One Person, Three Themes

Posted on November 8, 2011 by sutterlearn

Last week I experienced a presentation from Jane Mutatu of Zimbabwe.  I say “experienced” because her story is not one merely to be heard.  It is a tale to savor as you would final moments with a loved one, knowing that things will never be the same but different, empowered, better for the time spent together. 

Jane nursed relatives dying from diseases related to the HIV epidemic in Africa.  The protein she provided through animal products fueled the diseases that would ultimately cause her family to perish.  Unable to abide by this pattern, Jane sought out physicians and scientists who guided her to experiment with soybean as a form of protein.  Soybean, previously frowned upon in Africa as uncommon food for animals or the poor, provided the protein necessary to keep Jane’s family alive.  Day by day, as her experience with soy grew, so did her influence as neighbors watched her family living longer.  Since 1998, Jane influenced and trained 100 local women in her country, which ultimately spread to 10,000 women across the continent using the benefits of soy to buy more time with their loved ones.

Theme 1: Celebrate Small Wins with Perspective – Jane began working with soy when her sister became ill with HIV.  Each day she would pray for “just one more day” for those soybeans to grow and her sister to live.  Each day, her nieces and nephews would rush home from school, then quietly peek over their mother’s bed to see if she was yet breathing.  Jane imitated the happy dance and grin those children did each day their mother lived.  I can only imagine my kids’ happy dance when we decide on pizza for dinner or a new birthday present.  Educators, parents, children…give yourself grace and celebrate those small wins as they occur each day.  Things could be a lot worse.

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Theme 3: Just Talk to Each Other – Jane touched me with her story at a meeting designed to help teachers learn about cross-cultural education.  Among the attendees were people from many different countries.  When folks from China and Korea heard this story, they were amazed as their cultures have used the benefits of soy for ages.  In fact, the exact processing machines Jane was looking to acquire are apparently a staple appliance in homes across Asia.  That’s serendipity.

Listen deeply.

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New Language

Posted on November 7, 2011 by sutterlearn

Flooding, blending, flipping, pull out, push in, strengthen the core, on and on goes the new vernacular of schooling, marching its way to become tomorrow’s cliché or maybe it already is. Through this new language comes new understanding about problems, new and old…growing understanding that runs much deeper than the novel terms we conjure.  To get there, I thought it might be useful to begin assigning some simple definitions to words I find us throwing around lately (no acronyms or mnemonics!):

intervention – teaching targeted on specific skills a student is lacking

flooding – pooling teaching resources in a coordinated schedule to create smaller groups of students for targeted interventions

pull out – when an intervention teacher teaches a small group away from their class

push in – when an intervention teacher joins a classroom as a second teacher to support students

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blending – a hybrid model of classroom instruction and online instruction

flipping – assigning video or text lectures of content as homework, then spending classroom time working with the content in experimental, hands-on, or otherwise application of the learning, flipping homework and classwork

balanced calendar – spacing out the typical 180 days of instruction to include longer breaks and a shorter summer break so that the calendar is balanced; inaccurately called “year-round” school

Since many of my readers include non-educators, please feel free to reply with your questions or additions of other terminology you’ve heard.  We can define them with you, for you, or learn from you!

Posted in Coaching, Teachers | Leave a comment

Aha Moments (for teachers)

Posted on October 29, 2011 by sutterlearn

As teachers evaluate all of the new “stuff” continuously coming at us, it is part of our make up to reflect upon how this affects what we do individually.   When teachers have our own “aha moments” it is as exciting as when we see it in students.  The difference is that when we come to such a new understanding, we realize that it can change how we think, which might mean that changing how we act is right around the corner and that’s scary at first.

This week I watched this glorious, scary realization unfold from a group of teachers; some speaking it, some nodding in hesitant acceptance, some staring from an unidentified stage in their own journeys of thinking.  As a group we had just reviewed a new tool for teaching spelling, a brief 20-minute section of their teaching day.  Through this group exploration, we began to realize how this once separate activity of word work might better inform our understanding of students’ needs as readers.  This, in turn, led to the scary discussion of how to re-shape the familiar into a new necessity.  One colleague stated, “This is a new thought to me, but if we really want to teach each student where they are, I can no longer think of the 30 kids in my classroom.  I have to think about the 450 kids in my building as my students.”

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When we arrive at “aha moments” like this together, we realize that if we approach traditionally micro-level teaching with a philosophy of macro-level success, we cannot help but teach differently and organize differently.  It expects that we cannot evaluate or be evaluated on what we do in our classroom as individuals if our expectation is to grow our students as a community of learners.

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No Substitute for Perspective

Posted on October 26, 2011 by sutterlearn

Perspective is a compassionate activity of viewing your situation from another’s position or viewing their situation relative to your own.  Lately, I’ve been doing a lot of observing from other people’s perspectives.

