Cooking vs. Teaching

Variety is the Spice of... Education

     A great teacher is like a great chef.  A great chef has favorite recipes, tried and true, that are their signature dishes.  They are everyone's favorites.  They work time and time again, because the chef has worked hard to create the perfect balance to please the palate.  Great teachers have their instructional strategies, tried and true, that combined become their instructional style.  They have developed this style to maximize the learning of the students they teach.  I have several programs that I have used for years that I have found to be highly effective.  They are my "go to" programs that I start with every year I set up my classroom.  These include Whole Brain Teaching, CAFE Menu, Shurley Language, and Rocket Math.

     A great chef does not only have their signature dishes.  They can create a dish unlike anything they have done before.  A great teacher knows when to change their instructional strategies because of the needs of the learners.  This year I had eighteen boys and six girls in my class.  Because of the extreme imbalance of boys and girls, I found that I had to have more hands-on activities in my class.  I had to have opportunities for movement.  I also needed to use competition more in class.

     Great chefs can create dishes from scratch without the use of a recipe.  They don't follow others- they are leaders.  A great teacher is a leader, too.  Great teachers lead their profession by mentoring, blogging, attending and presenting at national conventions, leading grade level or department teams, and becoming involved in district, state, and national policy.  I have served in district level leadership positions and helped to write my state's ELA assessment.  I have worked formally as a mentor and have created protocols that are now widely used in my grade level.  My current goal is to have more of a web presence to reach out to other teachers digitally.

     Teaching is a dynamic and ever-changing job.  The only thing constant is change.  Even if you stay at the same grade level in the same school, students have unique needs each year, new programs are adopted, principals and superintendents have different agendas, and standards change.  If you cannot adapt, you will cease to be effective because, just as a chef is only as good as his last meal, you are only as effective as you were yesterday.

For more about different instructional strategies, see:  http://teachinglearningresources.pbworks.com/w/page/19919560/Instructional%20Approaches