Building a Learning Community

 A group of teachers at my school has developed an authentic learning community to support reading workshop.  Teachers from other schools were invited to come.  Now, there are even other teachers from other school districts who want to come.  It is powerful.  The original intent of the small group planning was to support teachers trying to implement reading workshop.  In Michigan, we are using some reading units developed in Oakland County.  These units were built based on the models developed in New York at Columbia Teacher's College.  In addition to these units, I am using tools to inform and personalize the units for our students' needs.  Some of these tools are resources from other teachers - lessons we model for each other.  Other tools are professional books and websites, assessments, student behaviors I observe during conferences, inventories, etc.

Dedicated, passionate teachers

When I can have these conversations with many educators it brings more purpose and life into my teaching.  I'm filled with more questions with each conversation.  My motivation for teaching extends beyond my students and parents.  Just as I want my students to ramp up their own learning through collaborative learning efforts, I also see my teaching is being lifted to a higher level as a side effect of my own engagement in the learning process.  Juggling all of this is no easy task.  

As our profession continues to get more demanding and we feel overwhelmed by all its expectations, we can be each other's biggest help.  It takes a lot of energy to steer around  all the obstacles we face in our classrooms, our buildings, our districts, our country, to find the pathway of positive learning and bolster up our attitudes to provide the most optimum learning conditions for our children.  The support we give each other will be the only way to meet this goal.