Blog – Page 120

April 17, 2017 Beverly Papove agency, Inquiry, Student Ownership, Students as Teachers

For Earth Day – A Chance for Environmental Custodians to Show What They Know

Knowing that I have a worm composter in my kindergarten classroom, two girls (grades 1 and 2) came up to me last week as they walked in from recess holding a bucket of earthworms. A bucket. Full of worms.

They asked me if they could join these worms with the ones in my classroom, and I had to tell them, “No”, that just as there are different kinds of fish or dogs in the world, so are there many different kinds of worms, and these two kinds were very different, not to mention the fact that the worms in the bucket had been born in the wild and that is where they should remain. The students were a little disappointed by my answer, especially after all their hard work delicately harvesting about 2 cups of worms, so I suggested that they could introduce them into the gardens in our courtyard (outdoor) classroom. The girls headed into the courtyard, found a spot near a tree and gently dumped the contents of the bucket on the ground. They were very proud of themselves and told me they knew about how worms help us so they felt that they had really helped the worms, too.

While I was on lunch duty in their classroom a while later, the girls were still eager to talk to me about the worms – evidently, the vermicomposter makes me some sort of expert in the way of the worm. Anyway, they told me that they were just getting started. The girls had BIG PLANS. They wanted to start their own Worm Care Service, since they know exactly what worms need. “Great!” I said, as I realized what a great inquiry-based learning opportunity this was, “Maybe you should make some posters and business cards telling people what it is you do.” This got them even more excited and they wanted to get down to work as soon as they finished eating. Even though selling a worm care business may not be a realistic venture, there is the fact that the girls could at least have an opportunity to share their knowledge about worms. And that is how the idea of a Children’s Fair to showcase students’ environmental interests and projects has come to be added to this year’s Earth Day Celebration. Being the first time at my new school, it will start out with just one or two tables, if we’re lucky, showcasing students and their nature-conscious projects and hobbies. The Fair is open to grades 1 to 6, and all the students will get a chance to visit and ask questions and learn from each other.

Having done something like this last year at my previous school on Earth Day, I had forgotten how rich an experience it was for the students involved. I realized afterwards that it had been so successful because it was an opportunity for students to do something at school which had no rubric or assessment attached to it, and for which they were highly motivated. Last year, all I did was call a meeting together asking students how they would like to participate in the Earth Day Celebration. That’s when things just started to morph into them wanting a way to share their knowledge or expertise about the environment. At the meetings, there were lots of ideas and “Can I…?” questions. In the end, not everyone was ready to set up a table with items and information, but at least it got them to consider the possibility that something they know or do could be of some interest and value to their peers and the adults in their life. This year, I don’t know what expertise we will showcase, but If someone has a feather or rock collection they are proud of, if they know how to fold newspaper into compost bin liners, or if they know how to make bird calls or care for worms, then the Children’s Fair is the place to show what you know.

April 10, 2017April 12, 2017 Will Gourley Constant Learning, General, Mental Health, Professional Learning and Growth, self reflection

The stretch

It’s April. Phew! We made it through Winter.

It’s official because geese are honking on the playground. There’s more daylight, the snow is not staying on the ground, and my classroom is buzzing from the promise of Spring. Students’ activity levels are coming to life as the weather warms; even though, they’re prohibited from using the grass(mud/chance for grass to grow)or running on the tarmac(overcrowding).

Energy levels range from abundant to absent, as any teacher would attest. Our class is making excuses to learn outside. I love it when they ask and am happy to shift instruction and inquiry to outdoor mode. A sort of”Education on la Grande Jatte” with apologies to Seurat. There’s movement happening in the halls, and it’s not only the students this time. It’s educators too.

An annual migration of staff is in full flight. One that can only be equated to something akin to the trade deadlines in professional sports. Teachers and administrators are being moved, receiving their teaching assignments for the new year, or are actively seeking new opportunities. Whether it’s a move to a brand new grade, a new school, a new role in admin, or retirement; thousands of educators will find themselves in new spaces come September. Or is it a rut? So, like death, taxes and dishes left in the staff room sink – change is inevitable.

In March, teachers were told of their teaching assignments for the year ahead. Like the birds returning from the south, administrators were tasked with considering staff requests, future growth/decline, fit, and a host of intangible staff dynamics. Some teachers have discovered that the nest has been blown out of the tree. Some are learning, with a measure of surprise and uncertainty, how a change has happened which was contrary to their absolutism of choice(s). Yes, there are people who would go out of their way to avoid change. They have their reasons and are respected for them. However, there are still others who will be welcoming new opportunities with excitement.

