February is CTE Month. This is a designated time when Career and Technical Education teachers, administrators, and advocates are encouraged to proclaim the value of CTE. Schools often pursue proclamations, events, banners, and brochures. You can locate resources and ideas from the ACTE website. CTE is often under-appreciated, and focused publicity events during CTE month serve to draw attention to the valuable contribution CTE programs make to future student success.
Special events are nice, but small gestures are often made repeatedly that make a difference in changing perceptions. So, consider conducting a splashy CTE Month event, but also consider small gestures you can do daily to build awareness of the educational value of CTE.
Following are 28 little things to do during the month to promote CTE. Try one each day during February.
Capture a video of remarkable student work
Identify a new employer partner in the community
Call a parent to compliment good work by their child
Write a news item for the school website
Write a note to the principal thanking him/her for support
Offer to help a school parent association or booster club
Invite a teacher colleague to observe your class
Invite an employer to speak to students
Invite a school counselor to talk to the class about post-secondary technical colleges.
Arrange for students to speak to middle-level students about CTE
Invite a parent to observe your class
Take photos of students with their work-based learning supervisor
Set up a display of student work in another area of the school
Have students text a message to family members highlighting student work
Offer CTSO leaders to speak at local service club breakfast
Prepare a poster of what former students are doing – college, work, etc.
Invite a middle-level teacher to visit the program.
Post pictures of student work on school social media
Prepare your students to give a clear “elevator speech” when asked bout CTE
Invite a former student to speak to the class
Invite a non-instructional colleague to observe your class
Write a note to a political leader thanking him/her for fiscal support
Have students share a photo of their CTE projects on their social media (avoid other student images)
Identify a community not-for-profit in which students can assist.
Have students brainstorm a list of “Why I like CTE?”
Invite school board members to visit the program
Thank a school counselor for assisting a student
Encourage a student to enter a new CTSO competition
External forces such as the COVID pandemic, changing societal values, regulations, and public opinion continue increasing pressure around schools. In addition, for the last several years, schools have struggled with internal forces, including new technology, challenging student behaviors, and higher expectations for student achievement. These external and internal forces continue to build, and schools are facing severe budget cuts after the federal pandemic aid disappears. These pressures will have a significant impact on many schools. However, some schools can deftly adjust to these increasing forces. I call these resilient schools.
Resilience is being able to recover from or adjust easily to change. I have learned from many of the schools that I have visited that adapting to change is about something other than adopting best practices or even following research-proven programs. Instead, resilience creates conditions for a school to use staff talents to meet student needs uniquely. School leaders must abandon any hope of maintaining the status quo and be able to lead their organizations to adapt to these changing conditions as resilient schools.
School reform tends to closely examine successful schools and replicate their practices, such as Professional Learning Communities (PLCs), block scheduling, or mimic visioning and strategy planning. However, simply trying to replicate these practices may not be the answer! Instead, the answer is creating the underlying strength of resiliency. Resiliency is not resistance or resignation. Neither is it protecting the comfortable status quo. Resiliency is the quality of adaptation to changing conditions and perseverance to achieve goals.
There are three strategies school leaders should pursue in creating resilient schools: developing an integrated and aligned system, 2) understanding schools as living systems and 3) improving organizations through adaptive leadership.
Developing an Integrated and Aligned System
When we think about services in our society, we focus simply on the vital occupation in that service. For example, we focus on doctors in medical care, pilots in airline transportation, or soldiers in the military. The reality is that doctors, pilots, or soldiers could not function and do the complex tasks involved in their job without a support system around them. Doctors rely on a system of technicians, assistants, researchers, data analysts, and administrative support to do their jobs well. Pilots rely on air traffic controllers and maintenance staff to ensure that thousands of flights take off and land safely. The recent airline delays were not a result of poor pilots but the result of faulty computer systems.
