The Elephant In The Room: The Process of Little Things
Education, like life, is not about the macro or the big things. Like life, it is all about “the little things strung together.” It’s a lot like the quote that asserts, “There are no extraordinary people, there are only ordinary people in extraordinary situations.”
The reform of education is focused on the big changes as opposed to understanding that change is a step by step process. The educrats are playing for the big moment, yet they fil to understand that they can’t pull big moments out of thin air, consequently, their “big moments” exist in vacuums, totally disconnected and disembodied from reality.
From teaching students to be better writers, better students and better thinkers, to mentoring teachers to be better at teaching, to helping players to become better hitters or shooters, it was and is always about starting at step one and moving forward, step by step.
The reformers and the experts want to be able to say they did big things, that they changed everything, the only problem is, you can’t start out “big” – you have to start with the little things, and string them all together.
Are there poor teachers? Of course there are. There were bad teachers when I went to school, there were bad teachers when you went to school. If I were to ask you how many good or great teachers you had all the way through your college career, how many would you be able to list? I’d guess three or four- if you were lucky. Despite that fact, you are still successful today, you still survived. Good and great teachers don’t grow on trees and they are not “developed” or created in special teaching programs or institutes.
Good or great teachers grow and develop through experience and experience takes time and patience. Step by step. Slowly, based on little things strung together. When you marry that time and patience to extraordinary passion, The Elephant In The Room: The Process of Little Things | DCGEducator: Doing The Right Thing:
