My Dream School Idea
Hold fast to Dreams
For if Dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly
Hold fast to Dreams
For when Dreams go
Life is barren field
Frozen with snow.
~Langston Hughes
The DREAM
I feel an ideal school starts with a core, cohesive group of individuals who share a common thread; sharing a passion for educating children using techniques and strategies that address the needs of all students and yet holding firm to the idea of academic rigor. My thought and belief is that if teachers stick to high expectations for all, then all students will succeed where they are at academically. The core to my dream school is broken up into three components: the teachers/staff, the students and the parents.
In my dream, the teachers and support staff banter and share ideas with each other. Teachers share, collaborate, and create lessons that really focus on their love for educating all children. Teachers come to work happy, energetic and ready to teach!
In my dream, the parents are a part of my vision. I’d love to build and develop a parent community that would trust and share in the education of their children. What I mean by share in the education of the children is that parents take an active role in teaching and helping their children to learn. I’d love for parents to truly understand what it means to educate children.
In my dream, students would also share in the vision of the program. Students would have a voice in what they are learning and how they assess their progress. Students immerse themselves in learning in the classroom and then they take that a step further by investigating outside of the classroom. I would love to hear the students have scholarly discussions or debates in and outside the classroom. I would love for students to see that they don’t have a separate institution and different set of norms to think about when they leave the physical space. There should be a blending of lines where the school just becomes the hub for their learning, the foundation of the basic necessities for learning engagement that will help them in learn in the community.
With the internal vision of the dream school, I feel it could occur anywhere, but wouldn’t it be fun to have a school in a library with all the resources at everyone’s fingertips. However, with that in mind, could our dream school be made to emulate a place stocked with resources! This dream space would be lovelier if there were huge classrooms that open up to the outdoors. There would be tables for students to work on, but enough space for scholars to sprawl out on the floor to get comfortable. The classroom would be equipped with the latest technology for all students. It would be awesome if all students had their own laptops, ipads, and or iPods. I would love for the teacher to be equipped with laptops, iPads, iPods, state of the art interactive software, projectors and video technology. With all of this technology in place, I would love there to be technology immersed in instruction all day or have a person or mentor on site that is a full time tech support for teachers and students.
I could go on and on, but alas, I have only 3 pages…. My dream school would have TIME built in to the year. I wish that the school year would be longer, but there would be needed breaks throughout the year. Teachers need and wish for time to organize, collaborate, plan, research, read, grade, assessment, and develop their craft. If the school year was longer, then we would be able to build that much needed TIME into each day.
The REALITY:
The Dream School for me involves three KEY components: the teachers/staff, the students, and the parents.
When I gave my teachers the chance to voice their ideas on their dream school, amazingly enough we shared a couple common themes: Time and Trust.
Time was a major issue surrounding our collective dream school. I get to work with a great group of individuals who want to learn and share ideas. They all want to improve their craft so that they can best meet the needs of all students, and what they wanted was more TIME to meet with other teachers, to create units of study, to collaborate about curriculum, and simply support one another without constraints
Trust from the parents was another key element I found missing, but surprisingly enough, so did many of the teachers. Since the beginning of the school year, I’ve been thinking about this issue.
The CHANGES
The TIME Challenge:
Teacher voices:
Idea #1:
Since we are only 4 days on site, but we get paid for 5 days and we all work on the 5th day anyway, could we agree to meet in small teams focusing on curriculum planning and design on our Fridays? Someone suggested that we look at how we utilize our time during the week and try to look at Friday unselfishly. We all love our Fridays to work on our own independent work like lesson planning and grading papers, but could we utilize that Friday time differently and more constructively toward what we really wanted? Time with each other to collaborate and design curriculum for the whole school was somewhere in the idea.
Idea #2:
Continuing on with the issue of time, someone suggested that we have enrichment classes offered during the day, so that we can collaborate with each other during the day and not afterschool. In my mind, I was thinking that I don’t want these enrichment classes to be frivolous or time-filler, but I did like the idea. Because we are an independent study school, we already do not have enough time with our students, so I was more worried about the kinds of classes we could offer. This idea was a good idea, but it definitely needed some tweaking to make it work for our program and its constraints with time and instruction. I thought…
My Voice:
Could we have a Wheel of Experts come into our classrooms once a month, so that teachers could meet to work on curriculum with peers? The Wheel of Experts for the students could be mentors in the community or expert parents in the field for which our projects stem from. This would take some careful planning on our part as a staff, and it might give us the time we need, as well as provide authentic experiences for our scholars, not frivolous activities to fill the time away from the classroom instruction.
The TRUST Challenge
Here are a couple of strategies I’ve started at our school:
1. Have monthly “Parent Connection” meetings. I met with a couple of parents at the beginning of the school year to discuss how we, the school, can be better communicators, and how, “we,” the parents and teachers, can be on the same page educationally for their children. For site communication, we already have in place a school-website, individual teacher websites, teacher newsletters, school-wide weekly newsletters, and weekly emails. However at the onset of the school year, I realized that our communication was fairly one-sided. Both parties needed to have a voice. We needed to hear from the parents too. Creating an open forum for parents to voice how they are doing and feeling about educating their children is also key. I think this may be a missing link we need in building trust and support for one another.
