Teaching and Shortcuts

I have a few... one thing I try to do is use every dollar I can to buy extra teaching positions and then lower teacher load. SLA teachers teach four sections with 30-32 kids instead of the Philadelphia average of five classes and 30-32 kids. That goes a long way toward making the job more sustainable.

Also, I try to treat my teachers with an ethic of care. I want SLA teachers to know that they are valued and that they can come to a fun, caring, meaningful environment every day. I try to make our time together as a faculty meaningful. I try to make sure that my teachers always feel ownership over the mission and vision -- and implementation -- at the school. And I keep the coffee pot full. Stupid things like knowing you can always get a hot cup of coffee helps.

I also think that collegiality among teachers helps a lot. If you feel like you can collaborate to do a lot of the things that you and I both write about, it's easier.

In the end, if teachers feel like they want to come to work every day, that goes a long way toward sustainability, but in the end, I worry that what I'm doing is band-aiding the problem because the real systemic solution involves spending more money in our urban schools.

My solutions -- given the budget in Philadelphia -- means doing things like not hiring a second secretary, not hiring any lunch aides, not hiring an assistant principal, not having a full-time nurse but those choices have ramifications on school culture too, and it always feels a bit like a Faustian bargain.

In the end, I believe that high school teachers shouldn't have more than 80 kids on their academic roster. Teachers should not teach 70% of their working day, because that guarantees that the diligent teacher is consigning themselves to 60 hour work weeks -- minimum. Both those solutions mean spending a lot more money, but I think that's what it takes.

If we did those two things, the balance of authentic assessment and deep-level planning would be a lot more sustainable... and teachers would also have the time to ask the questions of their kids that you and I both want them to do. This wouldn't solve all the problems of K12 education. There's lots of ways to teach poorly even with those things in place, but it would allow us to set up systems where are best teachers aren't always on the edge of burnout.

I agree... it's so important and so lacking. There's a lot of talk these days about distributed leadership and shared decision making and collaboration and such, but too often, what that ends up coming down to is giving teachers the chance to weigh in -- and collaborate -- on a few discrete areas in a school that rarely having much to do with the intellectual mission of the school. So teachers get to run prom or decide what the field trip policy is, but there's not the opportunity to talk about what skills should be taught in each grade and how the different academic disciplines own the different skills.

Sadly, that's true of the "ownership" we give students too. We create Student Councils that decide where the Senior Trip goes, but we don't give them the opportunity to create authentic pieces of work in their own classrooms.

And even more sadly, many districts treat their principals the same way. School missions aren't defined by what sports you offer, they are defined by the philosophy of teaching and learning that should permeate everything the school does.

That's why so many educators roll their eyes and groan when they hear about another workshop on school culture or distributed leadership, because too often, the ways in which educators are allowed to live those words ring hollow.

[Hm. This might be its own blog entry.]