The book we are reading for the summer for the Teacher Leadership Academy is Awakening the Sleeping Giant: Helping Teachers Develop as Leaders by Marilyn Katzenmeyer and Gayle Moller. I'm blogging chapter by chapter my thoughts and impressions.
Chapter 4: Understanding Myself and Others as Teachers and Leaders
The title nicely sums up the point of the chapter. Going to do this one a different way, with some quotes from the chapter and then my thoughts about them.
p. 69: "It is difficult for them [teachers] to think differently about schools when traditional education served them so well."
I find this to be very true, even as someone whose education to be a teacher focused on non-traditional methods and ideas from the start (Gettysburg was all about constructivism, George Mason focused on progressive and social justice education, with a nice dose of action-research and collaboration). I know that many things work better than the traditional education I got in much (not all!) of my schooling, I know that how I learn is unusual, but I still find myself seeing it as the default. It's what I do when I'm out of interesting ideas - and anything else still counts in my head as an interesting idea.
p.70: "Inviting teachers to compare what they say they believe with their actions can also test their assumptions." "The focus of the school may be proclaimed through a lofty mission statement, but the actual practice in the school may violate the expressed mission and supporting values."
Yes and yes! I had a huge crisis of faith in myself as a teacher when I realized how far my teaching style had strayed from what I truly believe is important due to the pressure to conform to the state standards and have students succeed on the state test. Grad school helped me start to find ways to do both, but it is still hard. I doubt it will ever be easy since the educational philosophy that the whole idea of standardized testing is based on is opposed to much of what I believe about education. As for schools, it often feels like the mission statement of most should actually be "our mission is to make AYP." As a teacher I've learned that what you assess is what students focus on and put more effort into. The same holds true for schools. Nobody assesses us on "preparing digital citizens" or "creating lifelong learners" or whatever other buzzwords we've stuffed into our mission statements, so most of our effort actually goes to the things we do get judged on.
p. 71 "The balance between the needs of different generations is a major factor in today's schools."
I often tend to discount a lot of generational politics and generalization. I feel like a lot of it is silliness drummed up to make news. Also, people have been complaining about people younger than them being lazy, selfish good-for-nothings since there have been people older than other people. ("I see no hope for the future of our people if they are dependent on frivolous youth of today, for certainly all youth are reckless beyond words... When I was young, we were taught to be discreet and respectful of elders, but the present youth are exceedingly wise [disrespectful] and impatient of restraint." - Hesiod, 8th century BC).
However, I do give some credit to their discussion of generational differences in context of their later discussion of the fact that teachers will be at different stages of adult development and have different life responsibilities that may be affecting their willingness to step forward as a leader or get involved in change. Certainly someone who has young children is going to have a different perspective on work than someone who is old enough to be my parent and already done raising their kids. I like the reminders that they give to realize that your colleagues who you might want to diss for not participating may have other priorities or issues you don't know about.
p. 77 Disillusioned: "Teachers may have begun their careers with an idealistic view, but after years of disappointment in frequently shifting innovations, they may protect themselves by refusing to accept change."
This is incredibly common. I know it is one of the major factors discouraging change among many teachers that I know - why put effort into something that you will be told to stop doing in a year or two? It's also completely understandable - how are they to know that this change will actually be supported and given a chance to mature? Also, teachers are so often taught some new strategy that we have to use without being shown any justification behind it. Often there is no valid scientific basis for all sorts of educational fads.
p. 79 "A first step may be to facilitate activities that focus teachers' attention on the diversity of educational philosophies in a specific school."
This would be really interesting to do in my building - I'm very curious to see the results and discuss it! I went ahead and did the educational philosophy assessment in the back of the book that they refer to, but I'm still organizing my thoughts about it.
Showing posts with label professional development. Show all posts
Showing posts with label professional development. Show all posts
Monday, August 6, 2012
Monday, July 30, 2012
Awakening... Ch. 3
The book we are reading for the summer for the Teacher Leadership Academy is Awakening the Sleeping Giant: Helping Teachers Develop as Leaders by Marilyn Katzenmeyer and Gayle Moller. I'm blogging chapter by chapter my thoughts and impressions.
Chapter 3: Developing Teacher Leaders
Coming back to the idea that teachers can learn to lead, this chapter discusses professional development and the supports needed for teacher leaders. The criticisms of existing professional development are sound. Their ideas for what constitutes good professional development seem to include collaboration, problem-solving, follow-up support and applicability to the workplace. They all sound good to me! Generally I didn't underline or make many notes for this chapter - I agreed with a lot of it but nothing stood out to me as a new thought on the issues.
