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ac		working and learning together

language is power good schools for everyone making alliances working and learning together finding a focus trying out new ideas how schools are organized how are we doing? opening the school doors things to avoid		IF WE SEE schools as factories and teachers as technicians, we can make them better by giving teachers better "training," with experts coming in to inject new methods in one-shot workshops. This describes "staff development" as it once looked in most schools; but the record shows that it does not work.
		building capacity
		School people don't automatically have the skills, conditions, and resources they need to change a large institution with a long history of habits and customs. They build the capacity for change by practicing how to work in teams, frame problems, listen to each other with respect, have hard conversations, set goals, get outside help, manage time, approach new knowledge, understand other perspectives, document what they do, and reflect on their process of learning.
		ac
		Challenge schools believe that teachers have expert knowledge to exchange among themselves, in the kind of regular conversation that most other professionals enjoy. If schools make time for them to do that, teachers will generate new understanding and expertise as they analyze what works and what doesn't in their current teaching practice.


		learning community
		A school is a system in which every person and action affects everyone else. To change it, teachers, administrators, parents, and students all need to work continually toward the results they want, to develop new ways of thinking, to learn from each other. As they begin to see their individual experience as part of a system, they get better at talking together about what that experience means and how to change it. The growth that comes from their individual learning turns into a habit of ongoing learning as a community - a new kind of school.
		ac
		Because doing this task well requires diverse perspectives, many Challenge schools form professional development teams to work on it. These teachers and administrators might call on outsiders to help, but the interest and motivation comes from within the school. Rather than simply complying with what others recommend, teachers seek and use information that raises the level of their teaching and learning, building their own capacity to improve and pushing for the policies and support structures they require.
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