Consider this profile. “I am a professional educator with an earned baccalaureate from a teacher preparation program at our state university. I am an English major who is an expert in causing children to use language to learn, to clarify and illuminate their understanding of complex and complicated concepts, to communicate with clarity, and to explore the world through the application of language skills. Children I have taught have excelled in our school and in their education and careers after high school and consistently communicate their successes with me. After twenty years’ teaching in our school, I remain professionally challenged to be a better teacher. I love being a teacher in our school.”
And, reconcile this profile with this reality. “I cannot overcome the extreme anxiety I feel when an administrator or school board member or parent enters my classroom while I am teaching. Being watched while I teach interferes with my relationship with my students and interrupts my ability to be the teacher I know I am. Their presence causes me to worry about everything I say and do. I understand that administrators are required to evaluate me and board members and parents can visit my classroom, but they cause me to be insecure and overly anxious as a teacher. And, mentors and teaching coaches also cause me to be overly circumspect when they observe my teaching.”
I am pleased to say that almost all teachers in our local school fit the first paragraph. As a faculty, they are well-educated, well-prepared, skillful and experienced teachers. In the aggregate, their characteristics make ours an excellent faculty.
At the same time, I am dismayed that almost all teachers in our local school are afflicted with insecurity and anxiety when the black box of their classroom is opened to others. It doesn’t matter if I walk into their classroom or stand outside an open doorway. As a group, teachers like and want the security of their black box classroom and become highly anxious when their work is being observed let alone evaluated.
Education is fraught with over-generalizations. A handful of teachers in our school welcome visitors to their classroom and do not demonstrate or speak of insecurity arising from being observed. To a person, they say that observation raises anxiety, but they don’t find it to be a negative anxiety.
When my house was being constructed, I liked to watch the work in progress. One day I asked the carpenters if they bent over more nails they were pounding when I was present and watching than when I was not. “No, it usually is a knot in the wood I cannot see that causes me to bend a nail. And, I will curse the knot if you are watching or not watching. I may bend about one nail in a hundred regardless of who is around.” I asked the same of the plumbers. “Your watching me does not change the way I install this sink or toilet. I know what I am doing and just do it. And, your presence will not make the water run any sooner. In fact, if you keep asking questions, you won’t have water until next week.”
I realize the impropriety of generalizing large from small samples. Yet, the insecurity that arises when black box teaching is observed intrigues me. I do not compare teaching with carpentry or plumbing, or vice versa, but I do wonder about the root of observational tension. What is it in teaching that causes so many teachers to be overly anxious when being observed?
Without a research model, I posit these;
- Causing children to learn has a rich research base, yet remains an inexact science conducted predominantly in single-teacher classrooms with all the variables that a random assignment of children in a diverse community can raise. The most expert of teachers faces times when what children bring to the classroom from home and community obscures the best of lesson plans. And, as expert teachers know, they must deal with the external before they can approach the internal. Observers must realize this and shape their conclusions commensurately. If causing a class of children to learn was easy, anyone could do it.
- Teaching is an extremely interpersonal interaction between teacher and student swayed more often by the affective than the cognitive. “My teacher likes me” may be the single most important motivator for student learning. The management of this affect tips student readiness to learn. It is not difficult to discern children in a classroom who strongly believe “my teacher does not like me.” Work on the affective to get to the cognitive.
- Education is built upon a variety of goals, often too many and more often too transient, and a teacher is expected to be effective on every goal. Without pre-agreement of the purpose of the observation, it is reasonable for a teacher to be dismayed and disgruntled in the vacuum of “what are they looking for today?” Observers and teachers need to talk about observations often enough so that teachers understand what and why observers, board members especially, make observations. We need more talk about opening the black box.
- Every observation is a real or pseudo evaluation of sorts. Administrators have a clear and defined responsibility to observe teachers for effective educator characteristics. Observations combined with other measures, including student achievement, comprise professional evaluation. No other observers of classroom teaching are formal evaluators, yet classroom teachers rightfully know that every non-administrator observer also is reaching evaluative conclusions from the observations. Hence, observation equals evaluation, some official and most unofficial. Observers also need to understand and honor this knowledge. Being observed by others is a natural and rational event in a school setting.
- Contemporary politics have converted union-protected, tenured teachers into “at will” employees. The loss of union and tenure status means that, given a due process review, a bad evaluation may cause teacher termination without recourse. “At will” employees may be anxious when their work is observed. Observers need to know that Act 10 in Wisconsin changed the playing field and many veteran teachers still are not comfortable in the new realities.
- Data is the current driver of educational accountability. Data that is objective and standardized can be understood. Data is now part of every teacher’s professional evaluation. Information derived from observations that are subjective and not-always-standardized can be harder to understand, to explain, and to mutually agree upon. A teacher may rightfully be anxious in wondering “What data snapshot will be derived from this observation?
- Most unofficial observations do not result in feedback to the teacher. On the one hand, feedback from an unofficial observation can make it a more official observation. But, no feedback leaves a teacher wondering “Just what did they see?” A non-evaluative observation deserves feedback from the observer to the observed, if nothing else than to repeat “this was non-evaluative.”
Against these rationales for anxiety, I respond with “Get over it and get used to it”. As a member of the school board, I represent the voters of the community in every aspect of our public education. The board hires a professional faculty and staff, an administrative team to execute board policy and all relevant school laws and rules, and sets district direction and procedural regulations through policy. More than this, board members have a obligation to formulate first-hand information about the schools so that, as a school board, members can attest to the quality of district operations. Whereas, most information a board member receives is second- and third-hand as reported and presented by the administration, first-hand observations are invaluable for a board member to be able to say “I know this…” I also reiterate, “Your principal makes evaluations; board members do not evaluate. I appreciate the work that you do everyday to cause children to learn.’
As with all human endeavors, if you know what to expect, don’t be overly surprised by your experiences. A black box classroom may be a teacher’s professional workplace 90% of a school day, as everyone in the schoolhouse goes about their daily business and no one is looking in. But in knowing that observations and evaluations are part of their professional work, every teacher should become accustomed to and ready for eyes looking at him or her. Opening the doors and windows of the black box is good educational policy and practice – good for all concerned.