Jethro Jones: Welcome to Transformative Principal.
I'm your host, Jethro Jones.
You can follow me on all the socials at Jethro Jones.
I am excited to have on Transformative Principal today, Dr. Joshua Barnett.
He is the National Institute for Excellence in teaching CEO, and he
is responsible for overseeing all the organization's operations, including
service delivery, research and evaluation, professional learning,
technology development, policy and communications, financial operations.
Higher education partnerships.
He's also the author of Unleashing Teacher Leadership, a toolkit for ensuring
effective Instruction in every classroom.
And we do a whole interview with him on the Authority Podcast with Ross
Romano that you can check out here in a couple days that will be released.
Before this, he served as President and Chief Operating Officer for NIET.
And we're excited to have you on the show.
Josh.
Thanks for coming.
I.
Joshua Barnett: Thanks, Jethro.
Thanks for having
Jethro Jones: So what's most valuable from our conversation today?
Joshua Barnett: What we know is that teacher leadership is the most effective
strategy for improving classroom instruction at scale, and our goal with
this book is to help school leaders.
And teacher leaders take on greater leadership within the profession to create
a system that helps every teacher improve.
And if we can help every teacher improve, then we know we can reach every
student by building in the capacity of the educators in our profession.
Jethro Jones: Yeah.
Excellent.
I, the thing for me that was most valuable was the discussion about localized
solutions and respecting and valuing the perspective and experience of the teachers
who are there on the front lines, doing the work every day and recognizing that.
They probably have a pretty good idea of what's gonna work and what's not,
and taking whatever you may learn out in the world and bringing it to
how does this work in our building.
So that was my big takeaway.
Looking forward to this conversation.
We'll get to our interview with Josh here in just a moment.
Well, Josh, why don't you explain to us what NIET is and what you do there?
Joshua Barnett: Sure.
Thanks Jethro.
The National Institute for Excellence in Teaching is a 25-year-old organization
that's focused on bringing professional learning that really grounds our work
in key elements of effective teaching.
We've across the nation supporting more than 10,000 school leaders 35,000 teacher
leaders, which is what our book is about.
Um, we've supported across those individuals, over 3000 educators.
Impacting 3.5 million students.
And what that gives us over that 25 year stretch is an opportunity to feel
and know that no matter the context or the setting of a school environment,
um, we know that all schools are focused on improving outcomes for
students narrowing achievement gaps.
And we know that if they focus on equipping and supporting
the teachers in their building.
That, that is how we're going to move that building, move every
child, move every classroom.
And our organization's mission is to build educator excellence, to give all
students the opportunity for success, and therefore we believe that building.
The capacity and the, and the capital that's in that building
is the most important function.
And the way to build that is through intentional, sustained high quality
investments in educators as the most important in-school factor.
And where we see the largest impact of change happen at the classroom level.
And that's what we've spent 25 years honing and working to support
educators across the nation.
Jethro Jones: Yeah.
And so if I remember correctly, NIET, one of the things that it's
known for is the Milliken Award.
Is that correct?
Joshua Barnett: The Milken Educator Award is a separate agency, but yes, they,
they provide the Milken Educator Awards across the country as a recognition,
a rewards program that's built on recognizing excellence in the classroom.
And our founder Mr. Lowell Milken created both the Milken Educator Awards
program and established the National Institute for Excellence in Teaching.
Jethro Jones: so the reason, excuse me, the reason why I bring that up is because.
The Milken Award has been described as like the Oscar for
the classroom or the MVP for the classroom, kind of an approach.
And, and so the, they're two separate organizations because you're
focused on something different.
Can you explain what, what the other organization is focused on and
how that differs from what you do?
Joshua Barnett: Sure.
So the, the Milk and Educator Awards are, are recognizing excellence in
the classroom, recognizing great teachers, great educators, um.
Principals, assistant principals, they are looking for excellence
at that individual level while they're early career individuals.
Um, they wanna recognize and, and, and grow those individuals and provide
the network and support around them.
Um, and it's about recognizing and rewarding excellence in that
individual classroom capacity.
