Teachers as leaders of classroom teams

Bandemer Park, Ann Arbor, Michigan/Dennis Sparks

Sometimes it the simple acts that are the most radical. That’s because their successful execution requires the most radical kind of learning — the development of new paradigms that affect how individuals view the world and the acquisition of understandings and skills that guide their actions in implementing the new paradigm. In this case, I’m thinking of teachers adopting a conceptual frame in which they view themselves as leaders of teams of students and their families and developing the knowledge and skills required to be successful team leaders.

To read more of my essay on Jim Knight’s “Radical Learners” blog . . .

My views on teacher merit pay, teamwork, and professional learning

Gallup Park, Ann Arbor, Michigan

The lack of evidence supporting merit pay efforts doesn’t mean that well-intentioned system leaders shouldn’t explore and even initiate merit pay programs when teachers, school leaders, and the community agree that such programs are a worthy experiment, when clear measures of success are agreed upon in advance, and when the program is subject to rigorous evaluation.

It’s essential, however, that leaders who initiate such ambitious work fully understand two important “realities.” First, implementing, and sustaining merit pay initiatives is far more complex and intellectually and interpersonally demanding than many leaders understand at their outset. And second, merit pay is not a substitute for the design and implementation of high-functioning educator teams and for sustained, meaningful professional learning within a culture of continuous improvement.

To read more of my AASA essay . . .

For everything there is a season

Photo/Dennis Sparks

When I began this blog in January 2010 I had two goals:

• to provide a site that would offer interested educators a way to easily access my NSDC and PDK writing, and

• to update and elaborate on ideas I first described in Leading for Results: Transforming Teaching, Learning, and Relationships in Schools, particularly in the area of school culture.

Having achieved those goals, I am concluding this series, at least for the time being. I’d like to offer my sincere appreciation to my subscribers and other readers and to those who enriched these essays through their comments.

I intend to continue to write on educational issues and other topics, and I will use this site to alert readers to those publications whenever they may occur. Please also consider following me on Twitter (@DennisSparks) where I’ll suggest ideas, articles, studies, and blog posts regarding leadership, education, and other topics that I find important and compelling.

The “Leading for Results” essays in this series are organized by both subject matter (“Categories”) and months (“Archives”). I encourage readers to extend their learning by using the essays for individual, team, or community study.

To that end I offer the “meditation” with which I concluded Leadership 180: Daily Meditations on School Leadership.

Commit to a Small Number of Professional Learning Goals

With time and thought, anyone can generate dozens of ideas from this book that are relevant to a specific situation. My advice: don’t try. A long list can be overwhelming. . . . A better strategy is to identify three or four ideas that will be easy to implement, and start doing so immediately. —John Kotter

Effective leaders make distinctions in degrees of importance among may worthy activities. That is as true regarding the application of new professional learning as it is in other areas. Because these leaders understand that they do not have the time nor energy to deeply understand and practice every possible skill, they select a small number of areas for extended study and application.

Today I will select a small number of learning goals and commit myself to practicing new behaviors regularly in upcoming weeks and months until they become habitual. I also will use my calendar to remind me to monitor both my skillfulness in their application and their effectiveness in achieving the results I most desire.

Eleanor Roosevelt provided career-long lessons about importance of learning how to learn and of honoring others

Photo/Dennis Sparks

Last week the New York Times published a 50-year-old photo of Eleanor Roosevelt carrying her own bag at LaGuardia Airport.

I sent the post to my former teaching colleague and friend Mike Abbott, who in turn forwarded it to his teaching colleague and friend, Pete Pascaris [all of us who had been teachers in the Livonia (Michigan) Public Schools] because he remembered that Pete had met Roosevelt around that same time.

Pete sent the following comment on the story to the Times, which now appears with the article accompanying the photo:

“As part of a delegation from Wayne State University, I had the opportunity to greet Eleanor Roosevelt at Detroit’s Metro Airport in 1962. Her daughter greeted her with us and took her suitcase, but Mrs. Roosevelt continued to carry her small overnight case.  Later that day, I sat next to her at a dinner honoring her as first recipient of our Education Day Award, introduced her to an overflow crowd in the auditorium, and asked her questions passed on from the audience. At dinner, she showed genuine interest in me, asking about my studies, my interests, my ambitions, and my family. More importantly, she listened attentively, asked follow-up questions to my answers, and never displayed any condescension whatsoever.

