I'm gonna learn to dance if it takes me all night and day (Chuck Berry)

Photo by Geran de Klerk on Unsplash

Exciting news!!!

One term into our appraisal process for the year and we've managed to complete pretty much all of the interim interviews to check that all teachers have their goals set and are now engaged in their personal inquiry linked to their goals.

Sounds a little complicated when I write it like that and not wildly exciting, but it's nicely straightforward in reality and important man!

Remember: Your focus determines your reality (Qui Gon-Jinn).

Simply put, it's all about targeting ways of improving learning via improving individual teaching practices.

I like the following chart from Dan Rockwell via his Leadership Freak blog where he cites Bob Proctor.

In our context, personal change begins with a 'what if...' and a good idea. But good ideas aren’t enough.

According to Bob:

You have a 10% chance of making change if you say, “That’s a good idea.”

You have a 25% chance of making change if you say, “”I’ll do it.”

You have a 40% chance of making change if you set a time to do it.

You have a 50% chance of making change if you plan HOW to do it.

You have a 60% chance of making change if you make a commitment.

You have a 95% chance of making change if you set a specific time to share your progress with someone.

That's SUPER encouraging. 

Next step for me after these first term interviews is setting times to have teachers share their goal and inquiry progress.

Tremors in the thigh bone, shakin' all over (Johnny Kidd and The Pirates)

R and R: Review and R...omg - I can't remember. 

Is it revise? respond? resuscitate? rest? 

Ah - silly me, just remembered - it's reflect!!

At my school Review and Reflect has replaced the A word - appraisal.

Thank goodness!

The A word's judgmental connotations are mainly centred around accountability, compliance and evaluation (the full Monty version of the A word is, of course, Performance Appraisal, which is, like, shudder - even worse). 

Instead, Review and Reflect's connotations are around softer things like self-reflection and future development.

There's a hint of tautology in the term but review is the looking back bit and reflect is the thinking about that and then thinking about how improvements can happen in the future bit so... 

As per the new outline, we each need a large 'out there' over-arching goal to hang our own Review and Reflect on (rather than the three goals under the a*******l system).

I'm struggling a bit with this, partly because I've been conditioned over 30 plus years of teaching to think otherwise. 

This article by Jeff Goins helped a bit - he's an advocate of small gains towards a big goal, so he's speaking my language! 

As he succinctly reminds us, I don't necessarily need a big Jerry Maguire moment, no dramatic declaration to the world.

Paradoxically then, I can reconcile an overarching focus which breaks down into some composite parts.

I have a few ideas about where I want to head in the future, so the reflect part is probably going to focus on specific skills I have that can be adapted/ supplemented to things beyond the classroom.

Come to think of it Review and Resuscitate seems very apt!

In a further positive move away from a*******l, we no longer have hierarchical appraisers. Instead we are paired with someone of our choice and we act as reciprocal sounding boards. A fabulous move!

I have a great mentor buddy (officially, we're using 'coach') in Jane. I trust her and she gets me. Can't ask for much more can I?

Nice one all round to Dionne and her Taylor Swift (shake it off) team. You dun good!

Now, where are those paddles...okay...CLEAR!

Purple words on a grey background (Neil Young)

The teachers at school are being appraised at the moment, except that they aren’t.

The appraisal word has been banned. That was so last year.

The current term is an unequivocal ‘Evaluation’. I think there would be an uproar if my company used the term ‘evaluation’, and yet that is the term the Abu Dhabi Education Counsel (ADEC) has refreshingly used. Refreshingly? You betcha!

It’s interesting that the current term used by Cognition, ‘Performance and Development’, tries to have the traditional bob each way.

Am I being evaluated on my (past) performance? Well yes, I am.

Am I a work in progress that needs some (future) help to develop? Yes - that too (except I have no future beyond my contract end date of July with my employing company so it’s really just an evaluation but it’s not called that).  

The perennial attempts at making employees accountable have always tied the two things together and the ampersand has thus become invisible.

As F.R Levin (Boston College, Faculty of Education) says,

‘The problem is that this melding of "development" and "evaluation" has gone on for so long that it has become "devaluation". In many places, neither the development nor the assessment is being done with much success. Development has become a list of issues that the developer/knower thinks they know more about than the developee/knowee. The problem here is that in many cases they don't.   

His advice is to ‘separate out the roles of development and accountability…We have to stop pretending that they are the same thing’.

Well someone in ADEC must have been listening.

The next month will be a busy time as interim app…sorry – evaluation forms are filled out and discussions take place with the teachers about their ratings.

There are four standards: The Profession; The Curriculum; The Classroom; The Community.

Each standard has a number of components that are rated on a five point scale from Pre-Foundation to Accomplished.

Gentleman – start your engines!