8 mindless ways to undermine teaching and learning

Educational mindlessness can take many forms.

Here are 8 ways in which it can harm both the students and adults in our schools:

1. Mindless views of teaching and learning that reduce them  to formulas and scripts, robbing the teaching-learning process of its complexity and nuance.

2. Mindless teaching that says that one method is as good as another and that it is acceptable to continue to do the same things over and over again no matter what the outcome.

3. Mindless programs and practices which are not aligned with expressed values and goals.

4. Mindless development of and adherence to bureaucratic rules and regulations that do not serve the best interests of students.

5. Mindless lack of concern about the effects of one’s words and actions on others.

6. Mindless references to research, such as “research says…,” with little understanding of the implications and limitations of that research.

7. Mindless meetings that discuss the obvious and debate the trivial.

8. Mindless professional development that does little to strengthen professional judgment, deepen understanding, and create new habits of mind and practice that benefit students.

What would you add to my list?

6 ways you can influence others

The most common question I’m asked by system administrators, principals, and teacher leaders is some variation of, “The people I work with are unwilling to change, and I don’t know what to do to get them to open their minds.”

Put another way, these leaders are interested in being more influential.

I respond that while countless articles and books have been written on that subject, and that there are no formulas, I can offer a few suggestions for their consideration.

1. Leaders can make demands. While demands are occasionally necessary, they only work in a very narrow set of circumstances, and their long-term effects are usually limited. Demands won’t work, of course, unless there are meaningful negative consequences that will be invoked for noncompliance.

2. Leaders can make requests. Motivation is increased when individuals feel that are choosing a course of action rather than being required to do it. That means that often the most direct and effective way to motivate others is simply to ask them to do something. The key is to invite, not to require. The energy created can be astounding, although it may take a while for members of demand-oriented cultures to believe that there will be no negative consequences for declining the request.

3. Leaders can delegate meaningful responsibilities and provide the necessary developmental experiences and support to enable success. Tapping the strengths and resources of others is a multiplier of leaders’ direct influence, particularly when distributing leadership improves the performance of teams within schools.

4. Leaders can engage in dialogue. Dialogue is most effective when participants listen carefully to one another as assumptions are surfaced and examined in the spirit of inquiry, not judgment. When those conditions are met, conversations move to deeper levels and participants slowly open their minds to new perspectives. In this way, leaders can initiate “crucial conversations” that respectfully perturb the status quo.

5. Leaders can share stories that illuminate important values, ideas, and practices. Because human beings are hardwired to listen to and be affected by stories, storytelling is often a way around emotional and cognitive resistance to new ideas and practices.

6. Leaders can provide novel experiences to promote breakthrough thinking in which everything about a subject is viewed in a fresh and more empowering way. Such experiences – like well-designed field trips for students – are only useful, however, when participants are appropriately prepared for them through dialogue and background reading and when extended opportunities are provided to reflect on the meaning and significance of the experience.

What would you add to my “starter list” of ideas to increase leaders’ influence?

Why it’s important for leaders to believe in teachers’ capacity for growth

Many school leaders believe that virtually all students can learn at higher levels given skillful teaching, time, and persistent effort.

But I’m not sure, however, that all leaders believe that virtually all teachers can learn to teach in ways that enable high levels of student learning.

Let me tell you a story:

Some years ago I was working with a group of 50 or so teacher leaders in a large U.S. city. I asked them a question I often asked in such settings: “How many of you believe that virtually all students can learn more than was previously expected of them and that it is their teachers’ responsibility to teach them?” Every hand in the room immediately went up.

My next question was one I had never asked before: “How many of you believe that virtually all teachers can learn how to teach in ways that enable higher levels of student learning?”

An unanticipated pandemonium broke out in the room as some participants vociferously expressed their confidence that they could prepare teachers to be more successful with all students while others complained loudly that my questions had unfairly lead them into a trap.

One teacher leader said, “How can we expect teachers to teach at high levels if we don’t believe we can successfully prepare them to do so?”

