Literacy’s Yin & Yang

I have lived many lives in my profession – primary teacher, literacy coach, literacy coach developer, instructional & systems coach. Through it all I have worked alongside teachers puzzling over the complexities of literacy. We’ve struggled with the literacy challenges of students and the “right” approach. We’ve struggled to find the time to teach all that’s required and to do it in ways that serve students well. And we’ve watched students struggle to be fluent and flexible in all they’re asked to learn. There is no doubt that ensuring each student’s ability to read skillfully and with comprehension is foundational to achievement and that it is a complex undertaking. What I’ve come to learn and continue to discover, though, is how the complexity can be naturally simple and less of a struggle.

The Economy of Literacy

I once had the privilege of working alongside Margaret Mooney, one of my mentors in literacy acquisition and development. She often spoke about economies – the economy of language, the economy of teaching, and the economy of learning. I approach the interconnectedness of reading and writing as the economy of literacy. Literacy is like math. In math there is a basic concept of reciprocity – adding and subtracting, or multiplying and dividing. In the case of reading and its inverse, writing, the reciprocity is demonstrated through decoding and encoding. Once students discover this, they are able to unlock the codes of literacy. The relationship of the parts, the yin and yang as reading and writing, builds, an understanding of the whole – literacy. 

I’ve just started to explore the idea of being a writer. I am learning that while writing I more often than not use my skills as a reader – not just to reread what I’ve written but as a reference for the structure of language, the words I choose, the format I select. As a writer, I understand more deeply that my models of writing come from my reading. How often when writing do I quickly reference, either literally or mentally, what I’ve previously read to help me craft what I’m trying to say? On the flipside, I now find myself thinking about my writing and who I am as a writer while reading. The relationship of the two has become clearer in my mind and I’m coming to know them intimately: the yin and the yang.

Learning through Example

Approaching literacy holistically economizes the teaching of reading and writing. It makes their acquisition and application more manageable and logical. In contrast, separating and isolating them in classroom practice does students a disservice. It fragments their understanding of literacy’s purpose and robs them of the power of reciprocity as an avenue to build the essential capacities of literacy, in particular, reading. Reading skillfully and with comprehension requires students to think about their reading, to not just be able to read text, but to also consider its construction, to wit:

-As readers, students need to think about the features of text and how those features help them predict what they may encounter in the text. How do the features work together to add or clarify the text’s meaning? As writers, how might students use features to help the reader gain greater meaning from what they’re trying to communicate? What features add the right amount and type of detail to enhance the text? 

-As readers, students need to examine writers’ perspectives. They need to compare a variety of viewpoints on the same topic and the evidence that supports a claim. How does the writer’s choice of evidence help the student understand the writer’s perspective? How might they use what they’re learning from their reading to write a strong statement about their own perspectives?

-When students struggle in their own writing – developing an introductory paragraph for example – how can the writing of others serve as models? As a reader, deconstructing an author’s successes can help students push through their own challenges. How do various authors begin their paragraph? How do they conclude it? What do they have in common? 

The Synergy of the Yin and Yang

Reading and writing are synergistic and together comprise literacy. Approaching them as two parts of a whole enables students to strategically use one skill to deepen another in true interdisciplinary fashion. The yin and yang of literacy develops the power of literacy for students through conceptual redundancy in the context of meaning. It also reduces the complexity of literacy acquisition to a reinforcing equation that promotes the simplicity of the whole. While I would never underestimate the complexity of literacy acquisition for any student, teaching those skills through the confluence of reading and writing leverage their synergy and, in turn, make literacy less of a struggle for everyone. It is then that the whole truly becomes a sum greater than its parts. 

 Chris Hoyos is a coach and partner with Abeo School Change.

Use Wordle to Unpack Standards

Sometimes standards can be a little cumbersome to look through. Complex in language and phrasing, standards take a lot of time to unpack. It is crucial that teachers take the time to unpack these standards, so that they understand what students really need to be able to do to meet standard and pass not only standardized assessments, but district and class assessments. Unpacking standards allow teachers to create aligned, rigorous assessments that show this learning.

Teachers need scaffolding in their professional learning just as much as students do in their learning. In our growing world of technology, Wordle is a great tool to create word clouds. I can help summarize articles, showing the most frequently used words, and more. I have seen many teachers use Worldle in their classrooms to help scaffold learning and create engagement, so why do the same for teachers?