Um, our founder who started the Milk Educator Awards.
Um, in 1987, after about 10 years of providing those awards, um, recognized
that I was, or he was providing those awards from classroom to classroom and
might find Jethro's classroom and say, wow, Jethro, you're doing fantastic stuff.
Um, I wanna recognize and, and, and celebrate you.
But I walked next door, he walked next door to Josh's classroom and he said,
wow, the students here are getting a fundamental different experience.
So we, we know that education, like any industry has great individuals,
but what our founder wanted to do was to step back and say, how do we take
and recognize excellent individuals and then grow that capacity to raise the
tide of opportunity for all students?
And so the process for doing that was to create an intervention
that was to build teacher leaders.
And by building teacher leaders and recognizing that excellence in
any individual classroom, it was to try to make sure we could provide
that at scale to every classroom and ultimately every student.
Jethro Jones: And that's, that's so important because it's easy to.
To focus on one thing, but then how do you make it grow and
expand to other areas as well.
And so I, I appreciate that emphasis in what NIET is there
for, to help make that happen.
So you um, you recently wrote a book called Unleashing Teacher Leadership,
a toolkit for ensuring effective instruction in every classroom.
And what are the.
What is the connection to teacher leadership and good teaching?
And let me, let me give a little context around this.
because somebody is a good teacher does not mean that they will be a
good principal, and just because somebody is a good principal does not
mean that person was a good teacher.
If there's a lot of overlap, those things do happen, but those, those
skill sets are different from teaching and leading and and especially in
a school setting, they, they can be very different skill sets needed to be
successful in either one of those arenas.
So we, we talk a lot on this show about how it's important for teachers to have
leadership opportunities and what is that?
What does that mean in your eyes?
Joshua Barnett: Well, it's a, it's a great question.
Um, and I think to, to piggyback on kind of what we were just talking
about, about why our organization was designed and, and where we started 25
years ago, um, our our founders noted right that great teachers are really
about more than what they impart.
They are also about the representation that that great teachers can exist
and that there are opportunities to grow and achieve in this profession.
And that means that we can transform an entire workforce of educators.
But that transformation will only happen if we obviously enlist and support
and grow the current teacher leaders.
We have to develop the next generation of teacher leaders that, that we can have.
And, and I think the second part to your question is.
One that's really important, which is, as you said, what,
what do teacher leaders do?
Um, what makes them different?
And, and I think in, in the book and in our experience, we really talk about,
um, essentially five key roles and responsibilities for, for teacher leaders.
And the first piece of that is we think that obviously teacher
leaders have to engage with, um.
Between instructional leadership team.
Individuals in the, in the school.
And so they are engaging with that leadership team.
They support the administrator in developing school goals, tracking
student progress monitoring, classroom follow up or goal attainment
for instructional improvement.
They certainly are data driven.
They, they're assessing student results.
They're analyzing.
Looking at what other teachers need and, and when appropriate.
Maybe conducting observations or, or even informal observations with teachers.
The second thing that we would say teacher leaders do.
As they certainly provide that instructional support, um, they identify
research-based strategies that are aligned to the student goals and the school goals
or department goals of that school system.
Um, they also field test those strategies and so again, it might be that they
heard about a great strategy at a, at an event, a conference, a book, or a
proceeding, but they wanna make sure that they can bring that strategy
back and make sure it's gonna work in their individual school system.
The third thing we would say is they certainly collaborate
to improve instruction, right?
Again, it's not about necessarily my great instruction in my class, but
also how do I facilitate building the capacity and raising the tide of
instruction across the school system.
The fourth part we would say.
Right.
It's, it's, you need to be able to coach other adults and assist in
developing the goals and strategies and improving resources and materials for
the other individuals in your school.
And then the, the fifth component that we talk about is obviously providing that
instructional feedback which means you need to have a collaborative mindset.
You need to collect data, you need to model teaching, but you also need to
be able to provide that instructional.
Focused feedback.
And I think the last part of your question is really how do they do that?
How do, how do, how do teacher leaders successfully navigate that process?
