Innagication

[This is cross posted to the blog for the MYP workshop in which I am currently enrolled]

My teaching has always been guided by a set of principles.  When I first started, the guiding principles were

• All kids can learn
• Math doesn’t suck, I know it but kids need to be convinced
• School should not be the experience that I hated

These principles aligned very well with those that guided my principal… which is probably why I got the job.  I was new and had some growing to do.  That growth was, thankfully guided by my principal. My department heads had a hand, no doubt, but they took their lead from our principal.  My lessons were very different than traditional math lessons, students did as much, if not more, talking than I did…and most of my lessons ended frantically because the students and I had lost track of time.  Not that this wasn’t effective…I had some pretty tout-able results.

When I changed schools, I had a new principal….who was very…different from my previous principal… but she was the boss, so I had to adjust my teaching to make sure she was happy.  For that period of time I was guided by these same basic principles, but they were joined by

• the teacher in the room is there for a reason
• the math classroom model has worked well for decades

My lessons, for the most part, ended on time for that year.

After that principal left, I worked for another principal, who was, yet again, different from my previous principal.  He, like me, did not particularly enjoy his math lessons growing up and so the last principle added to my list was, thankfully, removed.  Other than that, I was guided by his perspective of someone who did not particularly enjoy math as a subject, but saw, and often testified about the profound importance of it across the school and in life afterward.  My mind was opened to the idea of cross-curricular work and I adopted a more holistic view of curriculum planning and delivery.  I partnered with colleagues in other departments and attempted some trans-disciplinary units….with some success.  So, to my list I added

• who students are and become (including how they see the world) is more important than my content area’s concepts and skills.

Now I work for another principal… who has her own principles.  So far, I don’t see my list changing too much.  We are in the process of becoming an MYP authorized school, so my principal is very aware of the IBMYP guiding principles and how they impact my teaching.  I think that my inherent principles align nicely with the IBMYP guiding principles… which pleases my principal, I think.  It isn’t a coincidence that the most recently added to my list was developed while at an IB World School, as it is the most MYP-esque.

In the end, as teachers, we are responsible to ourselves, yes, but to our principals, especially.  It is their school…. they have the ultimate responsibility to make the learning environment follow their vision.  As Chris Lehmann has pointed out on his blog, Practical Theory, “the values [held by] an administrator will be reflected in the values teachers manifest when they work with the kids.”