Seeing it as my own development!

As I just started out in my role as middle manager for about a year now, I never thought myself having the experience that will be invaluable to someone else. That was until I was asked to serve and share with another teacher and I was to provide this important service to others.

In a way, I supposed that this is what is termed as “servant leadership”. In addition, serving in this role caused me to become even more reflective about my own leadership and approaches to various challenges I had faced in implementation of ICT program in the school. While teachers come into the school with some or lots of leadership experience, actual ICT-based learning leadership is refined through deliberate practice and from internal or external peer-support. This approach is a new experience for everyone, young and experienced teachers alike. Utilizing these supports, I had gained both formal as well as informal sharing of ICT-based learning designs and strive to improve use and delivery of such ICT based lessons for enhancing my students’ learning.

As I endeavor to offer my service to the teacher who has expressed his interest in seeking to take up the middle manager role, I shall begin by thinking of all the things I wished I had known when I first began as an acting leadership role. Of course, I understand that each of us has to experience certain things on our own, but I can help shorten someone else’s learning curve and guide them away from mistakes. Although I have been told by others “not to spoon-feed teachers too much” and that experience is a powerful part of learning, I personally think that not all experience stimulates learning, and that leaving others to learn solely from their mistakes is clearly unsatisfactory. So, when I was told that this collaboration will be beneficial, I understood “why”. Moreover, I also see this sharing and exchanging of information with others as part of my own development.

Being Intentional About Things!

Over the course of my live, I have the opportunity to become different people, a child, student, adult, …. teacher and parent and so on... In a similar way, over the course of my profession, I assumed a number of different roles as my tasks change and my responsibilities grow, a contract teacher, trainee teacher, beginning teacher, form teacher, CCA teacher, middle manager... But even in the midst of all these changing roles, I see chances to reinvent myself in other ways.

I observed many of these changes in the various aspects of teaching. Even within our classroom, faced with one situation a teacher may be advocate of change, while at other times the same teacher may defend the current order because he believes that certain changes are unwarranted or unwise. In one stage of teaching career, some teachers may derive a great deal of satisfaction from a particular element of our work (say in positional leadership work) that a few years later teachers come to regard as boring and be more focused to their “real calling” of classroom teaching.

For me, my dedicated time for reflections has helped me to be conscious of how I can change as a middle manager. Through such reflections, I am more aware of the evolving roles I will be doing from teacher through the middle manager role, and imagine how I need to reinvent myself so as to best serve the needs of my students and the school. For instance, I reviewed what programs needed next to improve ICT implementation and wanted to raise the level of expert support so as to provide another level of support to improve our teachers’ capacity to plan and deliver ICT enriched activities for students. However, I found that these “so called experts” are themselves unclear how to go about using technology for self-directed and collaborative learning. Moreover, they are insistent on being “technology-expert” and so can only providing training for teachers on the use of technology. I decided to live up to my commitment to role model by initiating deliberate practices with my teachers. I seek for volunteers to participate in designing ICT activities using blogging and was pleased to find that our teachers are indeed willing to work with me on ICT-based lessons. I also concluded that what I really need is to rethink the pedagogical practices to incorporate ICT in teaching.

These are some of the paths I have chosen to undertake to affect the ICT implementation process in school. I know that the outcomes of these implementations will definitely take some time to attain and that a certain degree of development and change along the way is evitable. What I now only trying to do is to be completely intentional about it!

Why are teachers leaving the education service?

While I acknowledge the number of teachers leaving the education service in the first three years, especially after the end of the 3 year contract, I questioned the interpretation on why teachers leave the service.

