This article appeared as "The Reset" in the Summer 2023 issue of Independent School.Just before the pandemic, as I entered my 13th year at the same school, I felt like I was on a hamster wheel of giving suggestion after suggestion to teachers. As a learning coordinator at The University of Chicago Laboratory Schools (IL), I work with teachers, their grade level teams, our learning and counseling department, and administrators to help support students and develop curriculum collaboratively. The school doesn’t have strict and binding curriculum standards, and teachers have the flexibility, and ultimately, the final decision in how to craft their own programs.
As all school faculty and staff know, things can easily become stuck. I realized I was stuck, too. To avoid stepping on teachers’ toes, I had become very rote. If a teacher was frustrated with her students’ writing output and was resistant to change, I’d empathize without offering much feedback about her teaching. Still, my job was to make sure the students were still growing, and I didn’t feel I was reaching that goal.
In a school system, an established way of doing things evolves, and collaboration often goes on autopilot. Many midcareer educators may face this juncture where the “magic” isn’t working like it used to. Just like classroom teachers, I’ve had many ups and downs as an instructional coach. The pandemic provided unspoken permission to cut out the soft dialogue and get to the heart of issues. I realized I was feeling burnt out, and therefore, I wasn’t as creative and lost my ability to see past teacher resistance. I needed a reset.
A Framework
I created a framework to help me go through the process: RESET: Reflect, Examine Mindsets, Set Priorities, Earmark Challenges, and Turn to my Team. This guides my interactions with teachers; I try to make sure we don’t only focus on the challenges we have with students, and we hit all the other pieces equally. If a classroom teacher leaves our collaboration with a set of new priorities or clarity on what students should know or be able to do and implementation ideas that are specific and actionable, mission accomplished.Reflect
Reflection can be a way for us to stay connected to the ultimate “why” of our teaching practice. When we are under stress, fatigued, or complacent, reflection can help us reset and reconnect with our passion. As part of this exercise, ask yourself: What made me want to teach? Who am I as a teacher, and what are the strengths that I bring to my approach to curriculum? How do I engage my students? Where are the areas I need support, and how will I get help?In collaboration with faculty, reflection can encourage different questions. For the teacher expressing frustration with her writers, we examined student work and together identified what students were able to do, calling them competencies. The gaps in the writing turned into instructional priorities, with specific instructional moves we would take.
Examine Mindsets
We all know the importance of teaching students to have a growth mindset. But what about us, as adults? If we are to embrace any type of growth, examining our mindset is critical. And to reset, we must take stock of where we are emotionally in relation to our teaching.Educators can have fixed or growth mindsets about students, teaching practices, colleagues, or even the prospect of change. It can be hard to hold up the mirror when we have blind spots, and we may even go through a period of disillusionment that causes us to focus on what isn’t working.
When we get bogged down, we may find ourselves stuck in negative thought patterns. There’s a link between feeling stressed and exhibiting negativity. If we complain about what our students can’t do and spend a lot of time thinking about this with no action plan, it can increase our stress levels and make us feel ineffective. Reframing our approach to what the students can do well has a direct correlation to our energy. This will shift our focus from a deficit lens to a strength-based lens.
In my own work, and as part my reflection, I realized that my roadmap to curriculum was not always the “right” one if it didn’t work for that classroom teacher’s style. In some teacher meetings, I’d listen to respond rather than listen to understand. Once I began to work through this framework and emphasized the growth mindset, I became more present with the teachers, the students, and the work.
Set Priorities
Teachers hear about this program and that program and the promised results for students. With a myriad of ways to teach all the different subjects well, we cannot possibly go whole-hog implementing all the programs with fidelity. We need to choose, but how? We examine what the students can do and what they can’t do yet. We look for patterns and group children based on the skills they need to learn. We set a roadmap.In their March 2016 article in Phi Delta Kappan, “The Futility of PLC Lite,” Rick DuFour and Douglas Reeves pose a few questions to consider when setting priorities: What do we want students to learn? How will we know if they have learned it? What will we do if they have not learned it? How will we provide extended learning opportunities for students who have not mastered the content? Continuous informal and formal assessment should serve as a guide and allow us to focus on what students really need and not just what we think they might need.
For me, focusing deeply on one area at a time with teachers rather than just being general helps both the teacher and me feel we’re moving forward in our learning together. There is something very grounding about having a roadmap, but there should be rest stops along the way. This removes the pressure to “get to this or that” and helps us go deeper. It is in this deep learning that learners thrive.
Earmark Challenges
Possibilities abound when teachers believe in what their students are able to accomplish. The converse is also true—when teachers believe students can’t behave or that something is wrong with them, they might look for evidence. How could we reframe what we are noticing? How can we look at a student’s behavior or challenges with an eye toward opportunity instead of judgment?Picture this student assignment: Write a paragraph in response to the text the teacher reads in class. The student sits there, no words on the page. As a teacher, you take that information, interpret it, and intervene. You may even have some emotions, such as annoyance or impatience. You might make some assumptions. But tasks are complex, and there can be multiple reasons why he is not writing. Is the obstacle that he has a decoding problem, and the text has too many multiple-syllable words? Is it that his brain thinks faster than his pencil, and his hand hurts when he writes? Is it that he has the ideas and can verbalize them, but when he gets to the paper, he is overwhelmed with the anxiety of writing it down? If you try to understand the breakdown, then you can set up the environment and the teaching strategies that have the best chance of success.
In this real-life situation, the teacher discussed the article with the student and wrote down some of the key words the student said. The teacher wrote the first sentence, and then the student was off and running. Earmarking challenges helps us strategize instead of letting them consume or paralyze us.
Turn to Your Team
When educators work in a professional learning community, DuFour and Reeves write in their article, they “work together in collaborative teams rather than in isolation and take collective responsibility for student learning.” If the pandemic has taught us anything, it is the power of connection.As a learning specialist, I have the benefit of seeing what many teachers do, but teachers rarely watch each other teach. We know that people learn in different ways. People also pick up ideas in varied ways by reading books, attending professional development events, or watching other teachers implement their strategies. It is watching what learners can do and how other teachers respond that gives us more tools.
By picking one focus area to study with a colleague for the year, we can go deeper. When we are specific about what we want to study in our professional settings, it makes for more focused and collaborative learning results. We know schools are relational and learning is relational, so what better way to strengthen one’s teaching than to invite a colleague to learn with you for the year?
If you find yourself burned out, frustrated, fatigued, or just rudderless, give yourself an opportunity to reset. You can do it at any time. You don’t have to wait for a new school year or a new group of students. Keep it simple. Work on one thing at a time. Give yourself grace and begin again.