Phil Lanoue, the superintendent of schools in Athens, Georgia, offered his teachers a reward: those with perfect attendance would get a day off. Some teachers resisted the offer because they didn’t want to miss their classes.
He and other administrators became substitute teachers for those who accepted the day off. He taught a class in life science.
He wrote:
While the original idea was to reward teachers, I know it ended up making far more of an impact on those of us who walked in their shoes for a day.
At the end of the day, he had new respect for his teachers:
I made it through the day, exhausted, and having developed an even deeper understanding and appreciation for our teachers. I tried to make my teaching interesting, interactive and relevant, but I could see that there was something that only the regular classroom teacher could offer: the foundation of strong relationships.
Teachers connect with students in many ways and are so familiar with their strengths and areas of growth. They know the struggles they are facing, what gets them excited and how to say just what a student needs to hear — and when they need to hear it. They know when to push and when to hold back. Knowing that our students walk into our classrooms and are met by such caring individuals is everything — our teachers go the distance to ensure that students receive what they need — academically, social/emotionally and more.
I left Hilsman Middle School that day with a lot more than tired, achy feet from being in a teacher’s shoes. I left seeing firsthand that our students can truly receive no better education than in the Clarke County School District because of the tireless work of our teachers. The design of the lessons, the relationships that are built, the digital learning, the International Baccalaureate framework, the opportunities available through our partnerships — I am truly humbled. I am humbled to work with an incredible community of individuals who are committed to the wellbeing of our students.
I encourage all interested community members to consider volunteering at one of our schools next year so that they, too, can be a part of this incredible Clarke County School District community. Spend time in our classrooms, and gain a renewed sense of why Athens-Clarke County has every reason to be “Proud To Be CCSD.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Sounds like a great Superintendent.
The next step is for him to make a policy requiring administrators to do this once per x number of years.
Like!
with x = 0.5 or less.
Can he come to Los Angeles?
Now we know why he is “Superintendent of the Year.”
Great news.
Now if only people who make policy do the same without fanfare and glory, maybe we woukdn’t be in this huge education debacle.
I’d like to see every administrator, every politician, and every yahoo like Gates, Duncan, et. al., do the same. But, they’d just BRIBE the kids with the carrot and stick model. Can’t trust our government much anymore.
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Texas Education.
For many years, I held various jobs as a publishing executive (in later years at very high levels). I thought that I worked very, very hard.
Then I returned to teaching.
Everything I did before was a vacation by comparison.
Teaching is relentless in its demands on one’s time and energy. I came to school this year and found that I had 190 students, 3 minutes between classes, no prep period on half my days, car line duty in the morning, 20 minutes for lunch, two extracurricular activities to coach (including plays to produce), administrative meetings one day a week after school, 20 detailed lesson plans to prepare each week (specifying the class, period, standards covered, lesson objectives, assessments used, bellwork, vocabulary covered, and ESOL strategies and 504 and IEP accommodations employed), a requirement that I post 16 grades per quarter per student (for 190 students for 4 quarters, that’s 12,160 grades in the school year, or 67.56 grades per day), enormous amounts of paperwork (filing, photocopying, keeping a parent/teacher log, filling out reports of many kinds, preparing class handouts and tests, keeping attendance logs, posting grades), many, many special meetings (parent-teacher conferences being among the most frequent), and classes and tests to take to maintain my certification.
If I assigned a five-paragraph theme to each of my students, I would have 950 paragraphs to read–roughly the equivalent of a short novel.
Basically, there isn’t enough time for ANYONE–even the greatest of teachers–to do the job at all adequately. This is the great unspoken truth about teaching. This is the real elephant in the room. If you want to improve teaching and learning, you have to give teachers more time–MUCH, MUCH MORE TIME.
And somehow, with all those demands, you are supposed to give each student the individual attention that he or she deserves. Anything short of one-on-one tutorial is a compromise, of course. And that’s that the job boils down to. A great compromise.
And the attitude of administrators is typically, “Well, what’s the matter with you? Why don’t you just do x? Why didn’t you just do y? Any good teacher would be doing z every day.” As though teachers were people of leisure with all the time in the world. I have noticed that administrators label practically every email that they send out IMPORTANT and use exclamation marks ALL THE TIME: “Due today! Must be completed by Thursday! Mandatory attendance!” I have sometimes wondered whether they shouldn’t be issued, at the beginning of the year, a maximum number of quotation marks that they can use. Of course, they are just responding to the similar insane demands that are placed upon them by the central office and my regulatory requirements.
So, this post is a welcome departure from the norm.
Yikes. A number of typos in that post. Rushing here. LOL
Bob, you captured my spouse’s experiences as a high school Math teacher. He left our district last year after 14.5 years and now teaches two classes as an adjunct at our local community college. He was burned out…to a crisp.
1. Decades ago, Dr Maurie Hillson, professor Rutgers Grad School Ed (Fairleigh Dickinson & Bucknell before RU), advocated that teachers’ contact time w students should be ~3/5 of typical time in US–so that teachers would have sufficient time to plan, individualize.
2. Bob, Did you also have to address a state test, or were you teaching grade/course that wasn’t tested?
I was teaching courses that weren’t tested, but that will change next year.
No wonder we haven’t heard much from you this school year! I was sitting in a school board meeting listening to a tech presentation thinking of all the additional tasks that were being required of teachers “to increase efficiency” or provide data. I wanted to stand up and ask if anyone had considered tracking how much time teachers spent on these various tasks. As far as I can tell it is a rare occasion when some new initiative actually ends up saving time. Every mandate seems to be additive. Good luck, Bob.
“Basically, there isn’t enough time for ANYONE–even the greatest of teachers–to do the job at all adequately. This is the great unspoken truth about teaching. This is the real elephant in the room. If you want to improve teaching and learning, you have to give teachers more time–MUCH, MUCH MORE TIME.”
Yes, yes, yes. It is a herd of elephants.
A teacher is lucky to get 3 or 4 hours of free, non-teaching time per week. Now imagine the demands described here being placed on a first year teacher. Great way to drive good people out of the business as quickly as possible.
I wish this were a mandatory element for all administrators – to return to the classroom for at least a day every two years. I also wish that teachers had the chance to (or were obliged to) follow a student schedule at least one day every two years to remind them of the student perspective.
I worked closely with a woman in my district who had taught for 15 years or so before going into district administration. She really tried to keep connected with the classrooms and was really good to make sure teachers got help and support.
A few years ago, when the financial bottom dropped out, the district administration was reorganized and her job was eliminated, so she went back into the classroom. I was sharing lessons and materials with her, because it had been a while since she had taught. We talked a bit during that year.
At the end of the year, she said that she was glad she had been able to go back into the classroom, because she had forgotten so much of what it was like. And this was someone who was really trying to keep current and help classrooms. What about those administrators who never wanted to be in the classroom in the first place? At least where I am, that’s the majority of administrators. They NEED to get into classrooms.
The superintendent in my district does that once a year, but it’s always an elementary class in the wealthy end of the district, even though he taught high school way back. Plus, the district media people are always there to take pictures and whatever, so it’s not really an authentic experience.
Bring back the requirement that all administrators have to have at least 5 years in the classroom before they can be administrators and that used to work really well.Many
I don’t think the very real issue of how out of touch building and district administrators are, on the whole, with the demands and realities of being a classroom teacher, is addressed enough. The disconnect in my district is so huge that we teachers are attempting to do our jobs DESPITE these folks. It’s really demoralizing. Their jobs descriptions should require them to spend time in the classroom.