Fads and Fetishes; Choices and Committments
“These people drop every ball they pick up.” –A Beloved Former Colleague, speaking about our administration
How many ideas do you think there are for improving the academic achievement of low-income, minority students?
Nevermind…It’s too many. Let’s make it smaller. How many ideas do you think there are for doing vocabulary work before a difficult reading? (Then multiply these ideas by a differentiation factor.)
How many ideas are there about the best student data to track and how to track it? (Dear Lord, how we go round and round on this one…) How should students be grouped? How often should I call parents, since they’re the ones who made this mess in the first place? What is the best way to prepare for a Socratic seminar? What is a Socratic seminar?
What is the best way to write an objective? Do I need to have a content standard and a skill standard written out on the board every day? Do I need to assess them both every day? How could I even be sure I was doing that? How can we use graphic organizers to best affect student learning? How detailed a calendar do I need and for how many weeks in advance? Do students need to read, write, and speak every day? Do I assess all three? And record it…where?
How long will I have to say “Action Plan”? Has anybody seen my SMART goals around lately…from August? No?
You see where I’m going. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of ideas out there about how to accomplish dozens of distinct educational objectives. And they seem to grow exponentially. And some of them have more money behind them than evidence.
But let’s say, just for argument’s sake, that they are all effective. However, like anything, they can only be effective if they are given a fair chance. And they can’t all be done at once. If teachers are to really make use of a good idea they need to have time and support. They need to feel free to make mistakes, ask questions and experiment.
At my school we are expected to implement every good idea, or at least the Idea of the Month, right away and completely. The implementation phase of new directives at my school goes something like this: Here…I gave you a PowerPoint where the type was too small to read and we talked about it twice for a total of almost an hour. This is now your new way to do lectures. Go.
These begin to pile on, month after month. Nobody knows where the ideas come from…though sometimes it is said they come from The Research or The Data. Maybe so or maybe not. I think they mostly come from Websites.
But it doesn’t matter because 9 times out of 10 the Idea of the Month at my school is forgotten in two month’s time. Two months is the Gold Standard. Nobody can possibly keep up with either doing it all or enforcing it all. So what happens?
Here’s what: New people freak out and realize they cannot possibly win or make the lady happy. And they quit. Like I’ve said before, I make it a point to keep up with the young’ns. It’s the end of the semester…and they have the resume polish out; no doubt. The few who have been around for a while recognize that they can ignore…completely…a great deal of what comes out of any administrator’s mouth. So they do. And they carry on for better or worse.
This is not because the ideas are bad. It it because the administration can’t make choices or make and stick to a plan. So where does that get us? It doesn’t get us very far. It gets us 30–50 new teachers next year who we can piss off and freak out; who then quit.
But what if we learned how to make choices and stick with a plan? What if we picked four big things and decided that, as a school, our teachers are going to become awesome at these things? What if…what if teachers were included in the process of selecting these things? What if we really stuck to these things, brought in good PD, and didn’t get sidetracked by all the other ideas that sound so magical? Those other ideas are so enticing and the New Leaders PowerPoint you just saw had such good color contrast with cool fades that were not even annoying. It’s so hard to resist.
As someone who knows, I can tell you that this is a big frustration among new teachers in the hyper-reformist environment. It’s a big reason why they leave this school. They feel like they absolutely cannot succeed.
Set priorities. Stick to them. Hold teachers to them. Have confidence in your priorities so that you won’t be tempted to fuck around with everything you do every other week. Don’t demand more shit than you can keep track of.
If you set realistic goals for your staff and support them, they will succeed and maybe even stay. Then you won’t have to start from goddamn ground zero every year. Aren’t you sick of that?
Mr. Teachbad
In many ways, this post is exactly why I do not believe I will continue teaching. This is my second year, and I am leaving @ the end of the month.
There are places where teachers are valued and trusted!!!
I’m very sad to see new teachers quiting, not because they are not passionate about educating the children, but because the administrators and system push them out.
Hang in there!
I also quit after two years. Money has been a bit tighter, but I’m so much happier. I’ve lost the stress weight I gained, and my friends and family are so glad I finally shut up about teaching. I still have nightmares occasionally, though — I had one last night, where I was unprepared for class, the kids were out of control, and the sniping teacher down the hall kept yelling at me. So glad it’s behind me. I do miss some parts of it, like some of the kids, but I hope I never have to go back.
If you want to quit, then quit — there *are* other things you can do, and no job is worth this much stress. Yes, the summers off are nice, but I spent almost half that time destressing and then restressing when it was time to go back. I greatly admire those who stay in the job, but life is to short to put yourself through this if you have alternatives.
