Teachers—Sustaining

Team members and coaches often say that the Public Achievement meeting time is too short to accomplish what they set out to do. This puts pressure on the coach and can result in spending just a few minutes at the end of the meeting to do evaluation. As a teacher, you are in a key position to bring the practice of Public Achievement evaluation and reflection into the classroom. Evaluation is a valuable, versatile skill that can be carried out in a variety of ways. For example, you can incorporate academic skills into evaluation by having students write responses to questions or write an essay about their issue. You can ask students to use technology and the media to present what they are learning to others in the classroom. Or, you can have students create public presentation boards. The ways to capture the learning that is taking place in Public Achievement is too numerous to name. The main thing is that you take time to plan how you will do it and carry it out on a regular basis. If you have a plan ahead of time, before the year begins, you will be more likely to carry it out in the classroom.

As stated above, by using a variety of evaluation tools, you can make tangible the important learning taking place in Public Achievement. You can also use this opportunity to reflect and evaluate what you yourself are seeing with your students and the classroom as a whole. Ask yourself the questions below and share your responses with your students. They will understand and be delighted to see that you too are learning new things in Public Achievement.

  • What are you learning together with students about making change in your school and community?
  • How does Public Achievement affect the learning in the classroom?
  • What have you learned about your students through Public Achievement that you might not have learned otherwise?
  • What skills have your students learned or improved upon since starting Public Achievement?
  • What are your thoughts about democracy?
    What does citizenship mean to you?
  • What public problem solving have you done in your own community? Are there similarities to what you see in Public Achievement groups?