“In her speech, she said, ‘The most important thing to learn is to learn how to learn.’ I was so moved by her words and my experience that day, I used her phrase on the first day of every class I taught over my thirty-three-year teaching career. Although I taught math and science (and later, chemistry), I repeatedly told my students that ‘learning how to learn’ was their primary objective. ‘Not all of you will be scientists or mathematicians,’ I would say, ‘but all of you will be learners the rest of your lives.’

“Mrs. Roosevelt’s lifetime example spoke even louder than her words. She taught me that not all of us will be president or a spouse of a president, but all of us . . . regardless of station . . . can act in a manner that honors the person we are with.”

Enriching the space between students and teachers

Leland, Michigan/Dennis Sparks

People learn from people they love. Anything that enriches the space between a student and a teacher is good. Anything that makes it more frigid is bad. This doesn’t mean we have to get all huggy and mushy. It means rigorous instruction has to flow on threads of trust and affection. —David Brooks

If we are more loving toward our students, it can only help them and us.  Most likely, it will help us with all of our relationships.  And who wouldn’t want to live in a world that is filled with more love. —Jim Knight

Here’s a simple but important idea: good teachers respect and care about their students. That “truth” is particularly important for students whose life circumstances require that their teachers not only have content knowledge and pedagogical skills but who also clearly demonstrate that they like and enjoy their students.

There are exceptions to that generalization, of course. Many of us have had one or more teachers who we did not like us and whom we did not like, but for one reason or another we learned from them. But I wouldn’t want to staff a school, or even a hallway of a school, with such teachers, especially a school that serves our most vulnerable students.

Sometimes academic rigor and “trust and affection” are cast as an either/or proposition. Either teachers demand academic rigor or they are ”all huggy and mushy.” In fact, it is both/and.

The presence or absence of all these qualities, however, is not determined solely by a hiring decision. Academic rigor and positive attitudes toward students are cultivated by leaders who like and respect teachers, who design professional learning that deepens and expands teachers’ content knowledge and pedagogy, and who enable sustained conversations at faculty and team meetings about how teachers’ attitudes influence student engagement, learning, and desire to stay in school when it is no longer required.

“Anything that enriches the space between a student and a teacher is good,” David Brooks tells us. And I would add, “Anything that enriches the space between leaders and teachers—in particular, the professional learning and the critical conversations that affect the learning and well being of students—is good for the school community as a whole and for all of its members, no matter their age or role.”

The value of teaching, no matter the age of the student

Manly Beach, Sydney/Dennis Sparks

A teacher’s job, as I understand it, is to ensure students’ learning no matter the age of the student—that is, all students will speak, think, understand, and act in new ways. Teachers begin with the learning and well-being of students in mind and design outward, employing a variety of methods that make a sustained cognitive demand on learners to ensure learning. Teachers continuously make adjustments until students have mastered the understanding or skill. In successful classroom, students are active in reconfiguring their own brains.

That’s why I believe there is no profession or calling more important than teaching. It is both a title and job description that can be worn with pride, even in the midst of a great deal of public criticism of schools and teachers. In fact, I would prefer that the term teacher be used for those who promote the learning of educators rather than more commonplace titles of presenter, speaker, trainer, or consultant.

A subtle denigration of teaching

There is a subtle but important denigration of teaching that occurs when those who “teach” at universities are called lecturers or professors and those who “teach” teachers or school administrators are called presenters, speakers, trainers, or consultants. In the educational hierarchy “professing” or “presenting” to adults seems to be regarded by many as a higher-order responsibility than “teaching” young people.

The unthinking use of these terms and the conceptual frames they represent also provide a clue about a source of leaders’ low expectations for the “presentations” that continue to dominate the professional development of hundreds of thousands of educators each year.

Consider the verbs hidden within those “higher-order” nouns—lecture, profess, present, and train—teaching methods that most educators who have thought much about it would like to see minimized in K-12 classrooms.

A speaker or presenter’s job seems to be, well, presenting information—as in “This is the content I will be delivering in this session”—rather than ensuring learning. That’s probably why I cringe a bit inside each time I am introduced as a “presenter.” I once asked a group, “If I am your presenter, then what are you?” They responded, almost as one, “The audience.” No one said, “Your students.” While many presenters work hard to involve their audiences in some way, more often than not PowerPoints rich with information dominate the session, and the cognitive demand on participants is typically low.