I mean “too short” — gah! I knew I’d make a typo, lol.
But if you only chase short-term goals, it’s obvious that the “new plan” hasn’t “worked” in the 2 weeks it has been around. On to the next. I know, some of us think that education is a long-term, cumulative process, building new information on old, but apparently we were wrong. Heck, in our school district you can be in Algebra II without passing Algebra I or geometry (or, I might add, any math class in grade 1–8). If you’re lucky enough to get a teacher without tenure, you will even pass Algebra II. Then, you’ll go to college at taxpayer expense, because you’re poor, where, surprisingly, you will have to take remedial classes (and then drop out because it’s too hard).
How to prep for a Socratic seminar? Bedsheets for togas, and a sandpit in the middle of the room. Only boys, with 15 years of discourse with adults, no TV, and an interest in learning. Have at it.
These questions are also why I dislike teaching. Being that I teach music, I am able to sluff most of this stuff off because it doesn’t apply to me. The other nice thing is that since I am not on the test I am less scrutinized by my admin. Win win! The only problem is that I see what this ineffective leadership style and inability to stick to one “magic bullet” is doing to the students. Many of my students lack the ability to reason for themselves and/or follow more than one direction at a time. I truly believe that our constant shifting of strategies has turned many students off from learning. What is the point in trying to understand something when in 2 months it will be thrown at them and evaluated in a completely different way?
Hilarious. And I think you will like this related post on Rick Hess Straight Up. The two before it are also somewhat related to what you wrote today. Keep up the good work.
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/rick_hess_straight_up/2011/01/the_worst_of_best_practices.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+RickHessStraightUp+%28Rick+Hess+Straight+Up%29
Great description of a major problem: “the hyper-reformist environment.” I DETEST having a plan thrust on us with absolutely no input on what we are ALREADY doing right. Monday, we start Leader in Me training at my school. I don’t even care if it’s a good program or not–I’m sick of new plans over and over and over.….Thanks!
Oh, my. You saw that PowerPoint too?
We won RacetotheTop in my state. One of the rules is 90 minutes of collaboratibve time every week for evey teacher in every school in the state. In my district, we make up our time ours with hour-long after-school meetings and part of our planning time. So far we have had four months of PowerPoints three times each month for our new hour-long collaborative time meetings. Three hours a month of boring, pointless, unusable ideas most likely delivered by someone who barely understands the message. You wouild not beleieve some of the topics. COLLABORATION is apparently when you do a think-pair-share about something you just saw in a PowerPoint.
If someone held a gun to my heard, I would not be able to tell them the meanings of the latest acronyms THAT THE DISTRICT IS PUSHING: CHAMPS and EAGER.
Wait a minute–I think I’ve got it. Anyone who does not go into a catatonic state is a CHAMP. And we are all EAGER for this experience to end.
And so it goes.
In my school and district we call this sharing of “best practice” WOTD or WOTW–whim of the day or whim of the week. It is ALWAYS introduced by a ppt you could have read on email and extracted anything of value to you in 30 seconds. However, because of BLT’s (not the good kind with bacon), but Building Leadership Teams and their mandate to DAZZLE (I kid you not) the rest of us, we are required to sit through the mind-numbing ppt while it is read to us by the poor schmuck who is the spokesperson of the minute/day/week/month. These presentation are now up to three full faculty meetings each month-in addition to all the regular nonsense that is required beyond the regular day. The greatest thing about reading blogs? To know that this meaningless drivel is spread far beyond our school and district!
And DAZZLE…I call Bullshit…what’s your acronym?
Wait…if you really have acronyms called CHAMP and EAGER, you have to share them with us. You can’t just leave that hanging out there and not tell us. Be a SPORT. (Spot-on Proactive Obliging Responsive Teacher)
We have a new data tracking system in our district called…wait, are you ready for it? … A R T. no shit. Not really sure exactly what it stands for because I immediately saw red when I heard this new acronym. ironic. Our students no longer have music, gym, librarians, or actual art class. Our elementary teachers no longer have any prep time, just a 30 minute lunch if they’re lucky. We’re told we’re not doing enough. If only we worked harder. Well I can’t tell you how many adults are paid to enter and parse the “data” on the new million dollar ART system. It’s gross. It’s unacceptable. I can’t bear it. And it’s doing NOTHING to help our children.
