If it doesn’t make sense….

I am here on the first day of holidays after a great week away at the ITSC conference. A good conference will always inspire educators but I am starting to think these conferences just preach to the choir, reinforce what we all know, or just make us realise that we have every right to be frustrated at the system that we allow to dictate what happens in our classrooms. In fact I was taken back by a statement made by some guests at the conference when reflecting on their own school system – “If it doesn’t make sense they will do it!!” And once again we spend a week – and a substantial amount of personal or school money to be told that we are on the right track. The week was certainly worth every penny of my school’s PD money that got me to this event. But with attitudes that illuminate the truth of the statement above, will our schools actually allow the value of what has been spent be realised? We are now in a system here where our schools must publicly report the dollar figure they are spending on professional development. How does this actually demonstrate that the money is improving teaching and learning? I can see where this will head, we will spend big dollars on PD to keep the system happy, to make sure the correct box is ticked, to send a message to the community that we are serious about teachers being the best they can be, but unfortunately we will more than likely see minimal change in teaching and learning.

Sounds familiar to the reasons why we buy the latest gadgets….. We spend 10’s of thousands of dollars on the latest gadgets so we can be seen as being leaders in education. When in actual fact we fail to prove how any of this money being spent has improved teaching and learning.

In this country we are sitting on the cusp of possible revolutionary change in education. We have a new Government proclaiming we are about to have an “education revolution.” Folk at the conference last week were excited by this and were talking about the discussions to have laptops in the hands of students and teachers as positive and exciting potential changes. However, the skeptic in me can not see a bureaucracy really making a positive change. Why???? Well our education system needs change, but change that is headed by risk takers, people who see the need, know the how and are willing to do what it takes. Governments don’t like the idea of risk, they look for what is popular and change in educational thought is not popular. What is popular is tests, standards being met, declaring that no child will be left behind…. All the crap that gets spun by Government PR campaigns that aren’t worth the paper they are written on. In fact the change we require in our schools will not be popular, it won’t provide photo opportunities for politicians. It will require people that are willing to take a risk, stand up for what is right, make mistakes, learn from their mistakes and hold the needs of teachers and students as the focus of all that happens.

About a year ago I met a school principal who was intrigued by my willingness to express my opinions so publicly… I felt uncomfortable for a moment, thinking he was about to tell me that what I wrote was trash and didn’t do me any favours. In fact it was quite the opposite he was impressed that I was willing to take a risk and put my thoughts out there, and express the disappointment I had with different aspects of education. He encouraged me to continue as it was this kind of activity that encouraged him to seek what his staff were feeling about the profession. He continued to tell me how he ran his timetable each year. He sits his staff down for 5 minutes each and discusses where they feel they could best provide for the school and students. He then asks how the school can help them with PD, class structure etc etc. He then allows the staff to design their own teaching timetable. Actually allowing staff to design their timetable was a massive risk for him….. what if he couldn’t deliver? What if they needed more maths teachers and not enough people wanted to teach maths? Well he promised me that the risk was always worth it, and that it changed the mindset of teachers in his school as they could see they were valued and that the school cared about them as people and as professionals. If he couldn’t deliver on a teacher’s request he would negotiate and work them through the issues, often giving them extra support in areas they were not confident.

To me this didn’t seem like a big risk, but to the principal he knew what the consequence would be if he couldn’t deliver. What inspires me about this is that the attitude here is that while taking this risk may cause a number of problems, the eventual outcome is a change in culture that will be a long term benefit to the school community. The title of a great book I read some years ago sums this all up…. “If you don’t feed the teachers they will eat the students.” You feed the teachers by listening to them and rewarding those who have desire to take risks that will make them better educators and the school a better learning community. We need students to become people who are willing to take risks, yet we create an environment that does the exact opposite.

Unfortunately, I spend these holidays disenchanted by what I have to go back to. What was going to be exciting and potential for great change has been squashed by the system that suffers from serious tunnel vision. Our schools have been taken captive by Government requirements, timetables and other administrative items…. We refuse to encourage creative, risk taking behaviors and go to a system that tries to put everyone in a box. We work in a people business and think lastly of people, we proclaim that educators change lives, yet make sure that everything stays the same. Because I am someone who is capable of teaching mathematics I get given more maths classes…. Nobody seems to worry about the fact that my talents and abilities lie elsewhere. Why??? Because the system needs a maths teacher, the timetable needs a maths teacher and maths teachers are hard to find you know!! Since when does timetabling dictate teaching and learning? I realise there are administrative areas that are painful and hard, but seriously, must we destroy all creative thought that could possibly deliver a better result and generate a system that is dictated to by mere administrative task and procedure? Oh but I guess “If it don’t makes sense they’ll do it!!”