What If We Trusted Teachers More?

In a blog post from 2017 that is perhaps even more relevant today, John Spencer, author of a number of books about educational practice, wrote: “If we want to see innovation happening in our schools, we need to trust, encourage, and empower teachers to transform their practice. Too often, teachers are forced to teach inside the box and it can feel frustrating.” Ann Pelo and Margie Carter, in their popular, groundbreaking work, From Teaching to Thinking, write about how teachers and administrators often face “pressures to inscribe early childhood programs with standardized, scripted curriculum that emphasizes literacy, numeracy and science concepts at the cost of vigorous  play and rigorous exploration...” Pelo and Carter pose a question about what kind of story we want to tell about the work early educators and leaders do: one of mistrust and over-control or one of belief in educators’ competence and creativity: “What if the story were transformed with an understanding that pedagogical practice should be aimed at sustaining a culture of inquiry, where educators listen, wonder and reflect; where we are surprised, delighted and moved?”

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