Encouragement for Small Schools

Learning about collaborative work in large schools is inspiring, but small school educators can be left with lots of tough questions. Reality prohibits elementary grade level teams and secondary departmental teams. Much of the discussion of common assessments does not translate. Teachers may get discouraged. Administrators may be tempted to create another beast that can't be fed. 

However, there is great power in elementary vertical teams and secondary interdisciplinary teams. It is in the best interests of students to support and leverage the power of these teams.

Teachers in elementary vertical teams and secondary interdisciplinary teams can....

1. Hold each other accountable for honoring priority standards in assessments.

2. Work to create and maintain times and spaces for students to be matched with their needs.

3. Research best practices for assessment and instruction.

4. Provide mentoring that is so necessary in small schools dealing with turnover.

Collaboration will look different in small schools, but our students deserve to have teachers who make it work. 

What Our School Learned From Teacher Walk Through

At the 2015 Powerful Learning Conference our leadership team was introduced to the concept of teacher walk through by the Excelsior Springs Middle School team. Over the course of the next year, our six core teachers completed fifty peer observations. The observations provided great data on the learning and teaching that was taking place in our school. More importantly the process helped create a more collegial atmosphere. 

While our staff is still learning how to best leverage the value of teachers observing each other, there are several reasons why the practice has been worth the time.

Promotes Teamwork
We had to come together as a staff to implement peer observation. Classes were covered by an administrator who still missed teaching, so teachers could visit classrooms without giving up plan time. Teachers took on a bit of a different role and provided non-threatening feedback to each other.

Provides Opportunities for Informal Coaching
Because teachers were able to see students in different settings and see the talents of their peers, additional fuel was available for conversations at lunch, staff meetings, and PLC meetings.

Promotes A Growth Mindset
Our leadership team set a goal for the number of peer observations, which helped us gravitate to towards a culture that was focused more on specific and measurable outcomes. Also, as we became more comfortable with the process we tweaked our form. In PLC teams we studied how to use compare and contrast structures to promote critical thinking skills. In our PBIS work we studied the importance of positive feedback. Two additional questions were added to our walk through form to assess the level of implementation of staff learning in classrooms.

Provides Valuable Data
Our staff now has a better picture of what teaching and learning looks like throughout the building. We have data to tell us how varied the "learning diet" is for our students. We know how often they are being asked to complete various tasks. We know the answers to the following questions:
What is the teacher doing?
What are the students doing?
What is the task?
How many positive comments are being made?
How often are students asked to compare and contrast?

Our Process:
-After the conference the leadership team created the form.
-Shortly after walk throughs began.
-Walk throughs were not scheduled but occurred irregularly as the flow of school life permitted; however, goals for the number of walk throughs were set.
-Walk throughs were conducted the principal, covered a teachers' class. The teacher using an i pad filled in a google form. Sometimes the teachers visited several classrooms. Sometimes the teacher stayed for a longer period of time in one room.
-The google form automatically populated a spreadsheet and created charts summarizing the data.

Putnam's Our Kids: Takeaways for Educators

Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis by Harvard professor Robert Putnam was not written for educators, but there is much here for those working in America's schools. In the book Putnam observes that Americans often gravitate to the lone cowboy as a symbol, in the rugged individualist tradition. A symbol just as accurate, and more needed in our current culture, Putnam argues, is the symbol of the wagon train. In the wagon train, cooperation was as valuable as independence and each member had an interest in looking out for the others. By telling the stories of families across the country, and by comparing his hometown in the fifties with its current reality, Putnam argues that our society has been increasingly divided along class lines, and our children our paying the price. Putnam's book is intended to be call to all Americans to reclaim a tradition of collective responsibility for our country's children. 

Below are three important concepts for educators to take from the book. 

1.) Two Worlds

As much as anytime in our country's history, our students are being raised in distinctly different environments, according to their parent's income and education. In Putnam's hometown, like many communities, it was not uncommon for blue collar and white collar families to live near each other and associate at schools an churches. Then the gap in income between education levels was not as great as it is today. Today, due mostly to residential segregation along class lines, Americans with means often live separated from families in poverty. The geographic gaps often correlate with opportunity gaps. Through numerous scissor charts, Putnam details the differences in outcomes that children of wealth and children of poverty experience. Educators must be aware of the effects of these gaps on their students. 

2.) Investments with the Highest Returns

While Putnam goes to great lengths to prove that schools are sites, not causes, of inequity, he does offer some suggestions to educators for minimizing the effects of the economic gaps. Extra curricular activities receive special attention for the positive impact they have on students in poverty. Putnam asserts that these activities provide students the opportunities to build soft skills and make social connections that are so vital for success after graduation. Putnam is a sharp critic of "pay for play" (activity fees) policies that have become common in cash strapped districts. Putnam also advocates for high quality early childhood programs.

3.) Personal Connections

Putnam acknowledges the efforts educators make in their professional lives on behalf of their students. However, throughout the book Putnam argues that the gaps in educational and career outcomes between rich and poor kids have much more to do with their lives outside of school than inside. One of Putnam's key claims is that in earlier decades, when our culture was not as divided along class lines, poor kids were in a better position to be mentored by successful professionals. Informal mentoring relationships, mostly formed outside of schools, are spaces for kids to "understand the institutions that stand astride the paths to opportunity and to make those institutions work for them." Churches have been, and still are, important places for these connections to form. Putnam observes that church participation rates of poorer families are declining faster than those of their peers, which leads to less access to mentors. In the vignettes of actual families that Putnam shares, youth pastors, more often than coaches or teachers, appear as heroes. Educators looking to make the biggest difference in kid's lives will most likely have the greatest impact in informal mentoring relationships that extend beyond the school day, formed in churches or otherwise. 

This is the message educators should work to teach to their friends and families who work outside of education. Our country will be stronger when more adults find ways to invest in the lives of kids across class lines.