I appreciate Juarez's honesty and fair concerns about teacher research in her school. Funding and participation are indeed honest concerns with a busy teaching staff. But I seemed to miss how all of this inquiry and planning tied to equity in specific situations.
To start, I think that the idea of ownership is key with a staff. I like the term "teacher-owned" used in the article to explain relevance and subsequent involvement. I agree that "'Teacher research complements teaching.'" I was confused, however, on page 147 where Juarez writes about her objective in this process. She mentions that she never thought of becoming a better teacher as a goal. The deliberate reflection, I think, can't help but improve one's teaching, especially if the time is given during the day to do so. But, that brings me to the next question about this school's process: time and scope.
I got the feeling that one year was not a realistic timeframe in which to try new things, reflect on them, read articles, meet as a staff, make the required changes in the ideas tried out in class, and compose a professional piece for publication. When I reviewed the agenda for the year, I found it very rushed and Juarez herself mentions that next year, she would cut out the professional articles and discussions about them in an effort to save time. I think that would be a mistake and that maybe extending the timeframe for this process to, say, two or more years might allieviate the rushed feeling I sensed while reading this article.
Is it possible to expect teachers who are also coaches who are also StuCo reps who are also parents, etc. to accomplish all of this in one school year and really see a good, healthy body of data to support or reflect what they are trying to do? Or am I missing something? Because isn't it the entire school who are working on this goal? It must be exhausting, I would think, to plan and focus so much on this task. What about the building's other "standard" goals, such as technology or critical thinking, or other such buzz words going around these days (I'm thinking of my building's goals: communication, technology and critical thinking---but we gave ourselves three years to meet our goals in these areas....)?
Don't get me wrong. I think this is an outstanding idea and after I sifted through the weirdly-worded bits about the reorganization of the schools and then the five different schools on one campus, etc.(???), what the staff is trying to do sounds wonderful and commendable. I love the idea of their groups acting almost as "research writing groups" where teacher researchers could bounce ideas off one another and receive feedback on them...I love that kind of involvement and the generating of more and more questions....It sounds like a great experience.
I just am not sure about the pressure and realistic expectations of those in charge? Would this work in other schools, especially when we receive our high-stakes test scores in the months after our students have exited our classes? And where did the equity element go, or is that understood to be embedded in the teacher research?
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2 comments:
"Teacher inquiry needs to be owned by teachers," gosh that was profound huh? Relevance is as important for teachers as it is for students. So this is my jumping off point for my comments - I pay attention most to what seems relevant to me. Seems okay for each of us to find a unique focal point, in fact this article seems to argue this point quite nicely.
Steph, I agree, one year doesn't seem long enough to really make a change. That was my biggest frustration in setting school-wide goals - the goal changed every year. So, just when I had things figured out, it was something new to figure out all over again. the idea of using the first year to define the problem and subsequent years to research, reflect, meet as a staff and make changes seems a logical next step. This reflects the most significant idea that occurred to me as I read - "Teacher research was not meant to be just one more reform, it was meant to be the practice that supported all our improvement efforts." (pg 150).
And here we have something revolutionary. Instead of try something new and in the face of little significant change throw the idea out - let's take the time to truly reflect on the question. What I like is that this is a paradigm shift, resetting the expectations for professionalism in teaching. How about that!?
Funny, both the post and the comment mention time and that is all I thought about while reading this chapter. The feeling that there is no time at all is overwhelming.
It made me think of blogging. This is my first experience with this type of communication. I can really see the use of blogging as a professional growth tool. Our district is getting a new setup for our website ( I am not using the proper jargon). I think it will be great to have professional meetings etc. over the internet. It will solve a lot of time problems.
Honestly, besides the need for more time (which isn't a new chant), communication, and putting research to work, I did not get much out of this chapter.
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