I am most challenged when the work proposed or embedded does not meet current research and reading. This frustration grows when others are unwilling to discuss the mismatch or develop the activity or program.
What challenges you most with regard to collaboration?
It's difficult to keep all work up to date with regard to the tremendous research, ideas, and resources available with regard to teaching well today. It also takes time and skill to share, understand, and apply that knowledge. Yet if we're satisfied with accepting old notions, notions that may not have good merit today, we don't offer our students as much as we can.
How do you move your work forward?
When I'm in a situation where old think dominates and new think is not accepted, it feels like a tight cell rather than a fluid sea of ideas, effort, and growth. This restriction challenges the reading, research, and learning I do as well as the potential and promise I see for better schools.
Do you feel restricted or empowered with regard to the application of new research and ideas?
What processes do you and your colleagues use to share and discuss the need for new practice and new ideas? How much acceptance, encouragement, commitment, and support is there for new ideas, innovation, and updated application? What is the pace of this innovation? Is it too slow or too fast?
What processes foster innovation and change in your organization?
I like to keep my work with students moving forward. I enjoy trying new ideas as I seek to challenge and teach each student well. My teaching is always changing as I read, research, and reflect. Good work for me is work that continues to evolve with respect to students' needs and interests as well as the expectations and current research/innovation.
Is your teaching continuing to evolve or does it essential stay the same?
The challenge for me is how to best communicate this need as well as the merits of this focus. I want to advocate for the types of processes that allow schools, educators, and students to develop programs, resources, and activities in regular, worthy, and promising ways. In a sense I want to reshape the structures of the schools we work in so that we can better meet the academic needs and interests of every child as I believe that many old structures stymie this potential.
How do you imagine the restructure of systems and structures to better meet the need for innovation and evolution in schools?