Learning - A Shared Journey of Discovery

A view of the crowd

The speaker's view

On Friday, April 4, I had the opportunity to address the Iowa State Education Association Delegate Assembly in Des Moines, IA.  It was fun to take a photos of the crowd from the speaker's platform - a view of dedicated educators from across our state.

Just one year ago I was sitting at one of these tables when Tania Johnson, the 2013 Iowa Teacher of the Year spoke.  After her speech, a colleague came over and said she was going to nominate me for 2014.  Little did I imagine that this year I would be addressing this group as 2014 Iowa Teacher of the Year.

ISEA is led by Tammy Wawro, ISEA President, and Mary Jane Cobb, ISEA Executive Director.  Both are very strong leaders who possess a clear vision on how to best serve the educators and students of Iowa.  We are fortunate to have them as leaders for our association.  

The title of my speech was "Learning - A Shared Journey of Discovery."  Here is a portion of that address:

Today I would like to take you on a journey – not just any journey – a journey with very specific stops along the way.  Today we will be visiting four places.  Those places we will visit are the Village of Never Give Up, the Town of Continuous Improvement, the City of Finding your Voice, and the country of Where do we Go From Here?

First stop – the Village of Never Give Up.  This is the place where one learns just what they are made of...  

Our second stop today is a The Town of Continuous Improvement.  As teachers, we strive to make this a frequent place to visit.  It is here in this place of continuous improvement that we reignite our passion for what we do.  Through continuous improvement we sharpen our skills, we learn new ways to engage students, we experiment with resources, and we earn new degrees.  I have visited this town frequently...

You, too, must visit the town of Continuous Improvement.  It welcomes all visitors and when you leave this town, you leave it as a better teacher than when you entered it.  In the words of Mark Twain:  "Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”   You will be so glad you visited the town of Continuous Improvement and so will your students.

Our third visit is the City of Finding Your Voice.  This is one we struggle with especially with today’s media portrayal of educators and the system.  With high stakes testing, we are forced to look at our student learning as a number...

We are making a difference for those who will determine the future of our world.  We as teachers see the bigger picture and we speak to that vision through the lessons that take place in our classrooms.  But, dear colleagues, it is critical that we bring that voice out into the public.  We must get better at telling our stories or those who don’t know our stories will create pictures that do not accurately portray what we do as teachers.  We must visit the City of Finding Your Voice.  We must find ways to show others we are not just a proficiency number.

The final leg of our journey takes us to the country of Where do we go from here?    This is the most difficult visit along the way.  We don’t always agree upon what direction this leads.  We are fortunate we have organizations like ISEA to help us find our way.  They are working hard to lead and guide us in a strong direction that advocates for the benefit of all our students...

In the country of Where do we go from here? Each day is a new challenge but we do not walk this path alone.  We share this journey with our students, their families, our leaders, but most importantly each other.  Together we must have an eye on the big picture – what the world holds for our students and for the direction of education and best practices. 
   

Through visiting the Village of Never Give Up we learn persistence, in the Town of Continuous Improvement we learn excellence, in the City of Finding your Voice we learn to advocate for education, and finally in the country of Where do we Go From Here? we bring the bigger picture to the world of our desire for excellence in what we do and in how we teach...

Learning is a shared journey of discovery.