What is this whole Edcamp thing anyway?

Over the past few months, I started hearing more and more about this phenomenon called edcamp, the supposed UNconference for educators.  As more of my Twitter PLN started participating and sharing their thoughts about them, I became more curious to experience one myself, but I couldn't find one in my area.  Fast Forward to 2 weeks ago when I get an invite to #edcampsc in Rock Hill, the first edcamp being held in South Carolina.  Here was my chance; I was signed up and ready...for what exactly, I didn't know.  I didn't even invite others to go, even though edcamps are free simply because I didn't know how to explain it.  NOW i know! Here's my experience:

We walked into the school and there's a registration table with our name tags, a welcome letter with a blank planning calendar on the back, and volunteers ready to check us in.  Smooth sailing--no queue, no confusion, and a much easier process than any training I've been to.

First activity of the morning, go into the cafeteria, get some breakfast, and pitch possible session topics for the conference.  Wait, I didn't tell you that there is no program, no agenda, no vendor sessions?  Well, there aren't any of those things.  What there are is a group of educators from all levels, various districts, across multiple states, looking to learn from each other and willing to facilitate discussions on topics they think are important. One tweet I read after getting home from the conference said that the participant has "signed up to facilitate the session because he (she?) knew NOTHING about it."  The day is built around professional learning!  So, the pitch? Poster paper at each end of the cafeteria tables where you write your topic and if you'll facilitate it.  About 15 minutes before the official welcome, students come through and give us each 3 stickers to vote for the sessions we would like to see (What? We get a choice of what will happen in a conference?).  These votes were magically tallied and the schedule set while we got a fantastic welcome via Skype from Eric Sheninger (@NMHS_Principal) to tell us how our entire mindset about professional development would be shattered and rebuilt from this experience.  He wasn't kidding!

After some logistical information and a couple of great door prizes, we were set free to head to our first chosen session.  Oh, yeah, and guess what...I'm facilitating one of the first sessions.  Good thing I like to hear myself talk, huh?  Except it wasn't necessary for me to be ready to talk because everyone was ready to talk, I just got it started.  What were we talking about? Parent engagement...How do we get our parents more and authentically involved in our schools and their children's education.  So many great idea, and while we started by throwing out all of the negative thoughts about parents, there was a group mindset that we focus on possible solutions.  Some of the suggestions...

• Use remind101 to send text messages to parents about assignments and class needs.
• Offer various meeting times to meet the needs of parents' schedules.
• Create parent/teacher focus groups around specific concerns at the school.
• Use tools like Padlet and Survey Monkey to receive feedback from parents about what they see is working or not working in school/classrooms.
• (My favorite) Create an unconference experience for parents where we actually SHOW them how to help their children with our materials/behavior/resources rather than just TELL them about it.

By the end of this session, where I did NOT have to most of the talking, I was sure that I had learned more here, without a designated presenter, than I have in most PD sessions I've been to over the years. Thanks to George Champlin (@GChamplinAP) for setting up our backchannel on Today's Meet, so we could share notes from the session.  (Backchanneling is a way for participants/learners to make comments, ask questions, etc during a lesson/session that can then be referred to later. Great teaching tool!)

Irony of the day was the title for sessions 2: "Why does PD Suck?"  Of course we talked about the negative, but again we quickly moved to "What do we want PD to look like?" Overwhelmingly, the response was for it to be much like the experience we were having at that moment.  One of the best questions was "Why do we still call it PD and not just learning?" (credit to Chris Craft @crafty184 for asking DURING the session).  I know I learned a lot!

Session 3 was one I wasn't sure I was going to attend because I'm so tired of of hearing the complaint that we "can't" do something because our kids don't have technology, but I'm so glad that I went.  As we all sat around the room with out smart phone and tablets, we talked about how 21st Learning is NOT about the device; it's NOT about the Internet; it IS about the skills the students learn and practice while using these tools.  One key take away: "Don't design lessons around technology; use technology to support the lesson."  That way you don't get stuck if the technology doesn't work, or the student doesn't have immediate access.  We have to get away from the idea of "technology for technology's sake." Another point made is that if we rethink homework and project, giving time and choice, students will find access or choose another method to demonstrate mastery of the content.  But I will not stay on this topic right now because my soapbox is not the point of this post.