It’s always a good time for a change when the dust in your classroom is older than the students.

By Stromcarlson (Originally uploaded to en as PD by Stromcarlson) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Let’s consider a sample scenario that could playing out right now with a veteran teacher in the same grade for 5 or more years. Add to this fact, s/he has been in the same physical space for that long. Now, think of the upheaval and umbrage that might underscore the news they’re being shifted to a new grade, a new room, and maybe even a new teaching team?

Some might think that this educator was being shifted as a form of punishment. While in fact the move is the breath of fresh air. Yes, there is uncertainty and people hate that, but there is also freedom. Think of it like changing the air filter of your furnace. You would never keep the same one in place for a year let alone 5 or 6?

So this Spring, choices can be met with acquiescence or anticipation. Whichever view you choose will shape your thoughts and practice for the coming year. Will you stretch beyond your walls or will you barricade yourself behind your dusty desk?

Now before any harsh replies, keep in mind that the goal of our job has never been to become the comfortable automatons of education, but to stretch as lead learners in our schools. It is the very idea and excitement of change that should set us a light in our teaching practice.

Last year I wrote a piece entitled Time for a Change where I share advice and encouragement about stepping out of our comfort zones as educators if you want to read more.

and something else

There is another side to this thought that reflects the turnover of educators in struggling/poorer schools in England. This two page graphic made me wonder whether this might correlate to our inner-city or First Nations Metis and Inuit communities are facing the same issues of teacher turnover, and therefore are creating an educational vacuum in our own country? http://www.bristol.ac.uk/media-library/sites/cmpo/migrated/documents/howlongteachersstaying.pdf I’d love to know your thoughts about this.

April 4, 2017April 28, 2017 Laura Bottrell General, Play-Based Learning, The Arts

Drama in the Classroom: The Good Kind

When thinking of drama as a subject in our curriculum, it is easy to think of it only as a skill that can be learned and mastered. There are a lot of fundamental concepts that we teach – role play, character, relationship, time and place, tension, focus and emphasis. Our students love creating scripts, making tableaus, improvising, performing and playing all of those fun drama games. Not to mention the social and personal skills that children learn when engaging in the creative process! Some students excel in dramatic arts and love to perform, but that isn’t what its all about.

Aside from being its own subject, I (mostly) see drama as a meaningful instructional technique. When we no longer think of drama as a stand-alone subject and consider it a teaching tool, we open our programs up to wonderful things. By incorporating dramatic arts into all subject areas, we are handing students a powerful processing and communication tool. We are also increasing their engagement, motivation and adding physical activity to our teaching. Dramatic role play combines so many important functions at once – physical movement, facial expression, verbal and nonverbal communication and self awareness. The best part about using drama as an instructional technique is that it is dynamic – it can be applied to nearly any concept. The most natural fit for drama tends to be in language arts, as it so closely relates to storytelling. I’ve found, though, that some of the best drama experiences come when I incorporate it into my mathematics, science or social studies instruction.

Last week, my grade twos transformed themselves into atoms and moved themselves around the classroom, filling the space as a liquid, a gas and then a solid. I could see, right in front of me, their understanding of the concept when they changed their body movements and direction of movement to reflect the different properties of the states of matter. In math, we used drama to process concepts in our money unit. My students created a store, took turns being cashiers and customers, and used money manipulatives to make transactions. The process was entirely student directed, and allowed me to both observe and engage in their role play. By role playing and taking on the characters of customers and cashiers, they were applying their math learning to simulated real world situations. The opportunities and ideas are endless.

Every child can engage in drama. Dramatic play is a natural part of childhood and there is little difference between children playing superheroes on the playground and children engaged in drama activities in the classroom. Any Kindergarten teacher or Early Childhood Educator could list dozens of skills and schemas being process by a child engaged in dramatic play. Dramatic play is how children process the world around them. It’s also easy to think that dramatic play is something only early primary students engage in – but if you listen closely on the playground, you’re likely to find that even our older students are creating and leading their own dramatic play. Last month, during some free time outside, I was delighted to observe my grade three students pretending to be Early Settlers in Upper Canada. Our play structure suddenly became a log cabin and students took different roles as blacksmiths, carpenters, fishermen, hunters, farmers and school teachers. This was their natural way of internalizing and processing the concepts they were exploring in social studies. As teachers, we need to remind ourselves that drama is not only a skill to be mastered, but a natural method of communicating, processing and relating.

