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Posts Tagged ‘teaching’

You Must Really Miss the Classroom

Posted in Change, SD45, tagged , , on October 30, 2018| 12 Comments »

Fun times hiking the Grouse Grind with Rockridge Principal Judy Duncan and more than 100 Grade 9’s earlier this fall.

If you are an administrator you have probably been asked some version of “you must really miss teaching and the kids in the classroom?”  It is often said in a way to make you feel guilty somehow, that taking a job as a principal or vice-principal, although may have more responsibility and a greater scope to your work, the insinuation is that you have lost the best part of education.

The official correct answer for “Do you miss the teaching?” is “yes”.  You are supposed to say that working with kids in the classroom is the best and I miss it every day.  Even though it is an unfair question, you are still supposed to answer it in the affirmative.

Well, when I get asked this guilt-inducing question – I say no.  No, I don’t miss teaching.  Teaching is awesome.  Most of my best friends are teachers, my parents were teachers, most of the smartest people I know are teachers.  And I loved it!

I am surrounded by teachers and I still love teaching in a K-12 classroom when I get the chance to do it.  But I don’t miss it.  Just because we love something doesn’t mean we need to do it forever, nor does it mean we miss it when we do something else.  And I don’t define teaching as something strictly with a finite group of students in the classroom over a 10 month period of time.

I have been thinking about why I loved teaching.  It comes down to purpose and satisfaction.

I actually get amazing purpose and satisfaction as an administrator.  Both at the school and district level there are significant chances to make a difference and have a great sense of accomplishment.  It is different, the feedback is far more immediate as a classroom teacher – you know right away from the students how you are doing and the difference you are making.  This satisfaction is not as easy to see, but just as powerful in other roles in the system whether you are working with one student, a group of students, teachers, parents or others in the community.

In many industries as you are successful you move up a ladder – that is far less true in education.  Education is one of those funny jobs around the notion of promotion.  It is not really true that becoming an administrator after being a teacher is a promotion.  They are two different jobs and while some people are good at both, I have seen great teachers become mediocre administrators and teachers who were just OK in the classroom become excellent school and district administrators.

And the suggestion that you are removed from young people once you become an administrator is just not true, at least not if you don’t want it to be true.  I have been in about 30 classrooms so far this fall – working with teachers, learning with and from students, and ensuring I know how the decisions I make are influencing teachers and students.  You can be the administrator who is removed from kids, I guess.  But that would be your choice – we all make choices on how we spend our time in our work.

I love my current job, but I often tell people my absolute favourite job in the system was high school principal.  Being in a school of 1400 students, with over 120 adults coming together everyday – exhausting, exhilarating, challenging and on most days a lot of fun.  And never once did I think I had given up “kids” for a job.  This feeling continues to this day in my current role.

As we finish-up celebrating National Principals’ Month (October), here is to all the great school and district leaders who are working with and for students everyday. I am lucky to work with so many awesome ones in West Vancouver!

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A Job at Google or a Principal Job in West Vancouver?

Posted in Change, SD45, tagged , , , , , , , on March 11, 2014| 10 Comments »

Google

Thomas Friedman recently wrote a piece in the New York Times on “How to Get a Job at Google.”  As I read the comments of Laszlo Bock, the Senior Vice President of People Operations for Google, the more I found that Google is looking for many of the same attributes in its employees that we are looking for in West Vancouver, when we hire principals and vice-principals.

One of the more common questions I am asked is just what does someone need to do to secure a school principal or vice-principal job?  The truth is there is no one thing or an exact path.  In West Vancouver we do receive dozens of applications for any job opening, and many of these candidates have all the required boxes checked for what is needed in these leadership positions.  Many who apply believe there is a certain ‘formula’ in getting a job as a principal or vice-principal, but I haven’t seen it yet. I have heard,  “you need to be on district committees,” or “you need to have experience in multiple schools; to have experience in different subjects and at different grades.” And the list goes on.  In the end, our view is similar to that of Bock, “Talent can come in so many different forms and be built in so many non-traditional ways today.”

