Just the other day, for example, one teacher told me that they called out of work because the previous day there was a field trip and their feet still hurt. In professional trainings I have facilitated lately, I also have had teachers leave early because they felt “too tired” to go on. Teachers told me they were leaving; they didn’t ask. We are definitely in what Robert Glazer calls an “Ambition Recession.”
To be fair, there are many valid reasons why some teachers are apathetic and/or leaving the profession. I previously wrote about some of these reasons in my Work It Daily article "3 Reasons for the Big Quit in Teaching." Yet, if we are to help students to grow and achieve, we need to get teachers back on the school improvement bus. However, this is not just the responsibility of individual teachers. What might school and district administrators do to motivate teachers to make a positive change?
Recently, I had the chance to listen to an episode of the New Yorker Radio Hour; the theme for that episode was change. During that episode, dance choreographer Akram Khan suggested that there are four—in my opinion, interrelated—reasons why people change. While he may have been talking about re-envisioning the ballet “Giselle” for the modern stage, I believe his thoughts are relevant to those in education who are charged with motivating teachers to participate, more fully, within the teaching profession.
Teachers Will Change When They Must
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The grass is not always greener on the other side. Now that many educators have moved out of teaching roles and have taken opportunities in the private sector (particularly in EdTech), we may see a boomerang effect. There is a certain amount of financial stability as a teacher. A teacher may not be making as much money as they would like but it is a constant. In contrast, when one moves into the private sector, financial compensation can ebb and flow erratically particularly when the threat of recession looms like grey clouds on the horizon. Teachers, like anyone, might then be happy to have a job and do more to maintain it.
Teachers Will Change When They See Enough To Be Inspired
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Traditionally, many teachers have been isolated within the four walls of their classrooms. Most still need to find adult coverage of their classrooms to take even a short bathroom break. How then might school leaders make internal exemplars of good teaching and learning more visible across the faculty? New Beginnings Charter School, in Brooklyn, NY, for instance, produces a weekly digital staff instructional newsletter that features classroom videos of their teachers using best instructional practices. They and ITAVA, in Queens, NY, engage in lesson study and open up model classrooms for teacher intervisitation. Lesson study is not the only way to coalesce teachers around a common goal; there are many additional ways to make teacher teams impactful.
The key here is that administrators need to plan deeply; they need to develop schedules that release teachers from the chains of their classrooms so that teachers can visit other classrooms and/or participate on ongoing teacher teams. Inspiration also requires triangulation of teacher development supports. For example, instructional coaches might consider referencing support materials/exemplars of best practice, provided in digital newsletters, during ongoing coaching feedback conversations. Help teachers become aware of where they can go for resources to improve their teaching craft and have multiple pathways for teachers to get there.
Teachers Will Change When They Learn Enough To Want It
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When I worked with the Cristo Rey School Network, we were interested in learning how best to develop internal tutoring programs that would well serve students and prevent their exit due to poor academic performance. One of the most powerful tools we had in replicating a quality tutoring program, across the network, was the ability to draw upon the expertise of one of our schools that already had such a program in place. Providing a space for all our school leaders, and teachers involved in the tutoring of our students, to engage in problem of practice protocols proved pivotal for the replication of this one school’s tutoring model across multiple school sites. As our school leaders and teachers learned more about what already was working in-house, the enthusiasm to replicate said practices was infectious.
Networked learning can be internal—as in the case of Cristo Rey above—and/or external. The Canopy Project, a joint project between Transcend Education and CRPE, has, for example, over 200 member/school organizations interested in building transformative education environments focused on equity. It aims to do this by collaborating, not competing, on the development of best school design. How might school leaders include more teachers within internal and/or external networks of practice? The models for learning networks are out there.
Teachers Will Change When They Receive Enough To Be Able
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Asked another way, are administrators and/or instructional coaches giving enough so that teachers develop efficacy? I’ve written elsewhere on how we might say that student learning is at the core of our work as educators but, in reality, this is not evident when we, as managers of learning, make time for everything but instructional observation and teacher coaching. Therefore, administrators would do well in developing a standing weekly schedule for themselves that prioritizes both informal classroom observations and feedback/coaching sessions with each teacher on staff. Move operational tasks to when instructional time is over for the day. Paul Bambrick-Santoyo discusses this, in great detail, in his book Leverage Leadership.
Kim Marshall further suggests that administrators, during mini observations, not write notes. Rather, later in the day, administrators might use a one-page staff list to record the day, date, and most relevant points from each visit. Later still, they can add a checkmark when feedback has been given to the observed teacher. Further, share anonymous instructional data, across classrooms, with teaching staff. Help teachers to understand why certain instructional priorities exist and solicit teacher participation in responding to the data.
If you would like additional ideas on how to impact student lives without sacrificing your own, and have a life teaching, check out my quick hack teaching courses here. You can also reach me on LinkedIn.
Although the job market is not as robust as it once was, companies still deal with issues retaining their top employees. In fact, because the job market is not like it used to be, leaders often struggle with why they are still losing employees.
Why do their employees want to leave their current, secure job and take a risk someplace new?
Research on why employees leave companies has been conducted for many years and the answers always come back the same - the number one reason employees leave a company is because of an issue with their direct manager (or overall lack of leadership in the company) and the next reason is because they do not feel they have room to grow and develop their careers within that organization.
If your employees are seeking opportunities elsewhere (and they are not the employees you want to leave), you might want to look into your career development programs. Do you have formal career development programs? If not, it's probably time to get some in place. And if you do, you might want to think about making them more robust.
Career Development often gets mistaken for something that takes a lot of time and resources however, it can be as simple or as complex as you wish for it to be in your organization. And, it is often the more simple things that seem to create the biggest impact for the employee. Career Development can be as straightforward as a manager having a one-on-one conversation with an employee.
This conversation would be conducted to explore the employee's career aspirations and discuss what they can realistically do to grow and advance inside that company to reach those aspirations. "Realistically" means what the employee can do to fulfill their aspirations within the constraints of what the specific organization needs and can provide.
Career Development is much more than spending money to send an employee to a training course and can be as simple as giving them exposure to new projects and tasks that align with their aspirations. It is also as simple as giving them exposure to mentors and other leaders and peers from whom they can learn.
The objective is to think broadly about what will actually develop that employee's career within your company (in addition to and apart from a training course).
The objective is to spend time with the employee to understand what their career goals and objectives are and to explore options that can make reaching those goals possible.
It starts with the conversation between the employee and their manager. Doing this one or two times per year and being actively engaged in the employee's career development within your company can make a huge difference in the employee's level of satisfaction and can limit their desire to seek opportunities elsewhere. Your retention problem could very well be a career development problem and much more simple to amend than you realize.
Andria Corso, founder of C3-Corso Coaching & Consulting, has worked with a variety of Fortune 100 C-suite leadership teams as well as individual HR professionals who want to gain more respect for their expertise.Read more » articles by this approved expert | Click here » if you’re a career expertPhoto credit: Shutterstock
