The Great RA Shift

I've noticed that my classroom/teaching has been making a gradual shift.  It is significant, yet unfinished, and terribly exciting.  My colleagues studying RA this year have also expressed similar thoughts.  As I was reading Reading for Understanding by Schoenback, Greenleaf, and Murphy (2nd Edition) I came across this line that described what we are experiencing.

"When classrooms are places where teachers do things for students or to students, teachers are doing all of the intellectual work.  When classrooms become places where teachers do things with students, the intellectual culture of the classroom shifts, and students have a purpose for investing in learning."

Admittedly, I am nowhere near mastering the art of Reading Apprenticeship.  In RA the teacher serves as the mentor of the student apprentices who are learning how to read, think, and learn in a specific discipline; in my case science.  Amazingly, despite the snail's pace of my learning curve, the change is beginning to happen and it is truly invigorating after 11 years of teaching.  There is a new sense of hope on the horizon and I am genuinely excited to share in this process with my colleagues.