57 Flavours ....... or just 1?

A long time ago I wrote  a post called 57 flavours? about how teachers are hired because they will bring the school something it needs, because they will add their own "spice" to the mix. I wrote that teachers should not hide their uniqueness or worry about the fact that they are not quite like anyone else at the school.

However, lately, whenever I talk to colleagues I feel that things are changing. I participate in activities, such as the Teachers' Guild, where I meet teachers from private and public schools all over the world. I am hearing from teachers - constantly now - that administrators want more consistency across classrooms in each grade, and are asking teachers to do the same things, the same way, on the same schedule. It sounds like administrators do NOT want teachers who bring their uniqueness: it sounds like they would prefer to have teachers who are as identical as possible.

I must admit that part of me completely understands this need: it must be difficult, for administrators, to keep an eye on progress across a grade if the teachers are teaching different parts of the curriculum, in different ways, at different times. And, of course, parents tend to compare notes, and a parent who feels that another teacher in their child's grade is doing something better, is going to be unhappy and may complain. Every time two teachers do things differently, at least some parents are going to think the other teacher's way is better, and be unhappy. Unhappy parents are bad for the school, and there is an easy "fix" for this sort of unhappiness: make all the classes do things as similarly as possible.

So, I understand the drive for consistency, but a part of me wonders... by eliminating the things that make us (teachers) different, by making all teachers do everything just the same, are we giving our best to the students?

If we all teach the exact same lesson, the same project, in exactly the same way, don't we lose some of the passion a teacher brings by communicating in the way they feel most excited about, feel is most natural for them? If we don't vary our approach and timing based on the students' response, don't we lose some of the differentiation our students need? If we send the same letter to all parents in the grade every week, don't we lose some of the authenticity we are trying to build in our relationships with them?

This is difficult stuff. We want to make sure that admin can properly track progress in each classroom. We want parents to be happy, and not to feel that their child would have a better experience in another teacher's classroom.

And yet...

Consistency means that innovative, creative teachers must stop innovating and creating. Consistency means that teachers are being asked not to do their best, but to do only those things that all the other teachers can do equally well. Just as every teacher has unique strengths, every teacher has some relative weaknesses: consistency means every teacher must level down, in each area, to match the teacher who is least strong in that area. One result is that it is easier for the school to monitor the classrooms and be sure that every student is getting the education they were promised. But leveling down to every teacher's relative weakness means the students have a very different experience, compared to one where they can benefit from their teacher's greatest strengths.

I have many friends in schools around the USA and around the world, and I am increasingly hearing that many of them are moving schools with the hope that, in a different school, they will again be allowed to keep their "spice" alive. They were hired for their track record of talented teaching but now are being asked to stop being different.

At the Teachers' Guild, I have come across teachers who are trying to find people at other schools who can implement their ideas, to see if their ideas would work, because they are not allowed to do so themselves. You can imagine how frustrated they feel!

The drive for consistency seems to be happening everywhere, all at once. I certainly understand why. Certainly, "creativity" and "uniqueness" should not be used as excuses for failing to properly teach the curriculum; it is important to identify teachers who need help, and to get it for them. But, it does make me wonder: is this the best way to ensure that every student has the most amazing possible experience? Or are we guaranteeing somewhat poorer - but equal - experiences for everyone? And, how can we get the best of both worlds?

iCity

Great News!

If you enjoyed reading about iCity two years ago in this blog you can now download the iCity booklet at the Apple Bookstore for Free.

iCity is booklet number 2 of the Spreading JAM series. Book 3 and 4  (iCelebrate and iLive) will be available soon.

iCity

Assessment

There's a question that has always seemed, to me, to lie at the heart of a lot of the disagreements about assessments: who are we assessing - the children, or ourselves?

I myself grew up very much afraid of assessments, and my stress over them has meant that I have not been the best performer on tests. 

I realized, however, that stressing over tests is a learned response, not a natural one. My students don't know that they "should" stress over assessments, and they don't even know they're being assessed, especially as the assessments can take so many different forms at this age and stage in life.

From my point of view, what's useful about assessment is that it allows me to learn what lessons I have taught effectively to each child. The assessments help me to identify what I need to do differently for the remainder of the year, not just in general, but with each individual child. 

So, I see the assessment as being an assessment of what I have done, not an assessment of the children as students. I am the grownup, and it is up to me to communicate to the child - it is not the child's job to figure me out. And, for the child, where is the benefit in having them think of themselves as "not a good student"? 

