Creating REAL Change in schools

What’s most important in schools?  Hopefully if you ask any teacher, they will share the same thinking as you – student success.  All teachers want to see their students succeed, to become bold learners who are engaged and have developed deep thinking skills which will stick with them throughout their lives.  Research gives us a very good take on how to best assist in the development of these bold learners.  What is very clear in research is that if we can improve teaching, we will improve student learning.  Seems like a no-brainer  – if you have a quality teacher, you will learn more.

So, how do we ensure that we have good teaching for our children?  In schools we provide professional development opportunities, allow time for teachers to meet and discuss their practice, and even provide lead teachers in areas where we think teachers can improve.  We infuse technology in the classrooms to support teachers as they try and reach out to their students in a more engaging way.  These are certainly useful tools to help make our teachers more effective – Professional Development and technology.  But, if that is all we offer, we may well be missing the mark.  You see, PD and technology are easy – they are visible for us, above the water line so to speak.

For real teacher improvement to occur, we need to see what is under the water line as well, what’s not so easy to see.  The processes that occur in the school, things like scheduling and assessment practice shape the way teachers teach and can be a benefit or a blockade depending on the structure set up by the school.  Also the culture of the school itself plays an important role in the formation of how teachers see good practice.  If a teacher works within a culture of collaboration and positivity, they are more likely to take steps to constantly look at their practice and change.  If a teachers works in a less healthy culture which is insular and perhaps even competitive, they’ll likely not take the chance to change their practice.  It may be too much of a risk.

It is a teacher’s own mental model of what good teaching and learning look like that is at the core of developing quality teachers.  We can PD teachers until they are blue in face, allow them ample time to meet with their colleagues and supply them with all the bells and whistles that technology can bring but, at the end of the day, if the teacher still has the mental model that all information and control must be filtered through them, no change will occur.  All new initiatives will become “the swing of the pendulum” and the adage “this too will pass” becomes the reality.

So, when we look at transforming an education system and striving for students success, it is imperative that we look at how teachers view success and what they think good learning looks like.  If we simply provide PD that only looks at practice without looking at the reason for the shift in thinking, we’re likely spinning our wheels.  What schools need to address is the construct of what teachers believe good teaching looks like and why.  If we value an entrepreneurial spirit, engaged thinking and ethical citizenship, then the way we teach and structure learning in our days should foster it accordingly.

Keep on learning,

Dave