And we really talk about the the three steps or three components to
being a successful teacher leader based on our experience over the last
25 years, again, working with, with 35,000, um, plus teacher leaders.
The first part of that inherently is is trust, right?
We have to establish that there's some trust that's gonna happen so that teacher
leaders are consciously building that trust with our colleagues, um, that they
are, they are interacting with their colleagues to make sure that they're not.
Just, um, modeling their own great behavior, but they're building that trust
across the school system, um, through explicit conversations, setting, you know,
expectations and talking with individuals so that they can learn and grow.
Um, but also with district administrators, school administrators, and others.
And so we wanna be proactive in building that trust.
It's important, right, to not only walk the walk and talk the talk, but also
roll up your sleeves and get in there.
The second thing we'd say after, after building trust is ultimately you have
to have deep instructional knowledge.
Right.
You have to have an ability to demonstrate that as a teacher leader, you are skilled
at moving both teachers and students, and I think that's one of the key things
that we talk about is sometimes great.
Necessarily make teacher leaders, um, teaching your own class, but leader.
The needs of other adults and try to coach and support them.
And so that's an important consideration is that you've, you've got to be
able to demonstrate that expertise.
And then the third part we would say is, is credibility.
Right?
And how do you get credibility?
Obviously you need to have success with your own students.
You need to be able to be regarded in the school system as
someone who is highly capable.
Um, but we think the strongest teacher leaders ultimately gain credibility
by empowering other teachers to have ownership of their learning.
Right?
And I think that's one of those critical things that we talk about is important.
and and one of the most important parts of that is, is not knowing
everything, but also having the.
The credibility to go seek those strategies, seek out those solutions
and gain those instructional expertise.
And so that's some of the, that's probably the five
areas of roles we've seen and the three ways we see them achieve it.
Jethro Jones: Yeah.
So there, there are a couple of follow up questions I have based on that.
I wanted to make sure that we understood the context and when
you're talk that you're talking about teacher leadership in, because I
have other questions that I think get to a, a deeper issue there as well.
Um, and the first one, we'll, we'll start with this one and
then we'll come back to the other one is the ownership of learning.
Um, teachers have for decades complained about professional development that is
put on by the school or the district and how it's not meeting their needs.
And then when it's their opportunity to do professional development on their
own, they don't take those opportunities seriously or with the kind of.
Um, what's it called?
The kind of responsibility that requires to be in charge of your own learning?
So, brief example, I, my second year of teaching, I was fortunate enough to go
to a large conference and all the other teachers plans were to go to the morning
sessions and then spend the second half of the day out exploring the city
and, and doing all that kind of stuff.
Personally, I thought.
The district's sending me to this.
I need to be like attentive and do the things I need to do.
But these teachers that I was with, who were the teacher leaders
in my school were not interested in spending their time learning.
They were more interested in, in seeing this as a district paid for vacation.
Now, that's not unique to my school, but that.
That is a thing that happens and people talk about that and, um,
but we don't talk about it a lot.
So how do we help teachers understand that their learning
really is their responsibility?
Especially in a system where we take the responsibility of learning
from our students all the time and, and we don't expect them to be in
charge of their own learning either.
How do, how do we balance and, and find the right solution there?
Joshua Barnett: Well, I think, I think as you noted, um, one of the, the key
challenges to this is I, I think unlike.
Traditional, let's say professional development and your story is
obviously endemic to what we, we see not only in education.
So I guess I would say two things.
One, that is not a unique story to education, right?
That is.
That is where every professional group goes to an event and whether
or not they view it as professional learning or a combination of
professional learning, expense paid time together, however they view it.
I think we should be fair to educators that that's not a uniquely educational
vantage point.
Jethro Jones: I, I agree.
Joshua Barnett: The second part I would say is amongst those individuals that
would go, um, I think it's what is the expectation that I'm gonna come back
with, that our industry and our field needs to think about is, as you noted.
Maybe you were a teacher leader or you were part of the group that went to that
training, but what was the expectation?
What were the opportunities for someone to return with?
