The Big Three

Watch this to see what we are focused on at Lomira High School

In a great learning environment, we are ALL teachers!

For years I have been working to build collaborative cultures in the buildings that I have served as an educational leader.  I find such genuine value in brain-storming, discussing and even disagreeing with others who have the same passion for education that I do.  As is true with most educational settings, the challenges I have often faced included creating time for our professionals to come together, creating the safe environment where everyone would honestly contribute and offering up enough professional development to help everyone fully grasp the necessary information needed to have complete discussions.
After listening to Dr. Gary Stager last night on his clip, "Dr. Gary Stager Discusses the Best Educational Practices in the World" I realized that what I am missing is the focus on creating this environment for all of our learners and teachers and using these titles interchangeably.  Teachers as students and students as teachers.

During his interview, Dr. Stager reminds me that our students need to be the teachers too.  Ok, we all know that in the back of our minds but do we really embrace that thought or simply agree that we believe it and then send them to a classroom where the teacher is still handing out the necessary material. Sometimes, as Dr. Stager describes, "preaching through a textbook as though it is gospel".  So what will it take for all of us as educators to relinquish our deep need for 'covering all of the content' to move to a supportive setting where we are comfortable allowing sufficient time to truly explore a question or prompt from start to finish?   Trust in learning is what we need.

Educators by nature are a very compliant, driven and methodical bunch who want to accomplish a task and be comprehensive in their efforts.  True learning isn't usually that clean.  For our teachers or our students.  Instead of worrying about how to find time to incorporate all of the new mandates, standards and evaluation hurdles, how about building confidence and empowerment to allow for exploration, creativity, and natural learning.  We need to be accountable for our students and educational path, but as leaders we also need to set the stage so that our students are comfortably allowed to become contributors to their own educational environments throughout this journey as well.

I embrace Dr. Stager's comment that with, "a supportive environment, sufficient time, appropriate materials and a good prompt" to get the seed planted, we can all trust in the process of learning. It shouldn't be as hard as we make it to believe in this. Together, teachers and students can be great educators.