Above, you will see a wordle, for a 5th grade common core standard. As per the normal setup of standards, the “main” or “power” standard is listed and then many sub standards are located beneath to help show all components of the power standard. From this wordle, we can see the variety of concepts that students need to understand, from being able to “interpret” to understanding “fractions.” This can help teachers not only see connections in the concepts needed, but also unpack into specific targets. Just this simple tool can help teachers unpack standards, providing them with scafolding analyze the standard. Try using it with your staff!

From Andrew Miller, for Abeo School Change

College Prepared Project

Want to learn more about the College Prepared Project and Abeo? Enjoy this Prezi!

The College Prepared Project on Prezi

From Chris Hoyos, Abeo School Change Partner

The Alignment of AIW and PBL

Last week’s blog from Chris and Harriette reminded me of the work I have done as a teacher as a both a practitioner of PBL and of AIW. Both AIW and PBL aim for the same goals and can align quite well. The four components of AIW were explained in the previous blog, although elaborated communication is explained a little more explicitly here. So how do the elements of AIW explained in the previous blog align to PBL?

Construction of Knowledge – When students create products for a PBL projects, they should not simply be regurgitation of knowledge in a new genre. PBL products are not low level performance assessments. Instead, PBL products demand that students innovate with the content being assessed. Instead of a podcast on World Religions, students would create a podcast to debunks myths and stereotypes of a specific world religion. They must grapple with the content to create something new with it.

Disciplined Inquiry – PBL is inquiry. Students are given the project up front, as well as a driving question to help focus and engage students in the inquiry. An entry event is utilized to spark the inquiry and get students excited. Students research, ask questions, interpret the information found for their project and critique. This in turn demands this process of inquiry continue until the project is completed. Students delve deep in the content by being a complex and engaging project to address.

Elaborated Communication – In PBL, both presentation and written communication on demanded as part of the assessments. Related to the last component of “Value Beyond School,” PBL also demands presentation to an authentic audience. This might be in the form of pitch or defense, or could even be expository in nature. PBL leverages communication as critical whether it is verbal or written.

Value Beyond School – This component is the crux to any good PBL project. The work that students do must have value. It must mean something beyond the classroom. When I visited High Tech High, a PBL school, one of the teachers told me that they never ask students to make something or do something that they would great rid of. They demand that their PBL projects have students created products that will be valued now and into the future.

If you do want to learn more about AIW, contact Director, Holli Hanson @ 253.686.0671. AIW remains one of Abeo’s areas of expertise and is utilized in our school coaching frequently. 

From Andrew Miller, for Abeo School Change

Fun is Not a Four-Letter Word

A friend and colleague of mine, Hannah Williams, told me of her experience conversing with classmates at an esteemed and unnamed east coast university. They were listing attributes of dream schools and Hannah said, “fun!” Her classmates all got slightly smirky looks on their faces, as one said (attitude intended here, folks): “Fun doesn’t sound ‘academic’ enough. We are worried people won’t take your school seriously.” Properly chagrinned, Hannah shifted her language to the now ever-present (and often nebulous) term, “engagement. 

“Hmmm,” I thought. Are the terms fun and academics mutually exclusive? Isn’t fun an important aspect of engagement? A little research please…. 

I began by investigating the academic outcomes needed today – beyond the obvious Common Core skills – and jumped immediately onto creativity and the ability to innovate. Are they the same? “Kind of,” says Tony Wagner, Harvard innovation fellow and author of Creating Innovators: The Making of Young People who Will Change the World. He substitutes innovation for creativity in a recipe Harvard Professor Theresa Amabile says will produce that trait: a mix of expertise, creative thinking skills (flexibility, perseverance, imagination), and motivation. But not just any kind of motivation, she claims. Creativity requires intrinsic motivation. And that, she says, comes from a sense of purpose, passion, and….play. 

It’s not the “f-as-in-fun” word, but play sounds suspiciously like fun to me. I try to imagine anyone involved in play who is not having fun. I think of my child who gets himself up at the crack of dawn to collaborate with his online gaming community, brow furrowed as he perseveres to reach the next level of I-can’t-ever-figure-out-quite-what. I think of my mother who at 83 is so passionate about tennis that she went through the trauma of getting a new knee because she wanted to play more tennis. Don’t tell me she doesn’t think tennis is fun. Think of anyone you know who’s down for the count, body or brain sweating, and pushing for a breakthrough because they’re almost there…just about… And they keep going! Time stands still and when they finally look up from what they’ve been doing, they have no idea how much time has passed. Don’t tell me they’re not having their own kind of fun, although to me it sounds like they’re working hard. 

