|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Anne Jolly's Diary Entries 41 - 45
Diary Entries 41 - 45 Entry 41: I dragged two padded-type chairs with arms from the teacher workroom into my small office area. Deftly, I arranged the folders I'd prepared containing teachers' names, schedules, and room numbers. I rescued two clipboards from a box beneath my desk where I'd stuffed as much of the office clutter as possible, squeezed a stack of classroom observation forms under each clip, and placed them with the folders. Finally, I filled the coffeepot with water, unsure whether to make coffee or to simply heat the water for the mint tea I kept on hand. By that time, Barbara and Pam from SERVE* in North Carolina had arrived to begin conducting a two-day evaluation of the Impact Team project. I watched happily as they left with folders, clipboards, and tape recorders in hand to get candid feedback from each Impact Team. They would also observe and document teaching strategies throughout the school, and ask teachers to fill out project surveys on the process. I heaved a sigh of relief and gratitude. I need some frank feedback from these professionals outside the project - someone to bounce around ideas with. Entry 42: Turns out that I won't get any official feedback on the project until the results are summarized and the report written. However, Barbara and Pam shared some great thoughts and personal observations with me before they left today. While I feared that the project was moving too slowly, they think it's moving at a relatively fast pace. They mentioned specific teams that are on target and successfully using the Impact Team process both to grow professionally and to impact students. They also pointed out a few areas where Teams need help. They noted that the elective teachers are working resolutely, but need to find more common ground in order to engage in a truly collaborative process. The question still plagues the team: How do teachers collaborate productively when they don't teach the same students or the same subjects? To be honest, I've been hoping that the teachers would pull out a miracle of sorts and tell ME the answer to that question. From now on I need to focus more directly on helping these teachers answer that question and benefit from this process. Pam and Barbara also noted that teachers on Team 3 are frustrated by lack of student interest, participation, and motivation. Since this is the teams' major area of concern, we agreed that they should use the Impact Team meeting to address this issue. Certainly student engagement impacts both reading and writing. If this team works together to research ways to motivate and engage students, this could result in exactly the kind of professional growth the project is designed to accomplish. Maybe the best idea I heard all day today came from a team Pam interviewed. Turns out that they have a five minute "gripe" session (really a debriefing of what's going on in their lives) before they start their Impact Team meetings. Then they call the meeting to order and are able to stay focused and on target! Now there's a tip worth passing on! Entry 43: As I've been working with this project, one thing is becoming increasingly clear - teachers need some sort of recognition and payback for the extra time and energy this requires, no matter how worthy the effort. Intrinsic motivation and altruism are already stressed to the max in the teaching profession. Today the central office gave official permission for the teachers engaged in this process at both schools to get inservice credit toward recertification! Yes! In addition, teachers at school #2 will get time off from regular inservice days as compensation for the extra time they put into the Impact Teams. (They meet before school and after school because they do not share common planning times.) That's a real move in the right direction. My next goal is to get the principals to look at some creative ways of providing teachers with more time. As teachers engage in this intensive professional development process, what responsibilities might be removed from them during the school day? Lunch duty? Responsibility for some administrative paperwork? Freedom from supervising school events such as pep rallies? Just what would a school culture look like that really places student learning and opportunities for teacher growth ahead of everything else? Entry 44: If the coach had had a metal bar between his teeth, it would have snapped in half. Turns out that the principal had just called the P.E. teachers into his office and added the Impact Team process to their individual professional development plans. They are not currently participating in the process, and they were not happy campers now. As we sat around a table in the library during their planning time, one obviously irritated P.E. teacher remarked testily, "Just tell us what you want us to do!" For a moment, I regarded these teachers who teach practically every student in the school every day for all three years. Talk about a group with a tremendous opportunity to make an impact! I acknowledged that they were angry and speculated that they might consider this process a waste of time. They agreed. I asked them what they were most concerned about with regard to these students. They reached consensus on one thing rather quickly - their area of mutual concern is student motivation and self-esteem. "So what are you gonna do about it?" I asked. These teachers began to share some ways they were already reaching out to students. They talked about identifying a specific population of students to help in some way - perhaps kids who don't dress, out or those who don't have enough coordination to bounce a ball - much less ring a basket with it. Perhaps those kids who can't get along with others. When I left, their natural energy and comraderie had surfaced, and they were talking with some interest about what group of students they would target. If they really put some effort into procedures for working with these groups of kids, they certainly won't have to worry about this being a waste of their time. They'll have a tremendous impact on students - all students. Entry 45: Instead of trying to drive this process, I may wind up just trying to hang on. When I arrived for the Impact Team meetings at School #2, each team had located new articles and information on writing. They had shared the information with each other, and - get this - they had made copies for Burns teachers. I've been hoping to eventually develop some degree of collaboration among teams between schools, and these teachers are ahead of me - holding out a helping hand to teachers in another school. According to my calculations, they're about a year ahead of schedule! As I placed the materials from school #2 in the library teacher resource area I stopped in surprise. Someone else had placed some teacher resources on the shelves. There were two books on middle school teaching ideas and a three-ring binder full of teaching activities. The librarian said that teachers had brought them in. She added that the teaching resource area has been getting some activity and teams have been checking out Gold files. Walking down the halls, I noticed Impact Team materials out on the tables in at least half of the pods, rather than being neatly tucked away. That's evidence that this is becoming a more normal part of the faculty's process, isn't it? As if that isn't enough good news for one day, I just got a request from a team who wants to use next inservice day for the whole faculty to share instructional strategies, ideas, and practices. Then they want to break up into department teams to talk about reading and writing strategies within disciplines. They want to spend the last part of the day meeting in Impact Teams to study and plan. And here's the information that really knocked me for a happy loop - another team has decided to meet after school for an hour on any Monday that we don't have faculty meeting. Why? Because they don't have enough uninterrupted time during the school day to accomplish what they want to do in their Impact Team meetings. I may ask the principal to cancel all faculty meetings for the rest of the year! When I started this process I thought I'd have to work continually to keep the process moving. Now it appears that I'm going to have to grab hold and hang on or some of these teachers are going to leave me standing in the dust! I never thought it could feel so good to be dusty. * SERVE is the SouthEastern Regional Vision for Education, one of the project's funders.
Home |
About BPC | Publications |
Teacher Resources | Professional
Dev © 2005, Alabama Best Practices Center (admin) |
|
|
