More on professional development
Anne Davis quotes Clarence Fisher on blogging for professional development. Hear, hear!
In the year + that I have been blogging, I have consistently and constantly found it to be the best learning space I have ever encountered. We write, we read, we listen, we consider, and we respond to what each other writes or speaks about. I find myself during the day in my classroom thinking about blogging a certain event, or watching an event unfold in my classroom and running through a post from someone else I have recently read at the same time.
As other’s have said, the value is in the conversation that we hold. Blogging helps me to clarify events, think through responses, and plan for the future of my classroom.
She adds
I’d really like to see blogs used for professional development but I don’t believe it will happen anytime soon. It really could put us in charge of our own learning. It allows conversations among educators themselves. This takes me back to a post I wrote a while back, Blog for staff development. I wish we could try something like this in our schools.
I didn’t really understand the first sentence: I’d really like to see blogs used for professional development
Well, what’s stopping you? It seems that for Anne, professional development is something organized by other people. Does it need to be like that? Why can’t professional development refer to individual initiatives?
That is how I have always thought of this blog – my own personal initiative for professional development.
A sentence later clarifies Anne’s thinking on this: Clarence caused me to keep thinking about my professional development over the years though. Choices were made more for me than by me. I guess there are many like her. Des oeufs non couves.
I was reminded me of this quote in one of John Taylor Gatto’s books:
Teachers teach who they are. If they are incomplete people, they reproduce their incompleteness in their students…. Teaching who you are leads to wholeness – in yourself as well as your student. And if we don’t strain toward wholeness, what is the point of teaching at all besides a paycheck?
All that I worked for throughout my 30year teaching career was to make myself whole.
I couldn’t agree with you more. We really don’t need other people to organize our professional development for us. Your last quote tells it all. Thanks.