Unfortunately, drama is often a rotary subject and is not taught by homeroom teachers. I challenge you not to let that stop you from using drama as an instructional tool in your teaching! You’ll be amazed at what your kids will do.

April 4, 2017 Mike Beetham General

Lessons In Uganda

I have been fortunate enough to be on a two week secondment with CTF in Uganda Africa. This is my sixth visit to Africa and first to Uganda. I am working with a partner who is very knowledgeable on many countries of Africa and has spent a lifetime working in various capacities on the continent. Our purpose is in mobilizing communities to harness the skills and knowledge that exists in their people while building capacity in their primary schools. Needless to say, I am learning far more than I am able to share from my Canadian perspective. Here is a list of lessons I have gathered while in Uganda.

The first lessons is on creative thinking and ingenuity. There was not a day that passed that I did not sit back and watch innovation and thinking outside of the box at its best. The following photos will help show you the brilliance and creativity of the people of Uganda.

Banana leaves being used for plates as well as to cover the food to keep it hot and free of bugs.

The second lesson that was instilled in me was gratitude. One only has to see places in the world where not everyone lives in an equitable way or has the daily necessities of life to understand just how fortunate Canadians are. The following photos will depict some of the scenarios I came upon during my visit.

A primary classroom I spent time visiting in.

A temporary orphanage being run by the Head Teacher at her school. This housed 9 young boys.

The third and probably most profound lesson I experienced, was that happiness is a state of mind that is dependent on how you live life and not what you have. As Sheryl Crow’s song chorus goes, “It is not having what you want, it is wanting what you got”.

The smile of a child reminds us all about how important it is to take time to be happy.

March 31, 2017 Beverly Papove Mindfulness

Giving Mindfulness a Go

I’ve always been impressed with stories of teachers using meditation and/or mindfulness in their classrooms, helping their students to calm their minds and grasp strategies for self-regulation in a way that most people are too busy to attempt. Thinking that it should be something I set up at the beginning of the school year, I just never got around to fully dedicating time and effort to introducing the concept of mindfulness in my classroom. I felt that I was definitely far too busy to try (evidently, I needed some mindfulness) regardless of how I believed it would truly benefit not only my students, but my teaching practice as well. And then, a couple of weeks ago, I finally jumped in and gave it a try.

In a previous post, I wrote about how our students were involved to varying degrees in a brain inquiry. After having poked at the brain for about two weeks, we have now begun leading both classes in exercises of mindfulness. Using the book, “Mind Up!” as our guide, we began the introductory lesson and are amazed at how everyone has become engaged in the idea of thinking about how we think. Mapping the brain helps to identify key areas responsible for what the brain can do. The students have learned about the prefrontal cortex (called the “Wise Leader” in the “Mind Up!” program), the hippocampus (“Memory Bank”) and the amygdala (“Security Guard”). Now, the students are locating their thinking and reasoning for their actions in their heads. If I ask, for example, why they can remember how to count to 20, some students will say that it is because of their ‘Memory Bank’, while many of them, even some of my junior kindergarten students will readily drop the word, ‘hippocampus’ (because it’s a very cool word). We all smiled today when a jk student came up to me and said cheerily, “I heard a story today and then I put it in my hippocampus!”

We are also finding that giving the direction to “Use your Wise Leader” as they touch their foreheads to show that they remember where that part of the brain is, seems to be a little more meaningful for the students as they begin to explore the idea of self-regulation. Metacognition is a challenge for anyone. Without a means of helping children understand what the brain does and what it allows us to do, simply asking them to THINK about why they’ve done something can be too abstract. Now, they are building the foundation for understanding what their brains are capable of, and by extension, what they are capable of.

On the wall beside our carpet area, there is a poster of the brain with the three key areas highlighted and labeled so that we can refer to it when we gather for stories, the morning message, or knowledge building circles. To get everything started, we slipped the initial lesson about mindfulness into our day just after our morning message – it was a 10 minute introduction. Later in the day, we talked about it again, building on what we had begun talking about in the morning. Now, at any time of the day when the group is gathered together, we are able to have a quick lesson and keep slowly moving through the mindfulness program. It has become a regular aspect of our day, with the students understanding the power of their breathing, their emotions, and all of their senses. Maybe we are imagining things, but the classes seem to feel calmer and the students more grounded. We will definitely continue what we are doing.

There are many resources on mindfulness out there – from books to videos – and they all seem to be worthwhile. The book, “Mind UP” is just one of many. If you have ever considered bringing mindfulness into your classroom, my ECE partner and I can attest that you do not need to be an expert in the field. If you find something that seems like it would be appropriate for your students, I encourage you to take a deep breath, give it a go, and see what happens.

March 29, 2017March 29, 2017 Will Gourley Constant Learning, General, Modern Learning, self reflection, Wellness

The Groove

This is my follow up post to Am I Teaching in a Rut

By Shane Gavin [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Without offending your musical sensibilities, I want those who might have been singing Madonna’s Get into the Groove, to turn it off of their mental playlist for a few minutes, and spin Stevie Wonder’s Higher Ground instead.

It’s OK, if you have both battling it out in your brain. I did. Stevie prevailed in case you wondered.

Although it’s catchy, the Madonna track gets me into a small groove, but it can’t keep me there. Music is like that. I count on it, always, to get me in a steady groove and to keep me there. Shouldn’t education be like that too?

So, what’s a groove? Is it a track or channel that you fit yourself? Is it a vibe or a feeling? Is a groove smooth? How do you distinguish when you’re in a groove versus a rut? And how does it relate to my practice and pedagogy when you’re in one?

A groove is something that fits you perfectly. A groove feels good. When you’re in a groove, it never feels like what you’re doing is work. Being in the groove is contagious. It helps others around you find theirs too.* Imagine a whole school where everyone is in their teaching and learning groove? Students are witness to enthusiastic educators who are fearless learners and relentless encouragers.

What an incredible opportunity to learn, grow, and share everything that is awesome in education?

The groove is good

So whenever it feels like work then you’re in a rut. A rut travels from A to B or deeper. A rut wears down the traveler and the trail. Teaching in a rut is like being on auto-pilot because you’ve been down the same worn path over and over. A rut leaves its travelers dulled before, during, and after the journey.

The foundation for this post was set by wondering whether I am teaching in a rut or rocking/rolling along in a groove? And whether one was different from the other? My original post can be summed up in 3 key points to help stay out of a rut;

Being a flexible learner in front of students and colleagues
Being open and adaptable to what and where I teach(kind of like #1).
Seeing the challenge as something to accomplish rather than feeling punished for it.
Being unafraid of change even when it is something unknown

Thinking about this might be scary for some. Many of us have been raised in a corporate culture that requires keeping a nose to the grindstone, focused on the job, and safe from risk. That is precisely why we have to lift our heads and stretch our outlook. This comes from taking chances in the classrooms, hallways, staff-rooms. We have to encourage one another to share ideas, passions, successes, and failures. Teachers need to celebrate “the hard times and the good” with our students and with each other. That’s how we will find our groove(s)?

For me the groove is what gets me out of bed before the sun rises. It makes me excited to share learning with my students and with a world of educators. A groove does not have time for pettiness, negativity or self indulgence. A groove is designed for the positive, potential, and process in education.

Now the hard part…

What’s your groove? If you could do anything in education knowing you’d succeed, what would it be?
Thank you for reading. Please share and keep the conversation going in the comments section.

Will

* Oh, oh! I just thought of a B52’s song to go with this post.

I love music in most of it’s forms. It pervades my day, accompanies me as I work/relax, and provides me insight into people as an inter-generational time machine and lens. For a deeper understanding about the soundtrack to my life, click on this link to I(n) Tune.

March 28, 2017 Tammy Axt General

Feeling a little low? Make a sunshine call!

Throughout my teaching career, there have been many days where I have been overwhelmed by the tasks and expectations I place on myself as an educator. If that is you today, stop what you are doing and go make a sunshine call to one of the parents in your class. Delivering positive news will brighten not only the parent’s day, but your day as well. The parent is usually so thankful that you took time out of your day to speak with them about how awesome their child is or about something amazing that they did this week. I recommend it over simply writing a note as you feel the positive energy over the phone, and the pleasant interaction stays with you.

I am fortunate that I teach about 450 students, so there is always something positive going on throughout the week. I have made many different calls this year for many reasons. However, the most memorable call of the year was to a family with a child for whom they don’t receive these types of calls often. The student was negatively approached by another child and maintained their composure and calm throughout the interaction. This was a very big deal for this child, who has been working on their explosive responses to others. When I called to tell the parent about how well her child maintained their composure, the parent was almost in tears and so thankful that I called with positive news. The parent repeatedly thanked me, and we have had an excellent relationship every since.