Bock identifies five key attributes in hiring:

  • learning ability — the ability to pull together disparate bits of information and process on the fly
  • leadership — when faced with a problem at the appropriate time you step in and lead
  • ownership — the feeling of responsibility
  • humility — the ability to step back and embrace the better ideas of others
  • expertise — it is important, but less important than the other four

The list really speaks to the skills we are looking for with our school administrators and the kind of attributes we are seeking in our leaders. We want them to be able to be smart and make decisions on the fly; to lead — not only from the front, but to feel like their school is theirs; to step back and allow others to share in the success and, finally, to have the expertise in many of the learning and management areas that are regular parts of the job.  Friedman is right, “In an age when innovation is increasingly a group endeavour, it also cares about a lot of soft skills – leadership, humility, collaboration, adaptability and loving to learn.”  This is why we almost always ask candidates about who is in their network and how they learn with their colleagues. We want our buildings to be about learning, and that includes our leaders being model learners themselves.

And, really, this entire list and conversation extends to the qualities we are looking for in our teachers. We want our teachers to be innovators, leaders, and owners of their classroom. We do want them to be humble and, yes, we want expertise — but I will take someone with the other four qualities and lacking in expertise rather than the reverse, any day. Good grades don’t hurt, but we are looking for more than that with our teachers and educational leaders.  I agree with the notion Friedman shares, “Your degree is not a proxy for your ability to do any job.  The world only cares about – and pays off on – what you can do with what you know.”

Of course, the teaching, principal and vice-principal jobs in West Vancouver involves different perks than Google (sorry about that) but it looks like we are looking for many of the same qualities.

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The Halfway Point

Posted in Change, Technology, tagged , , , on January 28, 2014| 8 Comments »

halfway

There are some magic numbers in education — two numbers often referenced are 90 and 35.  A teacher can retire with an unreduced pension when their age and seniority equals to 90.  If I continue teaching, this will come for me when I am 56.  If I wait one more year I will have 35 years of teaching, and be able to retire with a full pension. And, why am I thinking and writing about this now? Because this month I am at 17.5 years — the halfway point of my teaching career.  Yes, there are a lot of “what-ifs”, but if I continue to have a career in education, and the rules remain the same, I am likely moving into the second half of my career.

Reflecting on the first-half of my career, my first classroom was an old art room at McRoberts Secondary School in Richmond.  The school was undergoing renovations and the art wing was going to be torn down — in the meantime, I set up my first year classroom.  At 22 years-of-age, I was returning to the junior high I attended with my Social Studies and English background, teaching a load of junior Math and Science.  I absolutely loved that first year. I can remember each of my seven blocks of students.  We had chalkboards, no computers in the classroom, and criteria-based assessment was a huge focus.  I was blessed with great mentors and soaked up professional development.  I remember often defaulting to how I was taught, but I learned so much from some of the amazing teachers in the school.  I have previously documented the change in my teaching here.

Flash forward to today, and I struggle with the question “so, what’s changed?”  I was in three of our West Van schools last Friday and they definitely look a lot different from my first classroom.  Physically, the chalkboards are gone and in many places the white boards are gone as well.  All the teachers have technology.  For me, technology in that first year was mostly email and mark calculations.  Now, I see teachers regularly using video, encouraging students to comment on class blogs and engaging with students and parents as part of the school-home communication cycle.  Classrooms are louder than what I remember from my first classes — I hear the regular buzz of active engagement.  And, the teacher-student relationship is shifting. I could feel the shift when I started teaching — it was different from when I was a student, and it is different again today; there is a sense that students and teacher are all learners — in it together.

I also see some of the same challenges.  Half a career later, we are still looking to improve the transitions from elementary schools and limit the number of different teacher contacts grade 8 students have during the day. We are challenging the structure of the traditional timetable limiting flexibility, to connect the learning experience to what is happening in the world.  To say schools haven’t changed would be unfair.  In some ways they are very similar — the calendar is almost identical to 1996, but in other ways there have been huge changes.  In almost every class I visit I get a sense of increased student ownership of the learning. This was not really part of my thinking as I began my career; I definitely started teaching feeling I needed to be the expert, but that thinking has also changed over time. I also see far more choice in what students are learning, when they do their learning and how they show and share what they have learned.  The access to technology for students is really shifting us from content providers in schools to those who make sense of ideas.  And, it also needs to be noted, that the call for more resources to support our schools is very similar.

