This vignette contrasts dramatically with my wife's experience, when, after decades of working in independent schools, she worked for a period in a public school in an affluent district of suburban Chicago. She was the manager of the school bookstore and was shocked by the obscenities that were freely dispensed by students, including those hurled at teachers in anger. When she asked teachers why they didn't confront such uncivil and unacceptable behavior, she was told, "Because it's not worth it — since I'll just have to fill out paperwork, and nothing will happen to the kid in any case."
This is how kids learn the culture of the school: by how the adults define acceptable and unacceptable behavior, unless they've tacitly agreed to concede the point to the lowest common denominator.
Of course, it's not unlike the way adults learn the culture of the school. I heard recently from one school head about a veteran teacher who demanded that a student be removed from her class, since "he doesn't benefit from my teaching style." For me, the remark is the epitome of what's not working for independent schools: the prima donna teacher (increasingly rare but still present in schools) who views the struggling student as a problem, not as an opportunity to grow as a teacher. Its part of what Katherine Boles, professor of education at Harvard University, calls the "egg-crate culture" in which teachers are not only isolated from one another in separated classrooms, but they are also insulated from the opportunity to be professionally observed and from the need to demonstrate their own learning and growth. Old school as I am, I think every failing student is as much — if not more — the teacher's fault as the student's. All schools have a faculty culture influenced by faculty who define the ethos. What is always up for grabs is what leaders will expect from faculty in terms of behavior, modeling, professionalism, and growth. How does the head of school define expected professional behavior that exceeds both the acceptable and the unacceptable?
Last November, at the NAIS/Harvard Graduate School of Education Seminar on "Leading and Managing the Independent Schools of the Future," the lead presenter on professionalizing the teaching profession, Katherine Boles, quoted an observation I made in the Fall 2006 issue of Independent School, about the culture of professional development in 21st-century schools, a culture that would "encourage teachers to take risks and to think creatively about how and what to teach so the Millennial kids have the skills and values we'll all need them to have when they are adults and the world is dependent upon them to make better decisions."
Boles' presentation focused on teaching as a profession, opening with her observations on why, to date, teaching has not been seen as a profession and what would have to change for it to be viewed as such (see chart below).
The historical context for this conversation, Boles noted, tracks with huge cultural changes. Horace Mann was the father of the 19th-century education model in which teachers resembled factory employees, interchangeable workers in assembly-line sequence. The early 20th-century revolution in thinking emerged with the progressive education movement, led by John Dewey (founder of the University of Chicago Lab Schools), and a new model that encouraged teachers to become researchers and social agents of change. But that promise has not been delivered in subsequent decades for many reasons, not the least of which may have been the burgeoning of the labor movement and the growth of public school unions whose main focus became wages, working conditions, and political power (it's really about us), not the professionalizing of the ranks and educational equity and excellence for all (it's really about the students).
| CHARACTERISTIC | NOT A PROFESSION | A PROFESSION |
| Career Path | Egalitarianism — no career ladder | Recognition for achievement — clearly defined career path |
| Professional Relationships | Isolation — practice is a freelance craft | Teaming — practices characterized by teamwork and collaboration |
| Entry and Training | Poor preparation — "anyone can do it" | Rigor — High entry requirements: standards, skills, testing |
| Induction | Little or no mentoring | Mentoring is the expectation & the norm |
| Professional Development | Weak or nonexistent | Integral to the career |
| Research | Practice unrelated to research | Research informs practice |
| Accountability | Student outcomes unrelated to promotion and salary | Accountability across the board |
| Power Structure | Little impact on institutional decisions | Shared decision making |
Our current condition is becoming dire, as talented veteran educators retire and few talented young people are entering the field because of the very lack of professional rewards and status attached to what is seen more as the "trade" of teaching. While Teach for America is the exception to the trend in its success in attracting the best and the brightest from America's most elite universities, Boles has noted that Teach for America is akin to the Peace Corps, where talented and idealistic young people sign up to do good for a while, then move on to their real professional careers.
So how do we proceed in the independent school community? The new expectations for 21st-century teachers should include many roles: teacher as professional; teacher as learner; teacher as innovator; teacher as team player. All four of these roles are manifest in schools that are committing to transform teaching from a trade to a profession. Boles' work focuses on emerging trends in professionalizing the profession. Among these trends, two in particular hold promise for independent schools: "rounds" and "lesson study."
The "rounds" approach is rooted in the Confucian wisdom: "Seeing something once is more important than discussing it one hundred times." The approach resembles the medical model of bringing teams and interns around to observe diagnoses and treatments, the school version being, "visit, observe, debrief." Not only does the rounds approach identify effective and ineffective practice, building rounds into the profession begins to establish collaborative norms for best practices and creates a framework for "critical colleagueship." In the 21st-century version of independent school professionalism, I imagine the rounds being conducted via video with two cameras in the room, one observing the teacher and one observing the students, with the result presented via split screen as case study, perhaps with a trained mentor debriefing and critiquing what is observed. Just learning how to observe and critique would advance the profession and the cause of improving teaching and learning.
The "lesson study" approach is rooted in the Japanese model in which, each year, individual schools ascertain a teaching challenge, e.g. "What is the best way to teach the quadratic equation?" Then the team at each school begins the "lesson study": observing how it is taught in each school and elsewhere; meeting and critiquing approaches; brainstorming better solutions; testing and filming experimental new methods; choosing and implementing a new approach, and then documenting and publicizing its success. Sounds, well, professional, like something engineers would do with a new bridge design. Where can one observe this approach? In the Greenwich Japanese School, Greenwich, Connecticut, and in public schools in Waltham, Massachusetts.
A related approach, "action research," takes on a larger dilemma — such as the "Achievement Gap," let's say by race in U.S. or by country — U.S. vs. Singapore (and other Far Eastern and Scandinavian countries that routinely outperform U.S. students in international math testing). Here the professionalism emerges as one does the meta-analysis of the research, conducts local research at one's own school, and derives action steps to address the problem.
What encourages me about professionalizing the profession is that, when we actually invite our faculty "to think about thinking" and about teaching and learning via presenting their research and work, we inevitably have amazing results. I witnessed this most recently at the 90-minute workshops led by faculty at the 2006 NAIS People of Color Conference in Seattle. The three sessions I attended were extraordinary:
- Courageous Conversations: Does Huck Finn Belong in Your Classroom — presented by Clay Thomas, Menlo School (California) and Willie Adams, The Head-Royce School (California).
- Achievement Patterns of African Americans in Independent Schools — presented by Edward Trusty, Gilman School (Maryland).
- LGBTQ Themes in K-Sixth Grade Classrooms: Both My Moms' Names Are Judy — presented by Sandra Chapman, Little Red School House and Elisabeth Irwin High School (New York).
So when will we develop faculty cultures that encourage teachers to take risks and to think creatively about real-life teaching conundrums? When school leaders insist and the faculty agrees that the professional culture expects practical research and lifelong learning from the teachers. Then we will have advanced remarkably towards "professionalizing the profession."