Now, I didn't mention the fabulous lunch we had because not every edcamp location provides lunch, but I have to say thank you to the leaders who put this together: Mike Waiksnis (@mwaiksnis) and Latoya Dixon (@latoyadixon5).  They had a vision, without ever having had the experience, and they ran with it rather than running from it! 

So, my biggest take away from the day.  If you can get people together, appreciate their expertise in knowing the learning they need, and offer them the choice to be learner and leader, great things happen.  I know I'm already bouncing ideas in my head about what this could look like in classrooms for students, on PD days for educators, and in schools for parents.  Heck, I would even venture to open the opportunity to our elected officials, and let them see what we really do think and talk about when we get together.  We don't stop being educators when the school bell rings or the weekend comes, or the summer starts.  We took our Saturday and traveled to a school to sit with other educators (and pre-service educators) to talk about what WE need to learn and improve as professionals to do the best job for our students.  There is nothing more beautiful than that!

A-Z of Education Today: Collaboration and Cooperation

A friend of mine has been posting her A-Z of the medical field on Facebook recently, and the more I read her highly humorous, often facetious posts, I became inspired to create my own A-Z of Education. I know that most people are aware of what alphabetical order means, but I feel the need to clarify that these posts are NOT in order of importance, and the opinions expressed here are strictly my own.

Well, I had originally planned for "C" to be about change because it's one of the hardest thing for educators to handle, even though it's the only constant thing we have to look forward to.  After last night's #ncadmin chat on Twitter, however, I knew I had to talk about collaboration and cooperation, just like I HAD to talk about behavior.  

So, again I feel like I have to give a definition because it's been my observation that we say one thing, mean something else, and then expect the students to act differently from us when they are doing the same given activity.  Let me first talk about the expectation for students:

Cooperation: Working together to complete an activity/project that is too big or too complex for one person in the given period of time.  A process of learning WITH each other, as each student learns something from their part in the process, parts are shared with group, all pieces are put together in an organized fashion, and all benefit from the completion of the task.  Examples: Jigsaw reading, traditional group projects/presentations  Non-examples: one student read passage aloud, so all can say they've read; Split up homework questions and all copy tomorrow to hand in individual sheets

Collaboration: Working and learning FROM each other in order to create something new or solve a complex problem with multiple possible solutions.  Each student's perspective is appreciated and sought after as product is designed and created and/or problem is analyzed and solved.  Examples: Problem-based learning, group story writing  Non-Examples: one student make the plan and divide up work; group working to answer a practice problem with one known solution

I start with the students because 1) I'll always be a teacher and 2) we tend to be able to more clearly identify what we expect from students.  What does it mean for us, though?  How do we define the ways in which we learn from each other?  Does simply sitting in the same room for 45 minutes (60, 90, 120) and calling it a PLC (Professional Learning Community) or LTM (Learning Team Meeting) mean that we've actually "cooperatively learned" anything from each other?  Does dividing up the lesson plans to be done by core subject (in elementary) or day (in secondary) mean that we've "collaboratively" planned?  If we want students to learn during their time together and through their shared experiences, do we not want the same for ourselves if we're using the same words to define what we say we're doing?

