Chapter 2 has some harsh words towards the isolation that we may or may not feel once we get in our classrooms, shut the door, and start to teach. Some teachers revel in the isolation; some teachers determinedly leave the door open and insist on welcoming visitors.
One section in chapter 2, "Institutionalizing Mediocrity", talks about the lack of meaningful critique, support, and feedback. Schmoker states:
We have to take responsibility for the message this lack of feedback sends to teachers: that teaching, the soul of their chosen profession, doesn't much matter. Feel free to be an effective teacher, but it is not a requirement. Evaluations are occasional and meaningless. Barring some grave, usually noninstructional malfeasance, you will never lose your job.
In what ways do you see this as being true? What do we have in place to fight it? What do we need to do to take the next step to continue to fight the isolation?
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The first quote in Chapter 2 stated : "The traditional school often functions as a collection of indepedent contractors united by a common parking lot." This is very true. We are isolated and it seems most teachers like that. I think most teachers are on "edge" or nervous when someone does evaluate them. The students even act differently, so maybe the administrators do need to visit classes more (not just for teachers but to view students as well). I do agree that the evaluations are occasional at best. I think one problem is we talk about things in a meeting or at the start of the year but there is no follow up.
I do think our common planning is one way we are "fighting" mediocrity. This is our way of working together and getting feedback from other teachers. I know some schools fight isolation by having "teams" of teachers. I think the freshmen academy is a great example of fighting isolation. The teachers work together, meet and discuss issues. We may not be able to do that for every class, but we could try the "humanities" process and have social studies and English classes work together. For instance, when the English class is reading Animal Farm, the social studies class could discuss the Russian Revolution and show the similarites to Animal Farm. I think teaching across the curriculum is a way to fight isolationism. If teachers work together, we are opening our doors for feedback (both criticism AND compliments). This could be a huge step in fighting isolationism, in my opinion.
I would like to do more cross-curricular planning as well. That would take some of the "mystery" out of what we do in our classrooms. Part of the isolation stems, perhaps, from not understanding what happens in an English class or a math class or science and so forth. I have shared materials with some of the social studies teachers (my Oprah and Elie Wiesel videos are available again this year!), but I haven't actually had chance to plan with the teachers. Just think of what a powerful unit might come of a collaboration between the forensics chemistry class and an English class--the English classes could write their own CSI skits using what they've learned in Forensics.
I think another aspect of the isolation stems from scheduling. It is not easy to schedule teachers with common students to the same planning period.
Our common planning time is one way that we are beginning to break down the isolation as well as the peer evaluations we are supposed to do. This is a small start.
Say it ain't so, "institutionalize mediocrity." Is isolation a warm blanket keeping teachers safe? Do teacher want isolation? It's hard for me to understand the meaning of isolation in education because the only thing I have known as a teacher has been team teaching. At every level of my career I have been part of the team concept. I would feel naked without a team of teachers to discuss learning objectives. Every friday for five years our team would meet to discuss common learning objectives and to present lessons used in the classroom. Some of my best ideas were group ideas on shared lessons, the team concept works and is useful especially fighting isolation wthin the school community. maybe as a way to combat isolation the team concept can be implemented within the high school at every level. I feel teachers would benefit from it, if only to open their eyes to different ways of thinking, teaching.
Hu, I'd like to see that work at every level in the high school. As the ESOL teacher, I truly do need to work with the content area teachers at every level to help our ELLs succeed. Most of my kids to whom I provide direct instruction are failing one or more subject critical to graduation. Every time I have sent an email out asking what I can do in my classes to help, though, I get one response, maybe two. I am in a situation where teaming would be extremely beneficial to my students. After all, what we're about is not just achievement, but also real learning.
I think another issue that perhaps prevents teachers from buying into the teaming idea is that at the high school very few of us teach the same set of students. For example, in the English department, I may teach English 3, but some of my students are taking US History from Mr. Moseley, some from Ms. Reed, and some may not be taking US History at all. Some may be taking biology; others chemistry. Moreover, we may be more than one "level"-an English teacher may be teaching two or three DIFFERENT preps each year. If we go to the standard seven period day, this may mean that some teachers' preps will increase.
