Anne Norford

Anne Norford, principal of Brownsville Elementary School in Crozet, Virginia, talks about professional development at her school and the changes in the teaching atmosphere that have occurred as a result of professional development. Excerpted from an interview with Anne Norford (North Central Regional Educational Laboratory, 1992).

"Another important piece of how we've come to be where we are is by prioritizing staff development for teachers. Our county has been tremendously supportive, and the way we've done it in this school particularly is to try to get a few teachers to learn the very best, then those people come back in the building and share the wealth, and as a consequence as that, we've gotten better and better at the craft of teaching, I think. The openness that says we're not in competition with each other is extremely important, and it's probably vital now, because some of the skills that we need to foot so that is more specifically, to be a quote good developmental early childhood teacher are quite different than those that have been accepted in other tradition teaching, and if you know that and are very good at it, people tend to celebrate you. But the point is not to have one classroom that's better than everybody else's classroom, the point is to have a school where everyone knows how to do these things. Well, that happens by sharing, and sharing by happens by building trust, and trust happens by opening up and talking to each other."

This Critical Issue was written by Cathy J. Cook, Mathematics Education and Professional Development Specialist, Midwest Consortium for Mathematics and Science Education, North Central Regional Educational Laboratory, and Carole S. Fine, Director of Professional Development, North Central Regional Educational Laboratory.

Development and production of this Critical Issue were supported in part by the Midwest Consortium for Mathematics and Science Education.

Date posted: 1997