Now I know it's not easy, and I know there is not a lot of time.  We do, however, expect it of our students as required skills to practice, and most of us agree with the benefits of learning/practicing those skills to the "real world".  Isn't what we do as professionals our "real world"?  Don't students benefit most from our modeling of the skills and behaviors (in case you missed it, here are my thoughts on behavior modeling) we want them to demonstrate? Has anyone noticed that I LOVE rhetorical questions? Ok, don't answer that.  I really don't want anyone to think that I'm speaking rhetorically or completely cynical because I'm not.  Everything I write about is something I have probably done or taken part in and learned from while in the classroom, or it's something I've observed since working more directly with teacher groups outside of the classroom.  I hate to see us get bogged and beaten down by things that 1) out of our control, 2) our reactions to things out of our control, or 3) our own inconsistencies.  My grandmother used to say "Work smarter, not harder, but WORK!" I'm saying, let's not fight against what we claim to believe in because we're making it harder on ourselves.  True collaboration and cooperation amongst teacher teams (PLCs, LTMs, Grade Levels, etc) help us do what my grandmother preached while keeping us entrenched in our focus, learning.  

So, I want to share an example of how time-saving, learning-focused, collaborative planning could look.  I'll preface this with knowledge that the idea came from a collaborative discussion in an LTM I was facilitating last year with a group of 2nd grade teachers who were feeling bogged down by the number of times they had to meet, the requirement for lesson plans to be turned in nearly a week ahead of time, and the admonishment they'd received for their "shared" plans (you know, the ones where one person does math, one science, etc, and they all get copies of compliance-based plans that meet the needs of NO students).  They had just had Learning Focused training, which expects the use of Essential Questions (EQs), but that was bogging them down more, as they were used to learning objectives and "I can" statements.  Needless to say, they were looking for ways to find time to process this new learning and complete all of the assigned tasks, so they asked for time to "collaboratively" plan during our meeting time. Rather than say "Um, no", which is what I was thinking, much like I thought when students would ask if they could do someone else's homework in my class, I said "how about we look at how what we do in here, in terms of standard-based instruction, ties into what you have to do, and come up with a plan to streamline your individual planning process by making your collaboration efficient and effective.  Here is the collaboration piece, as that's the point of this whole blog, right...

1. Begin with the standard(s) to be taught as a unit. (We are all teaching to standards, right?)
2. Make sure that EVERY member of the group understands the standard.
• What are the key components students must know, understand, and be able to do.
• List these things so everyone can see them (We're learning from each other and getting on the same page, right?)
• If someone throws out a teaching strategy or formative assessment idea for one of the components, write it down! (Work smarter, not harder...don't try and come up with all new ideas when you're later planning alone)
3. Determine the big picture understanding based on what we all now know of the standard.
• What is the overall learning target of this standard? (Read this article!)
• This target, in the form of a long "I can" statement, learning target, or EQ, becomes the basis for your common assessment of the standard.
• If someone comes up with an assessment question/product/idea, write it down! (It can be fleshed out and finalized later, but it will probably be forgotten if it's not written down, and then we'll be spinning our wheels trying to come up with one.)
4. All of those key components we listed earlier, let's categorize them into key concepts for connected learning.
5. Let's prioritize these concept into an instructional flow that builds upon itself for optimal learning.
6. Now for each prioritized concept, let's write some lesson objectives (EQs, I-can statements) to be sure we are teaching all of those components we put in each category.
• Remember that each statement represents a lesson, so the plan for your unit is connected to the number of lessons (NOT days).
• If someone throws out a formative assessment idea for any of the lessons, write it down!
7. Let's write at least one formative assessment prompt for each lesson.
8. Let's write our unit (standard) common assessment.
9. Let's go forth and write our individualized lesson plans tailored to the needs of our students.
• We already know the lesson is aligned to the standard.
• We know our team is teaching on the same concepts.
• We know at least one way we're going to formatively assess.
• We know how we will assess the unit/standard as a whole.
• We already have some instructional strategies that were shared during our "learning" process

1-6 can easily be done in 30-45 minutes if everyone is focused and willing to share their knowledge.  A team of all brand new teachers (Please don't do this admin!) may take a little longer, as they may need longer to understand the standard, but for the most part, the learning and the team collaboration can happen in 30-45 minutes.  Once proficient in the process, or with smaller units/standards, 7 & 8 can also happen in that same 30-45 minutes.  If not, the team has already shared out some ideas for formative assessments, and the culminating assessment can be fleshed out later.

