The goal is a student who feels respected, valued, and honored as an individual.

     I have been reading tweets and posts recently that encourage teachers to concentrate on what is within their control.  While it may be popular, and necessary, to push back against the tyranny of high stakes tests and phony evaluation systems; teachers need to bring their best to work daily for the benefit of the students.  What they can control is how they work bell to bell with students when the door is closed.  Surely, Professional Learning Communities, peer mentoring, and horizontal or vertical teaming promote doing what is in our control for the benefit of our students.  How do building administrators best serve teachers in this mission? How do building leaders encourage teachers to reach outside "comfort zones" to try new techniques, especially when the building leaders might have last taught ten years ago and have no experience with the idea they are promoting?
     A common combination of issues in many middle schools and high schools is student apathy, disengagement, oppositional behavior, frequent absences, and simply failure to earn credits toward graduation.  Teachers struggle to differentiate instruction, maintain order, re-orient students returning from absences and suspensions, introduce new lessons, provide second chance summative assessments, contact parents, and keep pace with the curriculum guide and common formative assessments.  Knowing these challenges exist, administrative teams develop school improvement plans meant to help teachers and improve student performance.  Bear with me; in this scenario the administrators really do care and want to help.  How?  Seriously, what advice would teachers offer administrators about how to improve student performance?
     In my experience with both groups of teachers and groups of administrators, the likely first topic raised would be, "we need to provide consistent consequences when students break rules."  Teachers want the bad apples gone from the barrel and administrators look for the consequence that will modify the behavior, or at the very least, give the teacher the impression of support.  Teachers reason that they can get back on top of the situation if they only have compliant students in the room.  Administrators reason that students will become compliant with the right combination of consequences.  Herein lies the problem; compliance is not a solution.  In fact, making compliance the goal is the problem.
     First, children know that in a negotiation they have the upper hand.  If compliance is the goal, the adult has already lost and the child knows it.  Second, compliance does not equal learning, nor does it equal engagement in the process of learning.  Compliance is not the goal.
     The goal is a student who feels respected, valued, and honored as an individual.  The students who have years of experience being respected, valued, and honored by the adults in their lives are the ones who naturally engage; they are the ones we all find so easy to teach.  It is not that they necessarily are naturally brighter or more talented, they have a different set of experiences and therefore a different mindset.  The goal is changing the mindset of the students who we believe need their behavior modified.  Addressing that goal begins with the adult behaviors, not the student behaviors.  What adult behaviors will students trust that can authentically respect, value, and honor them as individuals?  More on how teachers and building leaders can do this in a future post.  What are you doing?