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Descriptions of effective teaching often depict an idealized form of "perfect" instruction. Yet, pursuing perfection in teaching, which depends on children's behavior, is ultimately futile. To be effective, lessons and educators need to operate with about 75% efficiency. The remaining 25% can be impactful, but expecting it in every lesson, every day, is unrealistic. Perfection in teaching may be unattainable, but progress is not. Whether you are aiming for the 75% effectiveness mark or striving for continuous improvement, this podcast will guide you in that endeavor.
[00:00:00] Speaker 2: Welcome to Better Teaching Only Stuff that Works. A podcast for teachers, instructional coaches, administrators, and anyone else who supports teachers in the classroom. This show is a proud member of the BE Podcast Network shows that help you go beyond education. Find all our shows@bepodcastnetwork.com.
[00:00:22] I am Jean Taver, the host for this podcast, and my goal for this episode, like all episodes, is that you laugh at least once and that you leave with an actionable idea for better teaching. A quick reminder, no cliches, no buzzwords, only stuff that works.
[00:00:37] Speaker 11: Hello, everyone. It's just me again today. But today I'm not just sharing my thoughts, but some thoughts that my friend Zach Rochelle and I have had about our experiences in working with schools across the US and Canada, and some of the common things that we hear with respect to why it's difficult to make changes in a school.
[00:01:01] And one of those things that we hear frequently is that it's just the culture. It's, uh, we don't have a, a culture that's gonna support coaching, and-- or this culture, that culture. Well, every school has a culture, and in too many schools, it's comfortable isolation. Teachers close their doors. Classrooms function as islands.
[00:01:25] PTs endured, not engaged with. Coaching is viewed as remediation. When somebody suggests a possible change, the responses are predictable. "You don't understand this community. Our teachers are set in their ways. We've tried that before." There's a version of this in every school district and country we've worked in.
[00:01:49] Canadian schools where politeness masks deep resistance to change. American schools where teacher independence and complete autonomy are treated as a constitutional right. The surface presentations differ. The underlying dynamic is the same. People would rather explain why things can't change than do the uncomfortable work of changing them.
[00:02:13] The belief that culture is fixed is both an observation and a self-fulfilling prophecy. If leaders can't accept it, can't change it, they'll never do the work Culture isn't an atmosphere that descends on a building. It's a residue from accumulation of decisions and actions. Every time a leader walks past a classroom and doesn't check whether an agreed-upon strategy is being used, that's a cultural decision.
[00:02:42] Every time PD introduces something new without following up on the last thing, that's a cultural decision. Every time a coach avoids a hard conversation to preserve a relationship, that's a cultural decision. Recognizing this is the first step toward changing it. Culture is built from specific daily observable actions.
[00:03:08] The fastest way to change culture is to change what people do, not what people believe. Beliefs follow behavior more often than the other way around. This runs counter to the instinct most schools have, which is to start with vision statements, values exercises, and buy-in campaigns. These aren't worthless, but they're slow.
[00:03:29] Getting teachers to actually use a shared instructional routine and seeing that it works changes beliefs faster than any inspirational speech. The inspirational from the speech fades faster than a vision statement that took three staff meetings to create. Start with a narrow instructional focus, not ten priorities, one, maybe two.
[00:03:51] A specific set of instructional practices that every teacher will implement with coaching support to make it happen. In the schools where we've seen culture shift, the focus was tight. Structured lesson openings, consistent checks for understanding, explicit modeling before practice. The specificity matters.
[00:04:12] We're going to improve instruction is a wish. We will increase the number of students testing proficient by ten percent is a challenge to staff to game the system. But every lesson will begin with a clear objective and modeling, and the coach will observe for that. That's a plan Get coaches in classrooms consistently, not occasionally, not when the schedule allows, consistently.
[00:04:38] The regular presence of a coach in classrooms does more to shift culture than any amount of messaging. It normalizes observation and support. It communicates that instruction is public work, not private work. It gives teachers the support they need to implement the focus area, and it gives leadership real data about what's happening in classrooms, which is the only way to make informed decisions about what comes next.
[00:05:07] Leadership has to do walkthroughs with common look-fors, not random visits, not gotcha observations. Focused walkthroughs looking for the specific practices the school committed to. When the principal walks into a classroom looking for whether the teacher used a structured lesson opening, that communicates seriousness.
[00:05:26] When the principal never visits or visits but looks at different things each time, that communicates to teachers that the commitment was performative. In the United States, we're deeply individualistic. We pride ourselves on professional independence, but that's only one side of who we are. We also cheer together in stadiums.
[00:05:47] We join teams, choirs, churches. We huddle, rehearse, celebrate, and cooperate. The collective instinct is there. Schools just haven't tapped into it. A school should feel like a team. Learning should work, be work we pursue together. The best schools we've worked with have a palpable shared identity. Teachers talk about how we teach here, not how I teach here, but how we teach.
[00:06:15] The language shift matters. We've seen culture changes across the US, Canada, and beyond, where improvement initially seemed impossible. Entrenched entrenched habits, political dynamics, budget constraints, skeptical staff. But a year or two in, with strategic planning and a narrow instructional focus and consistent follow-through, things shift.
[00:06:42] Teachers start using shared language. Walk into classrooms, and you see the techniques on walls. Teachers deploy them with a real confidence, not performance confidence. Name the culture you want, not the one you have. Define the instructional coherence that you want to see. Establish shared expectations, not as mandates, but as collective commitments.
[00:07:06] Then protect those commitments through coaching, observation, and follow-through. Every coaching interaction, every PD session, every leadership decision either moves the culture towards coherence or lets it drift towards isolation. The choice is always being made, whether anyone names it or not.
[00:07:27] Speaker: If you are enjoying these podcasts, tell a friend. Also, please leave a five star rating on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. You can follow me on Blue Sky at G Taver Netti on Twitter x at g Taver, Netti, and you can learn more about me and the work I do at my website. Tess cg.com. That's T-E-S-S-C g.com, where you'll also find information about ordering my books teach Fast focus, adaptable structured teaching, and maximizing the impact of coaching cycles.