Where is Wisdom?

I am amused by three recent political events: the new Texas NCLB flexibility waiver, the recent actions of the Texas Legislature regarding the Common Core, CSCOPE, STAAR, and graduation requirements, and the ongoing fight at the State Board of Education regarding evolution in science textbooks.  From the perspective of a school system it is clear that our very conservative state government adheres to the identical political philosophy as the more moderate federal government regarding educational policy.  That policy is that local school systems do not have the wisdom, knowledge or motivation to structure their own improvement.  The only difference in Austin and Washington (and sometimes local school boards) is venue.  The philosophy is the same:  No entity beneath my perspective and bureaucratic level has any wisdom at all, and once I am elected to a political position I become an expert in education.  The outcomes from such philosophies and mind sets have reached the level of absolute lunacy and I am shifting from LOL to LMAO with a few tears in between.

When George Bush ascended from the Texas Governorship to President of the United States he took Texas accountability notions with him to Washington.  Under Bush, the historic Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) was up for reauthorization and Bush helped re-shape this federal policy to more closely align with the Texas accountability system.  The new ESEA was authorized under Bush as the No Child Left Behind act, or NCLB.  Public education is still subject to the provisions of NCLB because Congress is reluctant to re-authorize the bill.  However, because the implementation of NCLB revealed monumental flaws in public education policy, the federal government allows the US Department of Education to grant waivers to certain provisions of NCLB.  Typically, for a state to receive a waiver from the federal government, the state must agree to certain provisions.  This is monetary blackmail at the highest level, legitimized by legislation and bureaucrats.  Want to be exempt from being labeled “Missed AYP”?  Agree to develop a teacher appraisal system that includes test outcomes as a variable of measure and agree to adopt the Common Core, a national curriculum.  I find it hysterical that Texas balked at these agreements.  Washington requires of the Texas government what the Texas government requires of local school systems.  From the Texas legislature point of view, the wisdom lies in the state legislature.  From the USDOE point of view, the wisdom lies in Washington.  Texas chafes under a requirement to adopt teacher appraisal prescribed by Washington and curriculum prescribed by Washington while Texas requires every school district in the state to comply with the Texas prescribed curriculum and teacher appraisal.  LOL. 

We now have begrudgingly received a NCLB waiver from Washington.  Funny that there is no waiver for public school systems to seek from the Texas government for the state accountability system.  Why would there be?  The state perceives that the wisdom to define accountability, design curriculum, implement teacher appraisal systems, and develop standardized tests all reside at the state level.  Such wisdom does not reside in Washington, nor does it reside in the local school boards, and it surely does not reside with the professional practitioners in schools. 

The mental flaws in all this are catastrophic.  The first flaw is that any governmental body of elected and bureaucratic officials who are not professional educators should develop educational policy oblivious to professional advice.  The second flaw is the assumption that these elected and bureaucratic officials have the wisdom to implement such requirements for the sake of school improvement driven by political agendas.  So, the argument continues:  does Washington know best what is best for Texas schools, or does Austin know best what is best for Texas schools?  Meanwhile, local boards and practitioners really see no difference in complying with either federal or state requirements.  From the ground level a compliance requirement is a compliance requirement regardless if the author of the requirement is a politico from Austin or Washington.  From a superintendent’s point of view, both Austin and Washington believe they are the emperor dressed in educational finery arguing over who is best dressed, and both appear to be naked to the professional practitioner.

Meanwhile, there are factions in the Texas government regarding accountability.  In one legislative session our accountability model is tweaked while the voices of professional educators go unheard.  In the next legislative session the system must be re-tweaked due to the fact that legislators do not know what they are doing and the unforeseen consequences predicted by professionals come to fruition.  As the legislature re-tweaks the system they still do not listen to professional educators; rather they choose to listen to political cronies and lobbyists.  In fact, every time the pros stand up and tell the legislature what the consequences may be those pros get labeled as whiners.  Clearly, legislators in Texas believe they have the wisdom and professionals do not.  So sad. 

