Any organization, with schools certainly being one of them, manages to solve the problems it faces in order to survive. The school’s culture starts to grow and build itself then as these problems are repeatedly and reliably solved in a similar way; thus the assumptions and beliefs underneath them becoming shared and unconscious while shaping the school’s view of itself and its context (Schein in Evans, 2001). These assumptions while being deep and stable appear throughout the school in the form of values and artifacts (Evans, 2001)
Values such as cooperation and loyalty but also values like competitiveness and mistrust develop as ways to solve problems and challenges faced by a school, and the more they reliably solve these problems, the more they become to be accepted as a reality and transformed into a shared belief that is taken for granted (Evans, 2001). Evans (2001) distinguishes between two types of values: deep ones that unconsciously affect the decision-making process and persons’ behavior; and others that even though schools profess, their members do not typically practice.
It is reasonable then to expect that the deepest and shared values of a school should permeate teachers and students’ attitudes and behavior, as well as their relationship in the classroom. But, the isolation in which teachers develop their work appears as a frontier for this to happen. If, after closing their classroom door, teachers have the power to implement the curriculum according to their own values and if -on top of that- they don’t share the schools’ values and assumptions (whatever these are); then the contents and values that are actually taught may widely differ from the ones intended.
If a given school is missing a strong leader committed to the schools’ values and able to engage teachers with them or if, pushed by its leaders, the school develops a culture based -for example- on competitiveness and mistrust; then would it be possible to think that students are receiving a different set of values from each of their teachers? Going one step further, if in order to improve instruction, teachers need to improve their capacity to judge their work (Cohen, 1990), how could they know if they are doing a good job if their benchmark is drawn by their own set of values?
Whatever Happened to Team Teaching?
22 hours ago
I think that because I work in a Quaker school is that everybody has a voice here. Maybe it’s not an equal voice for everybody, but we definitely all have a voice; none happens without the teachers’ reflection and input.
ReplyDeleteI would say my school has done a big job in breaking our classroom isolation. Where I work, the lower school is organized in teams, so pre-k and kindergarten teams work together and this group meets twice a month. First and second grade teachers also work together and meet twice a month as well as third, fourth, and fifth grades teachers. All is set up so that we are working together with the people who it makes sense to work with. I will hand-up my Pre-K students to the Kindergarten teacher, so it makes sense that we’re working together with them. But also, the school has different departments one for each subject, and we are all members of one or another department. I’m a member of the fine art department and within that department I get to work alongside with middle school and upper school teachers. This is another structure that opens the door of our classroom so that we can get out and work with other people based on common interests.
But these structures are place and it’s up to the individual teacher to take advantage of them. And not everybody does. So it also depends on how much the individual teacher values collaboration, whether it’s really going to happen or if it’s really just going to happen in name only. I would say that in my school about 50% of the teachers take advantage of this opportunity.
I know I’m doing a good job when I see kids picking up the thread of what we’ve done formally and continue to explore in their own way. In my job you have to be able to use classroom observation, for instance, once we did the box turtle study and at one point if I looked over at the art table and saw all kids were making turtle books and drawing turtles; or they were in the imaginative play center crawling around and saying, “those are the rocks, and this the pond, and we’re going in the pond.” When you’re observing the classroom, you’re noticing those sorts of things and then you know that they are doing active learning; they took what you have given them as a start and they continue to learn about that subject.
The motto of my school is ‘Whatever it takes’, but without resources. Success is required; failure is not an option. Each student must complete essential tasks to move up to the next grade, if they don’t do so, they are required to go to summer school to complete essential tasks. At the end this is just theory: over time this has proven to be a lot of work for teachers, constantly trying to keep kids caught up; so what has happened is that they make it easier for students to complete the required tasks.
ReplyDeleteDo I have power in school? On a scale from 1 to 10, maybe 4. Some people listen, but never carry things out. People don’t understand what I do, I am not valued for my experience. Education is so data driven that the administration leaves out my professional opinion. We are never allowed our voice, over and over again. They have taken this out of education. I would think that after 20 years things would have changed, but they didn’t.
How do I know when I’m doing a good job? I can’t rely on the testing, with my middle school kids I know I’m doing a good job when I see they are becoming independent workers. I also know I’m doing a good job when I stay after school and listen to parents comments.
Regarding teacher isolation I think that at some point someone has to make a decision. If someone wants to open the classroom door to know what’s going on there, then he has to listen and do something about it, is not good to have someone who listens and doesn’t make a decision, that hurts people’s feelings. It is not good either to have someone who pretends to listen and makes a decision, but if he’s wrong, he’s not open to reconsider.
Special Education Consultant Teacher for 8th grade
The school I taught in was crazy. The administration was often overworked and overly focused on discipline. There was no coherence in the ideas that were passed along to us. There was no coherent value system in the school. Some people valued safety, some academics, some thought that the students were lazy and worthless. I had a decent amount of power in my classroom, because I connected with my students and held them to my expectations, not the school’s expectations.
ReplyDeleteI knew I was doing a good job when kids cared about what they were doing. I cared about test scores, but even more I wanted to see kids interested and questioning. I did look carefully at all my grades each marking period, looking for trends and trying to think how to help students who had low grades.
I would say that in an attempt to break my isolation, I lived a really tough situation. My first year was tough because my TFA support person would have tons of negative things to say when she observed my class, and the VP would have only positive things to say. It was hard to put all that information together so that it made sense in order to figure out how I was actually doing as a teacher.
High School Chemistry teacher
In my school values are based on 4 mantras, one for each grade (5-8): Choose, Improve, Respect, Support. I like them and what they stand for.