It was the expectation that by presence and by going you're, you're going to
get exposed to new ideas and maybe you bring them back, maybe you share
them with some other people, but what was the actual system and structure
for that opportunity for learning?
And what I would say is, unlike traditional professional development, when
we establish teacher leader roles with the right expectations to ensure that they are
charged with, given the autonomy too and the infrastructure to support and build
the capacity of other teacher leaders, well now the expectation for me to go to
that event is that I know I'm there to.
And transfer that learning back to the instructional capacity
of every one of my teachers.
But not only am I charged with that, I have the, I have the opportunity,
the structure is built, and that's what our organization has
spent all of our time working on.
Building that capacity and those leadership opportunities
through formalized roles is then.
My job is to return back, go to Jethro's class, go to Josh's class, go to all the
other classrooms, meet with that cluster or professional learning team, talk with
them about the strategy, and I realize I'm the conduit from that national or
regional training back to that strategy.
Working in my classroom, my school, my building, my community.
Well, that changes the way that I am.
Approaching it, and I'm bringing that back with a collaborative
mindset as the expert.
And I think that's where we've missed it.
Our, our, our approach is let's send people to, to an idea.
Maybe they get a strategy, maybe they don't, maybe they had a good time.
But if we build the infrastructure where the purpose of attending that event
is to return back, and we talk about this at our events, at our national
conference this year, we had 15.
And, and that's, that was my speech at the ballroom was
we're in this room to transfer.
That is our job today is to learn and transfer the learning We
gleaned from our time together to every building from Alaska to South
Carolina and everywhere in between.
And that's what our job as an, as a gathering was not
to meet together for the sake
of meeting.
Jethro Jones: Yeah.
those are solid responses and I think having that as the plan of, if
we're gonna send you to this, then.
We're, we're gonna expect some sort of integration, some sort of plan, some
sort of work to make it stick with, with our teachers here in, in our school.
So the other aspect of that is that the only.
Professional development or training that counts.
So we say teachers need to be in, especially teachers, teacher leaders
need to be owners of their own learning.
But we only count or give credit to specific approved.
Aspects of learning opportunities.
So going to this conference is an approved learning thing and we don't value and
appreciate the learning that teachers get.
That is not a sanctioned activity.
Does that make sense?
Joshua Barnett: It, it does.
I think that goes back to, um, again, however, we, we want to set up the right
structure for that to be effective.
And again, rather than, than the, the old model of, let's call it seat time
or sort of what we, what we often have talked about in the field, right?
Is simply time in the space or years in service are not the most, does not make
someone the most effective educator.
Rather, let's start with a different, different premise.
We know that effective educators, right are, are ultimately the cornerstone
of student success, and we know those who can get those best results and
are committed to, um, building trust.
Being instructional experts and having that credibility we talked about earlier.
Um, they wanna move forward in their profession and, and they
wanna not necessarily always move into administration.
So that's why, again, we think about it as a system-wide approach.
For how can these individuals take on these types of roles where we need
effective school leaders and system leaders and we need those individuals
not to have to feel like unicorns, right?
That are transforming and putting everything on their back, but ultimately
have these other individuals who are charged with supporting building
the capacity of other educators.
And we know that's why it's one of the most effective systemwide approaches
to sustainable improvement for student achievement across the board.
Um, what I would also say, I guess is in re in response to your question is again,
why kind of, why are we in this situation?
Right?
Um, as you noted, it's not really just about how we count professional learning.
It's, it's overall, why is our profession challenged with that
turnover and, and, and challenged with recruitment and, and struggling to
necessarily get individuals to join this profession, stay in this profession.
And what we see and hear right all the time is educators cite perhaps a lack
of support, a challenging environment, lack of opportunity recognition for,
for a handful of reasons that they might not stay in the profession.
And we see those as things we can affect.
We talked earlier about recognition through the Oscars of teaching
the Milken Educator Awards as a fundamental way to recognize excellence.
Our organization provides what we call a Founder's Award for a school, which
is again, recognition of a school that's committed to building teacher excellence.
We have a district educator effectiveness award that is.
