My thoughts for the blog post this week were inspired by a couple of critical questions posed in a recent online discussion between education management professionals. The following two commonly held assumptions were made explicit: (a) Collaboration among teachers across disciplines for project-based learning is essential for real learning in schools, and (b) Real educationRead More…
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Leadership can be a lonely place
A colleague once shared a wise Chinese proverb with me. Loosely translated it says ‘it is a cold and lonely place on top of a mountain’. He was talking about leadership. We need to make a clear distinction here between between leaders and leadership. Leaders are not lonely people, per se. On the contrary. LeadersRead More…
Experience is the best teacher
The following quote from Bolman and Deal’s Reframing Organizations: Artistry, Choice, and Leadership had me thinking: “Experience, one often hears, is the best teacher, but that is only true if you reflect on it and extract its lessons”. How true. Professional development is all about continually learning to be a better teacher, and what betterRead More…
Professional development as ‘being present’
Teachers are expected to continue to develop themselves professionally, but what does professional development really look like to teachers? How do we measure it? How do we know it has occurred? Is it about formal studies and gaining academic qualifications? Is it about experience? Is it about teaching practice?
