A teacher’s anti-solution to a big problem
It’s no secret that teachers don’t get enough quality professional development — or even the kinds of development — that can help them grow as educators.
That has been a particular frustration to Ashley Lamb-Sinclair, the 2016 Kentucky Teacher of the Year who teaches high school English and creative writing. Lamb-Sinclair decided to do something about it, and this post explains what she did, why she did it, and the continuing problems of professional development that hinder teachers.
Lamb-Sinclair authors the www.beautifuljunkyard.com website, and is the founder and chief executive officer of Curio Learning, an educational technology company launching a platform for — you can probably guess this — teacher professional development. (Her Twitter handle: @AshleyLambS)
By Ashley Lamb-Sinclair
As I write this, sitting in the back corner of an evening lecture on customer discovery for startups, learning how to develop the business I have created, the creative writer in me studies the people in the room — mostly men, many middle aged and white. They huddle around the lukewarm pizza and sodas in the corner, meander back to their seats, work on their phones, and make small talk with each other. These are people who want to build businesses. They are aspiring and working entrepreneurs. I feel like an alien in this room; the creative writing teacher wearing sandals and big earrings among suited businessmen with jargon like “minimum viable product” in their heads. These men might look at me and wonder why I’m here, and more frustratingly, when I go back to my “real job” tomorrow to teach reading and writing to high school students, my colleagues in the world of A teacher’s anti-solution to a big problem - The Washington Post:
