I’ll never forget my favorite principal of all time finding me in the hallways once and saying, “Bill—what we’re asking you to do isn’t hard. Just do it.”

Considering that I was already putting in twelve hour days and getting paid next to nothing, I wanted to punch him!

The fact of the matter is that most school leaders live in the world of imagination. Their job is to dream new directions rather than to do the heavy lifting that change requires—-and because they haven’t been responsible for implementation in a long, long while, they’ve forgotten exactly how hard changing practices really is.

What’s worse is that there’s an impression—-perhaps earned by teachers who HAVE grown lazy over time due to tenure—–that any resistance to new plans or programs is automatically resistance to change. “These teachers are just complaining because they don’t want to be held accountable,” the thinking goes. “Teachers are the worst audiences.”

In reality, accomplished teachers push back at plans for change that are poorly crafted and show a lack of understanding of the complexity and constraints of our positions.

I’m not interested in designing systematic remediation and enrichment activities for students because I’ve got less than 50 minutes of independent work time a day and no efficient tools for collecting data. I’m not motivated to find ways to integrate my work with the special programs department because we don’t share a planning period. Integrating technology into the classroom is impossible because everything in our system is blocked.

How do we fix the problem?

Easy: Require EVERY school leader to consult real live practitioners before making ANY decisions about new directions for schools. Create teams of teacher-consultants or advisory councils that are pulled together several times each year to gauge the gut reactions of your workforce. Listen when your best and your brightest tell you that they are exhausted.

Classroom teachers have the knowledge and the experience necessary to translate policies into practices. We can help to reframe imagination and to craft realistic plans for implementation.

All ya gotta do is listen.
Bill
.-= Bill Ferriter´s last blog ..Part Two: Teacher Tips for Blogging Projects =-.

Also, as was mentioned, we can’t just stop. It’s hard to make some major changes without taking some time off to plan, prepare, and implement. Perhaps we should take a tip from sustainable farming practices and have a “fallow year” for all schools. A year off for each school community to put together and plan for major systemic changes. While I know that’s a pipe dream, think of what powerful change might flow from a system that supported that type of time for reflection and restructuring.
.-= Ben Wildeboer´s last blog ..Suggestions for resources: Do you agree? =-.