Parents are sometimes surprised by sunshine calls, as they are not used to positive news coming from the school. I tried to call a parent whose second language was English and left a message on their answering machine. The parent was alarmed that the school had called them, and it took some time to explain that I was calling to tell her how hard her child was working to catch up to the other grade five students, as they were new to the country. Once she understood, she too was very thankful and appreciative.

Parents are so busy and deal with so many stresses outside of the day. It’s very impactful for them to receive good news about their children, so it’s worth taking the time to be that person for someone’s family.

March 28, 2017 Tammy Axt General

An Idea For Making Learning Fun – Pizza Box Puppet Theatres

Without a doubt, the highlight for this term’s drama classes in the primary grades has been the creation of puppet theatres. We have taken pizza boxes and stick puppets and acted out some familiar stories. The grade two students are currently working on completing their performance of “Where the Wild Things Are”.

Leading up to our performances, we have spent half of each period exploring the story with our bodies, dialogue or reflections, and the other half has been spent preparing our puppet theatres. To prepare the students to really analyze the character’s feelings and thoughts, I have been reading a small part of the book every class and asking students to act out or respond to some part of the story.

A few examples of this are:

When Max’s room turns into a jungle I had students write in first person how Max is feeling.

When Max gets on the boat and travels for several days, I had the students act it out while I narrated the story. At one particular point, I asked the students to freeze and I went around the room interviewing a variety of students about how they are feeling. They were encouraged to speak in first person.

In the part of the story where the wild rumpus begins, I had the students act this out in slow motion focusing solely on their body and facial expression.

The rest of the period was spent creating the theatres. We spent time talking about and imagining what would go in Max’s room and all the other locations in the story. I prepared papers that fit inside the pizza boxes, and students coloured and prepared the backgrounds.

This was my first time doing this kind of assignment in drama with primary students and I have learned many things:

1. Pick a book where there is very little text. You want the students to be adding to the story, not only telling the story as it is. For example, when Max arrives on the island of the Wild Things, there is very little explanation in the story about how the Wild Things feel. We explored the feelings and thoughts of these characters.

2. Create a class set of puppet theatres that everyone uses. Students are able to work on their performance with a variety of people and can play all of the different roles when they don’t have ownership over one theatre. I also use the theatres for all my classes so we created and build them as a large team.

3. Have a narrator with a small amount of assigned lines to help the students stay on track. It is difficult for students in grade one or two to remember every part of a story. Using prompts allows students to remember the part of the story that they are at, and focus on adding their original dialogue to the presentation.

4. Have students give feedback to each other according to the criteria. We listened to each others’ performances and gave feedback. We stapled the feedback to the back of the narrator’s lines so that we could review it before every performance.

March 27, 2017March 27, 2017 Beverly Papove Inquiry

One Inquiry, Two Classes

March is a great time to study the human body because it makes a logical segue into Nutrition Month. For our two kinder classes, my partner and I decided to set out a few provocations to see how far the students would delve into the body before we moved on to learn about the four food groups.

To start things off in March, we had “Mr. Torso”, a life-sized, human torso which became an internal organ puzzle that could be taken apart and reassembled by the students. In small groups I was able to present the torso to the students and answer their questions about the organs and how they worked. What the students seemed to be most interested in, apart from the functioning of the large intestine which elicited plenty of giggles, was the brain.

In the torso puzzle, you can remove half of the brain and then take it apart in three pieces of hard plastic. I could not imagine anyone being motivated to learn about the brain using chunks of grey plastic, and yet, an inquiry began to take shape one morning with one of our classes.

I asked the students what they wondered about the brain, and the questions that arose were terrific;

“How does your brain control everything in your body?”

“How come our brain has water inside?”

“How does our body talk to our brain?”

“How does the blood get to the brain?”

“How does your brain make you think?”

Amazing! We set about having a Knowledge Sharing Circle where they talked about what they knew. They also shared books from the classroom library, sat with friends looking for the answers and watched short animated videos that helped explain the way the brain works. Every student was involved somehow in the brain inquiry.

