Tag: Instructional Rigor

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It would be funny if it wasn’t so sad. You know what I mean. We’ve all seen those black-and-white photos of students from the 1800s sitting quietly in rows, silent, and in fear of reprisal like something out of a Dickens novel. And there on the wall, if you look closely, are the classroom rules for all to see and heed: Be silent during class. Do not talk unless it is absolutely necessary. I’m not kidding. This was actually a common rule in most classrooms. As someone who prefers to honor our history and not belittle it, I point this out only to say that we have come a long way as educators and as school systems. Still, as we stumble and explore better methods…

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Let me reiterate what has been said countless times. Leadership matters. This is especially true in schools and school districts where so much is at stake and where nearly everyone has an opinion about how schools should be run. Let me also reiterate my continued support for the dedicated and kindred spirits who each day stare down the awesome challenges of leadership in today’s public schools. They are heroes all. Still, despite our best efforts, academic progress in our schools is slow and we must own that. Blaming our shortcomings on politicians or public policy is not bold and is not leadership. Blaming teachers is cowardly, blaming parents naïve. What did Gandhi tell us?  “We must be the change we wish to see in the…

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childhood memories

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The ongoing debate in education about what we want all children to know and be able to do has raged on for decades and leaves us all to question and argue the merits of our current standards, assessments and pacing guides that seem to expect so much of our students and teachers with little regard for whether any of this is really doable. The instructional shifts required by the Common Core Standards (or whatever your state calls them) has contributed to this notion that these core competencies must required of all children and all we have to do is practice them over and over. What rarely surfaces in all this dialogue is the very real issue of foundational skills that must be mastered in order to grasp these…

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High Expectations, Boy Peeking Out Window

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The more I interact with the best teachers and leaders in our profession, the more they make this complex thing we call “educating all children” much simpler for the rest of us. If we have learned nothing else after years of research in education, we know that we must listen to, study and repeat the actions of our most effective teachers and leaders in compiling a list of what we call “best practices.” The most overlooked of all such conclusions is this one: All student success begins with setting high expectations.   Success begins with high expectations. Period. No further debate necessary. There is simply no research anywhere, nor any practical reality, that would suggest that some kids can learn while others cannot. It is…

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Instructional rigor, accountable talk

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The connection between thinking and speaking is real, sort of like the connection between dating and holding hands. I say this because there is really no way to be thoughtful about something or understanding of something if you are not verbalizing it somehow, usually by talking to someone around you. Of course, this replaying of the things we know comes in other forms that we find in schools like debate, journaling, and even note-taking. No matter how it plays out, we simply cannot complete the comprehension loop if students are not required to verbalize their learning somehow. This is a critical reality for teachers if we are ever going to realize the dream of equity for all students in acquiring the next-generation skills that they…

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Kids Learning, Discussion

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It would be funny if it wasn’t so sad. You know what I mean, those black-and-white photos that we’ve all seen of students from the 1800s sitting quietly in rows, silent, and in fear of reprisal like something out of a Dickens novel. And there on the wall, if you look closely, are the classroom rules for all to see and heed: Be silent during class. Do not talk unless it is absolutely necessary. I’m not kidding. This was actually a common rule in most classrooms. As someone who prefers to honor our history and not belittle it, I point this out only to say that we have come a long way as educators and as school systems. Still, as we stumble and perfect better…

Read More

rigor, instructional rigor

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The ongoing debate in education about what we want all children to know and be able to do has raged on for decades and leaves us all to question and argue the merits of our current standards, assessments and pacing guides that seem to expect so much of our students and teachers with little regard for whether any of this is really doable. The instructional shifts required by the Common Core Standards (or whatever your state calls them) has contributed to this notion that these core competencies must required of all children and all we have to do is practice them over and over. What rarely surfaces in all this dialogue is the very real issue of foundational skills that must be mastered in order to…

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Chalkboard, old-school

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Cultural competence training among teachers and leaders and its related pedagogy have arrived with such bombast that one might think the system we now have is outmoded (which it is), uninspiring (which it is) and that there are scads of children tuned out (which they are) because we have somehow failed (which we have) to connect with them in any relevant way. Of course, it is not true that cultural competence has only recently arrived on the scene but it is true that our industry is finally catching up with what the kids have been telling us for years, that learning is about them and their needs, that we have got to meet them where they are before we can expect them to go where…

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Great leaders in schools are not unlike the great leaders of industry, small businesses and non-profits. There have been countless studies and books written about the most successful leadership tactics and tendencies, all of which reach similar conclusions about the best practices in leading and managing that we all know and have studied for decades. Similar studies exist that outline the best practices for teachers, the intricacies of great pedagogy that master teachers drop into their lessons in a seamless array of thises and thats that inspire children to grow at impressive rates. Those instructional best practices for teachers have made their way onto countless checklists and frameworks that principals use to monitor teacher growth. Still, here’s the thing. If we already know what makes…

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