Tuesday, June 21, 2005

BWM, So What?

CSU Writing Project Summer Institute 2005

The "So What?" round of our World Cafe came up with the following insights. "Schools need to be considered as places for teachers to lead scholarly lives." (59) CSUWP is helping us feel empowered. But there are many forces that work against our expertise in schools: inappropriate or inadequate professional development, cookie cutter curriculum, standardized tests. Society needs to support schools with real dollars, and we deserve the trust of our communities and our administrators. The question is, how can we take our sense of empowerment, our new-found writer/researcher/leader skills, back to the classroom and our schools?

1 comment:

Nancy A. McKeand said...

What a truly novel idea: "Schools need to be considered as places for teachers to lead scholarly lives." Even teaching at a small college, I don't feel like the place encourages me to lead a scholarly life. Sometimes I almost feel guilty for wanting a scholarly life.

But the Southeastern Louisiana Writing Project empowered me. It gave me the impetus to do more professional development, which in turn led me to blogging.

I really feel that blogging has helped me develop a scholarly life more than anything else has. While I may not have much support in my own institution, I get it on an almost daily basis from other bloggers like Bud. With this new-found community, I am able to explore ideas. I have a serious support system that I couldn't get any other way.