Butterflies and Overalls

 I wanted to change the way we teach so I am headed back into the classroom.

Just like thousands of colleagues across the province, just like hundreds of others who are returning after stints in central leadership, just like I knew that I would when I first took on a central role.

I am returning to the classroom and I was nervous.

Not like first year jitters or anything. I know that I am going to be fine, professionally speaking, that my class and I will find a way to interact positively, that we will get learning done.  I am not scared that I am rusty, especially since I was able to do a lot of work with a lot of classes over my time centrally.

No, I was nervous because I had all of these big questions and ideas that I wanted to try, pedagogical practices to flip the desks in the classroom and really change how it all operates.  Ways to include the students not just in the work, but in the learning and the planning that goes into it. And change, as we have all experienced, is about as well received as a two-week old bagel.

Then I started going in to the office.  I wanted to be alone at first, dip my toes back into the water, set up my desk and -what has lovingly been referred to as- my NASA launching station.  Get a feel for being back in a school building again and look at the physical parameters of what I would be trying to do.

Then others started coming in as well and we started having conversations about our plans. That just relaxed all of my anxieties.

In the past, I have felt ostracized for daring to question traditional teaching, to question novel studies, ponderous essays and even -gasp- the sacrosanct Shakespeare.  Not that there isn't value in those activities, but I constantly wondered the depth of that value and if there wasn't other means to the same ends.

After those initial conversations back in the classroom, nothing could be further from the truth.  I was energized to learn that far from being the only one to question these models, I am working with a team of dedicated educators actively working to do something about it.

Fore me it boils down to two standout principles:

1. Those that do the work, do the learning, as Alice Keeler would phrase it. The concept is simple, but the applications are boundless.
2. That we need to design learning for every individual in the class, not for the select few at the top or the middle.

So, armed with UDL training, discussion and planning from colleagues, I have been working towards putting in motion all of the disparate ideas that have been fluttering about in my head over the last seventeen years in education.

I am going to share my plans with you, as they are conceived, how they change when I interact with the students, the failures and the successes.