Inside Public Education: Better Institutes

Last time, after outlining some of the problems with teacher institutes, we suggested that teachers communicating with other teachers would be a tremendous improvement to our current system of institute days.  (See )

From my perspective, it’s that simple—facilitate teacher interaction.  Brew coffee, toss some bagels on a table, and let teachers have at it.  I’m sure we could create a name more impressive-sounding than, “Can We Talk?” but that format would be the best way for teachers to benefit from institutes. 

Teaching isolates us from our colleagues: Although there’s intense human interaction going on every day, leading groups of twenty-five students through learning activities all day doesn’t leave much time for contemplation.  Festering problems tend to fester indefinitely, and it can be professionally awkward to admit you still don’t have solutions to certain problems after years of teaching.  And new teachers fear ‘fessing up to difficulties could cost them their jobs if administrators see their concerns as weakness. 

Between heavy work load, professional embarrassment, and job insecurity; teachers have a tradition of never admitting to problems.  Does isolation from colleagues and feigning omniscience on all educational matters sound like a recipe for professional growth to you?  It’s no wonder teachers have a tendency to spew nauseating nonsense when rare opportunities to talk about what they do arise. Often, we affect this pseudo-intellectual educational lingo:  “I find that graded discussions enhance student-to-student interactions, and my assessments make use of a standard rubric endorsed by the NCTE.  Ambient noise, however, can create disruptive digressions which only the strictest adherence to our mutually generated behavior contracts can address.” 

After five seconds of this gibberish, I want to grab this geek by his rubric and squeeze the ambient noise out of him.  And you’re right, my astute reader, that this kind of useless jargon could dominate my “Can We Talk?” institutes, especially if administrators are around.  If we’re reluctant to admit we have problems to other teachers, you can imagine how verbally constipated we become as soon as our principal enters the room. 

We would also be remiss if we didn’t bring up the “war story” problem these kinds of institutes could foster.  Teachers are no different than anyone else, except that most of us have become verbally skilled over the years.  Regardless of your discipline, you have to take charge and direct 25 kids who are not automatically anxious or willing to do what you want them to do.  Since we have long abandoned the days of physical motivation, we rely on speaking to control a room. 

This necessary skill can, however, mutate when we speak with other teachers into holding forth rather than interacting.  It would be fascinating to time different discussions held by homogeneous groups of professions to see how long each individual speech was.  While politicians and lawyers would be the favorites to win longest-winded gold, I’d bet on teachers to get at least bronze.  Endless stories, windy whining, and pointless detail (“Let’s see, it was last Tuesday…no, it was Wednesday because that’s the day we have Market Day…wait a minute, Market Day got postponed because of our fire drill, so it really was Thursday…wasn’t it?”) could make the “Can We Talk?” days even worse than the current situation, where at least a teacher can get a few papers graded in peace.  

So we’d have to work to make sure that our “Can We Talk?” sessions were open and non-judgmental, and that they were organized around at least a few basic ground rules which would keep the groups on task.  The main format that appeals to me would be a series of short sessions on basic teaching issues, each led by a teacher who is especially good at running discussions. 

We all know who those people are in our schools.  These wizards have a knack for encouraging participation while focusing on individual responses; they listen attentively while attending to the needs of everyone; they allow for digressions while firmly nudging the discussion back to its original purpose; and they can adhere to time restrictions while making sure to finish with a summary that makes the arbitrary ending seem natural.  Believe it or not, these people exist in significant numbers in our schools—hey, that’s a major part of our jobs, and those who can’t do this effectively should attend my mini-session on discussions. 

And that would be the kind of topic you could expect at a “Can We Talk?” institute day.  “Conducting Discussions,” “Evaluating Essays Efficiently,” “So You’d like to Throttle Johnny,”  “Grade Systems,” “Basic Organization,” and “Administrative Paperwork 101” would be the sorts of topics which would be regular features at the “Can We Talk?” institutes.  An hour and a half seems right for each of these discussions; we shouldn’t expect that these issues could be resolved in that time, but we don’t get much “resolved” at the day-long workshops we currently endure. 

What typically happens there is that we wind up completely frustrated by the time wasted and the uselessness of the material presented.  Or, if the concept shown seems really great, we leave over-hyped about the wonderfulness of this new idea only to experience a major let-down as those abstract theories crash and burn when confronted by the reality of actual school situations.  Creating reasonable expectations would be one of the main goals of the “Can We Talk?” forums. 

The truth is that no matter how fantastic the new material seems, until each individual teacher adapts it to his unique style (Never forget the foundation of all of my ramblings.), it can’t be very effective.  What works for you won’t necessarily work for me, which doesn’t invalidate your results, but simply means we’re different.  Institute presenters tend to act as if their approach is a universal cure for all educational ills, regardless of the presenters’ backgrounds, often which haven’t been associated with actual classrooms for years, if at all. 

