Letting go of the reins

Neeraja Raghavan

Reflective Practice is an oft-used term nowadays, particularly in the field of education.

How does this manifest in the classroom?

In a school?

In the principal’s office?

This is a column that will describe true episodes that capture this, supported by links to videos for the more interested reader.

For several years, a school principal had been sending some of her teachers to attend workshops or conferences. Every now and then, she would scan announcements on social media and in her educational circles to select themes that resonated with (her perceived) needs of the faculty. She would then diligently follow up with the attendees to ensure that they returned and shared their new learnings with the rest of the teachers.

But she now realized that she was dissatisfied with the outcome.

Not much change percolated down to the faculty – and even if it did, it quickly trickled away so that everyone inevitably returned to the humdrum routine.

She began to wonder if she could move away from this ‘top-down model’ of teacher development, and instead have her teachers take ownership of their own development.

“After all, isn’t that what we wish for our students?” she mused. “And unless teachers actually experience taking onus of their own capacity building, how are they going to bring about such autonomy in their students?”

With this laudable intent, she set about sharing her thoughts with other members of a Learning Community that she was part of. She also started reading papers and thinking about all that she had absorbed.

And this is when deep reflection was triggered.

One statement stood out from a paper that she had read: teachers should be respected to come up with their own articulation of their specific learning needs. While she kept this statement in the background, the initial idea that popped into her head was that of travelling the traditional route – viz., plotting a career graph of her teachers, so as to map their progress. In addition, she wanted to hear their own vision of their ‘dream school’.

But the more she thought about these two aspects, the more she wondered why she should plot career graphs of teachers. On what basis would she judge them? After all, she had interviewed them and recruited them with some rational basis for their selection. If they were appearing to be inadequate in some areas, was it not her responsibility now to assist them in filling these gaps? How would a career graph help here?

As for vision, the school already had a Vision Statement. Any school should align itself with its articulated Vision Statement. Instead of having each teacher articulate their own vision, wouldn’t it make more sense to get teachers to brainstorm on how they could collectively help realize the school’s Vision Statement?

This simple reflection caused a significant shift in her own thinking.

She dropped her initial plan of a career graph and articulation of individual vision statements by teachers. Instead, she began listening to the feedback from members of her Learning Community with a more open mind.

Pretty soon, the doors opened to a new approach to Teacher Professional Development. She started by suggesting summer reading to the teachers, and chose books that aligned with the National Educational Policy. Just as her own reflection caused a shift in her thinking, she now wanted teachers to experience it. So, she designed a questionnaire that would draw out their thoughts, their areas of discontent and the areas that (they felt) needed to be changed, so as to realize the vision of the school.

This set in motion the wheels of a teacher-driven Teacher Professional Development Programme. Each teacher identified their own areas of development and she slowly and consistently facilitated their way forward. She periodically experienced catching herself when she slipped into a habitual ‘telling’ teachers what to do, instead of ‘letting’ them discover their own ways and forge their paths ahead. (Isn’t this akin to a teacher holding back from telling students ‘the right answer’ and allowing them instead to think it through for themselves?!)

And develop a novel Teacher Development Programme she did!

If you wish to know how this panned out, visit: https://youtu.be/ceOz_lrKIOk and https://youtu.be/ZdSOElkvPGw.

The author is founder-director of Thinking Teacher (www.thinkingteacher.in), an organization that networks with teachers across the country. Thinking Teacher aims to awaken and nurture the reflective practitioner within each teacher. Thinking Teacher’s goal is to help build deep inquiry and rich learning into the teaching process. The author can be reached at neeraja@thinkingteacher.in.