Mark Lemon's lesson through The Enchanted Doll...

Jacob Pout is a doll-maker in the days before trains cut through the dells and nooks, disturbing the fairy world around us.  Jacob has spent his career seeing only the surface of things -which of course he needed to do in order to paint the most engaging faces on all the wooden dolls which of course he successfully made and sold throughout old London.

Focusing on the surface works for some things, but overuse -or misuse of any skill -can interfere with our perception of ourselves, others, and the world around us!  And now Jacob suffers great envy and jealousy from under-development of some other very important skill...LOOKING FURTHER, SEARCHING BEYOND, AND UNDERNEATH, AND BACK LONG AGO TO THE TRUE ORIGINS OF PEOPLE, IDEAS, AND THINGS.

We will visit Jacob later (and his dilemma thinking -which makes him truly miserable until he learns a series of lessons).  For now, call your local library, to find a copy of this enlightening fairy tale.

Classical Training School IS KIDS' WORK! We support the development of many character traits and skill sets through the training we allow our kids...including the absence of such through idleness. WHAT ARE KIDS HONING?

Teacher's Journey ... exploring the work that structures who we become

Welcome, Journeymen and Journeywomen!

Our purpose here is to have a forum for asking questions, reflecting on experiences, sharing tentative perceptions and receiving responses from fellow travelers. During our collective journey as novice or master educators, "Teachers Journey" can serve as a collective journal, a source for conducting "action research," a safe haven for discovery learning -our learning as practitioners pondering practice.

Here, we can pose essential questions, explore/evolve our responses,  and pose essential questions about the nature of education, the process of becoming a teacher, the diversity of education career paths.

Here, we may also further investigate "best practices," instructional development, school as community, and support each other in using student strengths to help them meet their needs. My intention is that our journey together is vastly enriched because we form together an always accessible source of colleagial support. My intention is that our communications uphold the ideals that bring us together in this time and place on our planet.

Beneath this surface of intention is the hope that your search for who you are becoming as Teacher-Practitioner will be enhanced. I expect that your identity as Teacher-Practitioner will be quickened because you are here reading about it, writing about it.  Gathering reflectively strengthens our capacities for generating good in the world within and around us.  Let us give time and space to appreciating the contributions of those who have gone before us ... not only the Famous Luminaries ... Vygotsky, Brown, Glasser, Hunter!

Let us also articulate appreciation for those who have gone before us in our districts, these  Masters in Our Midst.  Who are these practitioner-leaders for you? Celebrate their achievements upon which you have been able to build, to enhance your success with your students.  Let us appreciate the positive intentions of those we easily understand and learn to reach more deeply to appreciate the concepts and processes we have yet to understand so readily.

Regardless of the geographic region in which you practice, welcome to this place to ponder, to reflect on our choices to serve anywhere, as educators.  Through this forum, may we inspire each other, walk with each other, keep the high watch for each other's best intentions.

May we remember that a kind word, a compassionate presence may be all our colleague needs to change a difficult day into one from which our learning emerges as profound and rewarding. Let us find ways to celebrate each little effort - both our own and anothers. Small efforts nourished, like seeds, can become contributions of great merit.

Finally, let our sharing illuminate our minds and hearts. Let "Teachers Journey" reflect our great collective capacity for making discoveries that enhance the journey of those who follow the trail we leave behind.

Thrive!

ThinkOutLoud@Palladio: Hunting Lean Game? As experts know and do, go to t...

ThinkOutLoud@Palladio: Hunting Lean Game? As experts know and do, go to t...: "Experts no longer expend their time with trial and error learning. As adolescents leave behind the toys of childhood, favoring more ag..."

The egg, the hen, the rooster...or something else entirely?

Visiting my mother on Sunday, I read a "work" related column she shared  by Ellen Harbes, a youth education coordinator.  Ellen's questions stimulate thought about the nature of our professional choices, our predispositions. The questions below open doors to underlying thoughts worthwhile to uncover.  They beg inquiry into the degree of match between professional circumstances and personality/personal traits that sustain us in any particular work setting: (Ellen asks...)

1. "Are you an attorney because you went to law school and passed the Bar Exam or is it because you are a quick thinker, an eloquent speaker and possess amind and heart that yearns for equality?'
2. "Are you an accountant because you are 'good with numbers' or is it because you have an incredible ability to organize and then take that organization to the next level?"
3. "Are you a teacher because you love kids or is it because you are a compassionate person who has patience beyond belief?"  (Ellen Harbes St. Agnes Church Bulletin, January 9, 2011, p. 5)

Perhaps at lunch, or on a break, pop  some of these questions to your co-worker...

Use the question format above to begin your inquiry into the traits required by the work you do ... and your personality or gifts that allow you to do this work well.  

Zooming into the nature of these questions, helps to generate even fuller inquiry:

• To what extent do our personality traits (or emotional makeup) lead us to find "suitable" work?
• To what extent do our physical (gender also) traits lead us to identify work as "suitable," or not?
• To what extent do our cognitive maps (types of thinking) draw us to work that satisfies us?
• To what extent do family and friends lead us to, or deter us from, entering work that seems good for us?  What work is good for us and how do we make this assessment?
• Which forms of work, have circumstances that make it difficult/easy to exit and regroup/retrain?
• How does exposure to a role model expand or limit work inclinations, work choices?
• How can reading/hearing/talking about different kinds of work expand helpful career dreaming?
• How does our cultural group, or societal beliefs, affect work choices we think of as "possible?"
• Is there a right kind of work for us?  Perhaps an entire "field" with common elements?
• How do different workplaces sharpen our talents, crush our gifts, develop supporting talents, make us a better person even at home, or increase our discouragement about ourselves, others, the world?
• Is there any skill set that we can deliver at master level right off the bat?
• Which skill sets take years to develop at the mastery/expert level?
• What do these "long-term" skill sets have in common?
• How do we know that the work we learn to do is "right" for us, or not?
• If we have a gift/talent for doing something, does this mean we must be using it?
• Do we perhaps unconsciously match ourselves up with work that allows us to use our gifts/talents by our willingness to apply for that work position...and not other employment listings?
• To what extent does luck vs choice dtermine our work lives?
• How might we, and our workplaces, benefit more fully from more intentional thinking about our inclinations and choices to engage certain tyes of work over others?
• It's common knowledge that as children we resonate with a work calling sometime between the ages of six and nine.  Did you? Write to us about this incident!

Teachers can change the world