Walking into the convention center, you could tell that there was an excitement in the air.  That many teachers (1,400) gathered for a singular purpose is going to generate an energy like that.  It’s the first day of Solution Tree’s “PLC at Work Institute”, something we’ve waited a while to attend.  At our district, we’ve brought an administrator and six teachers, three middle/high school, and three elementary.

 

This is not rocket science.  As I sat there with the most awesome team in the world(without a doubt), we decided this is not rocket science.  Much of what was discussed from the thought that a team is a group that works collaboratively to the fact that no longer are these just “my kids” but in fact “out kids”, all of this seems so familiar. Familiar that our focus should be not our teaching, but student learning.  However, it’s good to hear this, to see how excited people are about this concept.

 

I’ll be a teacher leader with our PLC group, which scares me.  However, I’m excited to make this attempt because I can see how this can create change in our district, positive change, and change that we need like no other.  Now, if we can get buy in from those who prefer “the culture of complaining” we will turn a corner in our district.  I  was encouraged to hear the DeFours (awesome presenters) talk about how “collaboration by invitation won’t work”.  We need to hear how this IS where we are going and we ARE going to work hard to get there.  Personally, we are another year or two away from that, the idea we as a district have full buy in.  But listening to my team, a group of true professionals who want this to happen,  we’ll get there.