ART: Week 3 - Read & React

Read: Series Preface/Preface, Chapters 1 & 2 Reflective Teaching

An Introduction Liston, Daniel & Zeichner, Kenneth. 2nd edition (2014) 

Write what-if questions and post them on LORE for contemplation and group feedback. 

My What-if Questions:

• What if ALL teachers were encouraged to attend conferences and attain learning outside the district? 
• What if ALL teachers were encouraged to join their professional organizations? 
• What if teachers paired up with another teacher to explore their own learning, their practice, learn together and support each other?
• What if we designed our own professional development? What if we were required like other professions to attend "Continuing Education" seminars to stay certified?
• What if we weren't so exhausted at the end of the day from all the thinking and being on our feet?  

1. I am asking you to select two to four questions (the authors pose’s as you read) that you find challenging, difficult or even inspiring. Restate the questions on your blog and then respond, reflecting your thinking about them. Remember to be reading each others’ responses and starting conversations.!!!!!!!!! (note passionate and firm explanation marks:))

Q1: (p. 4) Do you think that teachers should play leadership roles in curriculum development, program development, and school reform or just stick to their work in the classroom? Absolutely! They should play a role in all those arenas. Besides students, teachers make up the bulk of the population in a school and are the ones who were trained in pedagogy. They are the ones with insight into the way their students learn. What becomes an issue is when teachers are only ever exposed to their own way of doing things. It is important for teachers to be learners for life and model this behavior for their own students. Teachers should also act as change agents making a positive impact in the world around them.

Q2: (p. 13) In what ways might the structure of classrooms and schools contribute to and/or discourage teacher reflectivity?

I am speaking from a HS perspective, but this may be the same in some instances for other levels. The structure of the school day is one that keeps a teacher on his or her feet. With just a few minutes between classes to set up, take down any needed class prep, go to the bathroom, make copies, get supplies, check emails, make phone calls, etc. etc. it is hard sometimes to find the needed time to slow down and think. Our lunch time even was only 21-24 minutes (barely enough time to think about what you were eating let alone anything else, really!) I sometimes felt I had the luxury of reflection when classes would be deep in to a project and no one needed assistance. My husband teaches social studies and loves to talk (lecture vs storytelling - a debate for another time…) so he argues he has even less time then I ever did. I think that some people are just more prone to naturally reflect and others less so, but definitely the structure of a school day does not encourage or nurture it. 

Q3: (p. 13) Some argue that teaching is too demanding and complex to expect teachers to be very reflective about their work - - What do you think?

Being a part of the local school PD (run by a teacher team) I suggested we had teachers blog their reflections about the action research they had chosen to do. It was shot down as something the teacher body would have a problem with (it would be one more thing they had to do, it would require that they "put themselves out there", it would point out people who didn't get it, etc.) Yes, I think it would have been a culture change, but one for the better, not worse. We could have made it work! We could have been "yeah, ands!" not "yeah, buts…"

Q4: (p. 14) Think about this statement. Do you agree or disagree? What specific implications do you see in Stenhouse's view for your own teaching? 

This is partially how I see my job now, to be the one who digs up cool stuff to ponder. Part of the reason I do like this side of my job so much is the luxury of time. I have time to deeply think about things that normally I'd have to set aside in order to do lesson planning, or supply ordering, or grading - - the list could go on and on. When I did go to conferences, I always lamented not having just one more day to process all the wonderful things I had heard and learned. I wanted to make a master plan of how to integrate all this neat stuff.  I would get so aggravated (and still do) when I was turned down when I asked to be able to go to conferences (on my own dime). I need(ed) to be bombarded by new ideas so I could "digest" them under my "own judgment". I was refueled by this and it kept my passion burning. Passion and energy begot more passion and more energy.  

2. This reading covers a lot of territory. Pay close attention to the section on the three attitudes which are integral to reflection in action. Address each idea as it relates to you. 

Three attitudes which are integral to reflection in action: Open-mindedness, Responsibility, Wholeheartedness.

• Open-mindedness: I would say that I am currently in a critical frame of mind when it comes to open-mindedness - to an extent. I'm leaning back more into the sophisticated  frame of mind at this moment as we transition into our new curriculum writing cycle. I desperately want to grow with this new go round and really provide an opportunity for our students and teachers to integrate more artist studio habits of mind. We have some teachers so entrenched in teaching the E&P in such a way that their program numbers are dwindling (they are all about the data to the detriment of their program.) I need to remember to keep my open mind and listen to their concerns, reframing the conversation to see it from all sides. 

