I find a lot of inspiration from my fellow education foot soldiers. Those who are fighting to change education -one student at a time. When I feel lost and haven't been to a conference or had a PLN chat in a while I turn to business books. I've found lots of business ideas can transfer to the classroom, certainly not everything.
My first adapted idea: I choose to ignore conventional school wisdom (at least I'm trying to). I work in a fairly conservative & traditionally minded school. It's not as rigid as some schools but tight enough to squeeze creativity out of the classroom. We've been told that it's all about the test scores. In my pursuit to be a better educator I must ignore conventional school thought. Conventional school wisdom sounds like "that'll never work in your classroom" or "with those students" or "they won't be ready for the test" like some terrible attempt to sober me from my creative-dreams. I've heard those comments, maybe you have too. You know how disheartening and unwelcome they are.
I've heard Mike Lawrence from CUE, inc. say that the Teachers Lounge is where ideas go to die. I agree and take it further, as some teachers feel the need to offer depressing advice all over campus. I choose to stop listening to them, and respectfully ask them to stop. This is real and active -remember I'm writing this to remind myself and hope that it helps you as well.
Conventional school to me is following the same well-trodden pattern like following the textbook as if it knows my students better than I do and following in my ancestors pedagogy. Well their pedagogy sucks. And I refuse to suck. I cannot allow them to bring me to the tomb where their teaching resides. Stop listening and believing them when they shoot down your ideas. The ideas may fail for them, maybe it has in the past -but you must see it through.
Pessimism and despair kills our school culture. -Adapted from ReWork (you should read it)
Thanks for reading,
Chris Scott
805-215-8864
cscottsy@gmail.com
@cscottsy -twitter
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