By the way, Steps 1-3, 5, 7 & 8 were things we were already doing in our LTM, but they hadn't made the connection.  They're probably things you're already doing in some form in your PLCs but don't necessarily realize it.

Did this plan magically make this group of teachers "better"? It made them better planners for learning.  It made them better collaborators and a stronger Learning Team.  I didn't get to observe their classrooms, so whether or not it made their teaching better is not for me to say, but I can say that it made them all feel better about the process.  They felt like they were learning from each other.  The ones who used to go back and basically rewrite the plans that had been shared with them felt like they weren't doing double work.  They felt empowered in one little aspect of our world of education.  I don't know if they are continuing with this plan this year, as I'm no longer at the school, but I do know they were a more effective and determined team for the rest of the year after it was developed.

As a final note about collaboration on teams...Please, please, please, don't think that your new teachers, especially if you're the only "veteran" on your team, have nothing to contribute because they've never done this before.  We ALL have something to learn, but we often intimidate our new teachers into thinking they shouldn't share because they don't yet "know".  You'd be surprised sometimes at what they DO know, and you'd also be surprised how hard it is for them to learn from you if they're intimidated by you.

A-Z of Education Today: Behavior

A friend of mine has been posting her A-Z of the medical field on Facebook recently, and the more I read her highly humorous, often facetious posts, I became inspired to create my own A-Z of Education. I know that most people are aware of what alphabetical order means, but I feel the need to clarify that these posts are NOT in order of importance, and the opinions expressed here are strictly my own.

Behavior is always the talk of the town around a school. What does it mean? Who's doing it? How do we control it? What's punishable and how do we punish for it? Even at the beginning of the school year, when everyone is supposed to get a fresh start, the primary topic of conversation revolves around behavior, primarily student behavior, although teachers, trust me, our behavior comes into question quite often, and even administrators' behavior gets talked about the further up the ladder one goes. 
 

So, what does it mean exactly?
Let me start by defining behavior, else we might all have a different definition.  Behavior is the way in which we act in a given situation for a given set of circumstances.  For the most part, behavior is a conditioned response to stimuli, conditioned being the important word because we learn most of our behaviors from the modeling of others.  This is important when we seek to control someone else's behavior, especially that of a student.  How much do we know about the modeling they've gotten? Are we judging them based on the modeling we've had, and are we then punishing them for coming up lacking according to our expectations? As children, from Kindergarten all the way through high school, are developing and changing at rates we can't even pinpoint, do they ever get a chance to come in fresh without preconceived notions about how they'll behave based on teacher-lounge conversations?  Remember, we're talking about conditioned responses. They've had 5 years of modeling before they even get to us, and then we see them for 6 out of 24 hours a day, 180 out of 365 days a year, for give or take 12 years.  Do we really think that our expectations for behavior take precedence over the ways they're expected to behave in the situations and circumstances in which they find themselves the rest of the time?

Whose behavior is most important?
I know the obvious answer to this question is students' behavior, right.  I'm not quite so sure.  Based on the definition and the fact that conditioning takes place over time, we are unlikely to get anywhere if our focus is only on student behavior.  After all, they reflect the models they've been given.  C'mon now, how many of us don't know an adult who has been late to work?  How many of us, me included, have "winged" lessons because we didn't do our "homework" of writing lesson plans?  How many of us have literally yelled at students for being to loud?  Are we modeling the behavior we expect to see in the school and in our classrooms, or are we mirroring the flaws that we see in their behavior?  Uh oh.  You see, once we get to a certain age, we should be able to determine which conditioned responses are appropriate and which ones aren't.  That's adult development, not so much for children, and, well, teenagers...my definition of "teenager" is "bad decisions".  No matter how much many of them may look like adults, they still have so many things going on physically, neurologically, and socially that action takes precedence over thought.  Knowing that your behavior is inappropriate and consciously choosing to behave appropriately are two completely different processes.  So, the question of whose behavior matters most is an important one...I would say it's OUR behavior that will, over time, have the greatest impact.

