May 01 2007
People or Programs?
Being in the professional development business, we frequently get requests for programs that can improve student achievement. Teachers and administrators are disappointed when they find out that we do not offer quick fixes. At a conference this weekend, I had a chance to hear Todd Whitaker, author of the book What Great Teachers do Differently. He told a story about how open classrooms got started.
An elementary school in rural Indiana became overcrowded. On the opening day, the principal asked for two volunteers to teach in the auxilary gymnasium. After a long silence, the two best teachers in the school raised their hands. The results were incredible. They collaborated when it made sense to collaborate; when they conducted separate lessons their students were as quiet and focused as students in enclosed classrooms. The principal thought she had stumbled onto a new instructional delivery model–the open classroom.
The following year she mandated four more open classrooms. The results were dismal. Within a year the program had been dismantled. Open classrooms were deemed a failure. The moral of the story, of course, is that open classrooms had nothing to do with the success of the auxillary gymnasium project. Students of those teachers would thrive in almost any situation. You see, it was the people, not the program.
Looping, interdisciplinary teaming, school uniforms, credit recovery, and other programs must ultimately rely upon the strength of teachers to be successful. I might go as far as to say, that any program will work when you create situations where teachers can get the job done. If we can minimize distractions, maintain order in the classrooms and hallways, place a high value on quality instructional time, and provide necessary materials, the “programatic” nature of instruction matters little.
This is part of the reason that I believe UDL to be such a powerful organizing set of principles. No instrucitonal methodology is required. Take the instructional method of direct lecture as an example. That strategy has gotten a bad reputation in the last ten years. The problem is not that lecture is a bad strategy. If it works for you, lecture away. The problem with lecture is not that it is a bad way to instruct students, it is that there are so many poor lecturers out there. Here is the catch–you do not get to decide for yourself if you are a good lecturer. At least partially, the arbiter of that is student results. If all of your students are engaged and are benefitting from the instruciton, the lesson was a winner. If not, try something else.
To sum it all up, when we allow student engagement (as exemplified through quality student created products) and achievement to guide our efforts, nothing is “off the table” in terms of instructional approaches, and we create opportunities for teachers to hone their craft in ways that make sense to them.
Here here! It mystifies me how such a fad as open classrooms make it so far as to have entire buildings erected around it such as Vermilion’s Sailorway Middle School. I have hope that the small schools doesn’t lead communities into the same costly mistake (and that one with potentially even more cost and use of natural resources with no guaranteed results).
Achievement does depend on people and not programs. The laptop programs that have failed in places like Liverpool, NY have done so in part by their own admission because of teacher resistance. Without initiative nothing was created to engage students and like with most program failures, money was wasted and a good concept was unduly trashed.
Student achievement being that sign post of success is wonderful and I do agree that academic achievement should be of primary significance; however, that is where one would run into massive amounts of red tape and struggle with special education as typical measures of academic success are not always in play. Social success sometimes carries more weight. Indeed, if inclusion itself were to be held to the same standard as any other program evaluating its success might be precarious for some schools and certainly for some classes.
Other non-typical and hard to measure factors for regular students can also indicate if a teacher’s methods are successful. For example, if Joe Student finally learns that cheating is wrong because his teacher held him accountable there has been a good achievement and even academically, but it would not appear so in a score, quite the opposite. These achievements happen all the time too.
Still, overall student success can be a good indicator of whether or not a method of instruction is working and certainly prescribing a set method for every teacher for every measurable goal could be deleterious to student success. In that light, curriculum mapping that goes into extreme detail and specifics as many do in order to address state standards and OGT performance, can be counteractive to student achievement.
I wish I had some training with UDL now! If it addresses what I foresee and believe to be the major cause of program failures: teacher resistance, then it would be very cool thing to understand more.
Here’s what I wonder about teacher resistance:
1 - What is “teacher resistance?”
Is it a flat out resistance to serve the very mission that we all signed up for - that mission being - Helping Children - because I don’t think there is a teacher who would outwardly say, “I don’t want to help children learn.”
At least I hope this person isn’t out there actively working to “not help children.”
If an actual person does exist and this person comes right out and says, “I don’t want to help children!” I hope someone else would step in and help to find a new place of employment where this person would want to serve the core mission of the organization!
I just can’t believe in my heart that there are teachers who say, “I don’t want to help children.”
2 – So, if “teacher resistance” is not for a lack of wanting to help children, what is the root cause of this thing we call, “teacher resistance?”