As a teacher, I like to think that I’m part of the proverbial “village” that it takes to raise a child.  One of my goals for this school year is to increase the parent and community involvement in my classroom.  I want parents to feel like I’m part of their “village,” that they can feel comfortable talking to me.

What I’ve realized through my Kenan Fellow experience this summer is that it also takes a village to raise a teacher.  For my first few years in the classroom, I tried to do everything by myself.   Eventually I learned to rely on the people around me: my PLT, department, and the teachers with similar visions and goals.  This year I’m also going to take advantage of the virtual village: the immense supply of tools, resources, and people who can help me become a better teacher.

A few ideas I have so far:

• Using Foursquare to facilitate learning on our field trip to CAM and have students track their community service hours
• Inviting parents to follow me on Twitter and tweeting about things we’re doing in class.  (Above is a tweet from our first week of class!)
• Keeping in touch with my fellow Fellows and collaborating on projects through apps like i-naturalist.  This will be a great way to connect across the grade levels–a great project idea for my students who like working with kids.
• Having a Skype session with Brian Strahl when my juniors read Brave New World about the likelihood of scientists being able to achieve the levels of human genetic modification described in the book

The challenge with all of this will be sticking to my ideas when the year gets hectic and we have more to do than we have time for (the plight of public school teachers everywhere).  I’m confident I can make it happen, however; my Kenan experience this summer re-energized me and made me excited about being back in the classroom.