Teacher Extraordinaire - Portfolio of a Teacher and Lifelong Learner

Often implementing change in schools can be difficult, but sometimes we need to be the leaders, find other like-minded people and help in making that change happen. We need to realize that change does not and should not happen overnight, and look towards long term sustainability. This is fueled by sharing the load, changes occurring laterally (from the top to the bottom to the top), creating new leaders within work situations, having time to collaborate, valuing all opinions and then following through with actually collaborating. Teachers having time to collaborate, having an atmosphere/work situation of respect and not overloading teachers is all essential in keeping up the energy and drive necessary to affect change. Changes should be based on innovation, research, patterns and changing trends. In other words deep knowledge in an ever changing world needs to be valued. It is only through these aspects and methods that we can hope to close the achievement gap. Of course teachi