Wednesday, May 5, 2010

And the Winner Is...

We had our last formal Professional Learning Community meeting of the year today. It's been worthwhile to get together with other middle school teachers to talk about writing in the classroom and in our lives. The PLC model is a little different than what the county has done in the past, when we met once a month to discuss items relevant and non-relevant to the population of middle and high school English/Language Arts teachers. Since it's a new professional development approach we'll reconvene in the larger group in June to report on the PLC experience of each small group.

I often find it surprising that when you get a group of teachers together and ask someone to volunteer to speak the room goes silent. Heads are cast down, eyes avert, and pens or pencils are dropped and slowly retrieved, all in hopes of avoiding being chosen to speak. Are there really that many introverts in the teaching world? Count me in as one.

Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately for some, our PLC facilitator knew it was unlikely anyone would nominate themselves speaker for the group. The names of all were put in a box and the decision was made by the luck of the draw. It was one day I was happy to be a loser.

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