After reading "Entertaining an Elephant", please reflect on three "aha's" or themes that McBride uses to get his messages across.
posted by Barney Slowey @ 10:33 AM
Bringing About Change
About Me
- Name: Barney Slowey
- Location: Rice Lake, Wisconsin, United States
I am going into my 44th year in education with 17 years as a high school history teacher, 5 years as a middle school English teacher, and 11 as an administrator. My admistrative jobs included principalships at every level as well as a director of instruction job. Since leaving the system I have devoted my time to work with teachers through graduate classes, insevices, mentoring for two years with teachers in Osceola implementing Brain Based Learning through Multiple Intelligences. This summer I will be co-facilitating a seventh Masters Program with a laptop community in Rice Lake Kimberly and Pulaski.
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1 Comments:
It appears everyone really liked the book..It obviously is one of my favorites and needs to be read often...Your job is to encourage others to read it, especially those who might be in Mr Reaf's situation. I have facilitated study groups in schools around the themes of the book and they were quite successful in initiating change...Now I'd like to share some of my thoughts on the book...If you reverse the first and last letters on Reaf's name you come up with the word FEAR..and isn't that what the book is about...fear of changing teaching strategies,fear of people who are different because of ethicity, gender, poverty,sexual orientation, etc. Somewhere, someone a lot smarter than me said the the greatest impediment to progress was FEAR.
When we are afraid, we don't take risks that might afford us opportunities to further our lifelong goals...I almost didn't take a position because it was an interim principal's job for only one year and I would lose 120 sick days and might not have health insurance,etc,etc,etc..I had all kinds of excuses why I shouldn't take the job...I did and it was one of the greatest experiences in education I ever had...but FEAR almost did me in...LUIS is an interesting character and certainly appears more educated than Reaf...So what is education?...a degree? two degrees?...Tamara's description of her mother reflects to me an educated person and maybe someone that impacted lives more in her position than those with degrees...AA appears to be an organization that has people from all walks of life where the ex- homeless drunk may be the most educated person in the meeting... In brain research there are 6 ingredients for learning to occur:
1.choice
2.interest
3.relevancy
4.emotion
5.physical activity
6.reflection
It seems to me that when Reaf's students got connected to these 6 things, learning began to happen and Reaf began to change...with Luis as his mentor!...I too enjoyed the tidbit about disaster and opportunity meaning the same in Chinese...The secret for us in the change process, I think, is to recognize that change is going to happen and that we can sit back and let it happen or we can make it happen...Many times we will see major barriers to our changing anything but there are many, many other things we can change... We certainly need to keep up with the changes in our profession by reading, taking classes, joining and initating study groups and other like endeavors...You all are doing that by your willingness to continue to do those things...I congratulate you and wish you good luck on your journey of change...
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