I was perusing my blog this morning, reading through past posts, and I came across this one I wrote in January of this year. I had been silent on my blog for some time prior to that post, silent because I was teaching English full-time and trying to rally my district to embrace a major redesign at my high school, one that would redesign the way we’re educating kids, that would redesign the learning environments our kids enter every day, that would redesign the very nature of the way teachers and students interact in the classroom and beyond–extending the learning outside the constraints of space and time.
Yesterday marked a milestone in that redesign journey.
I traveled with five colleagues from my district to Fort Smith to train with the Fort Smith School District with whom we’re partnering. These five colleagues applied and were selected to be Classroom Redesign Pioneers . These Pioneer educators, all veteran teachers, are embracing change. They recognize what we’ve all been doing isn’t reaching today’s kids, isn’t preparing them for the world they’ll enter. These are good teachers. They’ve been successful. Yet, they know we can do better. Their eagerness excites me and fuels me for the journey ahead.
In addition to getting a classroom set of Asus EeePC’s, they’ll be getting several other tech tools, a completely redesigned classroom that will truly change the learning environment, and continuing professional development in the form of a personal learning community we’re creating.
This week is tangible. I can finally SEE the fruits of a long year of work. We’ve only just begun, but it’s exciting. I look forward to chronicling our journey, to continuing to problem-solve as we encounter hurdles, to working alongside these teachers as we enter uncharted–at least in our area–territory.
Here’s to the learning revolution: it’s happening at my school!
4 Comments
June 11, 2009 at 6:31 pm
Huff,
I stumbled across this post via a tweet by tgillmore. Congrats on what I am sure will become a huge success.
To the entire group, thanks for caring enough — I just wish all teachers did.
June 11, 2009 at 6:49 pm
@jmpoff: As I’m sure you can imagine, I’m tickled! BTW, I showed your blog and portfolio @ Moonfruit to several Fort Smith teachers. Check your traffic!
September 3, 2009 at 7:20 pm
Cool site, love the info.
September 28, 2009 at 3:27 pm
Change has arrived in fundraising. I came across a website http://www.raisewhileyousave.com (RWYS) the other day when looking into Green fundraising oppurtunities, as I am fed up with my kids going door 2 door and selling cookie dough and magazines. I looked into this new fundraising program which is helping parents Save Money while raising money.they are also helping great causes which don’t have any budget to run a fundraiser, as they do all the work for you, by building you a webpage attached to thier website. Thier products are these really snazzy energy saving product kits, which can save parent $100’s of dollars on those bills we all hate to open. I thought I would share this information as we could all do with a little extra cash during this economy Im sure. My friend who is a PTA mom is always complaining about the difficulty of getting new ideas, and the lack of interest they have in the same old boring fundraising oppurtunities. I think this is very clever, as the schools and community fundraisers, don’t purchase anything, the kids don’t need to do anything, the kits save money and help raise money, and apparently they even send the kits out to the parents home, so PTA moms like my friend no longer need to chase moms around the playground to tell them thier products are in the sports hall for collection. we’ve all been there.