Hannah confirms this. “Fun doesn’t mean there won’t be hard work involved with the learning process. Some people think it’s one or the other. But I believe that fun is an essential part of engagement. If we can create a positive experience with the content students need to learn [think f-u-n], the learning will have something to stick to. You can have fun and work hard at the same time…and you’ll probably work harder if you’re having fun.” 

My neighbor works for Google. She has a Ph.D. in computer science and spends her days figuring out how Google services can be made available to people who cannot see or hear. She told me that she hates missing work. Her work, she says, is fun. We might also infer that her work is hard and, pertinent to the question at hand, involves learning. Maybe those east coast esteemed unnamed university students should visit some dream workplaces before designing some dream schools. 

Hannah and I also speculated on how fun impacts the climate in a classroom and the difference between a stern “serious” classroom and one that is filled with laughter and joy (or animated curiosity, or quiet respectful thinking, or intense concentration). We talked about how laughing together builds another notch in the relationships that make purposeful collaborative learning possible. “Laughter makes people feel safe,” Hannah told me. I get that. I know how different it is when I get a group laughing, usually by poking fun at myself. The climate in the room just opens up and people relax and seem ready to learn. They act like they want to be there. Seems like something we would wish for students – to want to be at school. 

Well Hannah is now back from her esteemed and unnamed east coast university, (OK, it’s Harvard), making her dream school a reality and a place that students want to be. She told me that the word “fun” is now back in her vocabulary and a driving force of Out of the Box Learning Studio>, where learning is personal to spark passion, connected to ensure purpose, and active in ways that help students play with ideas as they learn essential skills, knowledge, and habits of mind. Have fun, Hannah! We know your students will. 

PS And if you’re still convinced that fun is not a four letter word, listen to the fun ideas of others at Why Fun is Important to Learning”> 

 Harriette Thurber Rasmussen is a coach and partner with Abeo School Change.

Do the Huddle!

How many of us have been in groups that struggled to complete a task that seemed more suited to individual work? How often have we tried to get students to collaborate around a task only to find that for every group that worked well together there was another that fell apart? There is no doubt that groups are challenging to manage, from the inside or the outside, but it does look like group work is here to stay. The Common Core suggests a renewed emphasis on group work as students are asked to consider multiple solutions to problems and as educators are held accountable for engaging every student. And we are seeing a resurgence of group work in classrooms as a key engagement strategy and forum for increasingly complex academic tasks. 

Group work doesn’t have to be complicated. It can be as simple as a “turn and talk” where students are asked to share their thinking with an “elbow partner” during a class discussion. Paired discussions like these give every student a chance to engage with the material being covered, even in large classes where only a few students may get the opportunity to speak to the entire class. Teachers tell us that even the shyest or most introverted students are able to speak comfortably with a neighbor, especially if students are given time to think reflectively first before sharing. Most important, this strategy respects each child as having something valuable to contribute to the discussion. 

More complex is productive small group work, where academic tasks are assigned to small groups of students to complete collaboratively. This is where group work often falls apart as more dominant students may take over the task and less confident students may defer to the loudest voice. So the challenge becomes one of fostering the richness of true collaboration and its potential to integrate diverse thinking into work products. Real collaboration is a far cry from the dreaded “group think” and it’s a challenging instructional strategy. 

This is also where group roles are handy. There are many iterations being used in classrooms across the country but most often they include a facilitator or team captain, a resource manager, a recorder, and a reporter. The facilitator keeps the conversation on track and determines a structure to approach the task. The resource manager is responsible for making sure that all the necessary materials are collected and ready to use, such as assignment sheets, chart paper, math manipulatives…. The recorder makes sure that all pertinent information is written up in whatever way the assignment specifies so that none of the brilliance of the group is lost, and the reporter is the one who will report out or present their work to the class. Having assigned roles reduces the chance that one student will take over the work and if group roles are rotated on a regular basis, every student has the opportunity (and responsibility) to pick up different skills. Although it requires organization, rotating these roles is essential to an equitable classroom and full engagement. 

One of these roles, obviously, is far more complex than the others. Facilitation is hard and requires processes that many adults struggle to implement. So how can we help students facilitate without standing behind them – an impossible task for a teacher who may have 6 or more groups going simultaneously. We have two thoughts on this – and yes, this is where the huddle comes in. 

First, consider facilitation a skill like any other learning target, with a gradual release toward independence as your students learn the tricks of the trade. We’ve seen teachers be very transparent around modeling particular facilitation strategies, assisting, and then finding themselves on the sidelines as students gain confidence and skill in this area. 

And then, we suggest you Do the Huddle before every group assignment. This is where you pull your facilitators together (often while your resource managers are gathering their materials) to make sure the task is understood and offer concrete process strategies for approaching the task to make sure every mind is heard. This is most successful if the process strategies replicate what is already familiar with the class. For example, in a recent 3rd grade huddle we heard: 

Teacher: “You know how when we’re in circle I ask you to first think to yourselves and then share with an elbow partner before we talk as a whole class?” 

Facilitators nod their recognition. 

Teacher: “So let’s practice that in your groups today. Give everyone think time. Then have them share with a partner. Then you can open it up for everyone in the group. Sound good?” 

Facilitators nod and everyone high 5’s before disbursing. 

Can you imagine how differently the facilitators approached their task, with a clear structure that is known to them and to the members of their group? Imagine how confident even the most introverted facilitator might be with a set of distinct moves, with language that will be understood and provoke familiar behaviors. And imagine how much more productive group time could be with a “think, pair, share” strategy to ensure all voices and brains are heard. 

So the next time you plan your group work, try it.  Do the huddle!  (And then maybe throw in a little wiggle at the end.) 

 Harriette Thurber Rasmussen is a coach and partner with Abeo School Change.

Be Quick but Don’t Hurry

It’s March Madness, with kids of all sizes playing their hearts out on the basketball court, passing, dribbling, and taking their best shots. Have you ever seen this passion in motion, with players dribbling down the court at breakneck speed toward the basket? Have you ever said to yourself, “slow down!” worried that the ball will get away from them? And then inevitably see just that happen? 

It does happen, of course, so much so that the late and legendary basketball coach John Wooden framed one of his famed pearls of wisdom around the notion, “be quick but don’t hurry” knowing that by losing control, players – and leaders – have great difficulty getting the results they want. Wooden claims that when we hurry, we are unable to be deliberate about our actions and are prone to error. Being quick, he says, is understanding what’s necessary and getting it done. Quick can be fast, but there’s a calmness to quick that’s missing when we hurry. 

We’re seeing a lot of hurry in education today and it is, frankly, worrisome. Every role seems impacted exponentially by the number and urgency of today’s mandates, perhaps with the greatest impact on the classroom. Most disheartening is what we hear from students,many of whom report untenable stress from the pressure to perform on demand. We also see outstanding educators leaving the profession in record numbers . We see, frankly, exhaustion everywhere and wonder how any of us can do our best work in this environment of relentless stress. Our hurry to make things better may have backfired. 

But how do we restore calm to an environment that admittedly is urgent? The mandates aren’t going away and the need to improve outcomes for students is very real. We think, though, that there are ways in which leaders can make the impact of these initiatives more manageable. One place to start is with the wisdom of adaptive leadership gurus Ronald Heifetz and Marty Linsky, both faculty members at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. They suggest that those in positions of authority can (and should) “turn down the heat” when people reach the limit of their tolerance. To quote, “Any community can take only so much pressure before it becomes either immobilized or spins out of control” (2002, p.108). 

One of their suggestions is to break the work into smaller chunks, so that the volume feels more manageable. This might require pacing and some prioritizing about what must be done now, what can be deferred, and what could even come off the list. Keeping in mind that prioritizing means making choices, this is often one of the most challenging tasks in an environment that demands increasing accountability. At the same time, we rarely see the removal of any long-standing initiatives when new ones are added. Nor do we often see a decision to leave potential grant funds on the table, even when they take a school or district in an entirely new direction. Saying “no” can equate to being deliberate and strategic…and calm. 

And for the initiatives that cannot be removed or put off, they suggest starting small, starting easy with technical shifts that don’t require as much upheaval, or as much learning. Adapt, adapt, adapt. Take it slowly. Let the temperature be your guide and avoid a melt-down. 

Remember that all improvement efforts – strategies, goals, outcomes – are in addition to what is already a full plate for every educator. Sometimes we read school improvement plans and marvel at their breadth while wondering who will teach the kids while everybody learns how to do the new stuff. The kids still come every day and it’s not as if teachers and principals and central office staff don’t already work horrendous hours. Until what’s in your school improvement plan becomes second nature, it will be more work, not different work. 

So break it up. Pace it. Start with the easy(er) stuff. Get rid of all the absolutely non-essentials, especially when new learning is required – at least until we’re through this rough patch as the perfect storm threatens to descend. 

And please. Don’t hurry. Yes there is great urgency to our work. There are achievement gaps to close, graduation rates to increase, and futures at stake. But we’ll never get there if we let the ball get away from us. March Madness belongs on the courts, not in our classrooms. 

