Why Teachers Matter: A Story of Influence

The room spun as I attempted to take in the sight before me. A thick packet sprawled across my cold desk with the words "Grammar Test" proclaiming its existence. I closed my eyes to wish it away. Another test. Another evidence of failure. Such was my life as an English-language learner. Math. Science. Social Studies. English. It didn't matter. I wasn't good at any of it.

I opened my eyes only to find that dreaded test still on my desk. My throat tightened.

This time, I cared.

I cared about doing well. I cared about not letting my teacher down - not letting myself down.  My choking fears and conditioned anxiety, however, were quickly replaced by overwhelming confusion when I heard the softly spoken words of encouragement: "You can do this."

Who me? The girl who would rather act up in class and live in the principal's office than to face the self-deprecating truth that school just wasn't for me - English just wasn't for me. I would never be good enough.

Yet her words were real. To her. And little did I know that they would plant themselves in my mind, growing like fire, and replacing any previous truths I had concerning my worth.

I was fourteen years old when I first heard and understood those words, "You can do this." I was fourteen years old when my path to hope and success was etched before me. I COULD do it. And so I did.

Many times.

After school. Before school.  During that 8th grade English class. During high school and college years. I was on a mission to learn more and more about the English language. How to read it, how to write it, how to speak it. Twenty years later, English is still my passion.  Its history, its evolution, its changing anatomy. A living organism that has made itself a home in my heart.

And it started with those four words: "You can do this."

That was my first academic English class I ever took. It was the first time I experienced a true desire to learn. But most importantly, it was the first time I experienced a teacher's power of influence. My English teacher believed in my potential, continually exposing my unveiled intelligence to the world. However unpolished. However obstinate. However inconsistent it was. She believed I was smart. She believed I could do it, and so I do.

We never know how our influence as educators is shaping the lives of our students. We may never realize how the hope we offer inspires better stories. And we won't always see the lighthouse our words paint on someone else's canvas. We just need to remember that it matters. Education matters. We matter.

The Value of Teachers - Tapping into our Greatest Resource in Education

We've all heard about or read the research concerning the power of a teacher on a child's education. Value-added research suggests that teachers have the greatest impact on a child's achievement and success, especially with students who struggle. In reading, the effect is even more paramount. No reading program will ever replace the strength and power of the greatest superhero out there - a quality teacher.

Yet teachers don't always feel their super strength. They are inundated with duties to fulfill, papers to grade, parents to please, d-halls to supervise, deadlines to meet, grades to post, lesson plans to follow, and a myriad of stressful tasks that the calling of teaching comes with. In the midst of all these perceived mountains, we have lost the greatest truth about one of the most noble professions in society - teaching. In a profession where the growth, achievement, and safety of students are top priorities, the teachers are the professionals. Except, most don't feel like the professionals. They feel like the minions in a bigger plan for which they have little input. They feel like the worker bees in a larger system where the power and strength comes from the intangible QueenBee.

So how do we tap into our greatest resource in education? How do we begin to treat teachers as the professionals in this industry? The simplest responses are not so simple to implement, and perhaps that's what keeps most from trying. As leaders, however, we have to embrace our role as supporters. The true professionals, the true executives are in our classrooms every day, doing the best they can the best way they know how. How will we help?

1. Trust your Teachers. I truly don't think teachers show up to the classroom with the purpose of "doing a poor job." Even the most ineffective teacher has the willingness and potential to be better. Trust that the human desire to improve and be better exists in all your teachers. Trust their work when you see successes, and trust their intent when you see risks fail. Trust their spirit, and trust their experience. Trust takes time, but when a student is being influenced by that teacher on day 1, time is not a luxury we have. Take the leap of faith and trust.

2. Grow your Teachers. Teachers are no different than students when it comes to learning, yet often, we provide canned learning experiences and mandate certain training in the name of consistency and standardization. We force them to sit in meetings and attend PD all throughout the year. But unless it's relevant, appropriate, and immediately applicable, teachers don't see the training as beneficial or time-effective. What can be do to promote engagement? To differentiate the learning experience depending on need? To provide consistent and target support on the individualized manner? How can we include the use of formative experiences that dictate the kind of support and growth we provide teachers? This is the magic we ask of teachers every day, so how can we incorporate that ourselves? Let's walk the talk.

3. Give your Teachers a Voice. Teachers have a voice, and it's a voice we must embrace and treat as catalysts in our pursuit of excellence. After all, it is their behavior that mostly impacts the success of education, so why not allow their expertise and knowledge to help dictate the direction of the organization? A leader can only affect a movement when a follower beckons other followers. Followers, teachers, are the true initiators of reform and change. Make their voice matter, and they will engage in the experiences that move learning forward.

4. Advocate for your Teachers. Adapting a student-centered mindset is not in direct contraction to a teacher-centered philosophy. In fact, when learning is the focus, the student and the teacher are the important elements. Create an environment where advocating for teachers is truly putting kids first. Stand up for your teachers, give them a voice, trust their capacity and impact, and grow through formative measures and engaging experiences that directly help polish their craft. That's what being a true teacher advocate is. That's what our purpose becomes. That's how we treat them like the professionals that they truly are.

