During the summer I like to clean out posts from my Google Reader. I tend to read more of my sports related items during the school year, opting to leave education for the occasional weekend read or for a break. Today I was cleaning out a few posts (fewer since I'd recently cleaned it out) from Weblogg-ed. A post that struck me was this one about how teachers often ask questions in order to justify inaction (in particular around technology).
I see that point of view as prevalent beyond technology. Being a first year teacher this past year, I'd often sit in trainings (with other first years, but also with veteran folks at times) where the question seemed to begging for someone to just wave a magic wand in order to solve it. "But how do I fit that in? I'm already really strapped for time." Another common one was "Well how do you do that, how do you make it all work because the kids in my room won't do that..." While some of the same questions circulated in my head, I lacked the impulse to verbalize them.
Why? Teaching takes patience in a myriad of ways. There isn't a magic wand to fix things. The reality is that your classroom will have warts, just like your practice, and just like everyone else's. You aren't alone in that. Fixing the things that aren't going well, or that you don't like, takes time. You need the time to think about what it is that is being done, how it is/isn't having the desired impact, what possible reasons for that could be, and possible solutions. Waving the white flag of "how do I do this..." may get you a short term solution. But unless you understand why you are doing it, or how you can make it work for you kids, you'll be back at the drawing board soon enough.
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