A Different Way to Promote Teacher Well-being (#PYPCBookClub)

I’m going to be honest, I am skeptical about 2022.  Although Covid has impacted me on a minor scale personally, it’s quite clear that this pandemic isn’t over yet and I have had friends and colleagues who have really experienced its malingering effects. So, would putting a pause on professional learning be better for teacher well-being? Hmm….. 

Recently in a Teacher’s College Reading and Writing Project’s coaching institute Brooke Geller spoke about how important professional development is, especially during this time because teachers need to know (build capacity) and need to grow (have motivation). When we engage in meaningful and authentic professional learning experiences, it helps to fill our teachers’ emotional tank, as they feel reignited with purpose. But training and PLCs are not enough to sustain this spark. As leaders, we have to recongize how fragile and fleeting aspirations may be, thus kindle teachers enthusiam and interest. More importantly, we have to be vunerable and stand shoulder to shoulder with our teachers, learning together so we can grow together. Moveover, Brooke cited some of the advice from Leading the Rebound, in which leaders have to be more explicit noticing and naming the causal relationships in teacher’s practice and how this effort leads to impact on student learning.  An example of a teacher conversation might  “I noticed that you updated your word wall and because you updated the word wall, I see that the kids are using it to discuss new vocabulary terms and reference it for spelling.” In times like this, teachers need to know that their efforts are making a difference. Even our best, most talented and resilent educators need to be openly acknowledged. 

This insight could not have come at a better time. I am in the midst of reading  another great book, A Guide to Documenting Learning,   in our PYP Coordinator Book Club. Although this book by Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano and Janet Hale is aimed mostly at teachers, it challenges all members in a school community to consider how they can make their learning visible. They bekon all of us in education to embue the qualities of a life-long learner:

• the curiousity and risk-taking of a Researcher
• the restless spirit of an Adventurer
• the dedication to unlearning and relearning as we make theories like a Scientist
• the imagination of a Story teller
• the courage of an Innovator

Thinking about my role as the coordinator, I feel I have an obligation not only to model this but to document these attributes in our teachers.  As a matter of fact, when I read this quote, I heard myself gasp outloud, as I recongized its signficance with professional learning:

You might agree that most teachers (like most adults) don’t know what they don’t know until they have an “ah-ha moment” or epiphany. Of course I can orchestrate self-reflection through the intentional use of thinking strategies in our meetings. But I want to stretch myself be a mirror in order to help teachers to see how they are as life-long learners as well as putting into focus the impact that they are making on student learning. I think I can not only proactively capture how learning is occuring but also provide noursishment to the souls of my teachers, making them aware that who they are and what they do matter. 

So as we begin our new term’s PLCs, I am making the intention to not only verbally praise teachers’ efforts towards self-improvement but also create artifacts of their learning journey (as well as the students) so I can model how to collect evidence of learning, but more importantly promote teacher well-being. And although I feel that 2022 feels a bit tenuous, I am excited by the prospect of demonstrating the growth and development of my amazing teachers.