A few posts ago I shared with you our theme for the school year of "Going for the Gold in 2012." It is the year of the Olympics and already millions of people attended or watched the Summer Olympics. My favorite part of the Olympics are the features about the athletes. In the features, we get to see the personal side of the athlete, hear about their training schedules, meet their family and get to know the athlete as a person. I like to hear about their challenges and how their commitment to one single sport has changed their lives.
I've been doing a lot of thinking about teaching and how the teaching profession requires just as much dedication, perseverance and training! It's true! Let me explain further. Did you know that our teachers set professional development goals, just like the Olympians set personal goals? These goals are year long and require individual effort and independent learning on top of the regular work day.
Additionally, as a staff we have embarked on two professional development journeys this school year. The first is increasing what we call "rigor" in our small group instruction, particularly in reading. Our staff has already had two 3 hour sessions examining our reading practices and the Daily 5 literacy structure. Ask your child about the Daily 5 and the kinds of learning activities s/he participates in each day.
Our second staff development is specifically targeted at increasing academic language and vocabulary and it is called Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol or SIOP. (Stop by and look at the SIOP information posted in our glass display cases or call the school for more information.) It is researched based and includes various best practices that support the learning of all children in the classroom.
With both staff development focuses, each and every teacher is reflecting on their own instructional delivery and incorporating their new knowledge of skills or strategies into their instructional program. These two staff developments are similar in nature and both require teachers to think critically and comprehensively about the needs of our students. Similarities to an Olympic athlete? Athletes observe their opponents in races whether it is in an actual race, on a video or in a pool. Teachers observe their students each and every day multiple times during the school day. Our teachers informally and formally assess their students for learning. If learning isn't happening at high levels, our teachers change their teaching. The same can be said for the Olympic athletes, they must not only know their opponents, but also themselves and make changes based on the information they have.
So my question is really no longer is teaching an Olympic sport, rather when will it "officially" become an Olympic sport? I could certainly pass out gold medals here!
If you have been in school lately you should have seen our display cases shining with red, white and blue. Go up and down our halls to see how our teachers are carrying out our theme into student learning and classroom activities. Pictures of these great activities are coming soon!