Greer Mid-year Teacher Survey

Below is a copy of the survey we sent out to our teaching staff the week they returned from break. We used google forms to do it which was simple and easy. I have found that a mid year survey of staff is a great way to take stock of everyone's take on the various initiatives at our school. And after reading the responses, while sometimes hard to appreciate, I love the honesty and sense of community that is growing at our school. I hate nonsense in the education world, and leaders who make claims about their staff that they cannot stand by. For those who do, they should do an anonymous survey to see where their staff really is.

The survey really helps us (me) grow as a teacher and leader. And we share all of the answers with the entire staff so everyone can see it.

Mid-Year Greer Teacher Survey 2012

Please take some time this week to fill out this survey. We will close it out Monday, January 9. Because we believe the improvement and growth of our school is a collective process, all of the answers will be shared out with the staff.

One of major focus areas this year is reading, especially engaging and motivating all of our students to read. What do you need to sustain energy and passion around this initiative and help you become the best reading teacher you can be?

What is working about your PLC? What would you share about your PLC with other PLCs to help them?

What is not working with your PLC and what would help it improve?

Our work with Expeditionary Learning is in its third year. What staff development or staff work do we need to grow stronger in this initiative?

Committee work is in its third year of implementation. What is working about the committees? What can make them even more productive?

Reaching out to our school community through a variety of means is important to us. What else do you think can be done to make this relationship stronger?

Name and describe a little thing that could be done by the administration, fellow staff members, or yourself, that would make your job a little bit easier to do.

While Greer has begun to full implement the RTI model, we realize staff members need to know more about how it works and how they fit in the process. What do you specifically need to know about the RTI process?

We are in our fourth year of implementing Responsive Classroom. What do you need to help you develop more as an individual teacher with this model?

What can happen that will enable you to have more fun at school and enjoy your job?

Creating School Traditions- A few things we know for sure

We are creating new traditions as a school. Last year was the start with intensive learning expeditions at each grade level and student led conferences for every single student in the spring. We also took an older school tradition of visiting neighborhoods before the start of school and ramped it up a bit with pairs of teachers knocking on doors and visiting every single family before the start of school. Each child got a little bag of "back to school goodies" and if they weren't there it was left on the door. This "Stepping Out" day is quickly becoming once again a powerful school tradition. Our commitment is to visit and knock on every door. Last year, we met about 50% of our families face to face. This year I am guessing that figure is somewhere between 60-70%. Some students were woken up or still in their pajamas (and it was not that early). Other times teachers were invited in for tea, juice, or treats by the families.

A few things we know for sure. It took an incredible amount of work for teachers at Greer to pull it off. And it will help us build powerful connections with all of our families. A local television station did a good job covering one of the visits. Here's to another amazing school year at Mary Carr Greer Elementary School!

The different journeys we all take as educators

The New York Times this morning has an article about a new teacher training graduate program in New York City that was founded by three separate charter management organizations. The program prides itself on utilizing little to no reading or theorizing but instead an intense focus on practical classroom teaching strategies that raise student achievement. The founder is quoted as saying "if you think tests are evil... this is not the program for you." The program bases a lot of its pedagogy on the book, Teach like a Champion, whole class type teaching strategies.

When I was a beginning teacher in Baltimore in the early nineties, I struggled. My school noticed that pretty quickly and attached a master teacher to me for about three weeks. She modeled for me, co-taught with me, and finally just observed me teach. The strategies (a lot of positive reinforcement type stuff) she taught me brought order to my classroom and enabled me to start teaching the students. I used these strategies through my second year of teaching as well and got even better at them.

During my third, fourth, and fifth year of teaching though, I really started questioning myself:

• Do I need to reward students with points for almost everything they do?
• Shouldn't students have more choice in their daily life?
• Shouldn't I be developing more of a supportive community of learners?

So, without much or any support, I struggled to implement some of these strategies and realized that kids I taught did not need points for everything they did and when they chose their own reading material they were infinitely more motivated to read. I would love to say that I became a master teacher but I did not, I struggled up until the last day of my teaching career. But I new there was something different that I could be doing in education and in my classroom.

The journey of an educator is hopefully more than just learning new strategies over the course of thirty years. The journey hopefully leads us to some semblance of what is real learning, what is truth, and what really prepared students for the real world out there.

