GStephens

The last pages of FISH STICKS deal with a death in the author's family.  Reading that so soon after the Tillmans died made me think back to how my church got involved in helping that family deal with their loss.  The closeness of the group of nurses came through when Rhonda had lost her stepdaughter.  The way they stepped in and organized help, meals, cleaned Rhonda's house, etc., showed a real committment to their team and its members.  Do we have that kind of closeness at East Central?  I know we have the Sunshine Fund, but how close are we?  Are we really connected?

It's scary to think how much of our lives is spent at work.  Thinking of East Central in that way makes me glad to be at our school.  I have worked in other systems and schools where I felt very unconnected, much like Juan did in the story.  I am thankful for the staff at East Central, and even though our school day doesn't allow us much connecting time, I feel I am a part of our school in ways that I never did in other schools where I have taught! 

I liked the idea of coaching each other--I'd like a day to observe other teachers teach.  I know I could learn from them.  I'd like more of an opportunity to converse with them about the specifics of East Central's vision and my own IT.  I'd like to know the IT of others on our staff! 

After developing a vision for the whole group, each person is supposed to find his/her individual IT.  On page 40, Lundin tells us the only way to find our IT inside the vision is to talk about work with coworkers.  A lot of times, the only place I can do that with other teachers is at the lunch table.  Sometimes we do talk about work, but many days we just want to relax and take a break from the world of work. 

I think I've always had a sense of IT.  In the world of music, because you don't work on a team or grade level, it's easy to feel outside the loop.  It's hard for me to see the BIG PICTURE!  My sense of what I'm supposed to do on my job is to get students to be able to read music before they leave East Central.  We work on that all the time.  Outside of the curriculum I teach, what is my part of the vision for East Central?  In the story, the characters were encouraged to talk with each other about their work.  Maybe typing a blog is the best way with our crazy schedule to communicate with each other.  I've taught in several systems--I'm wondering if East Central does this vision thing better than other schools or could we improve?

As I was reading Fish Sticks by Lundin, I was constantly being reminded of the world of teaching.  There were many parallels to how teachers are asked to think about educating children.  I was concerned however, when I began to consider what last great program we implemented.  If we're trying to maintain the enthusiasm for a great teaching innovation, something is wrong if I'm not sure what that would be.  We've had so many new ways of teaching thrown at us by the state, that none of them stands out in my mind as better than others.

A good teacher is always concerned with learning new ways to teach content.  Which program have we lost that should have been kept?  Which method of planning lessons, implementing lessons, or "hooking" children into the lesson is best?  Which one works?  The characters in Lundin's book were concern with losing enthusiam for a program they thought had improved their work (pp.3-37).  As teachers, perhaps we should be given the opportunity to penpoint methods, or programs we thought were successful and strive to regain their use.  Apparently, the state doesn't think they've been successful or we wouldn't be constantly training for new ways of teaching.