The chapter includes a self-assessment for how ready you are to be a teacher leader in different areas. My strongest area was self-awareness. My two weakest were communication and diversity - because although I can communicate, I don't do so enough. That has a lot to do with being an introvert. Diversity was basically seeing and accepting other perspectives - which surprised me to be so weak - but then I thought about the fact that I don't do that as well at work as outside of it.
After discussing self awareness the chapter also brings up the differences among colleagues that can make change hard: "whenever schools attempt to make change, conflict is a natural result." (p. 59) I have a very conflict-avoidant personality, and I'm realizing that my hesitance to get involved in anything I see as potentially creating conflict is a large part of why I'm so shy to stand out as a leader. The idea that conflict is almost inevitable and that's okay is actually pretty freeing in my mind. It shifts my perspective from feeling responsible for creating a conflict when I should have somehow avoided it to accepting that conflict will arise and learning how to do deal with it.
Looking back at the last year as my building has tried to put into place a remediation period designed by the teachers, I can see this, and I can see that we have all developed a better understanding of the consensus process. Last summer, as we were developing the program, small disagreements led to long arguments and people were often unwilling to give in a point even after the vote went to another one. This summer as we worked on changes to the program, it felt much calmer. People brought up their ideas, disagreements were stated, we came to a decision and moved on.
Chapter 3: Developing Teacher Leaders
Coming back to the idea that teachers can learn to lead, this chapter discusses professional development and the supports needed for teacher leaders. The criticisms of existing professional development are sound. Their ideas for what constitutes good professional development seem to include collaboration, problem-solving, follow-up support and applicability to the workplace. They all sound good to me! Generally I didn't underline or make many notes for this chapter - I agreed with a lot of it but nothing stood out to me as a new thought on the issues.
The chapter includes a self-assessment for how ready you are to be a teacher leader in different areas. My strongest area was self-awareness. My two weakest were communication and diversity - because although I can communicate, I don't do so enough. That has a lot to do with being an introvert. Diversity was basically seeing and accepting other perspectives - which surprised me to be so weak - but then I thought about the fact that I don't do that as well at work as outside of it.
After discussing self awareness the chapter also brings up the differences among colleagues that can make change hard: "whenever schools attempt to make change, conflict is a natural result." (p. 59) I have a very conflict-avoidant personality, and I'm realizing that my hesitance to get involved in anything I see as potentially creating conflict is a large part of why I'm so shy to stand out as a leader. The idea that conflict is almost inevitable and that's okay is actually pretty freeing in my mind. It shifts my perspective from feeling responsible for creating a conflict when I should have somehow avoided it to accepting that conflict will arise and learning how to do deal with it.
Looking back at the last year as my building has tried to put into place a remediation period designed by the teachers, I can see this, and I can see that we have all developed a better understanding of the consensus process. Last summer, as we were developing the program, small disagreements led to long arguments and people were often unwilling to give in a point even after the vote went to another one. This summer as we worked on changes to the program, it felt much calmer. People brought up their ideas, disagreements were stated, we came to a decision and moved on.
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
Awakening... ch.2
The book we are reading for the summer for the Teacher Leadership Academy is Awakening the Sleeping Giant: Helping Teachers Develop as Leaders by Marilyn Katzenmeyer and Gayle Moller. I'm blogging chapter by chapter my thoughts and impressions.
Chapter 2: Promoting Teacher Leadership
This chapter is about why we should promote teacher leadership. Again, I felt like many things I thought were expressed more clearly. I wrote "yes!" in margins a lot. In particular, I like the discussion of creating and modeling democratic communities. I have been ranting about the ways that schools need to model democracy if we want people to participate more in democracy since I was in high school, so of course I agreed with that. They also discuss common obstacles to building this, such as culture or administration unwilling to share power.
I found their explanation of how describing a school as a family can actually be detrimental to the culture *fascinating.* We tend to talk about the C--- Family in my building, which had occasionally made me uneasy but I'd never really given it much thought. It does have positive aspects, such as the support we give each other when people are facing outside problems. However, they point out that the idea of a school as a family "preserves the hierarchical structure in which the administrators are the parents and the other faculty and staff members are dependent children." (p.27) This is in direct opposition to the idea of a democratic community where everyone is equal, and can cause conflict when trying to change a school.