We transitioned from one high stakes standardized testing rubric to another.  From TAKS to STAAR.  The tests were re-written and kept secret though school districts, schools and teachers will be held accountable for the outcomes.  At the high school level complicated formulas were developed to determine graduation requirements based on tests administered at the end of each core course.  These tests are cleverly labeled End of Course exams, or EOC’s.  After the first year of implementation two interesting things happened.  First, the predictions of professional educators regarding this implementation came true, though unheard by the state.  Second, the parents in the state rose up and in no uncertain terms demanded that the legislature follow a more rational approach to testing, such approach to reduce the number of tests and the requirements to graduate.  For fear of losing their jobs as elected officials and education policy makers, the legislature responded by dictating more flexibility.  The implementation of the flexibility was assigned to the State Board and the Commissioner of Education.  Neither the SBOE nor the Commish are educators.  Hence we go back and forth regarding which of the inappropriate high stakes tests should count.  Again, naked emperors writing policy.  Again, the wisdom is in Austin.

While the state was at it, they passed legislation demanding that no one agree to teach the nationally prescribed curriculum.  However, there is no option but to teach the state prescribed curriculum.  Am I the only one who finds this somewhere between hysterical and frightening?

And, a lone senator who is a radio talk show host in real life arose in arms over a curriculum management system because he believed some of the lessons encouraged kids to think in ways that went beyond compliance with his value structure.  This system was known as CSCOPE.  I spent a lot of time elsewhere in this blog addressing that decision making process.  Bottom line, this senator got the authors of CSCOPE to back down and required districts to get public approval to use the system.  Where is the wisdom?  It clearly lies with this senator and our public.  It does not lie with the professional educator.  Editing lesson plans?  Our legislators are losing their minds.  Rational thought is out the window.

Finally, the State Board of Education (SBOE) returns to the adoption and approval of science textbooks.  Once again, they have the wisdom, not science teachers.  Once again, the decision becomes political and religious, not professional.  The issue for some members of the SBOE is how to address evolution in the books.  If the proposed book addresses evolution in ways that conflict with the religious beliefs of the SBOE member, the book will get vetoed.  Shall we simply take a majority vote regarding religious beliefs then ensure that our schools only teach the beliefs of the majority?  Uh, why did folks come here from Europe and elsewhere?  Why do we find it so important to separate church and state?  What is the difference in this approach and the Taliban approach to education where only approved belief systems may be taught? 

I am amazed that the same group of believers has not attacked math books.  If one believes that God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are one entity, then one believes that in this case 3 = 1.  Any math book that states something other than 3 = 1 is blasphemy and should not be approved.  Sound ludicrous to you?  The evolution debate sounds equally ludicrous to most educated folks.  So, once again Texas receives national attention and the inspiration for a host of jokes and laughter for the evolutionary war fought at the SBOE level.  Those members of the SBOE who insist that evolution be taught with caveats and alternative explanations fly right in the face of all we know.  And yet, they perceive they have the wisdom to make such a prescription.  Again, am I the only one who finds this hysterical and frightening at the same time?

The only elected body left to discuss is the local school board.  Once again, there resides the belief in some members of local boards that the mere election to a position qualifies them to enact their beliefs and perspectives regardless of what professional practice and research say about such beliefs and practices.  School administrators easily get caught in the accusation of disloyalty if they question inappropriate beliefs and practices supported by the local board.  The wisdom again lies with the elected, not the professional. 

Where is wisdom?  I have not been elected to anything.  I am not on a school board.  I am not a legislator or a senator or a governor.  I am not employed by the US Department of Education or the Texas Education Agency.  I have not been elected a Representative or Senator to Congress.  I am a professional educator.  Hours and hours of graduate work and forty years of professional practice in roles from teacher to superintendent. I have no wisdom.

So, I should apologize for taking your time as I clearly do not know what I am talking about. 

Poppycock and balderdash.

Dinosaur?

All things end.  All things change.  The day will come when Lee Childs, James Patterson, Randy Wayne White, Dean Koonz, Stephen King and John Sanford will write no more.  I shall feel lost.  The day has already come for so many wonderful writers who could take us out of where we really are to some other place, some other time, some other group of really interesting people in interesting dilemmas, and help us see the human condition in new ways.  Star Trek, X-Files, House and Buffy have all been canceled, I felt lost, so enamored of the bright and brave fighting for right.  I shifted to NCIS, Elementary, Blue Bloods and Person of Interest.  They too will be canceled.  Yes, I miss Buffy and Angel, Spock and Kirk, Mulder and Scully, but life has gone on.  But not without these fictions enriching my soul.

Reality changes too.  For each new school in Edna an old school was abandoned and/or demolished.  Had I had a hand in the construction of the demolished buildings I would feel the same: lost, sad, and sentimental.  Some day these wonderful new buildings will be perceived to be old, obsolete and in need of replacement and they too will be demolished or sold or redirected.  Hard to imagine today, but true I suspect.  Roy Ortolon understands that and has done a wonderful job of documenting the transitions with bitter sweet joy in his new book.

