LOOKING BOTH WAYS

About Us

Publications and Resources

How We Look Both Ways
• Doing Professional Development
• Sharing Assignments
• Visiting Each Other's Classrooms

Now in its third year, the practice of pairs of seminar participants visiting each other's classes is a cornerstone of LBW professional development. This is one of the most important activities in enabling teachers to "look both ways," since they experience one another's teaching contexts in both their institutional and classroom dimensions. No one who makes a visit to the "other" institution leaves unchanged.

In the first year, we found high school teachers were at times appalled to see the conditions that accompanied teaching at some CUNY campuses; others were struck by the freedom that accompanied college teaching. College teachers, likewise, had their eyes opened. Most came to LBW with little knowledge of NYC high schools. Most shared the perceptions commonly perpetuated in the media: schools are rough and noisy; teachers spend most of their time disciplining students; no one does much of substance.

After their visits to the high schools, and after spending time in their colleague's classrooms, no college instructor would claim that high school teachers do not teach with passion and conviction. In fact, each group of teachers saw how much it had to learn from the other; all felt grateful to have demolished long-standing stereotypes and to leave LBW seminars with increased respect for one another's jobs as well as a deeper recognition of the teaching tasks and goals they share.

Here, in their own words, are some LBW teacher reflections on intervisitation:

>> High School Teachers Visit College Classrooms

>> College Teachers Visit High School Classrooms