By: Lexie Fichera
When I first started teaching, I thought that there was NO
way to do ANYTHING beyond the “call of duty” during the school year. Planning, grading, administrative tasks (my
nice way of saying, “paperwork, paperwork, paperwork”), professional development,
continuing education courses…there wasn’t enough time in the day, week,
180-day-plus-vacation-and-weekend-time school year for that alone, never mind
any activities beyond that.
Sound familiar?
Flash forward to the end of my third year teaching. After taking Dr. Jodene Morrell’s amazing
course at Teachers College, “Literacy, Culture, and the Teaching of Reading,” as
part of my graduate program, I could feel this need to stretch that seemingly impossible
extra mile. The course, coupled with my classroom experience in a Title I
middle school (where I taught at the time), shed light on the inequalities in
education. The readings emphasized the importance of teacher influence and
culturally-relevant pedagogy as part of bridging the opportunity gap. Suddenly,
I realized the great importance of my role as an educator, an importance that transcends
the walls of the classroom and the doors to the school building. And that’s
when I asked, “What more can I do?”
And Jodene replied, “Join LTI!”
In spite of my “Ah Ha! Moment,” I still did not know where
to start in my research. So, I looked for patterns and disconnects in my
classroom—I began to analyze what my students just did not understand and
observe when they seemed disinterested. I would quickly jot down what I noticed
and when I noticed it. In my second year of LTI, I did this first step with
more intention and wrote in a research journal. As I sat on the train on my way
home from work, I would reflect on something that stood out to me from my
lessons that day. As I kept up with my journaling, I began to notice patterns
in my reflections, such as writing about successful strategies or “best practices,” class culture, student
engagement, and areas of improvement, which I called, “ideas for future
practice.”
And that’s it!
But not all.
I promised you I would tell you where to begin…
