A New(comer's) Perspective

By: Richard Argys
Publication: The Voice, Vol. 9, No. 3
Date: 2004

Summary: A teacher-consultant with the Denver Writing Project reflects on some ideas he's learned through NWP.

Offered the opportunity to attend the National Writing Project's Annual Meeting last November, I didn't have to think too long before deciding to go. NWP's model of "teachers teaching teachers" seems to have changed much of the landscape of professional development in education in the past thirty years; I wanted to learn more about how and why it works.

As a comparative newcomer to NWP, I gain appreciation of this movement the more I participate in national events and the more I see teachers in action. Some ideas from the meeting are still reverberating in my mind, including:

• Those of us who spend hundreds of hours with students, year after year, are in the strongest position to articulate the best teaching practices and influence educational policy.
• Data is powerful, and facts carry weight. Exposure to NWP's model of teacher research has helped to convince me that classroom-based inquiry seems the most reasonable and effective method of discovering what is really happening in particular schools, and why. More important, an earnest researcher may actually find workable solutions to real problems.
• An honest researcher never knows what she will find until the inquiry is undertaken. Ethical, realistic exploration and analysis may yield surprising results, and dedicated educators look unflinchingly at the facts in an attempt to develop successful strategies for improvement.
• The adage "Slow and steady wins the race" applies to many aspects of our careers in public education, a field as heavily influenced by politics as any in the country. NWP veterans advise newcomers that we'll likely be frustrated repeatedly as we try to effect positive change in our profession. Those same vets are quick, though, to show their enthusiasm for the many opportunities we all have—many through the NWP—to help guide and nurture our students. The genuineness and integrity inherent in the project's approach to professional development are, for me at least, reaffirming. NWP teachers seem to speak candidly and realistically, as often as necessary, and in the face of much opposition.
• Rather than isolating ourselves in our classrooms, dedicated educators also owe it to the profession to get to know administrators, school board members, legislators, and executives, and to learn how things work—so we can improve them. It's time for us to arm ourselves with the facts about what really goes on in our schools and why and to begin to educate our countrymen.

The conference was valuable to me, both for the individual sessions I attended and for the overall renewal that I feel as an educator. I'm beginning to enjoy the acquaintances I've made and the professional relationships that flourish between serious-minded educators in the project. Teaching is a tough profession. But the opportunities it affords us to help—to make things better than they are now—seem well worth the trouble.