The finding that "unless teachers were involved in the decision-making around the innovation, there was little chance that the reform efforts would succeed" did not surprise me. (p.28) The reality is that any change that teachers don't buy into, they will follow along with enough to fill out all the necessary paperwork (grumbling all the while) and no more. The best way to get people to buy into something is to give them a chance to be part of the decision - then they have a stake in it, and may even feel responsible for making it succeed since it was, in part, their idea.
They also point the ways that mandates can make teachers feel that they are not treated as professionals - and I know from experience how much it hurts to be highly qualified in something and then basically treated like a robot who doesn't have the brains to make their own decisions about what to do or how to do it. I firmly believe that in any endeavor, when you have experts, you tell the experts your goal and then leave them alone to achieve it. Unfortunately, this does not happen in public education.
Another chunk of the chapter concerns itself with the benefits of teacher leadership. It's a long list, but two items really stood out for me. One was retaining excellent teachers - they mention that the "teacher shortage" exists because we are not retaining teachers, not because people don't want to be teachers. This is very very true. Related was the idea of career enhancement - based on the problem of "how to provide an environment in which good teachers are motivated throughout their careers." (p. 33) I posted along time ago about this issue - what was keeping me motivated at that time was how much I cared about teaching well and not repeating my mistakes, but caring on its own is a finite resource. This is a big source of teacher burnout.
Finally they debunk some assumptions they've encountered about teacher leadership. The most interesting one to me was the discussion of the idea that leaders are born. They disagree, obviously, and feel that leadership skills can be learned. More importantly, they talk about the need for effective professional development around leadership, so that teachers are supported and have chances to practice leadership skills. I guess I found this reassuring because I have been just getting my feet wet as a teacher leader and thinking that my inability to jump right in meant I wasn't really suited for it. The idea that this is something I can learn to do and get help practicing sounds great!
Chapter 2: Promoting Teacher Leadership
This chapter is about why we should promote teacher leadership. Again, I felt like many things I thought were expressed more clearly. I wrote "yes!" in margins a lot. In particular, I like the discussion of creating and modeling democratic communities. I have been ranting about the ways that schools need to model democracy if we want people to participate more in democracy since I was in high school, so of course I agreed with that. They also discuss common obstacles to building this, such as culture or administration unwilling to share power.
I found their explanation of how describing a school as a family can actually be detrimental to the culture *fascinating.* We tend to talk about the C--- Family in my building, which had occasionally made me uneasy but I'd never really given it much thought. It does have positive aspects, such as the support we give each other when people are facing outside problems. However, they point out that the idea of a school as a family "preserves the hierarchical structure in which the administrators are the parents and the other faculty and staff members are dependent children." (p.27) This is in direct opposition to the idea of a democratic community where everyone is equal, and can cause conflict when trying to change a school.
The finding that "unless teachers were involved in the decision-making around the innovation, there was little chance that the reform efforts would succeed" did not surprise me. (p.28) The reality is that any change that teachers don't buy into, they will follow along with enough to fill out all the necessary paperwork (grumbling all the while) and no more. The best way to get people to buy into something is to give them a chance to be part of the decision - then they have a stake in it, and may even feel responsible for making it succeed since it was, in part, their idea.
They also point the ways that mandates can make teachers feel that they are not treated as professionals - and I know from experience how much it hurts to be highly qualified in something and then basically treated like a robot who doesn't have the brains to make their own decisions about what to do or how to do it. I firmly believe that in any endeavor, when you have experts, you tell the experts your goal and then leave them alone to achieve it. Unfortunately, this does not happen in public education.
Another chunk of the chapter concerns itself with the benefits of teacher leadership. It's a long list, but two items really stood out for me. One was retaining excellent teachers - they mention that the "teacher shortage" exists because we are not retaining teachers, not because people don't want to be teachers. This is very very true. Related was the idea of career enhancement - based on the problem of "how to provide an environment in which good teachers are motivated throughout their careers." (p. 33) I posted along time ago about this issue - what was keeping me motivated at that time was how much I cared about teaching well and not repeating my mistakes, but caring on its own is a finite resource. This is a big source of teacher burnout.
Finally they debunk some assumptions they've encountered about teacher leadership. The most interesting one to me was the discussion of the idea that leaders are born. They disagree, obviously, and feel that leadership skills can be learned. More importantly, they talk about the need for effective professional development around leadership, so that teachers are supported and have chances to practice leadership skills. I guess I found this reassuring because I have been just getting my feet wet as a teacher leader and thinking that my inability to jump right in meant I wasn't really suited for it. The idea that this is something I can learn to do and get help practicing sounds great!
