Complete Coverage

What Are Your New School-Year Resolutions?

By Larry Ferlazzo

As school was ending in June, I thought that it was as good a time as any to begin thinking about what I wanted to do differently in the upcoming school year—and why.

I have written in a previous article about the importance of reflection in the classroom. During my 20-year first career as a community organizer, we would continually emphasize the importance of this practice by saying that without it, many people were “a pile of undigested actions.” To take that metaphor a bit further, I guess you could say that reflection is like Pepto Bismol!

In fact, one study suggests that when we are experiencing something, we are recording what is happening in our memory, but the “actual learning” occurs afterward when we’re thinking about it. As I was applying this idea to my classroom practice a month or so ago, I invited readers of my blog to do the same. Within two weeks, 50 educators shared what they want to do differently in the next school year, ranging from principal Patrick Larkin deciding to put wheels on his desk and move it to a new location every week to teacher Kevin Hodgson wanting to help his students develop...