MeTA musings

Nearly seven months ago, I mentioned that my role would be changing.  It's been an eye opening experience at times sitting on the "other side of the table" as a district administrator after serving for six years as a high school math teacher.

I've been serving in my new role now for a little over four months now and have learned (at least) four lessons about schools, education and the change process.  Without further ado...

1. Just as it is impossible to please every student in the classroom, it is also impossible to please every adult staff member at a meeting or professional learning time.  One staff member may want to meet in the room with the comfy chairs while another realizes the room with the not-so-comfy chairs is better suited for the day's agenda.  What makes sense for the music department may be the decision that puts three other departments in a difficult situation.  Shifting to see the big picture or as one professor calls it, the "balcony view," takes some time and adjustment...and it is bound to ruffle a few feathers along the way.
   
2. The same classroom idiosyncrasies are present in administration, too.  Students don't always come to class prepared; adults don't always come to professional development ready to learn.  Students want everything to be fun, exciting and new; adults get frustrated when meetings and in-services aren't as exciting as their favorite hobbies.  Have you ever had that student that thought they already knew it all or wasn't plain interested in learning, despite your best dog and pony show?  Surprisingly, classroom teachers have been known to exhibit some of these same qualities.  Creating activities that are interesting, valuable and engaging for a large number of adults is just as challenging as it was for me to create lessons for my high school math students
   
3. There is not enough time in the day/week/month to solicit input from classroom teachers before every decision is made.  As a teacher, one of the ways I felt valued as a professional was to be a part of decisions that impacted students at the building or district level.  I cheerfully served on and chaired various building and district committees.  Shortly after I moved to the "other side of the table," I realized that the system is not setup to solicit enormous amounts of input from classroom teachers.  Bill Ferriter blogs about this topic from time to time.  Bill calls it "influence by proximity," administrators lending a listening ear to their teachers on an ongoing basis.  Let's say I spent all of my time visiting teachers before school, during their prep periods and after school on a regular basis.  This means the teacher must be willing to give up his/her time to do this as well.  This is the problem I see.  In order to adequately bring teachers on board for many of the decisions they want to be a part of, they would need to participate in meetings on a weekly (and sometimes more often than that) basis.  Sorry, Mrs. Jones...there goes your prep time; please take twice as much work home to do all in the name of increased input from you, the classroom teacher. In times like these when budgets are tight, I'm not able to hire subs regularly to pull out teachers to play a greater role in the decision making process.  Here me out - I don't bring this up because I devalue input from the staff in my district, but the reality is teachers only have so many hours in the day and those hours tend to be reserved for reflecting, planning and grading for the next class, day, week or unit.  Asking our best teachers to take more work home doesn't sound like a winning strategy, which brings me to the last lesson...
   
4. Educators, just like students do not always know/realize what is in their best immediate interests.  A quality teacher knows the activities that will lead students to deep levels of learning.  Initially, students may groan and verbalize their unwillingness to engage in the activity, but after the fact, learning has taken place and the best students look back and realize the value of the activity.  The same is often true of initiatives, professional development, and top-down rules/regulations.  Initially, adults may not feel valued because XYZ is being forced upon them, but a few days, weeks or months later, it becomes apparent to the good teachers that XYZ was necessary and beneficial.  In the interim, Joe Administrator fields plenty of questions and fields some heat for forcing XYZ.  When Joe sticks to his guns (because he knows XYZ is worth supporting), it may seem like he is stubborn or unwilling to listen to his subordinates, but in hindsight Joe made the right decision.