Category Archives: Teacher Leadership

For English Language Learners, Intentional Collaboration is Key

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Education, Education Policy, Elementary, Life in the Classroom, Literacy, Professional Development, Teacher Leadership

Tamar Krames

Guest blogger Tamar Krames is a NBCT in English as a New Language, a certified GLAD trainer, and an ELL instructional coach currently working with OSPI. Prior to her work at OSPI, Tamar worked as a district GLAD trainer and coach, taught ELL classes and co-taught sheltered ELL content classes. 

I recently sat at a table in a windowless conference room with a 3rd grade team of teachers. As you might expect, the table was covered with grade-level ELA curriculum materials, open laptops, and copies of Common Core Standards. Far less common were the open and highlighted English Language Proficiency Standards (ELP), Tier 2 vocabulary lists, and the laminated pictures piled on the table. Two teachers were pulling up engaging image files related to an upcoming unit on their personal tablets and one was searching her phone for affixes and Latin roots to support their vocabulary mini-lesson. While the driving force of the co-planning session was ELA content and standards, addressing the profound language needs of their dynamic students was inspired. This is it, I thought, this is what best practice for ELLs looks like. These teachers were clearly committed to their craft and to their multilingual students. But what made that collaborative moment so powerful was the shared focus of the whole building to best meet the needs of their particular student body. The teachers had common understanding of second language acquisition and ELP standards because a team of teachers had requested ELL training for the whole staff. The planning session had the full support of the building’s leadership. Collaboration was not happening on the fly. It was intentional and deliberately supported.

As a traveling ELL instructional coach, I visit diverse school communities across WA State. The geographic context and demographic mix varies greatly. One school community is comprised of Spanish-speaking migrant families living in a small town surrounded by orchards and mountains. Another school has no clear ethnic majority, the students speaking 15 different languages in one urban classroom. Regardless of setting, I walk into my first building visits with one central question; What might best practice for ELLs look like in this unique school community? I ask this question to school leadership right off the bat.

More often than not, the answer to this question disappoints me. Consistently the first answer points to a single focal point. “ We are so lucky to have a wonderful ELL teacher named A” or “ We just purchased this amazing online language program called B”, or “ our ELL Para has attended a training called C!”. Clearly this singular view of best practice begs the question – What happens when A, B, or C leaves the building?

As far as I can tell, there is no right answer to this question of best practice for ELLs. The learning needs of multilingual students are complex and always changing. A linguistics professor once said to my class, “ if you remember one thing about second language acquisition, remember this – language acquisition is without fail developmental”. For teachers this means that the ELLs support structures (scaffolding) must change and flex as their students’ English proficiency and content mastery develops. On top of that, the rate at which ELLs develop proficiency and mastery varies drastically in relation to a seemingly endless set of factors (literacy in first language, status of first language in the dominant culture, educational background, poverty, learning disabilities, access to quality instruction…)

If you need further proof of the complex and ever-changing learning needs of ELLs, try navigating though the English Language Proficiency (ELP) standards (An amazingly thorough matrix that outlines language development by grade level in relation to common core standards). Best practice for ELLs is truly a moving target as students trudge through the stages of second language development and academic literacy at their own unique pace.

More than a “right” answer to this question of best practice for ELLs, what I hope to hear is a plural answer that points to shared ownership instead of pointing towards one program or person. Whatever the site-based vision for ELL support entails, it must involve intentional and ongoing collaborative structures. Collaborative structure is different from collaboration as it is proactive and systematic – it implies a deeper commitment than amazing content teacher, X, that collaborates with one-of-a-kind ELL specialist, Y. Intentional collaborative structures answer questions such as, How and when do counselors, administrators, content teachers and ELL specialists work together to best schedule ELLs according to their developing proficiency level? How and when do content teachers investigate and integrate ELP standards into their grade-level planning? If the ELL specialist is ‘pushing in’ to core instruction – how and when do teachers learn about, experiment with, and reflect on co-teaching models?

