Author: PH

Avoiding the “Waah, Waah, Waah” Effect

Sometimes I feel a bit like a broken record.  Or maybe it’s more like the “Charlie Brown Teacher” version of an instructional coach.  Why does it feel like no one is really listening to or doing what I say?  If you feel like this too, maybe you’re making the same mistakes I did.  Before you blame your staff, take a look at yourself to see if a new approach would be more effective.

Let’s take a closer look at the problem: I generally start out very excited about implementing something in the school that I think will make a huge difference for the students.  I spend time preparing great professional development sessions to support research-based teaching best practices.  At the meeting the staff seems receptive and excited as well.  Then as a follow-up, I send out friendly reminders through emails and morning announcements.  I provide the teachers with handouts and schedules and everything I think they need to make the initiative successful.  I provide feedback on lesson plans and walkthroughs.  To my dismay and frustration, I realize that despite my best efforts (and hours of prep on my end) only a small percent of the teachers are implementing the initiative the way I intended.  Why aren’t all the teachers implementing this new technique or strategy?

One thing I have been learning as an Instructional Coordinator is that doing too much for the teachers is almost as bad as doing too little.  My boss encourages me not to do all the thinking for the teachers, but to ask the right questions to get them to discover my message.  This is hard for me!  I try to make life easier for the teachers by showing them everything they need to do.  Unless the teachers discover for themselves the significance behind why they need to do something, it will be just another chore that they are being made to do.  This is where the “Waah, waah, waah” (Charlie Brown teacher) effect comes into play.

This method of instructional coaching really sounds just like discovery learning that we encourage teachers to use with their students.  This approach can be like having the students discover the effects of weathering and erosion instead of just talking about it or reading about it in a book.  In my opinion, when teachers learn by doing they are more likely to apply the skills taught and understand the significance or adopt the teaching practice as their own.

As a practical example, last week my principal and I sat down and found a new way to unpack the TEKS (grade level standards).  The goal is for teachers to better understand what they are to teach and create a calendar for teaching the upcoming grading period.  Rather than just showing the teachers what we came up with (which would be much quicker), we met with each grade-level team during planning times and walked them through the same process we completed last week.  It took a long time, and we are still not done (we plan to meet again Wednesday), but the teachers are really connecting to the process and voluntarily putting in extra time without my need to email or nag incessantly.

Learn more about our discovery learning technique for unpacking the TEKS (or your state’s standards) in our upcoming book and/or PIER-R trainings!

Motivation

As an educational leader I’ve heard it so many times… “The students just don’t seem to care.”  “I keep telling them that they need to work harder.”  “They are so low that they can’t do the work.”

You can see it in the teachers’ interactions with students… “How many times do I have to tell you to be quiet?”  “We are going to stand here until you can be perfectly still and quiet.”  “If you don’t sit down and get quiet I’m going to call your parents.”

It is so easy for teachers who are on the front lines of education to run out of ideas to motivate their students.  Some call it “Teacher Burn-Out,” but I call it “Teacher Run-Out,” when we’ve run out of ideas.  We often don’t even realize that we are blaming the students, their parents, the curriculum, or “whatever” when really the problem is we need to try something new to motivate our students.  Even the best teachers with the best intentions will reach their limit at some point.

How can you tell when you’ve reached your limit?  How do you know when students have lost engagement and motivation?  Here are some warning signs:

  1. Your students are talking in class about things that have nothing to do with your lesson.
  2. You find yourself repeating directions constantly.
  3. You feel your blood pressure rising.
  4. You think your class is “so low,” “so slow,” or “so loud.”

So what can we do when we reach our limit?

Engagement, one of the five pillars of educational success according to PIER-R, is a living, growing, organism.  What motivates students today may not work tomorrow due to a million different factors that influence our classes every day.  Truthfully, this is why I love education – each day is different than the one before it.  This means that we, as educators, need to be sensitive to those changes and willing to try new things when the old “tricks of the trade” stop working.

The number one BEST thing you can do is ask your colleagues about new ideas.  My last year in the classroom I worked with an amazing team of fourth grade teachers.  We would share ideas every day which really helped to fill in the idea “gaps” when one of our teammates hit their limit.  Just yesterday I saw one of these teachers, and we visited for a few minutes before she had to go to a meeting.  She shared with me a video that she used the other day with her students, and I would like to share it with you.  We need to remember that every day is our opportunity as educators to make a difference with our students.  We also need to teach our students that every day is their opportunity to become something great.

Enjoy the video, use it with your students, and thanks, Mrs. Deguchi, for sharing!