Relationships change too.  My children have left the roost and started their own lives, and that is the most incredible transition I have experienced; much more emotional to me than when I left home to begin my adult life.  People whom I loved and with whom I worked in Spring Branch are now scattered and elsewhere.  The same is true for folks at A&M, the folks in Cleveland, and Corrigan.  And I am now in the transitional stage with folks in Edna.  I so miss the day-to-day contact, the professional and personal interactions with Richard, Dawn, Melissa, Demetric, Bobby, Paul, Katie, Deborah, Eddie, Carla, Fred, Irene, Janice, Betty, Beverly, Jan, Heather, Jamie, Mary, Deborah, Matt, Sarah, Ann, Kelly, Michele, Peble, Nancy, Lisa, Josh, Rose, Estelle, Gail, Cathy, Theresa, Angie, Kyleen, Vince, Marla, Sonny, Madalyn and Nancy, etc. etc.  And I should list all the members of the District Team as well.  I love these folks.  I loved working with them.  I loved the relationships we built over time, and there is a hole in my heart as they end.  I know they may not actually end, but they have changed.  I mourn the loss, mourn the change.  But these relationships have enriched my soul.

And as things change new things emerge.  We have abandoned all our old iMacs and now have iPads.  We have new buses.  We have new principals and new teachers.  We have new school buildings.  We have new Board Members and we will have a new superintendent.  (I still say “we” because I continue to live here, pay taxes here.  My school district remains Edna ISD and my representative on the Board is Patrick Brzozowski.)  When I came to Edna it had a history, folks had been here a long time, and the system existed before I arrived.  As I leave I become part of the history, but the system will go on, perhaps better, definitely different. 

I have walked a fine line between my passion and deep feelings regarding public education and my sense of professional obligation.  I have sometimes wandered in one direction more than another.  I have paid a heavy emotional price for my tenure here, but I do not regret it.  To pay less would mean I cared less.  I care deeply.  (And secretly, selfishly, I wonder what of the current traditions will survive:  District Team, AEIS workshop, Cabinet Meetings, Board Notes, Minutes of the District Team, blogs, fire side chats, prayer before meals, and terrible puns?)

I will either retire or aspire to something new.  Right now my heart aches.  I suspect I feel much like a person after a divorce they did not seek.  I am wounded.  I am having a hard time thinking about a new relationship while the demise of the old relationship is such a fresh wound.  Yes, now you know I am a sentimental fool.

Shall my generation of school people become extinct?  Am I akin to the dinosaurs?  I am a baby boomer.  Born in the late 40’s, I spent my childhood in the 50’s and my teenage years in the 60’s.  I tear up at the national anthem; I clearly remember the JFK assassination, the first landing on the moon, and the fear of nuclear annihilation on a daily basis.  I also clearly remember the fight for equal rights by people less fair and blond and by gender less hard and strong.  I identified with the weak, the downtrodden, the denied and separated, those judged by external characteristics over which they had no control, and I sought to help, support and promote them.  That was the American way.  Such support led me to public education, a place where on a daily basis I could serve to secure a better future for all children, a future where gender, pigment, and zip code did not serve as the critical attributes for success.  I abandoned making a lot of money to serve what I believed to be a higher calling.  This was not a job; it was a mission and I a missionary.  As I entered education I was surrounded by folks of like mind, like heart.  We were a generation of folks driven to public service, driven to equal rights, driven to protect democracy by empowering citizens with learning.  Not all of us, but most of us. 

We knew the first steps of the likes of Nazi’s and Communists was to gain control of the schools and shape the learning of children via government approved beliefs.  Such practices are still true in the Mid-East and elsewhere, and there are among us today American leaders who argue for the same.  Thought is not encouraged; obedience and compliance are.  There was “right-think” and we deeply feared the Orwellian notions.  We sought service and freedom over income and safety.  We were baby boomers, a principled lot.  Our parents survived the Great Depression and World War II and we were determined to secure economic and political freedom for all.  The government was not the villain.  Our government was what we stood for, it was the seat of democracy, and it was what “We the People” chose and loved.  We were the perfect public servants, morally committed, called to do good deeds. 