Ultimately, the goal of any ELL program model is to expedite the academic English language/ literacy development of multilingual students so that they can meet grade-level standards and breeze through any gatekeepers they encounter on their path towards earning a diploma. Supporting ELLs through the K-12 system is not about finding the right teacher, program, or PD session. It is about shared ownership and commitment to refining best-practice, uniquely designed for each community, together.

TamarArt

The above drawing is an original piece done by Tamar Krames.

Why I’m Leaving the Classroom

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Education Policy, Life in the Classroom, Teacher Leadership |

One of my seniors asked last week if the rumors were true and that I am retiring.

Clearly, this youngster either doesn’t understand what retirement is OR has grossly mis-estimated my age (I’m knocking on 37).

While I’d love it if teaching were such a lucrative career that I could retire before age 40, it is nonetheless true that I have made the choice to leave the classroom after this year.

For the last three years, I’ve tried to live up to the ideal that a teacher can lead without having to leave. In this hybrid role “half in, half out,” I’ve learned so much. I still believe that this model is the ideal: systems should afford teachers the opportunity to still lead their own classrooms while also being agents of change in their school or district. For the last three years, I’ve been in such a hybrid role, teaching in the afternoons two or three periods, but spending my mornings attempting to (and I think, successfully) influencing local policy related to teacher evaluations and professional development, as well as supporting teachers in their practice.

And these three “hybrid role” years have been the toughest three years of my career. My attention has been divided and never once have I had one full week where I felt like I was doing adequate service to both roles at the same time (I wrote recently about this, even doling out what I felt were the three key needs for a successful hybrid role). Trudging forward and never feeling successful at anything is not a great way to live from day to day, so I made the decision shortly after that post: in 2015-16, I needed to choose…one or the other, not both. The Both, for me personally, was too much, even if in principle it is exactly what I believe should eventually become systematized for teacher leadership and empowerment.

There are many teacher stories of “why I’m leaving” that circulate on social media, featuring overworked, unsupported, and under-appreciated teachers who make the painful decision to leave the profession altogether. That’s not where I am professionally. Even with standards and testing and new evaluations and unsupportive public policy, I still love teaching. However, whatever work I choose to do, I want to do it well. That’s the feeling I haven’t had these last few years in the split role. Others can and do find success inhabiting both roles simultaneously, and those others are capable of amazing things. For me, the split is not sustainable mentally or physically. One or the other; in or out. Two equally appealing options.

It was not an easy choice. Because of various things, my district ended up posting a full-time TOSA job for 2015-16, I applied for and was offered the position. Next year, I’ll be a full-time TOSA, focusing on building a K-12 new teacher induction program (where no formal new-teacher support has existed in the past) and developing teacher leadership systems in our district’s new pathways model, wherein among other things teachers in hybrid roles will be supported toward success. Simply put, my role is all about cultivating and empowering teachers. Little by little, despite the fear of the unknown, I’m getting more and more excited about the potential of what this job might be able to do.

And then I have days in the classroom like I had this last week, listening to my seniors (who for all intents and purposes are long since done with this school business) give each other feedback on their practice speeches for their culminating Senior Project presentations that they will do before a panel of community members. I heard in their statements things I had taught them; little things, probably not all that meaningful, but still, they were doing what I had taught them to do. It’s hard to explain that feeling.

Then after most of the period of sustained focus, the class gradually got a little rambunctious and I (only half-jokingly) threatened to slam their 18-year-old selves into a seating chart if they didn’t get their over-sized-kindergartener-behavior under control.

We laughed, the bell rang, they left.

I am definitely going to miss it.

T&L 2015: Teaching & Learning, Teaching & Leading

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Education, Professional Development, Teacher Leadership, Weblogs

Despite my best intentions of “live blogging” (which I really don’t know how to do) at the 2015 Teaching and Learning Conference in Washington, D.C, the confluence of too much to learn, a really old laptop and spotty wi-fi gave me permission to just sit back and learn. Warning: lots of links ahead…each worthy of exploring!

