Well...Page and Victoria set a pretty high bar, but I'm going to give this blogging thing a shot. :) I, Peggy Dove, am the third piece in the coaching puzzle at Reach. Two years ago, I was part of the design team along with Victoria and several other Bay Area teachers (as was previously mentioned) that helped to pilot practices and advise the creation of Reach. I had no intention at that time to leave the classroom and coach teachers full-time, but here I am!
Okay...let me back up tell you a little about how I got into teaching in the first place. I graduated with a B.S. in mechanical engineering and realized that the last thing I wanted to do was spend my life working on redesigning an engine block for 25 years. So...I went to graduate school in bioengineering thinking that I would find more purpose there....but instead I found even bigger egos and corporate schmoozing. After becoming more aware of the "-isms" and social injustice (both in society in general and in my life personally), I knew that I had to be a part of fighting for social change...however small...in one way or another (bye, bye engineering!). I spent the next year and a half working in after-school programs and doing Americorps, and then became a classroom teacher through Teach For America (I could write a novel with my thoughts on TFA, by the way).
I'm currently closing out my fifth and last year (for now, at least) as a classroom teacher at an unbelieveable elementary school that I am proud to be a part of (This past year I was a half-time teacher at L.U.C.H.A. Elementary and a half-time coach with Reach). I'm revising unit plans and long-term plans for the teachers to use next year, avoiding the inevitable cleaning of my classroom, thinking about all the students and families I have known, and reflecting on my successes and failures over the years as a teacher and leader. Teaching really is an art (Page, I liked your painting reference), a craft that is never perfected or "figured out"...and that is both what makes teaching incredibly beautiful and incredibly frustrating for me. I agree with Page that the overall ideas of teaching are rather simple, my emotional, mental, and physical state at the end of a school year won't let me forget that the act of teaching is ridiculously HARD. Even so (and perhaps as a result), the learnings and rewards of being a classroom teacher are immeasureable for me.
While I don't necessarily feel like I'm "ready" to leave the classroom, I do believe very strongly in our mission at Reach and couldn't pass up the opportunity to be a part of a program creating real change in teacher education. Spending last year as a half-time coach was SUCH a learning experience (I felt like a first year teacher again!), and I'm excited to approach this next year with even more focus and energy. I'm looking forward to getting to know you all and being connected to YOUR journeys in the classroom!
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Another Coach's View...
Well, I'm not going to recap everything that Page so eloquently said about the general Reach philosophy of teaching, but I AM going to give you a little background on me and how I ended up in this program.
I ended up teaching by accident--I did Americorps as a stop-gap between college and graduate school. I ran a peer conflict management program and an after school tutorial program. This experience taught me a ton, but I walked out with two major insights that prompted me to sign up for a credential program. I became really interested in the process of reading, and what made kids become readers or avoid reading like the plague. I also realized that I loved working with middle schoolers. (I don't know what this says about my general state of sanity, but we'll overlook that...)
I then spent the next seven years working at a middle school in San Rafael, teaching Core (language arts/history), French and AVID- a college-bound program for students would would be first in their family to go to college. For the last three years I taught there, I also mentored beginning teachers. While I loved working with my students, the more I mentored beginning teachers, the more frustrated I became with credential programs. Teaching is an extremely difficult job and yet I did not feel like the credential programs I had seen (including my own) were doing what was really necessary to help create the kind of teachers Page talked about above. When the opportunity to join Reach's Design team presented itself, I jumped at it.
I loved what we did on the Design Team and I am extremely proud to be a part of Reach. It matters to me that we create opportunities for teachers to become great so they in turn help students reach their full potential. I learned a lot last year about helping teachers become the teachers and leaders they want to be--and I think I became a better teacher and leader myself in the process. I am looking forward to this year and seeing what kind of amazing teaching and learning moments we will create together...
I will leave you with a favorite quote of mine that sums up what I loved about teaching and what I have loved this year about coaching: "Each contact with a human being is so rare, so precious, one ought to preserve it." (Anais Nin)
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Philosophy of Teaching
This is going to be kind of a cool experiment in creating online community... While all Reach Participants will be blogging about their expanding thinking about their own teaching and learning, this blog will be for the Reach Coaches (Peggy, Victoria, and I) to have our own running conversation about teaching and learning...
I'll start:
As coaches, we have been reflecting on our first year of Reach and what we have learned... And it has been an incredible year full of so much learning... One of the things we have been talking about is that even though the teaching is unbelievably challenging, personally and professionally, in many ways it boils down to some simple ideas, to wit:
Teaching comes back to the same essential questions:
• "How do I want my students thinking and being? How do they want to be thinking and being?"
• "What do I want them to know and be able to do? What do they want to know or be able to do?"
•"How will I/they know?"
• "What can I do to help EACH of them get there? What do they need to do individually and together?"
Teaching Habits:
• The Habit of Mind of teaching is to return, again and again, to these questions. Always from different perspectives and with different students in mind.
• The Habit of the Heart of teaching is to deeply, genuinely care about your students and how your effort to address these questions will affect them...
• The Habit of the Hand of teaching is all of the strategies and techniques that supports this (which we can teach you).