All that said, I do hope the second half of my career continues to look very different from the first half.  I am one who thinks the speed of change will increase, but the school as the face-to-face gathering place will remain essential.  It’s not that we haven’t been doing the right things, just that doing the right things is changing — as our world changes.  I am excited by BC’s leadership around curriculum and reporting, heartened by efforts to encourage students to use their technology for learning, and continually bolstered by the fact that those of us who call ourselves “teachers” in this province are a committed, passionate and curious group of people.

Of course, I am also a little depressed — I have somewhat enjoyed the word “young” in the first sentence of descriptions about me, whether it was the young teacher, young administrator, or young superintendent. And, now I am coming to grips with being part of the “older” crowd. I am also asked if I am going to keep doing what I am doing?  I hope so.  I think public education is just about the most important work one can do.  I am looking forward to the next 17.5 years working with everyone who, like me, are in the second half of their careers, as well as all who come after to keep rethinking and evolving our wonderful system.

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Engaging the Passion of Teachers

Posted in Change, Personalized Learning, tagged , , , , on August 27, 2012| 9 Comments »

“Mischievous Apple” by fernando.

In my conversations with education groups last year, I would often quip, “It is a great time to be a teacher, just maybe not the best year to be a teacher.”  Public education in British Columbia — in fact, across Canada, North America and around the world — has become increasingly challenged.  I am concerned about what I am beginning to hear from friends and colleagues who entered into the profession full of hope, passion, with the dream of bettering their community, but who are becoming disillusioned about teaching.

A new report presented by the Canadian Education Association and the Canadian Teachers Federation — Teaching the Way We Aspire to Teach:  Now and in the Future, is a key document with a Canadian perspective on the aspirations of our teachers.  With much attention paid to reports on the pivotal role teachers play, like John Hattie’s Teachers Make a Difference, it is crucial that conversations around education change (reform, transformation, or whatever word might best describe what we are currently undergoing), is not only about engaging students, but is also about engaging the passion of teachers.

The Canadian view is important, because it is easy to be influenced by some of the deeply concerning directions in some parts of the United States, and assume they are also happening here.

The 25-page report is well worth the read whether you are a student, teacher, policy maker or engaged citizen.

Three Highlights in the Research:

1) A signficant proportion of teachers have experienced teaching the way they aspire to teach, at least occasionally

2) Although teachers are able to teach the way they aspire to teach on occasion, this does not always happen on a consistent and system-wide basis

3) There was significant agreement among teachers around the personal attributes of teachers that are the most important.  They are:

  • passion for teaching and a commitment to students
  • caring for children
  • knowing their students, and
  • flexibility to use one’s professional judgment and expertise to make sound pedagogical decisions in the interest of students

An important area of interest was the elements of an ideal teaching environment (click on graph below to enlarge):

While there is nothing on the list that would be stunning to any of us in the education system,  in many cases, a huge financial investment in the system is not required.  It was also reassuring to read that the “alienated teacher does not appear to be a common feature of education in Canada.”  That said, there is no doubt we have work to do.

A quote from Sam M. Intrator (in the report) led me to reading his 2002 book Stories of the Courage to Teach:  Honoring the Teacher’s Heart.  As someone who comes from a family of teachers (my mother continues to teach in the BC public education system, having started in 1968), so much of what he said resonated with me:

 . . . . if schools are to be places that promote academic, social, and personal development for students, everything hinges on the presence of intelligent, passionate, caring teachers working day after day in our nation’s classrooms. Teachers have a colossal influence on what happens in our schools, because day after day, they are the ultimate decision makers and tone setters. They shape the world of the classroom by the activities they plan, the focus they attend to, and the relationships they nurture.

If we want to attract and retain intelligent, passionate, caring teachers, we had better figure out what will sustain their vitality and faith in teaching. Education depends on what teachers do in their classrooms, and what teachers do in their classrooms is shaped by who they are, what they believe, and how vital and alive they are when they step before their students.

I am saddened when I see comments from teachers that if they had it to do over, would select a different profession, or would never encourage others to follow them into teaching.  And, at times, our profession is our worst enemy — we do a better job of dividing ourselves than others might — we label each other by the level we teach, our employee affiliation, the community we work in, or a variety of other markers which fragment the far more powerful unifying features we share like improving the quality of public education to increase the life chances and opportunities for the young men and women we are so fortunate to work with each day.

Hopefully this report will help stimulate some important discussions.

Full Disclosure – While I did not participate in the creation of the CTF/CEA Report I serve as a member of the Advisory Council for the CEA.

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