After reading, I immediately began reflecting on the
social construct of our professional learning communities. We sit in a leadership
model where the social power is distributed to selected people where the power
is controlled. These hand-picked leaders are designated to be our PLC leader.
This leader guides our discussions for our PLC and are limited to identifying
where we are all at in terms of teaching from a pacing guide. Then, we
comparing how well or not a teacher did. If feel this is a Top-Down micro-managed PLC
that filters any authentic conversations about teaching students. I do
understand a model like this might be more productive, but at what cost?
Teacher efficacy?
In this thought, I am in the middle of creating
another professional learning community within my education association. The
model I am choosing to use is distributing the power to other participants who
have the grit to do it. The PLC is centered on culturally responsive practices
to increase learning capacity.
I believe the professional learning community is like
car. The wheels are 4 parts of culturally responsive conversations: awareness,
knowledge, skills, and advocacy. In order to move the car, the participants
will work toward caring for the wheels by carefully giving attention to all 4.
Over-compensating on one wheel can slow progress. It will take a balanced
diverse team to make progress.
