Heard the One About Old Teachers Resisting Tests?
When I was a novice teacher, I knew I was on a path to becoming the World's Greatest Band Director. I gave my students challenging music (which they didn't play very well). I joked around in class (unlike their other, boring teachers). I wasn't stuck in a rut (see previous sentence). I was up on all the educational trends of the day: diversity and equality, the open classroom, unschooling. I was against tracking and for paying attention to the whole child.
If you had asked me to identify the best and worst teachers in my building, I would have done so. Although I had some humility around what I didn't know about being a successful music teacher, I also considered myself more up-to-date and engaging than many other teachers in my building. Even though I'd never visited their classrooms, saw them in action, or had a conversation with them about their guiding beliefs.
Had Teach Plus been around, in 1974, I would have sent in an application.
Given that today is a
If you had asked me to identify the best and worst teachers in my building, I would have done so. Although I had some humility around what I didn't know about being a successful music teacher, I also considered myself more up-to-date and engaging than many other teachers in my building. Even though I'd never visited their classrooms, saw them in action, or had a conversation with them about their guiding beliefs.
Had Teach Plus been around, in 1974, I would have sent in an application.
Given that today is a