Most people, especially the public treat teaching as a job like any other. Before I entered into teaching, I never thought that teaching was a simple job – how hard can transmission of information be? Already our schools have been providing teachers with much professional support and improved working environment compared previously. Even with professional induction support programs, especially for new teachers, and reasonable work settings, however, some teachers do not stay in the education service for long. After gone through the process, I came to realize that the main source of this “not staying long” is not due to lack of professional support or working conditions but I believe the invisible “pressure” of teaching. Within the four walls of the classroom, teachers are charged to engage all students to learn, to teach all students values and character, to create a powerful learning environment to develop all students holistically, all these based on their own version of what schooling could be. Given the complexity of the work of teaching, it then takes a few years for new teachers to recognize the dilemma created by great expectations of a “Teacher”. Even with basic skills and growing competencies of the new teachers, teaching is both psychologically and physically challenging. Even the most experienced teachers are not always successful in the teaching of every student. This work is not for everyone. Those who can will stay on teaching. Those who are not suited to the task move into other professions and careers. There is this wearing down effort or weakening of resistance, especially as a result of continuous pressure to engage, to teach, to create, to develop students. Teaching demands a focused, unswerving belief that all students can learn and that we teachers can support that learning. These pressures are relentless and demand integrity and strong belief of those who stay!

Leading the learning of others

As my own journey as a teacher began 6 years ago, I thought that it is best to reflect upon my own earliest day of my teaching and learning.

I recalled my first year of my contract teaching when I started teaching in a neighborhood school classroom setting, eager to make a contribution and wanting to do my part to encourage students’ learning. It was no easy attempt, requiring courage and persistence. I attended many hands-on workshops and took lots of courses about teaching, but it was my experience with my tutor during my pre-service training and practicum that fundamentally influenced by beliefs in teaching and learning. His courses and teaching were based on practices of progressive education where I was given a basic understanding of how students move through a developmental process and how student learned to learn. Those classroom practices and philosophy now guided my practices – ranges from behaviorist to progressive.

My observations of my fellow colleagues made it clear that I was not alone in this educational journey. I observed the same behavior among some of the teachers regardless young or experienced as they developed their own teaching practice. While there are some teachers who also showed leadership in leading their own professional development, there are those who now struggled between the dilemma of loving the idea of being a teacher, but not necessarily liking the work as teacher. I supposed that every one of us come into the teaching fraternity with different values and purpose and so have different expectations of ourselves, our students and our teachers. This is why among teachers there is no agreement about the big idea of education! Those differences have played out every day in school in every way, shaping and molding the teaching and learning in the classrooms. There are those of us who believed that every student could learn and deserved an education, while others demonstrated a painful lack of faith in the students. It is such beliefs about teaching and learning among the teachers that will drive the teachers’ classroom practices in the school.

The young teachers, especially at various times and under varied circumstances, impressed me as they exercised their influence in their classroom. Even though they were just starting, some of them played informal roles as a “leading” teacher, as a leader of initiatives, and their willingness to serve in leading to express their perspectives in discussions on school policy issues. These teachers also lead in sharing their approaches to teaching instructions they have tried. There are those, sadly of experienced teachers who stubbornly suggested “We already know of it!” and “We do know what we are doing!” Again I find a heightened collaborative culture in school as these young teachers take lead role in designing specific lessons with other teachers.

These observations have offered me a powerful reminder, that regardless of newest or experienced of teachers can lead so long as they advocate for students, taking the path of owing the learning experience, developing and going beyond the classroom to enable our students learn.

So, my fellow teachers, do reflect on your own earliest days of your teaching profession when you were also leading the learning of others, teachers and student. Are we still leading the charge now?

Good Teacher? Good Teaching?

I remembered a question been posed during one of the management meetings on “what other course of action we can undertake to help an under-performing teacher who refuses to acknowledge that there was an issue with the teaching”. I would rather consider the term “good teaching” rather than “good teacher”, because “good teaching” represents what we as teachers are striving to do every day. “Good teacher” implies the judgment of individuals rather than the work itself. Perhaps in respond to the opening question, I think that such under-performing teacher should not be judged by the teacher of himself/herself (through reflection) nor solely by the direct profession developer (through repeated lesson observations). Instead, discreet divisive feedbacks from experienced teachers, students, another people developer as well as the school leaders will help to provide characteristics of “good” of the teacher, providing a clearer picture to say whether the teacher is professional – that is, fully embracing teaching with integrity. Getting such feedbacks will therefore either lend support or acknowledge issues to the teacher, rather than just saying that some teachers have what it takes and others do not. I do acknowledge that there are some teachers who should not be in classrooms, but I take the stance that teachers strive to teach with integrity every day. Teachers are all good teachers some of the time, but all teachers strive to do good teaching all of the time.