Presentations—including brief ones that we call speeches—do have a value. Leaders can offer them judiciously to provide a sense of direction and provide inspiration to the school community. Presentations can help educators decide where they want to invest time and resources to achieve important goals.

But with few exceptions, presentations—because of their typically brief and superficial nature—do not change beliefs, create deep understanding, or cultivate new habits of mind or behavior because they are seldom truly intended to achieve those ends. And if those are the expressed purposes of a “presentation,” let’s then call it what it is—teaching.

I know that for too many educators presentations rather than careful teaching are the sum and substance of their professional development, which is another reason why I cringe when the title “presenter” is used in reference to me. And because what we observe is usually is more persuasive than what we are told, it’s easy for “audience” members to walk away believing that this approach must be the best one to use in classrooms and faculty meetings, where teacher and administrator talk too often dominates.

Presentations cannot replace teaching. Receiving information is not a substitute for the intellectually rigorous engagement required to think and act differently in ways that benefit all students.

That why I’d like to see the term “teacher” used whenever student learning is the primary purpose, no matter whether the students are 5 years old or 55. When meaningful learning and continuous improvement in practice is the goal, there are only teachers and students. And no more cringing.

Managing our micromanaging

Bondi Beach, Sydney/Dennis Sparks

[C]ompetence trust involves acknowledging people’s skills and abilities, allowing people to make decisions, involving others and seeking their input, and helping people learn skills. —Dennis Reina & Michelle Reina

Successful school leaders delegate responsibility to others and develop and support those individuals so that they can successfully fulfill their responsibilities. A major barrier to distributed leadership is micromanagement, an all-too-common practice that undermines leaders’ effectiveness and ultimately the ability of schools to achieve their most important goals.

While micromanagement is an insidious and destructive practice, micromanagers often minimize the long-term damage inflicted by their behavior because they believe it is essential in achieving important goals. In short, they believe others will fail unless they are constantly told what to do.

Micromanaging has two primary causes, at least in my experience. The first is that leaders micromanage to deal with their own anxieties about organizational performance—they feel better if they are continuously directing and monitoring others’ actions. The second cause is lack of trust—micromanagers often don’t believe that others will do what they say they will do or that they are capable of successfully completing a task or discharging a responsibility.

Micromanaging is dispiriting. It robs the organization of energy as leaders spread their anxieties far and wide and sow the seeds for even more distrust within the organization. Micromanaging undermines organizational performance because rather than tapping and developing the talents of others, it subtly and not so subtly conveys the message, “You are not capable.”

Given that the insidious effects of micromanaging are often unrecognized by its perpetrators, it behooves each of us to look deep into our own leadership heart to consider its presence and to ask trusted colleagues to tell us if they observe us micromanaging the work of others. And if we should discover its presence, now is a good time to find more productive ways to manage our anxieties and to cultivate the habits of delegating, developing, and supporting others.

The power of declarative sentences

Sydney Opera House/Dennis Sparks

We find comfort from those who agree with us, growth from those who do not. —Anon

Knowing when and how to have “crucial conversations” with others in the school community is a core leadership responsibility. Because such conversations surface difficult issues related to teaching, learning, and relationships, it’s understandable that leaders may want to avoid them because of the strong emotions that may ensue when “elephants in the room” are acknowledged and addressed.

An essential skill in conducting such conversations is the ability to formulate simple declarative sentences that offer an observation, declare a value, state an assumption, explain an idea, or make a request and to be willing to learn and be changed by the views of others. Many leaders, however, default in such situations to asking questions rather stating their points of view.

While a well-phrased and appropriately-timed question can pique interest, focus attention, establish an extended line of inquiry, and deepen understanding, questions can also be veiled forms of advice giving (“Have you ever thought of . . .?”) or indirect expressions of points of view (a recent New Yorker cartoon shows a panel of speakers on a stage whose moderator says to the audience, “We’d like to open the floor to shorter speeches disguised as questions.”).

Sometimes questions are the best way to open a difficult conversation, particularly when the questions are open and honest, as Parker Palmer recommends. In addition, leaders may choose to ask questions so as not to unduly influence the direction of a conversation by offering their views prematurely.

In my experience, though, leaders often ask questions because they haven’t engaged in the intellectually-demanding task of determining their point of view on a subject or because they wish to avoid conflict. As a result, the school community may never really know their views on important subjects and can only speculate about what leaders really think.

