I want to touch on two more aspects of the time at TMC14 as well as share a story about my travels home. Since I’m still processing the week and hope to be able to write something that has some meaning, I’ll write about the person I sat next to from Tulsa to Detroit. There was a group of teachers who were on this plane, but they were not a subgroup of the TMC team. There was one other TMCer on my plane. No, these teachers were on their way to Michigan to conduct a teacher training workshop. The man sitting next to me has been in the business about as long as I have been (hint: it’s a loooong time) and he told me he has been working with the same training group since 1991. I asked him how much this training job has changed during that time and he kind of paused. I shared with him a few observations I have about ways in which my students are different than they were twenty years ago. He listened carefully – I don’t think I was making any revolutionary points at all. I spoke about how I have been more conscious about the need to break class up and to lecture less than I used to. I talked about how I work to make sure that there is time for reflection built in to my classes in a way that I was not always conscious of before. I was kind of excited that I might have another interesting conversation about pedagogy with a stranger as I had been having the past few days. He calmly told me that the professional training that they do is the same as it has been the whole time he has worked there. He said this with no hint that it should have changed. I don’t want to sound instantly judgmental here, I honestly don’t. I looked at the website for the company he works for outside the classroom. They look like they are caring, concerned teachers who are trying to help others. But I cannot shake the idea that there is something inherently troubling about being in our business, working with young people in such a time of change and not changing a thing about what you do.
I think that this is at the heart of what excites me about feeling a part of a community of teachers – those who came to TMC14, those who blog and question, those who engage in twitter chats and debates, etc.
There was an exchange this morning on twitter and part of the conversation centered around trying to be an ‘All-Star Teacher’. I think that everyone at TMC14 – all 150 of them were there to try to become an ‘All-Star Teacher’ and to help each other in that goal. I also believe that the teacher I spoke to on the plane is interested in helping others become ‘All-Star Teachers’ as well.
It’s just a matter of how it is we get there. I feel pretty sure that sharing the way we do in our community is the right path.
Yes! Everybody wants to be good at their jobs; some just have different resources and ideas about “good.”