Response to Marzano’s What Works in Schools - Read Chapter 1

It was the best of times...
This sentence prompt can mean so many things in the education world today. We are surrounded in a world with endless opportunities for gathering information from a variety of resources, we have access to most new technological devices and software and have data running out of our ears and noses for each student that walks into our classrooms.

We are changing lives for the better daily! Students who walk in our doors are exposed to some of the best teaching strategies and ideas that have ever come about. Students are learning at a quicker pace than ever before.

It's easy to chat with teachers from outside your daily physical environment and collaborate with others around the world. Websites like Pintrist, Blogger and YouTube can give you endless ideas of how to engage and enrich your students beyond anything you could ever fathom.

It was the worst of times....
Marzano states heavily that the data we've accumulated about what works in education isn't being looked at and isn't being used to drive our instructional styles and classroom practices to reform. Although we do live in a world full of data we seem stuck with teaching styles that mirror a traditional classroom from the early 1900's.I feel that we have an array of teachers who have the skills and talents to educate all students from many backgrounds, but who are stuck with government mandates and educational guidelines that keep us somewhat trapped in the ways of old. We want to educate individual students and meet their needs, but are forced to cover a wider range of curriculum quicker than time allows. Students are lost in the gaps and forced to catch up through Title programs and other support programs. Though the technology is there, some schools can't afford it, or can't afford to have their teachers trained to use it successfully. It's like a doctors office, who has docs ready to operate and tools that are either outdated for the surgery or not enough training on how to implement and use them successfully.

With all of the data we have on students, teachers can't comprehend and compact it into meaningful uses. We see it, try to digest it, and try to make changes in our teaching, but by the time we've tried something new, another data set is on our desk.