Sometimes AIW Local Coaches contact me for advice when their district is going through a major transition. Recently one teacher, who is an AIW Local Coach but not an "official" Teacher Leader (based on a new Teacher Leadership compensation grant), reached out for thoughts about how to her district could deepen its commitment to AIW even though the new superintendent they've hired doesn't have an AIW background.
After several emails between us, I decided to share my latest thoughts in this blog in case others find it useful. And, of course, if you do not agree or have additional thoughts, send your comments in to we can post them.
We left off talking about how she might begin to organize all of her concerns under an essential question to keep her thinking from getting fragmented.
Here is what she recently wrote:
I am energized by what the essential question should be for this situation. Your idea of asking how we can sustain AIW with fidelity as the district transitions under new leadership is on the right track...But I am not fully convinced it is what I'm trying to ask. I'm thinking of the part of "How can we sustain AIW with fidelity". I think I am wondering if our district even has it yet. Some of us do, but I am not sure. Maybe I am worrying for no reason. I don't have any concrete evidence that the majority of the staff doesn't have fidelity---it's just my instinct from the way our leadership meetings have been going and by my own observations.
I feel it like “if you were training for the Olympics and at the most vulnerable stage of your training--just when you were starting to build the belief that you could do it, you got a new coach, who contradicted everything your old coach just told you ...what happens to the fidelity of your belief system---and ultimately your performance? I am not so worried about the new superintendent not having AIW experience as I am about our leadership team not having enough depth to fight for it.
You brought up a good point that we should be having a lead facilitator at our AIW meetings...at the district level, that is usually our superintendent (who will be leaving). At our building level, our principal has "empowered" us with the idea that we are all leaders. It’s like everybody is a cook in the kitchen so-to-speak---it makes it hard to get anything accomplished. We do a lot of talking, but mostly about what the agenda for the next meeting will be.
So is a better essential question: “How will the current our leadership team increase fidelity with the AIW process in order to show success and maintain its sustainability with changing leadership?”
Not sure that's the exact answer, but I am spent now :) Thanks for being my thinking partner.
This is my response based and how I’ve seen teacher leadership succeed:
Recently, I was a guest speaker at a graduate class where teachers have been researching problems in their schools. When I arrived, their common concern was now that they had framed the problem and even found some solutions, what they should do next.
First, I asked them to think about the difference between these two questions:
- What is your goal?
- What is your charge?
Just because you’ve discovered a problem and researched it doesn’t mean it is your responsibility to solve it. In fact, thinking you can usually causes huge problems.
I drew this image on the white board to help them think through the idea of impact:
- How you want to impact a system (your goal) and what you are charged to do (the roles and responsibilities based on your job) are not synonymous.
There are important distinctions worth considering with significant implications:
- First, the best solutions require group effort! When we get too far ahead in our thinking in isolation from others. When this happens it's easy to become presumptuous about how problems should be solved and who should be doing what. This is what the arrow on the left represents, where it skips from the bottom stair straight to the top. This never works, not only because you piss people off; more importantly, it's easy to start building solutions on false assumptions because you only have one perspective: your own! The power of the collective is actually looking at the problem from different perspectives and co-creating a solution that you could not have otherwise discovered—just like what happens when we score a task or unit and co-discover a solution.
- Second, leadership matters! If everyone is a leader, there is no leadership. Someone, or a designated pair, needs to be in charge at your AIW leadership meetings. Perhaps their role isn't to solve problems, but rather to frame questions and facilitate the discussions. If no one is assigned to do that, nothing will happen. I think this is what you are experiencing. I think raising this concern with your team is appropriate.
- Lastly, respect different roles: know that everyone should feel empowered to have a personal impact. That's what the vertical green text is talking about in the lower tier. But as you move up the hierarchy, sometimes solving a problem falls outside our purview and is no longer our charge. This is when we step on other peoples' toes because they see solving a problem or leading a solution as their charge not ours. And frankly, they may be right based on job description or title. In AIW districts, we support an “and/both” approach with teachers AND administrators leading the reform. Since your district is empowering teachers to be leaders, take on the role formally and volunteer to facilitate (or co-facilitate) the AIW leadership meetings.
These points may not be the most radical, but they allow you to create meaninglful and long lasting change from WITHIN the system.
REMEMBER, developing an essential question and creating a goal is great, but...
- You can only impact those parts of the system that within your charge. If you don't know what your charge is, ask!
- Don't get so far in your own thinking that you leave others behind. This will only alienate them.
- AND, you will also begin to build solutions on false assumptions that come from only one perspective.
- What you are describing requires both individual efforts and the power of the collective at all levels of the system, both to gain multiple perspectives, and to have multiple points of impact.
- Lastly, leadership matters—put this issue on the table first and volunteer to be part of the solution!
Best of Luck.
Edweek is currently hosting several good conversations online about teacher leadership.