New Year Reflection


Whoot whoot – a brand new year is coming up fast and, if the Mayan’s aren’t right and the world is still around, that means it’s resolution time. Diet books will fly off the shelves, finding room in the gym will be more difficult and lean cuisine will be the feast of the month. Ah resolutions – how I love the idea of them. A fresh start, a whole new beginning, an opportunity to make good on your best intentions . . . and we all know how that ends. Real life kicks in and those great intentions have a tendency to be put on the back burner. It’s a shame and every year we tell ourselves that this year will be different but . . . . I’m sure you’re seeing where this is going.

And now you ask – where is he going with this post? What’s the point? Where’s the educational relevance? Drumroll please – I’m pretty sure we do the same thing with PD sessions. Hunh? What I’m suggesting, and it’s not ground breaking, is that we go into a new PD sessions with the same hopeful attitude that we go into a new year with. We’re hopeful that this new PD offering will give us insight into practice, lift the viel from our eyes and give us some real pratical ideas that will transform our teaching, making our practice transformative to the students in our care. We will be better, different somehow!

We go back to our classrooms and try these new strategies with the same passion with which we hit the gym on January first. But then life begins to kick in. In January the boy child has hockey, the girls are busy with basketball and you’re called to be there for all of it. It begins to be much more difficult to get to the gym and your daily visits become bi-weekly and then stop altogether. Ah life. It’s the same with the new strategies you’ve learned at the PD session. with the demands of marking, coaching and just general planning, the new strategies are put on the back burner and soon forgotten about. Ah well, there’s always next year.

So – how do we avoid the return to familiarity? How do we ensure that we stick with new practices that we know work, even when we are busy? One great way to stick with a fitness regimen is to ave a buddy or run wih a running group. They keep the fun in it and they push you to keep on chugging. I believe this is the same with introducing new strategies into your teaching practice – change with a buddy or a group. Share your ideas with others nad meet often to see how things are going – hey and let’s call it a Professional Learning Community!

Happy New Year’s . . . and keep on learning!
Dave

Interesting Reads

Mindsets - Carol Dweck
Teaching Boys who struggle in School - Kathleen Palmer Cleveland
Drive - Daniel Pink
Outliers - Malcolm Gladwell

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