Another said, looking at me, “You don’t understand the teachers we have here. They are often poorly prepared and unmotivated.”

A provocative and soul-searching conversation ensued as it shifted back and forth between those two broad perspective — “of course we can” and “it is unfair to expect us to be successful with these teachers” — in the same way that it might occur among teachers discussing their responsibility for the learning of all their students.

A year or so later one of the event’s organizers told me that discussion related to the issue of teacher leaders’ expectations for their colleagues arose in one form or another at many of their meetings that school year.

I was pleased to hear that because it is a critically important issue.

Just as it’s essential for principals and teacher leaders to believe that student learning can be improved by skillful teaching, it’s essential that principals and teacher leaders believe that through well-designed professional development and teamwork virtually all teachers can become effective, if not masterful.

Believing in the capacity of students to learn at higher levels without a parallel belief in the capacity of teachers to successfully teach them — given appropriate support — can only lead to frustration and failure.

Put another way: Leaders’ belief in teachers’ capacity to perform at higher levels + appropriate support = student success.

Do you agree with my assessment, or not?

How understanding the “knowing-doing continuum” can improve the quality of professional learning

I have divided professional learning outcomes into these five levels of the “knowing-doing continuum”:

1. Learning about: This is the adult version of “covering the content.” It is often expressed by the phrase “I had…” [During the 1980s I so often heard "I had Madeline Hunter" that I almost (but not quite) felt honor bound to tell Mr. Hunter about the rumors regarding his wife.]

2. Shallow understanding: The best example I can think of was a participant in a cooperative learning workshop who wrote on an evaluation: “I think this is a good idea, but you made us work in groups too much.”

3. Deep understanding: Learners can explain the idea or practice in some detail. They can also explain its benefits and limitations.

4. Experimenting with new behaviors/practices: The learner tries it out in the classroom or other setting to determine its effectiveness, sometimes with the guidance of an instructional coach or more experienced peer.

5. Developing new habits: Repetition over many weeks and perhaps months make the new practice routine and under teachers executive control, enabling them to determine when and how to use it.

I am sad to say…

…that based on my observations the vast majority of professional learning for teachers and administrators remains at levels 1 and 2. There are exceptions, of course, but they remain exceptions rather than the rule. (Please see my previous post to better understand the distinction between professional development and professional learning.)

The reason is fairly simple: Those who plan and finance professional learning continue to vastly underestimate the amount of time, energy, and resources that are required for a substantial number of educators to acquire the new habits of mind and behavior necessary to meaningfully improve teaching and learning for all students.

The solution requires planners of professional learning to take their responsibilities seriously:

• They study professional literature, particularly Learning Forward’s Standards for Professional Learning.
• They vow to do it right.
• They have hard conversations about current reality.
• They have hard conversations about what will be required to get to deep understanding and the development of new professional habits of mind and practice.
• They assess their progress in changing instructional practice and improving student learning.

Our students—particularly those in our most challenged communities and schools—deserve no less.

Do you agree with my observation and with the solution I propose to the perennial problem of low-quality professional learning?

Why it’s essential to begin professional relationships with integrity

In Flawless Consulting, Peter Block wrote, “…when we bend over in the beginning [of a consulting relationship], we are seen by the client as someone who works in a bent-over position. When we avoid issues in the beginning, we are seen as someone who avoids issues.”

In a 1992 JSD interview I did with Block, he added: “We teach clients by our own actions how to work with us. It’s more difficult to renegotiate a relationship than to start it standing up in the first place.”

Block was cautioning consultants not to compromise their standards and/or integrity in the early phases of a relationship because of the likely long-term negative consequences of doing so to both the relationship and to the quality of their work.

That advice has lost none of its validity over the past 20 years and continues to have value for educators in various roles and settings.

Walking bent over has implications for:

• Teachers as they begin the school year or semester with a new group of students. (Teachers have long been told that it’s easier to ease rules and routines than it is to tighten up.)

• Novice principals as they begin their first leadership assignments.

• Experienced principals as they begin in new schools.

