Inspired and Energized by GLADness

How many teachers say this? "I'm glad I went to GLAD training." I earlier asked to decline the training because of the amount of time I would be out of the classroom. The first two-day introduction training was held last week and there will be another 4-day in December. My principal said that I was required to go, and that the trainings and the substitutes were funded by the state. So I went, leaving my students with a new, untried substitute, hoping this disruption would be worth the disruption of not being in the classroom. 

It was. This one, I like. This one, I don't put on my list of onerous mandates. Out of all the mandates being placed on us, this one seems to come from a good place - a place of respect for teachers and true concern for student learning and engagement. 

GLAD stands for Guided Language Acquisition Design and comes from Orange County, California. It was developed out of research-based practices of what works for English Language Learners, which turns out to be strategies that are appropriate for all students, in some way or another. One of our trainers was a real classroom teacher, who works in a year-round school, and on break. The other trainer also honed her skills in the classroom, but has moved on to higher education. Whatever the recipe for the training, I came away inspired and energized. 

It is not new nor ground-breaking, but it is new in today's context of high-stakes testing. The training reminds me of the time before No Child Left Behind and even before the Hawaii Content and Performance Standards. There was a time when we were told that social-emotional development was all-important. We had trainings on Spencer Kagan's Cooperative Learning strategies (I even had a job for a short time, training teachers on those strategies), and schools statewide were adopting the TRIBES program. I loved that time. 

         When I first took college courses in education at the University of Guam many years ago, when my now 30-year old daughter was a toddler, we were all about developing integrated cross-content units. I loved that time. It matched the way my mind works, needing context and connections in order to make sense of learning and teaching. It turns out, according to research, most minds work this way. 

So what I experienced with GLAD was like coming home. It was a refreshing validation of my core beliefs about teaching and learning. Though the research is not new, if this is the direction we are expected to take, it is a new chapter. If we only did this in our efforts to transform education, we would be doing a lot. Having been inspired and validated, the ideas are at the forefront of my mind when I plan or face blank looks of my students when I ask them a question. Instead of calling out names, I now more automatically say, "heads together." 

On Friday afternoon, it was hot, and the natives were restless. I looked around the room, with about 20 minutes left, and wondered if I should try to teach another math lesson. The answer was no, and luckily I had written a song, inspired by the training, about a science concept we have been studying. I quickly wrote it on my Promethean board, and we sang. What a great way to end a hot, restless, Friday afternoon.

Knowing that these strategies are encouraged, helps me to be the teacher I want to be.