The Toyota Principle: Collaboration

Educational leaders could take a page from one of the world's leaders in the automotive industry.Lately, educational leadership types keep trying to model education after industry. One of the problems with that idea is that some aspects of successful companies seems to be conveniently forgotten. For whatever reason, leaders at national and state, and sometimes local levels don't trust highly skilled and trained professionals to know what to do.Listening to "This American Life" on NPR this weekend, I learned about NUMMI which at the time of the original story was a joint venture between General Motors and Toyota. About 15 minutes in, we hear of the Toyota principle of teamwork.Elena Aguilar, a contributor at Edutopia.com,  describes the following characteristics needed by education teams in this article posted on Edutopia, Five Characteristics of an Effective School Team:

1. a common purpose or mission
2. a safe place to take risks
3. respectful disagreement
4. trust and
5. at least one strong leader

Forward to about the 15 minute mark in this link to the story of the Nummi Plant from This American Life. It is at this point in the story, that the lessons educational leaders need to take away from Toyota and the Toyota principle seem to intersect.In the Toyota model, when a team member appears to be struggling, the other team members will ask if that struggling member needs help. This astounds the visiting GM workers. In their California plant, no one offered help; instead the line manager would scold, yell or take other punitive actions.As the interviewees continue to tell the story, we learn about the collaborative nature of the Toyota assembly line.  If there is a problem, any member is expected to voice ideas for resolution. And the ideas are truly listened to; everyone is expected to be part of the solution. According to the interviewees, it was not unusual for a worker on the line to make a suggestion (based on their own observation) and a short time later, the suggested resolution would appear.  Imagine the power of that gesture: Your expertise and opinions are vital to our success.Let's compare that with top-down educational leadership today. Teachers are told what to teach, when to teach it, how to teach it, and how long to teach it. Not much room for listening or collaboration in that model.As I listened to this transformational story, I couldn't help but reflect on what happens in educational "teams" today. One must be very brave to let the schedules slip, even though the reason for missing a "deadline" (i.e., assessment) might have a basis in sound educational practice.So called ed-reformers emboldened by their own monetary success from their time in private industry need to take a look at Toyota's success and perhaps their own business models. Listen to the experts who are working on the front lines; be more of a partner and less of a boss. And let the educational workplace become an environment safer for innovation and solutions.

What We Have Here Is A Failure to Communicate

This weekend, our grade level was asked to give some feedback on communication, or lack thereof, in our school.  As further proof that everything in life can be explained by movies, these lines spoken by Stother Martin in Cool Hand Luke popped into my head immediately:

 What we have here is a failure to communicate.

Communication on every level is one thing that makes or breaks a school's culture. I've worked with some really great communicators over the span of 30 years.  Here are some things that I've learned are important: Is the message always top-down? Collaborative decision-making can be less expedient. Why are major decisions and messages always delivered by administrators? Is it for expediency of delivering a consistent message or is it because it's easier to just make the decision at the top?Group decision making takes extra time and effort because the group having the discussion must hear all the points of view and then negotiate the final message. I believe that a healthy debate of topics is a sign of a group/team that respects each other. We teach our students accountable talk, why is it so impossible for adults to practice the same talk moves? We need to stop the "pants-on-fire" method of decision making and allow vertically grouped staff to have discussions and make decisions that may not please everyone, but will allow all voices a time to be heard.Is the reasoning known? One of my relatives gave my son and husband each shirts many years ago. Matt's said "But why?" and Adrien's "Because I said so."For administrators and leaders, it must be much more expedient to say "this is the way it's going to go", end of story. But "because I said so" is a sign of the micro-management that signals a death knell for collaborative cultures. It dis-empowers (is that even a word?) those who are doing the actual teaching. It squashes any chance of finding a creative solution to a "problem", whether the problem is big or small. And it takes the voice away for the ones who are going to do the task. Sometimes those of us on the ground floor can see a problem that those with a wider view cannot.Is it timely? Last minute changes happen, everyone understands that. But a constant stream of last minute important information is not only frustrating, it makes people (me) resentful. As good as they are subs and paraprofessionals cannot deliver instruction the way a teacher can; teaching today and teaching with the Common Core standards is more complicated than "open your book to page 109".  Plans that are rewritten or simply rehashed on the fly are mostly a waste of time for students.I want to know how long someone has been sitting on the information.  This week I got a notice for a special education meeting on Friday - the day of the meeting. I got an email about it on Thursday. There was no time to prepare data for the meeting. How professional does that appear?What does success look like? In contrast, this week our Literacy Coach took time during Common Planning to step my grade level through all the (known) events upcoming for the last 6 weeks of school. While it makes my head spin, I appreciated how she communicated what was expected to be accomplished by year-end and now can approach planning more thoughtfully.  She also willingly adjusted some dates to accommodate year-end events our grade level wanted.  Collaborative? Check. Timely? Check. Reasoning explained? Check.  Now that's successful communication.

