In It To Win It

Watch as I use superhuman strength to mold young (and old) minds!

We're two weeks into the new school year and I've never been so overwhelmed by the task at hand.  I've been brought to a new school to help turn it around--to breathe new life into a school that's been laying stagnant in failure. I'm tasked with helping an English and Reading department that has seen dramatic learning decreases every year for the past four years.  The thing is, I see exactly where the issues are.  I see what isn't being done well.  That's the easy part. The herculean effort is getting people to change their teaching styles to suit the kids they teach.
I'm teaching old dogs new tricks and it is just as difficult as the old adage would have you believe.  It can be done though.
We're two weeks into the teaching year, but I've been working with these teachers for a couple weeks longer.  I'm starting to see a shift.
The problem was that they never taught anything in context, just in isolation.  Their students weren't seeing a connection between all the things they were being taught, so they weren't able to demonstrate knowledge from one assignment to another and certainly never on standardized tests.  This tends to make for pretty miserable kids and teachers.
After sending out my unit plans to my teams, I waited.  I knew they wouldn't immediately care what I was doing and nor should they, really.  But I knew they would see my kids coming to class excited about learning because they were getting cohesive, understandable instruction. Slowly but surely, I started to see teachers peeking in my door or talking with their former students.  Sometimes, they asked me outright what I was doing to get this response.  I told them.  They're starting to listen.
Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not the best teacher on the planet.  As with anyone, I know there is always room to grow. I am good though.  My data proves that.  My excited minds rushing to class prove that.  This is what I was born to do, so I am going to make sure I give it my all every day.  And if I can spread that around even a little bit, then I will do just that.