Tinkerings

A school administrator is much like the plate jugglers I used to watch on the Ed Sullivan show when I was growing up.  You’ve probably seen one.  A guy (usually a guy) has some long, flexible poles and he starts spinning plates on top of the poles.  More and more plates go up as the audience gasps.  As one plate starts to slow down, the juggler vibrates the pole and the plate regains its momentum to stay in place for a little while longer.

Administrators juggle the plates of student behavior, central office demands, NCLB, school safety, budget concerns, happy and irritated parents, and a host of other things that make the school function steadily on a daily basis.

Occasionally, the administrator has to add a plate for problems related to teachers.

For the purposes of this blog post, I would say there are three types of teachers.  The first type confines himself to his room and does his job every day.  He offers very little input on the running of the school or academic programs.  His focus is on the 25 to 30 kids in his classroom at any given time.

The second type takes a broader approach to education.  She looks around and sees how things could improve on a wide range of topics within the school.  She talks about those things in an attempt to flesh out her ideas or gain support for change.  She tries to engage other teachers in a dialog that could bring significant improvement to the school, to education, to kids, parents, and even other teachers.  Her interests are wide and sometimes all-consuming.  She sees how classroom management could improve, lunch room behavior could be calmer, teaching strategies could be transformed.  The list is long.

The third type of teacher likes to be “in the know.”  He really doesn’t have any ideas of his own.  But he listens to everything that goes on in the classroom, the teachers’ lounge, the sidewalks, bus duty, and casual conversations at the mail center.  He really has no usefullness for his knowledge other than being able to tell people that “he knows.”  He knows public stuff, personal stuff, private stuff, and sometimes even confidential stuff.  He is a wealth of knowledge if you want to know who comes to school late or leaves early, what group of teachers are getting together after school hours, or which teachers just can’t stand each other.

The administrator is busy juggling plates.  While his “teacher” plates are wobbling, needing some attention, the administrator has to choose which pole gets juggled to keep that teacher aloft.  The question becomes, “Which type of teacher is most important to the administration of our school?”  You can tell by the ones that get the personal, private time.

As a future administrator, I hope I set my sights on the second.

Oh wait, my Spring Break plate needs a little adjustment.  I’ll be back soon.

Over twenty years ago, a former employer of mine used to recite this poem at nearly every Christian education conference he spoke at.  Even now, over two decades later, I get a little teary-eyed when I use it both with kids and other teachers.  I have no idea who the author is.  If you know, please leave me a comment.

A diamond in the rough is a diamond sure enough

For before it ever sparkled it was made of diamond stuff

But someone had to find it, or it never would be found

And someone had to grind it, or it never would be ground

But once it’s found and once it’s ground and once it’s burnished bright

That diamond’s everlastingly just shining out its light.

I need a Kleenex.

I have friends in my social network from all around the world. I call them friends because that is the common term used in these fantastic virtual worlds. Probably sixty percent of them I’ve never met face to face (except to see their picture in Facebook, Twitter, Plurk, Linked-In, Plaxo, and more).

Around this time of year, we start having the same conservation: How do you evaluate teachers?

Since I am a classroom teacher, I am only asked to evaluate one or two “new” teachers who work in my direct area of instruction. As a result, most of my additions to the conversation are based on my philosophy of education and leadership without much real-world experience on which to base my ideas.

So, I thought I would put a couple of ideas out here in cyber space and see if any of them take hold.

When doing coursework at the University of TN at Knoxville, I became a firm believer in the ideas of Appreciative Inquiry developed at Case Western Reserve a few decades ago now. Appreciative Inquiry is based on certain assumptions about how the world operates. One of the main assumptions is that the things you concentrate on are the things you get more of.

The old paradigm of “problem solving” (a skill for which we are still responsible to teach children) concentrates on what is NOT working. If you can “freeze” the actions and fix the problem, then when you “unfreeze” the actions the problem will be solved. Unfortunately, by concentrating on the problem you usually get more of the problem.

Appreciative Inquiry encourages you to concentrate on what is working and “fan the flame” of that activity to spark more of best practices in everything you do. By focusing on what works, you get more of what works. It is an interesting paradigm shift.

Here is how I see the differences played out in schools:

Teachers:

Problem Solving - We have a real problem in this class with too much talking while I am trying to teach. I need you to stop talking. (OK, I confess. That was me).

Appreciative Inquiry - The class really goes smooth and we get a lot done when the class is quiet while I am giving instructions.

That is a subtle difference, but it is a difference that works.

Administrators:

Problem Solving – Probably your biggest weakness in the classroom is your classroom management skills. You seem to have a problem controlling the talking in your room. You need to find a way to fix that. If you can’t control the kids they can’t learn.

Appreciative Inquiry - I noticed during the lesson that you really held the students’ attention when you were telling short, funny anecdotes about your time overseas. I saw kids really listening during that time. What do you think it is that makes that so powerful? How can you make that work throughout the entire lesson?

Which evaluation process would you prefer? What has been your experience?

I have read most of President Obama’s recent speech regarding his Education plan. I find his ideas to be similar to those espoused by many I know who are professional educators.

I’m glad Mr. Obama wants to increase funding for early education. Our children need every opportunity at the earliest levels to gain a foothold in the most fundamental elements of reading, writing, and learning acceptable social behaviors. All of these will stand us in good stead in the later years of schooling.

I’m glad Mr. Obama wants to transform the accountability system from bubble sheet, multiple choice questions to a more robust system of accountability where students demonstrate knowledge through authentic assessments that showcase both understanding and skill. After all, would you want to know your heart surgeon got his diploma by answering a lot of questions about how to do certain procedures, or would you rest easier knowing he has actually done such a thing not once, but multiple times successfully?