That has changed as all things must.  We are now a people divided.  Many of my fellow boomers ended up making a lot of money and decided protecting wealth was more noble than promoting equality.  Now, there are those who resent, even hate the government at the same time they seek to gain control of it.  They resent the fundamental notion of “to whom much is given, much is required” and opt instead for the notion that for whom much is earned little shall be taxed.  They resent investments in children who are not their own.  They resent and fear the promotion of thought rather than obedience and compliance.  They would prefer to shut down the government rather than allow it to serve the people.  They would prefer reducing the taxes of the wealthy and shifting what taxes are collected to promoting private sector wealth rather than public sector service.  Somehow they have captured the thinking of people who have no business supporting such a philosophy, people who are working hard and not getting ahead, the uneducated, and people who earn less than $350,000 per year.  Worse, they promote the codification of their own religious beliefs.  In the 1950’s we would have called such a philosophy similar to fascism and the people who support it quasi-fascists.  Now we call them Governor, Senator and Representative.

Public education is now thought of as government education and the public has been taught to believe that such institutions are failing and alternatives are necessary in a context where the government is not the seat of democracy but the enemy of wealth generation.  That is a poppycock and balderdash.  Regardless, few are brave enough to stand and point out that the emperor is naked, and those who do pay a heavy price.  Witch hunts for the “non-believers” return from early colonial days and those witch hunts begin in our state legislature, and local boards have sipped from the same cup of Kool-Aid. 

The Board asked me to leave and I left.  I did not fight.  I deeply believe in democracy and have told every board I ever worked for that when they wanted me gone all they had to do was ask.  This board, like all boards, is selected by our community either consciously or by default.  Evidently our community through the voice of the board wants me gone, so I am gone.  I am deeply saddened by that.  I feel rejected by those I cared for the most.  The majority of the members of this board are not baby boomers.  I am of a different generation than they.  My values and my view of the world are for the most part different, my expectations are different.  My view of the role of public education is different.  I have always seen public education as the bastion of democracy more than the training ground for employment and competition.  More than anything else I believe this is why I was asked to leave.  The Board and I did not share a common sense of purpose for public education. 

The Board has now selected a new superintendent.  He is younger than I.  He will likely be more in tune with the Board’s philosophy.  I know him and wish him well and hold no enmity toward him.  I know things will be different in Edna.  Whether they are better, worse or just different will be up to the community and the employees to decide.  I encourage you to support the new supe and give him a chance.  I assume he will support changing the culture because if the board wanted the current culture to remain I would remain.  Or, perhaps they did not think that through.  I know it took me years to work toward our current professional culture.  It will likely take years to change it.

What is the current professional culture?  I believe and have worked hard to instill the following notions:  Real improvement is inside-out, not outside-in.  Real learning occurs with a teacher in a classroom with kids; not at a keyboard, on a monitor, in central office, board room or in the state legislature.  Standardized test data may be interesting or informative, but it should not be the bedrock of evaluation or judgment.  The horizon for determining the effectiveness of the education we provide is years in the future, not June when the scores come in.  The fundamental model for improvement is collaboration, not competition.  Everyone in the system and in the community has a role to play and all voices must be heard.  Honesty and openness are more important than who one knows or one’s title.  Consensus is always more powerful than majority vote or dictatorial demand.  Servant leadership is always more powerful than self-serving leadership. 

Change.  Morphosis.  Edna ISD is morphing.  My life is morphing.  I shall go somewhere else or retire.  I fear that my sense of calling for public education will not be sought by other governing bodies.  If so, that is very sad to me, not because of who I am personally, but because of the belief system that for me forms the foundation of the mission of public education which I perceive to be the bedrock of democracy.  Perhaps if that mission has truly morphed, it is time to retire. 

If so, I may be a dinosaur. 

But, for now I know that dinosaurs had teeth and I am not yet a fossil.

Self Control

I had a delightful time with my son, daughter-in-law and grandson last weekend.  Grandson is 19 months old and already gearing up for his “twos.”  When there is something he wants and it is denied he wails.  When he is tired or hungry he wails.  He is a small human and his behavior now is the bedrock of the drives I continue to experience.

I do not want to do what I do not want to do.  I want what I want.  But my ability to make myself do what I do not want to do and deny myself what I want is a measure of my maturity as well as my humanity.  I must control me else wise others will seek to do so.  Our prisons are full of people who could not tell themselves “no.”  To my knowledge no one has ever had to be trained to identify what they want.  Grandson surely has not had to be trained in that identification process.  He knows.  We know.  Many of my wants are very appropriate.  Many are not.  Those that are not require the exercise of my self control.

