Change Agent or Change Victim? The choice is yours.

     "The only constant in life is change."
     Never were truer words spoken that pertain to the life of an educator.  It both enrages and enlivens us and that is the beauty of the work we do.  Ask yourself this question - Does the school you currently work in resemble the school you attended as a student? If the answer is yes on all counts, then continue to do what has always been done and get the same results that have always been achieved.
     However, if something's different what are you doing to reflect that difference? Take an aspect that must be familiar to you since you're reading a blog that may have come to your attention via a tweet. Technology is an inescapable facet of a students' education today.  It is another literacy they must master to make a successful transition to that other world. Anybody remember the first computer they saw? You went to the computer room and it was just that.  Now I have a Blackberry that has more computing power than the lunar lander had.
     How about the social fabric? The last census revealed for the first time in Canadian history that more people over the age of fifteen (the long ago standard) were unmarried than married.  Does that not impact the work we do in schools today? Contacting the custodial parent is a much more time consuming matter than in the past.
     These examples are not meant as judgements or evaluations. And they certainly are not yearnings for the "good old days". They are simply illustrations of factors that are different and compel us to match our teaching strategies to meet these and many other differences.
     Hanging on to the way we've always done things and living your career as a victim of change doesn't strike me as the best response.  Educators possess the broadest skill set of any profession.  Combined with a passion for student success, we should always be the agents of change. We don’t get to choose the changes that come into our lives, but we do get to choose how we respond.