0 Teacher Challenge: Forward Movement?

Posted by Atsumori. Category: Collaboration

I love the notion of growing and building schools with student success as the focus.

I look forward to streamlined, thoughtful debate about ideas and issues as we focus our attention and target our energy to meet students' needs, standards, and interests.

Most of all I like the way my classroom runs with all these new ideas, structures, and efforts--mostly children are happy, engaged, and learning.  It's amazing to see what students can learn today both independently and collaboratively when given extraordinary tools, environments, and encouragement.

As I always say, "I see the promise of the future in their eyes," and I enjoy the fact that I'm in a profession that contributes to this promise and possibility.

On the other hand, I'm always struggling with new ideas when it comes to system-wide support and care--I hurdle countless obstacles and try numerous approaches.

At first, I just shared at will.

Then, when my ideas were misreported or misrepresented, I started blogging so I had a public, transparent copy of my thoughts and ideas.

After that, I tried researching, writing up my notes, and being very prepared for meetings--sharing the ideas ahead so I didn't overwhelm.

None of these strategies have worked well enough, and the response mostly follows two paths.  The first is "know your place, do your best in the classroom, keep the doors closed" and the second is to "choose your battles, pick one idea, and ignore the others."

Both paths are frustrating.  By not speaking up, and speaking up about the myriad of so many initiatives that intersect with my students and classroom each day means I can't do my best job because I will be working with numerous less-than helpful supports with regard to curriculum, systems, and supplies.  Yet by speaking up, my ideas rarely receive response of any kind--emails are mostly unanswered, time is limited for face-to-face meetings, and ideas are generally unsupported by many (not all).

I don't want work to be a battle ground, yet I do want to work with the best of what we can offer children by way of ideas, tools, systems, and strategies.  Teaching is a challenging job today, and sometimes I feel like a marionette with multiple strings connected to multiple dictates, programs, and initiatives.  Also, like a marionette, it feels like I have little voice in the whole ordeal.

I've got yet another idea, a new way to try to forward my ideas while respecting the perspectives and viewpoints of others--I'm not giving up as I know in my heart we're at the brink of something wonderful when it comes to education today. Try, try again.

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