Drafting a Purpose Statement for Professional Learning
Too often, I’m sad to say, professional development is viewed by teachers and administrators as an obligation to be met or an onerous problem to be solved (How can I acquire CEUs for recertification? or What will we do on our mandated “inservice day”?) rather than a compelling purpose to be served through sustained and focused learning and teamwork. The importance of a succinctly and powerfully expressed purpose was underscored for me in a May 2006 Fast Company article on organic farming ("A Farming Fairy Tale" http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/105/food-organic.html). An advocate for this approach observed, “The conversation isn’t really about ‘going organic’—it should be about how we change the world for the better, how we deal with the world as we currently see it.” Charles Fishman, the article’s author, concluded, “Whether we get to 100% organic is not the issue. It’s whether we become a sustainable society.”
I took that as a challenge to describe the purpose of professional learning in similarly compelling language. I wrote: Students’ economic and life prospects are profoundly affected by the quality of teaching they experience. That is particularly true for low income and minority students. Unfortunately, the quality of teaching often varies dramatically even within a single school. High-quality teaching for all students can be realized, however, if teachers routinely collaborate with the intention of continuously improving their teaching so that all students achieve at high levels. A culture of continuous improvement in teaching and learning and the structures that support it requires skillful leadership in schools. Leaders’ deep understanding of high-quality professional learning and teamwork in schools and their ability to explain clearly, precisely, and concisely their attributes is essential in the creation of such schools. Sustained professional learning and teamwork for all teachers and school leaders focused on the core tasks of their daily work is essential in ensuring outstanding teaching in every classroom for all students.
That seemed too long and complex and lacked the “change the world for the better” punch of organic farming’s purpose, so I tried again: Students’ life chances are affected by the quality of teaching they receive, and the quality of teaching across all classroom in a school is determined by the quality of leadership within the school. The sustained quality of teaching and leadership is, in turn, determined by the quality of professional learning and teamwork experienced by teachers and school leaders.
Still too long, so I made a third attempt: At its heart, educators’ professional learning profoundly affects students’ life chances, particularly those young people who are most in need of quality teaching.
I encourage you to write your own purpose statement for professional learning. As a starting point feel free to use phrases or sentences from my statements, and be prepared to write successive drafts. I encourage you to share your results with other readers of this posting.
posted by Dennis Sparks at 7:07 AM
18 Comments:
Profound! A team of 20 educators and I just observed these principles in action. It is possible! I would propose the following statement:
For schools to "change the world for the better":
Leaders have to lead all educators to continually learn who have to lead all students to continually learn.
Do any other educators out there agree with me that profound professional development could occur in the frozen food isle of the grocery store?
I am not being facetious. I've found myself struggling with some very important pedagogical issue while doing something as mundane as shopping for groceries, run into someone, and through the ensuing conversation, have an epiphany that changes my teaching practice positively and profoundly.
Thus, my question: Why couldn't a moment like this be considered professional development?
Mr. Chips, I too have moments of "clarity" while doing things mundane things like sitting on the toilet (excuse the crudeness).
I remember a few years back teaching at a school whose mantra was "It takes a village to raise a child", one which I think many other institutions follow. Currently, I am teaching in England where the culture of professional development is a bit different in high-poverty schools. Professional development is scarce at best. I believe that it also "takes a village to raise high-quality teachers". With that in mind, if our ultimate goal is to produce life-long learners, then school leaders need to strengthen their professional relationships with teachers to include more personal interactions. There seems to be a large disconnect between the 'powers-that-be' and those on the front lines.
I agree, it does "take a village to raise high-quality teachers". I've noticed in some school districts that communication between administrators and teachers are so frayed and fragile that nobody benefits - especially the students we are supposed to be serving. School leaders need to put pettiness (personal or professional) aside, act in true leadership fashion by putting into place a supportive mentoring program for novice teachers, by providing innovative professional development opportunities, and demonstrating cohesiveness among all school staff members. By implementing the previous, good and proper examples will be set for the students who look to us for direction, as well as, aiding teachers move smoothly from novice to expert.
I would have to agree that it takes a village to raise high quality teachers; however, I am not sure that I have seen many villages functioning as they should. Often times, our administrators and the powers that be are not too conerned with nurturing teachers and doing the things that are necessary to raise high quality teaches. In the last few years the trend has not been this, it has been "lets see what we can do to raise test score." Unfortunately, in this vicous cycle, there is little serious concern about growing highly quality teachers. Sadly, many potentially good teachers get lost in this, or they simply leave the teaching field all together. I have been very fortunate to have had the opportunity to work for a principal that believed in nurturing and raising good teachers. He made many efforts to build camaraderie among the members of his staff, and he also made every effort to make sure that we were able to attend a variety of different types of professional development settings.
I too agree with the comments made about professional development. While it indeed takes a village, it is sad to see that many communities do not see the need to support their schools and teachers in this way. Parental involvement in the classroom is also a vital component to the village, one that is often sorely lacking.
Your description of administrations and some teachers views on staff development is sad but true. They try to meet the requirements instead of trying to improve teaching. Teachers should be life long learners seeking quality professional development to improve the quality of their teaching.
