Good, Better, Best

Due to a debate that broke out in response to my last blog, No Teacher Left Behind, I really started to think about the points being made on both sides.  I came to the conclusion that teachers, like everyone else in the world, get stuck doing lots of good things.  Often we get stuck doing too many good things.  We get bogged down with good things.  We have so many good things going on, that we don't really see that there might be better things to do with our time.

I got this idea of good, better, best from one of my religious leaders and really it applies to everyone, especially teachers.  I think that every teacher can agree that the most important aspect of teaching is actually teaching kids.  That is what they pay us to do.  So maybe as we weigh all the things we have to do in a day we can ask ourselves, "is this the best thing I could be doing to help my students learn?"  There are all kinds of good things teachers can get caught up in doing, there are even lots of better things we could be doing, but shouldn't we always be trying to do the best things for our students.  I know that I am not giving specific examples, but that is because every teacher should weigh what the best things for their students are.  My better and best practices will be different from every other teacher.

I am sorry that I have become so preachy in my last couple of blogs, but since I'm preaching I want to say please don't get left behind doing good things for your students.  Try to find the better and best things you could be doing for your students, and then you won't be the teacher left behind.