I want to make a difference. I am not saying that was my original motivation to enter teaching. I became a teacher because: I enjoyed it; I was qualified; I was familiar with it. Significantly, I believed that I would have weekends and summers off with lots of holidays. This would give me time to do my *real* passion which was drawing, painting and sculpture. But I ended up pouring all of my creativity into this job. I rarely create artwork anymore, especially during the school year. Every bit of my problem-solving mind is devoted to designing lessons, engaging students, and figuring out solutions to the underlying problems of education. I am eager to help other teachers, share my knowledge, and continue to learn and grow personally and professionally. That’s why I do what I do. I want to be an asset to my school and to my students. And, most relevant here, to the greater educational community.

In order to expand the conversation with others, we are relaunching our website, reimaginedschools.com. Originally, Dave created the website in 2020 as a place for our blog posts and resources. About a year later, I designed a professional development course to help guide people through the steps outlined in the book. Then Dave added podcasts. This gradual evolution of the website seemed pretty normal and natural in my experience. However, because it was not originally designed with these additional features in mind, the structure and functionality of the site was, to put it delicately, suboptimal. I tried to improve it, but ended up making it uglier, and probably less user-friendly. After months of frustration, I finally did some deep thinking about my goals. I have a career, one that brings me both satisfaction and a decent income. So why did I want a website anyway?

I came up with two deep-seated beliefs:

1. All students can learn and grow provided enough time and support. 
2. Education should foster creativity, individuality, and growth. (I have explained these guiding principles in other blog posts…. Here and here.) 

From these two motivations, I then generated a very long list of questions. What strategies and structures provide more learning time within the constraints of the school year? What strategies and structures provide more support for learning within the constraints of the school year? What, exactly, is creativity and can it be taught? If so, how? How do I enable and encourage individuality in a system designed for conformity and compliance? Similarly, how do I measure and encourage growth, versus achievement? Does the assessment approach that I have developed encourage any or all of these attributes? 

And the crowning question of all: Why am I trying to do this alone? There must be others working on similar questions! Dave and I have had quite the journey together in the classroom and we talk everyday.  While gratifying, it is preaching to the choir. Therefore, our nascent website is an expression of our desire to expand our conversation beyond the two of us. We want to engage with a dynamic community of educators, refining our skills, exchanging ideas, and offering our know-how to anyone who is interested. 

This is also what drove me to rejoin the online forums that I abandoned 3 years ago. This is hard too, because I want to offer my help and experience, but end up sounding like a salesperson drumming up a following. It’s really not my intention. I am eager to share. I want to be heard because I think I have something worth contributing. I can only be sincere in my communication, and hope that I can share my resources with others. Hopefully, our website will get traffic, people will purchase and read our books, and you will take our professional development courses. Please help me spread the word, but only if you think I have something worth sharing. Let’s dance this dance together. It’s too hard to go it alone, without community. If you are interested, please join my conversation, by subscribing to our newsletter, by following me on Twitter or Facebook, or by contacting me via PM or email. And thank you… it warms my heart to know that I’m reaching anyone at all