All Teachers, Great Teachers

6:55 AM

I finished three days of staff development yesterday with an incredibly weird, but also incredibly talented group of elementary school teachers. We finished the event in a local western-style restaurant and dance floor, viewing the teachers’ video productions. Their assignment was to produce a video, 30 seconds to 2 minutes long, that effectively conveyed some aspect of how media has changed over the past ten years. The number one constraint was that they were not allowed to use any words, spoken or written. The rest of us tried to determine the theme they were communicating.

Videoing TeachersIt was digital charades, but the teachers had at their disposal any props that were available in their school and video editing software to craft their presentations — and they were enormously resourceful, creative, and hilarious.

Now the idea I left this small rural eastern North Carolina town with was, “No school has that many incredible teachers!” No Way!

It brought to mind a line from my first book, that I have not thought about in a very long time. It goes…

There is a thin line between being a mediocre teacher, and being a great teacher.

Among those that we blame for less than great teachers are schools of education, lack of effective staff development, and now it’s the credentials that define highly qualified teachers.

I believe that it is none of those so much as it is a vision of 21st century teaching and learning, access to appropriate professional tools to achieve that vision, and the time to retool classrooms.

Given the resources and time to succeed, I am convinced that all teachers can become great teachers.

One thought on “All Teachers, Great Teachers”

  1. All teachers can be good teachers, if they gain an appreciation of the truly
    great teacher and educators’ globally valued skills and qualities that make,
    evrywhere, popular. They do so by aspiring to be great teachers -and if they
    have develop their teaching skills and parent & teacher and teacher & student
    skills (and educational leadership skills help) they can all be great teachers;
    if teachers and educators have also the inherent personality characteristics
    (and inherent leadership qualities help)they can also become hailed and truly
    great teachers and educators -proportionately to their aspirations and those.

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