This article could apply to any field of employment today, not just education.  The “Other duties as assigned” clause at the end of most job descriptions has been used to expand employees horizons, drive employees to the point of burnout, and provide cause for termination.

Many schools today have a stated goal of creating life-long learners.  Teachers realize the importance of continuing education credits in order to keep their certifications current, but there may be times when lesson plans need to change, new technologies need to be incorporated into those lesson plans and new strategies need to be crafted so that all learners can achieve to their potential.

So as a teacher, what happens when you receive word that 5 of the students in your class this year speak no English? Two speak Spanish, two speak Chinese,  one speaks Korean, and you’re expected to be able to communicate with them so they can grasp the learning points in your lesson plan and master them so they can demonstrate their knowledge on the state-mandated achievement tests.

Then there are the over-achievers, as well as those who wish they were someplace other than the classroom.  They also need to demonstrate mastery on those tests.

This is when teachers realize they need to be life-long learners, too!  If you expect your students to be life-long learners, then one of the best ways to teach this concept is to model it.

It helps to remember that education is all about change.  If a student walks out of the classroom with a little more knowledge than when he or she came into the classroom, then learning has occurred.  That means something has changed.  Further, students “change” classes every day, and students progress from one grade level to the next.  That certainly is an example of change.  Teachers change, administrators change and even a student’s classmates change.  It’s an atmosphere where change is constant.

So when someone finds a better way to do something in a school, and there’s someone who says, “I’m not going to change what I’ve done for the past 20 years,” that’s a person who really doesn’t know what education is all about.