Over the past week I’ve been (mentally) throwing around the idea of ownership in education. Not just in a technological sense, but something that is more broad that correlates to schools and districts as a whole. This came about because I was thinking about how my role as a special education teachers is determined by each individual student’s classroom teacher. The ability to take ownership of a situation or student is powerful for everyone involved. Then I spoke with my principal and we discussed the idea of ownership being an essential piece to schools and exactly what it takes for a faculty to take ownership, not just for their own piece but for the school as a whole.
When a classroom teacher takes complete control of a student and/or the situation they are creating an ownership roles that is vital for a student to be successful. This doesn’t mean I’m left behind, it just means the teacher and student are all-in with one another. Which creates a teaching experience that is based on trustworthiness with the student and faculty involved. I get it, students with special needs aren’t for everyone. There is no denying that it, in fact we’re doing more harm when we don’t admit there are people like that. Just like kids, every teacher is different works in a different way. I don’t take offense when teachers want to do all they can in the classroom. I’d rather be a last-resort than a first-resort, because I know that once I’m called in all options have been tried and I’m really needed. But now I’m starting to go off track.
For me, the idea of ownership goes farther than just taking a student as your own. Teachers and faculty must take every student as their own. Too many times we’re concerned about our own classes, as opposed to the school community. I don’t think this is done on purpose, it’s just the nature of the beast. Everyone has their classroom, rules, and expectations–but is it carried over to the rest of the school? We’d all like to say yes, but is that true? I’d like to think so, but I’m just not sure. What business are we in and are we in it for the students or for ourselves? Our answers to those questions should be able to drive us in the direction needed to be successful.
I think that one of the reasons why faculties are how they are is determined by how things were. The past is considered the best, so why should we make changes to it in the future. Cliche aside, change is hard. No one likes changes because it requires us to try something we’re not used to. RTI (Response to Intervention), hard. Differentiation, hard. School-wide management system, hard. Technology, hard. Keep it the same as we always have…easy, let’s do that. And don’t think I’m leaving myself out of this because I fit into some of these (aw hell, I used to think that text messaging was stupid). And don’t go thinking that reading a Malcolm Gladwell book will suddenly make everything better too. We have to work at ownership. We have to make ourselves accountable for the students.
How can I take ownership when I teach special ed, have a classroom the size of an office, and most kids don’t even know what I teach? I’ve made it a point to make myself visible; I’m in the halls, lunchroom, soccer field, playground, just about everywhere. I play in P.E. whenever I have some free time. I once had a mother that introduced herself to me, and earlier she had asked her daughter what Mr. Sutton did at school. Her second grader daughter replied, “He’s a multi-tasker.” Which by far, is one of the best compliments that a student could give me. You may not know what I do, but you’ll know who I am.
I’m writing about this, not as I sit in my ivory tower, but because I feel that the ability for a faculty to show ownership over a school is vital for it to be successful. I spoke with a colleague today and she said “the toughest part of schools is moving them from good to great.” Well for me, the ability of ownership in my school is the place that I’ll start with and I’ll see where it goes from there.
Matt,
I think we have a constant problem of ownership over curriculum, new practices, and new initiatives, but so much of that stems from our Instructional Leaders aka Administrators. When you have an administrative team that can continually guide and support teachers through the metacognitive and pedagogical changes over an entire year, you will see change. One day PD’s and evaluations do nothing to aid in the continued growth and support of teachers. Support needs to be embedded and constant. We are all responsible for the improved growth of our students and ourselves.
There are time when I think that all the curriculum guidelines actually stunt the growth of schools as a whole. Everyone is so focused on getting through lessons, curriculum, or objectives that everything else can become lost in the shuffle. I don’t even know if ownership is an administration or teacher issue, rather just the nature of the beast depending on the type of school you (we) work in. No matter what–it takes practice and must be constant refined.
Ownership is something I would preach loudly and often to my staff. So many of them would just go through the motions, doing the minimum amount of work with no creativity or imagination – to get through the day and then complain about how terrible their job was. It was always amazing for me to hear some talk about how miserable they are in their job then watch them make no effort to improve their situation. The ones that listened to what I had to say about taking ownership and pride in the work they were doing often began to enjoy their work more and were generally happier and more pleasant to interact with on a daily basis.
I sometimes councilled certain staff members that were down on the work we were doing that if they didn’t want to do it, they knew where the gangway was and were free to go home. This wasn’t meant to be a threat or attempt to intimidate, but to make it clear they had a choice. If they were so unhappy with the job they shouldn’t be doing it.
I knew I couldn’t require staff to take ownership and pride in their work but I knew I could make it clear that they had a choice. They could begin taking ownership and improve their outloook and performance, they could keep on doing what they were doing and remain unhappy, or they could go find work they liked better.