TAC+meeting+-+9-10



February 2009 | Volume **66** | Number **5**
 * How Teachers Learn** Pages 34-38

//Bill Ferriter//
 * Learning with Blogs and Wikis**

Technology has made it easy for educators to embrace continual professional development.

Few ideas about teachers' professional growth resonate with me more than those of Richard Elmore, professor of educational leadership at Harvard, who has gone as far as to argue that school structures make learning for adults unlikely at best and nothing short of impossible at worst. In a 2002 report for the Albert Shanker Institute, Elmore wrote,

As expectations for increased student performance mount and the measurement and publication of evidence about performance becomes part of the public discourse about schools, there are few portals through which new knowledge about teaching and learning can enter schools; few structures or processes in which teachers and administrators can assimilate, adapt, and polish new ideas and practices; and few sources of assistance for those who are struggling to understand the connection between the academic performance of their students and the practices in which they engage.

So the brutal irony of our present circumstance is that schools are hostile and inhospitable places for learning. They are hostile to the learning of adults and, because of this, they are necessarily hostile to the learning of students. (pp. 4–5) To assert that schools are hostile to learning is a bold statement—but if you've worked in education for any length of time, chances are you were nodding your head as you read Elmore's thoughts. Adult learning is often pushed aside in schools as educators sprint through the day, worried about leaving no child behind.

The few moments that we can steal for professional development are usually spent in sessions with experts pitching the latest silver bullet. Teachers rarely get to self-select learning opportunities, pursue professional passions, or engage in meaningful, ongoing conversations about instruction.

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