My singular focus at this conference was on teacher leadership and creating systems that will develop and sustain teacher leadership. I started on Friday with a session about Teacher-Led PD, then was a panelist in sessions to promote teacher voice through blogging (with David Cohen, Ray Salazar, Renee Moore and Daniela Robles…whose collective resumes are astounding) before being on another panel about how NBCTs can use their own leadership stories to help other teachers find their own pathways, where I also shared about CSTP’s Teacher Leadership Skills Framework, and mentioned the work of the Auburn SD and Camas SD Teacher Leadership Academies.

Saturday was a day for learning, first about a unique partnership between the Center for Teaching Quality (CTQ), NEA and NBPTS. This “trifecta” of sorts parallels our big three here in Washington state (CSTP, WEA and OSPI) and the power of bringing those three partners together at the national level was evident. This partnership helped to produce the Teacher Leadership Competencies. Like CSTP’s Teacher Leadership Skills Framework, the Teacher Leadership Competencies point out that there are unique skills necessary for effective leadership, and takes the added step of differentiating these skills for instructional leadership, policy leadership, and association leadership. These competencies are also deconstructed into leveled scales that describe what teacher leadership performance in these various skills might look like.

I also had the opportunity to spend a little time in a workshop facilitated by Leading Educators, which focuses on supporting teacher leadership skills for promoting change. In particular, the publication “Leading from the Front of the Classroom” (among others) offers much food for thought about creating systems of teacher leadership that are sustainable.

Lots to read, lots to think about. Good thing I had a cross-country flight to digest it all.

There was much more at the conference, including plenary sessions that were webcast live and were recorded (currently available if you click on the scrolling banner at the top of teachingandlearning2015.org). Visit there and take a look!

Last but certainly not least, at my group panel session about amplifying teacher voice through blogging, I met a handful of teacher-bloggers when the five of us panelists broke into small groups for discussion. Take a look at what teachers across the nation are writing about:

T&L 2015: Teacher-Led Professional-Based Learning

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Current Affairs, Education Policy, Teacher Leadership

Some initial reflections from my time so far at the Teaching and Learning 2015 Conference in D.C.: 

The first big takeaway: teacher leadership positions need position in the system.

Ad-hoc or “anoint and appoint” teacher leadership simply does not last.

In other words, for teacher leadership to matter, it has to have a place…a permanent place…in a district’s system, hierarchy, contract and culture. It cannot be something someone does for a while because they’re good at it: rather, it must be an expected part of the system.

The first session I attended was “Teacher-Led Professional-Based Learning,” hosted by Lucy Steiner, Mark Sass and Chris Poulos. The info they shared built upon a foundation based on the Pahara-Aspen work (aspeninstitute.org) which explored teacher leadership and building systems that work. Their goal: to help teacher, their schools, unions, and districts implement collaborative, job-embedded professional learning that leads to better student learning.

The panelists shared a shocking statistic: across the nation a school district will often spend six to nine thousand dollars per teacher, per year on professional development. Their point was simple: that investment, often on “outside” experts, wasn’t paying off. Instead, districts and systems would be better off investing that money back into their own system through teacher-led, job-embedded professional learning. Mark Sass put it succinctly: “workshops just don’t work.”

From this particular session, I’m bringing home this key learning, among other great ideas. In their research, this team uncovered the key needs around teacher professional development that works:

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Connecting to the Conversation

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Education Policy, Professional Development, Teacher Leadership

purpose

Recently I got better connected to conversations on public education in the United States. I got my Twitter account up and started following people talking about our K-12 schools. You might know how that story goes. I knew a few people I wanted to follow, and then this person connected to that person and before I knew it I found it was hard to keep up.

My entire Twitter experience is all about professional engagement. My head is spinning with all of the information, but I have very little chance to be grounded in those conversations here in my school where we can craft solutions, visions, and help shape the course of a student’s day, month, year, life. Follow Diane Ravitch’s blog alone and your head will probably spin too.

