Would you plant vegetables on a toxic waste dump?
Nope, you can’t just plant over a toxic environment. You have to remove the toxicity, replace it with a fertile foundation, and then you can plant.
When we try to change organizations without buy-in and commitment, that’s what we are doing.
And we see that time and time again in schools. How many schools and districts have implemented “solutions” to the problems we face:
Test scores and student achievement, when we add technology, change curriculum, increase test prep time.
Classroom management and behavioral issues, including group and peer pressure, bullying and social media pressures for students, when we put in new systems or institute reward and punishments.
Critical thinking, deeper learning, and creativity with new curriculum or technology.
Attention, engagement, and motivation through the latest flashy technology or praxis
Student and teacher mental health and wellbeing with posters, rewards, or speakers
Introducing technology to improve teacher effectiveness, personalization, assessment, and student outcomes, and then two years later the next batch of technologies
Teacher and student burnout, Teacher retention, Graduation rates through assessment, speakers, or rah rah announcements
Working with the diversity of backgrounds, home lives, and learning abilities in the student population, including special needs with new technologies and assessments or summer professional development
Preparing students for the future workforce and other adult responsibilities with speakers, admonitions, posters, or tracking
For the last 25 years, or more, we’ve tried to drive change with technology, training, curriculum, assessments, and so on, but have we moved the needle at all?
We know what happens.
Stakeholders judge the attempt as failure the first time something doesn’t work as expected and give up
Different parties are vested in different methodologies and solutions, and then sabotage efforts
Experienced teachers who have seen too many initiatives attempted and failed give halfhearted efforts or none at all
We let destructive conflicts stop progress instead of using conflict as constructive opportunities for improvement
Students fail to engage, and we blame parents, society, or teachers
We expect experts to give us a magic formula to turn things around, and when it turns out they don’t have all the answers we assign blame and find scapegoats
That’s what happens when we plant over existing mindsets. First, work on the mindsets, then change the systems and implement possible interventions.
As a retired teacher this hit the nail on the head for me. Before I left teaching, after 37 years in education, I was working on Going Gradeless. For 5 years, I worked diligently on giving outcomes and agency back to the students. I still had to give “grades” at the quarter, semester, and finals. But the students had a great deal of power through self evaluation, self scoring, and dialogue with me and their peers. I was able to do this successfully at each academic level including Honors. It was amazing. Got lots of pushback from the students initially. But eventually they were able to embrace the power. Parents loved it because they saw learning. Not book learning, per usual…though that was happening too. Rather they saw their student learning how they learned, saw creativity in what was being accomplished, and had a better idea of how their child was growing as a learner.
Sadly, even with all the data and anecdotal evidence, you know who couldn’t buy into it? Yeah my peers and administrators. It didn’t fit neatly into the current methodologically accepted box. I often received feedback such as, “Why do you let students grade their own work? They’re not teachers. What do they know?!” Or this one, “Won’t they just cheat? Won’t they just change their answers?”
I found that they didn’t cheat. They learned and changed. They recognized errors, showed integrity, and became more confident in their own abilities. One last anecdote: One spring, about 1 years before I retired, I gave Chemistry final and mistakenly copied the answer key as part of the test. During said test I noticed a lot of unease and asked what was going on. The students informed me of my error. Instead of removing the answer key, I allowed them to keep it as a means of checking work. I repeated this with my other four classes as well. Throughout the test period, I watched to see how many times students looked back at the answer key. It averaged about 6 x per class. When I eventually read the feedback, which I always requested at the end of each test/quiz, the overwhelming response was that they didn’t feel the need to use it because they felt a certain level of confidence knowing that it was there if they really needed to use it. I never did that again…accidentally or deliberately…but it certainly gave a bit of insight into student anxiety and student behaviors and what is possible when students are given agency over their learning.
Recognizing and addressing feelings of wasted effort is essential for personal growth. Reflecting on your goals and progress can help identify areas for improvement and reinforce your commitment. Remember, every step, even those that seem unproductive, contributes to your overall journey.