9 attitudes and skills that typify teachers who help all learners (Tomilinson & McTighe, 2006):
1. Establish clarity about curricular essentials
2. Accept responsibility for learner success
3. Develop communities of respect
4. Build awareness of what works for each student
5. Develop classroom management routines that contribute to success
6. Help students become effective partners in their own success
7. Develop flexible classroom teaching routines
8. Expand a repertoire of instructional strategies
9. Reflect on individual progress with an eye toward curricular goals and personal growth
So simple... yet, teaching and learning is one of the most complex tasks I can imagine. It requires skill and technique as well as creativity and intuition. Teachers have to be able to plan carefully AND be willing to throw out their plans at any moment. YIKES!
But then again, you could describe painting a masterpiece the same way...
For me, thinking about teaching in this way came by the scenic route... I started as an Outward Bound instructor more than 15 years ago. Working overseas with an amazing group of instructors from all over the world, we thought a lot about the big ideas we wanted students to grapple with, and we thought incessantly about the skills and knowledge we wanted them to have. But we were most definitely teaching habits of the hand as opposed to habits of the mind. Years later, after many stops in between, I became the founding director and a humanities teacher for the Bay Area School of Enterprise, a high school that was designed to make learning more experiential. For the first time I began to think deeply about what I wanted students to know and be able to do. Real and dramatic experience started to become, in my mind, necessary but no longer sufficient for the kind of learning I wanted students to be doing. I started to recognize that my attraction towards the big ideas and enduring understandings I wanted for students was coming at the expense of the skills and knowledge students needed to be able to fully accesses those ideas. Together with 20 amazing educators, both staff and volunteers (including Victoria and Peggy) we started Reach with the idea that we might be able to help teachers become the educators and leaders they want be. In the process, all of these questions came back to me in new ways.
Now, after 15 years of watching so many inspiring teachers of all descriptions and experience levels in action, I bring these questions to my teaching... What do I want the teachers I work with (including you) to know and be able to do? What do you want to know and be able to do? How do I want you thinking about your practice? How do you think about it? How can I help EACH of you to be the teacher you want to be? How can you help each other? These are the questions I bring to my work with you... and the questions I put to you...
I'll start:
As coaches, we have been reflecting on our first year of Reach and what we have learned... And it has been an incredible year full of so much learning... One of the things we have been talking about is that even though the teaching is unbelievably challenging, personally and professionally, in many ways it boils down to some simple ideas, to wit:
Teaching comes back to the same essential questions:
• "How do I want my students thinking and being? How do they want to be thinking and being?"
• "What do I want them to know and be able to do? What do they want to know or be able to do?"
•"How will I/they know?"
• "What can I do to help EACH of them get there? What do they need to do individually and together?"
Teaching Habits:
• The Habit of Mind of teaching is to return, again and again, to these questions. Always from different perspectives and with different students in mind.
• The Habit of the Heart of teaching is to deeply, genuinely care about your students and how your effort to address these questions will affect them...
• The Habit of the Hand of teaching is all of the strategies and techniques that supports this (which we can teach you).
9 attitudes and skills that typify teachers who help all learners (Tomilinson & McTighe, 2006):
1. Establish clarity about curricular essentials
2. Accept responsibility for learner success
3. Develop communities of respect
4. Build awareness of what works for each student
5. Develop classroom management routines that contribute to success
6. Help students become effective partners in their own success
7. Develop flexible classroom teaching routines
8. Expand a repertoire of instructional strategies
9. Reflect on individual progress with an eye toward curricular goals and personal growth
So simple... yet, teaching and learning is one of the most complex tasks I can imagine. It requires skill and technique as well as creativity and intuition. Teachers have to be able to plan carefully AND be willing to throw out their plans at any moment. YIKES!
But then again, you could describe painting a masterpiece the same way...
For me, thinking about teaching in this way came by the scenic route... I started as an Outward Bound instructor more than 15 years ago. Working overseas with an amazing group of instructors from all over the world, we thought a lot about the big ideas we wanted students to grapple with, and we thought incessantly about the skills and knowledge we wanted them to have. But we were most definitely teaching habits of the hand as opposed to habits of the mind. Years later, after many stops in between, I became the founding director and a humanities teacher for the Bay Area School of Enterprise, a high school that was designed to make learning more experiential. For the first time I began to think deeply about what I wanted students to know and be able to do. Real and dramatic experience started to become, in my mind, necessary but no longer sufficient for the kind of learning I wanted students to be doing. I started to recognize that my attraction towards the big ideas and enduring understandings I wanted for students was coming at the expense of the skills and knowledge students needed to be able to fully accesses those ideas. Together with 20 amazing educators, both staff and volunteers (including Victoria and Peggy) we started Reach with the idea that we might be able to help teachers become the educators and leaders they want be. In the process, all of these questions came back to me in new ways.
Now, after 15 years of watching so many inspiring teachers of all descriptions and experience levels in action, I bring these questions to my teaching... What do I want the teachers I work with (including you) to know and be able to do? What do you want to know and be able to do? How do I want you thinking about your practice? How do you think about it? How can I help EACH of you to be the teacher you want to be? How can you help each other? These are the questions I bring to my work with you... and the questions I put to you...
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