Treasure Chest of Thoughts

Due to our missing two snow days, the current debate amongst our teachers is whether to make up one of those days on a scheduled student-release, teacher-work-on-pacing-guides day or to add a day at the end of the year.

When I asked this question of several of our teachers…to be exact four coaches, I was surprised…pleasantly so…to hear one state that making up this day at the end of the year would be better so “we can work on pacing guides for the fourth nine weeks.”

This coach’s thoughts resonate this article “Moving Beyond Talk” in Educational Leadership (2009, March) as its author discusses learning in collaborative communities:

Teachers in these schools craved planning time (which was scarce) and opportunities for shared planning (which were nonexistent)….But the bottom line, according to CLC members, is that extended blocks of time during the school day are the most productive structure for learning communities worthy of the name.

Then when I unsuspectingly entered the teachers’ lounge as just a teacher in our building, I quickly had to put on my Personnel Policy Committee member hat as several rounds of complaint broke out…almost in perfect unison….”we want our pacing guide day,” also, thereby stipulating that these same teachers are for our last day of school being on a Monday…in June.  Interesting.  (Well, it was after I finally switched hats!)

Maybe we are seeing the beginning of a new trend at Batesville High?  One where 21st Community Learning Centers (CLC), such as those being pioneered within our district by peer Lisa Huff (she is starting two more teams next year!), and departmental meetings with teachers working collaboratively on pacing guides are the norm?

Pacing guide meetings held periodically and timely…or shall we say designed backwards?…ensures Grant Wiggins’ and Jay McTighe’s fears, as expressed in Schooling by Design, from happening…

As presently written, most curricula encourage and enable teachers to do the worst possible thing:  go off and work entirely on their own, with little regard for the long-term overarching goals that define a school’s purpose (p 38).

The votes are in…the majority of our teachers, though, do want to give up the pacing guide day. 

Me?  Before casting my vote, I changed from how I had initially planned to vote.  I just could not argue with these teachers’ logic (plus, the district had promised this day to these teachers since August as part of their required-by-state sixty hours of professional development…while I had 100+ hours before school ever started, again I could see their logical reasoning)…thus, I voted for the pacing guide day.  I voted for collaborative learning communities.  I voted for community learning centers.  No matter what the current jargon, I voted for teachers who want to work together to help our students.

Unfortunately, there are not enough of us on this “team” yet.