Joan Moser
Have you ever tried something new just because everyone else was raving about it? You didn’t want to miss out on that fabulous, time-saving, make-your-life-better, new thing, right? Perhaps at this very moment you are trying a new type of lesson-planning system, or you’re beginning to use the Daily 5 structure. Or maybe—like Amanda, who wrote to us—you’re using the CCPensieve for the first time. And maybe, based on your early attempts to learn to use these new things, they’re proving to be less than fabulous.
Recently my neighbor got her very first cell phone, and she was excited to unleash the power of her new device. She had seen me use my cell phone for everything from checking on whether the plant her puppy had just eaten was poisonous to looking up a recipe, so she asked me to help her learn to use her new phone. Her phone is completely different from mine, and I therefore found myself deep in the throes of learning something new.
Needless to say, I wasn’t very effective at showing her how this little device was going to be the fabulous, time-saving, make-her-life-better tool everyone, including myself, had told her it would be. Truthfully, I left our first “tutoring session” frustrated with how cumbersome and laborious everything seemed to be and intent on finding someone with the same device to help her. Lucky for me, my lovely neighbor was undaunted by my lack of fluidity and asked me to work with her every evening for a full week. Because of her tenacity I found myself getting faster, more effective, and helpful each day.
Going through this new learning process, I couldn’t help but contemplate how many teachers around the world feel like this on a daily basis. When trying out something new in front of students, it can feel frustrating, cumbersome, and laborious, and we may even want to abandon the new practice. Yet, just like learning to use a different phone, admitting to our students that something is new, sticking with it, and embracing the possibilities shows us that new things often prove to be worth our effort. Most things do get easier, faster, and more effective the more we do them.
If you are in this place of learning something new, your students are very lucky. After all, we ask them to learn new things each day. We set a powerful example for them when we stick with challenging things and demonstrate that doing so will have positive results.
So, Amanda, even though the new CCPensieve takes more time right now than using paper and pencil, be patient with yourself and keep at it! The more you work with it, the more you will be able to use it with ease and unleash the power in the tool. And I say to you, as well, that you have lucky students.
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