“I used to think . . . and now I think . . .”

06-21-2011

Blog by Richard F. Elmore/Harvard Education Publishing Group

At the end of a course or a professional development session, I frequently ask the learners I work with to reflect on how their thinking has changed as a consequence of our work together. This reflection takes the form of a simple two-column exercise. In one column, I ask them to complete the phrase, “I used to think . . . ,” and in the other, “And now I think . . . ” People often find this a useful way to summarize how our work together has changed their thinking and their habits of mind, and how we have influenced each other. Recently, at a seminar on the future of school reform, I asked my colleagues—a group of people who have long been active in various strands of school reform—whether they would be interested in doing this exercise as part of our work together. My suggestion was greeted with nearly universal rejection. The possibility that one’s work might have changed one’s mind over a long period of time seemed just a bit over the edge for that group. So I decided that I would take the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Harvard Education Letter to try this exercise myself. (more...)

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