1
"Of course it’s hard to teach. It’s likely impossible to always teach well, to teach responsively, to differentiate instruction to the benefit of each learner in our charge. To make matters worse, there is no formula for excellent teaching — for responsive teaching.
2
We cannot buy the book or take the course that shows us the answers. There are ideas, of course, for how we might go about responding to the myriad needs of learners in today’s classrooms… There are principles that will likely serve us well in our quest to become responsive teachers. But there is no textbook or lesson plan that can do the work for us.
3
There is no magic set of instructional strategies that will solve our problems. There is no behavior management program that can begin to substitute for building relationships of trust and respect with individual human beings.
4
We simply have to decide the shape we want our teaching careers to take, and begin moving in that direction… The more fully professional we want to become, the greater the risks we take. The more artful we want our work to be, the clumsier we will look along the way…
5
But…the more willing we are to take the risks, the better the lives of our students are likely to become, and the greater the fulfillment we are likely to feel at the end of the day."
Tomlinson, C.A. (2003). Fulfilling the Promise of Differentiated Instruction. Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development (ASCD).