• Responsibility: I am constantly thinking about what ripple effects my actions are going to have. If I push too hard, will it appear as a top-down curriculum? even if it is written by a team of 6 teachers and not me? Responsibility hits me hard in many facets of my job, not just with teacher teams writing curriculum but in representing the fine arts in our district for our students and for the teachers. Where can I step up to make our voice heard? When do I need to step back? When do I need to push others forward? When do I need to push myself to learn more in order to do more? 

• Whole-heartedness: I think I may do this to my own detriment. I constantly try to take the perspective of other teachers, especially in other content areas. Since I am leading areas that aren't my content, I want to make sure I listen extra carefully to understand their concerns. However, since I don't teach their content I'm missing a normally helpful component - the ability to professionally judge the content sniff test. Sometimes you just know when you are being fed a line because a student just doesn't want to put in the extra effort and sometimes you can tell that a student really meant to do better. Not having taught a content, it is harder to sniff that out in teachers. Or maybe that's because I like to assume positive intentions in people. 

I would say because I hold myself so responsible for not just the students of a few classes, but to a much larger audience of an entire district, I am putting a lot of pressure on myself (too much really.) And I want to do right by teachers for those students. I need to take to heart what is said on page 13, "Reflective teachers are not some sort of special superwomen…are simply and unabashedly committed to the education of all…and to their own education as teachers. When they make mistakes they are not overly harsh toward themselves. They move on."

3. Do a little digging. Do you know wrote your curriculum? When was it last changed? How is it different from(or the same as) your own schooling experiences?

Our visual arts curriculum at the high school level was last written between 2008 - 2010 with the idea that it was a "living document" and could be changed as needed (before that it hadn't been touched since 1999). Each course was written by a team of teachers from across the district that were teaching the course. I remember thinking at the time, "Wow, this is malfeasance, not allowing teachers to update curriculum for so long." It was a very basic curriculum with very little meat to it, very little addressing anything other than "you will teach these elements and principles" and nothing in the way of DBAE's areas of art criticism or aesthetics. Now we have a system in place where the curriculum is "evergreen" - digital and able to be updated whenever deemed necessary. However, teachers rarely get together to make changes so it is again frozen in time, with almost as much time passing before it is planned to be formally changed again. Luckily, I think what was written last was a strong curriculum that addressed needed updates. Formally, nothing has changed from the state (in terms of standards) but it does seem that as time has crept on that changes, updates, and a revisiting of the philosophical underpinnings of our curriculum is essential. [Part of the extended time line is in part due to logistics. The teachers that teach the courses are needed to write the curriculum, and because teachers teach multiple courses, with only so much time available at once to work, each of our 15 courses has to be scheduled out over a set  number of years. Throw on top of that there is one facilitator that works with each group (as well as the middle school and elementary courses and each grade level's music & theatre courses for a total of 57 curriculums) and there is only so much time in the day to get these people together. ] 

I would say our latest version of GLE's that drives our curriculum isn't that different from my high school art education. The approach may be different, a little more structure due to the increase in testing culture, but the same focus on media skills and the E & P. I'm hoping we change that with this go round. The biggest difference I see from my years of schooling are in the elementary levels. When I went to school in the '80's, it was a lot more arts & crafts based on the season and/or holiday. There is much more structure to teach artistic concepts and skills (again media and E&P focused.)

4. Review the findings from the first two weeks, identify two or three areas you want to work on through out this class. Be specific, state them as goals. I will be asking you to keep these goals in mind as we progress.

When I did my self-audit, I was thinking of myself in my typical classroom with high school students. Because I am no longer in a typical classroom setting and instead I am working with adult learners, my growth goals are referring to my work with curriculum groups in the first stage of our revision cycle - research and current reality. I would like to help teachers interact with new information (the NCCAS Core Arts Standards, New School Art Styles, etc.). I want to do this in such a way that teachers feel prepared to tackle a new transformative curriculum with an open mind and a "what if" attitude to be change agents in our established school culture.

Goal #1-  By the end of the year, I will raise my score on helping students process new information from a 1 to a 3.

Goal #2 - By the end of the year, I will raise my score on organizing students to practice and deepen knowledge from a 1 to a  3.