Details, Details

It's all in the details.
Isn't that true about everything?

Details are in HOW we use our time to do something, maybe even to do our best. Maybe the details lie in using our best judgment on what gets our attention, when, how much, and for how long.

Even in the things we value most, is it even humanly possible to always give your "all"?  Maybe giving your best at any given moment in any given circumstance equates into giving your "all."

Does our best work need to look the same across every classroom--or even in the same classroom--each and every day? Should it?

Teachers are talking about never earning a "highly effective" on their evaluations because their evaluators told them that they "weren't looking for that aspect" on that day during that particular classroom visit. While, presumably, most aspects of the scoring rubric would be visible on any given day, do we recognize that it might make more sense to look for the details of what is being done, attended to, during a classroom visit and the professional decision-making involved rather than entering with a predetermined list that removes the human element from the very human job of teaching and learning in a classroom?

Some teachers are feeling like this practice diminishes the complexities of their plans, decisions, and insights, especially when done via digital feedback and largely without conversation.

Change and opportunities for building mutual respect are hiding in the missing detail of having evaluators take time to check their understanding of their observations. Without attention to respectful conversation to check for understanding, fear and frustration take over...and then we are afraid to attend to the details of taking time during the uninterrupted reading block to send a sick child to the nurse or to start math 3 minutes later than planned because a child needed a little extra help during the previous lesson... And so on and so on.

When I'm watching "Days of Our Lives" I often lament, "Can you believe s/he said/did that?"  My husband's solemn, matter-of-fact reply is always a jolting, "It's in the script!" I hope that teaching doesn't become only what is the "the script." Instead, look for the details of what we are thinking, saying, and doing in any given moment and take time to find out why. Understand that no one can give quality feedback without listening and thinking together.

That is where evaluators can find the truth of excellence in teaching--and do so with integrity that can help to set a tone and create a culture in which all educators and their students flourish.

When people (politicians and corporations) make decisions about the details of teaching (largely or completely ignoring the expertise of educators) we shouldn't be surprised by the lack of understanding of the details of our work or that they want to treat education like a business with data about the robots that come off the assembly line. Even though businesses see themselves as the customers of our workforce, they should not be the ones driving instructional decisions. Patients, though customers of doctors, are not capable of deciding what is taught, how, and by whom, in medical schools. Most people would agree that the idea is ridiculous; so why do we accept interference from every angle of education? Why does everyone assume expertise.

Here is what Steve Jobs said about taking advice from customers, when those customers might not be able to imagine your work and thinking:

"This is what customers pay us for - to sweat all these details so it's easy and pleasant for them to use our computers. We're supposed to be really good at this. That doesn't mean we don't listen to customers, but it's hard for them to tell you what they want when they've never seen anything remotely like it."


No politicians, not corporate America, and not even most parents can imagine the details of teaching in America in 2013, nor how important decisions are made thousands of times each day.  Our decisions are in the details that are not and cannot be scripted. How can they know what they want or determine the details of what works when our reality has never been seen before?


Our country's future is in the details... valuing our children and seeing them as something far greater than a number... valuing teachers and accepting that teaching requires an education from teaching colleges that can help prepare us for the complex decisions we make each day... and then trusting us to do our jobs.