I also believe that teaching with integrity requires leadership. That is why as middle managers, we first need to be proficient in the core business of teaching first. We know that some teachers are more developed professionally and more effective instructors. This does not happen just by putting a teacher into the classroom and hoping that the teacher will be able to work and develop their own practice. Often we forgot that the way our students learn best is also the way our teachers/adults best learn! Role modeling is one of the approaches I prefer for my teachers. By observing and relating to the modeling, teachers can then better construct their own professional way through acts of leadership that enable them to establish, refine and extend their classroom practice. Beginning teachers, especially exhibit less confidence and do not have any formed teaching practice. Often as teachers, we know “good teaching” when we see it and when we do not, we may be able to describe the issue, but even the most experienced teacher, middle manager or school leader may find it very hard to describe how to help the teacher to mediate it to become “good teaching”. Good teaching requires personal experiences in identifying, creating, executing, disrupting and reestablishing of practices for the learning outcome of students. Great teachers do this all the time and that is why, they are able to entry into the daily work of classroom to teach and help attain the learning of the students. Good teachers strive to do it and succeed most of the time.

I agree that this is hard work and requires much effort and few of us feel successful all the time or even most of the time. Nevertheless, many of us are drawn by a deep desire to help and make a difference to our students. We should always be reminded of this desire and continue to impact positively upon the students entrusted to our care!

Tasks tasks everywhere – but Personal Interaction still takes precedence!

Considering the amount of tasks we have in the school (administrative task, committee task, implementation task, assignment task) sometimes as middle managers we become overly preoccupied with the list of tasks to be completed. Crossing off one task after another does give me a great feeling of achievement and make me believe that significant progresses have been made. But today in the staff room, I saw another middle manager “at work” and the gained experience based on my observation provided me with an insightful reflection on “why schools have middle manager and school leaders” as mentioned in my early blog. She was busy but not too busy to be polite and approachable to the teachers who came to her. Later the same day, she was still busy and yet I find her sitting with her students. All these made me realized that it is important to remember that all of the tasks which I am busy with are means of helping the teachers and the students, and such tasks are not as ends in themselves. Personal interactions with teachers and students are ultimately the key component of my role as middle manager. With this understanding, I will attempt more of this approach and put in some time in increasing my personal in-the-flash connections. There will be times when “my list of tasks can be abandoned” so that I can assist teachers with a problem or comfort students in distress. It will be my choice; the question is what is yours?

Meetings – Is there always need to speak?

After nearly a year into my role as the middle manager, I have had tried to learn as much as possible about the programs and committee I have been tasked with. As a way of growing in knowledge, I attend meetings (Zonial ICT PLC meeting with mentors, IP ICT PLC meeting, presentations from other schools), purposefully asked to attend workshops (pedagogy workshops) and seminars (Math Teacher seminar)which is within my area of responsibility. I will also be asking to attend the meeting of committe(like the N2 Cluster ICT Meeting with HOD/SH)in a later date.

During some of these meetings, I told myself that my goal is not to make any presentation or even answer questions. Though at times, I felt that this a bit difficult especially for meetings where everyone is expected to respond. I wanted to simply listen to the discussions as they unfold. I wanted to just sit quietly and attend to others as they talk. In this way, I hope to get more accurate informations from experts and so be able to make informmed decisions. I also hope to gain a better insight into the issues that different people are grappling right then – and more importantly I hope to learn more about how they address the issues. Many of these issues I believe are applicable to me as well and will definitely help to accelerate my learning curve than reading through volumes of minutes or books. This is the approach I take so as to help me as what Michael Fullen puts it “…to better sort out difficult problems even when I do not know in advance how I am going to do it.”