Recently I worked with a substitute teacher going through an entire lesson from our new elementary reading program.  My task was to view it from the perspective of both a child participating in the learning and a teacher planning for the lesson.  The twenty pages of the published lesson plan were daunting from either perspective.  I watched this teacher glide through the objectives with a smile, creating a flow of active engagement and a room of participating learners.  It became very easy for me to see the lesson as a child.  I was immersed in her delivery.  When I snapped back into my role as teacher tasked with planning the lesson better, I had a hard time considering efficiencies.  She had taken a task that had frustrated even the most experienced teachers I know and fit it into less than the required time, resulting in student work showing every bit of what was expected from a room of first-graders, by and large. I was impressed to say the least, until we debriefed on the lesson, then I was flabbergasted.
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She smiled knowingly as I shared my understanding of the hours of reading and preparation other teachers are putting into this work.  She smiled, every bit as genuinely, as she explained how she leaves her teaching job to work a retail shift at night, to further support her family.  Through it all, she smiled.  Sometimes, when things are hard, when we feel so tired, when we think we couldn’t possibly be being effective, we need perspective…and a smile.

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What Is A Coach? (3of3)

Posted on October 18, 2011 by sutterlearn

This is the third in a three-part series of posts examining my evolving understanding of the “transformational/instructional coach” role that is new in our district, based directly on conversations I have had.

Teacher Friend: You’ve never taught in my (grade/subject/building/classroom) and I’ve done it for years, but now you’re the expert coming to “coach” me?

Me: Hardly.

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The title coach is rooted in athletics.  While I’m not athletic, or even that competitive, I realized the significance of the different roles in sports that apply here.  A coach is not the star player, but is a person who brings out the best in his or her team.   A coach can go to virtually any team or sport and be as effective because they are in the business of helping others be their best.

Did you ever hear of a top-notch athlete who was forced to be awesome?  It doesn’t happen.  No one can impose “coaching” upon someone who doesn’t want to collaborate and look for something better.  That just doesn’t make sense.  Athletes come to coaches because they share a love for playing and improving the game.  Likewise, without a team, there’s really no need for a coach.

The coach is hardly the expert.  That’s why great teachers are working, because they are the experts!  Most experts don’t readily claim that recognition because they’re just too busy improving themselves and their craft. The coach is someone who gives experts a good listening to, then helps the expert identify the awesome they may not have seen within themselves.  Teachers do this all the time with their students.  It’s called maieutic teaching and is essentially the Socratic method.  (Socrates may have been the first instructional coach.)

Teaching is coaching; coaching is teaching.  We’re all in this together.  After the previous three posts, how do you perceive the role of “transformational/instructional coach”?

Posted in Coaching, Leadership, Teachers | 3 Comments

What Is A Coach? (2of3)

Posted on October 18, 2011 by sutterlearn

This is the second in a three-part series of posts examining my evolving understanding of the “transformational/instructional coach” role that is new in our district, based directly on conversations I have had.

Parent Friend: So what do you do in this new job?

Me: Right now I’m going to all the buildings, observing different teachers doing a new reading program and working with them to figure out what works and change what doesn’t work in it.

Parent Friend: (laughing) So you’re like “big brother”?
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Me: (not laughing) Not at all.

This comment reminded me how little outsiders know of education and how toxic their misconceptions can be.  Evaluating is an administrator’s responsibilty, not mine.  So what is the role of coach as observer?

Coaches are teachers observing how students learn, then reflecting on that with other teachers.  Coaches are teachers examining instructional inputs and student outcomes, then analyzing those with other teachers.  Coaches are teachers looking at how classrooms operate and how they could operate better and easier for kids to learn and teachers to teach.  Coaches are teachers, students, researchers, community liaisons, resource coordinators, and project managers.  Coaches are co-learners and collaborators.

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What Is A Coach? (1of3)

Posted on October 16, 2011 by sutterlearn

This is the first in a three-part series of posts examining my evolving understanding of the “transformational/instructional coach” role that is new in our district, based directly on conversations I have had.

Me: What do you think about the coach role?

Teacher Friend: The people I’ve talked to have said, “If you guys don’t know what it is, how can we?”

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This was the comment that made me realize one of the largest issues with the coaching role…it was yet unclear to the people it serves.

Schools are under unprecedented pressure to change.  Teachers are expected to perform tasks of data analysis at micro- and macro-levels…and teach.  Principals are expected to manage myriad administrative, community, and financial tasks…and improve instruction.  Districts are expected to manage policy- and socially-induced change coming at increasingly fast speeds with increasingly small budgets…and provide structure to enhance learning.   Teaching and learning are the core technology of our business, thus our specialties, but our resources have been diverted from that task to solving other problems.

