I had every intention of writing the next blog post about backward design. But a funny thing happened on the way to the keyboard...
Two different professional learning opportunities were experienced by me, and truly transformed not only me but everyone around me who were there. Merely writing about them seems too one-dimensional, so I've decided to use the tweets I sent out to best describe them in "real time."
Dr. Robert Marzano was the speaker on day 2 of Grand Valley State University's "Wildly Exciting" education conference. Even as this was tweeted, I wasn't too sure what to expect. But very quickly, the whole ballroom learned that Dr. Marzano is funny, engaging, disarming, and practical. Moreover, he is decidedly pro-teacher.
As Dr. Marzano walked the conferees through the Instructional Framework, he stressed the "art" of teaching. In Michigan, unfortunately, the state-mandated evaluation process leads some teachers to believe that teaching has become all about the "science" of measuring student growth. Dr. Marzano was emphatic that his model is far more about developing teachers and helping them grow, which in turn will lead to higher student achievement. As our district moves into intentional planning and collaboration this year (Domains 2 and 4) as means to bring Domain 1 to life, this was a great message to hear.
This was in response to Dr. Marzano speaking about the need to grow teachers' capacity as professionals, and the collective responsibility we share as a profession. As a young lawyer, I had a great mentor who reviewed all my files with me on a weekly basis, looked over any court pleadings before I filed them, and went to court with me on occasion. It wasn't because he didn't trust me, but rather, he believed that he and everyone else at our firm had a professional responsibility to and for me. And this was in a profession where we had billable hour requirements that none of these activities would qualify for, so it meant "extra" work for both of us. Even though I have not actively practiced law in thirteen years, and this experience was in the early 1990s, my mentor is still a trusted friend.
Let's stick with the legal business for one more moment. There's a Latin saying in the law, "res ipsa loquitur" - the thing speaks for itself. We'll just leave it at that.
As our day concluded, many conferees were asking Dr. Marzano to sign books or take pictures. Here is one of him with our rock stars, Michelle Becker and Margie Fellinger:
As if that weren't enough, the following 3 days were spent with Becky and Rick DuFour and the amazing team from Solution Tree at a PLC at Work Institute. Approximately one thousand attendees gathered, and from FHPS we were represented by all of our principals, a teacher rep from each school, and 5 members of the Instruction Office.
This is the bedrock of building the collaborative culture of a professional learning community. Becky DuFour was clear that it is a balance of strong administrative leadership and teacher empowerment. In fact, it perfectly aligns with Dr. Marzano's work around "defined autonomy" - the freedom to act and lead within clearly articulated boundaries.
The DuFours define "team" as a "group of people working
interdependently to achieve a
common goal for which members are
mutually accountable." Not only does everyone need to be in the boat, pulling their oar in the same direction, but they must also be sitting in the right seat that takes advantage of the strengths they bring to the team.
This is why teachers must be provided with time and space to collaborate or "co-labor". In fact, within the PLC model, the DuFours speak of collaboration as a "
systematic process in which we work together
interdependently to analyze and
impact professional practice in order to improve our individual and collective results." Within that process, the team continually asks themselves the four critical questions, based on the belief that all kids can learn: 1) What is it we expect them to learn? 2) How will we know when they have learned it? 3) How will we respond when they don't learn? 4) How will we respond when they already know it?
No one gets to opt out of the team process; smaller groups of people are a "seductive shortcut" that undermines the PLC process. This needs to be remembered this year as we bring Domains 2 and 4 forward.
Before we can focus on "how" we will collaborate, we need to make sure we know "why" we are collaborating. Our fundamental purpose is to help
all kids learn at high levels, and if we don't, there are serious implications. We must prepare kids for their future, not our past. Kids who don't learn how to learn will not succeed in our country's economy, nor have access to the American dream. We must own that our current system is not firing on all cylinders, and we will continue to fall behind the rest of the world in critical areas.
Marc is the superintendent of Sanger Unified School District in the San Joaquin Valley in California. The district has ten thousand plus students, with large groups of second language learners, children from poverty, and minorities. Ten years ago, Sanger was listed as a Program Initiative District due to low performance in the ELL group. By 2006, it exited its status because of continued student achievement in the ELL group and all groups, and continues to grow student achievement through the PLC process. PLCs are not a weekly meeting or a one-time event; they are an ongoing process that never ends.
Tim was the past director of math and science at Adlai E. Stevenson High School, where he taught for many years. This quote was in response to an audience question about his experience as a teacher in the PLC process. Tim acknowledged that the work is hard, but if we believe that all kids can learn, it is the necessary work to help teachers grow and learn so that they can best serve all kids. In other words, leaders who try to take this work away from teachers, ostensibly to "help" them, actually harm teachers.
Rick's keynote address -- "Leaders Wanted" -- began our second day of learning. I was so engrossed in this presentation (and a later one in the afternoon), I tweeted only twice that day. This first tweet was based on Rick's belief that school leadership is not only open to everyone, it is the professional responsibility of everyone. Leadership cannot be based on a hierarchical position because no single person has all the expertise, skill, or energy to do it all. Obviously, there are levels of leadership within a school district: "1) a central office team that speaks with one voice; 2) principals who distribute shared leadership through a guiding coalition and opportunities for teacher leadership; and 3) teachers who work in collaborative teams that demonstrate situational leadership and take collective responsibility for student learning."
This statement received a loud ovation from the audience. As Rick elaborated, any obstacles encountered on the way to achieving the fundamental purpose of a school (all kids learning at high levels) via PLCs need solutions proposed and championed by teachers, and those teachers need to be provided resources and support for success from principals. The non-negotiable is student learning.
Day 3 was a half-day, and the keynote was at the conclusion. I spent the first part of the morning with Tim Brown in a session entitled, "From Forming to Performing: What Does a Leadership Team Need to Know and Do?" There were so many great take-aways, but one of them was that a PLC is
not another "initiative." As Tim rhetorically posed, "why or how is a focus on
learning an 'initiative'? Why or how is working
collaboratively an 'initiative'?" One of the slides in the learning materials contains a quote from Becky DuFour as to what a PLC is: "An ongoing process, in which educators work collaboratively, in recurring cycles of collective inquiry and action research, to achieve better results for the students they serve."
Our learning was brought to a rousing conclusion when everyone gathered together to listen to Anthony Muhammad, who was a teacher and principal in Michigan. As Jon Gregory later said to me, "I could have listened to him all day!" We have to embrace high levels of learning for all students as the reason our school exists, and as the non-negotiable responsibility of every single teacher within our school.
Finally, no more excuses. Every student must be validated and affirmed, no matter the unique cultural norms each student comes in with. As Dr. Muhammad writes in his book,
The Will to Lead, the Skill to Teach, "respect and affirmation lead to achievement." Instead of trying to assimilate students into our antiquated, dominant culture of control, manipulation, standardization, and control that we were schooled in, we need to educate students in a new culture of liberation, development, creativity, and empowerment.
Thanks for reading, and please share your thoughts in the comment section. Excited to begin a new school year #transformed.
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