DAZZLE = DASL= DE Academy of School Leadership
There is also a district mantra currently being use for the purpose (of course) of raising test scores. It is “TEACH TO THE RIGOR OF THE VERB!” I would challenge a n y o n e to even find the teachable verb in the stew of the very mushily written state GLE’s.….(that would be Grade Level Expectencies)
oops-that would be Grade Level EXPECTATIONS
Those are terrible…just really, really awful.
There is little hope that the reform movement will address issues of real value to improving education. Nobody wants to honestly discuss any of the root-cause social issues students face that adversely affects the achievement of our “low-achieving scholars” (love that phrase). Without reforming our social welfare system, addressing drug and alcohol problems and rediscovering a sense of national identity which conveys values such as hard work, learning, family, overcoming adversity, and honesty, we will not be successful in improving education in my opinion.
We will all continue to be subjected to fruitless, boring presentations that absolutely drive any creativity out of the classroom to be replaced with some novel “great idea” generated by the expert du jour whose shoty, unverified research is being used to line his or her pockets on the inservice/consultant tour.
It’s scary to see how quickly these ideas are disseminated to administrators and curriculum specialists throughout the country (world). The lights must dim when the send button is hit and the viral “professional practice” article/idea is sent out to the tens of thousands of subscribes on the list serve.
It’s hard to just ignore the stuff thrown at you as Teachbad has suggested when you’ve got administrators coming through, often in groups, looking for evidence of the crap generated at the previous meeting and expecting everyone’s classroom to look the same. If you don’t hang up the “required posters,” use the “agreed upon language,” and enthusiastically cite the “right” research or experts in your conversations then you will receive a negative evaluation and be badgered until you comply.
This whole movement is an insult to anyone who is truly educated, creative, and naturally inquisitive. Teaching has always been a challenging job. I used to mitigate the challenges by designing lessons that best met my students needs and abilities. I enjoyed the latitude to try new things and learn what worked best in motivating the students while leading them to a higher level of understanding. Now, despite being called a “subject-area expert,” I’m not allowed to make even the most insignificant decisions anymore. Everything must look the same in each classroom. I now feel like I am little more than a robotic meat puppet for unimaginative puppet masters.
We ditched CHAMPS; we now just use a security guy. It works way better.
The reason we have all these new ideas is that school board members buy them so the grateful vendor selling the ideas will contribute to the school board member’s next campaign. Or employ the school board member(s) after their loot-the-tax-coffers gig is up.
District bureaucrats, eager to impress the school board members AND lacking anything else to do, gladly pressure principals to implement all the nonsense.
Meanwhile, the new teachers are indeed burning out and giving up–including the TFAers who are quickly becoming disillusioned. We’ve had to teach them how to fly under the radar, which means they have to stop asking questions like:
–Can you remind me which new lesson plan format you want me to use? No one seems to notice that I’ve been using my own format the last 3 weeks.
–Do we still have the rule about erasing the objective every afternoon and rewriting it, even if we will be continuing the same objective the next day?
–Are we still supposed to be completing a parent contact log for every student every week?
–I’m afraid my Faculty/Staff binder is missing pages. At the Back to School Rodeo-Themed Training Week where we all got those bandanas to wear, keeping up with the Faculty/Staff binder seemed very, very important but no one has checked it or mentioned it since. Could we have a faculty meeting to check the binders?
Did anyone understand CAPE. Yesterday at dcps PD? At my school the teachers were having a provocative and interesting discussion about accountability or rather the lack of it beyond the classroom. Principal walks in and immediately accuse teachers of not doing enough and Using the referral system!! Problem we are like the bad teachers in waiting for superman according to
the. Principal!!
CAPE??? Capricious Administrative Personnel Evaluating? Help me out here!
I’ve often thought a board game similar to Monopoly–using only obtuse educational jargon–would be a best seller.
Some random thoughts on the discussion:
Joke
Q: What’s the definition of an administrator?
A: Three losing seasons and a Master’s degree.
Seriously though, the endless churn of “reform” mandates stems from American cultural impatience. We want everything newer, shinier, and faster. We are addicted to the Industrial Age idea that everything works better if it standardized. “It works at School A, therefore it MUST work a School B!” Learning, though is a slow process, requiring thoughtfulness, perspective, and individualization. Schools (and everyone populating them) are NOT widgets; all of these acronym-laced “reforms” are guaranteed to fail.
Has anyone set up a buzzword bingo game with educational reform acronyms and jargon? I could envision a faculty setting up a league with weekly games (running concurrently with PD and staff meetings).
