There's a bit of tension in the school house as midyear learning/teaching data is shared and standardized tests loom only a few months away.
Educators who are sometimes tasked with many students and sometimes spotty service delivery as well as the challenge of winter illnesses, missed days of school, student testing, indoor recess, and the addition of special events and longer-than-usual meetings feel the stress at this time of year. Everyone wants to help students make good progress and learn a lot, and lots of people have many ideas about how to do this.
When there is a lopsided equation of time-on-task educators and administrators/coaches, there can be added stress since what educators need most is people to help out with the day-to-day teaching. For example, we can get hours and hours and hours of talented consultation but if we don't have the time to utilize that information in ways that matter, that consultation is not of great value. Also great programs thrive when numbers and supports are right, but when numbers are too great and supports too little, success can become a reach. We notice this difference when we are trying to meet deep and meaningful intervention efforts while also managing large groups of students. At times, coaches and others who are teaching only small numbers of children at a time may forget about how difficult it is to differentiate with large groups of students in very small spaces with lots and lots of learning expectations.
In my dream world of teaching, these three months prior to the standardized tests would be months of all-hands-on-deck teaching and learning. Rather than lots of time and effort being put into telling teachers what to do, instead as many as possible staff would be working directly with students to help them learn. If learning is truly our objective, it is imperative that as many staff as possible are directly working with that goal in mind with time-on-task efforts with students. Too often non-learning or less impactful efforts are given greater time and effort than our main objective which is engaging, empowering learning--the kind of learning that makes students want to come to school and the kind of learning that results in students who have terrific capacity for future learning, success, and happiness.
As I try to meet multiple challenging goals at this point in the teaching/learning year, I am aware that I have to prioritize yet again and change the pattern somewhat to meet this challenge. I will reboot the schedule in the next few days to better represent the greatest priorities for teaching and learning that we face right now, and I will advocate for greater support with regard to time-on-task student support too. Onward.