In the case of education, we focus on the teacher as the visible role in schools. But as challenging as teaching and learning is today, teachers require a complex integrated system of professionals and data systems to support them. In some cases, teachers have yet to receive adequate data systems or support in technology, counseling, or nutrition to support their work. School leaders need to consider the entire system to enhance teaching and learning and not simply focus on the quality of individual teachers. Additionally, that system needs to be aligned around supporting the critical delivery of learning experiences. Often because of contracts, regulations, and just plain tradition, schools neglect to build the capacity to support current teachers and teaching. Many schools carry on functions that have little connection to instructional goals. It makes little sense to have many people working within an industry if they are not focused and aligned toward providing the important service. For example, remote learning during the pandemic causes us to rethink the traditions of attendance and the traditional school day/week/year. School leaders must consider building an integrated system that works efficiently and focuses on delivering high-quality learning experiences to every student.
Understanding Schools as Living Systems
Schools are a system but one with unique characteristics. Some simplify the school as a system by drawing analogies to manufacturing or computer systems, where it is essential to isolate the system and improve the quality of resources or information taken into the system. That would simply demand that schools improve by admitting better-quality students. Manufacturing and computers are examples of closed systems attempting to maintain consistent performance and high-quality outputs by eliminating unwanted contaminants and distractions.
Schools are an open system, like a living ecosystem constantly influenced by the environment around them. It is often impossible to isolate schools from outside influences. What happens in the community and families or neighborhoods comes into school daily. Schools also have no control over the education that occurs before students come to that school as a preschooler or as a transfer. Schools must accept every student and try and do the best that they can to help to develop their potential.
There are lessons from open systems that can guide us in operating under the unique characteristics of schools as a system. In the living environment, organisms change and adapt by constantly sensing their environment, modeling the behavior of others, building strong relationships, managing their resources wisely, and taking appropriate risks. In schools, we need to enhance communication systems and have timely data that can inform teacher actions and adjust instruction daily. We need to encourage teachers to model the behavior of other teachers and encourage collaboration and peer observation. Relationships are fundamental in building a solid community that collaborates and works together with a strong sense of community. We must also use resources wisely and make careful decisions about allocating staff and resources to ensure that it benefits the community. We also want to encourage risk-taking and innovation to bring new ideas to develop the following practices that will improve school organizations.
Avoid simple comparison of schools as a closed manufacturing system. Instead, recognizing the unique characteristics of a school as a living system and just as a farmer creates the conditions for the growth of a crop, school leaders must create the requirements for the growth of the school and its students.
Improving Organizations Through Adaptive leadership
Four Quadrant Leadership
The final strategy is to recognize the situational aspects of leadership. Leadership is not a set of practices or a “to-do” list. Leadership is much more dynamic and includes taking actions appropriate for the conditions. Leadership is not about a position or job title, and leadership is about action and developing teacher leadership and student leadership within a school. The four-quadrant model of Quadrant D Leadership describes the different aspects of leadership which must occur based on appropriate conditions. First, in every school, there is a necessity for Authoritative Leadership, particularly in safety and security cases, ethics, and legal and financial issues. However, Authoritative Leadership will not create the conditions necessary for a school to adapt and grow over time. There are conditions when schools must become more collaborative in building relationships among staff in effective team decision-making and action, termed Collaborative Leadership. However, Collaborative Leadership may not be sufficient if the school staff continues to maintain the status quo and do business as usual. As the conditions for learning change, schools must create and reduce new visions and opportunities for learning, termed Creative Leadership. There are times when leadership must step forward and make this new vision and encourage innovation in instructional practice. Finally, Adaptive Leadership can be considered a combination of creativity and collaboration. This is the aspiration for leadership that has to occur over time. Principals and assistant principals, and teams should constantly reflect on their leadership actions to determine the degree to which they’re embracing the characteristics of Quadrant D Adaptive Leadership in building a resilient school.