Built on the idea of identifying a district that is committed to
building educator excellence.
So we are recognizing.
And rewarding those locations that we see doing those types of things.
And we also see that there's an opportunity for, again, these teacher
leaders to be that super fuel, right?
In a school system.
So it's about recognizing them, but it's also about rewarding them for taking
on these types of roles, um, right.
And what they can do.
As we talked earlier, it's about being that bridge between an
administration and every classroom.
I. Instead of expecting the, the principals of our schools to do
everything at all times, in all ways for everyone, can we build an infrastructure
around them that allows the group, the leadership team to meet the demands of
the profession and provide that high caliber support for every teacher.
Jethro Jones: Yeah.
Well, I've got, I have about a million more questions now, so we're not gonna
get to all of them and that's okay.
But one, a couple of things that you talked about is our, we are
challenged with recruitment and turnover, and that's a big deal.
And one of the things that I talk about a lot is that you need to
build a pathway to get people.
Into your classrooms and provide opportunities from early when they're
not ready, not certified yet to help them move into that position.
And, um, partnering with with local colleges to, I, I have a, a connection.
Someone who wanted to be a teacher and didn't find out until.
The end of her first semester of student teaching when all she had left was
one more semester of student teaching.
She didn't find out until then that teaching was not a good idea for her.
And like that I. Irresponsibility of her college of not giving her opportunities
to be in front of kids and experience what it's like to be a teacher, is just, to me,
malpractice and totally unforgivable that.
She spent three and a half years going to college preparing for this,
and then finally the last semester before she graduates, she's told.
She's not good enough and not cut out for it.
I think that is just abhorrent.
And so being able to provide pathways for people to come in is, is a powerful
thing and gives you an opportunity to see how people do and gives your
students in your school a pathway to become a teacher at that school
later or in that district later.
I think those things are things that, that districts have to be talking
about and planning on to make.
To deal with this, um, challenge that we have with recruitment and turnover.
Any comments on that before we go on?
Joshua Barnett: Yeah, I, I mean, I think, I think as you noted, we know
the data would tell us we're not getting enough talented individuals in the
profession, and that should, that should.
I should encourage all of us to pause and look at what's happening.
And we talked about some of those reasons, um, briefly earlier on,
on, again, just, just as recent, you know, an EdWeek report, I think
that was out last year, showed.
Right.
We have, I think over half, 55% I believe in the study indicated that
they were more interested in leaving the profession earlier than initially planned.
So we know the pipeline isn't where we've needed it to be.
And in those traditional education preparation programs, we know the
individuals in the profession maybe looking at other alternatives.
And again, we have the evidence, we have data that would tell us what's, what's
missing in those circumstances, right?
Lack of support, isolation in the classroom, lack of opportunities to
collaborate, lack of commensurate compensation, lack of opportunities
for leadership, lack of recognition.
And as I said earlier, our belief is a lot of those things are are solvable.
There are a lot of.
Issues that we can do to address those.
We can provide recognition for excellence.
We can create formal opportunities for leadership.
We can provide support for collaboration.
We can create less isolation, and our belief is that effective teacher leaders.
Are a solution to a great, many of those problems.
Um, and the, the commensurate compensation is one.
Nationally we should continue to talk about.
A lot of states have moved to increase base teacher salary
over the last few years.
That's been a conversation.
But amongst the other options, those are solvable problems in
our view, and we have evidence of ways that this has been solved.
We have national studies opportunities.
What has happened to improve those to your experience?
I have a first year teacher, or a first year, you know,
first year teacher daughter.
She's, she's just finished her first year.
Um, another daughter that's in her, you know, going into her
junior year and a teaching program.
And they need those opportunities to have exposure to students, as you said.
They can, we can believe and want to be in the profession, but.
Understanding what it means and what it feels like to actually walk in and sit
down and be the teacher of record earlier in your in your pathway is helpful.
Our organization has continued to partner with community colleges,
education preparation programs, alternative certification
programs, and even more recently.
