What makes SAM an apprenticeship is that all the learning (both that of the adults and the students) is embedded in the daily routines of a school – any school. (Elmore,2004) The program’s success does not depend upon the size of the school, the way it is organized, student demographics, teacher credentials or any particular method of teaching or learning.

Incidentally, the we, at the present time consists of a group of organizations working with public school systems:

• The School of Public Affairs, Baruch College, City University of New York, working with the New York City Department of Education
• New Visions for Public Schools working with the New York City Department of Education
• The Boston Plan for Excellence, working with the Boston Public Schools
• The Bay Area Coalition for Equitable Schools working with the Oakland Unified School District

The Filmmaker David Lynch has suggested that ideas are not invented, rather they are caught like fish, as they swim by. And like catching fish you really don’t know what you’ve hooked until you begin to work with it (in the case of fish, read cook with it) over time and under a range of conditions.

Our experience has been that as we explore and experiment with the ideas behind SAM, two things happen:

• We learn more about what we’ve “hooked” – what SAM is and isn’t, can and can’t do
• And, we find ourselves applying it to a broader set of conditions, for an increasing number of purposes

To date SAM has been applied to:

• University and non-university-based school supervision and administration credentialing programs
• The instructional support of individual schools, networks of schools and a whole school system of 1400+ schools

In addition, SAM is currently being explored as a strategy to develop and certify teachers

At this point the experiment we call SAM has simply become too complex and varied to keep track of what we are learning without the use of technology. So we have decided to start a blog.

The purpose of the SAM-blog is to provide a place where we can document and debate what we are finding in order to improve our practice — less effort for better outcomes — as we continue to explore and experiment with the ideas around which SAM is organized.

So, what can you expect?

• Discussions of issues that we think require clarification or debate
• Formal and informal evaluation of our work
• Stuff we have created, including:
  • Syllabi
  • Protocols
  • Assignments
  • Assessments
  • Curriculum
  • Lesson Plans
• Works in Process - stuff users would like comments on in order to solve a problem or improve a practice
• Links to readings and sites we have found useful.

You are free to use and improve upon everything we post. Your only obligation is to credit the source – SAM-blog – and share with us your experience so that we can all benefit.

It is our intention is to post at least twice a month and to alert you to new entries through our subscription function — so please sign up!

We welcome your thoughts and comments and look forward to a lively and fruitful discourse.

Yours sincerely,

Liz Gewirtzman
SAM Project Director
Baruch College, School of Public Affairs, CUNY