Gene Tavernetti: Welcome to Better Teaching, Only Stuff That Works, a podcast for teachers, instructional coaches, administrators, and anyone else who supports teachers in the classroom.
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I Am Gene Tavernetti 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.
Today's episode is a little bit different.
Actually, it's much different in that I don't have a guest today.
I just have a few things, a few thoughts that I wanted to share with everybody as we wrap up the school year here in the United States.
And one of the things that I've learned after I've done this work, working with, uh, schools as an outside consultant since 2003, is that I don't know exactly what works in schools.
And when schools ask me, you know, what they can do, what, what's something that they know is gonna work, I, I don't know.
Sometimes things work, uh, in particular ways.
Sometimes they're not as successful.
And I tell them, "I don't know exactly what's gonna work, but I can tell you some things that won't work."
And I never volunteer those things.
But if I catch wind of something that they're planning to do and I just wanna tell them, " I have a lot of experience with this, and I can tell you that is not gonna turn out the way that you think it's gonna turn out." How do I know that?
Is it because I'm so smart?
No.
I'll reiterate.
It's because since 2003, I've been watching these things, these initiatives come into schools and not be successful over and over and over again.
And what I thought I'd do is to share a few of those things that I've seen schools do that have not been successful and, again, what to do instead.
I think you'll have a opportunity to, to figure that out.
I can give some, some things that I've seen in schools that did succeed.
But again, I just don't want schools to move forward with things that do not work.
And why is that important?
It's important because we have teachers on our staffs who we label as resistant And I don't know if that's fair.
I don't know if that's fair.
I guess in the… If, if you took a moment in time and you said, "These teachers are resistant to X," I think you gotta go back and take a look at, the history of some of the things that have occurred.
Some of the things that have occurred over and over again, and I'm not saying anything particularly new here, but I just wanna point it out one more time, and that is the whole idea of the initiative of the year.
This year we're gonna be doing X, and how that X is many times, uh, rolled out to staff.
Many times it begins in the beginning of the year when teachers are welcomed back, and usually a contract, a teacher's contract, uh, will have, uh, several days that they will be working without students before school starts.
And a normal configuration of, let's say, three days might be, the day is devoted to district.
And the district will talk about, any policies, anything new, and introduce initiatives that they want the entire district to adopt during that year.
And so it's normally, again, a big, a big deal.
The entire, the staff from the entire district is there, and they wanna kick off, that program.
Then there's a day for the schools, and then the schools have an opportunity to do what- whatever they need to do to get the s- teachers ready.
And when I say get the teachers ready, it's usually maybe some procedures or maybe some things that show up as memes, like all the trainings that need to…
the mandatory trainings that, that need to happen every year, that the teachers roll their eyes at.
And, uh, I don't blame them.
I don't blame them one bit for many of the things that, that go on there.
But of all the things that don't work, that I can tell you are not effective, and that is deciding whatever your initiative for the year is, we're gonna start the year with a full-day training before school starts, before the students are there.
Now, why do I say that's a bad idea?
I'm, I'm gonna give you my perspective as an outside consultant Let's say that a school has determined or a district has determined that they want to, uh, do something about instruction, more effective instruction.
Maybe it's, it's, uh, uh, things from science of learning.
Maybe they want to develop, uh, an explicit teaching.
Maybe there are just things that they, that they decided that, they wanted to do, and let's assume for the most part that they're good things, that they would be effective things.
How do they introduce it?
They introduce it usually in the worst time possible, and what's the worst time possible?
Before school starts, where teachers are, excited about being back.
They are anxious about getting in their classrooms to be ready for students for the first day.
They are anxious about preparing their lesson plans for that first week, and so what do we do?
We put them in a room all day and talk about what we're gonna expect for the year and to give a training.
Now, let me tell you some reasons why I think that's a bad idea, and I'm gonna tell you this.
I have given those trainings.
I have led those trainings only after I have done everything I could to try to persuade the leadership in that school or that district not to do it.
Do not have an all-day training just days before school is gonna start.
Well, the teachers, the-- usually the argument from the school is, "Well, this is-- They're gonna be there.
They're all gonna be there," and I tell them, "They're gonna be there physically, but their mind is gonna be someplace else," if this is so important, if this initiative is so important, why are we going to be providing it at one of the worst times when, when teachers are gonna have the least attention?
So that's one reason why I think it's a bad idea.
Another reason why I think it's a bad idea is just how these things are proposed, how they are introduced, what I'm gonna say next does not only apply just to, uh, beginning of year staff development, uh, professional development, but at any time, and someone from the district or from the site will stand up, and they'll, they'll introduce the new initiative, and then they'll say, "Oh, we're gonna be-- We're gonna have the pleasure of being, uh, uh, trained today in X," and, and then they'll say something to the effect of, "Now, I want you to remember, this is-- this may not be something that you use all the time, but you're gonna put it in your tool belt."
And I just cringe.
I just cringe.
I'm thinking, "Wait a second.