 Harriette Thurber Rasmussen is a coach and partner with Abeo School Change.

Teacher Evaluation: A Postscript

My friend decided not to leave teaching but is transferring to another building. She says she is trying to walk through the hallways without feeling as if she has the scarlet letter “F” tattooed on her forehead. This process has eroded her confidence and I hope she finds it again so that she can recover the gift she’s been able to give students these past fifteen years.

Her story and reaction to a negative evaluation may be an extreme example, but judging from the number of responses I received to Teacher Evaluation: Taking Stock, perhaps not. It is interesting to note that the responses came as whispers – through private email, rather than public posting – suggesting that teacher evaluation might have become one of education’s “elephants in the room.” Maybe it’s time to talk about it.

My purpose in writing last week’s blog was not to bash teacher evaluation, but instead to give voice to the reality that this particular reform strategy may be reaping some unintended consequences. If the underlying purpose of teacher evaluation is to make sure every student has a highly effective teacher every day, we need to think about the role evaluation plays in the learning required for everyone to make this happen. Harvard Professor Richard Elmore claims that the reason our education system is not delivering the results we want is that everyone is being asked to do things they don’t know how to do. We’re in an era of higher expectations for students with a commensurate reduction in student tolerance for school-as-usual, made more complicated by technology, advancing poverty, and scarce resources. And as with any adaptive challenge, we are going to have to learn our way through this.

We’ve been supporting education transformation for two decades now and there is something noticeably different in today’s landscape: ownership. A decade ago friend and colleague Tony Wagner advocated for a culture of “no shame, no blame, no excuses” recognizing that all of us go to work every day wanting to do our best work for students. We translated that into building urgency for the changes our education system needs through careful exploration of data in relation to the world our kids were heading into, involving all stakeholders in the complex work some used to refer to as “building the plane while flying it.” Today the urgency remains, but the ownership for how we’re going about it seems to have dwindled. A Gallop Poll released this week shows that teachers are the least likely of all occupational groups surveyed to feel that their opinions matter, with accompanying feelings of disempowerment and isolation. Somehow we seem to be going in the wrong direction.

External mandates have their place, to be sure. But in complex adaptive work, their leverage is limited to their ability to create the kinds of conversations and experiences that foster learning, in this case for the adults responsible for educating students. Perhaps Tony was right in his mantra of “no shame, no blame, no excuses.” Somehow we need to move away from the shrouds that currently cloak teacher evaluation, to check our theories of action about its place in our improvement work, and consider how it can foster the adult learning that will take teaching and leading into the future.

 Harriette Thurber Rasmussen is a coach and partner with Abeo School Change.

Teacher Evaluation: Taking Stock

I recently experienced the new teacher evaluation system through a different lens: that of a teacher. In our role as systems coaches, we most often look at initiatives through their potential to scale up high quality instruction for all students. Evaluation is not new to education, of course, but its role in the current reform efforts gives it a stronger emphasis than in the past. One significant change is the role of instructional frameworks, or teaching standards, in the evaluation system and the relationship of the evaluation instrument to those standards. The return on investment of this strategy has yet to be determined, but there is no doubt that teacher evaluation plays a significant and increasing presence in the current reform landscape. 

My new perspective came from a life-long friend who, after trying a variety of careers, came to teaching rather recently. Here she found her calling, as she puts it, bringing her lifetime of experiences to elementary students and in the process, “changing lives,” according to the hoards of parents who clamor to get their children into her class. In her 15 years as a teacher, she’s certainly paid her dues, learning the challenges of classroom management, figuring out how to reach that recalcitrant student, adjusting curriculum so that different kids could learn math concepts that seemed just out of reach. These last few years she really hit her stride, loving everything about the career she finally found…until last month when I received a tearful call, telling me that she was going to leave teaching. After two glowing evaluations this year, she had just received a third that devastated her. 

Stunned, I asked to see the evaluation that placed her on probation, an odd move for a tenured teacher. My first reaction after reading was, actually, “Wow. This principal really knows instruction.” The observation was detailed and zoomed in on specifics. He had scripted the lesson, relating descriptions observed and recorded to the evaluation form and was specific in pointing out areas of missed opportunities. My friend was recommended for further employment with two areas of action suggested by the observation. At first glance, it was hard to find fault with it. 

