Teaching isn’t about a linear train ride starting the year at one place and reaching your destination by May with station stops of assessment along the way. There are days that your students look at you and say:
I don’t know that word. I’ve never seen that word.
Learning is organic and dynamic and unpredictable.
It’s frustrating and exciting and exhilarating if teachers and students are given the space to explore and probe and analyze and create; however, if schools continue to view learning and teaching as a linear movement with the momentum of standardized tests, boxed, pre-planned curriculums fueling the journey, then they are going to run off the end of the tracks.
Learning is a roller coaster of emotions and experiences. There are twists and turns sometimes anticipated, sometimes not and classrooms and schools should be set up to accomodate the unpredictable nature of inquiry.