This past year, I have stumbled upon two educators who have had some similar journeys. Marc Waxman, a former TFA teacher and KIPP teacher, is now heading up charter schools in Denver that utilize Responsive Classroom and a more constructivist teaching style. Eric Juli, a central office administrator in Massachusetts is taking on a new job of running a small, innovative high school in Cleveland. Both of their journey's appear to have taken place because of a great amount of reflection and thought. One aspect of Marc's journey that is interesting is that he started to question his teaching as he started to have his own children.

My own journey as I enter my 11th year of being an elementary school principal has me working with a staff that is embracing the core principles of Responsive Classroom and Expeditionary Learning. I have learned more about myself, about learning, about children, and about people the past three years of implementing these principles than I have during any other aspect of my career.

So, in thinking back about the new teacher training program in New York, I probably could have used some of those strategies to survive and in some regards thrive as a new teacher years ago. Some of the new teachers I have worked with over the years could have used some of those strategies as well. I don't disdain them at all. But I also realize that there is a richness of thought and reflection when you try to go past test scores and develop a true learning community that I hope, hope, hope that those teachers in the program get at some point in their career but worry in the current reform climate, they never will.

If your school teaches to the test, it’s not the test’s fault. It’s the leaders of your school.

So David Brooks wrote a column in the NY Times the other day about the school reform debates. This is not my attempt to add to the debate. I don't have the time to add to the fray. He ended his column though with a rather enticing line though: "If your school teaches to the test, it's not the test's fault. It's the leaders of your school."

The line invoked in me the most irritating response, I both agreed wholeheartedly to it and wholeheartedly was aggravated by it in the same moment.

I am a principal of an elementary school in a high pressure, high stakes environment. 70% of our students qualify for free/reduced lunch. We are the most ethnically/racially diverse school in our school division and in the entire region. If you just look at AYP during my tenure at the school, the results are mixed. One year, we did not make it, one year we did, one year we just barely missed it, the the jury is still out on this past year. We are in our second year of formal school improvement with the state. We are a public school choice school and have mandated outside tutoring as part of the NCLB law. I attend monthly meetings with the state department of ed and turn in data reports to them on a regular basis. Everything in this world tells me as a leader to lead a school that teaches to the test. Every meeting, every statement, every webinar, every powerpoint. The words teach to the test are never used, but it is always implied.

The past two years, however, we have embarked on a different journey. Along with a focus on data and results, we have implemented different strategies through our intensive work with Responsive Classroom and Expeditionary Learning:

• Intensive community building through classroom and school-wide morning meetings
• Student led parent conferences for every single student, Prek-5
• Learning expeditions (you can see them here) at every single grade level
• Instructional rounds for all teachers (learn about them here)
• Extensive use of formative assessment strategies

Now, I know many good educators would look at that list and say or think that those strategies would increase student achievement for everyone. I agree. But, the prevailing wisdom in the world in which I partially inhabit (the high stakes world) does not push or even nudge school leaders in that direction. We do the right thing at Greer because we have a culture of professionals who value the strategies above. The does not mean we never doubt ourselves, or worry we are doing the right thing. But we have held the course. We also have a superintendent (@pammoran) and a school board who support our work as well.

Our school is going in the right direction with both our school culture and yes, student achievement, slowly but surely. The school has a vastly more positive and learner supported feel than it did four years ago. But David Brooks, and most other policy wonks, would look at our data and label us as failing. We are not failing, and I would argue we are improving in a more authentic way than most other schools.

What David Brooks fails to realize is that for a school leader to swim up the fast flowing stream of "not teaching to the test", it takes an incredible amount of support, collective courage, and belief in children to accomplish doing things the right way. Most people in education right now, because they are in schools that don't face these issues or they simply refuse to face the issues themselves, don't really have an idea of how tough it is.

David Brooks certainly does not. He is pretty darn clueless.

A Red Shouldered Hawk Visits Mary Carr Greer Elementary and We Have a Hawk Party

A little interesting thing happened at school today. I was out on the playground watching some fourth graders play basketball at recess (it was a very nice day in Central Virginia). Suddenly, my walkie talkie crackled to life. Usually it is Dorothy, our office associate, telling me about a phone call or a classroom I need to visit. Instead, I heard this "Mr. Landahl, there is a hawk on top of the flag pole. You should go take a picture of it with your phone." Despite my shock, I hustled to the front of the building as fast as I could to see this hawk.



