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Positioning, Promises, and Positive Ideas for Success

Decision #1: How will you position yourself? There are three decisions you must make in order to build an image of trust and confidence for you and your schools. It is vital that you make these decisions now. They will become the rock-solid pillars you need to lead during this time of uncertainty. The first decision you must make is to choose how you are going to position your school or district in the community. This means deciding that you will purposely build the image of your school or district instead of just “letting things take their own course.” How you position yourself and your school is vital. For instance, during this crisis you can position you, your school, or your district as one who will do everything possible to ensure the safety and continuous learning of your students and staff, or choose to lie low and bend in one direction and then the other depending on who is applying the pressure. One thing is certain: A superintendent, principal, or teacher who isn’t positioned to build trust will never acquire the freedom necessary to give the best possible education for students. Often, because we haven’t decided how we wish to position ourselves, we send mixed messages to those we lead. One day our decisions appear student-centered, the next day they appear teacher-centered, or administrator-centered. When this is the case, those we lead are confused—consciously or subconsciously—and can’t support our actions because they can’t follow them. The most professional position we can choose to take is to create and maintain a student-centered philosophy. As long as every decision has the welfare of students as its foundation, we’re on defensible ground—even when we err. A close look will reveal that its only when we are not student-centered that we don’t have a valid defense. Once we are positioned appropriately, we need to consider our second most important decision: making a promise. Decision #2: Make your students, staff, parents, and community a promise. Emphasize delivery make sure they know you are delivering. The second most important thing we can do to establish an image of trust and confidence is to make our publics a promise—and then deliver. The most desirable promise we can make is that we will give each and every child a great education—even despite current circumstances. It’s the best promise we can make to gain and keep a position of trust, respect, influence, and leadership. But without a plan for continuous communication of our promise to our communities, we must realize that people will never know we are making any promises, much less keeping any. There is a management law called the Law of Positive Reinforcement. This law relates: In the absence of positive reinforcement from appointed leaders, negative human attitudes and behaviors are most likely to emerge from the group being led. In a nutshell, this means that not only do we have to make our students and our communities positive promises, but we have to repeat those promises over and over again in a variety of ways to prevent the negative from emerging and dominating. The question now is: “What can you promise in a time of fear and uncertainty?” The truth is, there are many promises you can make. You can promise that you will do everything in your power to keep students and staff safe. You can promise that you will support teachers to deliver creative and rigorous lessons whether in-person or online. And you can promise that as soon as you have information that is useful to your various publics you will deliver factually. The central issue is this: You have the opportunity every day to take some of the worry, concern, and fear out of people’s lives and to create the positive focus we want and need to function effectively—just by making promises you intend to keep. We should never make promises we can’t fulfill. However, there are promises we can make for those things we are already doing or know we are going to do. Remember, teachers, educators, and leaders who position themselves and their organizations as worry relievers and helpers are always considered valuable and enjoy the best reputations. Decision #3: Build your image on positive ideas. Unless we build our image on positive ideas for helping students and teachers find success, what we are saying about the merits of our school or district is unlikely to match reality. It takes positive and enthusiastic ideas to make people notice what we are doing for children—and to cause them to develop good feelings about us as well as take the action we want them to take to support us. The fact is this: Many of the positive ideas we need are already in place. We’re doing fantastic things with and for children. But if these methods, techniques, and successes are not common knowledge to your publics, they have little value in building an atmosphere of trust, confidence, and support.