How do we control behavior?
And here's where I lose everyone...we start with ourselves.  Instead of asking "what's our school's discipline policy," how about asking "what model do I want to show my students."  Fact is, ladies and gentlemen, the only behavior we can truly control is our own.  We can model our behavioral expectations, and we can even punish those who don't meet our expectations, but do we really control their behavior?  The number of repeat offenders in our penile system show that behavioral change doesn't occur simply by expectation and punishment alone.  So, what do we do?  We remember that students are individuals, just as we are, with their own sets of experiences, and that they inherently want to be successful.  We acknowledge that sometimes the behaviors we hate (such a strong word) the most are often the same ones that keep them safe outside of the school environment.  We learn new ways of engaging students in the learning we're facilitating in class.  Let's not just assume that because we created the lesson and they are physically present for the lesson that they are either interested or engaged in learning said lesson.  If we don't plan for their engagement, we might as well plan for their "off-task" behavior. Oh yeah, and we check our behaviors because we're always on stage, even when we think students aren't paying attention.  If our clothes are a little too tight, students notice; if we're late to class or unprepared (last minute run to the copier, anyone?), they notice; or if we're yelling at and/or praising the same students daily, they notice.  Rather than focusing on the negatives, let's find ways to celebrate the positives by drawing attention to what we want to see rather than giving attention to what we would rather not see.

Does that mean no punishment for bad behavior?
Uh oh, let the flood gates open!  I'm not saying let everything go and have a free-for-all.  Remember that safety is always our primary concern, right up there with student learning.  So, we must immediately deal with safety issues, but we have to be honest that the majority of behavior referrals and subsequent punishments are related to the things that annoy us rather than anything dangerous--things like coming to class "unprepared," talking "out of turn," arriving late, etc.  When thinking about punishment for behavior, we really need to focus on what our behavioral goals are and whether or not the punishments we're seeking help us move closer to those goals.  Removing students from the classroom for extended periods of time does not help them learn the expectations of the classroom, and it takes them out of the learning environment.  I really don't want to get into grade penalties in this blog, as I have a whole post on grading brewing right now, but I will say that there is little logic in penalizing or rewarding with grades based on behavior.  If grades are meant to demonstrate academic achievement, then they should be based on just that.

And please don't think that I think I'm perfect or that I'm living in a perfect world here.  All of these things I've talked about, I've done.  I've also grown over the years as a person and an educator, and a great number of students have shown me that there's a lot more to getting the behaviors I hoped for than just me saying I have "high expectations" because what I was really saying is that I expected the students to behave like me.

A-Z of Education Today: Accountability

A friend of mine has been posting her A-Z of the medical field on Facebook recently, and the more I read her highly humorous, often facetious posts, I became inspired to create my own A-Z of Education.  I know that most people are aware of what alphabetical order means, but I feel the need to clarify that these posts are NOT in order of importance, and the opinions expressed here are strictly my own.  So, here we go...

Accountability...wow, such a loaded word!  It's supposed to be the holy grail of what will fix all that is wrong with education in our country (NOT!) and yet it's also one of the most hated words amongst those who are actually in a position of educating.  There appears to be a definite disconnect and a lot of misinformation about what accountability is and why it's really a good thing, at least to me.

