Driving positive pedagogy from the ground up
Written by Courtney Crawford, Teacher - Science, Mathematics, Education Queensland
We all know someone who’s a sceptic. Not in the tin-foil-hat, ‘the moon landing was fake’ sense of the word. Not even in the ‘cynic’ sense of the word. Just more in the way that they like to see things with their own two eyes. I’m a science teacher, so I’d just rebrand it as being “critically analytical”. Regardless, many of us become that sceptic during staff meetings while listening to the most recent initiative being proposed. You might sit and wearily wonder what you’re in for in the coming months.
We come into teaching as a career (and stay) for a multitude of reasons. Maybe you love the classroom dynamics of working with young people, the unique personalities and routes they take to get to where they want to be, or the ability to make them think differently (you know, all those stereotypical warm-and-fuzzy elements of the job). Maybe you get a buzz out of planning and organising curriculum (that’s me, it’s a bit sad) or finding creative ways to approach a topic. For me, the challenges arise from the myriad ways in which classroom teachers are pulled in an effort to reach that inevitable goal: student wellbeing and achievement, in whatever form those outcomes appear.
Our experiences in school settings can often be full of messages we receive on “what works” that come at us in a very top-down approach. Our leaders, consultants, some of whom are far removed from the classroom, engage in literature, build our agendas, improvement plans and pedagogical frameworks, often behind closed doors with minimal meaningful offerings by way of consultation.
For those leaders whose roles include building and presenting new initiatives, alongside the tangle of administrative duties usually sits some kinds of time release. Perhaps it’s a few subject lines, perhaps they are removed from the classroom entirely. Time is the prized commodity, coveted by those of us at the bottom of the ladder. While leaders may lament that they miss the classroom, they are afforded the breathing and brain space to engage with the literature, cerebral concepts and big ideas that we plebs often have to leave by the wayside once the busyness of balancing life and the job takes over.
Although having the privilege of time to engage in this world may seem luxurious to us at the bottom, it’s our practice in the classroom that drives change for our students. The inevitable disclaimer on research built and reported from learning labs or statistical analysis is Dylan Wiliam’s “everything works somewhere; nothing works everywhere”. It can sometimes feel to those of us without a leadership voice like we’re being told what best practice is, not seeing it in a way that works in our own context. If I had a dollar for every time I’ve walked away from professional development without a tangible product on how to implement ideas, maybe I could pay to attend better PD.
We only need to look as far as our staffroom collective to see that best practice in our own context exists right under our noses. You know who these people are, they’re the ones planning lessons where the student thinking is considered, the ones sharing successes and failures and reflecting on how to change things for next time, the teachers sharing strategies for providing meaningful opportunities and feedback within a lesson. So how do we build best practice in our context within the frameworks created for us? How do we value the work of the members of our team to drive change with a bottom-up approach? I’m no oracle of wisdom, just a lowly classroom teacher, but here are some approaches that have helped me learn best from my colleagues.
1. Ask to use faculty or whole school meeting time to share classroom practice.
Sure, no one wants a meeting to go longer than it needs to, but imagine walking out of one with a new idea to try, new respect for colleagues, a new conversation starter and a spring in your step. Getting an insight into how my colleagues’ classrooms run usually gives me immediate strategies to tweak and try the next day, or a little bit of envy that I’d never thought to try that before. If it takes you to start the ball rolling, shake off that imposter syndrome and speak to your faculty leader, or even consider how it could be included in whole school learning. I’ve experienced schools which build capacity across faculties by having a faculty present ways they embed pedagogical frameworks each week in staff meetings. Some of the best (free, easy) PD I’ve ever experienced.
2. Talk about the ‘why’ and ‘how’ rather than the ‘what’ of classroom learning experiences.
To quote the wise words of Donald Draper, “if you don’t like what’s being said, change the conversation”. Easier said than done in a frantic staffroom conversation. Sharing strategies in a team can sometimes end up being basic descriptions of an activity you did to help teach a topic. Useful, but often not a complete picture of the situation. Share the product, but also share the reasoning for choosing that activity, why you organised it like this or what strategies you used to plan the task rather than just the steps in the lesson. Ask the same of your colleagues and learn from their wisdom in their reflections.
3. Team up and do observations (even when you’re not just trying to get through your performance review)
Get a teaching buddy or two and ask them to pop in on your lessons if they’re walking past and vice versa. Arrange to spend ten minutes taking the time to see what other classrooms look like, even when our spare time feels impossible to reclaim. Our observations are so often done by our leaders, and in schools without a good open-door policy, it can be hard to continue teaching without unconsciously changing what you’re doing. Initiating an observation with a friend watching, knowing they aren’t there to judge or evaluate, instead just to steal an idea or two can change the dynamic entirely.
4. Network with like-minded teachers on Twitter or Instagram or your favourite scroll-hole of choice.
I use Twitter as my reflective practice to share wins and losses in the classroom, but also as a delightful place to pilfer great activities, templates, news articles, websites and approaches from other people’s practice. Commandeer what you need, repurpose and tweak, but sharing is caring, so try to give back as well. Don’t let people’s perfectly coifed classrooms on Instagram fool you though, it’s still social media so not every lesson a user posts will be pedagogically brilliant, so no need for any self-flagellation.
5. Participate in small group coaching if it’s available.
I’ve only recently had the opportunity to start participating in coaching and it is still viewed with some of that scepticism by colleagues around me, some assume it’s only for beginning teachers or people who need a slight ‘retune’. I find it a thoroughly beneficial exercise in reflective practice, to have a professional conversation, to think out loud with others to help solve problems, to encourage you and to learn from. Yes, another task which can drain one of your spares, but the clarification and direction it can provide can certainly make up for that.
The work you do as a teacher in your classroom and the planning you do at your desk (or in the car, or on yard duty or from random shower thoughts) are incredibly valuable, both to your students and colleagues. While the school year can feel like a constant deluge of scepticism-inducing top-down messages, build a strong team alongside you in the trenches, be it in your staffroom, school team or virtually, by learning from them and them from you. Be a maverick, change some rules and conventions. Back yourself to share your successes and failures with your colleagues that are in the trenches alongside you and encourage your leaders to learn from you all as well. Ensuring classroom teachers’ expertise and voice are valued during decision making processes at the top of the ladder should be a priority for all schools.