You're asking these teachers to give up prep time to be prepared to be with students, to provide all this optional material for them, and not even have an expectation that they are gonna be using it?" But I'm gonna tell you, I, I have some ideas what might be better, but I'm gonna tell you that is not gonna be effective, and it's not gonna be effective for two reasons.
Number one, you've already told them that it's optional.
we're not even looking for you to use it.
Second reason it's not effective is that there's very rarely, if ever, any follow-up on what's discussed on that day, and if it is followed up, it's not followed up systematically.
It's some sort of random randomized type of thing, and how else can you do it but some sort of randomized, check-in with teachers because you've told them they don't need to do it.
So that whole day, that entire day that you have these teachers together, you decide this is the day when we have the least amount of attention when, when teachers may be here physically, but mentally they're someplace else.
This is when we're going to, uh, give them their first taste of this new most important thing that we're doing all year.
So if you have an opportunity
leaders, school leaders, district leaders to provide that training at another time, I would do You're gonna be much better off providing a two-hour training or a three-hour training that's focused at a time that is not when the teachers have their mind on something else.
So that's, that's the f- that's the first thing.
Boy, if I could talk, if I could convince schools and districts not to have a full day training before school starts, that would be one of the first things, that I would do Another thing that, uh, when we're talking about resistant teachers, again, I, I think so much of what they-- th-their reason for resistance are reasonable and that we should listen to them.
Now, th-this kind of piggybacks on the idea that we're gonna give a training with no follow-up that's optional.
That's just put it in your toolbox.
Talking to a teacher the other day and she said, "When they say put it in your toolbox, that means we're never gonna use it." So why are we spending that time?
What needs to happen differently?
Now, had an opportunity lately to work in a district with some teachers, and it was a cross-section of teachers.
And teach-- When I say a cross-section, we had teachers who were in their second year, and we had some very veteran staff.
And what we were working on in this district was, explicit instruction, evidence-based, uh, instruction, and then we followed it up with coaching.
after the-- Well, it wasn't an, almost an entire year, nearly an entire year, we asked the group, like, "When did you kind of, uh, make a shift in your thinking that what we're doing here was gonna be a little bit different?" And it was, and it was interesting.
you know, s-some people said, "Well, it wasn't the first day of training, but it was the second day of training.
I realized that what we were being told, what this training was about was different." And, uh, I kind of laughed and I said, "The first day?
You didn't, you weren't with us the first day?
We couldn't tell." Again, this was an experienced teacher, uh, and had been to a lot of trainings, and it was clear by body language and some of the responses that they weren't, they weren't there yet.
And so a couple teachers were like that.
Is-- They said it was the second day we realized something was gonna be different.
uh, some of the others said, "Well, it was the first time we did a coaching cycle," or, "It was the second time we did a coaching cycle." And then those teachers who said it was on the, the second day of training, these were experienced teachers.
They said, "This is when we knew something was different.
What was different this time is there was follow-up.
There was follow-through.
We had our principals involved in the training.
We had district people involved in the training.
We realized that, that this really was something that the district and the site was committed to."
And then the, and then the third thing was the things they were training in, being trained in made sense.
It made an impact, and they could see the impact on, on the positive impact on the students, you know, right away.
So it wasn't that they bought in initially.
They saw that what was different were the things that they were always upset about, was that, "Oh, you give us this training, and then there's never any follow-up.
And then you make us sit through these things, and there's never any follow-up.
You make us sit through these things when, when we've got other things on our mind." So I think one of the most important things, you know, when, when we talk about resistant teachers and we, and we look at those memes on social media, t-take a serious look at those things because there's a lot of truth in what they have to say.
Teachers are upset about, a lot of things, and they are very legitimate.
You know, a-another thing that we need to think about when we're working with teachers, and, and this is another reason getting back to that, uh, not to do that all-day training before school starts, is that, cognitive load, and we talk about cognitive load a lot when we're training teachers in explicit instruction, does not just apply to students It applies to everybody.
It applies to adults.
So when we're working with teachers all day, what are we trying to do?
It's convenient for us.
We, you know, w- w- we're making that decision to do this all-day training because it's convenient for us, not that it's best way to provide content to teachers.
It's not the best way to, to teach.
It's not the best way to provide practice, to rehearse, and, and all of those things that we know which makes, teaching and training effective.
So there's just so many reasons not to do that, that one of those first day backs before the teachers, before the teachers get there.
If it's important enough, if the content is important enough that everybody needs to know it, provide it at a time when everybody's gonna be most receptive.
And again, it's no different for adults than it is students.
So that's the first thing.
The second thing is make sure there's follow-up.
just like students, adults need to know what is important.
How do you know what's important is if we continually come back to points being made, important points being made.
Not only do we come back, but we provide training, we provide follow-up, we provide coaching, we provide check-ins.
We provide those things that, teachers need just like students need.
But here's the thing.
Again, thinking of resistant teachers.
Not every teacher needs the same type of support.
