Drowning in Bathwater

I had a friend who once wrote that every good blog needed a curmudgeon--you know, a person who never agreed with anything and constantly challenged the authors' to see things from a different viewpoint. "Curmudgeons," he said, " are great because they stir up controversy and fire people up."

Well, I think we've found our curmudgeon!

In response to my recent post on the danger in traditions, Parry wrote:

So how do you decide which traditions are worth keeping, because they really do work, and which ones aren't? What criteria do you use to make those decisions, and how do you support teachers (professionally, emotionally, psychologically) as they struggle with those decisions?

Basically, how do you make sure you're not throwing the metaphorical baby out with the bath water?

Now, I'm not arguing that there are no traditions in schools that are worth keeping. In fact, traditions often define a school community much like colors and mascots define our favorite sports teams.

What I'm arguing is that we're constantly adding new expectations for our teachers---collaboration with peers, remediation for every struggling student, collecting and analyzing data, understanding different learning styles, brain-based learning---and yet we never remove any of the already overwhelming number of tasks that we expected them to complete to begin with!

We are, to use Parry's analogy, drowning them in bathwater.

In his book The World is Flat, author Thomas Friedman makes the argument that outsourcing has allowed professionals to spend more time doing the value-added tasks that define a profession because they ship "grunt work" to entry level workers overseas. Accountants, for example, rarely complete straight-forward tax returns, instead focusing on the complicated returns that require deep thinking. Customers benefit because they get the best minds working on the most complicated problems. Professionals benefit because they spend more of their time engaged in the meaningful work that defines their careers.

This has yet to happen in education.

Not only are we expecting teachers to be increasingly successful at solving knotty problems---how to ensure success for every child regardless of socio-economic circumstances or disability---but we continue to allow grunt work to dominate their work hours. For me, that grunt work includes recording absences, filling out reams of paperwork, completing professional development that may---or may not---improve my skill set, attending meeting after meeting after meeting, and supervising morning duty, lunch duty, and recess duty.

What's more, we do little to help teachers increase their levels of efficiency with core teaching tasks. Technology has yet to make significant in-roads into schools, forcing teachers to complete complex work in time-consuming ways. "Data analysis" is done with binders, notebook paper and calculators. "Identifying individual weaknesses" is done with anecdotal comments jotted down on post-its. "Researching" is done when the library is open and available. "Collaboration" is done with chart paper hung on the walls of the faculty workroom during hurried after school meetings. "Areas of focus" change yearly---and sometimes more.

If we want to hold teachers accountable for the success of every child, then we must hold ourselves accountable for providing a realistic set of expectations and the tools and the time that are provided to other professionals.