There are circumstances when my self control is weakened, inhibited, reduced, handicapped or simply not present.  One beer too many will do that.  Medications can do that.  Overwhelming emotions such as grief and anger can do that.  Mental illness can do that.  Addictions can do that.  Sometimes the desire is so intense that we do that.  In fact, we sometimes use the term “crime of passion” to explain such behaviors.  When we say overwhelming emotions we imply that our emotions overwhelmed our rational thought.  It is rational, reasonable, and logical that we exercise self control.  Such control does not reside in our emotional life, does not reside in the part of the brain we were born with that is necessary to help us survive.  We are born seeking pleasure and avoiding pain.  We are born with hunger, with the drive to reproduce, the drive to get what we want.  If we did not have those drives we would not survive.  Self-control tempers all those drives.  It is learned, it is developed, it is both social and reasonable.  And without practice it is diminished, without modeling it is diminished. 

Vice versa.  If all we do is live out our lives from our purely rational minds we will never know love, joy, and excitement.  We will never know the huge satisfaction from a wonderful meal, the overwhelming excitement of a new love, the deep pleasure of the fine arts, and the joy of connection with another person.  Such feelings make us human as well.  We can deny them, but I believe we should not.  We must temper them through the eyes of our society and culture.  When is it appropriate to relish food?  With whom is it appropriate to allow our lust to be expressed?  How shall I reduce the pain I feel?  When can we let ourselves go (that is our rational selves) to experience the moment?  How do we stifle the two-year old’s wail that remains in each of us?  Those are the issues around self control and the issues around those folks whom we perceive to be out of control.

Practicing self-control is hard work.  It is lonely work.  Some do not get that it is work at all and go through life feeling like a victim, both of circumstances, others and their own wants, wishes and needs.  Sometimes a partner can help, but for the most part the struggle against what we want and do not want happens inside our own heads hidden from others.  If I am overweight and/or diabetic and yearn for a large dish of Blue Bell I must face that struggle alone.  I am both, and fight the good fight, mostly winning, sometimes losing.  Adults win the fight more often than children.  I firmly believe that the boundary between childhood and adulthood is the development of self control and the frequency and context of the use of such. 

I also firmly believe that every one of us has experienced the failure of our self-control.  Hence guilt, remorse, and regret reside in the memory of each adult who has acted in ways other than rational self control.  (On the other hand, it may evoke a sly smile.)  Those actions are the times we were out of control seeking only what we wanted.  We could not exercise self control.  It is because I believe we all know those feelings, we all have those experiences, that we learn forgiveness of one another and support of each other.

For many, forgiving loss or lack of self control is very difficult.  I am not sure why, but my guess is that their level of self-control is at risk or the price they pay for self control is very high, but that is just a guess.  Some have a hard time forgiving anyone who suffers consequences of the perceived failure of self-control:  the addicts, the obese, the depressed, the homeless, the anorexic.  And yet each of these "unforgivable" folks is in fact suffering from a disease that goes beyond the ability to rationally control the consequences.  It will take years of practice that never ends to overcome such results and characteristics.

When we look about us we have very high expectations for the level of self-control in some folks, and very low expectations of others.  We expect educators and clergy and law enforcement officers, etc. to have high levels of self-control.  We become very angry and judgmental when we hear of one of the people in those professions acting on selfish wants, wishes and needs rather than practicing self-control.  On the other hand, professional athletes have low levels of expectations of self control.  We become immune to every new account of misbehavior on the part of athletes who earning lots of money for playing games indulge in self-seeking fun, whatever that fun may be.  With a wink and smile we see athletes grow their hair ridiculously long, tattoo their bodies, and/or celebrate a personal accomplishment in the end zone.  These are childlike behaviors, not the behaviors of an adult.  Children given unlimited resources will likely get in trouble.  

I do not believe that our wants, wishes and needs are evil.  I believe we come hard wired to have those desires.  I believe that one of the things that separate us from other primates is our ability to say that the feeding of these hungers is sometimes inappropriate for the good of our group; therefore, even if you want it, you must learn to tell yourself no for the sake of all the other humans around you.  A major task in child rearing is helping kids learn what is appropriate and inappropriate, at least in terms of our culture, to want and satisfy as opposed to simply wanting and self-denying.  I also know this varies tremendously by culture.  Females in our culture have a much broader range of appropriate want, wish and need satisfaction than do females in the mid-East.  On the other hand, females in the Nordic states have a much broader range than females in our culture.  It is the culture that defines what is right and wrong and children must learn their culture.  (I also believe they should learn that there are other cultures and that because we say it is “right or wrong” does not mean that is a universal conclusion carved in stone.)