Until I took a closer look…. Then I noticed that even in the areas marked as meeting standard she was almost always rated “beginning/emerging.” As I read it again, I saw how crushing it must have been for her, someone who, like many teachers, devotes her life to the success of her students, who routinely spends her evenings and at least a day every weekend planning lessons. Now, after 15 years, all she knows is that she is a “failure” and that the long steady of climb to affect the learning of students has come to naught. Crushing. 

Now here’s the thing. I don’t know if she’s a good teacher or not. I’ve not seen her teach, nor would I be qualified to make that judgment if I had. I don’t challenge the standards against which she was evaluated. What I do know is that she’s a maverick in the classroom, that her students adore coming to school, that they do well on all standardized measures, and that (according to parents) they continue to thrive when they move on to middle school. Could she do better? I have no doubt that she could, as can we all. But what we have here is a teacher who has lost all confidence and with that, perhaps, her ability to continue to, as she’s been told she does, “change lives.” 

This is not a slam on teacher evaluation, but it is a call for a reality check on the weight we’re giving this particular investment in student performance and how we’re going about it. A few years back, I had a “discussion” with a community member wishing that his district would do more about teacher evaluation. My response was, “Well, maybe. But I wouldn’t put too many eggs in that basket. It’s really only about a 5% solution.” 

Startled, he asked what I meant. I explained that while every profession has those that need to be, shall we say, “counseled out,” in education we’re talking about 5 – maybe 10 – percent. So the biggest return you’d get on an investment in teacher evaluation would be 5-10%. His assumptions are common, I’ve found, with many who believe that stronger evaluation systems are the key to solving any and all problems of student learning. We’ve observed that the learning required to implement these new systems is taking significant amounts of time and resources. Are they worth it? At some point it behooves us to consider our return on this investment, including any unexpected consequences. 

In the case of my friend, I doubt that the principal intended to counsel her out of teaching or erode her confidence. It is clear to me that he is an expert in instructional practice and was applying his knowledge earnestly in an effort to give kids the best possible instruction. I’ve certainly been in plenty of classrooms where the very things he noted as needing attention were exactly what I would have suggested myself to pump the lesson up to a higher level of effectiveness. And I don’t know what will happen with my friend – whether she’ll decide to leave the classroom or find a way to continue to “change lives.” The next steps are for her and her principal to work out. 

But this does, perhaps, speak to the larger issue of teacher evaluation and its role in improving student performance through instructional excellence. We need to keep our teachers, most of them anyway, with the richness found in the variety of personalities, styles, and experiences they bring to the classroom. Assuming that it is possible to articulate teaching standards as practices that leverage the time teachers have with students, certainly we should be as considerate in our measurement of those standards as we need to be in assessing student acquisition of the Common Core. We need to make those practices visible to teachers in ways that do not crush spirits and that are accompanied by high quality professional development in ways that illustrate how teaching standards support the learning we all want to see for students. 

 Harriette Thurber Rasmussen is a coach and partner with Abeo School Change.

Are We Deskilling Our Teachers?

I’ve always been an advocate of standards, high ones, to be sure – those benchmarks that target outcomes everyone must reach.  They seem to me to be something to shoot for, a guarantee, if you will, that the goals we set for our students will ready them to do whatever they decide to do with their futures.  On the other hand, I’ve never been a fan of standardization.  I’ve had many a conversation with parents over the years explaining the difference between standards and standardization.  Standardization suggests sameness in how one reaches those outcomes.  And as we all know, students are not the same, do not learn in the same ways, and do not do well in standardized environments.  But standards?  Standards are outcomes:  a vision of where we need to go.  High standards ought to denote excellence.

So when the conversations around improving schools began to talk about teaching standards, it felt right.  A decade ago, researcher Deanna Burney wrote about the importance of craft knowledge, of finding ways for teachers to build their professional repertoire of effective practice, touchstones to define the profession of teaching (2004).  During my days as a coach with Harvard’s Executive Education for Educators program, we helped districts to create “points of view” around teaching – working toward that craft knowledge and a common vision of excellence for every student.  Not long after that, instructional frameworks became the vogue, some more specific than others, but still intended, I thought, to move toward that craft knowledge Burney suggested.  In fact, it wasn’t until I wrote my blogs on teacher evaluation What We're Learning @ Abeo that I began to wonder about the potential that teaching standards could narrow, rather than strengthen, the profession.

