So I mentioned last week that I had some apprehensions about marking negative observations in our walk through logs. I had been thinking about it all week going in and I was thinking a lot about the comments you guys put up as well. I find myself agreeing more with what you guys were talking about, namely not thinking about it as criticism and the use of language. I think one person posted a topic about how important word choices can be. Using words like "urban schooling" can be damaging. I think using positive language has helped me take more positive learning experiences out of our second observation. Going into it I tried to keep that in mind and I really think it shaped my viewing. In the end though I think I walked away with something else that is equally as important. Teaching isn't in the one day you view.
So looking at this I started thinking about how I view teachers and how sometimes I think people unfairly view them. Often times teachers are viewed as something other than people. Now this can be viewed as a good thing or bad but I think it's definitely there. Teachers are unfairly given expectations that no other job has. They're expected to be on at all times. I think that mentality can isolate them and when looking at small portions of their work (one day, one lesson, one 5 min block) one tends to inflate it and use it to represent the teacher as a whole. I'm starting to realize that that isn't the way to go. I watched a teacher in our last observation who used her knowledge that she gained through out the semester to best solve a classroom management problem. She knew enough about the child to know how best to handle that. Now it's not fair to expect that teacher to have known that the first day of class. That's something she had to build to. What I'm liking about these observations is that we get to see that growth. We start out fairly early in the year and we may see teachers who may not handle something the best way at first but through out the year they'll learn and pick up new tricks to help them along. Just like that teacher grew accustomed to her students behaviors so will most of the others. I think putting it in that light I'm more interested in these observations now as an opportunity to go through this journey with the teachers.
Something you said really stuck with me: "They're expected to be on at all times." This is very true, and as we go on are observations, it is something we should keep in mind. For the small amount of time we are in a classroom, we don't see what happens before or what happens after. What if the teacher isn't "on" that day, or even for those five minutes? That teacher is then judged based on what we saw in that small window of time. People have bad days, and last I checked, teacher's are people, too.
ReplyDeleteI also I agree with Justin... however, I think another thing we have to keep in mind is that the WalkThrough observations are not meant as an individual-based evaluation tool, but rather as a school-wide observation of trends. It would be unfair to individually evaluate a teacher based on such short observations because one, yes they are people with good and bad days and two, it really is not enough time for the observer to see the entire lesson and how effective, or ineffective it is in helping the students within the classroom. I feel that even with longer evaluations we are not seeing the full scope of the teaching strategies being implemented. Is it a three-part lesson? Is it a week long lesson? Is the teacher assisting students with skill-building strategies and/ or activities to use in a later lesson? For this reason, District C keeps its faculty evaluations and WalkThrough observations separate. As mentioned in the above post..."Teaching isn't in the one day you view."
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