The Practice of Teaching

Today was the last day of the Centennial Teacher Academy, a five-day professional development teach-in done by folks from the Marzano Research Laboratory and the Pearson Corporation.  Much of it, especially for those of us returning to the school, was stuff that has been covered over and over again. However, we have many, many new teachers to our building and students. Should be interesting to see how they do when they finally meet our students.

Tomorrow, all teachers in the district report back to our schools for 3 days of work in our rooms and an introduction to procedures, rules, and "how-to"s.

Tomorrow, we will have an introduction to our evaluation process which the district will use to rate our effectiveness. So far we are not being rated on our test scores, but I am sure that is coming.

This will be my 20th year as a public school teacher.  I believe that I have about 4 more years to go before I am eligible to retire with full benefits. I have never had a year where I felt I was a 100% effective teacher.

Perhaps that's a good thing because I know more than anyone else how much room I have for improvement. Teaching is, after all, a practice just like the law and medical profession.

I am still practicing to be a teacher.