Divide and conquer?

When I hear people pit new teachers against experienced ones it makes me crazy.I cringe every time I hear that catch-all "burnt out" attached to experienced practitioners.  Yes, I'm sure you can find teachers who are marking time until they can get to the retirement board, but that's the exception, not the rule. And yes, new teachers bring a fresh viewpoint to education. Don't we have room for both?If you believe the half-truths of newspaper editors, you'd think a person like me - a teacher who has dedicated the last 25 years to elementary education - is just an ass in a chair taking up space and keeping a newly licensed teacher from solving all the problems of public education.What education needs are inquiring professionals regardless of the number of years spent in a classroom. Teachers who are experienced, but willing to research, consult, and learn from colleagues. Teachers who may have just entered a classroom for the first time, who reflect on what worked and what didn't and are unafraid to ask for help.What is the purpose behind the continual barrage from those who continually pit experienced (i.e. tenured) vs. new teacher? Is it economic? Is it ignorant? Is it some disgruntled adult now reliving a memory?Whatever it is, it is divisive. What teachers need is time and opportunity to share, to collaborate. And a bit of respect for the important work that needs to be done regardless of how long a person has practiced it.

Visualize This

Our strategy focus at this time in the year is making a visualization. Have you ever stopped to think about how useful this strategy really is? For my money, it seeps into just about every area of the third grade curriculum. In Word Study, we ask the kids to Look-Say-Cover-Write-Check.  In other words, look at the word you are trying to spell, close your eyes and imagine its shape and letters, write it, and check it. In mathematics, I ask the kids to imagine a story problem being played out as a movie:  If 2 children and playing tag and 4 more join them, what does that look like? How can imagining the math "situation" help students to decide which operation to use?And then there's the mother of all visualizations: reading.  In an earlier post I wrote about how the vocabulary in a short Autumn poem caused my students to struggle. Well, not only the vocabulary proved to be a hurdle, but also the very process of visualizing a text and recording thoughts was difficult.  A good number of my students simply copied the words of the poem (trembling just doesn't roll off the tip of my third graders' tongues) by way of explaining what they "saw" as they read the poem's text.  Another group of students started off strong (I see pumpkins lying in an empty cornfield), but then the writing took a wild turn into imaginative fantasy (black cats, ghost, and scary carved pumpkins all made an appearance).Today my colleagues in administration graciously came to work with my students -- can you imagine a classroom so lucky to have the Principal, Assistant Principal and Literacy Specialist come in to co-teach for an hour? With our smaller groups, we broke down the text to two-line segments, stopped to talk through what pictures came to mind, and revise the students' descriptions to be more driven from the text itself. What I was able to observe was a lesson in the power of collaborative teaching:  even while directing my own little group I could hear and see one colleague drawing out students' understanding of vocabulary, another using realia, and another gently prodding students to close eyes and experience the scene created from the poets words. The styles of teaching were all different, yet focused on the same goal: moving a diverse group of students forward in their thinking.From the brief scan that I've done so far, the students' writings are more on-target. They have stayed within the structure of the text and written visualizations that can be traced back to the text. When one of my three colleagues returned to the classroom on another matter, I heard several call out thank you for working with us.Not only the teacher, but the students recognize what a wonderful opportunity it was.  And we are moving a step closer to mastering this very valuable strategy.