“20 heads are better than two”: A tiny window into teacher networking in #phillyeducation

Written by Christina Cantrill
February 13, 2014

Linda Darling Hammond argues in The Flat World and Education that “America’s commitment to equity will determine our future” and outlines a set of recommendations, based on accumulated experiences both nationally and globally, that she describes as “policy for quality and equality” in schooling.

This policy includes having meaningful learning goals connected to intelligent and reciprocal accountability systems along with equitable and adequate resources, strong professional standards and supports as well as schools organize for student and teacher learning (chpt. 9). What I see within her policy descriptions is the need to build collective capacity among schools, communities, and leadership as well as many points of learning and resources for capacity-building to tap into historically and globally.

This topic of collective capacity-building is of interest to me based on my experience at the National Writing Project, a peer-based teachers network bringing together educators across grades, disciplines (and increasingly including educators outside of school; see nwp.org for more). What I have learned through this work is that collective capacity building is possible, and through that capacity building, paths towards equitable change can be fostered. Therefore, I am interested in bringing this knowledge of teacher networking into the context of Philadelphia schooling today to try to understand in what ways teachers are currently networking and then how they feel that this networking is helping to build capacity for equitable change in public education and learning.

Why Focus On Teachers and Teacher Networks?

I was inspired to focus on this after attending the Philadelphia Writing Project Celebration of Writing and Literacy in November which brought three teacher networks including the Philadelphia Teacher Action Group (TAGPhilly), Teachers Lead Philly, and the Philadelphia Writing Project (PhilWP). In the context of calling for collective teacher action, keynote Anissa Weinraub, a Philadelphia teacher and TAG organizer, says that there is a need to simultaneously defend and also transform public education. “We are at a tipping point” she writes in this essay from the Perspectives in Urban Education Journal.

we are at a tipping point where parents, students, teachers, and community members … are waking up to see, instead, that the priorities of our so-called leaders are not our priorities, and therefore we find ourselves forced to take a stand and work collectively in ways that are very new to all of us.

Teachers Lead Philly works together as a “network of practicing teachers devoted to teacher leadership in Philadelphia” and they define teacher leaders as those that have expertise and experience in teaching and learning; advocate for students and colleagues; are stewards of the teaching profession; as well as are authors of education research and policy at all levels. The key projects they are currently working on according to their website, include studying and taking a position about how to evaluate teacher effectiveness, support for teacher collaboration in and across schools, and examining teacher leadership in general as a network.

Dina Portnoy, a PhilWP teacher and long-time leader education, talks about capacity for teacher leadership and organizing that she and others developed through being part of the PhilWP network and other teacher communities. PhilWP calls itself a “growing teacher network of … teacher consultants who work in a variety of ways with teachers and other educators to explore literacy, writing, teaching, and learning in their classrooms and schools regardless of grade or discipline.” Networking is a deliberate strategy of PhilWP and the larger NWP network to promote necessary and ongoing improvements and change along the way in learning and literacy.

… to succeed in a new environment, a reform that is spreading geographically must also challenge, and eventually, penetrate habitual practice in new contexts. To achieve this, the NWP focusing on professional development and professional networks for teachers. McDonald, Buchanan and Sterling

Kira Baker-Doyle writes about the power of networks and networking for teachers in her book The Networked Teacher. Although primarily focused on new teachers, her work relates to the power of networking, in general, in the field of education, teaching and learning. She writes that “teacher networks and professional learning communities help socialize and guide teachers to become active members of the professional community.” (5). She draws on work by educational researchers who write about networks and communities of practitioners as “sites of learning” (Lieberman, 2000) as well as refers to sociologists such as Manuel Castells and his notion of a “networked society” to place this idea of networking in a larger more global context:

The emerging centrality of social networks and networking to our lives is a societal phenomenon. The concept of consciously developing a social network has become ingrained in the ways we think about making friends, getting jobs, and managing business or organizations. (2-3)

What Do We Mean By Reform?