Direct district based certification for states that allow that across the
country where a successful individual can go on a preparation program through
a direct district based certification model again, to help meet the needs
to the example that you said, we don't wanna have someone who spent two or
three years in a program learning about the profession and then depart.
Um, how did we not recognize, have conversations expose and gear up, but
more importantly, even if the person made it that far, what was it that
caused the person to transition out?
Was it an uncertainty over the lack of support and the continued runway?
Was there an off ramp that could have let that person join a
education studies program or other?
Adjacent avenue that could have led to a paraprofessional opportunity that
might've encouraged them to come back.
So there's a lot of conversations we need to continue to have, but I think our view
is we have the opportunity to transform this profession, make it, make it as
attractive as we know it should be, and ultimately regarded in the professional
capacity we know it should be.
That will be a step forward in allowing more great, um,
high powered individuals to
Jethro Jones: Well, yeah, and I, I think that's really key because when
you, when you're able to, if, if somebody goes in thinking I want to
be a teacher, and teacher turns out to not be the right thing for them,
I. What other options are available?
And we have this silly thing in education where we think, if you haven't done my
day today, then you, you can't help me.
And it's ridiculous.
Superintendents look at the state commissioner of education,
they're like, you haven't been a superintendent, therefore you can
understand what I'm going through.
Principals say you weren't a middle school principal as a superintendent.
You, my current superintendent was not a middle school
principal, therefore, he can't.
Get what I'm doing.
A math teacher will say, and my principal didn't teach math.
They taught language arts so they can understand that's arrogant
and inappropriate and we need to just get over that, first of all.
But second of all, there's a lot of other things tangential to education
that people could find success at.
And this poor woman that I'm talking about went on to go do things that
were not related to education at all.
And it was a missed opportunity in so many ways.
Then there are situations where teachers or principals get pushed out of their
schools or their classrooms and and those kinds of things happen where they could
still add a lot of value, but that it's not, there's not another path for them.
And we're too harsh of judges about somebody not being successful in a
certain circumstance when they could have been successful somewhere else.
And a, a good example of that is we had a. I had a science teacher who was, um, she
just, she just did not do great with it.
Really nice woman.
Really good at interacting with the kids, but just really
struggled to teach science.
And so after a while I was like, Hey, I. You like doing this art stuff, why
don't you have the kids do these like science notebooks and teach them how
to observe things scientifically and record it in these science notebooks?
And she had been an art teacher previously but had a, a science endorsement.
And so she started doing that and her whole classroom dynamic changed and it
was amazing and it was so wonderful.
And if she could have had the freedom.
To do that of her own volition rather than me telling her, you're
just not, you're not fitting in the, you're not fitting the mold.
You're not getting what we need done here.
If she would've had that.
Of her own volition to know I could do this and I could be successful with it.
It would've been a lot better for her, as it was, it turned out to be
a really negative experience because, um, her doing the things she cared
about and was passionate about was the last resort before I had to
say, you can't teach her anymore.
And it just wasn't a fair situation and, and.
It would've been really easy to judge her and say, you're a bad teacher.
But no, she was just in the wrong subject, and once we made it more of an
art class, she became a great teacher.
Now, the kids did not get the standards for science that they.
Would have if she had been a better science teacher.
But at that point, I mean, I didn't really care at that point because
they weren't learning anything anyway, and nobody was happy.
At least now everybody was happy and was learning something, even if it
wasn't exactly what we had wanted.
And there are, there are different pathways and ways for people
to be involved, um, that that could provide them benefit.
Joshua Barnett: Well, I, I think in that example, you know.
Again, numerous conversations and in, in district offices and school,
school offices around the country, that's, that's not uncommon, right?
What you, what you shared is not an uncommon feeling of, I have an
individual, my al, my alternative to this individual might be an
emergency cert, a long term sub.
A parapro who doesn't, can't be the teacher of record, or, or do
I shuffle these kids into other classrooms and, and overwhelm the
couple of other teachers I have.
So sometimes we, we don't have great options.
The option is not simply obviously just getting another great
high-powered science teacher.
Um, so we have to be creative and thoughtful about what is the right
solution for that, um, across the board.
