Lab Rat

Sometimes I wonder if I am the lab rat. I'm involved in a couple of federal research projects where change is the subject of the day. We know that there are problems with secondary education today. The focus in these projects is to facilitate positive change in student achievement. Let's follow this through, though....

In order to change student achievement, we must focus on those who interact with the kids. In my case, we are talking about middle and high schools for the most part. The focus of our work is on content literacy and in the encouragement of high levels of thinking and problem solving in secondary classrooms. We focus on engagement of students through keeping them sufficiently challenged with lots of feedback. This is a tall order in many classrooms today. The range of abilitites among students is huge. It is not an easy assignment for a teacher - especially in urban classrooms where academic diversity is the norm.

My point is that while our focus definitely is on changing outcomes for students, we must focus on helping the teachers change and adjust. They are often stressed and feel overwhelmed. Which brings me back to the title for today's post - Lab Rat. Sometimes I wonder if I'm not the lab rat after all! I recently attended a meeting where we were given our assignments for this school year. There were several new data collection tools and additional expectations were given. I reacted because I was under stress. I must also remember to adapt to change. My reaction was typical when it comes to feeling overwhelmed. I need to keep this feeling at the forefront of my work this year. I am sure this is what teachers feel everyday because we are asking them to step out of their comfort zone and do something that they don't quite understand yet. We are asking them to trust us and live with ambiguity. I must do the same thing.