Article Link: http://stage.exchangepress.com/article/what-is-our-practice-ideas-for-training-staff/5015670/
In the last few months I’ve had the experience, which surely has happened to you on occasion, where the same word keeps coming up in every conversation I have. My friend sighs and tells me she can’t get her daughter to practice the piano, even though she begged her parents to buy it. A colleague complains about her organization saying, “they don’t practice what they preach.” My Yoga teacher reminds us that without a home practice, we aren’t really getting the benefits we’re after. A neighbor tells me he’s not running the marathon this year because he’s so out of practice. And, would you believe, my five-year-old grandson has taken to explaining that he doesn’t want the dinner I prepared because, “I haven’t practiced eating this, so I don’t really like it.”These seemingly disconnected conversations have made their way into my musings about early childhood professional development work. I think my ears have perked up around this word practice because I’ve been watching Ann Pelo in her new role as Mentor Teacher at Hilltop Children’s Center design a staff development program to enhance what she calls their center’s teaching practices. In the dictionary, the word practice is both a verb and ...