We (humans) are horrible about paying attention when other people are talking.  Either we get distracted, like squirrels and shiny objects or are thinking about what we are going to say next.  This gets even worse when we try to disseminate information through paper contact or emails.  Either people get a bunch of pointless information or we never receive the good stuff at all.

I have been on the receiving and giving end of this problem.  As a teacher, I had a write many an email to parents and other teachers.  I try to write in a bullet style… get the info as quickly and as efficiently as possible.  However, I have learned people don’t like that style, too impersonal.  It’s even worse when I had to call parents and discuss their students.  Usually those phone calls were becase the student failed to do something.  So I would get on the phone and make some stupid small talk and then… “Well, the reason I called was…” and they stop listening.

As a parent, the information I need never gets home correctly.  I have to resort to questioning my 7 year olds, which does not go well.  I know what I hear is not what the kids heard in the first place.  It’s like the telephone game kids played in the 1950s.  Teachers should know that anything that my kids hear goes in one ear and straight out the other.  (This also is true of teenagers, college students, and adults).  Likewise, any paper note disappears in their backpacks, just like the there’s a black hole in the bottom.  Things go in but never come back out.

So how do we streamline our communication in education?  My dream is that everyone could be like me… straight and to the point, bullet point emails.  If we want to make small talk we can, but only if we want to, not because we need to get information across.  Actually let’s take this approach for all of life.  Bullet points, unless we want to make small talk, then fine, we make small talk.

Otherwise any communication coming across is like playing the telephone game… “You need to send $2.00 in next week for the field trip.” becomes “Our hamster is having babies.”

In a way, this dilemma is less of a problem at the elementary level.  I expect the 1st grade teacher to act in some ways like a mom or dad: give students a hug when they are having a bad day, taking care of their knee scrapes on the playground, making sure they have on their gloves, hats, and coats before recess.

But what about for those of us who teach the higher grades?  Am I their MOM? Do I want to be?  Do I have to be?  If I think about the ages of my students and my age, it actually makes more sense for them to be my friends and/or boyfriends than my children. (A thought brought to my attention multiple times by the other writer of this blog.  Thanks Josh for the creepy dreams!)

Everyday I find myself attempting to redefine my role.  I want to be the strict teacher, looking out for their academic well-being, leading them on the path to knowledge.  Then I do something like let them borrow a dollar for lunch… or remind them that they have a meeting with so and so at lunch.  It gets even more complicated when I think about the juniors.  I am their class sponsor and every time they do something good, I want to give them a hug and a gold sticker, and every time they do something bad I catch myself saying “I am so disappointed in them, we will have a talk today.”  Those are the kinds of things I do for my real children. So why do I do them for these 17 and 18 year old students.  It’s almost like I have 40 children: 38 from 8am-3pm Monday through Friday and 2 that I have 3pm-8am Monday through Friday and weekends.

So what’s the solution:  I don’t know.  That’s right a teacher doesn’t know the answer.  I want to be a mentor, someone that my students can gain knowledge from, but also be there when they fall down and scrape their knee.  It’s a constant redefinition game.  Maybe this will get easier once I start to age out of their generation.  Or maybe that’s when I will want to be more like their mom, yet fight against the idea.

All I know is that there must be a combination of both roles for this whole process to work.  Teachers cannot be completely disconnected from their students, but at the same time, cannot be too much of a parent.  They have to take responsibility for their own lives at some point.

So for now, I will let my students borrow a dollar for lunch, praise them when I hear they did something good, give them candy on their birthdays, and scold them when they do bad (even if it’s not in my class).  I will be their second mom, their mentor, and their friend.  I will try to be everything they need.  And I will try not to have any creepy dreams about students being the only guests at my wedding (true story, had a dream like that a couple of weeks ago, talk about creepy, not even my mom was there).

Now here’s the thing… if we ran our companies the way we run our schools, we’d all be in trouble. Despite inefficiencies in the system, American production per capita is one of the few things that is consistently still on top of international lists. Anybody familiar with the private sector understands the value of communication. Setting customer expectations. Understanding role expectations your boss has. Setting up matrix teams to solve “real-world” problems.

School administration: First and foremost, administrators need to set these expectations! I never once in over 20 years of school had an administration explicitly and concisely tell me what was expected of me or them. It doesn’t take more than a half-hour. Just sit down with your teachers, students and parents and quickly review what’s expected. The administration should be responsible for facilitating the communication between all parties; providing teachers with the resources and support necessary to accomplish their respective task (i.e., teach students); providing students and parents with a single point of contact for any contention beyond the scope of a teacher; etc. I think of school administrators as the producers. They provide the means. In the end, administrators have one task – set the stage so education can occur. It’s up to the teachers, students and parents to make it happen.

Teachers: If administrators are the producers, then teachers are the directors. They provide students with guidance, topics, tasks to practice, feedback, etc. Teachers need to be generalists. At least teachers need to have a broad background in any given topic (e.g., math, social science, etc.) and then be able to integrate that into other topics. Good teachers can leverage cross-talk between subjects to great advantage (more on this in future posts). It is not the teacher’s responsibility to make every student pass a test. Rather, the teacher is responsible for given the students the tools necessary to pass a test. The student is responsible for the results. So, teachers have one rather large task – guide students toward an education. It’s up to the parents and students to take the next step.

Parents: If administrators are producers and teachers are directors, then parents are the financial backers. They provide support for the students, but like any wise investor make sure everybody is on track. Parents are responsible for making sure students have the support network necessary for successfully reaching their individual education goals. They need to defer to the professionals (teachers and administrators) for specifics while helping keep their students on track. School administrators should regularly update parents on what is expected and those expectations should evolve over time. For instance, parents of first graders should be much more active in ensuring the students do their homework, receive additional assistance with rote memorization of spelling and math tables, etc. Parents of high school students should push responsibility of the grade back to the students. In other words, if a high school student fails a test, the parents should reemphasize the fact that it’s the student’s responsibility to study and seek assistance when necessary. It might seem a bit harsh, but we shouldn’t separate the “real world” from the “education world.” Doing so is a huge injustice to students. How many times does your boss tell you it’s alright you completely failed to do your job, because you forgot or didn’t understand the task and didn’t bother to ask for help? Better to learn the reality while still young and in an environment relatively forgiving like school. Parents have an ominous task – provide an evolving support network.

Students: Clearly the linchpin of the whole process, students are the actors. Students are ultimately responsible for acquiring the skills and education necessary to succeed in the world. In this case, I’m defining success as an ability to contribute more value to society than they consume. I’m not going to dive into the economic theory that would support this statement, but it does make sense… honest. Simply put, students need to show up and play the game. Education can only benefit the student if she recognizes the value and actively pursues it. Education should never be as simple as passing a test or getting a piece of paper. I have several pieces of paper from top tier universities… collecting dust in a closet. The paper doesn’t matter, it’s the education itself that has intrinsic value. Ultimately, students have the most difficult task – learn why and how to learn.

A wise man once said that showing up is 90% of success. We’ve certainly given good reason for that statement in education historically. I suggest it’s time to reevaluate the system and make participation 90% of success. Education is an interactive process, not passive. Just as marketers are slowly realizing that talking at people with advertisements isn’t nearly as successful as holding a conversation with customers; educators need to realize that talking at students isn’t nearly as productive as holding a conversation with all stakeholders – including parents and teachers. This can only occur when everybody involved understands their respective roles.

Next, making sure everybody stays on track and fulfills their roles. As in any organization, this boils down to incentives, empowerment and trust. None are easy to solve, but we’ll tackle them one at a time.