Supporting the development of alternative visions for schooling, and teaching, and engaging in collective capacity building for this work, is a key piece of what I have been thinking about in my work with teachers at the National Writing Project. Triggered, I believe, by a commitment to supporting students in developing and using their “voice”, writing project teachers have been, for awhile now, at the forefront of tinkering and learning from their students within the context of emerging networked technologies and digital media (Because Digital Writing Matters). This work overtime, originally thought of as technology “integration” soon began to be interrogated as more fundamental to a shifting social landscape and a key provocation in thinking about literacy, learning and teaching. From here, we started to argue that “digital is” the way that we write, learn, publish and share today, and we have drawn ourselves into inquiry around this idea and and what it means for learning, and therefore teaching (see digitalis.nwp.org for more). From that, and our shared work with researchers and scholars of the MacArthur Foundation’s Digital Media and Literacy Initiative, we now refer to this work as “connected learning,” more holistically embracing literacy’s social, networked and participatory elements. (see connectedlearning.tv)

To embrace a vision of connected learning is likely going to require that we all continue to rapidly and continually learn and change in the field of learning. Linda Darling Hammond also speaks to the need for entirely new mission for schools today:

Today’s expectations that school will enable all students, rather than just a small minority, to learn challenging skills to high levels creates an entirely new mission for schools. … Major changes in school organizations and the systems in which they sit are needed to accomplish this. Unfortunately, the bureaucratic school created at the turn of the 20th century was not organized to meet these needs for intellectual development or for individual responsiveness. Most of today’s school were designed when the goal of education was not to educate all students well but to batch process a great many efficiently, selecting and supporting only a few for “thinking work.” (236-237)

Connected learning’s agenda is a response to three broad trends reshaping the landscape of learning in the U.S. and other countries in the Global North additionally include: broken pathways from education to opportunity; a growing learning divide; and a commercialized and fragmented media ecology.

Connected learning recognizes a tension between current approaches to education
and the world that youth will inherit. … In a world of global interconnection and rapid change, effective learning is lifelong and integrated into the real world of work, civic engagement, and social participation. We can’t expect young people to be able to “bank” knowledge and skills from school and apply them to a stable world of work later in life. Instead, we need an approach to educational reform that recognizes learning as an ongoing process, connected to a diverse and evolving ecosystem of learning resources, institutions, communities, and outcomes (Connected Learning agenda authors attribute to Freire, 1970; pg 14).

Andi Perez, in this Public School Notebook interview, responding to a critique that often teachers seem to be protecting the status quo against a need to change, emphasizes that groups like Youth United for Change (YUC) and Philadelphia Coalition Advocating for Public Schools (PCAPS) are also looking to reform education.

I don’t think that [because we’re] saying, ‘don’t close schools’ that you can make the argument that we’re protecting the status quo – especially when we’re saying, ‘Don’t close schools – do this. An alternate, research-proven reform.’

The alternative reform she mentioned is a Community Education Plan put forward by PCAPS, itself a coalition comprised of students, parents and teachers. In this plan they write:

When it comes to building great schools, there are no magic elixirs or shortcuts. But that doesn’t mean we don’t know how to do it. In fact, we do know how to improve schools and achieve educational excellence. We know that real school improvements require sound strategies, targeted investments, and diligent and sustained efforts over time. They involve creating schools where young people feel safe, valued and cared for; where teachers are well- trained and well-supported; where students are engaged and have their developmental needs met. (23)

Similarly Linda Darling-Hammond’s policies for quality and equality clearly outline a vision for what is possible based on what we know has worked and primarily building on what others have already figured out how to do. Although, at the same time, she explicitly acknowledges that we have more to learn to shift from a bureaucratic school model into something that more resembles a learning institution or organization.

[21st century institutions or organizations] aim to stimulate greater thoughtfulness and creativity rather than focusing largely on enforcing compliance. Their success, then, depends on the creation of new opportunities for teacher and school learning, new modes of accountability, and new kinds of incentives for continual improvement and problem solving. (238)

Connected learning then potentially offers a set of design and learning principles for such institutions and organizations dedicated to learning since the principles grow out of research about the ways that youth in rich and networked learning environments are learning and then asking questions about how to create and activate such ecosystems for all youth, not just those who have access to connected opportunities (whether through family, school, etc.). This research too I believe is also backed up by the way that we at the National Writing Project see adults also learn — well established in literature about networked communities of practice (Lieberman and Wood; McDonald, Buchanan and Sterling; Stokes and St. John).

At its heart, in order to create learning institutions then, teachers must also be learners themselves within communities of peers. Much of what is challenging though is that teaching is a complex profession and nuanced undertaking but is currently often organized in schools where teachers work with groups of youth in relative isolation. Also being a learner sometimes requires you to let go of what you already know in order to come to know new things, but what you know is often deeply held and tactic and stakes in everyday teaching are high, especially in fraught environments like Philadelphia, so one’s ability to do this is very compromised. Unlearning to learn can really only happen in supportive communities with other learners who are also teachers (McDonald. Buchanan, Sterling). As one teacher responded in a survey about teacher networking that I distributed:

It’s valuable to me to network with other educators to get ideas and to be around people who have similar struggles. I feel like teaching is omnipresent throughout my days and I am always thinking about my teaching. People in other professions do not always think about their work so it’s important to me to be around like minded individuals.

A Small Window In

In looking at the Community Education Plan put forward by PCAPS, I note that they call for the building of “collective capacity for high-quality teaching and learning.” Linda Darling-Hammond commits a whole chapter to a related topic she calls “Doing What Matters Most: Developing Competent Teaching.” Here she writes that “Ultimately a well designed state and national infrastructure that ensures that schools have access to well-prepared teachers and knowledge about best practices is absolutely essential.” (197)

How then do we start to unpack what we know, protect what we need, while also working together on new visions of what is possible for teaching and learning today? In what ways can we work towards what Linda Darling-Hammond describes as “genuine school reform” and what is the role of learning and leadership in that mix? In my mind, this is key place where I think that teacher networks come in.

In attempt to create even a small window for myself into of the whys and hows of teacher networking in Philadelphia today, I sent out a request via the social networks that I am connected to and then also more generally distributed it via the popular #phillyeducation handle on twitter.

Inspired by the recent Celebration of Writing and Literacy event that brought together three teacher networks — PhilWP itself, Teachers Action Group and Teachers Lead Philly — I am interested in documenting and sharing the ways that teachers are currently networking in Philadelphia and in what ways they feel this networking is building capacity for themselves, for others and/or for equitable change in public schooling and learning.

If you are a local teacher connected to one of these three networks and/or networking in some other way, I’d love to hear from you! Thank you for considering this. Here is a quick link to my survey.

Christina

I was interested in hearing about capacity building — ie. why teachers network at all, what were the top three benefits of networking for themselves and others, and then if they had thoughts on how networking could also be a strategy for building capacity for equitable change in public schooling and learning more generally. Sixteen teachers have responded to my survey so far. One teacher wrote:

We only have our power in numbers. We can’t stay isolated in our classrooms. Our strength comes through networking — defending/transforming public education at all levels at all times, throughout the city in a variety of ways.

When asked to rank the top three impacts of teacher networking for themselves or others, teachers responded in these ways (and with more or less this frequency from top to bottom):

intellectual and professional growth//gain insight & understand complexity
personal and political development/individual and collective strength
passion for equity/common cause/shared purpose/service to students
improve community and contexts; build community; improve the curriculum
specific learning (skills, practices, knowledge)
power/activism/flip the script
change/cross-pollinate/innovate
bringing together of resources
solidarity w teachers/not alone
gain a sense of the bigger picture/staying informed/inform and educate others
social justice/equity

When asked about capacity building for change in public schooling and learning more generally, here were some of the responses:

laying the groundwork for teacher-led schools “as a way to address capacity for turning around struggling schools and more actively engaging teachers, students and parents in the transforming schools.”;
reaching outside of the public school system to garner support and resources/building of coalitions;
new ideas and resources for in the classroom and beyond, ie. “the idea of using writing to promote social justice, which ultimately had a large impact on my teaching in a public education setting;”
connect to events and resources;
opportunities to brainstorm in the context of crisis and then share ideas about what actions we need to take to fix the problem.

Looking then at why individuals say that they themselves network with others, the responses were similar but had a particularly personal tone. Teacher used words like “inspired” “motivated” “sustained” and “validated” “encouraging” “empowering” and helping one to “make sense” of the whole rather than the just the individual situation.

Teaching is very isolating and I can get stuck in a place of self doubt. If I was not part of a teaching network I do not know if I would still be a teacher. They help me make sense of the complexity of teaching and remember what I love about teaching.

When asked about how they were networking, teachers in this survey responded with almost all the choices, including: informal networking, semi-formal, formal/organized, online, face-to-face, “blended”, local, national, event driven, on-going, and at points of need. Additional notes I made include that “International” networking was only chosen by 3 of the respondents, only 2 did not pick the “informal” networking as part of what they did, and one teacher did not choose “online” as a way of networking.

What do I see in all of this? I see Philadelphia teachers networking and self-organizing in a range of ways, some formal and some less so, around their own personal and professional learning. Based on their responses, they seem to indicate that this kind of personal and professional learning has a range of important consequences from the creation of community itself and their shared purposes as well as building coalitions, curriculum and gathering the resources and power they need to support change and action.

“Just as two head are better than one, 20 heads are better than two … Teacher networking can be a catalyst for change at the school, district, and state-wide levels if used the right way.” was the response of one teacher.