Do all teachers deserve support?
Yes, but it's gonna be very different.
And I, and I always give this as a, as a very crude example, and it's, in a way, it's kind of like MTSS for teachers.
And that is, if I'm working with an experienced teacher or an inexperienced teacher who is very, very skilled, my conversation with that teacher is gonna be very different than with a teacher who may be struggling in some areas.
And so if we don't differentiate how we provide support for teachers, all of the complaints that teachers have They're valid.
One size doesn't fit all.
You can't come in and tell me how to teach if you don't know what I'm doing, and that's absolutely correct.
And we always tell coaches, "Do not attempt to tell anybody, any teacher, how to get better without knowing what they already do."
Everybody has their strengths.
Everybody has their style.
Everybody has their personality.
And before you start working with a teacher about how to get better and following up on a training, you had better know who that teacher is.
Instead of, like, who is this person, who is this teacher as a person, that's interesting to know, and, and maybe in the long run it makes it, uh, your, your relationship, coaching relationship with that teacher better.
But I don't think that's the type of relationship that teachers really care about from somebody who's supporting them.
They want somebody who's gonna respect them.
They want somebody who's gonna respect their time.
They wanna know somebody who's gonna respect, uh, what they know already.
And they want you to be competent.
When you help them And they're spending a half hour or an hour of their time, you'd better be able to help them.
And if you can provide that support to a teacher in 10 minutes, do it in 10 minutes.
You do not have to, extend the time just because that's what you had scheduled.
And then I think that's, my final comment on this all-day, this all-day training before school starts.
I'll be hired many times, and in, in the beginning, I used to acquiesce when, when somebody said, "Well, we're gonna start at 8:00, and we quit at 3:00." And, um, you know, whatever, wherever we were during the day, I would say, "Oh, I've gotta stretch this.
I gotta stretch this time." And then when I became more experienced, I began pushing back.
I said, "No, that's way too long a time." What do you think is gonna be happening, in those final hours?
Most of the time, the most efficient and effective length of time for a training is maybe till 1:00.
Maybe.
You know, starting, you know, 8:00, 8:30 to 1:00.
They have a chance to have a few minutes for lunch, come back, wrap things up.
what the schools tell me is, "Well, we're gonna do that because that's their contract day." So what?
So what that's their contract?
If they're, if they have to stick around till 3:00, let's finish the training, send them back to their classrooms to do whatever they wanna do.
And whatever they wanna do is usually what they need to do to prepare because let's face it, one of the most, uh, important resources that a teacher has is their time, and we don't wanna take that away from them.
We have to respect the limited time they have.
They're asked to do so many things.
We cannot ask them to take on anything more that is gonna be outside of a contract day.
And People, outside people, uh, principals, whomever, be familiar with that contract.
That contract exists for a reason.
respect the teacher, respect their associations, respect their unions, respect those things, and you know what's gonna happen?
They're gonna see what you're asking them to do in a different light.
They're gonna see that this is different.
This isn't the initiative of the year.
This isn't the shiny new thing.
This isn't you know, the new thing.
That this is gonna be different.
So I'm gonna wrap up here.
If you can do it at all, change what you're planning to do when the teachers come back for that back to school.
Don't put the most important new content, the most important new training, during a time when teachers are not gonna be paying attention.
That at, at best, you're gonna have split attention because they have so much to do to prepare for school.
having said that, I hope got something out of this monologue here.
Uh, it's just that, at, at this time of the year, as we're planning for next year, this is the time to make those plans.
This is the time to let the teachers know, "This is different.
We're gonna be introducing something, but we're gonna be introducing at a time that is more, amenable to having your full attention.
We're gonna follow up at a time that doesn't make you have extra work.
We're gonna support the work that you're doing." And I think if you do those things, just those things, I think the, those resistant teachers, you don't have to get them chocolate.
You don't have to, you know, do many of the things that they talk about, these, these personal relationships.
It's not about that.
It's really about listening and paying attention to their valid concerns and doing what you can do to address those to make your new initiatives Different.
This is going to be different.
This isn't something for your tool belt.
th-this is not something that you might use at some point.
This is something that you're going to use.
This is ultimately useful to you.
All right, thank you.
I hope you enjoyed this.
I look forward to, uh, meeting many of you, uh, in the near future at some conferences that I will be speaking at.
Uh, namely, I'll be in Atlanta at the end of, uh, this week and then in Houston, and then I'm very happy to be speaking with, uh, at Laura Stamm's conference in Wyoming, and I think that is in, that is in October.
So thank you for listening and hope to see you soon If you're enjoying these podcasts, tell a friend.
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You can follow me on BlueSky at gTabernetti, on Twitter, x at gTabernetti, and you can learn more about me and the work I do at my website, BlueSky.
Tesscg.
com, that's T E S S C G dot com, where you will also find information about ordering my books, Teach Fast, Focus Adaptable Structure Teaching, and Maximizing the Impact of Coaching Cycles.