I too agree that it takes a village to raise high quality teachers. I also agree that community involvement is part of that village. I teach in a small school where community involvement is great. My principal also supports her teachers and makes every effort to provide quality staff development.
When discussing professional learning I can't help but think about all the grumbling and complaining from many of the teachers in my school. How do the teachers expect the students to be excited about learning when the teachers are not?
This attitude puts administrators in a bind and causes the students to suffer, but just as it is hard to motivate somes students it is even harder to motivate those teachers who think they know it all.
Great blog. I agree with all of you. We have to figure out how to get teachers excited about professional development. We have to think about them the way we do about students who are not excited to learn. Do these sound familiar: "What does this have to do with me?", "Why do I have to?", "This is a waste of time.", I don't need to know this.", "This doesn't have to do with me.", "I already know that." These are comments from teachers and students.
Unfortunately, many of the teachers that I have taught with have a poor attitude when it comes to professional development. Instead of seeing it as a fresh breath of life, they view it as a necessary evil.
Even more unfortunate, however, I believe is the fact that the administration either holds to the same attitude, or does not DIScourage it in their building.
When I was teaching at a private school, I came on board with tons of great ideas that would solves many problesms with how to utilize the building most efficiently, and how to use the am procedures a bit more time-friendly, etc. Brick wall.
Sometimes you have the "this is the way we've always done it" mentality that really sinks a ship. Let's face it, each school builing is a ship with a captain. That captain should hold each teacher acountable to stay abreast of the lastest information and experiences to be had in the field of Education, and also encourage and schedule meaningful in -service time. When the administration and staff are negative about professional development, they can become stagnant, which, in turn contaminates their classroom and building. Before you know it, the ships going down!
Professional development should be viewed upon as a breath of fresh life injected into our classrooms.
All too often teachers are on board with the "let's get this done so I can get out of here as early as possible" band wagon.
I liked what John McCain said, "pay teachers more, give good teachers more incentives and find the bad teachers a new profession."
Seriously, if all a teacher wants to do is get out of the classroom as early as possible, with as little as possible, they are not giving much to the young people in their classroom, who, incidentally, deserve better. Didn't we get into this profession so that we could make a difference in the lives of young people? We most certainly will not be able to do much of that if we have a rotten attitude regarding staying "fresh" at our craft!
Professional development is indeed a vital element of our profession.
I agree with the view that too many teachers simply want to get out of the classroom as quickly as possible. I have seen teachers sit through professional development workshops with their coats on and their bags in their hands so that they can run for the door the minute it is over.
However, I have also sat through some workshops that were not well organized, designed, or presented and were frankly a waste of my time.
If a teacher is willing to attend a workshop then the material must be relevant and applicable.
If we want to see our schools advance teachers must take ownership of their own learning while districts must provide the teachers with rich opportuinites to learn.
Lorrel Brown-Morgan
My recent engagement in graduate sdudy gives me pretence to concur with your view that the status of student achievement can be accomplished when teachers commit to habitual collaboration with a purpose of enhancing their teaching strategies to benefit all students and effecting this depende on the quality of school leadership.This is my second year at a school where the general student achievement is unsustained. The only time that teachers meet is once per week for faculty meetings. The only evidence of teamwork is when teachers meet at their grade level to discuss lesson plans and in my grade the lessons are generally prepared by the chairperson. There is real necessity for more collaboration and teamwork fo this school to move forward.
I agree that ongoing professional development is absolutely necessary if we are to provide the best education for our students.However the type of professional development offered should be meaningful and offered with the intention to positively impact a teacher's perfoemance.The experience of some teachers is that they are offered courses just to satisfy the requirement for CEUs and that these courses are not what they need to improve their teaching.
Great blog. I really think that teachers need to have more of an open mind about professional development. Teachers need to work together more and be less isolated in their classrooms.
I agree that professional development needs to be relevant. I want to participate in professional development activities that will increase my knowledge and repertoire of skills. I want to be able to implement this new knowledge into my teaching practices in order to benefit students.
I consider myself a lifelong learner and want to pass this onto my students. I am currently working for a Master's of Education in Reading because of it's relevance in my classroom. I teach reading to kindergarten students and want to better my teaching practices so that I can meet the needs of all learners. I took a multicultural course this summer through my county. Most of the teachers there admitted that they were taking the course to fulfill a certification requirement. However, the instructors made the material meaningful and most of us came away with the feeling that we could make changes in our classroom because of it. The learning experience was very powerful.
Most of the teacher's I work with view professional learning as a waste of time. They need to earn the PLUs but they do not find the learning experiences relevant. I have struggled with this also. Many time I do not feel the training we are signed up to recieve is completely relevant to my kindergarten class or even kindergarten in general. This year at the school where I teach we were given a survey that asked different areas in which we would like to recieve more training. This year many of the teacher's had better attitudes toward professional learning because we had input on what we were trained on and it was topics we could use.
I agree that many teachers feel that professional learning is a waste of time. They feel that administrators force them to meet together and they really do not want to be there. However, I have learned that it is very important to meet together as a learning commuity.
I agree that many teachers feel that professional learning is a waste of time. They feel that administrators force them to meet together and they really do not want to be there. However, I have learned that it is very important to meet together as a learning commuity.
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