Welcome to On Teaching.
Our goal is to improve the nature of education by helping teachers challenge their practices and beliefs. By doing so teachers will be better equipped to make tough decisions by being better able to identify what is truly important, and worth fighting over, as well as what is not important. Such empowerment and conviction based on vetted, challenged, and articulated principles will make the biggest difference in education.
School closures, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, have created many new obstacles and presented novel problems for educators and students. When trying to just figure out how to navigate the week it can be difficult to step back and look at the bigger picture. Is there more to the poor academic outcomes than technological issues? Is student participation and engagement so low because they’re at home? Or, are the issues exposed during distance learning a symptom of something more? When we return to school will it be back to business as usual? We certainly hope not as business as usual left much to be desired. The popular phrase in education is, “we have room for growth.”
Growth requires change. Change is uncomfortable because it is unfamiliar and challenging. However, education is important and worth the fight! That’s what we are all about at On Teaching, improving education.
To get involved and join us on our journey please listen to the podcast, read the blog, interact, comment, like and share. We wish to exchange ideas, to challenge unarticulated presuppositions, to expose improper or ineffective practices, not blame or point fingers, but to move along the path towards improvement. It is humbling to look in the mirror and find flaws, and to do so require bravery and the most difficult type of honesty. It is okay to look and find yourself short of where you want to be, if that paves the way and pushed you along towards your goal. This is necessary to improve as individuals, as humans, and as educators.
Let’s be open and honest, be willing to be uncomfortable, and understand that we are working towards improving education by improving our own practices!