Growing as Professionals

I am very proud of my faculty and staff of A&M Consolidated Middle School because they have been embracing the challenge of growing as professionals issued just last Thursday.  The structure of our staff development has been designed to place the teachers in situations of stretch and vulnerability through conversations around  change.  We grow when we allow ourselves to become uncomfortable.
 
Today we scheduled our teachers professional learning around sessions of choice centered around best practices in teaching.  All of the sessions were geared toward engagement of students, experiential learning, cultural relevant teaching, and creativity.  I lead the sessions over creativity in schools and used Sir Ken Robinson’s “Do Schools Kill Creativity?” TED talk.  Although this talk is now 10 years old there were many of my teachers and staff that have never viewed or even heard of Sir Ken Robinson.

If you have viewed the talk you know just how critically important the message is to the conversation of the role of education today.  If you have not viewed the talk I encourage you to do just that, it is worth the 18 minutes of your time I promise.
 
The conversations that came out of today were so exciting and encouraging for me as a school leader because my teachers were sharing their thinking about what we currently do in schools and why.  We recognize that we are challenging the status quo of a system that has been created to produce one expected outcome for students, a one size fits all mentality of schools.  I am proud of my faculty and staff for vocalizing their thoughts, concerns, fears, ideas, and hopes for making changes for students.  What I hope my staff has taken away from today is there are others in their school building that think the way they think and want the same things they want. There were many great conversations and thoughts worth building upon.  For me the power of the learning today is centered around making connections through common thoughts, hopes, fears, concerns, and ideas.

It does not matter if you are a teacher, administrator, board member, or a parent, I encourage you to watch the video and start up a conversation about what should education do for students and does the current education system support what you think it should do.  After this type of a conversation the question becomes what will you do next?  So, what will you do next?
 
I would love to hear your thoughts and start a dialogue.  Please leave comments below!
 
Think.  Achieve.  Succeed.
 
Jeff