This week s essay discusses commitment. Learning Over Order. For star teachers, the ultimate value to be preserved is learning. Let s do spelling until the bell rings. It s a matter of character.
Committed teachers vote for learning.
Way beyond the dog and pony show that so often passes for teacher appraisal, committed teachers work hard to ensure that every child is not only learning material, but is interested, motivated, asking new and vital questions, growing as a human being. You won t see homework being assigned that prompts students to page back and forth in a textbook looking for the magic word to fill in the blanks in the chapter review at the end. From questions of vital interest to students, teachers with real character build interdisciplinary units that cover the standards and the curriculum, hold avid interest for kids in the here and now, and will occasionally turn a class discussion upside down and inside out with unpredictable dialog, a student production that is controversial, or a piece of art that wins a state competition. But kids are engaged and real learning is occurring. As a result, in committed teachers classrooms, you won t see that flatlined middle school daze as students go marching towards that fateful day in the future when all the present pain comes in handy.