As an education consultant, I probably shouldn’t be saying this but schools in Massachusetts need to share their resources with one another instead of hiring consultants to create new ones.
On Monday morning I received a text message from one of my friends who teaches at Peabody High School. He knew that I had taught a freshman seminar course and wanted to tap me for my expertise since his school is creating a similar course. He told me that the meeting was at 10AM that day. I did my best to round up what I could and sent it to him. After I was through I kept thinking about how useful it would be to have a statewide resource bank of in-house curriculum and other documents available online (Resources for discipline, school procedures, department agendas, IEP meetings, and so many more).
It wasn’t until I started working for DESE that I realized how teachers, department heads, social workers, and countless other school officials design the most useful resources. Why is that? Because they are in the field and need to see the immediacy of each document or tool that they create. Thank the Lord that I am a bit of a hoarder because some of the resources and ideas from my former bosses like Suzanne Keefe and Jeannine Durkin have saved me in presentations in other schools across the state. Thank you!!! Another person who teachers would be psyched see resources from is Phyllis Gleason from Worcester who puts her heart and soul into designing curriculum for her district.
At the very least, teachers and administrators should be networking with other districts so that they can ask for resources and help from colleagues in other districts. Networking? What’s that? I didn’t start networking until I was 34 and was out of the classroom. Another issue for another post.
Anyway, does anyone like the idea of a statewide resource bank with no pressure to post to? There would have to be no mandates from the state besides no names of students on completed work. I’d love to hear your thoughts. Let’s make this happen!
Kerry
MassEdWatch 