We are all here because we continuously yearn to learn. I am struggling with what I have been reading vs. my reality of working in an inner city school that is threatened with AYP and is in the process of making huge budget cuts for next year. p. 49 "If they have models who can explicitly describe and show through their behavior what it looks and feels like to learn with persistence and passion". Today was Earth Day. We do service learning in my room. We headed out on a beautiful sunny day and cleaned up our prairie garden. We worked together as a team, we wondered at the bugs we found and the dried twigs. We planted flowers into little pots to take home and share for Earth Day. I was right beside the kids, digging, raking, wondering and working. This is my passion, doing and learning with the kids. We returned later in the day with our nature journals to sketch and jot down noticings and thoughts. Students compared the twigs to professional gardening books in order to identify them. Unfortunately, the rest of the building was inside in the testing mode. How can we expect students to be passionate learners if we are not ones ourselves? p. 54 mentions PLC type learning environments. Jennifer, I envy you and where you teach. You wrote that PLCs start with the teachers, "Professional Learning Communities are terrific forms of staff development---but it has to be teacher driven. And...isn't that what we want anyway??? Thinking students and thinking teachers??? We are changing to PLCs. We were doing PDPs-Professional Development Plans. Our new PLCs are coming with district "guidelines". They are to be with grade level colleagues (only 2 of us), must align with a reading component (we are down in test scores) and must be "approved". Lots of musts for a learning community. I don't think that is what Ellin is talking about. On page 60 she writes ,"That each teacher, in his or her own way, has an opportunity to create a culture, a physical environment, a schedule, and a series of rituals that increase the likelihood that all children can think fervently and come to understand deeply every day." What does this look like in other schools? Is anyone doing this? In our district, talk has been that each grade level will be on the same page from room to room to ensure that we are covering everything. I guess they believe that if the material is presented-the children have learned it. What happens to fervent learning when the goal is that we are all doing the same thing? Just covering the material is the easy part. Teaching for meaning and understanding takes planning. When Ellin wrote about the learning her family pursued one word came to mind-WE. They worked and learned together. There was a sense of urgency. They were motivated and committed. The learning mattered. I'm afraid that all too often the WE gets lost is teaching today.
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