Not that I didn’t notice other things along the way.  I spend perhaps 80% of my own practice in classrooms, watching teachers work with kids as I guide educators through the instructional rounds process Instructional Rounds: Not Just a Repackaged Walkthrough .  I have seen many, many beautiful lessons, perfectly designed and executed, illustrating dozens of the components outlined in almost any set of professional teaching standards.  But I have also seen many of these beautiful lessons flop when it comes to actually engaging the students.  How many of us can say we’ve either observed or taught textbook perfect lessons to an audience of lethargic students?  It’s become a puzzle to me.  Teaching standards seem like a good idea.  Other professions have them.  Why not teachers?

My question became more complex when I haphazardly picked up a book I had started perhaps 15 years ago with an intriguing title:  Official Knowledge:  Democratic Education in a Conservative Age (Apple, 2000).  Interested in how it might still be relevant, I thumbed through it and found the author arguing that “when [teachers] cease to plan and control a large portion of their own work, the skills essential to those doing those tasks self-reflectively and well atrophy and are forgotten.  The skills that teachers have built up over decades of hard work – setting relevant curricular goals, establishing content, designing lessons and instructional strategies, ‘community building’ in the classroom, individualizing instruction based on an intimate knowledge of students’ varied cultures, desires, and needs, and so on – are lost.  In many ways, given the centralization of authority and control, they are simply no longer ‘needed’” (p. 117-118).  He claims that, as a result, we are seeing the “deskilling of our teachers” (p. 117).  His thoughts made me wonder if our highly specific instructional frameworks, pacing guides, and “best practices” orientation are, in effect, deskilling our teachers.

If this is so, if we are, in effect, deskilling our teachers, would it not be an unintended consequence of attempts to strengthen the profession?  And if this is so, is it not paradoxical for this to be taking place when the need for deep teaching expertise – and by association, discretion – is greater than ever?  But as I consider some of the challenges I see, including those of my friend about whom I wrote almost a year ago*, I do wonder if we have gone the route of standardization in lieu of standards.  And if that is so, how can this possibly bode well for the increasingly diverse group of students who need our teachers’ expertise, their skills, more than ever?

*who has, in fact, decided to leave teaching after another year of principals and coaches trying to script her relationships with students and the content they’re intended to learn

Burney, D. (2004).  “Craft knowledge:  The road to transforming schools.  Phi Delta Kappa, 85(7).

Apple, M. W. (2000).  Official knowledge:  Democratic education in a conservative age.  New York:  Routledge.

     From Abeo Partner, Harriette Thurber Rasmussen

Do you need a coach or a consultant?

A good question – one we like to ask and help clients answer often because there are distinct differences and justifiable needs for both. The key is in knowing the difference and assessing your needs as an organization.

A simple way of distinguishing between the two is to think of a consultant as a way of addingstaff capacity and a coach as building staff capacity.

Here’s how it looks:
Many organizations need a task completed for which they lack adequate staffing. This could be a numbers game (everyone’s busy) or a capacity issue (nobody knows how to do this). Often it’s in the best interest of everyone to bring in an expert to complete the task and hand it off, particularly if the expertise needed is likely to be sporadic or very specialized – such as strategic planning. This calls for a consultant: someone who comes in from the outside to do internal work, temporarily adding staff capacity… and then departing.

A coach, however, is called for when there are ongoing needs within an organization, yet the skills are not present within current personnel. This is where an organization would be better served to build the capacity of existing staff so that they are able to take on the task into the future.

This might be a completely new area (such as a new approach to literacy or numeracy that calls for an instructional coach), fine-tuning practice as might be the case with a leadership coach, or preparing and implementing a major change initiative where there is anticipated resistance.

We see very few schools and districts that would not benefit from additional support. The trick is to make sure it’s a good match for the task at hand. Coaches teach you to do the work. Consultants do the work for you. It’s as simple as that.

From Abeo Partner, Harriette Thurber Rasmussen

Who is sponsoring the change you want to see?

In any change initiative, there are distinct roles to be played. In education, the ones we pay attention to the most are the roles of sponsor and agent. Who are these folks, what are their roles, and why do they matter?

A quick primer: A sponsor is an individual who has authority over those responsible for implementation –line authority to be exact. In schools this is often the principal but it could be someone several rungs above the principal, such as the principal’s supervisor, or the superintendent. An agent is someone whose job it is to support the change. This could be an internal position (such as a staff developer) or external support (such as a school improvement coach). You’ll know you’re an agent if you have the responsibility to make something happen without the authority to mandate it.