As a result of these meetings so far, I think the parents are feeling a sense of partnership with the school. Many parents are excited about sharing with others and connecting with other parents at school. They are expressing how they can help communicate to other parents what is going on in the school and how they can help other parents who are not able to attend the Parent Connection meetings. Several parents approached me with ideas, now I can call them “bright spots,” that will help us better our program. I think these parent connection meetings are a good start to building and developing trust at our site. Who knows? Maybe through these meetings and discussions we will continue to formulate more “bright spots” that will build a cohesive, collaborative, successful school for children.
2. We have also implemented “Curriculum Chats” at our site. Once a month teachers hold these chats in their classrooms for the parents and students, and the topics for discussion stem from the classroom. For example, our second grade teacher wanted to talk to parents about her spelling program and how they could help develop word study at their homes. In our upper grade team, we taught the parents about how we differentiate the curriculum, academic rigor, and how to view the report card. These chats give the parents the opportunity to voice their issues and celebrations surrounding their children and their education. My hope is that we can build trust and an open dialogue between parents, teachers, and students.
I feel giving the teachers, parents, and students the opportunity to voice their issues and concerns, and to think about how we can successfully resolve our own issues is key to our success as a school. Everyone needs to feel a part of the process. Using the idea of “bright spots” will open up many doors for all involved.
The NEXT STEPS:
With Students:
Incorporate student voice. We are building our site to be a K-8 program, and I feel our students can help us develop our program even more. Students are the driving force in education and we all need to listen to them.
1. Empower the students by letting them voice what their dream school could/would be. (I’ve had my 7th grade students write about their dream school and we’ve already had a class discussion about what they would LOVE to see in our school.) I think the next step is to have students work in teams to problem solve and figure out ways in which their collective dream school could come to fruition.
2. Set up a Dream School committee where students can become an active participant in allowing students to be a part of the CHANGES we want to see in our school!
With Parents:
1. Ask parents to communicate ideas of their Dream School. Incorporate “Bright Spot” discussions into Parent Connection Meetings. (See attached meeting agenda)
2. Communicate to parents the teachers’ ideas of a Dream School. (See attached meeting agenda)
With Teachers:
1. Follow up on the time challenge. Get their thoughts on how to build in time for collaboration with each other.
Move to create a Wheel of Experts at our site, so that teachers can have time with each other to collaborate.
For if Dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly
Hold fast to Dreams
For when Dreams go
Life is barren field
Frozen with snow.
~Langston Hughes
The DREAM
I feel an ideal school starts with a core, cohesive group of individuals who share a common thread; sharing a passion for educating children using techniques and strategies that address the needs of all students and yet holding firm to the idea of academic rigor. My thought and belief is that if teachers stick to high expectations for all, then all students will succeed where they are at academically. The core to my dream school is broken up into three components: the teachers/staff, the students and the parents.
In my dream, the teachers and support staff banter and share ideas with each other. Teachers share, collaborate, and create lessons that really focus on their love for educating all children. Teachers come to work happy, energetic and ready to teach!
In my dream, the parents are a part of my vision. I’d love to build and develop a parent community that would trust and share in the education of their children. What I mean by share in the education of the children is that parents take an active role in teaching and helping their children to learn. I’d love for parents to truly understand what it means to educate children.
In my dream, students would also share in the vision of the program. Students would have a voice in what they are learning and how they assess their progress. Students immerse themselves in learning in the classroom and then they take that a step further by investigating outside of the classroom. I would love to hear the students have scholarly discussions or debates in and outside the classroom. I would love for students to see that they don’t have a separate institution and different set of norms to think about when they leave the physical space. There should be a blending of lines where the school just becomes the hub for their learning, the foundation of the basic necessities for learning engagement that will help them in learn in the community.
With the internal vision of the dream school, I feel it could occur anywhere, but wouldn’t it be fun to have a school in a library with all the resources at everyone’s fingertips. However, with that in mind, could our dream school be made to emulate a place stocked with resources! This dream space would be lovelier if there were huge classrooms that open up to the outdoors. There would be tables for students to work on, but enough space for scholars to sprawl out on the floor to get comfortable. The classroom would be equipped with the latest technology for all students. It would be awesome if all students had their own laptops, ipads, and or iPods. I would love for the teacher to be equipped with laptops, iPads, iPods, state of the art interactive software, projectors and video technology. With all of this technology in place, I would love there to be technology immersed in instruction all day or have a person or mentor on site that is a full time tech support for teachers and students.
I could go on and on, but alas, I have only 3 pages…. My dream school would have TIME built in to the year. I wish that the school year would be longer, but there would be needed breaks throughout the year. Teachers need and wish for time to organize, collaborate, plan, research, read, grade, assessment, and develop their craft. If the school year was longer, then we would be able to build that much needed TIME into each day.
