The Global Achievement Gap by Tony Wagner

Author:Tony Wagner [Wagner, Tony]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780465055968
Publisher: Basic Books

For a principal’s perspective on how being in a community of practice has transformed the work within their schools, I interviewed Faye Ogilvie, an elementary school principal, and this is what she told me:

My thinking has definitely changed since we’ve started working together and it continues to evolve. . . . When we started these conversations, I realized that just because teachers were using research-based strategies and providing a quality learning environment, they weren’t necessarily engaging students in using their minds well. By engaging teachers in conversations about rigor, we prompted them to reflect on their own practices and to make gradual changes to instruction that focused on student thinking rather than right answer responses. It seems that when we start talking about the changing needs and demands for our children and their future, and when I challenge teachers to look ahead fifteen to twenty years and consider what life will be like for our elementary school students, some who at present are only 5 years old, teachers develop a different contextual understanding of purpose and responsibility. Teaching is about providing students not with a textbook curriculum but with a thinking curriculum that will serve them well into adulthood in a world that may be quite different from the one we live in today.

And yes, as a result of our work together [with other principals], I’ve noticed changes in how I’m leading my school. I look at education and leadership differently. I’m much more intentional and purposeful—and I realize that more than anything, as a principal, I need to develop deep capacities to engage my school staff in continuous improvement, and to do so, I must ensure that my teachers understand the context and sense the urgency to make things happen now.

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