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11 January 2005: Just Next Door (3 of 3)
And more than helping me cope, I have been indebted to my current grade level team for helping me grow professionally. Though they are young, they are of the highest quality. And because of their constant pursuit of good teaching, they help me be a better teacher. Take Vygotsky as an example. He said that aside from what you already know, there’s a pool of knowledge or theory that you are ready to understand, with the aid of someone else. That’s the Zone of Proximal Development. It’s great to consider when planning group learning experiences for your students. It’s the academic theory behind the two-heads-are-better-than-one cliché. But, our students are not the only ones with a zone. We, too, have a body of understanding just one step away. Here again, the value of like-minded colleagues is immeasurable--especially for a new teacher, who doesn’t have a lot of experience to draw on, or a non-traditional teacher, who doesn’t have a lot of establishment to build on.
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