It all began about ten months ago when my principal and superintendent (AKA Batman and Robin) began inquiring about Professional Learning Communities. My role as Professional Development Coach, or Literacy Coach, was to coordinate a pilgrimage to see the DuFours in person. This pilgrimage would included one representative from six grade levels K-5. An invitation was emailed to all staff, and behind the scenes, the most vocal or influential teacher that volunteered for that grade level was invited to attend a two day workshop given by Rick and Becky DuFour.
I may have been organizing this, but I had my healthy cynicism about this new approach to teaching and learning. Were we ready? Was this worth it? How does my coaching role fit into all of this? Most of all, how does this benefit our students? All of these questions were answered, all of my doubts removed, and all of my resolve strengthened. This simple, why-didn't-I-think-of-that approach to collaboration was the answer.
In the days to come, I will be revisiting moments of challenge, and moments of success, in our journey as a small community of teachers doing our darndest to work together in a new and surprisingly difficult structure of collaboration. I will highlight my work as the ringleader of this circus (on the bad days) and conductor of this orchestra (on the good ones).
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
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