In education, I have heard this phrase, a lot: "We need to build their capacity to..." But WHAT capacity are we building and HOW do we do that? Again, it depends on the circumstances at hand. I was standing up front at a writing PD session recently and one of the teachers bravely asked "What if we were trusted as teachers, to...". It doesn't matter what the rest of the sentence was, it was this first part that caused me (and others) to clap. My question back was "Is that not happening already?" and there was a resounding "NO". This is not an isolated thought, as I have heard similar sentiments over and over and over again. And it saddens me that educators do not feel like it is "ok" to be the professional and make those decisions within their classroom. I can not dig into the reasons why this idea exists, because there are layers and layers. And it does not matter if it is a hard and fast truth that was told to them or a perceived one, it is their truth. So what do we do with that information? We build...IT. We build capacity. We build trust. We build a culture of risk taking, vulnerability, support, encouragement, sharing. We build confidence. When we talk about building educators' capacity, it gets sticky. When I think of this word, I think of helping educators fill a toolbox of strategies and ideas to pull from, while in the classroom. I also think of helping them understand that they DO have the choice and freedom to make those decisions for their students. Give them the confidence that they are the leaders in their classroom. This is not done by telling educators they HAVE to do something a certain way
"What about the new teacher that is just trying to survive?" Well, to me- those are the best people to begin building capacity in. They have the TEs to start from- and for awhile, that is what they will use. But what if right off the bat, we begin to fill up that toolbox and provide them the opportunities to try some of them out. Let's show them that we do not want "cookie cutter" lessons, classrooms or students. Let's empower them to be creative, to think beyond, to try...fail and then iterate.
But I have seen so much fear. Fear that we are "doing it wrong". Fear that we are "not good enough". Fear that we are "behind", that we will be compared, that our students won't be ready for...Fear that "the district" said...X, Y, Z. It's real- I've been there. So how do we shift that culture of fear? By building capacity. Whenever we are in front of educators, we need to show them that we trust them as professionals. Another educator in a different session said "Why do we always start with what we need to change, why don't we start with what we are doing well?". YES! Why don't we? There are amazing things happening in classrooms that need to be shared. Rather than telling them what to do, let's open the floor for them to share? This not only builds confidence, but it adds tools to the toolbox of others, it expands mindsets, it opens up the space to iterate. To me, that is the magic. I have said it many times- there is no "one way" to teach a student because there is no "one type" of student. There is no "magic box" from a publisher that knows those kids sitting in front of you, so by asking educators to just follow the script and turning the pages we can not be meeting the needs of our students. It is also not building trust or capacity in teachers to be the craftsman that they are, to make those decisions to change things up to best meet the needs of their students. In my first year of teaching, my administrator taught us to meet the students where they are and move them forward by any means necessary. And he not only told us that, he then provided us with training and tools to do so. I have since found out that is not the norm. So my goal, whenever I am working with educators, is to share that message with them and then provide them with some tools to do so. I show them how to take something from the "box" and use "out of the box" ideas to reach the students. How can we use the resources that we have, in a different way? How can we look at the activities in the TE as a critical consumer by asking these questions "What is the purpose, what is the learning?" and I am now adding "Who is doing the work?". When I look at many of the activities in a TE, I see a lot of work on the teacher. The teacher may pose a question and one or two students answer. What are the other 25+ students doing? What tweak can be made to make sure that the task actually reaches the purpose and the learning and ALL students? How can we take what we have and build upon it? How can we build capacity to first be that critical consumer and then move into being that creative craftsman? Build capacity through trust, culture and a building of tools in the teacher's toolkit. My call to action is this: In whatever role you are in, think about how you can help build the capacity in others. Then do it. *Look for a future blog on building capacity in our student learners*
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Mother, Teacher, Administrator, Presenter, GCE Level 1 & 2, Encourager of others.
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February 2023
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