And we work with districts in every configuration from rural and remote to
tribal to border, to urban, to everything.
And again, I think that has given us a sense and a lens of understanding.
And that's what we tried to capture in this book is how do you draw upon
a solution that can really help.
And identify as as a school leader, as a system leader, as you were talking about,
what do you do in that circumstance?
and, and and we provide very practical conversations about
what teacher leaders should do.
But our view is that teacher leaders are a key solution to.
Part of this problem.
So in that circumstance, in the example you just gave, you went in
as the, as the school leader and tried to provide an alternative idea.
Um, and again, you have a lot of other things on your plate.
You're trying as a school leader to, to catch lots of things.
And your major concern is, I, I don't wanna lose this person 'cause
I don't have a good alternative.
But the power of that teacher leader role working alongside a school leader is to
help them coach, prioritize instructional leadership, bring in those strategies,
but also have the ability and the time and the release to follow up and say.
Teacher A I was here last week, we talked about this.
Um, we've gotten you a better solution that's now working, but here's a way
where now you've moved in this path that the profession has remained interesting
to you and you wanna stay into it.
Here's how I think we could infuse some of those science standards,
maybe into the approach you're currently using, or a way for us to
think about it in a different way.
And I think that leads us to, again, a couple of, a couple of keys as a
profession that we should think about, um, and why teacher leaders are critical.
I I think, I think in that case, what we see is, is teacher leaders can
really help all of us, um, get it right rather than trying to be right.
And I think that's one of the key challenges, right, that school
leaders face all the time is they are, you are endlessly making
decisions, um, because the, the, the position can feel un untenable.
But if you have another person around you again to work with you to be
that bridge and you know they've got the opportunity to release time and
they're not in it, they're not in that.
Same role.
It lets you do certain parts.
It lets them do certain parts.
Um, so again, it helps us all get it right rather than, than
ultimately just trying to be right.
I think the second part is, I think professionally and and I'll, I'll go
out on a limb and say this, but I think that, I think we need to be reminded
as professionals in equal parts, if not more so than we need to be instructed.
And what I mean by that, right, is lots of times we may have learned
or seen or shared or been exposed to good strategies, good solutions.
But in the profession we don't often have that hand, that person who's around to
help us with quick corrections, hallway conversations, a discussion, the routine
solution, um, where I can just pop next door or someone's coming into my room.
Periodically with regular cadence and saying, oh, I noticed this happened.
Um, remember here's a good strategy for when that occurs, but rather if
the building principles can only show up once to twice of a semester, and
for a drive through observation, you don't get that reminded and therefore
you feel back to our conversation about going to a conference.
You feel like you always need to go get a new solution.
When in reality, most of our world is built around reminders, right?
Reminders to put our seatbelt on, to put our, I mean, we're reminded
to do all these types of things, but in our profession we don't.
We want to learn all the time.
We don't often wanna be reminded that we need to do good strategies, and
that's where these roles are critical.
And the third thing I would say is that teacher leaders really
make those localized solutions.
So in the example you just gave.
Right.
If I went to a national conference, I might learn a strategy, but how do I
take that strategy I learned and apply it to the circumstance you just gave me?
And that's where that teacher leader is critical because they know.
The community, the system, the school, the family, the nature of the children
in every classroom, because they bring that filter for the localized solution
and they help translate that national strategy or best curriculum or new idea
from the state department, from the school system, whoever brought it forward.
And they bring it into the school because they know how to translate it.
And that's why we think these profess, these professional positions
are again vital to rebounding our profession and elevating the
opportunity for every student.
Jethro Jones: Yeah, I, I absolutely agree with a lot of that, especially
the idea of localized solutions.
Um, I. It's all well and good if there's data saying this specific thing works.
But if you know that it doesn't work in your school, there's no point in
in going through all the effort to make it and try to force it to work
when you know it's not going to work.
And, and you know that because you're there and you've seen and
you've been there and you've seen these things work and not work.
And so there are things that you can shortcut and use.
Your own experience and wisdom to make those decisions.
