Looking back over this year of teaching has made me appreciate my growth. I am planning to utilize my skills to promote equity and access in the classroom. I am very interested in developing a cohesive plan of Professional Development to aid teachers in working smarter, not harder. I want to foster the same set of skills that I have learned in this Master’s program. Divergent thinking has to be kept in balance with convergent practice. We need to focus on our goals if we want to achieve them.
As I reflect on this journey, I have found that I like to take a step back and look at the bigger picture. I see my students in my classroom as global citizens whose futures are still to be determined. I see myself as a member of many communities. I am part of my 4th-grade PLC, part of the 4th-grade CoP, and a Napa Valley Unified School District teacher. Ideally, each of these groups should reinforce and support the other. I have learned that needs and benefits of social interaction drive adult learning (andragogy). Furthermore, if the school district continues to use a top-down management style, teachers will have too many bosses to answer to and burn out. Teachers promote the 4 C’s in the classroom, and the school district would be wise to do the same. Our collective innovation and creativity have yet to be tapped. We are ready to develop a better education model that values the skills needed in the 21st century. To quote the visionary Sir Ken Robinson “For most of us the problem isn’t that we aim too high and fail. It’s just the opposite: we aim too low and succeed.” We are in a unique position to re-think education from the ground up as Linda Darling Hammond noted in her book “The Flat World and Education”. Time to roll up our sleeves and get started. Children are depending on us.