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An Evolving Practice
One example of development in education
One of the themes in my thinking and writing about education is the notion that the development of any particular teaching practice is the kind of thing that happens over longer timescales than a single school year. That might seem obvious, but in most school systems, things are often bounded by a single school year (if not less). The result is that various initiatives become flavors of the month and are shunted aside for whatever the next thing is far too soon. In my experience, that’s just not how effective development of teaching practice works. In that spirit, this piece is another example for the pile.
Checking in with students.
For the past three years, I’ve been trying various approaches to have more focused, 1:1 check-ins with my students. I’m not exactly sure why I decided this was a thing to focus on so intentionally. I’ve considered myself to be open and eager to these kinds of check-ins for much longer than the past three years. And yet, for whatever reason, three years ago, I decided to give it a much more intentional, less improvisational focus. Here’s how that has evolved.
- Year one: Attempted Co-Generative Dialogues. In my first year of focusing on this idea, I tried my best to implement co-generative dialogues. I’m not going to get…