One of the biggest flaws in our standardized assessments is that most questions are designed in similar fashion. There is a prompt or question and four answers. Out of the four answers, two can be eliminated by a simple reading and understanding of the question. They just don’t fit. One is a “trick” answer designed to catch students napping. It plays on the most prominent way students mis-answer the question. Of course, there is also one correct answer.

The biggest challenge to the President’s plans is his suggestion that we extend the school day to encompass more hours and extend the school year to include more days. While both of these may prove helpful, the challenge is great on several fronts:

1. We already have a hard time getting college students to choose education as a career because the cost of their education is high compared to the rewards of their salary when they are finished. Incentivizing the education track means promising higher wages. In the long run, where will that money come from? Who will sustain it once it is given?

2. One of the perks educators have in relation to their lower salaries is an extended vacation time in the summer. It used to be that teachers got 3 months off in the summer. They had time to work a part-time job and improve their standard of living. Now, it is barely 2 months in Tennessee. Yes, we get extra time off during the school year, but you can’t work a part-time job for one week here and one week there. Realistically, the change in the school calendar has cost teachers money without improving their bank accounts.

3. We already struggle to engage children for the time we have them in the classroom. Today’s students are micro learners. Everything happens in 6 to 30 second intervals for them. Things have to change rapidly. They have the choice to bounce around between activities on their own time. Sitting in a 45 minute, 60 minute, or 90 minute class is very difficult. Even college students today couldn’t survive classroom time without Facebook and Twitter. Yet, the very things that engage learners today (social media, visual media, texting, etc) are denied in the classroom.

So what are we to do? There is no easy fix (obviously). I have some ideas. In the meantime, what are yours? How do we help Mr. Obama’s ideas transform education? Leave me a comment.

About a week ago I read a blog (I’m sorry, I don’t remember who wrote it) that was sent out as a sort of meme. The challenge was to list five ways you would change education to make it better. Although I wasn’t tagged in the blog, I have begun to think about it a lot. So, here are my five things.

1. It is all about the culture. I have a vision for a school where the culture is such that students sit up a little straighter in the bus or their car once they cross the threshold of the school property. I envision a culture of respect. Respect for learning as well as teaching. It is a culture where teachers show respect to all students in an effort to model the behavior they desire from kids. I see a culture where kids remember to say hello on the sidewalk, say thank you when you hand them something, take pride in the cafeteria and clean up after themselves at lunch, and they don’t write on walls in the bathrooms. I have a long way to go personally for this vision, but I strongly believe that the number one job of leadership in any organization is to define and create the culture.

2. Engage parents. This is not such a difficult task in elementary grades, but by the time middle school and high school roll around many parents are actually listening to their kids when kids tell them not to come to events at school. However, one of the major positive impacts on student learning is parent involvement. I have long been an advocate for tax credits for parents of students who meet AYP and tax penalties for parents of students who don’t meet AYP. Although I have often said that rather “tongue in cheek,” sometimes the pocket book is a great incentivizer. In a more realistic approach, we should do all we can to get parents to teacher meetings, PTO meetings, and education planning meetings. Feed them if we have to. Offer cash prizes if necessary. But educate parents on what is happening in the school, why it is important for them to engage, and what free tools are available to their children online to help them do their absolute best in school.

3. Use stimulus money to hire more teachers. I think we could change education a lot if we had enough teachers on hand to actually work with students on their grade level. It is obvious that grades and grade levels are not working as we would hope. If we have kids that do well in 7th grade math, but can’t do 7th grade English, we do them no benefit in allowing them to go to 8th grade English. Neither do we help them by making them stay behind in all courses. However, we cannot continue to work with that child on a 7th grade level without more teachers to act as mentors and remediators. Where would I put the bulk of the first hires? 4th grade. We need much smaller teacher/student ratios in the 4th grade in order to get kids’ reading skills back on track before it is too late. As a very good friend of mine is so fond of saying: Reading is the key that unlocks education.

4. Reform testing practices. I have no problem with standardized tests, as long as students are aware of how they work when they take the test. I am a good test taker. In high school I passed tests on subjects I never studied (or rarely studied) because I knew a few test rules. In any standardized test, 2 answers can be eliminated simply by reading the question. That leaves one correct answer, and one pretty good distractor. Students who must guess at some answers (and they all do) can double the chances of guessing correctly by simply learning how to eliminate two answers. Does that really indicate they are proficient in a subject? I would like to see assessments that demonstrate proficiency. These are not multiple-choice assessments. Rather, students create something using the tools they have learned in the classroom. I know this would be much harder to assess (no scantron machine can grade it en masse). So how do we grade them? See #3 above.

5. Combine technology with memorization. I am a firm believer that we should immerse technology into the classroom (Thanks, Teryl, for a great new term to replace integrate). However, I do not believe that technology can replace the brain. Since allowing students in elementary grades to use calculators for standardized tests, we have middle schoolers who do not know their multiplication tables through 10. Using word processors in the lab should not negate the need to learn how to spell or punctuate correctly. These are not only important skills that my generation had to learn, but they activate the brain to think math and English. It is not enough just to teach kids where to find the information. We need to help them create the new neuron connections within the brain that will help them be a more complete person as an adult.

OK, I’ve stepped out on a limb and put in writing things I believe about the need for change in education. I am open to debate. As education changes, my 5 things will change, too. We never arrive. We only travel.

I’m not going to tag 5 people to write their own blogs. But you know if you are one of the people I would tag, so write it anyway.

And feel free to comment on my 5 things below.

Last week my daughter, Brittany, and her husband, Dave, welcomed the newest addition to the Childers/Nelson clan.  David Micah Nelson was 8 pounds 3 ounces, and 21 inches long.  He came into the world after nearly 40 hours of labor.

Here are some pictures just for you.