Fall Creek Falls Reteat

I am currently at Fall Creek Falls Sate Park near Pikeville, Tennessee at a Metro Nashville Public Schools retreat. Principals, SLC Change Coaches, and selected teachers from each of the district's Comprehensive High Schools are in attendance. The event is being hosted and facilitated by the Nashville Chamber of Commerce. I arrived yesterday afternoon while the meeting was in full swing, and I also participated in the discussions this morning. Basically, this session is geared toward implementing Smaller Learning Communities in our high schools. We are talking in depth about the types of experiences we want to provide for students in our schools, and we are using people at other schools in our district as brainstorming partners. My first reaction to this event is this: We have some very sharp people in this district, and meetings like this that include leadership and faculty are great. It has been a tough Summer for many in the district, and it is understandable how some people are frustrated and tired. However, at events such as this you can visibly see people's spirits and moods change when they begin to get involved in the collaborative process of envisioning again what is possible. I am a new teacher (last year was my first year), and as tough as last year was for me I still carry with me a sense of excitement about what education will become in the not too distant future. That being said it is easy to become bogged down by the daily grind of beaurocratic education systems. Events such as these allow school leaders and faculty to step back, look at the big picture, think about possibilites. I feel privilaged to be here. This school year I will be teaching in the Pearl-Cohn 9th Grade Academy. It will be separate from the rest of the high school. It will be a new operation, and it sounds like we will have many new teachers - ie. not averse to doing new, creative things. I am looking forward to doing the best I can, and helping shape this new school. Now it is time for me to get more information on how this SLC model works, and how I can be an asset to my school. As usual I feel I am behind the curve, and will be playing catch-up. Stay tuned.

Pinky and Illich

I read Ivan Illich's Deschooling Society for the first time about a year ago. It has had a pretty big impact on my view of what education is, and how I want to do it. It is free online here if anyone would like to read it. I did a presentation on Illich in one of my M. Ed. courses last fall. After doing some online research about Illich the man I came across this clip on youtube which is a great video even if you haven't read the book. I showed the video at the end of my presentation. It is pretty powerful. I see the Open Education movement as the possible beginnings of a realization of what Illich was talking about. Anyway enjoy the clip.

Dr. Register on One-On-One

It is July 7, 2009, and that means I report back to my teaching post in about 1 month. Time to get moving on the planning. I have some great ideas based on all of the independent research I have done this summer, but it is time to get those ideas into some sort of coherent form that I can use next school year. My blog posts for the next few weeks may go in a different direction as I begin working through how I pan to conduct my classes in the fall. I thought a great place to start would be from an organizational side. It is important, I think, for my practice to be in line with what the district and my school wants / needs. Dr. Register was on One-On-One with John Seigenthaler and that interview is posted above. Very informative, and I would say it is a must watch for anyone working within MNPS. He repeatedly hit on collaboration among teachers which is definitely something I want to do, both in my school and with other CTE teachers in the district. I have to admit, being a new teacher last year I was more focused on my day to day activities than I was regarding activities in the district, and how to shape my practice to fit the new direction. Not this year. Another note on Dr. Register. I was impressed with the interview. I can say that he seems to be on it, and it sounds as if this is not his first rodeo. I also think it s worth mentioning that he got a solid mention in a book I am finishing up. In a previous post I wrote about Clayton Christensen's book Disrupting Class. Great book and the fact that he was mentioned in a positive light by Chrisensen gave me even more confidence in his ability.

If there is anything that bothers me about the interview it is the given assumed by Seigenthaler and Dr. Register that Test Scores are the be all, end all in determining the success of a school district. That detail is not even questioned. Now, don't get me wrong. I know Dr. Register has nothing to do with that. The Test Score lens with which this country views education is the hand we, as educators, have been dealt at this time. Those are the rules of the game and we have to follow them. I'll stop here, because that issue deserves a separate post (at the least). I just thought that oservation was worth mentining.