We Need to Imagine Big Tent Thinking

Summer school programs do not necessarily result in changes across the district or even among these teacher’s practices throughout the year. It occurs to me that if professional development opportunities better aligned with summer teaching, this organized experience could enhance teachers’ depth of practice, sustaine innovation and place their professional growth within district-wide change rather than simply as classroom change.  When teachers participate in district provided professional development they have a chance to recreate the classroom learning environment they can also reimagine district’s systems and therefore producing more sustainable change.  The bigger the system reimagined the more practices are institutionalized.  This is what I call engaging the biggest tent possible. 

I have experienced numerous facets of school systems where innovation is understood as possible in “that” setting.  Summer school, afterschool and alternative programs are famous for their sense of “we do things different here”  because its summer school, etc.  The teacher both enjoys and suffers from a  marginalized state within the system.  They are left alone for a period of time, generally hidden from the policy makers.  Marginalized aspects of systems simply do not sustain, they eventually are cut because they are seen as not essential or are altered to better align with commonly accepted practices.  Marginalized within systems is not the place to be.

Service-learning practitioners can fall into the same problem of being marginalized with systems.  They find themselves and their work isolated, perhaps placed into marginalized programs, hidden from policy makers.  These programs may sustain due to the amazing and charismatic efforts of one or a small group of teachers, too often the programs are eventually cut.  If these teachers were to organize themselves aiming to shape larger aspects of the school system the likelihood of this practice being sustained and expanding to other classrooms could grow.   

If we in the service-learning field target summer learning programs as an excellent opportunity to organize change in classroom practices, we must think, plan and engage with the biggest tent in mind.  Helping summer school teachers explore new practices in summer must also coincide with helping teachers understand how these practices can be employed throughout the year.  Help teachers engage their peers, their building and district administration.  Summer and after school programs while historically have been a common target for district cuts, have recently become a more significantly valued component of a district’s improvement plans.

Influence of the Achievement Gap

The importance of summer school at the district level is often understood as a vital component to the districts’ goals to address the needs of struggling students.  Many in school systems identify the need for more time to be given to those students who have not yet mastered basic skills, those seen as left behind in the achievement gap.  While time is indeed vital, many teachers also feel that simply doing more of what wasn’t working is a less than hopeful option.  These teachers are looking for new ways to engage their students, new ways to help their students learn academic outcomes.  This is the opportunity for service-learning and for those that would like to see more systemic changes in school districts. 

I have come to believe that the impetus for change will come from those aspects to schooling that are less inundated with the recent and still expanding tsunami of educational obligations.  Teacher’s time or choices during the standard school day is severely limited.  It is tough to institute change in what appears to be a paralyzing environment.  Summer, afterschool and alternative education programs provide an excellent way for innovation to take root into school systems. It can take root as long as we keep the big tent as our target for such change, change just might sustain.