Whenever I'm with a group of educators actually talking about teaching "accountability" inevitably comes up.  It is often defined synonymously with "testing", and shrouded in anger that the collective WE are the only ones being held accountable, not students, not parents, not society, not...whatever.  It's a fairytale of the wicked witch that we tell ourselves to keep from changing the way we think about how we do things.  There is, however, another fairytale, shrouded in just as much anger, resentment, and truth:

Once upon a time, not too long ago, there was a shared sense of responsibility for student learning.  Parents were responsible to make sure their student attended the house of learning (as they still are today), and many took personal responsibility to remediate any behavioral issues that might keep the teacher from handling his/her responsibility.  The teacher had the responsibility of delivering the collective knowledge (canon of literature, mathematical equations and "facts", scientific methods and theories, and civic obligations via accepted histories).  Each teacher had a different method of delivery, but very few delivered in different ways.  There were the lectures, the worksheets, the notes, the memorizations, the discussions, the practices, the readings, and the occasional group projects.  There were also the don't-write-with-that-hands, turn-your-paper-like-suches, and don't-question-mes.  Teachers were teaching as they always had because it worked for them, so it should work for everyone.  Administrators were responsible for the smooth running of the school and the discipline of children who weren't meeting the behavioral expectations set for students. The plan was to keep "bad" students from disrupting the teaching in the classroom.  The responsibility for learning, however, was on the student alone; if they didn't accept the collective knowledge as their own or respond appropriately to the delivery methods used, then their grades suffered.  Everything was graded: classwork, homework, quizzes, tests, behavior, participation, following directions (separate from behavior?), organization, neatness, everything! Students who were ahead of the curve already knowing the material were given A's, praised for being "smart" and given the privilege of helping the teacher grade everyone else's work.  Those who were behind the curve either worked really hard to keep up with the curve or were left to sit quietly while the others moved along from one lesson to the next--"You earn your grade by what you do, so no one is to blame but you."

Ok, so the fairytale above is a little tongue-in-cheek, but not so far removed from the reality of education pre-accountability.  Of course there have always been great educators who cared about whether their students learned the material and they naturally differentiated or sought help when they didn't know what to do.  Of course, there were parents who fought to make sure their children left school with more knowledge than that which they entered.  And then there are the students who didn't get it, and didn't have the support; those who just put their heads down to not cause a disturbance to the "teaching" going on around them and left with less than that which they entered.  There are also the students who didn't quite get as far as they could have because it was enough to know they could pass the test (even before they walked in the classroom).  There was no reason for these students to work hard or learn how to persevere because "learning" was natural for them.  

We've always been good at teaching to the middle because it's where most of us are comfortable.  I'll admit that MY story is also in that fairytale as both a student and a teacher.  I loved school because I got it; it came naturally, and it was the one place I could control how adults saw me.  I got the praise when I passed 4th grade tests I could've passed in 1st grade, and I loved helping my teachers.  I thought that what my teachers were doing just worked, until I grew up and saw how many of my peers were illiterate and unprepared.  Then I went into education and fell into the same pattern of teaching the way I "learned" forgetting that learning for me came easily.  Did all my students learn, NO! Did half of them learn? Probably not.  But I learned.  I learned that their learning is just as much my responsibility as it is theirs, almost more so because I have to first help them learn how to learn my content and from me before I can hope that the majority of them learn said content. 

You see, it's not accountability that's the problem; we have to, NEED to be held accountable, and I believe the majority of us in education don't mind being held accountable.  The problem is the way in which we're held accountable, and the ways in which we talk to each other about it that makes the situation that much more unbearable.  Holding us accountable for performance on a one-size-fits-all test makes everyone uncomfortable, but most especially those who have tried their hardest to get away from one-size-fits-all teaching.  "Teaching to the test" becomes a survival plan for too many who have been beaten down by a system and society that constantly says they're not good enough.  We're told to focus on growth in student learning as our accountability model, and yet we're still praised for proficiency numbers, that include those students who were already proficient the day they stepped in the classroom.  As a teacher, I learned from my students that I needed to be held accountable for the majority of their learning.  As an aspiring administrator, I feel accountable for the learning of the students AND the staff who serve them.  I'm not afraid of accountability, but I question the validity of the way in which we're held accountable and the credibility of the information disseminated with the sole purpose of pointing fingers and placing blame.

