"I don't know how to teach people how to care."

It's strange how some things can stick in your brain. Things your parents or grandparents tell you as a child, or messages from your heroes often occupy a part of your brain and stick there. I'm almost certain that there are important things that went into one of my ears and out the other. It just didn't stick. And then there are things that seem meaningless at the moment, but make so much sense later on. This week I had one of those experiences and it led to a bright idea that I really do think can help us be better educators right now. 

In the 2016-2017 school year, Carrie Ann Miller had agreed to take a step out of teaching full-time to try to coach other STEM teachers. At the time she had received a lot of praise for the work that she was doing and STEM education was a buzzword nationally. We had asked her to try to get teachers to think and work in the ways that had made her successful. She was apprehensive but agreed to try. We knew going into a coaching position, that it is hard to see quick success. Ask any of our instructional coaches. Getting adults to change is difficult, but incredibly rewarding when it pays off. Carrie Ann quickly realized something about herself and what was holding her back as an instructional coach and what she told me has occupied a small corner of my brain ever since.

"I don't know how to teach people how to care." 

Carrie Ann wasn't critiquing the pedagogy, standards alignment, or any other piece of instruction that she thought she was there to fix. Those parts are easy to identify and much easier to correct than other problems. What she saw instead was that when teachers were struggling, so were their students and vice-versa. This struggle often left teachers, good teachers, being dismissive or overly focused on tasks than on human beings. She wasn't saying that they didn't care about their students or even their work. Instead she saw a difference in how teachers managed students and themselves in difficult situations and how easy it was to forget that we are people first. Her struggle left her frustrated and she returned to the classroom full-time the next year because she needed to feel the success of something she knew she could control. 

I had not thought much about that year until this past Friday when I heard a podcast about the economics of compassion in medical care. The show cited several research studies that proved that compassion and empathy on behalf of the doctors actually made patients heal faster, provided less expensive care, and reduced doctor burnout. They could provide amazing medical care, but beyond that, the biggest impact on themselves and their patients had nothing to do with medicine. The researcher was now searching for ways to teach doctors how to care about patients as human beings instead of just treating their illnesses.

So many students are in a state of educational trauma this year and so many teachers have resorted to some form of triage as we try to make things just work for a bit. If that's left you burned out or if your students just are not responding to every education trick you try, maybe it's time to try a dose of compassion. It sounds strange and a bit hokey, especially for high school teachers, but I can tell you that there's a lot of research that says it works. We have to teach everyone how to care right now.

What Are We Grading?

Any teacher that was forced to sit through an educational history or methods course can tell you that the birth of public schooling is rooted in the industrial revolution and a need for a labor force that had basic skills and could follow routines. While curriculum and pedagogy have branched out a lot since then, we haven't strayed far from our roots. We still ring bells and have routines that could easily be compared to the factory system. There has been a modern push to change some of that and it has gained some traction in the concept of grading for mastery. In Greene County, we see it in lower grades with our standards-based grading system and in upper grades, we introduced rubrics. If you were here in the RBT training years, you might recall the Met or Not Met grades that we were encouraged to give. These new grading systems try to focus more on what kids know and can do, but they are also sometimes difficult for parents to understand because we received grades on a numerical scale and that's what we know. 

Since the first progress reports went home this year, I've thought a lot about grading. It's hard not to right now. We worked hard to get students to submit assignments and the phrase, "Just turn in something" was often heard. We gave students authentic grades and after the first report card, we knew we had to do something and developed remedial assignments. That made a big difference, but not big enough to keep me from worrying about it. 

The two children that sleep in my home have done well this year. They have all As and have learned to communicate with their teachers on their own. I'm proud of them for adjusting, but it hit me this week that those grades don't truly belong to them. Those are household grades. My children live in a home with two parents with advanced college degrees. They have access to reliable, high-speed internet and any other tool they need to be successful. Their parents manage people and programs or a living and know the education system well. My children don't have a reason to not do well right now. The problem is that we are the exception and not the norm. 

When students spend seven or more hours at school every day, we are some of the largest contributors to their thoughts and expectations. While we still struggle with getting some students to comply, we can get the majority. It's probably not a fluke that in a normal year, the failure rate hangs close to the unemployment rate and that's pretty low. This year things are different and failures don't reflect curriculum that students can't do, they most likely reflect work they haven't attempted or submitted. Mix that with an adapted curriculum and we are moving much closer to grading compliance than we are learning. 

So what's the answer? I have no clue. And I don't really think anyone else does either. But I believe that necessity is the mother of invention and we are in a time of great need. The education world is holding on to hope that everything goes back to the way that it was, but I believe that teachers are perfectly positioned to create change right now. So how do you know what your kids can do? How do you know that they have learned and grown? You are all in the driver's seat to help make some of those decisions and I'm so curious to see what comes out.

