Friday, October 03, 2014

Tell Me Why You Do What You Do

On Wednesday, when I picked students up from art I was struck by the beautiful posters that the students made. Each poster described why and how students learn art. There was such overlap to our "Learning to Learn" and STEAM study. I asked the art teacher to write a post for this blog as I wanted to know more. I wanted to understand deeply how this teacher of almost 30 years of dedicated service understands and applies her beliefs, knowledge, and experience of art to her program for young students.

In fact, I'd like to know why each of my colleagues do what they do--I see their efforts every day and can conjecture about their priorities, choices, experience, and beliefs, but it would be great to get the real story as I know that would positively impact my efforts to teach children well.

Do we take the time to talk deeply about what we do and why we do it? Do we analyze problems and make decisions with depth to grow and develop our schools?

At this time in the education evolution, it is a time to embrace deeper structure and process with regard to all that we do. We've moved beyond the one-size-fits-all, that's-the-way-we've-always-done-it mindsets to a new age of we can do this better and tell me why you do what you do.