Just another way of shifting blame

"What did they teach them in middle school?" "Shouldn't they have learned this in elementary school?"  "At least they get some parent involvement." "Must be nice to have an assistant." "How am I supposed to teach them to think critically and be responsible learners if they've had their hands held all the way through middle school?"  These are just some of the comments made by various colleagues when I taught in high school, but please don't think that high school teachers hold the market on level bashing, as middle school teachers get their licks in too. "If they wouldn't let them play so much in elementary school, I could get them to sit still and learn something." "I'm ready to move up and teach high school because I can't deal with these hormones the kids have." "How am I supposed to get these babies ready for high school when they didn't come to me prepared for middle school?"  Oh yeah, complaints, insults, and the grass-is-greener mentality is common place at the middle and high school levels, so I'm not sure why it surprised me the first time I heard the comment "at least you all (in high school) get plenty of during-the-school-day planning time" at the elementary level.  I guess I expected things to be different, or at least more of the focus to be on the students rather than on the perceived benefits of working at other levels.

On Friday, one of my teachers stopped by my office to borrow something, and as she was walking out, she stopped to ask how I felt about the jump I had made from high school to elementary school.  I guess she thought I was going to give her a 2-second response, but that's just not how I roll.  I realized that my response could either compound the belief that everyone else has it easier than the 4-content-area-teaching, no-real-planning-time-having K-5 teachers OR my response could begin to shift the focus back where it belongs.  So, I said, "I like my position much better this year than I did in middle school, but I don't think I would want to teach at this level," which immediately solicited the response I expected, "because of all the things we have to do, right?"  The look on her face, and her comment of "that's a very interesting perspective I hadn't thought of before" assured me she wasn't prepared for what I had to say next.

Truthfully, my reluctance to teach elementary has nothing to do with the work load or added duties or perceived add-ons that take up time but rather lack of comfort in my own conceptual knowledge of math.  I explained to her that as teachers, regardless of level, we always have a lot of things we're expected to do.  I was a Spanish teacher, who sometimes taught English, and I often had 5 preps each semester.  I let her know that while I did, technically, get more "planning" time, I also had duties, tutoring, conferences, and IEP meetings that would take up much of that time.  I felt little need to complain about them because they were part of what I signed up for when I became a teacher.  I didn't leave the conversation there, however, because her (and many others') beliefs aren't simply confined to the perception about other teachers.  I've often heard "Admins are so removed from the classroom, they don't realize how hard they're making this on us," or "Coaches just talk in generalizations because that's what they're told to do, but they don't understand how hard it is to teach our kids."

Every position at every level has its challenges that are inherent parts of the job.  Teaching high school is challenging because there is less parental support and very little collegial support when you're the only one teaching a subject.  Being an administrator at this level is challenging not simply because of discipline (which seems to be the ruling belief) but because of the extreme curricular shifts for each classroom you enter.  How do you get your mind ready to observe and provide feedback consistently and effectively when there are systematically such clear differences to be expected in each classroom?  Teaching at the middle school level is difficult because of the physical and emotional changes you are helping the students work through and, in many schools, you're expected to work with a team of teachers who don't teach the same things as you, so conversations boil down to behavior and field trips.  I found my job, as a Learning Team Facilitator, to be very challenging and frustrating at middle school because I often had teams of 1 or 2, which put me in more of a coaching position than facilitator position.  How can I effectively help teachers learn from and share with each other when there is no one else teaching what they are in the building?  Likewise, there are challenges at the elementary level for all personnel.

The grass is not always greener, and while we all get frustrated and feel overworked, trying to imagine that someone else's job in education might be easier than our own doesn't help us overcome the natural challenges of our position or our level.  Acknowledging that we have challenges and are frustrated when we have difficulty overcoming those challenges is the first step to finding a way to feel empowered.  No other group of educators is to blame for the challenges we face, but we can't ever find solutions unless we focus on what we can and are doing in our position at our level.  It is only through focused reflection on our own strengths and areas for growth that we can learn to ask for and accept help that will help us grow as educators.  It's time to stop shifting the blame and become the solution.