Journal of Staff Development, Fall 1999 (Vol. 20, No. 4)

Ask most classroom teachers why educational reform is going so slowly, and they’ll tell you it’s the lack of time for professional activities other than direct instruction of students. Innovations such as peer coaching, quality circles, total quality management, school-community partnerships, and increased parental involvement all require time to meet, discuss, share, brainstorm, and assess.

Many knowledgable observers echo teachers’ concerns about time. Patricia Wasley, dean of the graduate school at the Bank Street College of Education in New York, stresses that teacher leaders are needed as mentors for beginning teachers, as designers of programs for parents, and to create new curriculum for students. And New York’s City’s 1999 plan for creating school leadership teams cites lack of time as one of the biggest obstacles to creating effective teams.

How, teachers ask, can they engage in thoughtful planning when no sustained blocks of time are available and work must be accomplished in short bursts of intense effort, and often alone?

The question then becomes: Where can staff developers find the time in the school day and year for these activities? I personally don’t believe they can. I think they need instead to make time.

Time is something none of us seem able to control: time for teaching, conversing, thinking, planning, or even coffee and the restroom. Phillip Schlechty (1990) points out that teachers and administrators never feel they can control what they do with their time.

As a staff developer, consultant, school reformer, and change agent, I have frequently seen educators "give up" trying to be leaders and innovators because they needed time and, after looking for it, could not find any. One teacher lamented that she began a peer coaching strategy with three colleagues. The program died within two months because they were unable to find common time to observe and confer. Another teacher reported how a building-level staff development committee informed the principal of the need for early dismissal in order to conduct a two-hour information/planning session. The principal denied the request because he felt that the community would not accept an early dismissal. The program deteriorated.

Grant Wiggins (1990) notes that we need to lose time in order to gain it. That is, using time effectively can create opportunities to use time more effectively later. Wiggins suggests that when educators say, "There is no time to do what needs to be done," it is their fatalistic thinking that needs to change. He says the greatest obstacle facing reform may be the belief that it is impossible – that there is no time to do things right. Creative thinking and risk-taking can produce more time. But this requires stepping outside our existing "boxes" of schedules, classrooms periods, groupings, and job description.

A rural school superintendent asked how he could possibly create staff to plan a restructuring effort. He had 250 K-12 students working with 23 staff members. My suggestion was to have five staff members work with the 250 students for one week while the remaining 18 staff members went to a retreat site and restructured the district. I am certain that by pairing older and younger students, five faculty members could plan an exciting, educational week for the entire student body. The school could also add community volunteers, if needed.

Technology provides another strategy to create time. I recently observed a teacher in an airport as she hand-scored pages of math multiplication problems. I was disturbed that students were completing these worksheets, but even more disturbing was that this professional educator’s time was consumed by them. Would this teacher be willing to exchange the hours she spent correcting these papers for time in a growth activity, such as observing a videotape of a colleague’s lesson? I believe most teachers would accept or welcome that exchange.

Videotaping can increase our flexibility and, therefore, make time.

• Teachers’ videotaped lessons can be reviewed by others for staff development or coaching. Viewing can even be done at home, at a time more convenient for the teacher.
• An English teacher’s lecture to a first-period class can be videotaped for second-period students to view. During the second period, while the class watches the tape, the teacher can meet individually with students to coach their written work. Other students could sign out these videos for home study.
• In one high school, science teachers discovered they could provide their students with directions on a videotape left with the substitute, thus freeing the teachers to take part in a staff development program during the school day. The tape included the teacher modeling the procedures necessary for the assigned work. This increased the substitute’s effectiveness, and the teachers felt more comfortable attending the programs. These teachers discovered later that they could use the tapes instead of having to give "live" directions. They also began trading tapes with colleagues. Time lost by making a video thereby led to more time created for teacher and student growth.

True team teaching is another way to make time. I have personally taught on a K-3 team where three teachers frequently taught students from four or five classrooms. Those of us who were released often completed tasks that increased productivity.

In order to experiment with these and other options to create time, school leaders need to provide education, information, and results to school boards and parents. Some people believe time spent outside of direct contact with students is wasted. When Wilson and Schmoker (1992) of the Amphitheater Public Schools in Tucson, Ariz., visited Toyota to study how Japanese management might be applied to schools, they discovered that no one at Toyota ever stops learning. Everyone wants to become more expert in what they do. So all employees are involved in training – both teaching and being taught. Management and employees are always learning from each other – up to and including including the company president.

Perhaps the central office staff will need to provide more education to board members regarding the value of staff development. I frequently work with school systems that prohibit staff development during school hours. These school board policies suggest that teacher learning will have no positive impact on students.

The strategies needed to fulfill the learning needs of our current student population must be discovered in schools and classrooms in every district. Only by taking time to experiment can we find ways to give us more time and increase our effectiveness. School leaders who model creativity and flexibility to make time for teachers can expect to see teachers making more time for students.

Schlechty, P.C. (1990). Schools for the 21st century. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Wiggins, G. (1990). Finding time. Washington, DC: Council for Basic Education.

Wilson, R. & Schmoker, M. (January 1992). Quest for quality. The Executive Educator, 14(1), 22.

This was accomplished with no extra cost for substitutes. You may find that teachers and students who have experienced seminar time blocks may want to experiment with more permanent changes in periods and schedules. If your ratio is higher than average, you can involve some central office personnel or outside volunteers to reduce the seminar class size.

Stephen G. Barkley is executive vice president of Performance Learning Systems, Inc., an educational consulting firm. He can be reached at P.O. Box 190, Penn Valley, CA 95946, (530) 272-4678, fax (530) 272-8927.