Parker Palmer’s Courage to Teach is a book that packs quite a few large ideas into each inch of print. Below you will find several quotes from Courage to Teach. Select one that resonates with you (either positively or negatively) and respond to it. Let’s see if we can’t raise the level of dialog on the internet.
“Teaching, like any truly human activity, emerges from one’s inwardness, for better or worse. As I teach, I project the condition of my soul onto my students, my subjects, and our way of being together.” (p. 2)
“Teachers make an easy target, for they are such a common species and so powerless to strike back. We blame teachers for being unable to cure social ills that no one knows how to treat; we insist that they instantly adopt whatever “solution” has most recently been concocted by our national panacea machine; and in the process, we demoralize, even paralyze, the very teachers who could help us find our way.”
“To reduce vulnerability, we disconnect from students, from subjects, and even from ourselves.”
“Students are marginalized people in our society. The silence that we face in the classroom is the silence that has always been adopted by people on the margin-people who have reason to fear those in power and have learned that there is safety in not speaking.”
“Teachers will live up to their potential as leaders only when the school environment supports their efforts.”
Listen to a conversation with Dr. Craig Phillips of North Ridgeville City Schools:
Learn how North Ridgeville utilizes the principles of Universal Design for Learning and other select initiatives to help build teacher capacity and increase student achievement.
Dr. Phillips is happy to receive your comments and answer questions. Please leave comments and questions as responses to this blog post - don’t forget the black coffee. :-)
The article, “To Help and Not to Hinder” by Heather Lattimer was originally published in the September 2007 issue of Educational Leadership (Vol. 65/No. 1/pp. 70-73). The complete article can be found here on ASCD’s Website.
Click here to visit The Center for Courage and Renewal and listen to a podcast about Parker’s book, The Courage to Teach.
In you are interested in participating in our very popular and “Courageous” book study this summer - please contact us. We look forward to meeting you.
Christine Foote, an Instructional Coach with the Lakewood City Schools facilitated a dynamite presentation during the Middle and High School Network Meetings in January. Listen below for her presentation, keeping in mind that this was a live discussion. There are times when participants without mics interacted and there is also a spot where Christine had some unknown mic trouble (fuzzy noise).
My favorite quote from the presentation came during Christine’s summary, “Without the use of formative assessments, will you feel like this?”
(Watch video below)
I am in Boston at the Convention of the Council for Exceptional Children. Throughout the morning and afternoon, I attended a series of UDL presentations hosted by Grace Meo and David Rose, among others. Following lunch, David introduced the 1:15 session with a comment reflecting CAST’s beliefs regarding intervention, assessment, curriculum and children. David’s comment on the topic of where RTI, Progress Monitoring and the principles of UDL meet was this: At CAST,We are not looking at students as “non-responsive” (to the various interventions in the tiers of Response to Intervention) but rather, we are looking at the curriculum as “non-responsive” to the learner.
We look at the curriculum as the problem or the barrier to student learning - we are looking for a responsive curriculum.
CAST has a new online tool to help educators analyse their instructional designs and to gather feedback from students. This new tool, “The UDL Self-Check” is definitely worth a look!
In UDL we talk about providing students “practice with supports” and “opportunities to practice with new concepts without adverse consequences for initial failures.”
Whether high-tech or low-tech, games are a great way to address both of these Best UDL Practices. We know that kids love games - it is that simple!Games are engaging, fun, motivating and depending on the game, involve teamwork and social skill-building situations. Games, delivered in a controlled environment, provide students with opportunities to flex their mental muscles, while adhering to rules, contexts and scenarios that replicate “real world” experiences or provide escape into fantasy lands where imagination and creativity rule.
During “Technology Time” and in follow-up e-mails to UDL participants, I often recommend interactive websites and on-line games that provide learning content in multiple media, while providing the supported practice without adverse consequences.Some of the resources we discuss include Digital Game-Based Learning or DGBL.
When selecting to use DGBL environments for student learning, the experts say to be surethat you’re notusing the gaming tools astime killers, fillers, stand alone activities, or even as rewards. Amy Adcock, an assistant professor of instructional design an technology at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia says, “the game should be integrated into the lesson and should be used inconjunction with otheractivities.” She goes on in an article I recently read in LMC: Library Media Connection, that “choosing the right instructional game for the right instructionalsituation is the difference between gaming with a purpose and gaming as a time waster.”
In the sidebar of the article,Adcock lists several books and websites to help teachers get started with DGBL. I’ve linked a few below. The article I read is called, Making Digital Game-Based Learning Work: An Instructional Designer’s Perspective, by Amy Adcock. Library Media Connection (LinworthPublishing), February 008: (p.56-57).
QuestAtlantis for kids ages 9-11. A 3-D, multiuser environment, built on role-playingstrategies that is able to connect to local standards for learning. http://atlantis.crlt.indiana.edu/
“The Center for Leadership in …What exactly do you folks do out there in Lorain County, Ohio?”
Listen and Learn:
In late November 007, Jerry Skully interviewed me for his AM Radio Show, Building a Caring Community on WOBL 130 AM in Oberlin, Ohio. The interview played on the air December 9th.
It was a great experience for me to talk with Jerry about The Center for Leadership in Education, about Universal Design for Learning, about the role of technology in education and a little about myself as an educator. Plus, I learned some interview helpful techniques from Jerry! Now I can officially say that I am a radio celebrity. LOL.
