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Monday, June 10, 2013

A Memo on Teacher Voice - The Jose Vilson | The Jose Vilson

A Memo on Teacher Voice - The Jose Vilson | The Jose Vilson:

A Memo on Teacher Voice


tightrope walking
Why do people always feel the need to limit the potential of teacher voice?
Last year, I expounded on redefining teacher voice, and what that means for true education reform:
Popout
Teacher voice is the collective and individual expression of meaningful, professional opinion based on classroom experience and expertise.
What developed shortly thereafter were a plethora of discussions of what that looks like, and how we employ that in different settings. I came to realize a few things:
  1. People aren’t always ready to change the paradigm to make decisions more democratically.
  2. Teachers don’t always have the time or energy besides doing the best job possible in the classroom.
  3. The education debate as a whole hasn’t evolved from just picking one side and one group of people to side with.
These points make for a lack of teachers activating their voices. For those of us who do this selflessly (sans