The Seany Craig Plan (Apologies to Jenny)

I started to get excited when I began reading a story about 70 educators in Florida that included the following statement, “We supported each other and developed friendships that have lasted… We exchanged…”

Then reality stepped in and the statement finished with, “...recipes, health tips, provided encouragement during challenging times, and celebrated successes and fitness milestones.”

Yes, the story was about a group of teachers banding together, sharing ideas, making goals, and supporting each other - to lose weight. And they were successful, in one month, as a group, they lost 279 pounds (or about 4 pounds a person).

Yet, ask those same teachers to use that same strategy with their instructional practices and I promise you that they would fight and stonewall, all in the name of protecting their creativity and professional autonomy.

When I speak and coach, I often tell the audience that improving instruction is as simple as losing weight. And I am going to make my argument one more time, using the above mentioned teachers as the example.

The Seany Craig Campus Performance Diet Plan:

1. Adopt a common scope and sequence (the recipe book)

2. Adopt short-term common assessments (a scale)

3. Hyper-monitor (A daily calorie intake / expenditure log)

4. Share the data as a team (peer support)

5. Make adjustments based on the data (menu and exercise adjustments based on progress towards goals)

Think. Work. Achieve.

Your turn…