I have a friend who seeks my advice on marathon training once a year. It requires us to interrupt our past practice in a deliberate and intentional way.

It demands that we make our beliefs about student learning explicit and allow those beliefs to be examined by someone other than ourselves so that we make space in our heads for new knowledge. Real learning often involves a measure of discomfort. Real learning is about disrupting current practices and assumptions. Teachers try out something, learn from their success or failure, learn something new, try it, and so on.īut the third reason most PD doesn’t work is that it is hard to break old habits. Good PD starts with the question: What problem are we trying to solve? Or, to say it differently, what do teachers have to learn in order for students to learn what we want them to learn? Secondly, good PD is ongoing and sustained. Firstly, most professional development is not tied to a specific student learning need. There are several reasons why this is so. A large body of research has been amassed that reveals that most professional development doesn’t work. I think about this story often in conversations about professional development. They tasted rather ordinary, no different from the latkes everyone had always made. That’s secret nonsense!” When Berl finished making the latkes, the family sat down only to find that there really wasn’t anything special about Malke’s latkes. Yentel kept telling him that latkes aren’t made that way, “That’s not a secret recipe. This pattern recurred with each ingredient–the lemon, the parsley, the pepper, the oil. And just as he was about to add flour, Yentel stopped him and told him to use bread crumbs instead. However, just as Berl was about to add chopped scallions, his wife Yentel objected that he must have made a mistake. He’d spy on Malke from her kitchen window as she made the secret latkes and write down ingredient after ingredient along with the instructions.īerl set out on his reconnaissance mission, brought home the recipe, and began to prepare the latkes. One Chanukah, Berl the shoemaker devised a scheme to steal the recipe. The only problem was that she would not share the recipe. One of my favorite children’s Chelm stories is “Malke’s Secret Recipe,” by David Adler which tells the story of Malke, who was known for her delicious, succulent, and soft latkes.

Malke's Secret Recipe by David A. Adler