HTH GSE Conceptual Framework: Reflection
* Connect theory and practice so that each informs the other.
* Take action and reflect on that action to improve teaching and learning.
* Develop and articulate a personal philosophy grounded in the HTH design principles.

 

Journal Reflection: The Need for Change

HTH 212 - Teacher Leadership: School Reform from the Classroom

 

Change is described in the dictionary as to become or make different, or to pass from one state to another.  Frustration is described as a feeling of exasperation, or a weariness caused by goals being thwarted.  Change.  Frustration. One has become my lifeline, the other a block in the road.  One provides hope, the other despair.  I wish I could just live with one, but fate has dealt me both, so I need to make a decision:  Do I wallow in the muddy water that is continually being trampled and churned? Or, do I stand up, revolt against the mundane, the phony, the “teach to the test” ways?

 

I’ve decided…its time to separate myself, to move to my own muddy puddle, so that I can meditate, allow the water to clear, and set a new path for myself and my kids.  Larry once said to us, that it doesn’t matter if a school comes from a traditional or innovative school of thought, it only matters what is happening inside the classroom…

 

Change.  I think I like this word.

 

Almost every article we have read throughout our courses this year, has made some reference to the type of school that I work at, and each time, I can only lower my head in shame that my school fits the stereotypical profile of  “traditional” schooling.  TEST, TEST, TEST…followed by more TEST, TEST, TEST.  After our last class, I left thinking about my school’s narrative.  Did we have one?  If so, what is it?  Why don’t I know what it is?  Am I the only one?  I decided to find out.  So I went around, asking the teachers I work with, if they knew what our focus is?  And their response…you guessed it, they had no idea.  Something’s definitely wrong with this picture.  How can we as a staff expect our kids to grow, if we are all moving in different directions?  If none of us knows what our narrative is, why do we even have one in the first place?  Things need to change.  I think I'll start the revolution in my room first.  Room 404, will become a sanctuary, protecting my kids from the trouble lurking outside, hidden in uncreative curriculum and mundane regurgitated activities.  In my room, you’ll find something new…kids thinking, kids problem solving, kids learning from themselves and the world…in my room you’ll find change…

 

Do I become selfish and allow only the kids in my class to benefit from such a change?  Or do I try to inflect others with the “HTH bug”?

 

Becoming an agent of change, especially at my school could poison you.  It could leave you walking away with your head down, defeated, wishing you could just leave and join a movement that matched your passion.  Changing my craft is easy…changing my school…well, that will take some time...initially I tried to introduce the “HTH bug” to my entire staff, but I failed miserably.  Change should never feel like your forcing yourself; it shouldn't be presented in a staff meeting.  What I learned from my mistake was that the best type of change is brought about through influence, through inspiration.  Turning a concept, a new way of learning and teaching into a staff development afternoon, only yields stressed out teachers wondering why they're being mandated to drop something else on their overflowing plates.  So my new goal is one teacher at a time, show them what my kids are capable of, and empowering them that they too can guide their kids in the same direction, and before you know it, they won’t even know how the change got started in the first place…one by one...

 

 Why give the gift of a great education to just 31 kids, when I can give it to 500 more?