Change
Change is hard. Change is (often, but not always), necessary. Change is uncomfortable. Change is inevitable. In the words of Jack Canfield, “Change is inevitable in life. You can either resist it and potentially get run over by it, or you can choose to cooperate with it, adapt to it and learn how to benefit from it. When you embrace change you will begin to see it as an opportunity for growth.”
When resistance to change (my own or others’) rears its ugly head, I bring myself back to this Canfield quote. I also remind myself that a healthy dose of skepticism and pushback around change is necessary, and as George Couros reminds us, should even be encouraged. I’m not writing to say that we shouldn’t question change. I am writing to say that when we question it, we should come at that line of questioning with a true desire to understand, being fully aware of our own reservations and tendencies. If the change coming our way is not something we can come to terms with, think of change the way Maya Angelou reminds us:
Upon Fort Madison Community School District‘s adoption of the EL Education curriculum in the fall of 2019 for grades K – 5, and in the fall of 2020 for grades 6 – 8, our staff has faced significant change in how they approach reading instruction. From Your Curriculum Companion, The Essential Guide to Teaching the EL Education K-5 Language Arts Curriculum, “Unlike most published curricula, which primarily consist of student-facing materials, ours consists primarily of teacher-facing materials.” It is a rigorous (a word that I have almost entirely removed from my vocabulary as a result of reading Dean Shareski’s blog about the word’s misuse!) curriculum: it stretches the skills of both teacher and student. In addition to this change, staff had taken on the adoption of new math curriculum in the fall of 2018: Eureka Math for grades K-5, and Open Up Resources Math for grades 6 – 12.
Adopting vetted curriculum (using EdReports, an independent agent dedicated to reviewing curricular materials, is an excellent place to start when looking to adopt) is of the utmost importance in order to guarantee a viable curriculum. Having supports in place to support the why behind curriculum adoption is even more important. Adopting a high quality curriculum does not guarantee high quality implementation for high quality results for our students. From Your Curriculum Companion: “It {EL Education Curriculum} requires a teacher who understands it, trusts it, and teaches it with integrity, creativity, and professional judgement… You will encounter challenges even if you are a veteran teacher, and your willingness to take them on with a spirit of growth and learning will help you and your students meet success.”
With that being said, we have made great strides to put supports in place to assist staff in understanding the why behind our curricular choices and the how to implement successfully. I am quite certain that we could have done better in our attempts to support the understanding of both the why and the how. I am quite certain that a global pandemic interfered with people’s ability to roll with even more uncertainty during incredibly uncertain times. Our teachers (as with teachers across the world) have spent incredible amounts of time creating online lessons, pivoting between hybrid, remote, and face to face learning, all while dealing with their own personal realities around Covid. But rather than looking back at what we should have done prior to adoption, or blaming Covid, we are looking ahead to what we can do moving forward. Implementing a new curriculum is HARD. Adapting to change is HARD. Both are made even more difficult when we forget to embrace change. When we hold on to what we believe to be true. When we hold on to the comfort of past practice.
Fear
One of the reasons we resist change is fear of the unknown. This is so understandable! There is a lot to fear in the unknown… if we let it. We need to recognize fear for what it is. In the words of Jon Gordon: “Fear is a liar and if you struggle with fear and negative thoughts, it’s because you believe the lies that they tell. Fear stands for False Evidence Appearing Real. Fear looks and feels true but it isn’t… When fear and negativity pop in your head you can ignore them or speak truth to the lies.”
Fear can be paralyzing. It propels us into inaction, which results in a lack of growth (not to mention negativity, poor mental and physical health, alienation, and judgement.) At its worst, fear can lead us to misunderstanding, mistreating, and acting out against people of another belief, race, culture, gender, sexual identity, religion, economic status, political affiliation, or education level. At its best, fear can save us from life-threatening situations. Encountering fear sends our brains into “fight or flight” mode. Our body undergoes a series of physical changes when fear is present: good when being chased by a killer animal, bad when responding with resistance to change that could lead to better circumstances than the current.
So how do we address fear? 1. Recognize fear when it comes our way. 2. Recognize that fear is a liar. 3. Recognize that YOU are in control of your thoughts. There is much that is not in our control, but when we focus on what we can control we have set ourselves up to be our BEST selves. Identify what you can and cannot control, set your focus on what you can control, (your attitude among other things), adjust it, and make good things happen!
As educators, we often fear that change will lead to failure. We fear that failure will result in damage to student learning and success. I have yet to meet a teacher that doesn’t want to do what is best for kids. Often times, in our quest to do what is best for kids, we let the fear of allowing students to struggle with learning lead us to jumping in to help. We have the best of intentions, but we get in the way of allowing students to struggle/learn. We fear that struggle will lead to lack of motivation; we fear that struggle will damage their ego; we fear that struggle will lead to inaction. From Your Curriculum Companion, “We believe that worthy challenges, carefully scaffolded and supported, lead to deeper learning.” Let us embrace the “thrill of skill” that comes with a student’s struggle on the path to true learning. Let us continue to seek that perfect balance of scaffold and support along with pressure and drive. Speaking from personal experience as a parent and a teacher, we need to let go! We need to sit on our hands, if we must, while the children in our charge struggle and make mistakes. Failure is a critical part of the process of learning, both for the students we serve and for our own personal growth.
Self-Reflection
Engaging in self-reflection is a terrific vehicle for embracing change, overcoming fear, and nurturing personal growth. Self-reflection allows us to use past experience to change and grow. Self-reflection will likely result in three outcomes: 1. Criticism of self 2. Praise of self 3. A call to change or refine. An equal amount of all three outcomes could just be the ideal formula. True self-reflection would include some monitoring of each result.
- Criticism of Self: When we self-reflect, we will likely come to a place of regret over something we said or did. This is OK, and ought to happen. We need to monitor ourselves when we sit with this criticism. If we let the criticism fester, we are at risk of tearing ourselves down and landing in that place of inaction. Instead, we need to identify our missteps and make a plan for avoiding them moving forward. Self-criticism is OK; let it lead you to positive action.
- Praise of Self: When we self-reflect, we will likely come to a place of pride over something we said or did. This is OK, and ought to happen. We need to monitor ourselves when we sit with this praise. If we allow praise to be our only focus, we are at risk of falling into arrogance and landing in a place of inaction. Instead, we need to identify our positive impact and make a plan to sustain that impact moving forward. Self-praise is OK; let it lead you to positive action.
- A call to change or refine: When we self-reflect, we will likely come to a place of feeling the need to change or refine those things that we say and do in the future. We need to monitor ourselves when we sit with with this feeling around needing to change or refine. If we allow ourselves to feel this need, but do not develop a plan to execute said change, we are at risk of landing in a place of inaction. Feeling a call to change or refine is GREAT; let it lead you to a clear plan with distinct steps to engage in positive action.