HI all! I am intrigued by the final question for our first reading. ....In what ways can we live our adult lives as intellectually curious leaders for our students and for our colleagues? I can't tell you how many nights I stayed up thinking - why didn't my teachers get it? Why don't they want to help their students - to move them beyond the expected curriculum and into differentiation and individualization and understanding? Why they didn't have an internal drive and motivation to replicate what Ellin and Debbie and everyone was writing about and modeling in their books? I modeled the ideas and goals at faculty meetings and in our weekly newsletters by both taking pictures of the activities and usage of the strategies in classes and including snapshots and ideas from the books themselves. But I could not motivate the teachers who were in the "been there done that" mode. They made fun of the teachers who were taking leaps. They got extremely cliquey. It was just so depressing! What kept me going was the fact that I knew what I was writing/talking/modeling was right for both the teacher and the students. So....to answer the question - by modeling, blogging, dicsussing, showing how to never stop learning...our actions speak louder than words. The sad thing is that there are so many of us who are isolated islands of application. The good thing is that there are places like this where the isolated islands can find refuge, mentorship, and relief. But how to be there for our colleagues? I think they have to be ready first. I obviously never figured out the answer to that one! Lori
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