DPI has always been this far away entity that made decisions, and those decisions didn’t always make our lives as teachers easier. I always knew that they weren’t the only ones making decisions (hello NCGA), but their implementation of decisions usually felt like more work for us that took time away from the real learning and teaching that went on in our classrooms.
Throughout my externship at DPI, one of the biggest a-has I’ve had is how willing the staff has been to meet with us and how open and candid our discussions have been. We have been so lucky to have meaningful conversations with many people on staff, and they are always incredibly interested in what we as teachers are thinking. Many of them have given even more of their time by meeting with us a second or third time as we complete research for our projects. Obviously many of them are formers teachers (and most miss the classroom in some ways), but I never thought I would feel so welcome and valued.
My project colleagues and I have continuously talked about demystifying DPI as part of our final project. Because we’re working with assessment, we did sign a confidentiality agreement, and we can’t share everything we’ve learned. But, I want other teachers to have the same feelings that I’ve had these past few weeks. DPI is not scary, they’re under incredible pressure also, they have to deal with legislative changes that seemingly happen randomly, and they’re trying to help students and teachers of NC. They really are behind us 100%, and they value feedback from teachers. That’s really all I can ask for as an educator.
It’s interesting one of your fellow Fellows had similar thoughts on DPI before taking on this adventure and you both came out of it with similar feelings after going through this experience. It’s nice to see how our perceptions can change.