“Can We Talk?” should be founded on the principle that there are as many ways to deal with these issues as there are teachers, and our goal, then, should be to explore as many ideas as possible.  Once the “Can We Talk?” facilitator had introduced that session’s topic, the next step would be for the large group to brainstorm techniques that might help others.  Nobody would be expecting any one idea to be the breakthrough which would solve the problem forever. Among the forest of ideas, however, might be a sapling that a teacher could grab to nurture into a mighty oak.  Sure, that sapling might wither and die, but there would be another session on the horizon where a different species of tree could be uprooted and pruned to fit individual classrooms perfectly.

My best institute experiences have come when I could talk shop with other teachers, especially once we stripped away all the pretense and jargon.  “Yeah, I had a kid just like that once.  He drove me up the wall until I…”  “I really hate those special education conferences too, but we’ve made them work better by…”  “I used to spend all kinds of time writing comments on my kids’ essays, but I found that they focused better when I…”  Each of these conversations would lead to everyone’s sharing partial solutions to specific problems that might or might not work for my situation, but at least I would never feel like I was being manipulated to swallow someone else’s belief system whole—or that I was some kind of educational loser if I didn’t think this particular method would work for me. 

We could also eliminate many of the judgments that we in education are so prone to make.  I would have to accept that your way of doing things functioned for you, no matter how stubborn I am, if you gave my ideas a fair hearing.  In a profession where other teachers determine the quality of teaching based on how many papers get taken home to grade, getting teachers to accept that one size DOES NOT fit all would be a significant step forward.  Institutes should reinforce and advance the basic foundations upon which teaching is based, not a whiz-bang, this-technique-will-change-your-life sales job.

We’d be upending an entrenched industry since there’s money in outsiders’ coming into schools to show us hicks the “right” ways to teach.  A motivational speaker or educational researcher can command $2,000-3,000+ for a single day’s work in a school district, not to mention expenses.  I sympathize with administrators who have to keep coming up with another show each institute day, scrambling to find somebody—anybody—who will reassure them that the day will be “productive, fulfilling, and nutritious; all for the low, low price of $2,399.99, but if you act right now, we’ll take $400 off our already rock-bottom price!  That’s right:  only $1,999.99 and you still get the steak knives as our way of thanking you!  But wait—there’s more…” 

In education, the steak knives tend to be selling points having to do with the presenter’s many advanced degrees; the presenter’s having formed some kind of organization with a catchy name; all kinds of research and studies which support the brilliance of whatever this presenter is selling (See for more on this); and of course, the obligatory endorsements from other “notables” in the field who swear this particular idea has transformed schools from hell-holes into educational Valhalla.  Thus, administrators breathe a sigh of relief, put in their order, and after the day is over, quickly run all the negative evaluations (from the third of the teachers who bother to turn theirs in) through shredders. 

Let’s pull it all together here in case we’ve wandered too far afield:  1. The concept of teachers’ being students at institutes is a worthwhile one.  2.  Outside experts rarely have insights which would be useful to more than a handful of teachers in attendance.  3.  The most knowledgeable and helpful people for each school’s teachers are probably currently teaching there.  4.  Teachers can gain the most from being allowed to talk to other teachers. 5. Facilitating teacher interaction would be cheaper than the current system.  Sure, you would have to give your in-house facilitators release time to work out outlines for how their session would go, but that would be chump change compared to what these experts are paid. 

Remember that I’m not talking about eliminating all the breakthroughs from being topics for institute days, but new ideas in education should be subject to the same caution as new technology:  Being state of the art usually means that you buy the weakest product for the highest price.  Let others work through the kinks, and you can save yourself many problems.  The “alpha” version of some educational fad will be the one with all the glitches later versions avoid.  We should be slow to jump on any bandwagon.

Institutes have become the abandoned step-children of schools.  The rock-solid premise that teachers benefit from being students has been corrupted by ignoring the needs of those students.  We don’t want experts talking down to us with their overheads and handouts.  (The richest institute irony is the institute presenter who lectures us on how to teach while he is violating all of his own advice by giving the most tired presentation known to humankind.) 

What we need is the opportunity to share our experiences while learning from the experiences of others.  Once we take advantage of the talent we have wasting away, not only could we save a few bucks, but we won’t hear the most common phrase coming from teachers on their way in to hear yet another expert tell them how to do their jobs:  “You know, I’d much rather just be teaching right now.”  If we give teachers the opportunity to share and to interact, we will ensure that learning does take place at institutes.