I thought I'd share this from David Warlick's blog because it reminds me of some of what Jukes shared in August and also because it reinforces for me how little I know about the brain and learning. I then went to the website for Pat Wolfe the speaker he identified that continued to raise questions and create dissonance because of the valuable information contained in the books, articles, and videos described.
I was particularly interested in the two questions raised in the blog post because I have been known to ask them and I hear them in meetings and classrooms. I need to do some more research to find out why they are so useless, though it is becoming more clear simply by thinking about them.
The two most useless questions:
Do you understand?
Are their any questions?
There is so much to know and to be able to do. Asking quality questions, teaching to our standards, focusing on Classroom 10 learning, and the list goes on. What is more and more clear to me is the need for FOCUS! We are working hard on many projects with varying degrees of success. We need to find focus. Teachers need quality support, a part of which is not being asked to learn too many things at one time and we can only provide quality support on a few things at a time. How to find this balance in the near term will not be an easy task for us because of who we are, where we come from, and where we want to be. But, it must come and come quickly if we are to continue our journey at supporting teachers in learning new practices that influence learning. The stress and anxiety continue to increase and approach levels that I believe will not result in teaching and learning changes that sustain over time.
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I couldn't agree more; we lack focus. Classroom 10 is a powerful concept, but it doesn't help us focus. We think of nesting objectives and of Classroom 10 as great integrators. They are umbrellas for any number of goals that we have for the work teachers and students do together. But, as umbrellas, they "cover" so much!
Kimberly came up with this analogy this morning. Teachers are playing twister. Thinking skills, SPACE, content knowledge, questioning strategies, WASL, drug and alcohol abuse prevention, active learning strategies, technology, Habits of Mind, tuning protocol, building relationship, the District Outcomes all represent circles on the playing surface. Teachers are all twisted up, moving their hands and feet from circle to circle while they try to keep their balance. It is too easy for those spining the dial to forget that every element of Classroom 10 and the nested objectives represent a circle teachers need to be grounded in. It is easy to forget that to teachers Classroom 10 does not feel like one giant, all encompassing circle that is easy to stand on. Classroom 10 may be the plastic mat the game is played on, but the circles that cover it are many and varied.
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