So I read in today’s paper that a coach is accused of “bullying” an athlete on the sidelines of a football game.  An investigation is under way and all the officials have to say is “no comment.”  If a coach loses self-control on a side line and unleashes anger at a student player we deem that inappropriate, a lapse of self control.  If true, it sounds to me like a crime of passion, a behavior uncontrolled in the intense desire to win a game.  We want our coaches to want to win.  We do not want our coaches to want to win so much they hurt kids.  I do not know which coach or which player; it does not matter to me.  Shall we ever forgive someone who has lost self-control?  When should we forgive and move on, and when should we punish the person who “lost it”? 

For me the answer to those questions is based on context and history and consequences.  Is this a one-time event or a pattern?  If a pattern is present then that is scary.  If it is a onetime event then the measure of remorse is important.  Did this lapse happen in an intense context or in a stress free context?  What are the extenuating contextual issues?  If an adult loses self-control in a highly intense setting then for me forgiveness is much more likely.  And, if the result of losing self control is damage to another person, physically or emotionally, then the loss of control is pretty severe.  If there is no damage, then the likelihood of forgiveness increases.

Should adults or children who lose self control be forgiven without consequence?  I do not think so.  I believe there should be consequences, the range and severity of which are based on the person, context, etc.  Forgiveness does not mean lack of consequences.  However, the worst consequences of a temporary loss of self control tend to be self inflicted.

That is a complicated response.  It is much easier for some to simply say, "This is right, this is wrong, you did wrong, here is your punishment."  Black and white.  No gray.  Would that it were so simple.  Life is not that simple, being a human being is not that simple.  Doing unto others as I would do for myself is hard work.

The simple truth is our schools are staffed with human beings.  We are all capable of and have experienced loss of self control.  If our expectation of educators is the perfect practice of self control then there is no one qualified to work here, to judge such events, or train future educators how to do that.  The loss of self control should be judged, in my opinion, based on context, history and consequences, not just the facts of the behavior.  I offer forgiveness in the hopes to receive some myself.  I am neither ready nor qualified to throw the first stone.

I was not asked to comment on this event by the media.  That is appropriate as I do not sit in that chair anymore.  If asked, however, I would reply with this post. 

I pride myself with my level of professional self control.  Many are the times I want to rant, confront, let my temper and my tongue loose on a staff member, a parent, a Board member.  I have not done so, but it is very difficult.  I am not nearly so good when at home or by myself.  I believe few have ever seen me lose my temper or break down and wail, a.k.a., lose my self control, and those who have are family members and loved ones, not professional colleagues.  Control yourself, forgive yourself, learn and go on to control yourself better. 

But do not lose your humanity while you learn to do that.  We all have to let go every now and then.

Having said all this I go to my room to wail.

 

Promoting Professional Development

I see on our academic calendar that Monday, Veterans Day, is a staff development day.  Kids stay home, staff shows up to be “developed”, or are allowed to stay in their rooms to work, grade, plan, etc.  I know which option teachers prefer.

I begin by saying that I am old fashioned, I guess.  I believe, and experience and research continue to confirm, that kids learn best when they interact with a knowledgeable, motivated, caring teacher.  They may learn some things via technology, but not nearly so much.  It takes a teacher.  The trick is promoting teachers to be knowledgeable, motivated and caring.

Promoting the growth and improvement of the adults in a school system is in many ways more challenging than promoting the learning and understanding of students.  At least students arrive at the classroom door assuming the teacher knows more than they do.  Teachers arriving at a professional growth session share no such assumption.  Many arrive prepared to defend their current practice rather than learn something new.  Why is that?  Regardless of my job description I have wrestled with professional growth for my entire career.  How does it work?  How can we promote such growth? 

I believe there are many reasons for the adult employees, the professional staff, to resist new learning.  I believe the major reason is fear.  But there are other reasons; many are structurally designed to inhibit adult learning.