To answer to your question as to whether teachers want to be isolated--no, I don't think most of us want to be isolated. Again, I return to the idea that sometimes we feel so trapped by the extra things that we must do--writing lesson plans to turn in every two weeks (does anyone besides Jeannie ever look at them), completing behavior charts for the special ed/tutorial students (who looks at these?), stuffing ESOL folders with accomodations sheets from teachers, administering standardized tests (SIX FULL DAYS, TWO HALF-DAYS, including my planning periods), even covering other teachers' classes when there is no sub available. . . .
Does anyone else besides me feel that he or she is drowning in the "extras"?
As a teacher who has been in the classroom more than half of my life, I have seen much progress in the way teachers are evaluated but I know it is still not a satisfactory system. I remember the days when administrators would knock on your door and say "sign this and consider yourself passing your evaluation" without ever entering the room! Talk about encouraging mediocrity! At least we now have the ADEPT system in place to try to address problems early on and I know that the intent of this system is to keep teachers growing by having GBE goals, etc. However, I doubt that many of us feel that we truely manage to link our GBE goals with the reality of the classroom. Our education system seems to need revamping from top to bottom. Administrators spend way too much time in IEP meetings, discipline meetings, strategic planning meetings, district meetings, etc. etc. They are as bogged down by required paperwork as are the teachers themselves. None of us function at the level we dreamed we could when we got into this profession.
However, even with all of the above comments, I think we do try to fight isolation at least to a degree. We are asked to observe each other's classes - something that could be helpful to both the person observing and the one being observed if indeed meaningful discussion follows. We are asked to use common planning time to create common lessons and tests. In a school the size of ours, too often that is done in theory only as there may not even be another teacher who teaches the same subject that you do. Last year, for example, I had no other teacher doing the same thing I was doing so I was "assigned" to meet with two of our FACES teachers to make sure they were doing something! They never accomplished much...
Perhaps we need to free up time for "master teachers" to observe and assist other teachers within their departments. Elementary schools often have math and English coaches to assist grade level teachers. It seems strange that this idea does not flow into higher grades. I'm sure some teachers would resist since they have become comfortable in their isolation, but given time, I think most teachers would learn to appreciate the offer of additional expertise within the classroom. It would also be nice if we could do more team teaching. If two teachers are teaching the same subject at the same time, it would be great if at least on occasion they could combine groups or switch groups for some added variety. That might even keep the students more engaged! Also, I think our teachers should have at least one day a semester when they could request observing at another school - within the district or even elsewhere. Seeing what other schools are doing is often eyeopening for the outside observer. We have students job shadowing so why not let teachers shadow a fellow teacher to see how others handle situations?
In other words, I believe that we should encourage teachers to look outside their classroom walls and empower them with options for viewing others in the profession as a means of combatting mediocrity and isolationism.
I agree with Katherine's comments and do believe we have made greater progress in team efforts and providing feedback at an elementary level, but this would make sense because they are not departmentalized. I believe the greatest problem with progress in the area of feedback is that we have not progressed to the level of many professions where feedback is taken constructively, not personally. I have worked in both the teaching and the administrative end, and I know that it takes some facing the brutal facts of your progress in a school, developing trust, and honest conversations to make progress. This is not easy for any school to do because of the past models we have followed of isolation. To truly grow as a professional, a model where trusted peers and mentors provide you with feedback on specific areas you are trying to improve or specific new programs you are trying works best, but getting to this level is not easy. There are also those who must be dealt with immediately if they are incompetent. This is, however, a difficult world where politics and personel confidentiality come in to play.
