Franchise teachers? They exist, but I cannot ever recall a public conversation about a franchise teacher. We accept that professional sports, high powered businesses, and medical and tech enterprises have franchise employees. The Green Bay Packers win or lose on Aaron Rogers’ throwing arm. Businesses have “movers and shakers” who are recognized and highly rewarded for their capacity to generate product excitement and financial growth. Hospitals and clinics draw patients from around the country for the medical specialties of their physicians. Every tech company start up is the “brain child” of its resident geeks. Teachers, however, are always talked about in the aggregate or as “the school staff.” We are uncomfortable singling out the talents of individual teachers. It’s time to get over this self-imposed and damaging modesty. Schools have franchise teachers and we need to talk about their exceptional contribution to a school and to the education of children.
A franchise player is considered the cornerstone of his or her organization. As a cornerstone, the presence of this player consistently increases the capacity of the team or group to perform at an exemplary level. With its cornerstone, the identity of the team is golden; without its cornerstone, team identify wilts. It’s Miami Heat’s LeBron James, Apple’s Steve Jobs, and Talk Radio’s Rush Limbaugh. The presence of a key player, the inspirational person, or the “voice” of the enterprise gives an immediate recognition and valuing that would not happen without the franchise player.
The naming and valuing of a franchise player is a concept developed in professional athletics in the era of free agency when a top player could be offered a more lucrative contract by another team. Franchise player designation allows a team to protect and retain its cornerstone member(s). These are the names in the sports pages and on the faces on TV every week.
Interestingly, a franchise player may not be the team’s best player in terms of playing skills. Most often, it is a combination of skills and personality, mature experience and dynamic energy, and self-confidence with self-effacing team work that elevates an expert player to franchise status.
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/67825-who-are-basketballs-true-franchise-players
http://espn.go.com/blog/sweetspot/post/_/id/36615/who-will-be-2013s-30-franchise-players
It is not difficult to extrapolate the concept of “franchise player” beyond sports to other enterprises. Consider the Rolling Stones and Mick Jagger, U2 and Bono, or Wheel of Fortune and Vanna White (the quiet face of the game show for 32 years). Consider the Fed and Janet Yellen, the Today Show and Matt Lauer, or Facebook and Mark Zuckerburg. Franchise players are present and recognizable in every significant enterprise.
Can we say the same about our local school? Not so much. Teachers, like Garrison Keillor’s Norwegian Lutheran residents of Lake Woebegon, shun the spotlight. They believe that being allowed to be a teacher is reward enough for their exceptional work. Teachers are expected to be modest public servants working in the backdrop of public education. But, if we pay attention to the dynamics of how our local school or school district operates, we can identify individual teachers who provide a charisma, inspiration, creativity, and voice that are even more remarkable than anyone in pro sports, on television, or in the tech world. Athletic glory is limited to several years, business and tech gurus last until the next guru makes a splash, and the personality on TV or radio often lasts as long as the attention of their audience. Except Vanna. Teachers, on the other hand, impact generations of children. Good teaching forms a mind and mindful thinking lasts a lifetime.
Franchise teachers come in a variety of flavors. Volcanic energy. Forceful personality. Expertise. Classy. Each flavor has the capacity to affect the nature and flow of a school for a generation or more and touch the lives of teachers, children and parents. Interestingly, most franchise teachers don’t recognize the impact they have on others, because they are just being what they are: super teachers. It is best to name and describe several examples of these franchise teachers. Describing them in the abstract does not do justice to their work.
Charlie Eckhardt is an example of the maestro franchise teacher. Charlie is the band director in a small, rural school district in northeast Wisconsin. The school’s instrumental program begins in 6th grade when kids “pick” their instrument. Children sing and dance in elementary school before they become Charlie’s. By the time these musicians graduate, they will have joined a unique fraternity of Gibraltar School band members. Charlie’s band performs in the school auditorium, local churches and town halls, marches in parades and travels to the corners of our country. Band members win regional and state honors and earn college scholarships. His musicians are versatile. They play in the pep band, symphonic band, jazz band and perform as solos and ensembles. From their first day until they graduate, Charlie commits to each student’s musical education with a constancy and fervor that “lights the kid up.” And, the biggest kid in the room is Charlie. Charlie teaches kids to love music and to play music. He teaches kids to enjoy and grow from working with other kids. He teaches kids to be a part of their school.
Charlie also is the biggest kid among his faculty peers. In any meeting, one can expect him to say something that is “one click off target but eye opening because it refocuses the conversation.” He heats up the conversation, pouts when decisions go a different direction than his, but always engages in the work of the school. When he dons his 1970s, boiled wool marching band jacket with its braid and chenille, Charlie exemplifies why every teacher in his school wants to teach there. He is a franchise player.
The late Tom Bromley was a tour de force franchise teacher. Tom taught physics in an affluent, suburban high school near Milwaukee. I can still see Tom standing halfway down the middle aisle of desks in his classroom with his feet spread wide apart asking, while his arms windmill, “What just happened? Explain it using math and physics.” And, hands would fly as kids wanted to be first. First, however, was only the start of being “Bromley.” “Add to that!” “And?” “So, what? Why is that important?” “Are you sure? Prove it to me.” Tom was an inspired, intuitive, natural teacher whose fire for teaching burned hot and bright every day. He turned kids on to science and thinking like a scientist.
Tom also was the advisor to the Student Council at a time when Council officers were the elected nobility of a high school. These kids ran the student life of the high school that led the state in ACT and AP test achievement, racked up state championships in sports, and sent its orchestra and choir to Europe every year. The graduates of Whitefish Bay became the “Who’s Who?” of their college campuses. As the Council Advisor, he honed members’ ability to organize campaigns, think like executives, and finesse and charm like US Senators. Tom was a franchise player and the heartbeat of his school. Sadly this was proved at the time of his premature death.
