KMWP seeks to effect change in education by effecting change in teachers. We achieve this goal by
- Facilitating a program of teachers-teaching-teachers in order to improve literacy instruction from kindergarten through college.
- Enhancing professionalization of the teacher as writer, consultant, leader, and researcher through collaboration, programs, and leadership opportunities.
- Developing a wide array of teacher leadership opportunities so that it can have a lasting and widening impact on the teaching profession.
- Supporting ethnic, economic, linguistic, and other diversities.
- Promoting student empowerment through teacher professional development.Fostering positive relationships in the classroom and the community.
Guiding Principles
COLLABORATION: We have the capacity to act autonomously and simultaneously, in order to work independently and achieve excellence. We strive to incorporate efficacy, flexibility, craftsmanship, sensitivity, and interdependence into all our work.
LEARNING: All learning involves an engagement and a transformation of the mind.
COMMUNITY: Our classrooms are situated in a learning community that includes our students' families and neighborhoods. We seek positive and productive connections to these communities to enhance learning for our students.
DIVERSITY: By valuing diversity, we enrich our lives and professional practices.
LEADERSHIP: Teacher leadership, an essential ingredient in any KMWP program, can be exercised in myriad ways.
Revised June 2007 by Vicki Walker, Advisory Council Chair, and members of the KMWP Advisory Committee, under the directorship of Dawn Latta Kirby.
Mission Statement Composition
The KMWP Mission Statement came about first by researching why companies feel they need to create mission statements. Most companies need to keep their workers focused on where the company is going as a whole. Company leaders want a buy-in from their workers to create a oneness and to set a goal that is easily recognizable to all involved.
Secondly, the whole philosophy and culture of the KMWP was reviewed, and the key areas affecting its participants were identified. The intertwined nature of diversity and community played a big part in choosing key words for the mission statement.
Sandra Grant drafted the KMWP Mission Statement, receiving input from two other KMWP fellows—Denise Hazlett and Jennifer Scrivner. In the winter of 2001, with only minor revisions, the Advisory Council approved the document. The mission statement will bring added interest to the KMWP because it highlights the fact that members are not only focused, but have a purpose for what we are doing.