Excerpt
As a result of being exposed to continuous professional learning and practices, this journal will assist you in applying the same expertise and principles of hard work in diverse educational settings. You will learn many approaches, phases, and theoretical perspectives, as well as effectively utilize your interpersonal skills, share roles, experiences, and constructive feedback with your peers, that lead to enhancing
one’s knowledge-base, increasing student achievement.

If you can hear thunders rumble and roar, lightning strike, and a school bell ringing, I’m certain that can hear a child’s cry! Without getting into the terminology and the horrific stories that have been published and many of those never told, bullying is more widespread and is a character-issue that needs more attention than it is receiving. It’s not part of growing up. As a matter of fact, bullying is a behavior that is close to being a disease.
I taught all males in a gender-based middle school setting and utilized varying resources that enabled me to close achievement gaps. Outside of having a strong desire to teach, learn, and support others, I must attribute our school’s improvement to student/teacher motivation, data-driven decision-making, continuous professional development, collaborative planning, a standards-based classroom, research-based strategies, sound instructional activities, and teacher reflection.

Quality for all students includes models of differentiated or resourceful Instruction, which incorporates best teaching practices consisting of: (1) A lesson plan framework that includes guidelines set across disciplines (standards), relative academic frameworks, an agenda, research-based teaching strategies, exemplary instructional activities that include technology-integration, adaptive instruction including individuals utilizing augmented communication devices, and significance of the process and the environment.
When we employ observations tools, we utilize a framework that serves the purpose of lending to teacher support and growth. While an instructional leader shares as part of school governance, he/she, nonetheless, serves in the capacity of teacher. Experienced teachers build a community of trust, believe in a success-oriented framework, execute duties and responsibilities with fidelity, and share thoughts while never making the educator being observed feel less than others.

Effective teacher-collaboration can primarily be illustrated through building a culture of trust, the use of teacher-practice, a harmonious and cohesive educational environment, and unpretentiousness. It can be a very rewarding experience to have two-teachers share their expertise, talents, and resourcefulness. Any subject or grade-level pair can co-teach in any professional milieu, including delivering instruction to colleagues. We are largely focusing on the general and special educator.
I was allowed to turn in a paper, written in manuscript, entitled “The Narcissistic Personality.” The subtitle was “One for Me and One for Me.” I had drawn two circles--merged together, like the compare and contrast graphic organizer--depicting a two-faced person. I received a grade of B- on the last page of the term paper, while the following comments had been stated: “This is an excellent paper. However, I don’t think that these are your words.”

School improvement serves as a framework for strategic planning that encourages educators to be able to target critical issues and make the learning experience, for all learners, a more positive one that includes social acceptance, differentiated instruction, as well as cultural and ethnic equality/equity. To complement a district’s framework, school improvement must transpire, especially if we are to arrive with the changing times.

There are teachers who genuinely feel that data-driven decision-making is relative in diverse settings. In some instances, it’s not merely emphasized enough. In other instances, data-driven decision-making has gone into overload! Consequently, our absorption with the terminology, data-collection, driving instruction, instructional focus, and how teachers should remember the processes--even how they should present the data--are wearing on teachers.
The critical issues are apparent--math, reading, student motivation, and attendance. How do we effectively teach the fundamentals of reading when a child is illiterate and has not experienced the text as his/her peers, possesses limited English, and/or scarcely comprehends what you’re trying to articulate? How do we encourage a child to attend school who possesses other circumstances beyond the classroom and/or our control?
There are students who are not readily embraced by teachers, including teachers in special education. Can you image how that makes a parent feel, who entrusts us with their child? So that we don’t feel inhibited by individuals who aren’t serving a collective purpose, we can learn how to co-exist and make things work for the betterment of our students. When we don’t embrace collaborative-teaching, we don’t embrace the child, be it with and/or without special needs.
I realize that we have teachers, like students, who are from a different era. However, it is paramount that we continue to come up with innovative ways to enhance student and teacher performance--unless we want to continue to protest and question why things are the way they appear--while we make little-to-no-efforts to play a role in our schools’ accomplishments. If we are not entering the field of education to serve the welfare of the student, then what’s the purpose for, outside of having nine-to ten months out of the year to work, seeking a career in the educational framework?
These are exemplars of careers that impact our lives at this very moment! If students are not sitting in a classroom being embraced by an honest and nurturing educator, then they will most likely be found outside actively-engaging in risky-behavior and/or being embraced by (or embracing) crime.

A curriculum shares a philosophy. Philosophy is important in determining curriculum decisions. While working on curriculum planning or implementation committees, I have found that a quality core curriculum provides a research-based framework; it aligns with state standards and district goals; it includes technology; it addresses individual differences; and it includes all learners.
While I move forward, I realize that we must keep in mind that high expectations (with safety-nets) must be set for all learners, sustained communication with all stakeholders--that promote student success--must a primary focus, and contributions to the implementation of curriculum planning, instruction, and evaluation (addressing state and local alignment) must be monitored.