The REALITY:
The Dream School for me involves three KEY components: the teachers/staff, the students, and the parents.
When I gave my teachers the chance to voice their ideas on their dream school, amazingly enough we shared a couple common themes: Time and Trust.
Time was a major issue surrounding our collective dream school. I get to work with a great group of individuals who want to learn and share ideas. They all want to improve their craft so that they can best meet the needs of all students, and what they wanted was more TIME to meet with other teachers, to create units of study, to collaborate about curriculum, and simply support one another without constraints
Trust from the parents was another key element I found missing, but surprisingly enough, so did many of the teachers. Since the beginning of the school year, I’ve been thinking about this issue.
The CHANGES
The TIME Challenge:
Teacher voices:
Idea #1:
Since we are only 4 days on site, but we get paid for 5 days and we all work on the 5th day anyway, could we agree to meet in small teams focusing on curriculum planning and design on our Fridays? Someone suggested that we look at how we utilize our time during the week and try to look at Friday unselfishly. We all love our Fridays to work on our own independent work like lesson planning and grading papers, but could we utilize that Friday time differently and more constructively toward what we really wanted? Time with each other to collaborate and design curriculum for the whole school was somewhere in the idea.
Idea #2:
Continuing on with the issue of time, someone suggested that we have enrichment classes offered during the day, so that we can collaborate with each other during the day and not afterschool. In my mind, I was thinking that I don’t want these enrichment classes to be frivolous or time-filler, but I did like the idea. Because we are an independent study school, we already do not have enough time with our students, so I was more worried about the kinds of classes we could offer. This idea was a good idea, but it definitely needed some tweaking to make it work for our program and its constraints with time and instruction. I thought…
My Voice:
Could we have a Wheel of Experts come into our classrooms once a month, so that teachers could meet to work on curriculum with peers? The Wheel of Experts for the students could be mentors in the community or expert parents in the field for which our projects stem from. This would take some careful planning on our part as a staff, and it might give us the time we need, as well as provide authentic experiences for our scholars, not frivolous activities to fill the time away from the classroom instruction.
The TRUST Challenge
Here are a couple of strategies I’ve started at our school:
1. Have monthly “Parent Connection” meetings. I met with a couple of parents at the beginning of the school year to discuss how we, the school, can be better communicators, and how, “we,” the parents and teachers, can be on the same page educationally for their children. For site communication, we already have in place a school-website, individual teacher websites, teacher newsletters, school-wide weekly newsletters, and weekly emails. However at the onset of the school year, I realized that our communication was fairly one-sided. Both parties needed to have a voice. We needed to hear from the parents too. Creating an open forum for parents to voice how they are doing and feeling about educating their children is also key. I think this may be a missing link we need in building trust and support for one another.
As a result of these meetings so far, I think the parents are feeling a sense of partnership with the school. Many parents are excited about sharing with others and connecting with other parents at school. They are expressing how they can help communicate to other parents what is going on in the school and how they can help other parents who are not able to attend the Parent Connection meetings. Several parents approached me with ideas, now I can call them “bright spots,” that will help us better our program. I think these parent connection meetings are a good start to building and developing trust at our site. Who knows? Maybe through these meetings and discussions we will continue to formulate more “bright spots” that will build a cohesive, collaborative, successful school for children.
2. We have also implemented “Curriculum Chats” at our site. Once a month teachers hold these chats in their classrooms for the parents and students, and the topics for discussion stem from the classroom. For example, our second grade teacher wanted to talk to parents about her spelling program and how they could help develop word study at their homes. In our upper grade team, we taught the parents about how we differentiate the curriculum, academic rigor, and how to view the report card. These chats give the parents the opportunity to voice their issues and celebrations surrounding their children and their education. My hope is that we can build trust and an open dialogue between parents, teachers, and students.
I feel giving the teachers, parents, and students the opportunity to voice their issues and concerns, and to think about how we can successfully resolve our own issues is key to our success as a school. Everyone needs to feel a part of the process. Using the idea of “bright spots” will open up many doors for all involved.
The NEXT STEPS:
With Students:
Incorporate student voice. We are building our site to be a K-8 program, and I feel our students can help us develop our program even more. Students are the driving force in education and we all need to listen to them.
1. Empower the students by letting them voice what their dream school could/would be. (I’ve had my 7th grade students write about their dream school and we’ve already had a class discussion about what they would LOVE to see in our school.) I think the next step is to have students work in teams to problem solve and figure out ways in which their collective dream school could come to fruition.
2. Set up a Dream School committee where students can become an active participant in allowing students to be a part of the CHANGES we want to see in our school!
With Parents:
1. Ask parents to communicate ideas of their Dream School. Incorporate “Bright Spot” discussions into Parent Connection Meetings. (See attached meeting agenda)
2. Communicate to parents the teachers’ ideas of a Dream School. (See attached meeting agenda)
With Teachers:
1. Follow up on the time challenge. Get their thoughts on how to build in time for collaboration with each other.
Move to create a Wheel of Experts at our site, so that teachers can have time with each other to collaborate.