One of the people I follow who makes a great deal of sense to me is Pasi Sahlberg. I had the opportunity to be a part of a one-day “Finnish Lessons” seminar with him at UW a couple of years ago, and I saw him again last year at the Teaching and Learning Conference in Washington, DC. He makes a number of compelling arguments about how schools in the United States could revolutionize their approach to teaching and learning. There are many societal issues that are out of reach for schools to take on, so I’d like to focus on one that seems accessible and almost desperately necessary for teacher survival:

Meaningful
Time
for Collaboration.

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TeachToLead Summit, Part Two: Us versus Them.

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Education Policy, Teacher Leadership |

One theme that kept coming up again and again during my weekend at the Denver TeachToLead Summit earlier this month: Us versus Them.

The “us” was universally the same: teachers and teacher leaders.

The “them” varied depending on the project. In some cases they were unwilling principals, myopic departments of ed, or whoever “they” are that design and mandate clunky policy.

In our movie-plotline fantasies about leadership, we might envision the lone, passionate advocate standing up to “them,” converting “them,” and having waved the wand of leadership to magically change their minds, rather easily change the world.

The reality of Us versus Them is more complicated. And I believe that the first step in successful teacher leadership is the honest admission that this dichotomy does not actually exist.

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TeachToLead Summit – Denver: Part One… Washington is Different

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Education Policy, Teacher Leadership | , , ,

This past weekend I was surrounded by people ready to change their worlds. Teacher leaders from all over the nation converged in Denver for the regional Teach to Lead Summit hosted by the U.S. Dept. of Ed. and the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards.

It was inspiring, enlightening, and exhausting (in a good way).

Much of it was also about forging connections, perhaps future partnerships. I had the opportunity to deliver a breakout session with CSTP’s Katie Taylor, and serve as a critical friend and consultant to teams of teachers from Colorado, Minnesota, South Dakota, Oklahoma, and other states who were seeking feedback on the teacher-leadership projects they were building back at home.

One thing I figured out quickly, though, was that Washington is unique.

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Teaching Canned Curriculum

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Current Affairs, Education Policy, Teacher Leadership

WANTED: Highly-qualified teacher to implement district purchased curriculum. Must attend trainings. Must follow pacing guide. Must give students consumables. Must move quickly. Must ignore reteaching. Must trust the model. Must regularly update online assessment collection tool.  Must share results with building data team. Must not question the process.

I had completely forgotten the existence of this wanted ad when I clicked on the email attachment with excitement, nervous about the courses I would teach in the fall. I’d requested Sophomores and AP Language. Four sections of Sophomores glowed on the screen. That meant I’d have roughly 120 fifteen year olds to guide through the themes of Sophomore year. I love 10th graders because they sort of know how to play high school. They think they are better than the freshmen. They consistently under or over-estimate how much time it actually takes to accomplish an academic task.

They think they know everything.

This is the year that many high school students transition from thinking about themselves to thinking about others. Throughout the nation, tenth graders are learning to “think globally”. Sophomore year a student could read texts like Siddhartha, Things Fall Apart, and Macbeth. They learn about the cellular makeup of the world in Biology, discover that Geometry is simply argumentative writing with numbers, and explore how civilizations rose and fell through World History.

Following the lead of others, my own district adopted Springboard, a College Board developed, Common Core aligned, “culturally responsive” curriculum that prepares students for rigorous, Advanced Placement courses. I was certainly excited about  these qualities when I attended the district workshop last year. Nonetheless, after five months of implementation what I’ve found is that this curriculum—much like most outsourced programming—is problematic. Instead of concentrating this post on an analysis of the issues, I want to emphasize what teaching Springboard curriculum has illuminated for me.

My classroom isn’t more rigorous, engaged, or common core aligned because of Springboard—those qualities already existed. What Springboard has done is remind me that teachers still need the flexibility and autonomy to modify any curriculum to meet the needs of the diverse students in their classrooms.

