End of the First Six Weeks?

I can’t believe we’ve already finished up the first six weeks of school in Irving. Its just gone by too fast for me. I had intended to post weekly here to keep you all up to date, but have been buried with the huge wave of things to do to get “school” up and running. I have had some disappointments and seen some little success stories this six weeks. I thought sharing those here might get us all caught up and back up to speed. It might also serve to refocus our attention and re-energize our efforts for the second six weeks.

First with the disappointments… I had underestimated two things: (1) the amount of time and red-tape-cutting it would take to get Inspired Classrooms rolling and (2) the time it would take our teachers to get his/her students “ready” to work in the Inspired Classroom environment.

The whole idea of Inspired Classrooms has always seemed to me as grass-roots or bottom-up approach. Most teachers already have the computers in the classroom, and plenty of desks to go around. To “do” Inspired Classrooms, all you really should have to do is re-arrange the desks, move the computers and buy a $40 hub and a cord cover. Most teachers would be willing to do that and spend an afternoon getting that done. For our teachers in Irving, however, the hubs haven’t been an option this year. So, the downside is that our teachers, ITS’s, principals and ad building staff have all had to coordinate, approve, request, approve, communicate, approve, purchase, deliver, install and otherwise complicate the process. I am NOT criticizing anyone, because the district wants to do this correctly and standardized from the very beginning. (Wireless) They have been VERY supportive and VERY cooperative, its just takes a long time to get things of this magnitude up and rolling. I am afraid that some teachers may get tired of waiting and loose their enthusiasm in the meantime. We’ll tackle this one later.

I have also been surprised at the time it takes for the youngest kids to get “ready” to participate in this environment. For example, a second grade teacher who taught in an Inspired Classroom last year was telling me that she is still having trouble getting her kids to a point where they can work together and dependently in their teams. She had a student burst into tears yesterday when he found out that he wasn’t going to get to use the mouse for an activity! When our pilot teachers started last February, they started with kids who had been in a class routine for six months already. They knew the rules, each other, and what they could and could not get away with. Starting out the year with a new batch of students has been a totally different experience for those same teachers. Establishing these class routines and processes has just taken longer than some of us had realized. It’s just an issue of maturity that will get better as the year progresses.

The positives? We still have thirty weeks of school. Every day you have an opportunity to make a difference in your classroom, and beyond. We will never fully realize the reach or the impact we will have, but it has always been that way in education. Our Inspired Classroom teachers are making steps outside of the same-old-routine into the unknown. We aren’t moving based on years of research or data collection, but out of the necessity to use the most current, most effective toolset we have as educators. Because of this, we are seeing students engaged in learning in ways that simply weren’t possible even a few years ago. I will be doing my best to continue this conversation with you on a weekly basis. Remember, you are always invited to comment to the blog or email me directly (dwilson@irvingisd.net) with questions, comments or anything else. Thanks for checking in, and have a great day.