QUIT WAITING

“I realize now that I have been wrong. All this time, I have been waiting. Waiting for what? For someone to find me? For Indians to take my horse? To see a buffalo? Since I arrived at this post I have been walking on eggs. It has become a bad habit, and I am sick of it. Tomorrow I will ride out to the Indians. I don’t know the outcome, or the wisdom of this thinking, but I have become a target. And a target makes a poor impression. I am through waiting.”

—John Dunbar (Kevin Costner) in the movie Dances with Wolves (1990)

One thing that attracts me to TPRS has always been the agility and flexibility of the method.  If something isn’t working we are willing to change it and do something different.  We can respond on a dime to student needs.  We do not need to run it through a focus group.  The vulnerability that Blaine Ray has always modeled has trickled down and I say keep it trickling.  If we get a better idea or learn how to do something new that will work, then let’s DO IT!

The interaction with the teachers at Denver Public Schools workshop with Jason Fritze last Friday (Thank you, Diana Noonan for setting it up and inviting me down!) and the recent conversations with Ben Slavic have given me many such ideas.  And when I see a good idea, I feel like I have to apply it.  I would be negligent not to.  No need to dally until next school year.

I feel a bit like Lieutenant Dunbar in the quote above:  I am through waiting.  New meta-cognitive rules are up, more posters are on the way to help keep the biggest problem child in the room on task:  ME!