Time. The are only so many hours in the day and only so much we can do within those 24 hours that make-up our day. If we take away time we are asleep (and for most teachers that may be as little as 4 hours, if lucky, to as much as 8 hours, if we are REALLY lucky), we are working with anywhere from 16 to 20 hours. Our “work day” (7:30am-3:30pm) takes-up 8 of those precious hours, bringing us to approximately 8 to 12 remaining. Let’s say that we get-up an hour early and take an hour to get home and settled (subtracting 2 more), we are down to 6 to 10! That’s before we eat a meal, see our family, breathe, use the restroom, walk the dog, get a second breath in, and, if there is any time left, to lesson plan for our students, participate in PLC’s, ILT’s, IEP’s, PD’s, ERT’s, and still consider taking a graduate school class.
Which brings us to UTLA. We spent this week digging into why it is so important to be a teacher leader at a partnership school in an urban setting. Why it is so important to focus our attention on building a community across the partnership and be a driving force in the success of the residency program as well as advocating for our colleagues. Through our readings in Chapters 3 and 10 (Yendol-Hoppey and Dana, 2010), we were able to uncover, through free-discussion, how time (and money) can play an impactful role in what decisions are made at the school from the leadership team, as well as how PLC’s can play a major role in the successes of our school community. We looked at where each of our partnership schools fared in terms of the effectiveness of PLC’s - how they are being utilized and recommendations as to how to better utilize them - and re-directing the focus onto how building a school community can be done by harnessing our strengths through inquiry (a topic we will talk about next class meeting, but to keep in mind). We concluded the class with the School Professional Development Assessment as a focus for small group meetings over the next two weeks and plans for our partnership inquiry.
Which brings us to UTLA. We spent this week digging into why it is so important to be a teacher leader at a partnership school in an urban setting. Why it is so important to focus our attention on building a community across the partnership and be a driving force in the success of the residency program as well as advocating for our colleagues. Through our readings in Chapters 3 and 10 (Yendol-Hoppey and Dana, 2010), we were able to uncover, through free-discussion, how time (and money) can play an impactful role in what decisions are made at the school from the leadership team, as well as how PLC’s can play a major role in the successes of our school community. We looked at where each of our partnership schools fared in terms of the effectiveness of PLC’s - how they are being utilized and recommendations as to how to better utilize them - and re-directing the focus onto how building a school community can be done by harnessing our strengths through inquiry (a topic we will talk about next class meeting, but to keep in mind). We concluded the class with the School Professional Development Assessment as a focus for small group meetings over the next two weeks and plans for our partnership inquiry.