July 02, 2020

Preparing for a Successful, Learning-Filled Opening

It is no secret that learning growth among students throughout the spring was uneven. It is true that some students thrived and were able to stay on pace and may even have made progress beyond what the standard curriculum envisioned. Other students struggled, but with the support of caring, engaged staff and supportive families, were able to keep pace and will enter school this fall not far from where their learning might have been without the three-month interruption. Still other students were less fortunate. While they were able to make some progress, their circumstances made keeping up with the pace of learning beyond their reach. Unfortunately, there were also students who seemed to disappear when school closed and there is little reason to believe that they made much progress at all. Now, as we develop plans for opening the new school year we are faced with a crucial decision. How should teachers address such variations in learning readiness among the students who will enter their classes? To be fair, students have always entered school in the fall at different places on the learning continuum. Some students may have been on track but lost much of what they learned over the summer. Other students were behind in the spring and will return at least as far behind. Still other students experienced a summer filled with learning activities and come even more ready to learn than when they left in the spring. Researchers estimate that the average American graded classroom, prior to the pandemic, included students whose readiness to learn or skill levels spanned 2.5 grade levels. The difference we face is in the amount of variation, not in the variation itself. Teachers have approached this challenge in a variety of ways. Some have spent the first few weeks reviewing what was learned in the previous year to “catch everyone up.” Even though many students did not need catching up, but were asked to sit, listen, and cooperate anyway. Meanwhile, students who were far behind often were not given adequate time and support to make the progress necessary to be on track. Consequently, the 2.5 year grade level span remained in place. This discussion leads us back to the question of how learning and teaching should be positioned as school opens. Some people have recommended that teachers simply start with the established grade level curriculum. Yet, this approach almost guarantees that the students most in need of catching up will not. In fact, the learning gap they face may become permanent. At the same time, spending weeks on remediation risks boredom for students who are ready to move on and remediation has a poor track record of effectiveness even under the best of conditions. So, what are some options we might consider for opening the school year in a manner that meets the needs of students where they are and sets up everyone’s learning for success? Here are five ideas for you to examine:

Position for transition: Consider keeping students with the same teachers and in the groups they were in last year. Relationships between these teachers and students already exist for the most part. Teachers will be able to diagnose and support student progress without unnecessary loss of time. Also, utilize one or more of the instructional support strategies presented below.
Focus on learning: Encourage teachers to focus on learning for the first part of the year, not coverage of the curriculum. The more success teachers have in developing learning skills and habits with students, the better students will perform when the established curriculum becomes a more consistent part of their learning experience. In fact, this investment may lead to a faster pace of learning throughout the year that will reduce the pacing gap about which educators have so much concern.
Informal assessment: Encourage teachers to develop simulations and learning adventures in which students will enjoy engaging, but that reveal what skills students have and need to develop. This type of adventure or activity-based assessment experience can be a great way to understand what learning support students need without defaulting to formal assessments and rigid diagnostic activities.
Student-to-student support: Yet this summer consider offering small grants to highly effective, learner-focused teachers to recruit and work with groups of strong, confident, engaging students to develop short videos to teach other students key skills and concepts. Students often learn easily from other students without the stigma of remediation. YouTube and other media sites already feature young people effectively teaching a variety of skills and strategies. Use this approach as a model. Keep the videos short and be sure to obtain appropriate parent permissions. Make these videos available online or within an in-house repository for students to use anytime to support their learning.
Micro-lessons: Encourage teachers to make short, ten- to fifteen-minute videos teaching micro-lessons on topics and skills they anticipate students will struggle to master. Similar to the student videos, these resources can be part of a library students can access with or without teacher support. As school opens and the needs of students become better defined, teachers might present live micro-lessons to a target group of students who are ready to learn a specific skill or concept. These lessons, too, can be videoed and shared with other students as they are ready to learn what is taught.

June 26, 2020

Keep the Main Thing the Main Thing

Right now, you are probably hearing lots of questions, being offered plenty of advice, and receiving a good measure of pressure to explain exactly what will happen as school reopens. Predictably what you are hearing concerns how teaching will occur, how the environment will be structured, what the schedule will be, what resources will be available, and other related areas of seemingly urgent interest.

It can be tempting, even satisfying, to deal with these issues, as they need to be resolved in a timely manner. However, becoming preoccupied with answers to these elements while neglecting the most important issue can turn out to be a trap. While reassuring people about their roles and concerns can feel like leadership, such an approach risks missing the most important consideration in reestablishing school for the new year.

The bottom line is that what matters most is learning and the best ways for learning to happen. It does not matter what the schedule will be, where resources will be allocated, how days will be scheduled, or even how teaching will be organized until we have fully considered and understand what learning needs must be met. Students will be returning to school after living through a variety of settings and learning experiences. Unless we begin our thinking and planning with these needs in mind, we risk neglecting the needs of many and serving only a minority of students well.

Grounding discussions need to start with and remain focused on what students will need to support their learning and health. This foundational understanding must drive decisions about how teaching roles will be structured, how schedules should be organized, what environments will be best aligned, and where resources should be allocated.

Admittedly, many adults around you want to know what their world will be like. This perspective is natural. But our focus needs to be on the main thing: serving the needs of learners in the best practical way. Once we have this anchor, we can align everything else and keep the main thing the main thing. Make no mistake: As long as students are learning, all will go better. But if learning falters, all else will be regarded as insignificant.

June 11, 2020