Stop Telling Teachers What to Do | A Conversation with Jim Knight

Well, I think some of the things are counterintuitive.

I'll pick two things to start with.

One of them is the idea that teachers are professionals.

To have the schools we want, to give our kids the schools they deserve, they need to be taught by professionals.

And if we want professionals, we have to treat them like professionals.

So the notion that we can observe a class and tell the teacher what to do and that's going to solve their problem or there's some simple script that they're supposed to follow or some simplistic thing, the idea that I'm going to tell the teacher what their goal is and not involve them in You know, why would I not want to involve their brain in the conversation? Those things deprofessionalize teaching.

They treat teachers like unskilled laborers, like they're stocking the shelves in a grocery store as opposed to a professional bringing their whole brain, even their soul, to the classroom.

And I think to get to schools we want, we need to interact with teachers in ways that see them as professionals and interact in ways that acknowledge and actually celebrate their professionalism, which means that they have a voice and they have choices and that these things are all nuanced, but that there's a real sense in which I'm working with a professional, not an unskilled laborer.

Some of the models of coaching that I've seen, not necessarily instructional coaching, although people have kind of liked that word.

Some of the models I've seen, I don't think the people who created those models have much respect for teachers.

And I think if you don't respect teachers, if you don't value the work of teachers, then If you don't see the moral purpose and the sacrifice involved in this and the dedication of teachers.

I talked to Dan Pink a few years ago and he said, you know, I can't think of anybody more motivated than teachers.

He says, late July, early August, they're in spending their own money in Office Depot to buy supplies for their classroom.

These teachers are dedicated like no other career.

If you don't see that, I think you have no right to be giving professional development to teachers.

Don't even call it professional development.

Just call it training, like training dog.

So the first thing I feel clearly passionate about is Our kids deserve professionals, and we don't get professionals by giving people scripts or giving them simplistic criticisms of the way they teach.

You know, we do it by engaging in a dialogical process, a rigorous dialogical process with that outcome we're striving for, but nonetheless, one in which two professionals enter.

That's the first thing.

Can I pause there? Would you mind if I paused on that, Jim? Because I think this is fascinating.

There's one more thing, but go ahead.

Right.

You must hold that.

Hold that one thing.