One of the most difficult characteristics of the public school to explain to private sector folks is the incredible responsibility, demands and fear inherent in teaching.  Teaching is perhaps the scariest of all professions.  Regardless of grade or subject, a bell will ring and a group of young humans will enter a room, the door will shut, and an adult will be responsible for this group for the next hour or two.  Not only must the adult ensure safety, order and control, the adult must ensure common focus, common effort toward a pre-set goal, and the ability of the young humans to demonstrate what they have learned at some point in the future.  The adult must do this for 7 consecutive hours each day, for almost 180 consecutive days.  It is equivalent to requiring a preacher to preach a new sermon every hour every day for 180 days and hold the preacher accountable for what the congregation recalls; or a therapist to conduct group therapy for a new group with different needs every hour every day for 180 days and hold the therapist accountable for the emotional improvement of each individual in every group; or an actor to engage a new audience using a new script every hour every day for 180 days and hold the actor accountable via critical reviews at the end of each performance, etc., etc.  Frightening.  Exhausting. 

More so because unlike the examples above the exiting group of young humans convenes to critique what happened on a daily basis.  The audience reports to each other what others may expect, they report to their parents what they experienced, and the parents report to other adults their own non-professional review of what happened during the session, especially if the parental view is negative.  If the kid has not experienced success it must be the teacher’s fault.  Positive reviews are rarely reported.  And social media has escalated the ability of disgruntled parents and kids to promote negative perceptions to ever larger audiences on a more instantaneous basis.  Every teacher is watched all the time by students.  Sometimes they are watched by administrators.  When the door shuts, it is up to the teacher to accomplish miracles with a room of diverse little humans, and he or she is in the room all alone without support.  Just babysitting such a group for an hour without conflict and maintaining control would be a major accomplishment.  Teaching such a group is an amazing feat. 

Advanced organization and planning for the classroom is also exhausting and fraught with fear and uncertainty.  A first year teacher will typically get sick, lose or gain weight, have trouble sleeping, or start drinking too much to address the stress.  Each day’s lesson plan requires knowledge, research, and understanding of both the kids and content.  Planning for a week is exhausting.  Planning for a unit more so, planning for a year unbelievable, especially when the teacher knows that the performance of his or her kids will determine their own professional reputation and future.  The high stakes tests are high stakes for teachers and principals more than for students.  But the teachers’ focus is always on what will happen today when the door shuts and they are alone with kids.  That is why a broken copy machine is a greater tragedy than a State Board hearing that revamps the required curriculum.

As a profession we do not adequately prepare folks to enter the profession.  If one adds up all the hours college students spend sitting in education courses getting prepared to teach those hours are dramatically less than the number of hours new teachers will spend in the classroom their first year actually teaching.  Many of the college courses are taught by folks who have not taught, or have not taught recently.  Rarely are the courses designed to give prospective new folks planning tools, strategies, insight, models, and suggestions on how to survive.  Course over, grade earned, card punched, content forgotten.  I have not taught kids since school year 82-83 and I do not see myself as qualified to lead a professional development session for teachers on teaching.  I could lead a discussion group, a book study, a teacher based research seminar, or perhaps a professional learning community event. (PLC’s IMHO are an oxymoron in the current structure of public education.  Time allotted to these events is designed by administrators around a topic selected by administrators and rarely include learning by the administrators.)  

Due to the fear, the advanced work, and the pressure, teachers tend to see themselves as individual entrepreneurs in their own little shops.  They do not want to “waste” time dealing with issues outside their classroom.  They do not want to attend faculty meetings or mandatory trainings on suicide prevention or blood borne pathogens, or dating violence, or Microsoft Office, none of which will help them tomorrow when the door shuts.  They want to be left alone to run their business.  Each teacher’s room is like a separate store front in a mall where the store owners are not interested in mall issues as they have their own issues to contend with in their store.

Once a teacher has developed an array of lessons, a set of strategies that seem to work, a philosophy of instruction that has helped them survive, they are not at all interested in abandoning any of that for something new.  A file drawer full of lesson plans that works is more valuable than a staff development session on new requirements for their content area.  That file drawer becomes the security blanket.  The current textbook has been read and there seems to be little motivation to swap it for a new one that must be read from scratch.  Once taught, a lesson can become set in stone, not subject to change.  Especially if the lesson “worked” the first time.  If that lesson fails in the future, it must not be due to the teacher or the lesson; it must be due to the kids.

This fear, this exhaustion, these hours and hours of preparation are all reduced over time with a drawer of plans.  To take away the drawer is to re-instill fear.  No one resists and resents that more than the truly experienced teacher who remembers that fear and will do anything to avoid experiencing it again.

