It’s not an easy thing to open your practice as a teacher to others for criticism and feedback. We ask our students to do that every day - show us your work and we’ll tell you if you’re right or wrong. Of course it doesn’t work like that; we reassure them that we’re giving positive and constructive feedback, we use strategies to encourage them to submit their work for criticism, encouraging them to use the criticism to become better at what they do. But do that to ourselves? Nope. That’s not going to happen.
Good teachers recognize that that must happen, and we recognize that for the same reasons we tell our students. In order to grow, we must be willing to accept feedback. That means opening our door and letting other teachers in to see what we do. With that openness comes an expectation that other teachers will see the good, the bad, the ugly, and the beautiful. Once we do that, however, and if other teachers see us as legitimately competent at what we do, then they will accept us as teacher leaders (Katzenmeyer and Moller, 2016).
I have reflected much over the last two years of the Teacher Leadership program with my cohort. We have discussed the ups and downs of our profession and our practice and have shared ideas that have made me a better teacher. I truly have taken advantage of what York-Barr, Sommers, Ghere, and Montie (2006) consider an advantage of groups: more resources such as experience, knowledge, and energy. This has helped me particularly because I teach a singleton class (AP English Language) and do not have a singular team to work with in my assignment. I am part of an AP PLC, and our discussions in that group do help with general knowledge about our common students (York-Barr et al., 2006), but I lack the specific support in my content area. Our SPU study group has been that support, playing an important role in my learning over the past two years (Zepeda, 2008).
My thinking has been pushed these last two years in a number of areas, particularly culturally responsive teaching and community engagement. I could have identified these as areas of need entering the program, and the program and my colleagues in that program have helped me develop a new understanding of how to approach these issues in my practice. I have undertaken an effort to promote my students’ “participation in a multicultural, democratic society” (Pace, 2015, p. 14). I have learned that I must actively participate in “a peaceful transition to a new kind of America, in which no ethnic or cultural group is in a dominant position” (Howard, 1996, p. 324). And I have worked to find the efficiencies in my organization and get the most out of them (Owens and Valesky, 2015). These are only a small part of how this program has pushed me to become a better teacher through opening my classroom door to others and inviting them inside.
References
Howard, G. (1996). Whites in multicultural education: Rethinking our role. In Banks, J. A. (ed.). Multicultural education, transformative knowledge, and action: Historical and contemporary perspectives (pp. 323-334). New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
Katzenmeyer, M., and Moller, G. (2016). Understanding teacher leadership. In Blair, E. (ed.). Teacher leadership: The “new” foundation of teacher education (pp. 121-136). New York, NY: Peter Lang.
Owens and Valesky (2015). Citation to come because I rented the book and don’t have it anymore and don’t even remember the title. I wonder if anyone will actually read this. Comment if you do.
Pace, J. L. (2015). The charged classroom: Predicaments and possibilities for democratic teaching. New York, NY: Routledge.
York-Barr, J., Sommers, W.A., Ghere, G.S., & Montie, J. (2006). Reflective practice to improve schools: An action guide for educators (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.
Zepeda, S. J. (2008). Professional development: What works. New York, NY: Routledge.
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