ReplyDeleteI feel that in my classroom I definitely have power since the administration is really good about letting me do what I want. On the other hand, I know I’m doing a good job if I meet the data standards that 80% or 90% of my students should have passing scores in both class and state tests. I also know if I’m doing a good job, if I see my students engaged and how well they retain the information.
I see two ways to break classroom isolation: one is classroom observation and the other one is contact with other teachers. I hate the first one, but it works really well, as long as there is a space for you to review the outcomes with a qualified and knowledgeable person. It’s a bad experience to go over your class observation with someone who doesn’t understand what you were doing in the classroom. It’s good because the observer sees things that I don’t see about my practice.
Relating to other colleagues is also a way to break classroom isolation, and in this sense I really wish I had a mentor teacher, I have actually been looking for one for the last five years and have not found one yet. In this sense, I think there should be a network that could connect teachers who want mentors with mentor teachers who work within a similar demographic school. In the same direction I also wish there was an in-district network for sharing lessons and activities.
KIPP school, 5th-8th grades, Instructional Leader
When I think about my school’s culture, I remember that when get to school every morning, there’s no administration there. It was not like this before, where are they now? It feels like they gave up on us. It feels like the leadership is gone. I just try to ignore all of this. I just teach. It has come to a point where I would rather work with my students than deal with adults.
ReplyDeleteThere are lots of ways to know how well I am doing my job: I write down the MCAS scores of my students as I receive them and then I compare these to the scores they show when they leave my classroom. My highest gains have been up to 30 points, while many of them show gains over 10 or 20 points; my kids are always at the top, we blew the whole district away. I am a highly competitive person. I compete with myself, and that is what motivates me. My students are happy, and I believe that, with the proper tools, all students can learn.
I am one of the most experienced teachers in my school, and I think I have improved with time. This would be good though, if I could share my interests and work ethics with peers; there are always a lot of new teachers here. I really don’t feel the need to collaborate with other colleagues in my building; if I work hard enough myself, why would I want to share with others? I really don’t feel the need to break the isolation that I live in my classroom.
5th-8th grade teacher, Inner School
The mission of my school is to educate well-rounded and harmonious individuals by developing in them skills and sensibilities that connect them with themselves, regarding their intellectual, emotional, artistic, physical, social, intuitive, and love potential. All this under one principle: all students can learn to live in a world of constant change. However, most of the times this principles are quite different to what actually happens in practice. In my school this statement has led to students complete misunderstanding of the freedom that it grants; thus undermining their learning process. Sometimes I feel that education becomes meaningless in this organization, because it builds up some kind of bubble surrounding students instead of preparing them for life. Discipline is an issue within the classroom, there is an excessive centrality in teacher-student ‘bonding’ instead of focusing on pedagogical issues.
ReplyDeleteIn my school there is no clear leadership, there’s no support for workers, there’s no effort to promote sharing relationships among teachers, even by teachers spaces of autonomy are poorly understood and teaching is not the center of the debate.
My job is well done as long as students validate me and learn effectively. I feel they evaluate my work and are the most authorized voice to recognize my strengths and weaknesses. From my point of view, grades are a measure of student learning (of their skills), but I also feel I have been effective when there has been learning, e.g. when there are changes in them, when they become interested, when they want to improve their own performance and when they manage to improve quantitatively.
Classroom observation would probably be a good way to overcome isolation, but generally speaking they are not an important contribution in improving teaching practices because there is no feedback nor monitoring in my school.
Chilean teacher, K-12 private school
Due to personal family-related reasons I am not currently working, but I would love to go back into teaching in the future.
ReplyDeleteI taught for seven years in a public school and the while the mission of my school was to instill in students knowledge and skills necessary to blossom as lifelong learners, its values where grounded in our effort to shape the students so they were confident and cooperative as they prepare for the future. We thrived under the two principals I had while I was working; during those years we made our biggest effort to make sure that all kids were taught the best way possible. Both principals held really high standards not only for students but also for teachers, and they were always trying new methods of teaching.
I would know if I did a good job because my principal would come in and observe me and my classroom twice a year, so I’d be able to receive feedback from him. I also could tell if I was doing a good job by the reaction of the students, obviously if they enjoyed coming to school and they were thriving in the classroom, if they were reaching my objectives and understanding them, then I feel like I would have been doing a good job. If after a lesson on homophones, for instance, I gave my students a quiz and none of them knew it, I would feel that obviously I did a bad job and somewhere I have to go back and re-teach in different manner so that they would have a better understanding of that skill. I hold standards for myself and I have to make sure that students understand the objectives and goals of each of the subject areas that I have to teach them.
Basically, I would say my job is to prepare them for 4th grade; they have to be ready to become fourth graders. Also in Illinois we take the ISAT test (Illinois Standards Achievement Test), it is also my job to prepare them for that test that happens in March.
Maria, you pose a very difficult question to answer! The concept of how we define these values is most problematic and prompts me to ask further questions: Who is in charge of defining these values? How do we know that those in charge of defining them are doing a good job? In essence, who is holding them accountable for promoting "good" values? I think the key (or at least one of them) to addressing the issues of culture and values in schools is in requiring the stakeholders (teachers, administrators, central office leaders, etc) to step back for a moment from their craft for personal and professional reflection. Perhaps, one might ask oneself, am I practicing the values that I preach? Am I holding my colleagues and myself accountable for bring these core values from theory into practice? This connects to Cohen's theory that in order to improve instruction, we must improve our own capacity to assess our work. I couldn't agree more. Ultimately, the stakeholders must collectively agree on a set of core values, and furthermore, must commit to these values in their daily practice.
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