Make a change

 
The priest in church this morning talked about how baptism forever changes us.  Whatever your spiritual or religious beliefs are, I hope you can stick with me for a few moments.  My blog isn’t necessarily about baptism, but it is certainly about being changed. 
I have been thinking about how to be of maximum service to the schools and districts in which I work.  What does that mean?  Of course I want to be informative, I selfishly want to be entertaining, and I, at the core of my being, want what learning we do together to change the people I am teaching. 
We have all been there, whether you are an educator or not, in those meetings or Professional Development opportunities.  You listen to the speaker, you take some notes, you read the powerpoint and you take the workbook or notebook you were given and you put it on the shelf in your classroom or office (or worse) and you never think of it again.  How is that professional development? The only thing developing in that situation is the grocery list you are creating or the developing desire to get out of this room and get back to your own classroom where you can organize for tomorrow. Wowee, did I just hear a bunch of heads nod?  I am thinking so.
 
But this morning when I listened to the priest talk about being changed by God, he spoke a bit about our part in it.  What do I actually have to do to be changed?  In my humble opinion, I believe I have to have or do three things:

1.  I have to be willing.  I actually have to come into the opportunity with an open mind, not already loaded for tension or contention, but also not with a pile of papers to grade (as if what is about to happen is not worthy of my time in the first place). I have to consciously say, “I am going to listen for one good idea I can use today.”  I remember laughing at one of my participants in the Virgin Islands a couple of years ago.  After an entire day of learning about the Framework for Teaching (Danielson, 2007), she came up to me and said, “This was so great. It was exactly what I needed to get ready for this year at school.”  “Great!” I said. “What, in particular?” She grinned and pulled out her notes page, on which she had written “make color boards”.  You see, in about five minutes of the six hour training, I had shown them how I had created my own whiteboards (but I call them colorboards since I use four different colors of cardstock paper so I can also use them to group students, etc.) out of cardstock, laminated report covers, tissues and whiteboard markers. 
2. I have to be in learner-mode.  We talk a great bit in our work with teachers that the learners need to be the ones doing the learning.  If all I am doing as a learner is some passive stance in which I sit and get (which is likely a misnomer, because there is not much I am truly “getting”), then the learning falls flat or doesn’t stick to anything.  I need to actually do something (cognitively, mentally, physically, or all of the above) with the new knowledge in order for it to truly stick.
3. I have to make the learning relevant.  Think about the last time you heard someone say something that made you start to nod your head, not just in agreement, but because it was also provoking you to think about something you might not have thought about or needed to consider.  I did it this morning in church.  When the priest simply said the word “change”, I began to think of all the ways we are changed in our daily lives.  For me, it is usually when I am fully able to get out of my own self and listen and be present with another (or others, depending on my introvert/extrovert status for the moment).   In many 12-step programs, oldtimers sometimes joke about “You only need to go to one meeting. I’m not going to tell you which one, so you probably better go to a bunch of them in order to find that very one.” I have to find what works, what changes me, and I can’t always rely on the presenter of a workshop or even my priest to do it for me. 

Perhaps we need to examine how we can make a change in our lives.  Michael Jackson may have really had this one right. 
 
Happy Communicating!
 
Shelly

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