Experience

"Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterward."

-Vernon Law

This year seems to have had more disruptions to our "normal" schedule than usual. Some of this has been due to circumstances outside of our control (testing schedules, emergency evacuations, etc.) while others have been due to the opportunity given to use by outside resources paying to send speakers to share their knowledge and experiences with our students. I also know that some of them have been due to my idea to bring a focus on service to our school. 

If you are one of the teachers who finds these interruptions frustrating, know that I hear you. There is a lot of pressure on educators to get students to certain benchmarks by certain points in their education. However, I also believe that there is tremendous learning that takes place when we take students out of the classroom and into the real world. Often this learning cannot be measure on a standardized test, and you will not find things like patience, compassion, and responsibility in the Common Core Standards, but these are the kinds of qualities whose absence in our current generation of students I hear lemented most often. We comment on the absence of these qualities because we see them as necessary for their social development and because these qualities are often necessary to accomplish the kind of learning we want to see in the classroom. 

I am taking the time to write this because I want you to know that from my vantage point, I have seen a lot of positive growth from our students in terms of the kinds of behaviors we are seeing in the office, the way they treat the lunchroom, and their behavior at the movie theater. I am confident that these little interruptions to our "normal" routines are making our students better people and ultimately making them easier to educate. You really are making a difference!