Teacher as Professional

I am becoming a teacher who wants her classroom studio to be able to have true negotiation, authentic student voice and reflection.  A lot of my thinking about negotiation occurred through my inquiry; if you would like to read about that, go to my Teacher as Inquirer post.  What follows is a rather unorganized list of how I am just starting to sort out everything I've learned professionally in these two weeks.

SI - through the technology platforms I've been shown like Storify, Glogster, Museum Box, Tagxedo and Gapminder or nonvirtual genres like mission statements, Murray Cards, Ars Poetica and mentor texts like Scranimals - has taught me how to open the opportunity for students to brainstorm and express themselves in mutli or varied genres.  I am hoping this will help them use their authentic voice.

Part of my work toward wanting more negotiation in my classroom studio (the part that wasn't in my inquiry) is rethinking the concept of expertise. Lil started me thinking about this before SI started as she asked me for my opinions on SI's orientation.  I kept feeling confused because a person who I consider to be an expert was honestly seeking (and was excited about) thoughts from a Master's student peon.  This helped me start thinking about really listening to and seeking out my students' voices.  Lil gave me a voice again as she tweeted one of the things I said.

Then Lacy got me thinking about expertise as I read her blog about negotiation and expertise.  I had been told by a colleague who read an article saying that one becomes an expert as soon as one engages in a community.  I haven't completely teased this out yet but I'm going to keep thinking about.  Some of these ideas may be fleshed out in the way I encourage negotiation in the classroom.  For example, I really like the idea of negotiating what the syllabus should say (shout out to Jessie) or what the goals of the portfolio could be (shout out to Carrie).  These things may show students that I am not the expert in the classroom but that we are all collaborating to learn more.

I am also learning more about modeling.  I claim that modeling is important, but I'm starting to realize that I haven't been modeling like I should.  I started to realize this when Jen told us to write our mission statements.  As I say in this blog, it suddenly dawned on me that, though I want my students to reflect on themselves as writers, I hadn't been doing that.  This idea was emphasized again when Carrie talked about how Jen wrote with us and when Dorry told me that she does the same assignments she has her students doing.  I really think this would position me more as a member of the community - rather than someone floating above and outside of it.  So, now I'm trying to keep an eye on whether I am modeling assignments and behaviors for my students.

I also really started thinking about teacher community and enacting real change.  While in the ranting circle, I kept hearing a voice in my head, "Are we just going to complain or are we going to change it?"  This thought was solidified by Rebecca who vocalized, "So are we going to do anything about this?" which was then affirmed by Rashid.  The sentence echoed until we did the tableaux and discussed how weighty we felt.  I felt something changing inside me and Rashid's demo that day gave me the vocabulary: I had hit my tipping point.  After talking to Melissa and Lacy about really wanting to do something, I went home, thought for a while and wrote on the blog.  This is the first time I have ever wanted to rebel and overthrow the common actions.  I am excited to see what this community of teachers can accomplish together!