Battling One-Size-Fits-All

We’ve all been there.

It’s the annual or semi-annual professional day for staff, and you are dreading it.  What will I have to sit through this year?

We know it’s the wrong thing to do, to have the entire staff go through the same “training,” yet inevitably it happens.  What we know is that sustained, job-embedded professional events work.  We know that working with colleagues whose opinions we trust and feedback we value has lasting effect on our practice as teachers and leaders.

The problem lies in the design.  Why just one day?  Why make it “destination” PD, like we’ve arrived at this time of the year and it follows that we should have one day for “training?”

We’ve just completed ours, so these thoughts are fresh in my mind, and I am trying to think about what I’ll do differently going forward.

These days are not without merit, I should say, in that various groups that don’t often get to plan together can.  For example, world language teachers from various levels can gather together to discuss their program, and we can arrange the day to include FedEx type events.

But what if we could do this whole system much differently?  What if we could do it so that days like this are days where we spend time celebrating the work we’ve been doing all year as professionals?  If we embrace the PLC idea and model, can we use days like this to share the findings and work that we’ve spent the past year creating and researching?

Today, I was in charge of planning the day for the district, and I attempted to do that in a small way.  I asked several of the staff to share things they were “experts” in.  Here’s the list of choices that staff had:

• The TED Series: Sir Ken Robinson’s “Do Schools Kill Creativity?” 
• Tablets, Tablets, Everywhere: A Preview of the Tablet Grant Program 
• Extending Your Classroom Using Edmodo
• Online Grades: Good Idea or Bad Idea? 
• Web Tools from A to Z
• Using Socratic Questioning and Fishbowl Dialogues in Your Classroom
• The TED Series: Daniel Pink “The Surprising Science of What Motivates You” 
• Using Literature to Educate About Harassment, Intimidation, and Bullying

Each staff member that was not involved in a curriculum project could choose three sessions to attend in the morning, and they had the option for the afternoon of these two sessions:

The Holy Grail of Teaching

Regardless of where you turn, the topic of education and educational reform seems tobe there. People from all walks of life are typically not shy about sharing their feelings on this subject. Ideas range from class size, standardized testing, ability grouping, the number of computers in the classroom, homework and the home environment, just to name a few. Research has shown, however, that teacher effectiveness has, by far, the most powerful influence upon students and student learning.In this workshop, we will explore the very powerful effects that a teacher has upon his/her students. We will take a close look at some of the research compiled that clearly delineates what has the most dramatic influence upon student achievement.

or

Learn Like Our Students Do

Background:  Have you ever seen a kid taking a technology class or reading a manual for a new gadget?  Of course not.  They learn as kids these days do: on their own, “playing”, and if needed, asking a buddy for advice. When it comes to technology or learning how to use new tools, they generally don’t need an “expert” or a workshop to attend.

Most adults are a little different. We have always had a consultant (“expert”) come in or have an administrator lead a session for staff on an initiative, program, or curriculum. Adults listen, hopefully engage, and it is hoped that the skill is applied for student learning.  Does it work?  Sometimes.

As we have for the past three years, we are call it “Learn Like Our Students” day. Staff otherwise unassigned to the previously listed activities form themselves into groups of two or more of their choosing. At the conclusion of the day they will complete an outcomes review.

Educators often say that there is never enough time to learn or improve skills, ideas, or instructional strategies.  Here is an opportunity for over two hours to teach yourselves something new, improve a skill, or gain new knowledge in a collaborative way.

While I cannot take credit for either of the two session titles or content (one was my predecessor’s idea, and the other my colleagues’), I feel both begin to drive our staff towards the type of day I would envision for them going forward.

It’s Obvious, but Only If You See It.

Yesterday, I met with the district professional development committee, a committee that meets annually to discuss the plan that has to be submitted to our county and state for approval.  That statement, in and of itself, is inherently backwards, but I’ll get to that.  This year, the design of professional development is much more formalized in that each school must have its own individual plan, the ideas of which must find their way into the overall district plan.  Previously, the district plan was all most districts had, and all that was counted in the end.

Not so anymore, and I am hopefully optimistic about this.

See, I am a big believer in having a stake in the direction of your place of employment.  If you work somewhere, your voice should matter in the governance of that place, and your actions should be allowed to contribute to the betterment of that organization.  I don’t see that much in the schools I either work in, or visit, but I’d like to.  What I see and hear is a lot of the mentality whereby there is little control of the direction of schools and school philosophy by teachers and administrators–things being “done” to them, rather than them “doing” things to contribute to the greater cause of student achievement.

I plan on changing that.

Committees are funny things; they have life for the short time they are together, and high ideas are exchanged if the right people are in the room.  For example, we were critiquing our professional development programs from the previous years, and we came up with this list:

• lack of follow through or follow-up from the initial class or by the presenter
• not tied directly to student achievement
• notification and publication of classes and sessions to staff

But what next?  We sketched out our direction for next year after synthesizing the individual building goals and definitions of student learning, but how is the plan going to be communicated to the staff?  How are they going to look at this plan and see anything that gives them ownership, or reverses that feeling that they are disconnected from the definitions and realities of their building philosophy?

“What are you afraid of?”  I asked myself after listening yesterday.  I also followed that one up with a “what are you waiting for?”  This is a great opportunity for someone to take this place in a new direction.  Why not me?