Summary More effort is needed to replicate the practices seen in other schools. Resilience requires good leadership following these three strategies looking at an integrated, aligned system, recognizing schools as a unique living system, and using adaptive leadership skills. Many schools already possess these strategies. I hope your school is one of them or moving in that direction.
Another senseless shooting by a 6-year-old first-grader at an elementary school in Newport News, VA, triggers strong emotions and sympathy from each of us. How could this happen? Is this the beginning of a world gone mad where a 1st-grade classroom is a site of anger and violence? First, we all wish the victim recovers and the child and his family get the support and professional help they need.
It will take time for all the children, education professionals, and families in Richneck Elementary School to heal from the emotional trauma. What actions do we take for the rest of us, parents, teachers, and leaders? Within the thoughts expressed by the many public upon hearing of this tragedy, there are calls for “hardening elementary schools” with metal detectors, random bag checks, and transparent backpacks. Social media provides a vehicle to post words while our reactions are strong and emotions are raw. Putting emotions into words may help us to relieve the stress and frustration from trauma. However, it is never healthy to plan actions based on emotions.
In short-term actions, we need to take care to hug our friends and family as a reminder of the fragility of life and harmony. As parents and educators, we must listen to and support our children to be sure they get the mental health support and love they need. We also need to continue to adopt safety and security procedures. It is with long-term action that we need to be thoughtful rather than emotion-driven.
Schools are remarkable learning spaces, sometimes chaotic, always challenging, and often inspirational. I learned this not from reading but from experience as an educator listening and observing students and teachers in hundreds of schools (both great and not-so-great). Schools are not impersonal dispensers of wisdom or supervised daycare for children, although schools do those things. Education professionals stimulate student learning by first developing trusting relationships with students and facilitating social interaction where students learn as a group. Students on their own can acquire information from a book or a digital source. But transformational learning comes from people you respect, trust and admire, all done with social interaction. Think about the difference between learning by reading a book on your own versus a book club. Deep learning is social.
Some of my most powerful perceptions of effective schools have come from students’ honest words about how the school has impacted them. I recall one female student in a large urban high school and her response regarding school security. I often ask the question of students, “How would you change this school?” This young student lamented the requirement for student IDs and entry procedures from security staff. She was a Senior and arrived at school one morning and had forgotten her student ID. The security guard at the entrance, whom she had seen every morning for more than three years and whom she knew by name, asked for her ID. Since she did not have it, he asked her to leave and retrieve it before she should enter the school, even though he knew she was a student at the school. The security guard was doing his job and could have been reprimanded for letting the student in without the proper ID. The student added to me, “This school was becoming more like a prison than a school.” I have never forgotten this comment.
If we deal with weapons and violence in a manner that appears to the students as something other than a welcoming refuge that respects and trusts them, we will have lost the purpose of schools. Our actions to protect students should be thoughtful in a way that benefits students accepting there will be infrequent tragic violence that will tug at our emotions. Our children deserve schools that are friendly, remarkable learning spaces.
Today I was thinking about instruction while modifying my online graduate course in instructional design. I feel extra pressure teaching a course to other educators on instructional design because the implied perception is that if you’re going to teach design practices and design, your course should model a great design. Therefore I carefully craft my objectives and design rubrics to assess student work. I scale back content to only what is essential to read and Intersperse videos for acquiring knowledge.
All effective teachers constantly think about how to tweak their lessons to increase student engagement and achievement. As I was updating this online course, how could I make the course more engaging and relevant to the student’s needs?
Rigor/Relevance Framework
I reflected on the Rigor /Relevance Framework from the International Center for Leadership in Education. I have experience with the R/R Framework since much of my early writing was explaining how to use the framework in planning instruction and assessment. The framework’s four quadrants of teaching and learning distinguish between high and low rigor and high and low relevance. I want to push my instruction to Quadrant D, High Rigor/High Relevance.