As I’m finding, coaching benefits teaching and learning, the core technology of public schools, by providing resources, with a teaching orientation, to really focus on improving instruction to the exclusion of other interference.  This is a benefit as true, systemic improvement often fails to take root simply because teaching is such a labor-intensive occupation that we can’t stop what we’re doing in our classrooms or find the energy later to fully exploit operational efficiencies and nurture them to grow.  One role of the transformational/instructional coach is a progressive attempt to leverage eyes, ears, voices, and minds from inside the classroom to approach systemic educational change with a practical and student-centered sense.  The coach is a resource provided to explicitly focus on improving the core technology so that everyone else can continue delivering it.

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The Marathon Metaphor Is A Lot of Simile

Posted on October 16, 2011 by sutterlearn

It was actually my wife’s goal to complete the Detroit Half Marathon today.  I just joined her for the time it provided us alone for early morning and sunny Sunday afternoon walks together as we trained.  As I ran, I kept thinking of the metaphor we often soothe ourselves with in education, that “it’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon.”  It turns out that running such a race is a quite a fun, exhilarating and surprisingly has many parallels to public education.

In a marathon, there are thousands of participants, all starting at different times or places.  In public education, students, schools, teachers, and districts are all at different stages in our journeys of improvement and change.

In a marathon, there is a momentum of the crowd which makes you move faster than you would in training and notice your pain less than if you were on your own.  In school improvement, a collaborative staff moving as one towards a shared goal has the same effect.

In schools, “improved student outcomes” are the large, elusive finish lines that a marathon promises. We can’t forget to celebrate each pacing flag as we pass them (especially when we start in the last wave).  Passing those smaller goals is as important in the journey as finishing the race.

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In a marathon, people actually drop gear that they no longer need, right on the road.  Okay, this one’s not so similar because in schools we often keep everything and try to use it!

Education departments create complex calculations with over-simplified rankings that often mislead the public regarding the quality of education.   Our goal was to finish this race in less than three hours, and we were so pleased to cross the line at 2 hours and 71 minutes.  Data can always say what you want.

But just like in education, once you reach the end of your race that represents a goal achieved, a journey ended…your body aches, beaten up by functions you’re sure it wasn’t designed to perform, but your soul is renewed and you ironically start to think about your next race or student or improvement.

Posted in Leadership, Politics, Teachers | 1 Comment

Immediate Intervention

Posted on October 12, 2011 by sutterlearn

Schools are data rich and information poor in a lot of cases.  Thoughtfully, systematically analyzing data to inform instruction is time-consuming, then acting on those decisions and collecting more data to continue that process is tiring, but necessary in any continuous improvement process.  Teaching and learning are raw continuous improvement activities.  I’ve often thought it would be cool to individualize this process on a broad scale and recently the Kahn Academy has Letrozole (Femara) has a half-life (T1 / 2) sildenafil online purchase 2-4 days (!), And the need to take Letrozole (Femara) for 60 days to get a steady level in blood streams can cause you to suffer from various forms of health disturbances. If brand levitra 20mg you have a faith, I recommend you practice it. A few positions determine loose breathing and some call viagra in india price for Breath of Fire. Unfortunately, viagra super active not all the men can dominate because they may be suffering erectile dysfunction, a condition in which men don’t get erections. started making news for their efforts to do just this.  Check out this video to see how teachers can pinpoint student needs and respond to intervene and move learning along.  Currently, it appears the Gates Foundation and otherwise well-off schools have been able to utilize this technology…but I ask you to imagine the possibilities for helping all children learn.  The technology is out there, how can we expedite this to mainstream?

Salman Kahn

Posted in School Reform, Technology | Leave a comment

Learning Is A Process

Posted on October 6, 2011 by sutterlearn

I’ve been watching the learning process a lot lately, but I just didn’t realize it.  As some teachers I work with are learning to use a new curriculum tool, others are learning to restructure their instructional time to reteach to specific deficits, while still others are learning to teach skills well below their expectation of their students or their experience.  It is messy.  It is frustrating.  Voices rise.  Tears fall.  Blame flies. Eyes roll.

What looked initially like discomfort was learning.  Veteran teachers have told me they feel brand new, not with renewed vigor so much as renewed confusion of how to surmount unfamiliar challenges.  I have seen the emotion on teachers’ faces and heard the anguish in their pleas for black-and-white solutions, simply so their day, just one day, will feel successful and right.  Self-efficacy is an elusive fulfillment teachers need to tell ourselves that hours of hard work was worth it.

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Then a voice among us makes a new suggestion or names a central theme of our struggle.  As a group we pull at those threads until our problem unravels and in looking at the pieces over time, we begin to understand the whole in a new way.  Before we know it, the new becomes old and we become defenders of what we once deplored.  Just like that, learning happens through discomfort and turmoil, through struggle and hard work, not by doing the same things the same ways, but by trying new directions and making mistakes, learning happens.  If we think about it, from the outside in, this same uncomfortable process of learning is what we subject and expect, encourage and ensure from our students every day.  When I think about it this way I realize that what initially looks like negative energy, is very likely to be learning in process.

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