I do not believe we can point fingers and say administration doesn't visit often enough, etc. We have to develop in our profession some sense of desiring feedback for growth, calling on our peers to work with us and give us this. Our profession has not encouraged this in the past and if mandated, it will not suceed. It has to be a culture of growth. I have had such mentors and close professionals who I have invited to give me feedback while I taught or even while I conducted a faculty meeting. It was the most meaningful feedback and growth I have ever received. If anyone on the blog has not asked someone they trust to come in and coach them (and be very specific about what you want them to look for ...e.g. questioning techniques, active learning, higher level thinking strategies, etc. ), then I strongly encourage you to do so. I believe it will take this type of environment before we will grow as a profession.
In this chapter I found myself in this situation. I like shutting the door and keeping people out. I dont think I do it on purpose but I always remember the teachers I had in school always shut the door. I do not remember any teachers coming in an observing them. We have the teacher observations here at Newberry and I think that is a great start. If we do it correctly it could be very rewarding for us. We have to adapt to this change but our past experiences may have much to do with it being uncomfortable. I think we are doing certain things here at NHS that will lead us breaking down the isolation. I think we need to come up with a more comfortable way to observe teacher from the administration end. May people get nervous when an administrator comes in the door. I reaaly believe our past experiences as teacher and students have a reflection on the isolation. We must try to change.
Sometimes, I enjoy the isolation from other teachers, even if I know it would benefit me to work more closely. I have a tendency to be a pretty dependent worker. But there are times when working together with another teacher is very beneficial. We can always learn from each other. As a second year teacher, I realize that I have so much still to learn about this profession and working with others would be a great benefit. I do think that observing great teachers is a must. Its always helpful to pick up ideas from others!
"One study showed that superintendents would have liked to remove about 1 in every 25 teachers, but only removed 1 in 600." I am amazed at this statistic. Schmoker is right, our profession is extremely isolated and created opportunities for mediocracy to flourish. And, since we're not getting fired, why fix what ain't broken (well, on the surface, anyway)?
Schmoker mentions that other professions, such as the medical field, law, and architecture require professionals to work in teams even after qualifying from their internship years. Think of how many years are required in these fields, not only of college education, but of professional internships. These people, when they graduate, are required to spend several years (not weeks) learning from skilled professionals in their field. They are also required to belong to an accredited association in their field that acutally checks on their credentials annually! While I was reading this chapter, my mind kept flashing to an episode of "Grey's Anatomy" that I watched recently-yes, it's my favorite show so I'm really enjoying what I'm about to say! :) In that episode, the surgical interns were invited to attend a conference entitled Morbidity & Morality with their residents and attending surgeons/doctors to discuss the ways in which their individual actions and mistakes had caused or abetted patient deaths. In this conference, the doctors did not simply sit and listen to their chiefs lecture them about their professional responsibility. The doctors were led through case-by-case discussions. Each doctor of record and his/her resident doctor had to come to the front of the room, present the facts of the case, discuss their own views of what went wrong and what they could have done better, and, finally, open themselves up to answer the questions of their peers regarding their handling of the case. I realize that this is only a television show, but I can only imagine that there must be similar forums for discussion in actual hospitals to aviod malpractice suits. Imagine what our profession would be like if we subjected ourselves to such scrutiny. Can you see the difference that such discussions would make on our teaching if our faculty meetings were Education & Morality conferences, instead of asinine instructions on how to read a test to students or medical benefits? I know that as a 1st year teacher I sometimes feel lost and do my best to make semi-educated guesses at what I should do, only to realize later that my decisions were wayyyyyyy wrong. If I had someone to actually be accountable to who would actually listen and give me applicable advice, would I do some things differently? Um....YES!
I'll admit I close the door! I'm not trying to keep observers out but attention in. I don't close it for isolation in an attempt to be like Garbo but more out of a desire to limit distractions. Too many distraction in the hallway and I get off track [not to mention the kids stop paying attention]. I will admit that it always makes me nervous when an Administrator comes in but then I love getting that little feedback form [even though it doesn't have many comments, any and all are always welcomed.
As for defeating isolation...I don't know if we ever will or if common planning is working as well as we pretend.
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