December 2021
A teaching colleague used to tell me, “If an administrator is out, the school still runs just fine. If a teacher is out and there are no subs, the school shuts down.” This example is used in the world of education to highlight the ‘us and them’ mentality between teachers and administrators. Some school administrators have no teaching degree and even with the ones that do it is easy to get caught up with administrative stuff on the back end that you lose sight of the work in the classroom. I made a promise to myself early on that no matter what I encountered in this job, I would always stay true to my teaching roots. I wanted to be in the classrooms so I could empathize, I wanted to continue to teach and mentor students myself, and I wanted to coach teachers so that the Burt Township School District faculty could realize their greatest potential as professional educators.
Part of my administrative work involves required observations through the State of Michigan. Though I wholeheartedly believe in the intrinsic value of reflective practice, classroom observations can be a can of worms since they have definitely been used by administrators as a punitive way of punishing bad teachers. If you say the word, “Evaluation” in front of a teacher their eyes grow wide, they begin breathing heavily, and their palms start sweating. I set out to change the way we view observations, not as evaluations to be used as ‘gotchya’ opportunities but instead as metacognitive exercises that are used to improve content and pedagogy.
Over the last month I completed my first round of observations which consisted of three parts: a pre-observation meeting, the observation, and a post-observation debrief. In the pre-observation meeting I would ask, “What do you want me to look for?” In this way, the teacher is using me as an extra set of eyes to focus on a specific aspect of their practice. During the observation I would take notes on what I noticed, add comments when I recognized practice that enhanced learning, and posed probing questions that hopefully fostered reflection. Finally in the post-observation debrief, I would listen to what the teacher thought after they had a chance to read through my notes and we would discuss any potential changes to their practice.
Two themes emerged. First, the teachers here in Grand Marais are true professionals in every sense of the word. They all take their jobs very seriously and care deeply about each and every one of their students. They are dedicated to improving their craft thereby improving the quality of academic instruction their students receive. Second, we have begun the process of shifting the thinking on observations. Though some were definitely still nervous to have me in their classroom taking notes on their teaching, I believe that every teacher was able to get something positive out of the process. The more comfortable these observations become the greater our progress in our collective pursuit of academic excellence.