Why do we pay so much attention to these roles when we know that sustainability requires broad-based ownership and that top-down mandates generally fail? We’ve found that oftentimes change initiatives need a jump-start (“just try this”) and that successful implementation is then dependent upon an ability to focus. Permission to choose one activity over another comes from a sponsor, someone in authority such as a supervisor. Much of our education system is organized in ways that separate sponsors and agents so that those supporting the work are unable to either require it or allow it. At the building level this might be an instructional coach who may (or may not) report to the principal but does not supervise those he or she is coaching. Another prevalent example is the way in which most central offices are structured, with a curriculum department (often incorporating professional development) that does not include those able to call the shots on use of time or who supervises those that do (such as the principal or principal supervisor). We call this phenomena responsibility without authority. And when we point this out in coaching venues (most often with agents), we see huge ah-ha’s and recognition of what’s missing in their efforts.

This reality simply means attention to roles so that necessary sponsorship takes place. For those in positions of authority, be certain that you are visibly supporting the work. Make it a public priority. Be present at high leverage events, if only to kick off and affirm the work underway. Make it a public priority. By doing so you will give those responsible for actual implementation permission to focus and a little nudge that this is important. If you are in an agent’s role, you’ll need to be strategic in how you make sure the work is sponsored. An agent operates through influence and relationships; he or she must determine which are the most important relationships to cultivate if the work is to be adequately sponsored. Sometimes an agent’s responsibility is not a priority of those needed for sponsorship and the agent will need to become the sponsor’s new “best friend.” In rare cases, it may be necessary to carefully move up the ladder of authority for adequate sponsorship. Delicate? Yes, but we can almost guarantee an initiative will fail without sponsorship.

Known as organizational alignment, establishing roles in any change or improvement effort is essential. So if implementation is not going as expected, one of the first questions we would ask is, “Who is sponsoring the change you want to see?”

Harriette Thurber-Rasmussen - Abeo Partner

Hiring Instructional Coaches: Getting the “Right” People on the Bus

In the classic book Good to Great Jim Collins says, “…to build a successful organization and team you must get the right people on the bus.” His focus is to get the right people in the right seats. Most of us would agree that one of the shifts that need to happen in education is stronger support of teachers’ professional growth. If good things are happening in the classroom, many of our plaguing problems such as lack of engagement and discipline fade or disappear. This thinking has prompted many districts to build in regular collaborative time and hire instructional coaches to provide professional development. All good moves! Now that you have allocated time for improvement, do you have the instructional coach who can actually lead that work? Often, my experience is that coaches move up through the ranks of teaching and land in the position with little or no training. Though many coaching skills can be developed over time, some entry capacities and dispositions should already be in place. This is where a hiring framework can be helpful. It is critical that district leaders know what they are looking for in a good instructional coach. When you get the “wrong person on the bus” then you have an eager, good individual leading others down the wrong path. The results can be devastating. Teachers get confused, disillusioned and start slamming their doors shut! Our Instructional Coaching Framework helps leaders sort out what beliefs, dispositions and capacities must be present in a candidate and which of those things can be learned.

First and foremost, a good coach must be a good teacher. The only way to know for sure is to actually watch a candidate teach! I would only hire a coach after watching him facilitate an adult learning session where he models strong instructional practices. In addition, I’d watch him teach students. Being a powerful instructor is essential to good coaching. A coach has to be able to “walk his talk” in multiple settings.

Equally important is the belief system a coach brings to the job. District leaders must ensure that a new coach fully embraces the district’s vision. Furthermore, you will want to know a coach’s beliefs about learning. For example, do they believe all kids can learn at high levels? Do they believe that each and every student should be prepared for college? How do they think people learn best? I once watched a coach unintentionally undermined much of the district’s goals by coaching for inequitable practices, curriculum and design principles in a school. The result was painful for the coach and her leaders. The interview questions must bring beliefs about learning to the forefront.

Another entry capacity is a coach’s ability to connect and communicate well with adults. More importantly, he must have a knack for helping teachers build relationships with each other. Some of this capacity naturally emerges as you watch small group facilitation. I also like to see how a coach might provide written feedback to a teacher’s lesson plan or idea as well. A humble, reflective partner is what you are looking for—not someone to come in and “fix” another teacher. A “deficit based” disposition doesn’t work very well in coaching. 

Finally, a coach must be nimble enough to weave in and out of roles such as model teaching, facilitating discussions and offering resources. Coaches wear many hats and juggling those roles with intention takes a special person with a fairly thick skin. Again, you don’t have to have every skill in place, but certain entry capacities and dispositions are essential to good coaching. Our framework offers leaders specific guidelines for hiring coaches and interesting ways to see them in action. If coaching is one of your key initiatives for improvement, then you want to get the right people on the bus! 

Katy Karschney for Abeo School Change.