In the late 1800s, American poet and state legislator, John
James Ingalls penned a short, powerful reminder on the importance of seizing
the day. In the poem Opportunity,
Ingalls uses personification to implore us through Opportunity’s voice; “I knock unbidden once at every gate! If
sleeping, wake – if feasting, rise before I turn away.”
I was reminded of Ingalls’ words some 114 years later on the
snow-capped mountains of Snowbird, Utah, where I joined more than 300 teachers at
the 2014 Snowbird Elevating and Celebrating Effective Teachers and Teaching
(ECET2 - pronounced EE-Set two or EE-Set squared) conference. For two and a half exciting and
inspiring days the energy and creativity of the ECET2 experience was
palpable. In fact, reading the blogs and tweets from my fellow participants was
so inspiring that I couldn’t pass up my own visit from “opportunity” to share my
own reflections on the experience. In doing so, I hope to give readers a better
idea of the impetus behind not only this year’s ECET2, but past and
future ones as well.
When I came to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in
the summer of 2011, it was with some trepidation. I hadn’t closely followed the
foundation’s work while I was the Chief Academic Officer of Boston Public
Schools. As a consequence, I walked through the door with a sneaking suspicion that
the foundation was responsible for doing a lot of things “to” rather than “with” teachers.
I soon found out that quite the opposite was true - there were examples everywhere
of close collaboration with teachers. For example, there were the 3,000
teachers who opened up their classroom doors for the seminal MET study. http://www.metproject.org/
There were the thousands of teachers who were rolling out
new Common Core aligned tools called the Literacy Design Collaborative and Math
Design Collaborative; there were the thousands of teachers joining emerging
teacher voice groups designed to ensure that teachers’ voices were heard on
issues of policy and practice, and the emerging efforts with the national teachers’
unions to connect teachers through online professional development platforms.
It soon became apparent to us that we needed to find even more ways to elevate
and celebrate these teachers as well as connect them to one another. ECET2 became an effort to do
exactly that. There are several key ingredients that have made these ECET2events
unique experiences for participating teachers, from the first convening, in 2012
through today’s events and the future regional ECET2s that are being
planned all over the US. I’m convinced that it’s the following six core
ingredients that make ECET2 special, and that their combination is
what makes teachers respond the way they do.
Ingredient #1, Relational-Trust:
In one of my favorite educational
books of all-time, Trust in Schools: A
Core Resource for Improvement, Anthony Bryk and Barbara Schneider wrote
that, “Schools are networks of sustained relationships. The social exchanges
that occur and how participants infuse them with meaning are central to a
schools functioning. Moreover, the character of these social exchanges is
especially salient in times of broad scale change.” I distinctly remember how
much that spoke to me as a young school leader when my superintendent at the
time, Dr. Vicki Phillips, who now heads the foundation’s K-12 work, gave the
book to all the principals in the district.
Schools have a year to build relational-trust between adults
and other adults, and between adults and students. We only have two and a half
days at ECET2convenings. But that doesn’t keep us from making relational-trust
a goal. I saw it being built at Snowbird through formal and informal channels,
like when Gina Bianchini facilitated colleague circle introductions and
protocols that enabled teacher leaders to open up to one another and make
commitments that came alive right there in the Utah mountains, and that live on
today through the Mightybell platform. I am convinced that ECET2 sends teachers back to their school
communities looking for ways to ensure that similar experiences can, should,
and do exist in school communities throughout the country.
Ingredient #2 - Growth
Mindset: Another one of my more recent, favorite educational books is Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, by
Carol Dweck. This book – a must read for educators – is all about focusing on
people’s potential more than what they are capable of today. Again, in many
ways this is the philosophy behind ECET2. For example, the 2014
Snowbird ECET2participants were selected by previous ECET2
attendees who saw their potential. The growth mindset is also inherent in how
the convening unfolds. We encourage one another to stretch and realize that our
potential is fluid, not fixed. Teachers present to their peers on issues around
their own practice. Complete strangers join each other in colleague circles that
engender collaboration, support, and a problem-solving ethos—things all
professionals need in order to grow. Teachers
even sing together after only knowing one another for a few minutes with no
alcohol involved!!
One of the best examples of growth mindset in action this
year came when Ashleigh Ferguson, Mathematics teacher at Millikan High School
in Long Beach, CA, stood up and spoke to nearly 350 peers about her deep
commitment to ensuring foster children are brought out of the shadows of our
school systems. Ashleigh confessed the challenge she faced in speaking to so
many new colleagues, but in just a few minutes of stretching herself, she shined
the light on an often forgotten population of students, and moved the room in a
deep way. Ashleigh reminded us that it’s not only important to have a growth
mindset towards students, but also towards ourselves and our peers as teachers.
How can we expect our students to be vulnerable and grow, if we’re not in
environments that enable us to do the same?
