Inspiring Improvement
Change doesn’t always happen quickly. Now, there’s the understatement of the year! So true, when we are talking about improving the quality of early childhood programs……which always involves some degree of teachers improving their practices–so much easier said than done.
Public school, private, for-profit, not-for-profit, Head Start, Early Head Start, child care teachers alike — so many are struggling with feeling like they’re in survival mode, and apt to do most things in the quickest, least troublesome, and least messy ways, despite what might be best for learning. Something as difficult as highly effective teaching could not ever be simple. We need to find ways of engaging teachers in the process of perfecting their craft for the sake of perfecting it, inspiring them to want to be the best they can be. Early childhood teachers are very often so overwhelmed that they forget, ignore, or simply don’t have time to think about the factors that inspired them teach in the first place. Somehow, that has got to change.
Instead of focusing all efforts on “improving teachers,” what if administrators could think about creating systems that inspire and support best practices? Asking ourselves, “What am I doing to engage, inspire, support, and grow my teachers?” would be a good place to start. These conditions take time to create, and require examining the systems and practices we currently have in place: effective and ineffective, and determine the short and long-term changes that we will need to make to not only inspire teachers, but to fully support each teacher’s ability to continually grow and improve.
With this blog, I invite you to join me in a remodeling project: remodeling organizational systems for lasting change. This blog and website will be a process of learning and reflection over time….one that I hope will both inspire you and challenge you, as I’m sure it will me….leading to much growth and improvement for all of us – administrators, teachers, and the consultants who support them. Let’s get started!