MeTA musings

I was at our high school this afternoon doing some administrative walk throughs when my day changed for the better.

Algebra teacher [half joking]: "Do you want to teach my next class?"
Me: "What is the lesson?"
Algebra teacher: "Factoring trinomials.  It's a challenging class of students."
Me: "I'm up for it."

• Some of these students had siblings who were my former students.
• The Algebra class I taught was comprised primarily of 9th and 10th grade students who are fulfilling a math graduation requirement.
• I taught factoring once in my student teaching experience, but never in my own classroom.

Clay, Soldwedel and Many in Aligning School Districts as PLCs:

Loose and tight leadership is based on the premise that relying exclusively on either a tight "top-down" or a loose "bottom-up" leadership approach is not effective.  Fullan (2009) has said: "Top-down change doesn't work because it fails to garner ownership, commitment, or even clarity about the nature of the reform.  Bottom-up change -- so-called let a thousand flowers bloom -- does not produce success on any scale.  A thousands flowers do not bloom and those that do are not perennial."  The implication is that a balance between loose and tight provides an optimum leadership style.  Of course, getting that balance right is the challenge." (p. 24)

• Requiring all teachers to be a part of a collaborative team
• providing the teams with time to meet during the contract day twice per month.
• asking teams to set a SMART goal for the year within the framework of our district and building goals
• Requiring teams to create agendas and minutes every time they meet
• providing teams with Google Docs so that agendas and minutes can be created on the fly, accessible to building and district administrators, rather than requiring extra paperwork to turn in.
• providing self-paced Google Docs tutorials and help sessions.  

Nearly one year ago, I accepted a job as curriculum and technology director in the district I had taught high school geometry and statistics in for six years.

Everyone once in a while I hear someone suggesting that administrators should also be part-time teachers or should at the very least teach a lesson once in a while to be reminded what it feels like to be in the trenches.  I decided to walk the walk and give it a try...in my old classroom.  (Thanks Mrs. R. for your willingness to give up the reigns for one class period!)

Before I reflect a bit on this experience, I want to provide a bit of context.

• The statistics class I taught today was comprised of students who choose to take this elective course.
• Approximately 50% of the students in the class were familiar with my personality and teaching style because they'd had me as an instructor previously.
• Because I've taught this course previously, I had an idea of some of the common misconceptions students might have related to this topic.
• I visited this same classroom the day before for approximately 45 minutes to get a feel for the classroom culture and procedures.
• Today was basically the first day of the last half of the class.  It was the day students would transition from thinking about statistics as purely descriptive to inferential as well.

Chris Canter posted a great question over at ASCD Inservice related to the role of administrators visiting collaborating teachers:

My role is primarily as observer when I attend such meetings. While I have the ability to offer input, I am so thrilled with the teacher leadership and ownership displayed at such meetings that I rarely share my thoughts or input, unless asked. This is truly a valuable learning experience for me. What I find myself asking is, "What do teachers need of me in order to better collaborate and go about their work?" I often have the ability to serve as a liaison between the teams and school administrators, and offer answers to questions and procedural support.
My desire is to offer key supports, without interfering with teacher work, but also, not becoming so hands-off that teachers do not feel supported. I am wondering what other administrators do to support their teachers in such a collaborative environment. Do you attend every meeting or just a few? What role do you play in the meetings you attend? What do teachers require most of you in this capacity?

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. 

Students in my school district have been back in the classroom for a week and a half now.  I have been absent from the classroom.  I'll be the first to admit it has been a bittersweet start to the school year, so I thought it might be therapeutic to share some initial observations from the central office:

Standards-based grading
Many of my former colleagues are busy tweaking and implementing their standards-based grading schemes.  Shawn informed me the entire high school science department has switched to a standards-based grading philosophy this year.  A few teachers have emailed asking for feedback on assessments, grading plans and feedback mechanisms.  I hope my role as Director of Instruction never drifts far from helping teachers become better teachers.  When it does, I believe my effectiveness and motivation will fade, too.  

Professional development
At the systems-level, I led my two days of professional development focused on collaborative learning teams.  I really believe that "together we are better" and look forward to seeing teachers collaborate around student learning.  I'm most excited about collaborative learning teams, because it is not an initiative.  CLTs are the medium we will be utilizing for the continuous improvement process ahead of us.  In 2011-12, the district will focus on aligning our content standards with the Iowa Core essential concepts and skills.  These teams will collectively respond to questions such as "How will we respond when students experience difficulties in learning?"  The easy and comfortable way for our staff to continue would be continuing to function with what I call "pockets of excellence."  We have many talented teachers in the district, but our mission statement says we are in the business of providing "diverse and challenging school experiences."  Nowhere does it state these experiences should be limited to students who are fortunate enough to be in Mr. Jones' 4th grade class or Mrs. Doe's Algebra 2 section.  All of our students deserve a quality education.  Through collaborative learning teams, I believe consistency in excellence will blossom quickly. 

Office work and meetings
During the last work week, I tallied up nearly fifteen hours of meetings.  Meeting topics included management and collaborative learning teams visioning with the administrative team; three Skype calls with curriculum directors around Iowa to discuss professional development and state reporting; learning more about ordering standardized test materials; Media Services updates; ensuring IEPs are met with technology hardware and software; and two building staff meetings to follow-up on August collaborative learning team professional development.  During the first week of school, I visited classrooms in all three buildings in the district.  Friday afternoon I found myself caught up in state reporting and at one time left the office to seek out some teaching and learning.  Thirty minutes later, I had observed two math lessons and I was rejuvenated for the rest of the day's work.

Looking ahead
After a few state reports are finished by the middle of the month, I hope to settle into a routine of classroom observations and increased interaction with the teaching staff.  As a trained secondary teacher, I know I have a lot to learn about elementary students so that seems like a natural place to start.  I have offered up my services to substitute for teachers so they can observe their collaborative learning teammates teach lessons.  This, too, is a step of faith for me as I'm not sure what it would be like to teach sixth grade reading.  My position feels fairly "flat" right now with steep learning curves in multiple areas.  I hope to flatten out the responsibilities of the job which do not focus much on teaching/learning so that areas such as classroom observations and meaningful conversations with teachers can be prioritized.