Education needs more consultants
Posted by Dan Callahan on Sep 26, 2012 in Mixes | 8 comments
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I spend a lot of time thinking about my job and how I could do it better.
Two quick stories about how that’s been working for me this week:
I met with my district science specialist, Sean Musselman, yesterday to talk about an upcoming fourth grade unit. We’ve actually not really had the chance to plan much of anything together since he started working here last year. All I really knew going into this meeting was that we needed to change some things up from the way we’ve traditionally handled it in the past from both a science and technology angle. He asked some great questions to get us thinking, shared more of what the actual science was behind the unit, and started bouncing some ideas off of me. I bounced them back with some refinements. Then my librarian, Laura DElia, came in and helped us pull the last few strands we need to tighten up our instructional components. I had a game plan for my instruction, Laura started pulling together resources, and Sean promised to come back with an exemplar for the final product.
Total time: 20 minutes. I had a great consultation session with great people I work with.
This afternoon, I went to meet with a second grade teacher about a different upcoming science unit. She had contacted me, looking to introduce some of the new tools we’re using this year and to come up with a good use of technology to tie in with the science unit. We had done a project last year that was good, but not quite great in my mind. I shared my ideas for how we could expand on what we had done before, and how some different tools would really help us to turn the project into a powerful assessment tool for the science unit. We came out of that meeting with a plan that will introduce her students to some great technology use that she’ll be able to take advantage of all year long in different settings and an assessment for the unit which will have the kids writing and speaking more and testing less. While there, we also batted around a couple of ideas for how she could use iPads in her class as a station, and got some labels printed.
Total time: 20 minutes. I felt like I was really able to respond to her needs and help design something meaningful for her students.
Education needs more consultants. Not the traditional expensive ones who come from outside the district to tell everybody how to fix everything they’re doing wrong, where wrong means not in the way the consultant thinks people should work.
No, we need to find ways to get our best teachers into positions where they can have an impact on other classrooms, working with teachers to come up with joint strategies that will help improve practice for teachers and outcomes for kids. If you’re an administrator, how are you getting your best people into positions where they can have that larger impact? Those are the people you should be asking to run professional development. When a teacher needs assistance with math or reading instruction, who do you turn to for help? Where are your scientists and social scientists filled with knowledge that you turn to for guidance in these extremely important topics?
While it’s nice, these don’t have to be people who have that as their sole job function. Find ways to get those teachers release time so they can help out. Figure out ways to meaningfully recognize their expertise and to unleash it into other classrooms in your school.
Every building has its experts. Is yours taking advantage of them?
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Yes, we need more time to collaborate around student learning, and less time for meetings and pd that does not readily impact the work we do. Thanks.
The original idea I had for this post was actually about how meetings can be awesome when brought together for the right reasons. I had some great meetings this week, because we were there to solve specific problems.
Dan, you are right on with each building having experts that are never allowed to share their expertise. It is time for schools to recognize the wealth of knowledge in their buildings.
Nothing is more frustrating than seeing somebody from outside of your district present on a topic when you have people in your building perfectly capable of leading that same session.
Just finished the book Little Bets by Peter Sims. The tagline for the book is “How Breakthrough Ideas Emerge from Small Discoveries” and it’s an interesting read. Here is one of the quotes I jotted down. “There is value in getting out in the world and asking many questions, expert advice can be myopic and is often wrong.” I had bookmarked this post a few days ago but this line created an even stronger connection with your idea of consultants.
Sims offers insights into how some innovative companies insist that all levels of employees have opportunities to contribute solutions to problems. Big companies, billion dollar companies not the little design firm in NYC.
Are we doing that in schools? Are we using the resources in the building?
I don’t think so.
Why not?
I think we are just not asking. We instead are too often enchanted by the expert’s opinion. We have not built cultures of sharing, we have teams sorted by grade or by subject area.
We know there are teachers who have a lot to share but nobody has asked them. There is not an environment of openness.
And there are teachers already sharing, sometimes relentlessly. They seek their tribes on Twitter, via blogs and at Edcamps.
Tangent: I believe it is often those teachers interested in problem solving and innovation who become disenfranchised with the “traditional” way of doing things. For better or worse, they frequently go on to become consultants or leave education all together. How can we keep them?
Tangent 2: There is much criticism regarding the application of the business model to education. The problem here, in my opinion, is that we are using measurement techniques typically used in manufacturing. Yet there are many creative and successful companies in other areas such as design, arts, and technology that have much to teach educators about learning, productivity and interaction.
How can we leverage the skills and knowledge we already have and empower teachers to be the consultants?
Let’s figure it out.
I love that part about “getting out into the world.” I think one of my strengths at this stage of my career is that I’m doing so much of this to get broader and different perspectives. I also think it helps me that this is only my third year in my district after eight years in another one. I still have a different perspective on things, and it helps that I can ask questions about why things are certain ways. Sometimes the answers are better than others. My principal just told me the other day that he really values it when people will come and challenge his perspective on his ideas and help to educate him in areas that he’s not as familiar with. That’s a powerful mindset that I think more administrators need.
Yes and sometimes a good outside consultant can be helpful in cross-pollinating between schools, regions and communities.
Great post. You’re absolutely correct that the wisdom is so often already in the room- it’s just about making time and space for the conversations and about creating a culture where trust and risk taking are the norm.
Nice post. I connected with it in an NWP way. At the NWP, the original term for teachers who join writing projects and work with colleague, schools and each other is “teacher-consultant” or “TC”. This goes back decades, and over that time there has been push-back and inquiry into how we would understand the term ‘consultant.’ This is largely because of those high priced in&out consultancies. But the idea of the role is very much as you describe — a person in the classroom or school setting who can consult in this way, but that also has a larger support network and access to the bigger thinking across the network, at the university, etc. (much like antiochcriticalskills writes about above). This role is a slightly different stance than that of many district-sponsored leadership positions in that it emphasizes a thoughtful and engaged profession with the time and access to think, plan, design, remix, etc. as a routine part of teaching. Thanks for this.