The 3 losing seasons in Texas is closer than what you think.….Many are made asst. principal while they work on their Master’s.
Sad, but true.
It took me a moment: 3 losing seasons plus a masters degree. Finally it clicked.
OMG. That is too funny.
I still don’t get it.
I can’t help but feel that we’re screwed and that there’s no end to the lunacy any time soon. I watched the Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, last night on The Wall Street Journal Report. He is clearly in favor of running schools using business organizational strategies and bringing in people without experience in education to run schools. In researching his background, it is not surprising he would favor this approach since he never was an educator himself.
Duncan claimed that Race to the Top has done more to move education forward in the past 18 months than NCLB did in a decade. It must be the new definition of forward.
Duncan side-stepped family life issues in the interview with Maria Bartiromo and quickly moved to his big three, teacher quality, merit pay linked to student performance, and charter schools.
Duncan, like his boss, is skilled in politics. Politicians are trained to never answer a question that is off their talking points and to turn whatever the question is to their three talking points.
Call me a prude. I am interested, have enjoyed, and indeed agree with many issues on your blog. But, I do wish you wouldn’t use the “F” !!! I find it extremely crude and that it only detracts from the points you wish to make.
I am a 33 year veteran teacher who loves teaching but hates the paperwork and nonsensical drivel handed down from the powers at be. But as a religious person I find coarse language offensive.
If you are offended, why not just not read it?
i enjoy the occasional “f” bomb. you’re keepin it real up in here. you crack my shit up on a regular basis, and i thank you for that. because if not for laughing i’d be crying at all of the foolishness in education right now. i think ms. esther needs to lighten up a bit.
My school is looking at a very high turnover this year for the very same reason. The assumption during conversations is that one’s interlocutor will not be a colleague next year. Everybody knows except the principal, because he refuses to hear us when we tell him. He didn’t hear when two department chairs stepped down, and nobody else in the department would take the job. He didn’t hear when I went into his office and told him he was creating learned helplessness in his teachers. So, this May, when he calls us all in individually to find out how we think our year went, and find out any news from us, he’ll be very surprised. But, really. We’ve had four long-standing veterans (You know, the people who cannot be annoyed by anything because they can retire at lunch if they want.) quit this year so far. Two of them were county teachers of the year contenders in the past few years. The canaries have been dying for ages now.
I love your canary analogy-why can’t administrators/state dept of ed folks/local politicians/parents and community members see what is so obvious to those of us in the mine?
Okay-finally found the acronym decoder ring:
CHAMPS=
Champion Mindset
Hope
Attention
Memory
Processing
Sequencing
and if I understand it correctly, I am supposed to identify and be proactive to each student’s emotional state as they walk in the door. Then I’m supposed to use CHAMPS–individually of course!–and teach them EAGER-ly by making sure each child is:
Engaged
Able to articulate
GLE savvy
Effective using strategies
Rigorous about learning
All of that takes place, of course, before I pay any attention to content, standards, delivery, behavior, etc, etc, etc. I think Campbell’s needs a whole new line of Alphabet Soup just for teachers beleagured with this utter nonsense!
PS: I wish I were clever enough to make up this garbage. These are all things were are supposed to be doing daily.
Thank you! Thank you! If they held a gun to my head, I could not have recalled that and I have had the sasme kind of PD that you have had.
I want my own ADR = acronym decoder ring. We could make a fortune selling them as gag gifts to teachers!
Wow, the G in EAGER actually stands for another acronym? Is it even legal for a word to have these fractal-like qualities? It’s like being able to spell the letter “double-you” with other letters…
I think of it a Grasshopper Leadership. They take big leaps in random directions, and you’re supposed to follow. We had a church pastor like that. Every couple of months he had a new vision statement or mission plan or essential element for us to memorize. One huge project after another, with no follow up or follow through. He was always complaining about what terrible followers we were. But you can’t follow a grasshopper. It just isn’t possible. No one was sad when he got fed up and left, convinced that he was just too visionary for us little peons.
Perhaps it is more a Dung Beetle kind of leadership–rolling a ball of poop around all day.
I was a teacher for a whopping 3 months.
While my career after that hasn’t been much more sane, it is without the hitting and kicking. And the subsequent calls to the administrators office to be told how it’s wrong to write up referrals to the principal’s office for children who beat you.
My husband’s been one for many years. I wonder at his staying power.
i like that you started this post with a quote. here is one from my principal, spoken last year when trying to tell us teachers off bc she was disappointed in us or whatever.
“these kids need to leave here knowing something about something!”
inspirational.