• Instructional coaches as they begin their work with teachers.

• Internal and external consultants as they begin their work with teams, schools, or school systems.

There are many reasons for becoming bent over in new relationships:

• A reluctance to make demands early in a relationship before an emotional bank account has been established.

• Anxiety about possible conflict;

• A lack of confidence in one’s point of view and/or skills;

• The desire to be perceived as a good team player;

• The importance of going along to get along; and

• The belief that initial problems can be easily remedied later.

What’s required to stand up straight…

It is essential that teachers, administrators, coaches, and consultants begin long-term relationships with crystal clarity about the desired outcomes of the work, the responsibilities of all parties to the “contract,” and the aspects of the work that are non-negotiable if it is to be successful.

In addition, courage may be required to suspend the work if agreements are not kept and integrity is compromised.

Standing up is difficult once we begin a relationship bent over. Walking away from work once begun that doesn’t ultimately serve the “clients” (which, in schools, almost always ultimately means students) is never easy.

That’s why it is critically important to begin new relationships with clarity, authenticity, and integrity.

As is true with almost everything in schools, students will be the ultimate beneficiary of our upright posture.

The “everyday leadership” of “tempered radicals”

Jim Knight is well-known to many of my readers. For those who don’t know him, he is well-regarded for his expertise in teaching and instructional coaching and for his books and “Radical Learner” blog.

So I was particularly honored when Jim invited me to prepare a guest post for his blog, which he has just published. It is titled “The ‘everyday leadership’ of ‘tempered radicals,’” and it begins:

“Radical learners” may sometimes feel like outsiders even when they hold important positions within their schools. Debra Meyerson uses the term “tempered radicals” to describe such individuals, and it is also the name of a book she wrote based on studies she has done on TRs, as she calls them.

Drawing on Meyerson’s Tempered Radicals and a 2005 interview I did with her for the JSD, I offer a set of attributes about “everyday leadership” so that “radical learners” can be even more effective in using their unique talents and perspectives to serve students and their school communities.

I encourage you to continue reading this essay on Jim’s blog…

“Inservice” as a near-death experience

I hope that I die during an inservice because the transition between life and death would be so subtle. —Original source unknown

I first heard that simple but profound joke 25 or more years ago. It remains as likely to draw laughs from appreciative educators today as it was then.

For far too many educators “inservice” continues to be a dreaded, near-death experience, an event that is often mind numbing and disrespectful of their professional judgment.

Consequently, it’s not surprising that my most widely-viewed post was titled “Mindless professional learning produces mindless teaching.”

Before I have my own real-death experience, somewhere far down the road, I hope that:

• A day will come, sooner rather than later, when educators fail to see the humor of this joke. “What does it mean to be ‘inserviced’?” they will ask.

• Educators will no longer think of professional learning as something they leave their work to do, an add-on to their primary responsibility of teaching.

• Teachers’ professional learning will be inseparable from the primary tasks of their work—planning for instruction, assessing student progress using various sources of evidence, reflecting on the effectiveness of their methods in achieving valued outcomes, and continuously improving teaching and learning with their colleagues in cultures of interpersonal accountability.

While there are pockets of excellence, my experience and perusal of the professional literature—where the same core problems are raised year after year, decade after decade—tell me that for the vast majority of educators professional development has shown little improvement in spite of the herculean efforts of many individuals, professional associations, and foundations.

Fortunately, however, it is possible for school leaders and leadership teams to make dramatic improvements in the quality of professional learning and in meaningful collaboration within two or three years.

All that’s required is intention, a serious study of effective professional learning practices, a willingness to learn from the successful efforts of others, and a cultural ethos of continuous improvement.

Large and challenging tasks, I know, but ones that are within the circle of influence of school leaders who are serious about the quality of teaching and of learning for all students every day.

When “good enough” is the best

Sometimes it is important for teachers and school leaders to continuously improve their performance. That’s particularly true when continuous improvement affects the life prospects of young people.