Ingredient #3:
Intellect and Heart: Many of us went into teaching based on a combination
of intellectual and heart / emotional drive. I decided to study English because
I fell in love with literature in Junior and Senior High School. But what took
my motivation to a whole new level was watching other students experience the
same joy I got from literature and writing. If there’s one thing effective
teachers understand, it is the power in this combination of the intellect and
the heart. (A must-read book on this topic is another of my favorites, Switch: How to Change Things when Change is
Hard by Dan and Chip Heath.) ECET2aims to stir both the
intellect and the heart while ensuring that real problems of practice are being
addressed. For example, there was great feedback at Snowbird on the strategies
and skills for making change happen in their schools which were shared by
teacher Maddie Fennell and educational thought-leader, Rick Hess in the Cage Busting Leadership session. I was
able to sit in on the Education
Connections: Teachers of English Language Learners Collaborating around the
Common Core session, where practitioners and researchers led conversations about
how to engage ELL students in content and language acquisition.
ECET2 is also an opportunity for teachers to reconnect
with why they went into teaching in the first place. At Snowbird, this came through in small and
big ways. I wish I had counted the number of teachers who approached me to
relate how much ECET2 had helped restore their hope in the
profession, their practice, or their impact.
This sentiment also came through powerfully in the teacher stories shared
by Jon Spencer and Jozette Martinez. Jon moved us all as he talked about keeping it real in Realville and the
importance of keeping your word, no matter how far you have to drive. Jozette
reminded us that sometimes our very existence as teachers is a sign of progress
in defiance of stereotypes. She also
reminded us how important it is not to take ourselves so seriously that we
can’t just break out in song – if that’s what it takes to connect with and move
our kids. DON’T STOP BELIEVING! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zO49CpU9SPI
Ingredient #4 -Time
to Collaborate: My graduate professor, Richard Elmore used to say,
“Isolation is the enemy of improvement.” And if there’s one thing we know about
higher performing countries where the teaching profession is more respected and
elevated, it’s that their teachers have more time to collaborate about their
practice and about student learning. This is a true challenge in our country,
and the foundation is and has been looking to spur innovation that creates more
opportunities for peer-to-peer collaboration. This type of authentic
collaboration around real issues of practice has always been a staple of ECET2.
However, I am delighted that we have become more adept at extending that collaboration
beyond the convening in ways that are relevant to teachers’ lived experiences
through the colleague circles and the Mightybell platform. ECET2
LaJolla in 2013 – when these colleague circles really took off, produced
results nothing short of remarkable, including teams of teachers building the
following:
-
“Support the
Common Core” video for parents
-
Informational pamphlet on the CCSS to
distribute to parents
-
Participation in a social media panel in NY
and an ongoing effort to tell positive stories about the teaching profession in
mainstream media
-
Development of a Universal Design for Learning
peer coaching system
-
Series of five videos showing common core
teaching in K-3 classrooms
-
An e-book called
“The Common Core Survival Guide: Literacy in Science and Social Studies
Classrooms” to aid teachers in the CCSS transition
-
An online
platform on “Developing Student Discourse: A PD Resource Bank”
Ingredient #5 - Teacher
Leadership: The more I study the evolution of other professions, the more I’m
convinced that if we’re going to elevate the teaching profession in America, it
is going to have to happen through the leadership of great teachers. ECET2
is all about supporting that leadership. As Barnett Barry, Executive
Director of the Center for Teaching Quality says, “We
must recognize the expert teachers that we have currently in the profession and
give them opportunities to spread their expertise.” The foundation is doing
this on so many levels. Here are just a few:
-
Teacher Advisory Council
But along with this existing work, the foundation, along
with its partners, are interested in finding additional ways to ensure we go
beyond simply asking teachers to take on more leadership role(s) with little to
no additional time or compensation. I am not suggesting that teachers look to
be paid for every additional role or responsibility that they take on. However,
I am concerned that if we do not develop more sustainable career pathways and
differentiated roles within the teaching profession, we’ll continue to see talented
teachers pack up their expertise and exit the classroom, and too often, the
profession.
To be clear, there’s nothing “wrong” with that decision
(i.e. principalship), which I and thousands of other teachers have made.
However, the structure of the profession forces too many teachers to make these
decisions without providing them with other options that would enable them to remain
deeply connected to students, their peers, and practice. The 21st
Century Teaching profession must do what other elevated and respected
professions do: enable its practitioners to take on differentiated roles
without needing to shift to administrative responsibilities, or worse, exit the
profession.
Ingredient #6 -
Professional Treatment:
“The
best teacher is the one who NEVER forgets
what it is like to be a student.
“The best administrator is the one who NEVER forgets
what it’s like to be a teacher.”
-Nelia Connor
what it is like to be a student.
“The best administrator is the one who NEVER forgets
what it’s like to be a teacher.”
-Nelia Connor
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation works with teachers
and educators to support effective teaching and teachers, but in the end it’s
the teachers who have to make transformation happen in the classrooms and
schools with their students, peers, leaders and families. It is so important
for us at the foundation to never forget that. Teachers are professionals, and
the foundation is committed to treating them as such. We, and our partners, do
this in big and small ways.
In closing, I am so excited to see what other innovations
and ideas come from the ECET2 teachers, not only those who gathered
in Utah this year, but also those who gathered in LaJolla, California in 2013
and Scottsdale, Arizona in 2012. I am convinced that their impact will reach far
beyond their individual practice to improve and elevate that of their peers and
ultimately the profession itself, and in the end; kids benefit. As John James Ingalls wrote on behalf of Opportunty in his poem, “…they who
follow me reach every state mortals desire, and conquer every foe…”