I'm not Pollyanna: I realize that the children are different, and I realize that as they get older they will have to learn techniques that will allow them to assess well. However, I believe that all the children should - and can - learn all the material I teach; whatever their level of ability and maturity, it is up to me to find a way to make the material accessible to them - and this is why I find differentiation so valuable and important. 

Still, at some point the kids are going to figure out that they're being assessed, and how they react to it will depend on how they think about the answer to that question I asked: am I assessing their performance, or mine?

So, in my classroom, once in a while I tell the children, "today, please don't talk among yourselves (I usually encourage collaboration) as you do this activity, because I want to know if I have been able to teach you properly. If I didn't, I will try to find a better way to teach it to you." No surprise, the children are very eager to help me out! I've even had children tell me things like, "Miss Marra, I am not so sure about the hexagon - I think you will have to teach me about that again!" 

57 flavours?

Last summer I attended two courses* in London. One thing that struck me quite forcibly, while there, was how teachers’confidence seems to reach a low point after a certain number of years on the job: even though they want to, they feel they can no longer grow because they feel the system they work within - no matter what it is - limits them.

On both courses we were told we would be asked to share "nuggets" of knowledge with each other at the end. I quickly identified the "nugget" I wanted to share, but as the course went on and I saw myself and my colleagues as students, I realized I was going to change it!

The original "nugget" came from an experience I had last year, when my good friend Adriana and I took an online course on Differentiation. One of the assignments we had to do was based on a Malcolm Gladwell essay on spaghetti sauce (seriously!).

Gladwell told how, for many years, makers of spaghetti sauce had tried to find the "perfect" sauce. They did surveys, they compared which sauces people preferred, and they gradually arrived at a point where they were all selling almost exactly the same sauce, which they thought of as the "best".

But then a marketer had a new idea. What if, he thought, there was a group of people who would prefer a different type of sauce? Then he could prepare a sauce to suit their taste and, even though most people would prefer the usual sauce, he would have the best sauce for those people! He tried it, and he was right - and successful. With each new sauce he could "pick off" the customers who were "odd" enough to think this new sauce was better than the "best" sauce. As the big sauce companies saw what he was doing, they all did the same. By designing different sauces, they could satisfy their customers’ tastes even better than they could with one sauce. Even though a relatively small number of people preferred any particular one of the new sauces, for those people it was better than the "best". Today, of course, there are tens of different spaghetti sauces, and each of us can select the one we prefer.

When I got to the course in London and was told I would have to share a "nugget"' I thought I would share that one. Now, most teachers (including Adriana and I), when they read that essay, think of the students as the product, the spaghetti sauces. Each one is different, and that’s what is so special about them, and as a teacher you have to be able to cater to all of them. But as I sat in a classroom in London, a student instead of a teacher for the week, I saw the story a little differently, and it changed the way I presented it at the end.

I now proposed this interpretation: the children are the customers, and the school is a brand (like, say, Barilla), and we, the teachers, are the spaghetti sauces, the products. The school wants to add each of us to its collection because each of us has something they cannot find in any product (teacher!) they already have. When they hired us, it was because we were the best complement, among all the teachers they interviewed, to the portfolio of teachers they already had. We were the perfect new product, the missing flavor! Each of us brings something unique, something that no other teacher in the school already has, something that adds a little "zing!" to the brand and rounds it out.

But as soon as this new product arrives, it encounters other products and sees that it is different to them, that it doesn’t really "fit in". We need to remember that the new product is there because it is different. We don’t need to be the same as the other products. We cannot forget that the brand does not need us to be the same as each other; it needs us to be a little different, so that we can satisfy the customers' different needs - whether for content, or teaching style, or personality. And, of course, we must never forget that each of us is an amazing product, one the school has selected for our uniqueness.

* The courses were,“Inquiry-Based Learning in the International Classroom,“ and “Classroom Assessment Strategies,“ at the Teacher Training Centre in Each ran for 5 days, from July 1-5 and from July 7-11.

RSA Animate - Changing Education Paradigms

Sir Ken Robinson is one of the five people I would like to sit and have tea with, (Michael Caine, Greg Mortenson, Steve Wozniak, Mihály Csíkszentmihályi are the others, just in case you were wondering) and it would probably be the first time in my life that I would have my mouth shut! ;-)


Thoughts?


(non animated version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCbdS4hSa0s&feature=relmfu)