Cycle Three: Schools as Embryonic Communities

I may have mentioned before that the school that I am assigned to is our district's first "green school." The first "oooo"s and "aaahhh"s come from the gadgets and/or characteristics that qualify our school as a "green school." I will attach a link in a response to this post about just that. But, now what? What are we going to do with this designation? The school district community was excited at the onset, but you can pretty much tell that interest has waned, even for the teachers who work there, and, since our students were never introduced to much more than the solar panels in the two creation stations we have, I don't think they really care either. Picture this: A student wearing a/our school shirt, stopped by a member of the community who asks the student to tell them a little something about what makes their school green and the school's characteristics relate to their learning, and the student can't answer. What a saddening thought. And still another, perhaps, perhaps not, unrelated thought: What a waste of money!

I will say that at the onset of the 2012-2013 school year, I had big plans about how to engage our students in their learning environment. My first thought was that we could set up a milk weed butterfly garden and eventually witness the monarch butterfly migration in our own back yard. When my position changed, I became occupied with other school matters. I will not dote on the lost, but rather focus on the fact that I recruited and totally snatched a science teacher from another school who spent a summer in Wisconsin working with a monarch butterfly program. I'm hoping she can bring my idea to fruition. I don't know if this idea fits the mold of the embryonic community, but I definitely see it as a step in the right direction. The idea is that students will be engaged in the planning, construction (to the extent that elementary students can be), and maintenance of the butterfly garden. When they take ownership of the project, when we saturate "him with the spirit of service, and providing him with the instruments of effective self-direction, we shall have the deepest and best guaranty of a larger society which is worthy, lovely, and harmonious" (Dewey, p.20). I would love it if the entire project was initiated with "activity on the part of the children preceded the giving of information on the part of the teacher, or where the children had some motive for demanding the information," (Dewey, p.23). INQUIRY! I can see the smoke emitting from many tiny heads now. We, meaning my school, have a genuine space and premise for learning. Wouldn't this talk directly to "[P]ersonalizing the school environment is a central goal of effort to transform America's schools" (Felner, Seitsinger, Brand, and Burns, and Bolton)? Our student population desperately needs a concrete connection to their education. I often tell my students that they have to take responsibility for their own learning, but that means nothing to them. The statements in "Creating Small Learning Communities...About "What Works" in Creating Productive, Developmentally Enhancing, Learning Contexts" about "...bringing the learner in as a full and respective participant..." and "...engaging the student more deeply through building on connections..." really seemed to address my idea about taking our green school to an actual academic level for our students rather than have it become stagnant as a green school in name only.

Shifting from the "embryonic communities" focus, the Lieberman and Miller chapters were highly engaging for me, particularly the information about the National Writing Project. Many-a-winter I have invested time and energy in researching New Jersey Writing Project dates in my area. I have not had the pleasure of attending due to planned family vacations or summer district professional development. This year I got a little closer. A long-time colleague and friend attended the The New Jersey Writing Project as a district (not my district) initiative and is sharing some valuable information and insight with me. One day.

And loosely tying into were the references to professional development and particularly teacher buy-in. The premise of a collegial culture where teachers "move beyond consensus...and they go deeper to uncover and analyze problems" (Lieberman, Miller p.19) is one that I have experienced, if only at an introductory level, with my aforementioned long-time colleague. We have been working together on a project with our education service center and have engaged in some in-depth conversation about students and instructional practices. What I notice is that we both have a genuine interest in what happens in the classroom and with our students. From personal experience at one or two campuses I have been at is that constructive criticism, no matter how constructive, is uncomfortable and quite frankly unwelcome. There was so much in the Lieberman, Miller Chapter 2 that I could relate to in terms of what does and doesn't happen with and among teachers in professional development and implementation.

In the 2013-2014 school year, I am headed back to the classroom as a result of school board action. I am excited. I hope to take much, if not most, of what I have read and learned to provide a quality education to the little "esquinkles" (term of endearment which may not be a real word even in Spanish) who walk through my door next month.