MAC - Week 4 Response #1 - Mike Wood

Excellent post, Mike! :)

I am thrilled to have read this as I return (hopefully) back to my former teaching position in my former high school. Though I haven't shared your frustration in my short teaching career yet (7 years), I know SEVERAL teachers who have felt, or currently feel, the same way as you described. The frustration in the educational settings appear to be growing stronger as money tightens and teachers are held to higher and higher standards. Can you imagine what it would be like if all teachers, administrators, and district personnel adopted the mindset described in the Art of Possibility? That would be an amazing system!

Thank you for sharing!

Amanda

Mike's Post:

I wish I had this book when I was teaching full time. Chapter 9 Lighting a Spark would have been an inspiration at a time when I had given up hope of ever being able to motivate and really engage my students. Working with high school students with learning disabilities is so difficult to begin with and when faced with teaching a mandatory curriculum that is clearly designed for younger students it became almost impossible. They were discouraged and insulted and so was I. Looking back on it now I realize that we had lost sight of the spark within us, we had lost sight of the fact that we could nurture that spark in each other. Being the Board, chapter 10, would have allowed us to act in a way that allowed us to choose our own path and to quit blaming others for our circumstances. You see here that I am including myself in the equation. I had become as disillusioned and as helpless as my students. I carried the revenge creature around on my shoulder for the last 2 years in the high school and reacted to the administration by blaming them for how I felt for what they had forced upon the students. I had quit working with them in a “We” frame of mind and had instead firmly retreated in to an, us vs them mode. It did no one any good. I had finally reached the end of my rope and resigned. This year, after a year away from teaching, I decided to start subbing again. In the final 2 weeks of school I was once again back at the high school that I had walked away from, from the students I had walked away from. Many expressed regret that I had quit but here they were about to graduate and once again I could see the spark in their eyes they as I do, feel reenergized and full of hope for the future now. This book and my time at Full Sail have given me a new way of approaching teaching. I’m looking forward to practicing a new way of seeing things, “The Art of Possibility.”