At other times, it is important that educators accept the standard of “good enough.” That’s particularly true when striving for perfection prevents them from having the time or energy to focus on high-leverage areas in their professional and personal lives.

While there are things we want done perfectly—say, brain surgery or the landing of a commercial aircraft—and other things we may want to continuously improve—say, the overall quality of teaching or leadership—there are some areas for which the pursuit of perfection produces stress and interferes with the achievement of important goals.

Here’s an example: Let’s say it takes me two hours to draft a blog post to a 90% standard of quality. If I invest two more hours in polishing it, I may achieve 95%. Two more hours, and perhaps I could reach 97%. I have clearly reached a point of diminishing returns.

If I can accept the “good enough” standard of 90%, I could produce three blog posts at 90% instead of just one at 97%.

The decision about whether to pursue “continuous improvement” or “good enough” is to a large degree situational.

Sometimes it is important to relentlessly pursue improved performance and outcomes.

At other times it’s desirable to lower one’s standards, particular when those standards interfere with our overall performance, create stress for ourselves and others, and deplete energy rather than create it.

The challenge, of course, is to acquire the wisdom to discern when an attitude of “good enough” strengthens individual performance and the well-being of the school community and when “continuous improvement” is essential to the development of human and organizational potential.

What aspects of your life and work would benefit from a “good enough” perspective, and which require an attitude of “continuous improvement?”

 

Choose continuous improvement over “good enough”

Successful leadership can sometimes be reduced to a small number of fundamental choices. Once those choices are made, they guide decisions and behavior in dozens of situations each week.

One of those choices is between continuous improvement and “good enough.”

Individuals and organizations are either improving or declining. They cannot sustain a steady state of performance for an extended period of time.

Continuous improvement is based on the assumption that is possible and desirable to find more effective and efficient ways to achieve important goals. It requires improving the processes of teaching or leadership and the acquisition of skills that improve both the quality of instruction and its outcomes.

The attitude of “good enough” views the status quo as either desirable or inevitable. It is closely linked to resignation in that individuals may believe that meaningful improvement is impossible.

“Good enough” asks us to do nothing more than accept the limitations of our current beliefs, understandings, and practices.

Continuous improvement has several benefits: 

• Students and the broader school community benefit with improved learning and stronger, more supportive relationships.

• When educators are successful, they feel energized, which fuels further improvement.

• School communities that are continuously improving are appealing places to learn, teach, and lead.

Conversely, when an attitude of “good enough” becomes embedded in the belief system of the culture, it limits the life chances of students and creates a slow-death spiral of energy within the school community.

In that sense, choosing continuous improvement is a moral imperative.

Choose “considered judgment” over “raw opinion”

Successful leadership can sometimes be reduced to a small number of fundamental choices. Once those choices are made, they guide decisions and behavior in dozens of situations each week.

One of those choices is between “considered judgement” and “raw opinion.”

“Considered judgment” means that we carefully consider the complexity of the problems we face and weigh the possible intended and unintended consequences of alternative solutions.

Considered judgment is often achieved when groups slow down the problem-solving process to fully understand the problem, consider the costs and benefits of various possible solutions, and choose the best-possible course of action.

“Raw opinion” means responding to problems with the first idea that comes to mind, which often then leads to defending that point of view with strong emotion. Many social and professional conversations, unfortunately, consist of individuals sharing and defending  raw opinions regarding poorly-defined problems and vaguely-understood solutions.

Considered judgment offers several benefits:

• Because decision making is slowed down and issues are fully explored, participants are able to make informed commitments to a course of action, commitments which are more likely to be long-term.

• Because decision making is transparent, trust is increased.

• Because important decisions are carefully considered, resources are far more likely to be invested wisely.

Considered judgment is demanding. It asks participants to be open to and explore alternative points of view. It requires that they thoughtfully weigh evidence and seek consensus on a course of action.

But when school communities understand the benefits of considered judgment and use various problem-finding tools and decision-making protocols to support their work, students will be the beneficiaries.

[A note to readers: My blog will be taking an Easter-week break and will resume on Tuesday, April 9, 2013.]