Spirit of this Blog

In a true spirit of democracy, Superintendent Schulte recently suggested I funnel some of my energies into a “teacher’s perspective” blog. I am going to follow up on her suggestion and hope I did not bite off more than I can chew.

The essence of this blog is to create ongoing discussion about educational policies and opinions affecting our profession and district. A couple years ago, I took a transforming graduate course through UW-Stout that promoted (what Professor Alan Block called) “the complicated conversation” (which I believe was originally penned by the author William Pinar). The course was designed under the premise that curriculum dialogue never settles and involves numerous perspectives that often evolve over time and sometimes to better ideas. We read and wrote many perspectives on complicated matters in that graduate course. My own perspective changed many times in the course of the course’s discussions. I think some of us might call this process learning. 

This blog will be “One Teacher’s Perspective.” In actuality, however, I hope to incorporate more than just my perspective by including the perspectives of some of my favorite educational writers. I also hope some of you will involve yourselves in the complicated conversation.

To be clear, this teacher’s blog does not necessarily represent the views of the Janesville Education Association (JEA) or the School District of Janesville (SDJ), despite my affiliation with both. Appropriate comments will be allowed, but also do not necessarily represent my views, the JEA, or the SDJ. Only registered posters will be allowed to comment on the blog and all posters should realize that this blog is essentially public record.