Written by Tammy Chavez-Hill
August 2007
Submitting this article for publication
I can be reached at:
tchillout@yahoo.com
214-538-0948
214-999-6050

The Challenge of Transforming into a Learning Community

Tammy Chavez-Hill

Flipping on the light switch and pondering through the open classrooms, I counted each of the four rooms as I did each day, as if one classroom would cease to exist. The school system had lost its accreditation and teacher morale was at its lowest point. Student performance had hit rock bottom. For the first time in years of teaching, I actually dreaded coming to school. As a teacher, I must have been a failure. How could I have been part of the problem? I worked so hard every day and took work home nightly. Surely, I put off my own children to grade papers and create lesson plans. Would this be the last year for me to have a job in this district? Would the students be shipped out to the suburbs? The school system was in shambles. All hope was gone.

A student named Anthony, Anthony Scott Shelton, to be exact, also known as A.S.S., as his initials spoke loud and clear, reminded me daily, that we were in a state of crisis. Anthony, surely had been the butt of jokes in his family and had played on all the attention that had come his way. Negative attention was just as powerful as positive attention. The tone of the classroom was \set daily by the actions of Anthony. The classroom environment was set by a seven year old, very disruptive student.
Knowing the crisis that was before me, the need to teach harder was obviously what needed to happen. Wide eyed students sat in desks and listened to their teacher talk non-stop. They are hearing great information that is so valuable to their future, yet they yawn, some are falling asleep, eyes are glazed over. Why are they not listening to this wealth of knowledge that this incredible teacher is bringing? After a day of such intense teaching and lecturing, I collapse in the midst of my home completely drained. The emptiness is so powerful to my overwhelmed and exhausted sense of being.
The next day, as I watched Anthony become such a powerful presence in my classroom, and throughout the open classrooms in our module, I noticed that this seven year old had much more power than any of us teachers. He entered the module and stopped, and made a complete circle as he held high the universal finger sign to every student and

• 1
• 2
• 3
• next page >>

---

Add your voice

Know something about The missing ingredient in education?
We want to hear your view. Write now!