I have lived my entire life in the midwest. Road trips in my state offer endless views of a variety of crops, including corn and soybean fields, and miles and miles of apple and cherry orchards. One of my best friends growing up lived on an apple orchard. Her father and her older brother ran the orchard out of their hundred year old farmhouse in our rural community. Their orchard provided apples for states all across the country. I was always amazed by the amount of tools they had for planting, maintaining, harvesting, and storing apples. What was even more amazing, however, was how hard her dad and his employees worked each day. Seeing their tireless dedication to this process has forever changed my thoughts on apple production and farming in general. These people are the real deal when it comes to work.
For centuries, farmers have followed some basic routines. Long before planting, there is talk of planting. Then, there is preparation for planting. After planting, there is maintaining and watching. Lots and lots of watching. What are they looking for? Growth, of course. They assume that all of their planning and preparing and planting will work, but they watch anyway. And as they watch, they make small adjustments where they are needed for any areas not showing typical growth. The planning, preparing, and planting are all so important, but not as important as actually reaping the harvest at the end of the season. The same is true in education.
After nearly twenty years in education, I can honestly say that teachers are right up there with farmers. Few people realize the tireless dedication these people have to their profession and the students and families they serve. I have never met a larger group of come-early-stay-late people. Safe and Sound schools (2018) reported that teachers work an average of 53 hours per week and get 23 minutes of lunch and personal time per day. Teaching is not easy. In fact, it is sometimes exhausting and causes many teachers to leave the profession early (Rumschlag, 2017). It requires incredible amounts of planning and preparing…and planting. Yes, teaching is like planting. The teacher’s expertise in curriculum and instruction allow him or her to know the right moment for planting the seed of knowledge in a student’s mind. While balancing student engagement, state testing, curricular pacing, behavior issues, and a myriad of other factors, teachers plan, prep, and deliver lessons that help students grow.
Rick DuFour (2016), through his work with Professional Learning Communities, reminded us that the “fundamental purpose of school is learning, not teaching.” In other words, it is about the reaping, not the sowing. This is why schools across the nation have instituted team structures that allow teachers and other professionals to carefully look at data and determine who is and is not learning. This has opened the doors to all sorts of job-embedded professional learning and shared decision making, which ultimately decreases teacher burnout and attrition (Phillips, 2015). Through cycles of continuous improvement, teachers are improving their practice and also improving student outcomes. They are reaping the rewards of the countless hours of planning, preparing, and teaching because they took time to study the data to make sure their teaching was effective.
Have you asked yourself what you are really in this business for? Are you in it for just the sowing or are you in it for the reaping, too? Is your mission to ensure that every student reaches his or her full potential? Certainly, you should be proud of your teaching, but make sure you measure it by how much your students are learning, not by how great of a lesson it was. Measure it by how many students are applying their new learning, not by how many hours it took you to plan and prepare for the lesson. Measure it by the number of achievement gaps you close, not by how many great educational tools you have at your disposal. Collaborate with your colleagues and district leaders to gain clarity on what it is you want students to learn, and then put systems in place to determine if students learned it as well as what to do if they did not. Someone (see note about William Butler Yeats) once said, “Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.” When students truly learn what we are teaching, they come alive and start applying it to multiple situations. As educators, this is what we need to look for.
*William Butler Yeats- Like many of you, I have heard this quote many times and it was always attached to WB Yeats. This article poses a great question- Did WB Yeats really say this, or have we all been wrong for decades?
References
DuFour, R. (2016). Learning by Doing : A Handbook for Professional Learning Communities at Work, Third Edition (A Practical Guide to Action for PLC Teams and Leadership). [N.p.]: Solution Tree Press.
Phillips, O. (2015). Revolving door of teachers costs schools billions every year. National Public Broadcasting: Education. Retrieved from http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2015/03/30/395322012/the-hidden-costs-of-teacher-turnmore than
Rumschlag, K. E. (2017). Teacher Burnout: A Quantitative Analysis of Emotional Exhaustion, Personal Accomplishment, and Depersonalization. International Management Review, 13(1), 22-36.
Safe and Sound Schools. (2018). Thank a Teacher! Fun Facts for Teacher Appreciation Week. Retrieved from https://www.safeandsoundschools.org/2015/05/04/thank-a-teacher-facts-and-fun-for-teacher-appreciation-week/
