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In response to the 11/11/2010 post, “Broke is Broke – Part 1,” a reader writes:
This goes beyond bullying. A teacher’s refusal to write lesson plans also affects our students’ education. It is an affront to teamwork and can have a negative effect on the accountability rating of the campus. Relying on someone else to do your planning work boarders on unethical behavior. The person you describe is a teacher who needs to rethink why they became a teacher in the first place.
If the grade level team members take turns writing particular parts of lessons or specific lesson for their team because they favor a particular subject, and all agree on and discuss teaching strategies, that is a professional learning community. But the teacher who refuses to participate in group planning meetings yet demands access to the product of those meetings, is only concerned about themselves.
SC Response
As is the case with you, I was appalled by what was described in the original post. My response to the original writer was advice on how to address the situation with the individual.
1. Do your work and the work of others (not fair and tastes bad).
2. You can refuse to share with those who do not reciprocate (feels bad).
3. You can point out the lack of teamwork with administration (can be bad).
But understand that situations such as the one described occur when leadership is not doing an adequate job of supporting and monitoring the instructional planning process. Much like the bully who terrorizes the playground when teachers don’t pay attention, the same can occur when administrators and instructional coaches do not actively participate in the discussions and meetings that drive instructional design. The campus manager who espouses the belief that, “I was hired to run the school, the teachers were hired run instruction” has ensured that both the campus and instruction are operating at sub-optimal levels.
Think. Work. Achieve.
Your turn...
1 comment:
Professional Learning Communities are just that - Professional - Learning - Communities - Everyone needs to participate. You have to question if this non participation in writing lesson plans has been a trademark of the teacher or is it new? Are other areas of the teachers daily schedule suffering? Posting grades? Are formative assessments taking place? Has the teacher been asked to do a self assessment? Is there something deeper going on? What does the teacher expect from herself and from her students when she has nothing to guide her direction except that given to her by others? I would suggest that the teacher be given a lesson plan format like Madeline Hunter or something similar and require her to adhere to it for a six week grading period then have her do another self assessment. Have the students grades improved? Has her communication with her colleagues improved? Sometimes when writing a lesson plan you get great ideas that you want to implement when teaching the lesson that allow you to integrate math with literature or with science or art. How can this occur with the one that does not write any plans? How can there be ideas flowing and comparisons made between subjects when all you're doing is filling in the blanks of someone else's work? The teacher that does not write lesson plans is either very gifted, very lazy or is suffering somewhere and needs intervention from teammates.
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