The Mandate of Great Teaching and Why We Should Help

During my first year of teaching, I used to joke with my fellow third grade teachers that I was going to sign my biweekly paycheck over to my student Jovan*, my comical way of acknowledging that Jovan was the person who was actually doing the work of controlling my class. Making light of the matter masked the pain and frustration that I felt day after day and week after week, when I would walk into my classroom determined to take control of the space, only to be routinely upstaged by a nine year old who hadn’t yet mastered long division.  

A mischievous boy, Jovan was particularly adept at veering his classmates off course in the middle of my lessons.  His strategies varied from peppering the room with inappropriate jokes, to blurting out outlandish answers to questions.  He was also notorious for deliberately falling over in his chair daily, or drumming a popular hip-hop beat on his desk during a silent period.    Jovan knew how to command everyone's attention, and try as I might, all that year, I never learned how to do that better than him.

A new year began and Jovan was no longer in my class, but I was assigned to teach two other children whose behavior was even more disruptive than his had been on his very worst day.   I tried and tried to take control, but I had no framework, no clear directives, and no consistent feedback to tell me specifically where I needed to improve.  After just a year and a half in the profession, I was weary and worn, and there appeared to be no light at the end of a very dark tunnel.  I decided that the only way to preserve my sanity and to stop doing a disservice to twenty innocent children was to quit teaching, which is just what I did. 

Luckily, my friend, and then-professor, Lisa Delpit didn’t allow me time to engage in self-pity or to internalize defeat.  Instead, she urged me to get back into the classroom, which I did very soon thereafter, but not before engaging in honest self-reflection, then arming myself with action plans and schedules and strategies to manage my classroom, engage my students, and most importantly, facilitate significant academic growth. 

More than a decade later, some would say that we are living in a different time.  No one can argue that our computers are now fancier, that Facebook and Twitter have captured our imaginations, and that our country is living under the leadership of its first African American president.  However, step foot into the average American classroom, and you will discover that time has stood painfully still.  

Thousands of teachers are still struggling with minimal assistance from their school leaders and no clear road map for success.  They have thrown their hands up in exasperation and despair, ceding defeat to the children and the circumstances that have derailed them from managing their classrooms and teaching effectively.   Fortunately, this doesn't have to be so.

Though fodder for endless criticism, it is an undeniable truth that the highest-performing charter school networks in the US  - networks such as KIPP, Achievement First and Uncommon Schools, create environments in which teachers are constantly being observed, not solely for scrutiny's sake, but for the explicit purpose of providing feedback so that the teacher can improve his or her craft.  These schools also establish a path for teachers to follow - a series of unambiguous actions that will lead to successful teaching.  In the present climate of rampant academic failure, no critic of education can be taken seriously if s/he is not willing to engage in a meaningful evaluation of this teaching and learning paradigm, since it is a paradigm that has yielded quantifiably positive results.

At Newark Legacy Charter School, a school that I founded and presently lead, teachers are observed much more frequently than they would be in a traditional public school, though not nearly as frequently as I would like.   However, the teachers are given clear rubrics and frameworks to follow.  So, with the help of a flip camera that they can use to record their own teaching, teachers can engage in frequent self-evaluation and single-handedly ramp up their own improvement.  This framework brings new meaning to the term "self-reflection", because it provides a level of objectivity that is not possible with simply a journal and a pen.  Through review of live footage, teachers can assess their attitudes, actions, reactions and overall demeanor in the classroom.  It is a scary way to come to terms with one's strengths and weaknesses.  However, while the teacher's vulnerability increases, the opportunity to help students learn by improving that teacher's practice increases as well.

The crux of the matter is that in spite of all the variables that can and do affect student outcomes, better is possible, and the teaching force will be the ones who lead the way.  The time has come for us to stop blaming the Jovans of the world for exerting their power, because in the absence of effective systems and clear authority, we are all Jovan.  The time has also come for us to stop blaming Jovan's parents for his behavior, 1) because when parents know better they do better, and 2) because blame is not a strategy.  And, to the extent that we do, the time has come for us to stop vilifying teachers, since most are battle-weary and woefully lacking an updated playbook from any winning team.

The urgent mandate of educating our children requires us to be solution-focused and maniacal about using and refining strategies that work, beginning with a focus on building a classroom culture, because without a spirit-affirming, well-managed classroom, optimal learning will not occur.   Once an appropriate learning environment has been established, teachers must use high-yield teaching strategies, and they must plan lessons that facilitate ongoing data collection on student understanding and achievement.  Finally, teachers must use the data they collect to determine how to move forward with instruction.   A tall order?  Undoubtedly, but America's children deserve our very best efforts.  

As some of you are reading this, many others are sipping lattes at Starbucks, while engaging in lofty discussions about how to solve the ‘education problem’.  In the meantime, our teachers are on the front lines making an impact, be it good or bad, on the lives of our youth.   For this reason, all of us who purport to care about the children must engage in a concerted effort to help these teachers to succeed, or at the very least, we must be supportive of those who are leading the charge.

* While I describe real events and a real student I had during my first year in the classroom, Jovan is a pseudonym for the student whose behavior I write about in this piece.