If you're just joining in on this series, here's what's going on:
I'm using the quotes as a basis for reflection on a shift in my professional journey. You see, for 12 years I was an elementary music teacher and now I've found myself to be an assistant principal. In a time that I anticipate to be filled with much personal and professional growth, I'd like to be sure and carve out some purposeful reflection time. As an educator, I've personally benefited from purposeful reflection through blogging and I can only imagine that I'll still benefit from reflective blogging as a leader in education.
My goal is to spend some time in each post writing about the quote, about the author of the quote (when possible), and about how I see the quote and/or the background image of the quote applying to my day-to-day world.
As a gal who always credits a source, I'd like to give a shout out to a dear friend, Kara Lowery, for coming up with the name of the series. Kara is a fabulous special education teacher who specializes in working with children who have autism. Not only is she a gifted teacher; she's also terrifically punny.
Read on; enjoy!
Not knowing her personally, I'm not comfortable using this quote to assert the opinion that she'd make the choices again that contributed to her emphysema not only again (but even earlier).
So let's get down the nitty gritty of connecting this quote to how the life of a Rookie AP is shaping up:
I understand how Bankhead would have an outlook like this, because we learn best from our mistakes. I always became very frustrated by using discovery learning methods, because I just wanted the teachers to teach me the lesson and not waste our time having us make mistakes; however, I see things differently now. The mistakes I've made so far in the few short months of being an assistant principal are numerous and many (none have gotten me on the news or fired, so nothing's been egregious) but BOY HOWDY have I learned from them.
So, it looks like Discovery Learning is coming back to show that it actually does have merit.
Chalk that up to another mistake/learning opportunity.