It was magnificent and was sitting as still as can be on top of our flag pole. Our fifth graders were about fifty feet away running the mile in our bus loop and it was them and our PE teacher Mrs. Bond who first saw it.

So, naturally the next step was that more people needed to get invited to this hawk party. Our fourth graders are in the middle of a learning expedition exploring the return of the bald eagle to Virgina as part of a intensive study of our local ecosystem. I decided to use the walkie talkie again and called to one of the teachers at recess and said, "we have this enormous hawk on the flag pole and it is not really going anywhere. You might want to bring the fourth graders to see it." The response I got was, "ok".

A few minutes later I received another communication from a fourth grade teacher, "is it still there?"

Indeed it was. So, our fifth graders are still running the mile in front of the school and our fourth graders are now walking very quietly to stand and sit in front of the flag pole to watch the hawk.



The above picture only captures a fraction of the kids watching the hawk. As we stood there looking at it, I am sure all of the adults, me included, were starting to wonder, "how long do we stand here looking at this hawk?" The kids were all well behaved and seemed genuinely interesting in this rather majestic creature perched on top of our flag. But shouldn't we get back inside and start doing some work, I am sure crossed more people's minds. Finally, one teacher said," maybe we should wait until the hawk flies away so the kids can see its wingspan in flight."

So we waited some more. Kids still looking at the hawk. A pair of nesting mockingbirds began to fly at the hawk in an attempt to scare it away. We got to watch that for a while.

And then finally the hawk flew away and all the kids cheered for it. It was really quite an unusual, special fifteen minutes.

I am not going to overdo trying to attach some sort of significance to these fifteen minutes. But, the more we get interested in the world outside, the more ready we are to investigate and explore this incredible world outside the school door, the more hawk parties we are probably going to have.

Author's note: when our neighborhood black bear makes his annual visit, we are not going to do the same.

The power of listening

I recently was exposed to two slightly different takes on communication from a leadership position and both involve one on one meetings with people.

The first was from a Corner Office interview in the NY Times a few weeks ago. In this interview of Doreen Lorenzo, she talks at length about the power of one on one meetings with people in her design and innovation firm. In these meetings, she lets each person guide the conversation and spends most of the time listening. She also uses this time to communicate the mission of the company, because she feels strongly that people need to hear it from her.

The second exposure is a short video from The Learning Community School in Rhode Island. The co-directors two times a year sit down with every person in the school and just listen. They then do an interesting next step and track all of the things people say, take notes on it, and then share it with everyone in the school, and finally try to facilitate some action steps from the data.

I have done bits and pieces of this as a leader over the years and I value this type of data probably more than any others.

But I need to improve on:

• Communicating the vision one on one with everyone.
• Truly listening to people and letting them guide the conversation.
• Doing it in a systematic way and finding the time to implement that system

It is powerful stuff. The best thing I know I could probably ever say about a boss is that I really felt listened to. I hope I can improve in that area as a leader myself.

A good Sunday morning

The Sunday morning paper is a ritual in our house. Since moving to the east coast years ago, it has become the New York Times. But, this morning, I was filled with a bit of dread when I saw that education was a focus of the magazine section. Dread, because, so often I have found that anything written about education, seemingly almost anywhere, seems to miss the nuances behind what actually happens in a school. So, I had to make a decision, read it right away and work the rest of my Sunday on not being annoyed by it, or just push it off. I decided to read it.

And, I could not believe it. It was one of the best articles about a city school that I have ever read, especially in the context of the current state of reform. It is a good article because it is real. The principal, Ramon Gonzalez, seems amazing and he struggles with many things: the encroachment of charter schools, the inexperience with Teach for America teachers, kids with a lot of needs moving into the school any day of the year, finding funding to the extra things, lack of support from central office. What is great about the article is that it seems to have no "angle". Teachers unions are not the enemy at the school, they copy strategies from some charter schools but ignore others, and they go all out for kids and do not always find success because of their own fault or the circumstances of the child's life. Really an amazing read and I hope that folks in the policy field, because their own experience in actual schools was most likely rather fleeting, give it a read. It would help them understand what impact certain policies have in a real school trying hard to improve.