Back to School...Again
Tomorrow I will be back in the classroom and I'm feeling that familiar mix of excitement and nervousness. How will my lesson go? Will the students listen and will they learn?
I'm also feeling some new feelings that could only happen after the past six months at Harvard. I'm wondering how this time has affected me as an educator. Will I be rusty? Will it be 'just like riding a bike'? Perhaps the question with the highest stakes is: Will I be better?
A demo lesson is perhaps not the fairest way to answer this question, but the question looms large nonetheless. Embedded within it are the questions what have I learned here and has this time been worth it? Instinctively and emphatically I can say yes to these latter queries, but if this learning is not reflected in my work tomorrow then the value of it all must be reassessed.
Let me get to the point. I have spent six months learning - a great deal - about some of the prevailing theories in education and leadership. I have identified and examined deficit thinking in my own pedagogy. I have learned the power of leadership is rooted in a clear vision that empowers an entire community. I have learned about the instructional core and the need for coherence between the strategies of policymakers and school leaders and the work of teachers. And yet, when it is time to apply these lessons to my work will I be able to? Or will they remain theoretical, lost in the ether of academia.
These are not first day jitters. These are growing pains. I know the transition from student back to teacher may not go perfectly, but this work, like all others, is learned best through practice.
I'm also feeling some new feelings that could only happen after the past six months at Harvard. I'm wondering how this time has affected me as an educator. Will I be rusty? Will it be 'just like riding a bike'? Perhaps the question with the highest stakes is: Will I be better?
A demo lesson is perhaps not the fairest way to answer this question, but the question looms large nonetheless. Embedded within it are the questions what have I learned here and has this time been worth it? Instinctively and emphatically I can say yes to these latter queries, but if this learning is not reflected in my work tomorrow then the value of it all must be reassessed.
Let me get to the point. I have spent six months learning - a great deal - about some of the prevailing theories in education and leadership. I have identified and examined deficit thinking in my own pedagogy. I have learned the power of leadership is rooted in a clear vision that empowers an entire community. I have learned about the instructional core and the need for coherence between the strategies of policymakers and school leaders and the work of teachers. And yet, when it is time to apply these lessons to my work will I be able to? Or will they remain theoretical, lost in the ether of academia.
These are not first day jitters. These are growing pains. I know the transition from student back to teacher may not go perfectly, but this work, like all others, is learned best through practice.
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