Friday, April 27, 2012

Finding Solutions - Getting Things Done




My favorite educational philosopher Maxine Greene wrote about a walls to learning. Some walls are real or perceived. A good teacher will dedicate hours of attention and care to helping her students deconstruct those perceived walls; while building stamina and character to overcome or cope with any real walls to learning.
In education there are so many walls. The system can be like a maze that threatens to thwart our intentions and goals, and not the least of which is money. Money is the problem but working together it can also be the solution. Let me tell you about something great. Donor’s Choose. This is a website created by teachers for teachers. Any teacher can write a kind of grant appealing to the general public to see if they would donate towards much needed supplies.
This is a very exciting moment in my district; we are in the process of making an instructional shift to Readers/Writers Workshop. Which is wonderful, but here comes a wall - materials. So here I am a public school teacher in need of books, I set up an account and am now receiving donations. Through the generosity of others that very real wall is in the process of collapse. Amazing! If you are a teacher and you need some help set up an account today. Take a look you’ll see for yourself how simple yet elegant solution. Check it out for yourself: