Inspired by Dan Meyer’s latest video:

dy/av : 008 : behind the scenes from Dan Meyer on Vimeo.

As usual, Dan gives us a great piece, and as is often the case, he uses the structure of the video to "bury the lede" on purpose. Dan speaks about how difficult it is to both create these short films and how difficult it is to craft smart, thoughtful, engaging lesson plans. And, in the "aha" moment, he speaks about how easy it would be to take short cuts — in both lesson planning and film making, and how you have to make that choice every day. And that choice — whether you choose to go all the way or take shortcuts — is easier to make with each day you make it.

And I think that Dan has hit on something really important in several respects that extend beyond the individual teacher and the choices s/he makes every day. Here’s a few things that he has me wondering:

• When we think about the individual teacher, we can certainly argue that if teachers just kept at it, they’d reach that magical tipping point where it gets easier and they wouldn’t need to take shortcuts.
• But that’s not working. We’ve got way too high a percentage of people leaving teaching in the first five years — does that mean we can infer that the moment when it becomes sustainable for the typical "at-risk of leaving" young teacher happens after five years?
• Given that many, many teachers are not able to sustain the choice that Dan is arguing for — given that the shortcuts (or leaving, the ultimate short cut) are so enticing for so many teachers — what’s wrong with the system that creates that?
• How can we change the system so that more teachers are rewarded for not taking the short cuts? 

Dan’s video is excellent as far as it goes. But if being a great teacher is only achievable by Herculean effort, we’re going to always struggle to create systemic reform. What do we need to do to make it easier for more and more teachers to always make that right choice toward careful crafting of curriculum?

Tags: dan_meyer, school reform