Meredith Williams, Principal NRHS
A pervasive challenge instructional leaders face in the classroom and through remote learning are those moments when students fail to meet the teacher’s expectations. Teachers cringe as they watch students struggle to express themselves in writing, shy away from interpreting vocabulary-dense test questions, and fail to maintain a neat notebook or device. Teachers grimace as they receive assignments that are past due, incomplete, or sloppy. Teachers fall into despair as students exhibit disruptive behaviors or refuse to engage in the learning task. Most often these challenges result in failing grades. As teachers, it is easy to analyze such failure to meet expectations as an inherent character flaw, labeling students as lazy or not academic. However, a keen teacher will step back from the situation and seek, not to assign labels and blame, but to identify root causes of the failure. In doing so, the teacher will often discover that the students’ products and actions often have very little to do with content knowledge. Students who don't participate, who don't turn in strong work, and who misbehave may do so because they need to be intentionally and lovingly taught key skills like agency, communication, organization, pacing, questioning, how to interact with peers, and how to interact with adults. This need for knowledge, far beyond the prescribed curriculum, tends to catch many teachers by surprise. For example, the math teacher finds, in addition to the quadratic equation, they must intentionally teach their students organizational skills, logical thinking, and metacognition. The biology teacher doesn’t instruct on just the standards of the biology final exam. Rather, successful biology teachers find they must model collaboration in lab experiences, research skills, and methods of data analysis. Teachers become instructors of a vast array of content, far beyond the scope of their content standards because we accept the challenge of preparing students for life, not just the next class. At NRHS we generalize these skills into Communication, Collaboration, Creativity, Critical Thinking, and Agency. Here are the rubrics we use to define what strong skills in each of these areas looks like. These are the rubrics our design teachers use for grading. Those teachers for whom students “just don't do anything" or have lots of behavioral issues are most often the teachers who have not accepted that they must teach more than content. The truth is, we have all been one of those teachers at one point or another. In their article Assuming the Best, Smith and Lambert write: Whenever students walk into the classroom, assume they hold an invisible contract in their hands, which states, "Please teach me appropriate behavior in a safe and structured environment." The teacher also has a contract, which states, "I will do my best to teach you appropriate behavior in a safe and structured environment." Scaffolds in a lesson allow the teacher to weave together key life skills with their content. The English teacher provides a template for interviewing the visitor and in doing so, models for the student how to appropriately ask questions and greet a guest. The science teacher asks students to observe their peers completing the lab measuring task and provide “glow and grow” peer feedback, effectively teaching students how to observe, reflect, and offer kind feedback for growth. When the teacher receives late work, she sits down with the student on the next assignment to set mini-check-ins, thus instructing the student on time management and building agency. The student submitting incomplete work is given a rubric and a highlighter and asked to score themselves and make necessary revisions before submitting the final draft. Scaffolding often feels like the teacher is doing for the student what they should be doing for themselves. The challenge is to recognize when students honestly do not know how to “do for themselves.” This is when the role of teacher becomes so important and overarching. It is in these moments, when teachers teach more than the content and help students develop skills that endure through life, that we achieve our purpose at NRHS. It is in these moments that we assure students have skills to propel their True North forward on a pathway of success.
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AuthorsThe Design Classes at North High are taught by four educators: Alexis Greer and Benjamin Butchart in 9th grade and Miranda File and Brian Whitson in 10th. These teams lead the CBL and design thinking approaches at North Rowan High. Archives
July 2020
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