Ancient wisdom on professional development

[Peter Gow]

In 1920 the head of the Park School of Baltimore was invited to tell a group of Boston parents about the latest in educational thinking and practice. By the time the evening was over, the parents had decided that Eugene Randolph Smith was the person they needed to hire away from Baltimore to build a new school in Boston.

Smith, a devotee of Dewey and Kilpatrick and a fervent progressive, led Beaver Country Day for 23 years and was an important figure in the Eight-Year Study, which demonstrated the effectiveness of progressive educational methods in preparing students for college.

During his years as head of BCDS, Smith regularly posted challenging queries and statements for his faculty to discuss and dissect, a model of idea-driven professional development that I love. In 1963 Smith, long since retired, collected many of these queries and assertions into Some Challenges to Teachers, which was published by Exposition Press.

In the interest of passing along Smith's challenges, I have created a Twitter account as "Tweetcher" from which I will be tweeting a daily excerpt from Smith's book, compressed into 140 characters where necessary.

Today's query goes right to the heart of what we do, I think: "What is your faith as a teacher?"

So if you Twitter, Tweetcher promises never to clutter your day but to challenge and inspire you in some small way.

Thanks--PG

[Laurie Bartels]

Hi Peter,
Am not a twitterer but am enjoying reading your condensed Smithisms. Looked for the book but without success.
Cheers, Laurie

[Peter Gow]

It's tough to find. Try Alibris or Bookfinder, but you may pay a long dollar. Got mine years ago--don't even think our school has a copy--probably will donate mine in time--thanks, though--PG

[Marty Hankins]

I just created a Twitter account yesterday and have been wondering about the educational benefits of Twitter. Thanks, Peter, now I know! I am following Tweetcher!
marty