And this is one of those keys, like when we were talking about
ownership of their learning.
Like you don't just learn things only from going to a national conference or
only from taking a course at a college.
You learn things every, every single day.
And that piece about being reminded about what works.
And one of my favorite examples of this was I was, I was a second
year teacher and w was I would ask, I would give students direction.
I. Ask them a question, and then I would interrupt myself and say
something that I forgot to say or I'd say, all right, everybody get to work.
Oh, one more thing I forgot is this.
And I did that all the time.
And my partner teacher who was, who'd been around for a while, he was
like, Hey, when you do that, you like sabotage yourself every single time.
And I was like, oh, what do I do instead?
And he said, just stop and think for a minute and say, do I, have
I given them all the information?
Then say, alright, now you can get to work.
Like, that's it, that's all you have to do.
It's not rocket science.
It's very simple.
And and that helped a ton.
And I, I was able to change that behavior and then every time I noticed
somebody else doing it, I was able to say, oh, hey, I see what you're doing.
I've done that too.
Here's the advice I got and it works.
So the question that we didn't get to.
And I would love to have you back on again in the future because I
feel like we could go down so many different paths in our conversation.
The question we didn't get to is what the role of the
principal is in this situation.
'cause a lot of the things you said, the five things are all
traditionally principal roles.
And so, um, for, you know, we'll, I'll have you back on and we'll
talk more about the role of the principal specifically and, um.
Because we're, we're kind of running up on time here, but
this was a great conversation.
The last question that I ask is about principals.
What is one thing that a principal can do this week to be
a Transformative leader like you?
Josh?
Joshua Barnett: Well.
Say, having trained and worked with 10,000 system and school leaders, um,
I would, I would say that the, the key strategy that we would, we would focus
on and encourage is to rely on those positions that are around us for success.
Um, that, that, that the opportunity to be a group and to have those
other leaders, um, teacher leaders.
Content leaders, other individuals that are there, um, to let them and
their expertise be a part of that conversation to create high expectations,
um, and equitable opportunities for every classroom and every student.
I think those are key.
Um, being a, being a leader, a school leader, a system leader,
a state leader as you, as you shared, it's hard to do any job.
Um, and none of us have been everything.
And if, if any of us could be everything by the time we got to
it, people would say, well, it's been so long since you were me,
you don't know this anymore anyway.
Um, so it's not possible for all of us to do all those things, but I. School
leaders should really, um, take time to recognize that, that they have
talent and capabilities around them.
Lean on the capacity of those others.
Allow us all to have continuous learning, collaboration, focus on data.
And again, I would go back to those three points.
Teacher leaders and instructional leadership teams.
They help us get it right rather than trying to be right.
Um, they can help us be reminded rather than simply seeking new instruction and
new solutions, and ultimately, they can help us ensure localized solutions are
carried out in every classroom across the
system.
Jethro Jones: So let's, let's be really actionable.
What's something that a principal can do to rely on a teacher leader this week?
What would be your advice?
How can they do that?
Like, what action step can they take to do that?
Joshua Barnett: I think giving them the time to go through the
building and have a conversation with every teacher in the building.
So the exact example you gave about that partner who said, I gave a key
strategy, and then I was able to hopefully follow up and observe you and say,
oh Jet, I saw you use that strategy.
Great job.
But that took knowing you being present and have that capability.
So I would say give the teacher leaders in your building time to have access
to other teachers that will create the culture of the high expectations.
Jethro Jones: Very good.
Um, this, this has been awesome.
Thank you so much for being part of this and, um, what's your
preferred way of people reaching out and connecting with you?
Joshua Barnett: What we'd love for anyone who'd be interested in, in the
book or our organization, certainly go to NI e.org, visit our website,
see more about what we've done, the data and impact of our reach.
Certainly follow our organization at iet.
Teach or follow me personally at Barnett.
Jethro Jones: Excellent.
Thank you very much for being part of Transformative principle
on the B Podcast Network.
It's been great chatting with you today, Josh.
Thank you.
Joshua Barnett: Thank you.
Thanks for having me.