Flexibility

Flexibility is a huge part of the life of an educator.

When students don't finish an assignment on time, we have a choice. We could extend the due date, knowing that it would increase the likelihood of student completion, which will increase learning. We could also give a zero, knowing that the lesson here is about self-regulation, responsibility, and time management. However, the effect a zero has on a grade is staggering, and probably far more detrimental than any lesson it could teach. For this reason, I give students target dates for completion of many projects, or for mastery of essential content, but allow students who learn at a different time later on to still earn credit for their hard work.

There is a constant balance between over-planning, or perhaps the unwillingness to revise our plans, and the reality of what gets done in the classroom, creating the need for constant revision of our plans.

In the same way, flexibility needs to be granted to teachers from administrators. To be told that benchmark testing must take place in your classroom for two days in a five-day window two weeks away is not enough notice for teachers who have carefully planned out their lessons for the month. A video about educational practices, or a podcast for activity advisors, that must be watched by Friday, should probably have been sent out a month prior. A survey about professional development, a log of PLC work, or an invitation to a pull-out in-service day that will require sub plans, should not be sprung on teachers without plenty of advance notice.

These and countless other demands placed on teachers from all sides have a negative effect on morale and adversely effect the quality of work that will be completed. Having worked as a teacher and talked with teachers, I have seen people shut down when given an unrealistic completion date, and have found myself looking for the quickest and easiest way to complete a task assigned to me or my group if we weren't given enough time to do it well and make it count.

Having also worked closely with administration for several years, I completely understand how and why this happens. The administrator's life is also a series of target completion dates. State and national requirements come down the tube, and these have to be processed, planned and reviewed. Administrators with the best intentions attend committee meetings and planning meetings, and set up the target dates that are handed down to the teachers. For many of these directives, teachers must then pass the dates on to students.

By the time an edict works its way down the chain of command, there is often not enough advance notice to complete a task as well as it was originally intended. Teachers make accommodations for students, groups accomplish what they can, and if a target is not met, a suggestion is run back up the chain of command. By the time it reaches the top, if the leaders have not already moved on to a new initiative, the committee will need to revisit the plan and the cycle starts again.

So many last-minute scrambles could be avoided if administrators were able to pass along their goals to teachers with more advance notice. How many steps of this process could be avoided if teachers and students were present when the first proposal of a plan is on the table? Of course, that would take pull-out sub coverage and advance notice for that... it's like the chicken and the egg.

What can we do?

Flexibility is huge. We need to be flexible with our students, but just flexible enough to allow for all the work to be completed and done well, while still teaching the valuable lessons of self-regulation and time management that due dates create.

Administrators need to be flexible with us. A little more advance notice will lead to the creation of a much better product, and a little flexibility will go a long way toward keeping everyone's unified focus on the real goal: educating our students.