Well, This Is Awkward...

So this is kind of awkward.

Please don't encourage principals to go into our rooms to ask us questions.

Just let us teach.

Well, the problem is that's kind of my whole job.

That's kind of my whole thing.

I have a book called Now We're Talking, 21 Days to High Performance Instructional Leadership that is all about classroom walkthroughs.

And I'm getting ready to start a three hour training on how to get into classrooms here at UCLA.

And I think this is one of the most important things for administrators to do.

Now, does that mean it's always done well?

Does that mean it's always done in a helpful way?

Absolutely not.

But I don't think anyone will ever succeed in convincing me that administrators should not get into classrooms.

But I would love to know, what have you found to be less than helpful?

If you've had maybe more visits than you wanted from your administrators, what was it that made them less than helpful?

Because to me...

every classroom visit should be a chance for conversation there should be an opportunity to see people at work talk with them about their work and develop a greater understanding and appreciation for their work and if that sounds like a bad idea i don't know what to tell you like i i feel like everybody should want to have their work known have their work appreciated to be able to explain themselves not that not that they should be put on the defensive or grilled about everything that they're doing or every little choice but you know you should have the chance to speak for yourself and to explain the decisions that you're making and explain the dilemmas that you're facing as a teacher i think this is really important work for teachers and administrators to pursue together.

So again, let me know what you think.

Let me know what you're seeing.

One of the things that I think we've got to stop doing as a profession is we've got to stop grilling people.

We've got to stop saying, well, you did this.

Why?

Defend it.

Defend yourself.

And if you are an administrator and you want to know why a teacher made a particular instructional decision, don't ask them why they did it.

You're just going to get defensive.

You're going to create defensiveness.

What you can do instead is ask a how question, you know, how did you make that decision?

Talk to me about how you decided what to cover today, that kind of thing.

And you will get a much better answer and you'll have a much better discussion.

So I got to run.

We're getting set up for the training here, but let me know what you think about classroom walkthroughs and what questions you have.

And this is from my presentation.

Here is the theory of action for instructional leadership.

Confidently get into three classrooms every day, have feedback conversations that change teacher practice, and discover your best opportunities for school improvement.