Monday, July 23, 2012
Awakening the Sleeping Giant: Ch. 1
The book we are reading for the summer for the Teacher Leadership Academy is Awakening the Sleeping Giant: Helping Teachers Develop as Leaders by Marilyn Katzenmeyer and Gayle Moller. I'm blogging chapter by chapter my thoughts and impressions.
Chapter 1: Understanding Teacher Leadership
Reading this chapter felt like someone had taken a lot of my vague criticisms and unease with my situation over the last few years and laid it out, nice and clearly, with suggestions on how to make things better.
It starts out with the idea that the best way to improve schools is to invest in teacher learning, and create a leadership structure that includes teachers. Yes please? They talk about the challenge of school reforms that are top down - when the principal or whoever initiated the reform leaves, it can be very hard to sustain if the teachers have not bought into it or do not continue to get the support needed to pursue it. I think this is one of the biggest issues that schools face - building structures to allow for continuous improvement that doesn't rely on a few key people doing all the work. I know that many reform schools have done great work and then failed when new management was brought in or the key idea people left. I can see this in my own quite ordinary school - ideas without a champion die.
They also spend some time criticizing existing models of professional development, because it "does not result in changed teacher behavior in the classroom unless follow-up coaching and support are offered." (p. 4) I paused here and thought about the prof. dev. I 'd attended through the district compared to my grad program, which had teams and thus the support was strongly embedded in the structure. That had much more affect on what I did in the classroom than anything else I'd experienced. It seems obvious, after all, we don't expect our students to change habits without follow-up support. Yet I still periodically sit through professional development activities which will never be mentioned again.
A lot of the chapter discusses just what a teacher leader is and barriers that many teachers face to becoming leaders. I did like that they discussed both formal and informal leadership roles for teachers. One thing that I think was very absent from the discussion was the role of the internet in teacher leadership. According to them, one of the aspects of a teacher leader is that they "lead within and beyond the classroom." (p.6) Looking around at the influence of people whose blogs I've read or who I've communicated with on twitter about education, I can see that online communication allows us many new opportunities to be leaders. This is very valuable, and missing in a discussion that focuses on in-building leadership.
They also talk about how hard it can be to build a professional learning community. I know that this is becoming the next big educational buzzword (and acronym, PLC and PLN are showing up everywhere now) and I really worry that the concept is not given the thought it deserves before being attempted. Just like other fads that had some value before people tried to simplify and spread them, I guess. I am hopeful that this will not be true in my building/district, because I have been seeing acknowledgment on many levels of the time and effort creating this community will take.
Chapter 1: Understanding Teacher Leadership
Reading this chapter felt like someone had taken a lot of my vague criticisms and unease with my situation over the last few years and laid it out, nice and clearly, with suggestions on how to make things better.
It starts out with the idea that the best way to improve schools is to invest in teacher learning, and create a leadership structure that includes teachers. Yes please? They talk about the challenge of school reforms that are top down - when the principal or whoever initiated the reform leaves, it can be very hard to sustain if the teachers have not bought into it or do not continue to get the support needed to pursue it. I think this is one of the biggest issues that schools face - building structures to allow for continuous improvement that doesn't rely on a few key people doing all the work. I know that many reform schools have done great work and then failed when new management was brought in or the key idea people left. I can see this in my own quite ordinary school - ideas without a champion die.
They also spend some time criticizing existing models of professional development, because it "does not result in changed teacher behavior in the classroom unless follow-up coaching and support are offered." (p. 4) I paused here and thought about the prof. dev. I 'd attended through the district compared to my grad program, which had teams and thus the support was strongly embedded in the structure. That had much more affect on what I did in the classroom than anything else I'd experienced. It seems obvious, after all, we don't expect our students to change habits without follow-up support. Yet I still periodically sit through professional development activities which will never be mentioned again.
A lot of the chapter discusses just what a teacher leader is and barriers that many teachers face to becoming leaders. I did like that they discussed both formal and informal leadership roles for teachers. One thing that I think was very absent from the discussion was the role of the internet in teacher leadership. According to them, one of the aspects of a teacher leader is that they "lead within and beyond the classroom." (p.6) Looking around at the influence of people whose blogs I've read or who I've communicated with on twitter about education, I can see that online communication allows us many new opportunities to be leaders. This is very valuable, and missing in a discussion that focuses on in-building leadership.