For all these reasons, I recommend that whenever possible leaders honestly and directly state their points of view in the spirit of mutual influence and learning, an approach that is very different from issuing directives or telling people what to think. Questions are replaced with declarative sentences that clearly and succinctly offer an observation, state an assumption or value, explain an idea, or make a request.

Having stated their views, leaders listen carefully to the perspectives of others and remain open to having their views changed. When offered within collaborative and trusting cultures communication improves, timely and meaningful learning occurs, and areas of agreement and disagreement are identified for further exploration.

As you plan a faculty meeting or other event, consider stating your views on the subject at hand in simple, direct, and concise declarative sentences. Offer your point of view as “your truth,” not “THE TRUTH.” Seek with genuine interest the views of others and to understand those views, believing that you can learn from what others in the school community have to say. Spend the vast majority of the time listening, not talking.

At first participants in such conversation may hear the leader’s views as THE TRUTH or as directives, particularly if the school has a history of authoritarian leadership. But with a bit of practice, a dialogue-based approach provides a reliable venue for “crucial conversations” that deepen understanding, promote the continuous improvement of teaching and learning, and enrich relationships. Such conversations are an essential feature of high-performance cultures.

The core, essential ingredients of continuous improvement

 

Sydney Opera House/Dennis Sparks

 

Compulsion makes hypocrites, not converts. —Thomas Jefferson

Over the years I have heard some teachers say, “I taught it, but the students didn’t learn it.” My response was fairly simple: “The teaching isn’t over until the students have learned it.”

Over the years I’ve also heard some leaders say something similar: “I’ve told teachers why change is important. I’ve even told them exactly what I want them to do, but they resist.” My response is to offer some or all of the following thoughts.

There are at least four ways for leaders to attempt to improve teaching and learning, most of which don’t work. The first is to tell people what to do and to require compliance. While mandates may sometimes be necessary, force and fear don’t work because it is difficult for supervisors to monitor the day-to-day behavior of teachers and because mandates by their very nature provoke resistance and passive-aggressive behavior.

The second method, I explain, is to attempt to persuade people by offering a rationale and evidence for the need to change. While this approach can be useful as part of an broader strategy, facts alone are insufficient because they typically don’t touch the heart in ways that promote positive energy and long-term commitment. (LINK)

A third method, I tell leaders, is the use of financial incentives—sometimes called pay for performance—to induce educators to work harder and smarter. While an overhaul of the compensation system in education is long overdue, to date there is little evidence that incentive systems improve the quality of teaching and learning for the benefit of all students.

Which brings me to the fourth approach—intellectually rigorous, sustained professional learning that alters beliefs and creates deep understanding and new habits of mind and behavior. Its primary methods are dialogue-based conversations within the school community about assumptions, values, evidence, ideas, and practices; teamwork focusing on stretching goals for student achievement; and one-to-one assistance and feedback provided by instructional coaches.

I explain to leaders that whatever combination of methods are used, I believe that the core, essential ingredients of sustained improvement efforts that benefit all students are skillful leadership, a morally-compelling purpose, strong teamwork, and professional learning focused on improving student performance.

I conclude my response to leaders frustrated by resistance to change by saying that directives, persuasion, and incentives cannot work without those ingredients. And when skillful leadership, purpose, teamwork, and professional learning are present, they are sufficient in most settings to produce the kinds of schools to which we would eagerly send our own children.

Innovation provides an opportunity for leaders to shape culture

 

Sydney Harbour/Dennis Sparks

 

Culture trumps innovation. But that doesn’t mean that leaders must wait until the culture is “right” before they introduce innovations.

Because school culture is often invisible to those who work within it, innovations often reveal cultural features that interfere with the continuous improvement of teaching and learning for the benefit of all students.

For instance, an innovation based on a growth mindset that stipulates that ability is like a muscle that can be developed through effort may arrive in a culture that believes that intelligence is a fixed commodity that is either present or absent in students. Or, the introduction of professional learning communities may reveal low levels of trust among teachers or between teachers and administrators.

When innovation brings particular aspects of the school culture into sharper focus, leaders can describe the cultural features they observe, share assumptions regarding the effects of those features on teaching and student learning, and engage the community in relevant professional learning or other appropriate activities intended to shape the culture in a positive direction.

In the hands of skillful leaders innovations can serve as tools that not only improve teaching and learning but enable the culture to shift in ways that sustain and deepen those innovations over many months and years.