Call to Action

From the outside looking in, it all seems somewhat silly, even possibly hypocritical at times. New teachers are observed double digit times a year by administrators. They are evaluated, at times praised, but often criticized. But what does to constructive criticism often suggest? “Jimmy seemed like he was having trouble staying on task.” Or perhaps “I think it would be good to get the students up out of their seats a bit more.” Tough to argue against, I think every teacher could validate this feedback. But let’s rewind…how did this new teacher’s year kick off? You know it, some sort of professional learning. Perhaps a day or two of district level professional learning mixed in with some school level learning, perhaps by department or maybe even cross-curricular. Fine, there may be some sarcasm coming into play here, but it is for good reason, I assure you.

There is a disconnect, and it is evident. Teachers want to learn. They want to learn new ideas/tools they can implement into the classroom. They want to have discussions with colleagues they do not typically converse with. They want to compare/contrast strategies, content-based or classroom-management based with their fellow expert educators. What do they not want, but are continuing to get year-in and year-out despite what the data suggests? To be talked at. First, where is the fun? Where is the getting learners up a moving around? Why does it look like the veteran Chemistry teacher is wrapping up his 19th game of Spider Solitaire of the day in the back row? Yes, I am talking about you Mr. Livengood.

These “sit and get” sessions are not the past, present, or future of professional learning, and in the nicest way possible, are a waste of time for all parties involved. Teachers need to be engaged to further learn how to engage our students. And the focus needs to be consistent, not a little bit of this and a little bit of that. Teachers are learners and learners crave structure (maybe my math teacher bias is peaking its head a bit here). My district had a multi-year initiative several years ago based around differentiated instruction, one of the biggest buzz terms in education. Several cohorts of teachers (cross-curricular) per year were pulled out of their classes and spent four full days throughout the semester fully devoted to this movement. And guess what? It worked. It was different, it was engaging, it was even uncomfortable, but it worked. Walk through the halls of my school and you will see dozens of the tools/strategies consistently being implemented. But where did we go from there? Backwards.