NECC Reflection #3: Schools I'd Like To Visit

One of the continuing failures in my career has been isolation. When I was in the classroom, I rarely visited other teachers' classrooms even in my own building. Now that I�m out of the classroom I see much more in my own building, but rarely visit other schools in my own district, much less elsewhere. I imagine this is true for many teachers � teaching (traditionally, anyway) has been a very isolating profession.

While the Internet has decreased that isolation somewhat, it�s still not the same (for me anyway) as visiting real, live schools with real, live teachers and real, live students. One of the things NECC provided me with is a list of schools I would like to go visit. (If there are any independently wealthy readers of this blog that would like to pay for me and my planning team to take a road trip, please drop me a line.) While there are many, many schools I would like to visit, this is simply a list of a few that I came into contact with at NECC (there were more, but I lost track after a while). Perhaps those of you who are geographically close to one of these schools might decide to visit (or feel free to suggest others in the comments).

The Urban School of San Francisco (San Francisco, CA, USA - Howard Levin)

Science Leadership Academy (Philadelphia, PA, USA - Chris Lehmann)

School of the Future (Philadelphia, PA, USA) - umm, can't find a website for this school???

Shanghai American School (Shanghai, China - Jeff Utecht)

Westwood Schools (Camilla, Georgia, USA - Vicki Davis)

Westlake High School (Austin, TX, USA - Carolyn Foote)

Schools in Doug Johnson�s school district (MN, USA)

Schools in David Jakes�s school district (IL, USA)

Sharon Peters� school (Quebec, Canada) - except now she's not with a school.

Mabry Middle School (Marietta, GA, USA - Tim Tyson)

Barbara Barreda�s school (Los Angeles, CA, USA)

Again, these were just a few of the schools/folks I had contact with at NECC. I'd love to visit - and learn from - these schools (plus many, many more).