I also read today about some of the current work of a not-for-profit organization called the Right Question Institute. This organization and many outstanding teachers are constantly looking for ways to increase the rigor of their instruction by moving from being focused on the right answers where students recall answers to where teachers focus more on using the right questions, which will stimulate more critical student thought, inquiry, and reflection. Teachers need to focus on the right questions.
The Rigor/Relevance Framework introduces a second dimension of moving from the acquisition of knowledge to the application of knowledge. This is about moving from passive student work to engaging student projects. So the goal of good instruction is not only asking the “right questions,” it is about expecting the students to do the “right work.” Is that work relevant and leads to the learning objectives?
I recently changed my online course to add more authenticity to the work and avoid these educators from voicing the same question many students ask, “When will I ever use this?” The assignments in this online course are now identified as authentic projects. Students demonstrate learning through five projects, including developing a demonstration video, designing an instructional model, creating a schema as an instructional guide, and developing an online learning module for a selected audience. To be honest, there is one traditional paper to be written (it is still essential to request educators to continue elevating their writing skills).
As teachers work on reflecting on their instruction, just as I did in this course, there needs to be clear learning objectives (based on standards). Teachers must strive for high rigor and relevance by asking students the right questions and assigning the right work in authentic projects. This will go a long way toward moving education to greater relevancy and respect.
I always think of myself as a positive person. When confronted with problems or issues, I usually strive to control my emotions, reason, and be optimistic about moving forward. Friends and colleagues often refer to me as the “glass-half-full guy.” However, lately, I find myself more often discouraged and less optimistic. I am perhaps spending more time keeping current with news concerning the events in the world. The negative nature captures the media headlines, whether in the economy, politics, or social behavior. My environment has also changed since I am no longer working full time, which gave me opportunities to meet many new people and observe many different schools. Those personal observations provide a more accurate perspective and make us realize that there are vastly more positive experiences in the world than negative ones. When you lack first-hand observations and rely on the media for your information, you have no personal experiences the counter the negative. It tends to make you more cynical, and it takes willpower to maintain that positive attitude.
As I reflect on the decades of my education experience, I can see progress in many areas and hope that my contributions have positively impacted some. Yet, there remains much to do in improving student achievement, particularly in the wake of the pandemic. The media points out student achievement declines and increasing demographic gaps. Parents are frustrated, and teachers and administrators are burned out. It is easy for education and political leaders to propose solutions to these problems with government tools, primarily money and regulation. While regulation and money are essential, they are not the most effective way to forge a path to improvement.
One of my past educator experiences was visiting several outstanding high schools in this country. With my colleagues, we reflected on the common characteristics of these exceptional schools. What made them different? They served challenging populations that many schools do, yet they did not suffer the same problems. They were highly effective. The most common characteristic seen in all schools was the remarkably high level of staff collaboration driven by leadership and positive personal and professional values. This collaboration enabled groups of teachers to solve problems and create innovations, often without going through a chain of command or higher leadership to get permission. They knew the organization’s goals and the leadership vision and constantly worked to increase its effectiveness.
This aspect of frontline problem-solving to improve organizations, as I saw in these high-performing schools, is not a unique nor an original approach. One of the organizational models which takes this approach is appreciative inquiry. In contrast to a traditional problem-solving model, which defines the problem, identifies potential solutions, and picks a solution to move forward, the appreciative inquiry takes a broader approach. Instead of focusing on the often negative situation, the appreciative inquiry model focuses on what works well within the organization and how those successful practices could be expanded or modified to address the problem. It takes an approach of problem-solving from focusing on the positive rather than dwelling on the negative. You can learn more about appreciative inquiry from this video or some of the many publications.
In the new year, I am resolving not to let the challenging issues in education and society dim my positivity. Despite the many challenges in education, thousands of teachers do great work with students every day. I resolve to appreciate their work and find ways to support it and replicate that in every classroom in a school. In my writing, I constantly remind myself of all the good things happening in education and continuously ask questions about how those positive practices can be expanded to benefit more students.