Dave Griffin was a drum beating franchise teacher. Dave was a late-comer to education. He knocked about in early jobs, painted houses, but hung around the school district until, well into his 40s, he completed his baccalaureate with a teaching degree in social studies. Dave stammered and often had to rethink whether his subject and predicates jived. But, Dave was a natural-born teacher. He was gifted in his capacity to capture every student’s attention with the hook of curiosity and intrigue that made every child want to know and do more. Before problem-based learning was vogue, Dave was creating scenarios of engagement in meaty, real-world issues. “If we teach just to have kids memorize dry facts, why bother,” he would say to his colleagues. As a result, Dave’s students were incited to march the Denfeld High School halls when studying civil rights, organize a student union when learning about labor movements in the US, and campaign like the “died in the wool” at election time. Dave knew what made kids tick and consistently ticked them to learn.
Dave also was a natural staff developer. Teaching was not the career of his youth; as the career of his maturity, it was his passion. He thrived in discussions of “teaching tools”, dove headlong into seminars and workshops on pedagogy, and was the school leader in “trying things out.” He did not foolishly or naively engage in every school house fad, but sorted and delved into those that connected sound theory with practice. Dave was not the classiest teacher on the faculty nor was he the brightest. But, he was, without question, the sparkplug that moved the faculty and school from point A to point B. He provided leadership by doing and excitement with a punch. He was a franchise teacher.
Some franchise teachers are the heart of their school. In the neighboring school district, a franchise teacher will retire this year and it will be interesting to see how the school reacts to her absence. For more than thirty years, Cassie’s sweat and energy were the lifeblood of the school. She made the success of academically- and socially-troubled high school boys her professional challenge and she won. Their graduations were her triumphs.
She has been the constant fountain of school action. If a local family suffered, she organized a school response. When school funding dipped, she organized fund raisers. When faculty spirit and camaraderie waned, she led a team-building experience. When the School Board needed information, she was consulted. When the administration needed a “front” person, she stepped up. A school’s heart is developed over time and is demonstrated by caring. Someone, though, must be the organ of that heart and that is a franchise teacher.
Lauren Bremer, Wendy Relich and Dick Hubacek stand out from their colleagues in almost every regard. They are classy. They are the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers (Google these names if you must) of teaching. They are classy, because they are expert teachers. They are classy, because they are well educated. They are classy in the way they care about each of their students’ learning. They are classy without intending to be and would not necessarily understand if you told them they were classy.
Each earned graduate degrees in education for the purpose of expanding their skills as teachers. Each is widely read and traveled and this allows them to connect a student with graphic examples that makes learning something difficult much easier. They transport student minds. Each is an eloquent speaker and writer. They make listening and responding to their teaching easy. Each makes her or his students want to succeed, because learning for learning’s sake is a good thing.
I worked with Lauren and Wendy and was Dick’s student. On any day, if asked to describe a classy teacher, these three wonderful and powerful teachers stand out because they define the term.
If schools were for-profit organizations, Charlie, Tom, Dave, Cassie, Lauren, Wendy and Dick would be paid handsomely and given annual bonuses for their “franchise” work. If super success was rewarded, each of these teachers would be wealthy. If super success meant public recognition, their names would be proudly displayed in the school’s organizational literature. They would be known beyond their school walls. But, schools are not for-profit organizations. A franchise teacher’s salary occupies a cell on the School Board’s salary schedule just like a good, but average teacher. And, there are no bonuses paid in public ed. There is no agreement between Board members and rank and file on pay for performance.
If teachers were esteemed professionals, franchise teachers would be the upper echelon of the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers. But, the emphasis of teaching’s professional organizations is political and economic and not the furtherance of teaching. So, franchise teachers are not recognized within their professional community. Lauren Mittermann was the 1999 Teacher of the Year in Wisconsin. This recognition was for the body of her work not just a single season or solitary accomplishment. The criteria that gained her Teacher of the Year have been present every year across a thirty year career. Yet, Lauren completes her final year in the classroom this month and retires quietly.
It is left to local schools and school communities to recognize and honor their franchise teachers. And, to do more and better than they have done. This is a brief prescription for how to do right by your franchise teachers.
1. Discern and recognize the franchise teacher. This is not to denigrate the solid, average or above average teacher. Instead, discernment means looking more deeply into the effects a teacher’s work has on children and the school and labeling that work. It is past the time when a school should identify its maestros, its tours de force, its drum beaters, its heart beats, and its classy teachers. Name your franchise teachers.
2. Celebrate the people connected with events. When the Board approves a significant initiative, there is an expectation of achievement. When the achievement is reached, acclaim the persons responsible. Attach a face and name to school success just as if your school was in the major leagues. Tell people who moved and shook the school, who inspired children, who beat the drum of success. And, celebrate publicly.
3. Attach financial meaning to the goals of the school. Across the board and identical treatment is a nemesis for the teaching profession. At the end of the day, every teacher in the school knows who put in a solid day or year of teaching. They know who “just showed up and did their usual” and they know who “rocked the school.” This is no secret. Create an annual bonus for exceptional annual teaching and school leadership. Create a new salary category for many years of exceptional teaching and school leadership.
4. Pay attention to your franchise teachers or they will leave teaching. Many maestros don’t know they are a maestro; they are just being themselves. But, achievement needs recognition or the achiever is never certain if the work is above or below their mark. Many franchise teachers are starved for what motivates them the most, a heart-felt, fully engaged professional conversation. Spend time and commit personal support to your franchise teacher and she or he will, like the Energizer Rabbit, give you years of exceptional teaching.