Personal & Authentic: Chapter 1 Reflections #AuthenticEDU

      This first chapter blew me away! It was so powerful and held so true to my own beliefs, especially now more than ever during this pandemic and emergency eLearning as Tom started by talking about the importance of relationships and of shifting practices from "what I taught to who I taught" as bringing "the real work into focus" as we are more and more disconnected than ever whether it be from our colleagues or students. As I wrote in my last few entries about my word for the year, "balance" and how I had hoped that we would move towards finding some new approaches to education because I believe that our system is dated not knowing that COVID would change our lives so much, so soon, I am hopeful that we will take some time to rethink what it is we go back to in the future that we call the foundations of our school systems. Many have recently pointed out to me in their studies of past pandemics about the major changes that have taken place afterward, whether it be the industrial revolution or other systems-level changes. I am thankful to be a part of such a wonderful and forward-thinking district that will hopefully engage in this dialogue and include our educators and students in this discussion in meaningful ways. 

The chapter reflection questions and one, in particular, aligns with a writing prompt that is in the text of this chapter is where I will spend my time reflecting in this blog entry about a learning experience that an inspirational group of educators at my school has designed and developed for our students across content areas and the educator who originally inspired this group of teachers. The writing prompt in the chapter that inspired me is: 'write a descriptive paragraph about someone you admire. Make sure to include as many reasons as you can that tell why you admire that person. Make sure to include things you have seen the person do that have inspired you.'  So I will start with this and tell you that many, many people have inspired me and I believe that I have been beyond blessed to spend my career in Wilton working among some of the best and brightest educators and leaders including both Dr. Smith's and Dr. O'Donnell who I am tremendously thankful to for their leadership especially during this really challenging time, I don't know how they are doing it and continuing to put everyone else's needs before their own. I am, however, choosing to write this paragraph about Dr. Rich Sanzo who I have started to write to and reach out to several times over the past few weeks to tell him about how the group he originally got together to do the pilot for Wilton is once again working on an innovative project. Here is some information on the project in case your interested in learning about that too. 

It seems like just yesterday, we sat in your office and formed our pilot team for the first time, we were going to be the innovators, I recall you telling us to take risks and think big. At the time, that involved getting a group of high school teachers together that had never worked together across content areas to work with a group of 30+ freshmen in a Chromebook pilot that we would provide devices to them. Your leadership encouraged us to think big and take risks that were out of our comfort zones and our students, you celebrated both the successes and the fail forwards with us. Recently, during the pandemic, with the literal walls of the school no longer being a factor and many of us, including you, being in different positions, one of our team members reached out with an idea because he was in a dark place and wanted to get some input from some people outside his department, so naturally, he reached out to two people from the pilot team, even though it's about 5 years later. Within a week, our team was virtually back together and within 2-3 weeks we had been joined by nearly 25+ other educators in our school that wanted to be a part of the COVID: what's the new normal project that we built and iterated to include classes across the school. We all truly believe that we only got together in the first place and were able to build and take these risks because you had one day long ago empowered us. When the team first reached out to me and shared the project and every iteration after, I was blown away and continued to encourage them as you had with us to think big. As they prepared for presentations, I remembered how you took a backseat during the presentations but had reached out to me and told me to include things like crosswalks to learning standards that the board of education and assistant superintendent would want. Every time, I encouraged this team to add a little something to what they had, they would come back with five to ten things, instead of the one. Their passion has ignited me through this challenging time being away from our school. Their desire to build relationships with their students through discovering pathways that are meaningful for their students to get through this challenging time in our lives as opposed to sticking to the traditional content, provide authentic feedback with students and provide them with voice and choice in their product has been revolutionary for our school. I credit and thank you for long ago encouraging us to take risks, fail forward, and to be a collaborative team that continued to challenge the status quo. At the end of our check-in meetings, we always joke that you will pop-in to see what came of us... our little think tank. We always think back to those first meetings in your office and some of the questions we asked that back then were not allowed and today we are proud that they are allowed because of leaders like you who took the risk on a few educators who wanted to find a better way to build personal and authentic pathways for their students to make meaning out of all their learning in our school. We are hopeful that this time capsule/website they are building will help us to build the portrait of the graduate and portfolio that we long ago piloted under your leadership. Thank you for believing in us long ago and inspiring us, even today to continue to push the boundaries. 

Stay well!