Furthermore, the following is more true now than ever:

  • Students need their classroom teachers to pre-assess their knowledge.
  • Students need their classroom teachers to develop engaging hooks.
  • Students need their classroom teachers to differentiate learning tasks.
  • Students need their classroom teachers to scaffold complex readings.
  • Students need their classroom teachers to create a safe place for all learners.
  • Students need their classroom  teachers to not be “good soldiers” rotely teaching curriculum developed by someone many states away from their school.

Above all,

  • Students need their classroom teachers to advocate for them when policies don’t.

The Hybrid Role: Teaching + ____

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Life in the Classroom, Teacher Leadership | ,

I am nearing the halfway point in my third year as a hybrid. Sounds like I ought to be part one of the X-Men superheroes (or wait, were they mutants or hybrids?).

This idea of the “hybrid role” is gaining traction with the concept of “Teacherpreneurs,” which the Center for Teaching Quality defines as “expert teachers whose workweeks are divided between teaching students and designing systems-level solutions for public education.”

In my context, that means this year I am teaching two periods of Senior English to just shy of 60 proto-adults, while working with a team of other teacher-leaders to support the professional learning and growth of about 400 bonafide-adults. Theoretically, the main purpose of my job is to serve as mentor and coach for twelve first-year teachers in our district. How to do that, and everything else, is the crux of the issue.

The hybrid role has tremendous power and potential. When I lead professional development about new practices or standards, my colleagues know I’m held accountable to that same learning in my own classroom. When systems-level decisions are being made, I can advocate for practicing teachers in ways that even the most well-meaning administrator might not be able to voice.

One of the great things about my boss is that he believes in the importance of teacher leadership, and each year he has basically said to me “what do you want your job to be?” These roles are new in my district, and that blank slate is exciting but brings a challenge. As I look ahead to next year (already), I’m realizing that there are a few things that a “hybrid teacher” like myself needs in order to be successful:

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The Important Practice of Vulnerability

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Education, National Board Certification, Professional Development, Teacher Leadership

Lindsey Stevens, NBCT, is a regular blogger for Puget Sound ESD’s CORElaborate blog , where this piece first appeared, and is republished here with the permission of both the Lindsey and Puget Sound ESD.

vulnerability

I just spent another amazing weekend at the National Board Certified Teacher Leadership Conference. This time it was at Skamania Lodge in Stevenson Washington and it was amazing and beautiful. The surroundings were wonderful but even more that the atmosphere, I always leave appreciating what I have gained from this inspiring gathering of professionals. The biggest takeaway I have form this weekend is that I need to continue to be vulnerable in my practice to really be a leader and to impact student learning.

At the conference we were greeted first by the fabulous Katie Taylor. Katie is the Director of Teacher Leadership and Learning at the Center for Strengthening the Teaching Profession (CSTP). If you have not checked out or been in contact with this wonderful organization you should find out what they are all about. At any rate Katie was helping us to think about the traits and qualities of teacher leaders in her opening session. During her presentation we were asked to complete the sentence, “Teachers lead when we…” I sat and thought about that for quite a bit before I could fill it in. What do I really do that is true inspiring leadership? It’s not necessarily when I run a training, or when I plan a meeting. I realized that I truly do my best leading when I am vulnerable, when I make my practice, my trials and my tribulations transparent. This is really the only way to ask others to show me what they are doing and to be honest. I really think that vulnerability might just be the most important disposition for any teacher, especially teacher leaders to embrace.

Katie had us examine our leadership in relation to an article from Educational Leadership “Ten Roles for Teacher Leaders” by Cindy Harrison and Joellen Killion. In this article the authors point out the following ten roles for teacher leaders: resource provider, instructional specialist, curriculum specialist, classroom supporter, learning facilitator, mentor, school leader, data coach, catalyst for change and learner. In the activity we were identified how we were and could be any of these roles. Later I began to think about how these roles as teacher leader and my personal insight into vulnerability when hand-in-hand. Each of these roles take a certain level and different kind of vulnerability.

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