Now here comes the part of the story where the knowledge building is reserved for me as a teacher keen on re-enacting the same exciting inquiry-based lesson. When I did the same provocation with my second class the next day, the brain inquiry seemed to spark a little at first and then fizzle out. Puzzled and frustrated, I found myself wanting to lead the students into formulating their questions, and much as I tried to duplicate the energy and excitement of the previous day, I was trying a little too hard to draw out ideas and questions like; “Do you have any questions about what our brains DO?”, or, “Try starting a question with HOW…” Much as I tried, there was no spontaneous interest or individual ‘wonderings’, just a few students who were looking at me and trying to follow my prompts. So after eventually getting only one question which, I believe, even the student who offered it was not quite convinced that was really what he had wanted to ask; “Does the water in the brain… pump…to make the brain… change shape?,” I did my best to clarify the question with the help of the group, realizing that I probably should have asked them what organ they were interested in learning about, rather than expecting them to be as interested in the brain as the first group was. It’s not a student-led inquiry if the teacher comes up with the questions, after all.

March 23, 2017October 13, 2018 Will Gourley Challenging Topics, General, Professional Learning and Growth, self reflection

Am I teaching in a rut?

It’s March, and things are changing – again. The birds now welcome me to school most mornings with their spirited songs. Not to be outdone, Winter still attempts to poison as many perfectly sunny seasonal days with its cold, wind, and snow. Preparing for outside supervision has required that I keep all outdoor gear at the ready for another March meteorological maelstrom. I am beginning to wonder whether I’ll make it through another outdoor supervision at -15 C or colder.

It’s been tough on our students too. Many times finding themselves cooped up in their classes due to frigid temps. Imagine learning, working, having your breaks, and eating your lunch in the same space as 25 other people? At least teachers can excuse themselves to the staff room. So it’s no wonder that, at the first signs of Spring, energy levels go from sedentary to bristling the moment the mercury rises above 0 C.

Yet, for all their energy, students find themselves confined to hardtop for recess while the weather changes its mind daily. The once snow covered fields are wet and look like pallid straw waiting for the sunlight to warm up its roots with the promise of growing greener. With it, a well worn patch of the mud and muck that has become the current site of a, “I dare you to jump this,” long-jump pit.

https://pixabay.com/en/earth-wet-earth-mud-ground-1280278/

Recently, something stuck to my mind like mud on a shoe. It came after seeing this newly christened jumping pit on the school yard. It was a mucky/dirty patch of exposed earth full of tracks/footprints left behind by the brave who tried to clear it, but fell far short. Indeed, Spring’s official arrival comes with its share of magnificent and messy moments at schools.

the thought process

Those footprints made me think of how difficult it is to extricate a shoe or a car that is stuck in mud. That led to think about the expression,”a stick in the mud”, and how it relates to inflexible attitudes. Then I wondered, am I being inflexible? Could I be in a rut in my practice as an educator? Was I able to avoid the ruts and muck in my professional practice to stay in the groove moving forward, or was I already wallowing in it without knowing? Did I want to know? After all, some people pay big money at the spa for mud baths.

rut or a groove?

Are there ever signs to tell us we’re in a rut? I have been teaching grade 6 in one capacity or another since starting my career in 2009. The Junior Division is, definitely, one with which I am very comfortable as a teacher. But it’s that word comfort which concerns me because it might be keeping me in a rut and hindering my growth as a constant learner? Let me ask you. How long have you been teaching in the same classroom, subjects, grade or division? If you answered more than 3 years for any of these, you might be carving out quite a rut.

When you’re in a rut you can still roll along without an issue unless you try to get out. Climbing out is dangerous if ever attempted, and leaves one feeling exposed or vulnerable. Yet, if we move our students along from grade to another, why are we not seeking the opportunities to grow into new experiences as well by changing our routines in for some new ones? Sometimes a rut maybe so high that it is more like a canyon where sunlight seldom hits the floor. This means that perspectives become narrowed our hyper focused.

…we are certified to teach much more than we do. We spend tens of thousands of dollars to be certified to teach multiple grade levels, but we are put in a position, or are resistant to being any other position, of teaching one grade level for multiple years. Some teachers teach the same grade level for decades.

At some point, that does not foster growth. It fosters comfort. ” Peter DeWitt, 2015

Have you ever wondered why educators move schools? I know from experience that moving to a new school brings an infusion of enthusiasm, and ideas into a new learning space. We can’t help, but learn from one another when we engage in new situations and with new people. Many of us feel entitled to teach the same grade each year even when we are qualified to teach a range of grades and panels. We have to remember that assignments are not guaranteed for life and that change is ultimately better for our practice.

What about the argument that a rut is really a groove? In my next post, I will share about how we can escape or smooth out the ruts in our practice and get into a groove of our own.

I’d love to know your thoughts about this post. Please take the time to share in the comment section below.
Thank you for reading.