Count the Opportunity Cost of Teacher Tasks (Big Little Thing #4)

We talk about cost in monetary terms all the time. No one talks about opportunity cost. Education should start now. This is definitely a very little thing with BIG implications for turning around schools.

Opportunity cost is the opportunity you give up when you or your employees work on something else. Teachers have a certain number of hours to work in a day. There is a finite limit to the number of hours they have. Do we ever consider the cost of what we're asking teachers to do?

Here are some examples:

• When a teacher spends one hour completing paperwork that no one will read.
• Attending a meeting that no one wanted to have and no measurable outcome was attained for a person who justifies his existence by having meetings.
• Putting lesson plans in an extensive format that have no measurable improvement in how the lesson will be delivered in the classroom.
• Paperwork that no one will read.
• Having teachers file paperwork.
• Forcing a teacher to use a system (like a word wall) that they don't feel applies to their curriculum and takes them away from their focus.
• Did I say PAPERWORK THAT NO ONE WILL READ, USE OR EVEN LOOK AT EVER AGAIN?
• Constantly shifting priorities into opposite directions causing a complete overhaul of classroom systems and pedagogies.
• Causing a teacher to wait incessantly for approval to move their furniture or gain approval for improving their own classroom in even small ways.
• Paper work? (Let's just call it Paper waste, shall we?)

There are many teachers who are great paper pushers and poor teachers. More commonly, there are great teachers who hate the paperwork and are in constant trouble for not turning it in.

Some poor administrators often choose paperwork over face to face supervision and monitoring of what is happening in the class. In today's world, we could video what is happening in the classroom as documentation of what is going on with a student. 

Lawmakers never count the opportunity cost of putting more paperwork on schools but good administrators do. Paperwork costs money. It also costs opportunity. 

Right now we need every opportunity to improve teaching in the classroom that we can get. Let's start by counting the opportunity cost and using technology to save time.

Photo credit: Big Stock

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The Age of Encouraging the Aged to stay in education (Big Little Thing #3)

Too many educational leaders are ageists. With life expectancy growing, some of our most productive, wise, caring professionals are going to be older. It is unfair and just wrong to stereotype the "young" as the best teachers and the old as "irrelevant."

Grace Adkins, 83 year old Learning Lab Leader who rides her bike 12 miles a night
Mrs. Adkins is one of the greatest teachers I know. She is head of our learning lab and close to 83. She bikes 12 miles a day, takes home the testing folders of 3 children a weekend (just to think and pray over them) and is unafraid to call anyone about a problem. I want to be like her.

If she had retired eighteen years a go, two of my own children would have missed her attention and pondering. I'm thinking of my friend Heather Davis who is getting ready to move from Beijing, China to Guatemala to teach there next year. She is 63 (and won't mind me telling) and has hit the age that one is unwelcome to stay in China if you are from another country. She has to move and doesn't want to.

Betsy Caldwell, my teacher and my children's teacher
I teach next door to Betsy Caldwell who is by far, one of the best literature teachers I've ever known. She taught me how to write (and fixed almost everything but the comma splice and my use of effect/ affect - which I'm working on still) and has produced almost 10 published authors and counting. I don't know how old she is and don't care. I hope she teaches forever. She's better than ever.

I can thrive after 65
I know that someone a while back came up with 65 as "the age" to retire and I have friends here in Mitchell County who are getting ready to retire in their 40's from the public school system and start their lives over.

Many teachers are becoming eligible to retire. (I had heard that 1/3 of Georgia public school teachers would be eligible to retire by 2021 but am looking for that source and a recent European Commission report says this is a problem overseas as well.) Push them out the door to your hurt.

Many great things come with age. I am a better teacher because of the balance of older and younger at my school. There's something about having perspective from many different people and multiple generations.

I do not like the "digital immigrant" "digital native" metaphor because I think it promotes ageism. I'm 42 and have been using computers since I was 7. That would make me native. I know a child who has never used a computer and is in the eighth grade -- what is she? It is not when you were born but what you did with your life that determines your fluency with technology or your expertise as a teacher.

Keep the welcome mat out
We may even find that some teachers retire only to find that they want to come back. There are many hurdles in education that have made it an unfriendly place for teachers who care about kids. If a teacher is retiring, do yourself a favor, and have a reflection session with that teacher to hear directly what the obstacles are to learning. See if they have any desire to volunteer. They will tell you.

And make sure they know that they are welcome to come back and volunteer, mentor, or teach again. Burn bridges with the aged and your school will suffer.

Photo Credits:
Big Stock

Big Little Thing #1: The student bathroom
Big Little Thing #2: Marry the percentages till death do you part

Read more »

Big Little Thing #1: The Student Bathroom

Tom Peters is right. You can tell a lot about an organization by looking at the bathroom. The first chapter of The Little Big Things: 163 ways to pursue Excellence, Tom says:

"To me a clean and attractive and even imaginative loo is the best..."

He's talking about retail shops and he goes on to say that a nice employee restroom is even more indicative of the pride in an organization. I'm thinking back on the school's I've visited and I think this applies to schools as well.

A nice school bathroom shows how willing you are to seek excellence and pride even in the small things. In our school, although there is sometimes drawing on the bathroom walls, we as the faculty go in there enough that if it is there, it is usually gone pretty quickly. This is so hard to deal with, especially in the elementary boys bathroom (I'm sorry but there's no delicate way to talk about this.)

Think about it, besides the cafeteria, it is the one place that every student visits every day. Some schools have "wall paper" or school news posted behind stall doors. Others have paintings and inspiration. Others are not a fit place to have a mud fight.

Take the Big Little Challenge today: Inspect your school bathrooms

But I'd like to challenge your school administration to grab your clothes pin and take the plunge (not literally, please.) Some time between classes go into the bathrooms of your school and look at them. What do they say about your students? If a visitor came in and used the bathrooms, what would they think about your school? What do they say about your school?

Letting the little things go causes big problems

I think a big thing about education today is that the big things are a problem because we as educators have let so many little things go? We let things slide because we have plenty of excuses.

If we don't teach students to clean up after themselves and if we don't get these bathrooms clean to begin with, what will the bathrooms in society look like in 20 years. We know that many parents don't teach children to keep things clean, but we should teach it in schools in a kind, but positive way.

The little things in your classroom make a big difference

For me, it is my room. I've had a clean room for a year and a half now. My equipment is in pristine condition largely because of the message I'm sending my students. In my daily routine, I schedule in a 5 minute room clean up every day and a deeper clean 15 minutes a week. 

"But Vicki, the janitor is supposed to do that."

Sure, the janitor is in my room and does that. But he doesn't wipe around my electrical equipment and he certainly can't be expected to clean my desk. I get out the 409 and wipe everything down and use my microfiber cloth to get the dust off my computers once a week.

Although some students don't clean up after themselves, more of them do clean up in my classroom. It is because pride begins with me. It is such a little thing but it makes a big difference.

I'm also going to take a tip from Tom Peters and start talking about these big little things on my blog too.

Photo credit: Big Stock

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