When a student grows up to become a successful adult in our world, what will they remember from their schooling experience? More often than not, it will be a teacher. But we actually have research that shows the influence of a teacher isn't dormant, remaining latent until adulthood is reached. The influence and effects of teachers can be felt on Day 1. So let's do what we can to make sure it's a positive one. We have a responsibility to support teachers as they do the impossible and connect with learners, address their needs, and mold the mind of our future generations. As amazing and powerful as that responsibility is for school leaders, it's not as great as the power and responsibility that the individual teachers have themselves in the classroom everyday.

Reading Strategies: When Practice Doesn’t Make Perfect

There is a huge distinction between improving reading skills and mastering content area concepts. Learning a skill requires practice. It requires that I understand the cognitive and linguistic processes that take place as I am attempting a perceptively more difficult reading skill. English Teachers, bravely answering the call to assist students in this reading growth, know that strategies help students “get there.” These strategies become our arsenal as we attempt to embed scaffolds that allow students to develop and improve their reading skills.

Whether they are graphic organizers, mnemonics, discussion strategies , anticipation guides, repeated readings, etc, strategies ultimately do help students build or strengthen literacy skills. That’s what they are supposed to do anyway. Until they don’t.

Somewhere along the way, we have lost the intent that strategies serve. Strategies should serve to help students see the pattern of thinking/learning required in the skill attempted. Once this pattern or connection is identified through the use of the strategy, the student continues use of the strategy in order to build automaticity, so that he or she is able to transform the thinking process into a routine and, ultimately, a habit. They practice, monitor and reflect and adjust, and eventually master the skill. 

What is happening instead, however, is that students are introduced to a myriad of strategies for one specific skill, and they are not allowed the opportunity to practice and perfect certain strategies in order to build proficiency. Think of it this way. Reading is a skill - like walking or even like learning a skill within a sport. When a new basketball player, for example, is attempting a layup but is unable to make the basket, the coach will step in and probably model the strategy for layups. The coach will then teach the steps... How many steps? When do I switch the ball to the other hand? Where do I aim? How much force do I use? The student practices, using the strategy that is proposed by the coach. In their guided practice, the coach may suggest slight hand movements, or stepping procedures, etc to ensure the practice produces results. After a while, the student practices this monitored strategy and eventually his or her game will improve. Layups become mastered and predictable for this athlete.

What if, however, the coach showed up every day to practice and introduced a new layup strategy to this athlete. What if every time they interacted, there was a change in the steps, or a new target for which to aim, etc? This wouldn’t let the young athlete practice any one way over and over in order to build automaticity in his or her layup. It will take the athlete longer to master it. Sure, other strategies suggested on different days may be more creative, albeit more fun, but the effect of the initial strategy will be diminished because the athlete is not given ample opportunity to practice it. To own it. To build the habit. To master the skill.

How does this relate to the ELAR classroom and the strategies utilized for literacy? We have to think about our goal. Is it to engage students? Is it to invite creativity? Is it to master a reading skill? The goal and the strategy must be in direct alignment. The processes involved in the strategy must help students build a specific literacy skills. KWL, for example, works with background knowledge. If accessing background knowledge is a need for students, I wouldn’t use the Frayer Model as that addresses conceptual vocabulary development. I wouldn’t, additionally, use different strategies for background knowledge with students unless continued practice and differentiation necessitates it. Trying different strategies for the same skill for the sake of variety won’t allow students to build the effective thinking habits that only comes from continued practice. 

What does this mean then? Choose a few strategies to really master in the classroom. Implement the researched practices as they were intended, and be aware how the alterations may affect the results. As students need increased scaffolding, a change in strategy may be merited, but we can’t assume that practicing a different way every time will lead to mastery. It’s quite the opposite. Practicing different ways may not lead to perfection.

Walking the Walk

I've spent the last 13 years of my educational career embracing the power of writing. As teachers, we understand that writing gives everyone a voice - a voice that connects, shares, implores, informs. We relish in its power to document an existence, to communicate the abstract, to process thinking in ways that forces us to understand life, the world around us, and, most importantly, ourselves.  For years, I've seen students become more confident, global citizens who are prepared to communicate through writing, academically and creatively.  As a Language Arts Professor, I perpetuate the importance of writing to my pre-service teachers who eagerly await their opportunity to pass on my message of influence.

Tonight, as I released another set of these pre-service teachers into greatness after a semester full of writing, sharing, and learning, I began thinking about all the writing journeys I have initiated among my own students as a secondary English teacher and university professor. I've shaped future teachers and created authors. I wonder, however, do I practice what I teach?  Do I let my thoughts and emotions take life on a page? Do I document my learning experience and processes for the world to see, analyze, and rip apart? Am I ready to be as vulnerable as I always encourage my students to be?

In the midst of professional growth, I've decided it's time to walk the walk. And what a better way to take that risk than through blogging. So today, I begin my own writing journey, affect my own processing, and encourage my own growth. I don't know where this blogging itch will take me, but it's a trip I must experience if I am going to continue professing the power of the written word.

After all, I trust Tao Philospher Lao-tzu's words when he says, "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step" or in this case - a single post. Happy Reading!