National Teacher of the Year

I would venture to guess that it isn't too often that a typical educator gets to share a day with the National Teacher of the Year. So when I heard that Sarah Brown Wessling, an Iowan, was going to be presenting to fellow educators at Grant Wood AEA, I inquired about it. Myra Hall generously agreed that my presence as part of the Teacher Quality Partnership would be welcome.

Sarah's topic: "Ensuring Success: Iowa Core in Action . . . A Day of Learning with National Teacher of the Year, Sarah Brown Wessling". Part of the description of the day included the following: "Participants will have the opportunity to reflect on their own practice and consider how they might benefit from Sarah's approach and philosophy to improve teaching and learning in their school communities."

Indeed, this was a day for reflection and for being inspired by Sarah's approach. It left me wanting my children to be in classrooms inspired by Sarah's creative genius. From the moment she began I was enamored. She exclaimed that she was so excited to be a teacher for the day! This invitation mirrored (or renewed) my enthusiasm for being a learner. Wow! What if all classrooms offered this expectation of invitation to learn.

I will try to capture some of my learning and insights from the day:
* Sameness precludes learning
* Sometimes efficiency isn't efficient at all
* Learners who are process driven are lead learners
* Teaching for learner differences: targeting strengths and growth for each student individually~it's that simple and that complex all at once
* Scaffolding is like "Seeing the Board" in chess . . . plan ahead twelve moves
* There is a difference between teaching and playing school.
* Gap as an opportunity rather than an obstacle
* In Iowa we Grow Teachers (slogan with picture of corn field)
* Challenge us to flatten the hierarchy of learning by putting the learner in the center
* Intellectual risk taker (Story of water skiing with her grandfather and getting beyond the wake . . . resonated with me as I am oldest grandchild as well)
* Create in our learning environments, opportunities for mistakes
* Use of "Mona Lisa Smile" clip to discuss growth as an educator
* Use of Mentor and Critic dialogue with clips from Top Master Chefs and American Ido to talk about what makes good descriptive, precise feedback that propels further learning
* Not lowering but rather lengthening expectations
* Making the implicit, explicit through parallel experiences
* Dispositions for learning: Deliberateness, Intentionality, Purposefulness
* "Because you care"

What a blessing to have spent the day with Sarah Brown Wessling.