Educational accountability places a premium on a teacher’s ability to close achievement gaps. For a myriad of reasons, the academic achievement data of children in your class are scattered on the score sheet. An effective teacher will take this scattergram and teach so that every child’s next achievement score will cluster at or beyond the measure for a full-year’s growth in learning, and, there will be a diminished difference between the clustered scores of each disaggregated sub-group of students. In order to be an “effective” teacher, this is what must be done.
BA, or Before Accountability, I would commonly observe a teacher analyzing their students’ achievement data and resting their eyes upon the names of children whose data was significantly below that of the class norms. Usually this would be one to two children and they would become the teacher’s “special project.” These children would need “special” and very personalized instruction in order to cause their next achievement data to be more like their classmates. Teachers routinely picked their “projects” and did whatever was necessary for the achievement scores of those children to “jump.” That was BA.
Today’s educational expectation reads well but is very amorphous when a teacher stands in front of the class and scans two dozen or more faces. How can every child be a “project?” The theory of closing such gaps says, “Disaggregate the data, look at each face as a weighted score, pick out the faces with the lowest weighted scores and those students are your special projects while your quality teaching advances the learning of all other children.” The reality of projects today is in the faces.
Every face in a classroom represents a child who is looking back at their teacher wondering “Am I your project? Are you thinking that my achievement will provide the leap in numbers that will show you to be an effective teacher?” They are waiting for you to recognize them, understand how their needs mesh with your needs, and make them your project.
So, point your mental finger and to yourself say, “You, you and you. We need to grow you by almost a year and a half. This next group needs to grow at least a full year. You over there and you and you and you need to move your scores by eight months. You scan a large group, knowing they need to grow by several months. And, you and you, not many are you, are already at this year’s target – let’s see how much we can grow you.”
The pressure is on. The administrators know the scores and they also have seen the faces that must experience the greatest growth. At the same time, the administration has been pressured by parents of the two children who already have achieved more than your grade level. They want assurance that you will continue the wonderful achievement of their children so that they will be two years or more beyond their classmates.
So you scan the faces once again to make visual contacts that would sound a lot like this.
“We have a lot to do. I will be seem like a second skin to my first group because we have things to unlearn as well as learn. As your second skin, I will sit with you to make certain you understand what to do, how to do, and check that you always do it right. You may squirm but you will not escape my hard attention and in June you will be at grade level.
Now, I am looking at my groups that need to grow at least a grade level this year. I will be your shadow because shadowing is the way I cause children who are learning on schedule to stay on schedule. Although I will allow you to wander a bit, I will check your understanding every day. We will find what you need to know and do and ways of doing it together.
You kiddos who are within months of our grade level targets will also make a full year’s growth. I will hover above you to steer your learning but you will organize and conduct most of it. There are many ways to learn and you will experience these through our work.
Finally, my pair who are already a grade level ahead of the class, you will be more than that when we reach June. Together, we will talk about how you will achieve your goals and I will stand to the side to non-directively push your learning. We will assess your understanding of this grade level curricula to assure your foundations, but move on to new learning independent of your classmates.”
Visual contracting says “I see you and you see me. This is what I am going to do and I know what you are going to do. When I nod, you will know that the game is on.”
Nodding is a unique educational recognition. No one in a court of law would claim that shared nods represent a legal contract. Yet, in the classroom, when an effective teacher looks a student in the eye and nods, there is an understanding and there will be a reckoning.