Ask such a teacher to attend a session to promote instructional improvement presented by someone they do not know triggers resentment.  “Are you saying I am not a good teacher?  Who is this expert?  What are his or her credentials?  Why has someone chosen this topic or this person to inflict on me?  I need more time to prepare, to grade, to work in my room.  I do not need to learn that what I am currently doing needs to change.  I would rather stay in my classroom and work than go to this session.  If I must go, let me simply meet with others who teach what I teach so that we can compare notes and find commonalities in our complaints.” 

Worse, a wide array of interest groups has lobbied legislators to require training in areas of import to the interest group.  Most of these required trainings are the result of some tragedy or some perceived slight to an identifiable group of kids.  The legislature requires it, administrators implement the training, and the teachers resent it.  I do not blame them.

So, what might we do to encourage and promote teachers every year to review, improve, abandon and/or adopt plans and strategies that are more likely to encourage and promote kid learning?  How shall we promote professional development?

I think we should first abandon all required staff development on topics not directly related to the teacher’s assignment.  7^th grade teachers are not likely to need a session on dating violence, but they surely could attend a session on suicide prevention.  Let’s be reasonable in our requirements.

We must be very smart about what staff development we invite teachers to participate in.  Very smart.  I own a computer, a laptop, an iPad and a smart phone.  I received training on the computer years ago, then after that I was able to teach myself all the software and applications I needed.  I did not need any training on the laptop or iPad.  And to my knowledge no one has ever developed, much less required, a staff development session on using the smart phone.  Every one with a smart phone is motivated to learn how to use it and do so without much help.  We do not need to be designing staff development sessions for iPhone use.  If teachers want to learn something new they will.

Secondly, let’s restructure the day so that there is time for professional growth, reflection, study and planning during the day.  That will be very expensive as we could easily need to double the size of our teacher corp.  But imagine such a thing!  If we doubled the number of teachers so that no teacher actually taught students more than a half day and spent the other half reviewing data, reading research, exploring resources, planning and applying new strategies, and/or meeting with their peers we could actually work miracles in a school.  Despite the current mantra of those opposed to public education, we literally could solve many of our problems by simply throwing money at it via payroll.  Lawyers, doctors, engineers, and the like have unstructured time to meet, reflect, interact, research for the purpose of improvement.  Teachers do not.  But teachers need such time more than any other profession if we expect improvement.

If we can reduce the time and exhaustion required to plan for tomorrow and grade from today, we have a chance at eliminating the fear of new plans.  We must eliminate that fear.  After years of observation it is clear to me that fear of newness, fear of change, fear of failure is the greatest obstacle to improving instruction.  I know teachers who argue that low performing kids should simply be retained despite all the research to the contrary.  I know teachers who support teaching math the way they learned it rather than the way it is currently tested.  Etc., etc.  We absolutely must empower teachers to learn.

There are teachers who seek new learning, who seek new research, new strategies, new applications, etc.  For these teachers professional development is a hunger that must be fed.  Their professional practice must grow, must cover new ground, must improve.  Other teachers who feel that they have already arrived at a level of professional practice they deem as excellent resent being asked to attend professional development sessions.  For these folks, the implication is they need to improve and they see no need to do so.  There is a clear difference in the attitudinal approach to this profession between those who are defending their perfection versus those who are pursuing improvement.

Would it not be exciting for everyone, teachers, administrators, kids and parents to work in a school with a hunger for professional development?  I think so.  We do not need gimmicks to make mandatory in-service sessions more palatable.  We do not need false structures like PLC’s to provide a smoke screen for mandatory in-service.  We need to treat teachers like professionals, give them the time to enhance their professional practice and give them a meaningful voice in the areas they wish to pursue. 

We can change the current response to professional development.  We can restructure the job to promote professional development rather than require it.  It will be expensive and we will have to make priority decisions regarding where we spend our limited resources.  But I firmly believe until we promote teachers to pursue improvement rather than require them to do so, we are promoting the widely held response by teachers who will defend their current practice, knit in workshops, read newspapers, or talk to their neighbors.  When not treated as a professional folks will act in non-professional ways.

I hope Monday’s staff development day goes well.  I hope teachers arrive at work that day eager to learn or accomplish tasks.  I fear they will not.  Perhaps the real professional reward of a staff development day is the option to wear jeans to work and the ability to go out to eat lunch.  So sad.