No Magic Wand

Real, sustainable change takes time. I find that super annoying, but the sooner we can come to terms with that, the better. Not just for our wellbeing but for the betterment of ecosystems as well.

Some lessons in life we have to learn over and over again. A few situations in my life this past year have offered me this reminder that long-lasting change takes time. Some are personal and some are professional.

This year we engaged in an ELA course of study process. We worked hard to implement a true, thorough process which included having all teachers including those not on our ELA course of study team pilot materials. We vetted materials before piloting through Ed Reports and using the IMET. We collected feedback from teachers and students both in survey form and focus groups. I have many takeaway from this experience. Mostly, I’m affirmed that no single resource can replace an excellent teacher. I love that about us, our impact, and our profession. But I learned another hard but good lesson too.

Many times, when as leaders feel ourselves wanting to put more “controls” or “rules” on things, it comes from a place of fear. In my case, in an effort to take great care of student learning and to provide clarity on Ohio’s guidance for literacy instruction at the secondary level, I wanted to put a guardrail in place for whole class novels that essentially would require all 6-12 teachers to only use whole class novels that were at the grade level lexile level. My thought on this stemmed for wanting to ensure we weren’t spending too much time in texts that were too low for our students. Makes sense on paper. But this is why having teachers, coaches, and other administrators involved in the process is important. Because none of us is smarter than all of us and while plans that feel black and white feel good at the start, they don’t always make sense in practice. You see Ohio’s guidance is not strictly about lexiles. It includes two other areas for consideration:

1. Qualitative dimensions of text complexity. In the Ohio ELA Standards, qualitative dimensions and qualitative factors refer to those aspects of text complexity best measured or only measurable by an attentive human reader, such as levels of meaning or purpose; structure; language conventionality and clarity; and knowledge demands. 
2. Quantitative dimensions of text complexity. The terms quantitative dimensions and quantitative factors refer to those aspects of text complexity, such as word length or frequency, sentence length, and text cohesion, that are difficult if not impossible for a human reader to evaluate efficiently, especially in long texts, and are thus today typically measured by computer software.
3. Reader and task considerations. While the prior two elements of the model focus on the inherent complexity of text, variables specific to particular readers (such as motivation, knowledge, and experiences) and to particular tasks (such as purpose and the complexity of the task assigned and the questions posed) must also be considered when determining whether a text is appropriate for a given student. Such assessments are best made by teachers employing their professional judgment, experience, and knowledge of their students and the subject. 

There are some texts which are at a grade level lexile that are not appropriate for that age group as far as the content goes. There are other texts that are below grade level lexile but appropriate for the grade level as far as content. There are some tasks that are more challenging that are more accessible when paired with a less complex text. There are other tasks that less challenging and better paired with a more complex text.

Do you see how this is not so simple? This doesn’t have to be hard. It’s just not a topic that has one simple solution.

We landed on this:

We will ensure that all of our units include all three elements of the triangle above. This means that if we use a whole class novel (which if so, we won’t spend too much time in it), and if that whole class novel is not at the grade level lexile level, then we need to ensure that the companion texts we read are written at the grade level lexile and that there are tasks included in the unit that are appropriately challenging. And we will of course continue providing student choice which is at the foundation of our beliefs as a community of practice.

Too often, when we adopt curricular resources, we make assumptions about the texts and content included in those resources. But even the resources we vet and adopt need to be given a critical eye and changes need to be made accordingly. These aren’t curricular decisions we make on our own. We make them as a team.

And that is going to take time. The work of curriculum is never really “done.”

So, I will need to trust the process. There is often no magic wand, quick fix, or simple solution in education.

And we can be daunted by that or see it has a beautiful opportunity to learn and grow.

The best way to stay encouraged and engaged in processes that take time is to spend time noticing and celebrating how far we have come versus how far have to go. As I mention in Legacy of Learning, this is how we keep our brains motivated when the work is cognitively demanding.