Frameworks, Not Fireworks

Though it’s been a while, my first year of teaching is vividly in my mind. It did not come easily to me. I was always searching for that new thing to give my classroom a boost and shake us out of mediocrity. I never found it that year.

What I did find was a pamphlet on our district’s new initiative. It had fireworks on the cover. The big wigs were really excited about it. It included edu-jargon that I’d never heard of before. And words I had heard, like “research-based” and “guaranteed.”

When it got down to it, these fireworks were the expected results of a new reading program. And it was detailed to the point that it was basically a script. I was given the questions to ask while reading the story. I had the worksheets printed out to distract the students who were ready for more challenge while I sat down with the struggling kids along with my Reteaching Guide. It wasn’t the “fun” I’d envisioned when I thought about teaching reading – and I knew my kids could do so much more – but we got through the year and most of my kids passed the test.

When I think back, I wonder: were those the fireworks? Did we really declare victory for doing not so much? My kids had a minimal level of proficiency and an increased tolerance for enduring this painful activity they’d known as reading. And I learned to tolerate the program, but I did not become a better reading teacher that year.

Twelve years later, after visiting countless schools, I look back at my story as one that is still common: that of a struggling teacher at a school in survival mode during the first phase of reform and accountability. Like so many other schools, we indulged in new programs and initiatives like they were energy drinks, giving us the power to climb just a little higher. Yet it did nothing to make us stronger as a faculty, and no program sustained its potency beyond a short honeymoon period.  We teachers out-smarted the foolproof curriculum and would enhance it quietly with the door closed. It was mediocrity, and it was apparently good enough.

These days, when I visit a great school, I look for what makes it shine. It’s not really because of the high fidelity with which they implement their programs, or simply because of the tremendous commitment of the faculty. What often shines brightest is an unwavering belief about student potential and solid unity around a framework of common and interwoven practices that bring about success.

These highly effective schools operate under a common belief about how kids learn. The school or district agreed to these, and often teachers had a primary role in their creation. Teachers are then given autonomy to carry out these practices with their own style and approach, and they refer to a rubric for detailed expectations. Conversations among teachers focus on how to maneuver these practices in order to bring students to mastery of the standards. Coaches and school leaders observe teachers and provide feedback aligned with the framework. Their professional development is flexible in order to address their needs, always grounded in the shared practices. And when at their best, exemplary teachers use the framework to mentor developing teachers.

The schools that excel most at using a framework rarely talk about their reading program or their math text. Instead, they’re laser focused on particular practices that bring about success among students, they mine data to inform their next moves, and they’re constantly observing and giving feedback to one another.

But the not-so-fun truth is that in these schools, there are few fireworks. There is no victory when kids make modest gains. Instead, teachers and leadership are engaged in the hard and slow work of investing in one teacher at a time. They avoid the energy drink quick fixes in favor of building stamina and skill that will sustain for the long haul. And they never “get there” in their quest to be great; they just continue to seek greater.

In 2012, the quick fixes just won’t cut it anymore. The next phase of accountability – not to mention the Common Core – will demand much more from teachers and schools, and the only way of getting there is to train harder and smarter. Not to chug another math program packaged with shiny promises.

So I’m putting my money on the frameworks, and letting the fireworks flame out.

Brett Shiel