Timeout for Leadership-your one-minute leadership idea
The dark side-What might Yoda say? (#11)
Always in front must the dark side be; no credit shared; no gratitude shown. Always taken alone is the path to the dark side.
The dark side wants to lead.
Is the grass always greener?
The very best of professional development
Overall schools collectively spend millions of dollars a year on professional development. And in this era of accountability with “new sophisticated teacher evaluation” systems the costs have just skyrocketed. I do not believe that these systems have helped improve teacher quality one bit. These systems have also stifled many administrators who were quite good at “calling it like they saw it.” Instruction has not improved and more importantly student learning has not improved. We are now producing on a yearly basis an entirely different form of “widget.” Yes, a new sophisticated widget.
Professional development should be teacher generated and for the most part be teacher led. Yes, I know that I am over simplifying this. When we effectively empower teachers, we find out from them what they need and then can work as a learning community to provide this development. Colleagues will be helping colleagues. What a wonderful change that would be. Why do we continue to rely on outside experts when those in the trenches can do the job? Yet, we continue to farm out professional development and evaluations to in many self-anointed experts. These experts come with content knowledge but more importantly they come with a sophisticated marketing system. Teachers within our own schools can and should be the providers of their own professional development.
We already know that the grass is not always greener. We need to keep reminding ourselves of this concept. Post these words somewhere for all to see. We can covet what our neighbor has, but when we actually get a chance to experience it, we find out it is not all that it is cracked up to be and perhaps what we have is a great deal better than what we actually have coveted. Somewhere in our career journey we need to be like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, and just click our heels together repeating the mantra that there is “no place like home.” And just like Dorothy, it was always there right in front of us, but we just could not see it. And for whatever reason, we need to experience that career journey, just like Dorothy’s trek to Oz. I just hope that this awakening is not too late for our public educational system.
I can recall it like it was yesterday, bringing several of my teachers to visit a middle school in New York City. It was a time when New York was going through some very creative reorganization. However, it was early in the process and they were experiencing some growing pains.
My district was a small urban district in New Jersey. We were dealing with many of the same issues as our friends in NYC., yet we were dealing with them on a significantly smaller scale. My teachers seemed almost always overwhelmed with life in our district. Change came upon us at a very rapid rate.
Needless to say, we reached out to this middle school in the city and they were happy to host us. We were trying to manage a schools with a school model composed of six small thematically driven houses operating in one middle school. These houses in our school consisted of an Environmental Academy, a Dual Language Program, a Math, Science, Technology Program, a Communicative Arts program, a Micorsociety and an Honors Academy. (On a personal aside, I believe we had the start of a great school, doing some progressive things, but we could not sustain it. We let some internal loud voices from within destroy it.)
One day we loaded up two carloads of staff to make the twenty-minute drive through the Holland Tunnel to learn what was happening in this new middle school in the big city. When we arrived, we were greeted by our host for the day who met us looking disheveled and harried and apologetic for being a few minutes late in greeting us. She quickly explained that she was dealing with some police officers at the time because her car was broken in to and her radio and stereo system were stolen. I felt terrible and I suggested to her that we pause, go home and reschedule our trip for a better day. She quickly told me that was a ridiculous notion and these things happen all of the time. It was not the first time that her car was vandalized. Wow, she was resilient. We quickly learned that there was no off-street parking for staff and you parked where you could find a spot.
We progressed through our day visiting classrooms and talking to students and staff. I learned some things about their thematic structure but I learned, and more importantly my staff, learned about some peripheral items.
The first thing that jumped out at me was the noise. One could not teach with classroom doors open. Even with the doors closed, you would hear a loud constant buzz of noise that almost forced the teachers to shout.
The second thing that jumped out at me, which went hand in hand with the noise factor, was the consistent crowd in the hallways. It seemed that more students were in the hallways than in classrooms. They were loud and rambunctious like middle schoolers can be. Horseplay was the rule of the day. When we were pausing in the hall as a group, one group of students tried kicking me in the butt behind my back. They were not doing this to physically hurt me, but play was the focus of the day. The horseplay was empowering each student. Learning was not the agenda for the day for these students.
I know that I could not wait for my day to end. The ride home in my car was noticeably silent. It seemed like when we got back on the Jersey side of the tunnel my team breathed a sigh of relief. I recall not only feeling this but actually hearing it in my car. I begged my group to go forth among their colleagues and talk about our day with the hope of imparting the idea that although we had many issues in our school, we had many good things happening right in our own backyard. At least we had a parking lot. At least we had quiet and orderly halls and everyone could teach with the classroom doors open. And yes, there was a seriousness of purpose in our building.
I wish I could have taken my entire staff on this visit, especially my resident pain in the asses. For them, the professional development would have been extremely beneficial and yes, perhaps they would have come back home with a spirit of appreciation as to what we had. Each one of us could have developed a bit of a different perspective. And yes, for many of my staff this would have been the best professional development that they have ever experienced. For that I am sure.
