Imagine this scenario…you get out of college and get a job in your degree field, in a place close to home with a full time contract! (Yes, I know, this sounds like fiction already!) You work that job for 5 years and become pretty successful and were rewarded for this success with another job researching best practices in your field and designing training to help bring those practices to your district. Then, after 15 years of working with other professionals, seeing the best stuff around and “preaching” best practices, you get a chance to get back in and once again to the real work.
This is what I get to do. After 15 years of working in training and professional development in education, I get to go back in the classroom! What an honor!
Over the next few months, I will be blogging about my experiences attempting to take all of the great work I have seen and attempted to spread, back in the classroom.
Today is that day that it happens.
For the sake of brevity (and the fact that it is 6:00 am on this first morning) let me just say that I am wrestling with my first case of taking research in to practice. Much research has been done on the first days of school and how to best get the year started on the right path. Harry Wong (who used some of Douglas Brooks’ work) talks about the importance of establishing routines and classroom practices. Ron Ritchhart says to get them working if you want to build a classroom filled with intellectual character.
I chose #2. We will start the day with a thinking exercise. Building from research mentioned by Ken Robinson in his speech about schools and creativity, we will be working with paper clips today! Let’s see how many things 6th graders can make with one paperclip.
Wish me luck! I will fill in more details as we go!