Monday July 2, 2007

Okay, so the last two days of our scheduled sessions had mostly to do with our problem statements. And they told us to think about our problem statements through the course of the seminar. The thing is, most of the time I felt like I was absorbing the various insights of experts that came to speak to us about educational reform. But after a little thought the problem statement I came to the table with was:

1) What strategies (as a teacher) do I use to reach lower-level students?

2) How do you (as a teacher) help install protocols to pass on the school's vision?

The areas that directly affected my own teaching were the following:
-Leadership Skills
-Graduation Portfolio
-Internships
-Graduation

As one of the few teachers at this seminar, this problem statement did not relate to most of the people, as they were superintendents, principals, vice-principals, or other administrative people.

So I felt that I couldn't relate my problem statement most of the others at the seminar, but at the same time, the other people's problem statements gave me much insight to what it was like to be on the administrative side of schools and they were vastly different. As I heard more and more people, I felt that the one common thing was that the educational institutions we all worked in isolated people into the "admin-side" or "teaching-side".

We didn't come to solutions on how to make people see each others' sides, but it is something that needs to be discussed within education. Also, I feel that teachers need to be more aware of what happens in a principal's day-to-day routine and vice-versa.

I can go into all the various things that teachers and administration people need to see about each other, but it would be a long list and I being a little lazy about it. But it's something that needs to happen so that teachers understand how much not doing grades on time affect a principal's week. At the same time, the principal may need to understand that a teacher will not be absolutely engaged in a professional development day when he or she had to deal with a student who was either a disciplinary problem or a student who is having academic issues.