What Did You Do Right?

I started doing my third quarter observations this week. The rubric doesn't exactly fit the way school works right now, so I have been learning how to give a little more latitude on some of the elements that I used to be very specific on. Usually, when an administrator gives you feedback on an observation, you're happy to hear what went well and anxious to see if there's something they did not like or a suggestion for improvement they may have. It's human nature to focus on the negative or to take it more to heart. I had that in my mind this week and stumbled across an article that suggests that focusing on our weaknesses might be detrimental to your future decisions as well. If you're one of those people that gets anxious at the bad news or the negative feedback, it can be even worse for you. 

We started this school year knowing what didn't work from virtual learning last Spring. We went on to center our professional development at fixing courses, improving communication, and trying to fix everything that was wrong. And if you are normal, at some point that work put you in a bad mood. I know I'm certainly guilty of that. With all of the focus on what's been wrong, I thought it might be time to start focusing on what is going well and where we have made progress. Some of you are already doing this and I hadn't really noticed until I stopped this week to focus on it myself. Here are a few successes that came to mind this week:

• The OCS classes are setting up an occupational lab in the school to teach work skills since they can't travel to work sites.
• Five beginning teachers decided to take on an extra professional development with Mrs. Garcia and she's so excited about working with them.
• Mrs. Head holds a voluntary live Zoom each morning to teach Math 1 to any teacher's students and they are attending without having to or receiving any other incentive. 
• Mr. Gnau got back to coaching men's soccer this week with a large majority of players eligible to play despite the academic challenges of the Fall semester.
• Mrs. Mattocks has been initiating our freshmen to the library as a part of her world history classes and it's great to see the space being used by students again.

There are many more, and certainly, some that I have left off that you've shared with me this week. And I think we need to start taking a little time to focus on what we did right. Look for some opportunities to share your successes throughout this semester, big or small. Your ideas and ability to overcome challenges can unlock inspiration in others, and focusing on your successes keeps you in a positive mindset to make better decisions in the future. 

A Fresh Start

In the Fall of 2000, I entered ECU as a Teaching Fellow. I was a first-generation college-goer that had plenty of great support from high school teachers that filled some voids that my parents were not able to fill when it came to the college process. Despite the support, like most teenagers with a new-found sense of freedom, I proceeded to have a really good time in that first semester of college. Hopefully, many of those exploits remain as skeletons in the closet, but it can easily be deduced that academics were not my first priority...or second...or third really. 

The director of ECU's Teaching Fellows program at my induction was Dr. Ronny VanSant. Dr. VanSant was a legend in the world of the Teaching Fellows program throughout the state. She had very strict expectations for how we dressed and behaved as representatives of the program and as recipients of the scholarship dollars. It didn't take me long to recognize that Dr. VanSant didn't seem to care much for my attitude or appearance sometimes. I associated mainly with a group of other students that seemed to not fit in as well. I can't say that I blame Dr. VanSant one bit for recognizing that I did not display what she wanted from me. She was proud of her program, and I wasn't always bringing good things her way. 

Several things happened after that first semester though. Many of my friends had failed courses and were on academic probation. It became pretty clear that they would lose their scholarships. And while I was not in their position, I knew that I wasn't doing what I should be doing either. My grades were not what they should have been and I knew I was dialing it in. I didn't exactly have a backup plan and joining the military with several of my friends that knew they were leaving didn't sound appealing to me at 19, so I decided to distance myself from some of my distractions and start trying. Now I do not proclaim that I made a quick turnaround. I still struggled to change throughout that Spring semester, but I had some help. 

Dr. VanSant had to leave her position due to illness and an interim director took her place. Mary Beth Corbin took over and fortunately, she didn't have the same first impression that I had given before. Mrs. Corbin never treated me like anything other than a great student. She was always welcoming, easy to talk to, and overly helpful. I went from being someone that dodged the Teaching Fellows office, to someone that stopped in to say hello or ask for help. I joined committees and volunteered. And while I doubt Mrs. Corbin even knew of the influence she had on me at the time, I'm eternally grateful to her for the fresh start that she gave me. 

This week we begin a new semester in a school year that has seen record student failures due to the pandemic and the nature of schooling. At the end of the first 9-week period, about 43% of courses were failing in our school. By the end of the semester, that fell to 28%. While that's great progress, it's still a staggering number. But it does show that many of these students recognized a need to change and at least started that transformation. As a student that has been in those shoes, I am telling you just how important it is for you to be the leader that gives them a fresh start. Embrace them despite their past. Encourage them when they struggle. Lift them when they fall. The opportunity you give them can be just as influential as it was for me.