leaders. How often are we given feedback and recommendations?
Perhaps instead ofg asking the administrator how HE is going to fix it, take the collaborativelead and ask how the building can band together to collaborative plan solutions.
It is amazing that one person can have such a profound influence on the climate and success of your school. I would guess that the next task for this new principal would be to collaborate with all teachers to more clearly define your goals for students. It sounds like there are great human resources in your building, perhaps you should take the first step through the buffer and encourage teachers in your common planning meetings to create uniform objectives.
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