C4T#1

I was assigned to read Bill Ferriter's blog The Tempered Radical. I am very glad that I got his blog to read! He brings up some very interesting points!
The first blog of his that I read was Out of This World Hiring Lessons for the Principles of PLCs. By the end of the first paragraph I was thinking "What is this guy's point??" He was talking about how in Japan before sending astronauts into space, they put them in The Big Brother House for a week to see how they would interact with each other while they were in space.  The eat, sleep and live under 24 hour video surveillance. I was thinking what does this have to do with teaching?? As I kept reading, I realized what he was talking about! When you get hired at a school it important to befriend your fellow teachers! He says "...the people you hire have to be MORE than work partners if you expect meaningful relationships to develop between the members of your learning teams.  They have to be buddies." 

I completely understood what he was talking about! If you teach in a place that you hate, your teaching could be affected greatly. You have to think about that when you are looking for a job. You need to consider the kind of environment you will be working in.

The second blog that I read was Leadership Lessons Learned from a Vegas Casino. When I read this title I wasn't sure what I was about to read. He talks about how the MGM Grand Hotel had a Wizard of Oz theme when it was built; green glass and a yellow brick road. Also included was an entrance into the casino through the lions mouth. The Chinese, who spent the most money at the casino, stopped going there because they believed that walking trough the mouth of a beast was bad luck. The Grand eventually changed this entrance to regain its Chinese gamblers. It wasted time and money because the designers didn't think of the customers. It seemed perfect on paper but it wasn't in reality.

I understood where he was coming from. As teachers we shouldn't do what benefits us, we need to do what benefits our students. Also, I think sometimes we rush through our lessons so that we cover all of the criteria that is required by the state, once again benefiting us more than the student, just to have to go back and re-teach it before the end of the year because no one really understood it. We've wasted time just like they did in building in the casino! 
<a href=" The Tempered Radical