If you were to walk into the Stone Chapel on Monday or Tuesday, you may have been confused. You would have witnessed two dozen educators standing in a circle, playing games in German (even though no one spoke German), most likely laughing alongside each other.
Faculty are engaged in Teacher Learning Groups as an on-going professional development initiative focused on modeling a growth mindset for our students. Small groups of three or four faculty members are observing each other's classes and meeting biweekly to coach each other through those observations. Today, I had the opportunity to sit in on Corby Leith’s A block studio art class.
Jason Day won the PGA Championship Sunday afternoon with a stellar performance, holding off Jordan Speith down the stretch to claim the title. His journey to PGA champion alongside his coach and caddy, Colin Swatton, has been inspirational. Day’s response when asked the greatest impact Swatton has had on him relates directly to each of us as learners. “What’s rubbed off on me the most is that he’s always kind of questioning, okay, is this right? Is this wrong? Asking questions to the right people. To really be able to be open to learning and growing as a player and as a person, if you don’t do that, you stop getting better.”
Each summer, Proctor's faculty shifts gears and spends time enriching their Proctor experience. For most, the summer is spent enjoy the outdoors, hiking, cycling, and spending time with family. This downtime also affords a tremendous opportunity to pursue an avocation alongside their vocation as educators. Here's a quick window into a few summer projects by Proctor's faculty!
One of the aspects of my job I am most thankful for is the excuse to write regularly. I fear I would lose my sense of why I do what I do without a creative outlet that involves writing. While we at Proctor Academy think everyone should read this article, this post is a plea to those directly connected to the Proctor community to take to heart the advice below.
Early in his career, former Proctor Academy Head of School Lyle Farrell (1952-1971), worked alongsideDr. Samuel T. Orton, who pioneered the psychometrics and pedagogy of reading disabilities. Farrell would take what he learned from Orton and establish at Proctor the nation's leading tutorial support system for college-bound, dyslexic students in the early 1950s. Through intentional programming aimed at helping young dyslexic boys, the predecessor to Proctor’s Learning Skills program, changed countless lives, many of whom would become benefactors to Proctor because of their life-altering experience at the school.
Proctor’s faculty had the privilege of working alongside Ruben Puentedura, Ph.D for today’s professional development day. Puentedura’s presentation of his SAMR model of technology integration combined with small group workshops proved incredibly powerful as faculty began to rethink how technology intersects with pedagogy at Proctor.
As educators, our role as learners never stops. We have never ‘arrived’ as experts in the disciplines we teach. We are a part of the learning process as much as our students are, and therefore, we model the same attitude toward learning we encourage in our students. Monday was the perfect opportunity within departments to press pause and dig deeply into our work through professional development.
