Building a “Challenging Environment” Into Your Mission Statement

This article made me think about a new initiative my district is beginning to implement: I/E time. I/E is a thirty-minute block of the day to provide intervention or enrichment for students. Although intervention is very important for at-risk students, this article reminds me of the many students who need to be challenged, or enriched, throughout the school day. During I/E time (which is still very new to me) I anticipate that some students will be able to work on more project based learning. This year, I gave a small group of students a webquest to work on. This project was challenging, engaging, and incorporated technology.

Although this article is written about school's Mission Statements, I think it is important for educators to remember the importance of high expectations and creating challenges in the classroom. These concepts are part of my teaching philosophy alongside differentiation. The phrases provided in this article are very well written and touch on a variety of "themes" of a mission (or philosophy).