They also talk about how hard it can be to build a professional learning community. I know that this is becoming the next big educational buzzword (and acronym, PLC and PLN are showing up everywhere now) and I really worry that the concept is not given the thought it deserves before being attempted. Just like other fads that had some value before people tried to simplify and spread them, I guess. I am hopeful that this will not be true in my building/district, because I have been seeing acknowledgment on many levels of the time and effort creating this community will take.
Saturday, January 5, 2008
The Ledge
TMAO of Teaching in the 408 has a fabulous post about the Ledge. Go read the whole thing, even though I'm quoting it a lot here.
I miss my student teacher evaluations. My supervisor was an incredible, former high school principal who knew more about teaching than anyone I've met (in-person) since. He could tell me what I was doing wrong and suggest ways to fix it. He made me cry on a regular basis. He knew that wasn't a problem though--crying was part of me dealing with how hard doing this thing right was, and how much I still had to learn. When he praised me, I deserved it.
This year, my district finally got it about PD. They cut down on the floofy offerings, offered actual sessions on 21st century strategies, sessions on other relevant topics, and listened to the survey they sent out last year. The result? I'm going to more PD sessions than I have to, because they might actually be of use to me.
This is not the norm.
I can't reuse stuff I hate. I pull out old lessons and just look at them and go "how could I teach this crap?" So I spend hours and hours recreating lessons, coming up with new ideas (or hoping for inspiration because I'm flat out and don't WANT to give in and lecture) and then the lessons never go as well as planned.
I look around at teachers who copy everything they need at the beginning of the unit because they know exactly what they're doing ahead of time. They spend very little time planning, go home right after school, stay caught up on their grading, and get a lot more sleep than me. I want to be them, I want to relax and not ruin the rest of my life for this job, and I can't. I care too much.
But how long is that going to work? How long before I burn out?
This is my third year doing this. No wonder so many of us don't make it to 5.
You get up on the ledge as a young teacher when you realize that there is no formal system of accountability anywhere. The evaluation process is an outright joke, your intern advisor calls you exemplary, and your BTSA lady pops in so you can fill out some forms.
I miss my student teacher evaluations. My supervisor was an incredible, former high school principal who knew more about teaching than anyone I've met (in-person) since. He could tell me what I was doing wrong and suggest ways to fix it. He made me cry on a regular basis. He knew that wasn't a problem though--crying was part of me dealing with how hard doing this thing right was, and how much I still had to learn. When he praised me, I deserved it.
You’re up on the ledge when you want to know how to get better, but there’s nothing there. The vast store of practical strategies you took from your alternative or traditional route credentialing program seems to be running a little dry and district PD is either non-existent or an exercise in futility. There is no formal plan for post-competency-acquisition development, unless it is in the areas of technology, and you already know how to use PowerPoint.
This year, my district finally got it about PD. They cut down on the floofy offerings, offered actual sessions on 21st century strategies, sessions on other relevant topics, and listened to the survey they sent out last year. The result? I'm going to more PD sessions than I have to, because they might actually be of use to me.
This is not the norm.
It gets worse when you do get better. Your level of quality as an educator changes, but title, position, responsibilities, and compensation remain stagnant. ...
You realize the profession incentivizes mediocrity. It does not drive people to show movies all day, or let kids text and screw around in class – ineptitude takes folks there – but it does incentivize using the same lame worksheets you used the last time around, the same crap readings, head-butting against the same, predictable failures to comprehend and achieve. Because the only lever school leaders have to lean on is the level of caring inherent in the individual teachers, the only thing driving you to do more is to care more. But there’s a limit to your caring, and a limit to the effectiveness of your caring.
I can't reuse stuff I hate. I pull out old lessons and just look at them and go "how could I teach this crap?" So I spend hours and hours recreating lessons, coming up with new ideas (or hoping for inspiration because I'm flat out and don't WANT to give in and lecture) and then the lessons never go as well as planned.
I look around at teachers who copy everything they need at the beginning of the unit because they know exactly what they're doing ahead of time. They spend very little time planning, go home right after school, stay caught up on their grading, and get a lot more sleep than me. I want to be them, I want to relax and not ruin the rest of my life for this job, and I can't. I care too much.
But how long is that going to work? How long before I burn out?
This is my third year doing this. No wonder so many of us don't make it to 5.
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