Reflections on Transcript by Tom McGreal:

This transcript moved me more than anything I have read on the issues of professional development and school reform. I would like to meet Mr. McGreal in person and think every teacher in Illinois should hear what he has to say. I felt like he knew my school and me and had real suggestions for improvements. Maybe it is because I am one of those 45 year old teachers he referred to and I teach in a district that has recently moved to a block 8 schedule. However, I have only been teaching 9 years and I came into the field from a career in clinical laboratory science. I figured out very quickly that teaching from the front of the room was boring to my students and to me. I have always wanted a classroom where deep, real learning takes place. I really pushed for block scheduling because I could not be the kind of teacher I wanted in a 48 minute class. I was happy to hear that is now some evidence to link the block schedule to increased student achievement. ( I would like to site this evidence if you can locate it for me.) I am not surprised that it is not the block, but the training to teach on the block that makes the difference. Still it has been a hard transition to make and I don’t feel I am really there yet. I like his suggestions about planning for engaged learning and getting rid of the idea of daily lesson plans. Now I think I can understand why many teachers in our building can’t adjust to the block schedule, they are simply doing longer daily lesson plans and not long term learning projects. Being a high school teacher I can appreciate his comment that “they are a different breed.” It is very hard to create interdisciplinary teams because of the fragmented type of scheduling that goes on in high schools. With the evidence to support group processing and interactions that he presents here, I am going to make a renewed effort to interact with my coworkers. I have a tendency to want to do things myself. Mr. McGreal has also convinced me to take a positive outlook on the State’s system of peer review for continuing education. I was taking the narrow view that the State was just complicating things and making us jump through loops, but if we do as Tom McGreal suggests and “think beyond letting everyone go off and try to work on anything that interests them,” and instead improve student learning through “collaborative, focused energy on those things which we have identified as being most important to helping students learn.”