Brian Smith is someone who I consider a good friend. I also respect him as a colleague. He challenges me to think and pushes me to do more. Last week, at a Rocheater Area Literacy Council meeting he sat on a panel and remarked that we have an obligation share what we are doing. We have had conversations about this type of thing before. We have had conversations before and he has told me to write, share, reflect, and be transparent, but I didn't bite.
Here I am, sitting on the couch at 10 on a Saturday night, still thinking about Brian's comment (perhaps inspired by NYSCATE starting tomorrow). So here it is... A concerted effort at reviving my blog and sharing.
Today, I had the privilege of presenting at the NYSCATE Preconference Session. My session was entitled
Using Technology to Transform the Writing Process and I felt that it went very well. There was some good conversation in the beginning and lots of great questions at the end of the session. During the session, one of the questions I brought up came from a quote by Arthur Ashe,
Success is a journey not a destination. The doing is usually more important than the outcome.
My question was more specific to writing, but in essence, the question was something like this: Is it more important to give a student a good experience to learn from or is it more important to get to understand or be able to do something? I bought up taking road trips with friends. (When you begin one you don't yell "ROAD TRIP" for nothing, right?) You remember a particular trip with friends just as much as I do, and I am sure that the destination was not the only thing you remember. I'm sure you remember getting pulled over, running out of gas, and/or getting lost in the middle of the night just as much as, or more than, the actual trip itself.
That said, why, then, do we focus so much on end destination for kids? Do we really know where their journey will take them? Of course we need to have a goal in mind, but is it OK to say everyone in our classes isn't ready to 'get it' yet? Does my road trip theory apply to learning?
I would argue that it does.
