I had a meeting with a teacher and a union representative earlier this week over a scheduling issue. The issue was relatively complex in that by the letter of the contract we had probably not done anything wrong, but we had in my opinion we had unwittingly violated the spirit of the agreement. This was not intentional or malicious – but it was an issue or at minimum an oversight. And it was the fault of administration. I explained this to them and committed toward working toward a resolution.
As the meeting ended and I was walking out of the room, the teacher apologized for being a pain. I stopped – surprised. I assured her she was not a pain. She continued. Then I tried to explain, fruitlessly, that she in the most literal sense did nothing wrong. Still, she apologized.
The day continued.
I was then involved in a situation where a student and the teacher had what seemed to be a legitimate misunderstanding. By this I mean that both people interpreted the situation differently, and it seemed there was a perfectly legitimate chance that this was just a mistake. The teacher asserted their position, the student challenged, the teacher pushed, the student pushed back. The student challenged the teacher and suffered some consequences for not being compliant. When I became involved the adolescent boy was legitimately in tears as a result of his frustration.
This is not to say the student did nothing wrong. Far from it. However, as adults we have the option to allow the situation to escalate or we have the opportunity to de-escalate. Too often as adults with students or as leaders with teachers we choose to exert control and thereby escalate the situation.
As I drove to work today and reflected on these two incidents I realized that we (education at-large) may talk a great game about self-advocacy in schools, but either we do not mean it or AT LEAST the people we serve in schools do not believe that we actually mean it.
And as I continued to think about this more – why should they?
We try to pretend like we want self-advocacy, but we never teach the appropriate skills. Moreover, we are unforgiving of people when they do not advocate in the way we have decided (but never told them) we want them to. Then, when a teenage boy tries to defend his position in a misunderstanding to protect his grade we assert control and levy consequences. Or when a teacher brings up something that is not fair, they fear retribution. As building leaders we have created climates in which teachers fear being the ‘squeaky wheel’ or viewed as a troublemaker to the point they apologize when they have done nothing wrong and kids have realized it is just easier to shut up.
My takeaways are pretty simple.
1) Students have no idea how to self-advocate and when they do it probably comes from a place of emotion. Thereby in many instances they are issued discipline for their behavior and unruliness. Even worse, we can label them and make assertions like they are trying to usurp control of the class.
2) Teachers are so afraid of being labeled that they do not bring forward legitimate issues. Over time this leads to an overall decrease in job satisfaction and will erode the culture of the organization.
The simple fix to this in my opinion is to talk about it, teach the skills, and have empathy. It takes courage to self-advocate – both for teachers and students. So when someone is doing so we must be patient. Whether or not the attempt is perfectly professional or not, whether or not the student challenges you or not and whether the person advocating for themselves is coming from a position of merit or not does not matter. If we are going to live by the Covey-ism that we should begin with the end in mind – then we must tolerate the imperfections in the approach in order to continue to promote the behavior.
An organization that is not responsive to the voices of those they serve (Leaders, we serve our teachers and Teachers, you serve our kids) turns toxic. We cannot expect people to exhibit behaviors that are shunned or for which they are scolded if they do not execute in a perfectly appropriate manner every time. It is time we TRULY accept and embrace what we publicly promote.