Category Archives: Blog

Us Is The Middle of We and They

Posted on by
Reply

Why is finding middle ground difficult? There are reasons. The first is that the generalizations that accompany positions on either side of the middle are easier to articulate and to empassion. The second is that from the middle you must counter both sides of the issue at the same time.

Hilda Taba (1902-67) was a renowned curriculum reformer and teacher educator whose groundbreaking work with inductive reasoning gives us insight into a chronic organizational malady – the We/They Conundrum. Taba helped educators understand the development of and need for data-based concepts and generalizations. The concepts and generalizations we create based upon “antecedent data” sculpts the way in which we perceive future experiences. And, there lies the We/They rub. Our past conceptualizations shape our future thinking.

A key step for Taba’s inductive reasoning is the organization of data. She asks students to analyze presented data by identifying their characteristics and grouping the data by “these are alike or similar” and “these are different or dissimilar.” Studying grouped data allows students to develop concepts and then generalizations. It is these generalizations students, and adults, use everyday as a basis for understanding their life experiences.

As social beings, we all are Taba-esque. We analyze our world and make conscious and unconscious analysis of what we see and experience. We innately group things that “are like me” and things that “are different than me.” The things that are like me tend to support and reinforce who we think we are in the world. Naturally, we prefer to be with and be associated with “things like me”, because they nurture our comfort zone. Comfort easily morphs into conformity and we begin to assume the characteristics of “things like me” as our characteristics.

Conversely, we disassociate from things that are “not like me.” Regardless that our disassociation is conscious or unconscious, we physically and emotionally move away from people and situations that are not like us. Discomfort defines our reality and our reaction to what is not like us and we conform to groups who share that discomfort.

We do this association and disassociation all the time. We find comfort in associations with our personal family and personal friends. Associations with workmates provide us with professional or vocational titles – we work in education, the financial world, the trades, human services industries, and in telecommunications. We are teachers, bankers, personal assistants, electricians, and programmers. We see ourselves in the world we occupy through the lens of these titles and associations and the world sees us as belonging to these titles and associations.

To apply Taba-esque generalizing, our affinity for people like us and avoidance of people not like us leads us to unconscious and then conscious “we/they” thinking. The world of stuff, time and place is divided into ours and theirs with all the fences and protection devices that accompany possession. Our thinking becomes parochial. Hence, the problem – within our self-imposed associations we find it difficult to accept the point of view, wants and needs, or values of those in differing groups. We perceive them to be “stuck” within their self-imposed association-based thinking that prevents them from accepting the “righteousness” of our perspective and point of view. They, in turn, fully believe that we are the ones who are stuck in narrowed thinking.

We/they propositions meet at the battle lines where “us” must be found.

There is a remedy to oppositional points of view. It lies in the application of another educational/mathematics device: Venn diagrams. One of the purposes of using for Venn diagrams is to identify and understand difference and convergence. We draw a circle to represent one set of similar data. We draw another circle to represent a different set of data. Then we attempt to overlay one circle over the other to identify any “shared” data. Most often, the overlaying turns into two side-by-side circles that overlap just a little. The majority of each circle represents the defining data of each group that is significantly different than the other data set. Shared data lies in the overlap. When more than two data sets are analyzed, the Venn diagram begins to look like leaves of a flower that slightly overlap each other in the middle.

For example, in the field of education there are teachers and administrators. Using Taba, there are similarities and differences in each of these associative groups that are professionally trained, work to educate others, and often are school-based. But, in our world of competing interested, each sees the other as a “they”. There are differences in professional compensation, scope of professional work, and professional responsibility and authority. These differences too often overpower the similarities.

It is easy for members of “we” groups to remain in the comfort of their circle. We look outward from our circle of comfort at issues and problems and define solutions and our future using only the set of data, concepts and generalizations of our association. When this happens, walls of defense rise.

A different approach is to define ourselves by the commonalities that we have with other associative groups – to look at our overlapping data, concepts and generalizations. If two associative groups can do this, accept and work with their commonalities, they begin to identify the “us” that is the shared interests of “we” and “they.” An “us” exists in the overlap whenever any two or more groups let down enough of their defining/defensive walls to look for common ground. Finding the “us” does not diminish their group’s commonality; in fact, it can strengthen those defining characteristics because necessitates a re-examination of the group’s underlying data set. Re-examination that also can strengthen the identification of commonality with other groups.

Taba thinking returns when a new “us” is found. The identified shared characteristics create new generalizations that describe “us” and “us” can use these generalizations to define their future experiences.

When disparate groups identify common ground with others and begin to work for the benefit of “us”, everyone benefits.

Be Truman-like When Engaging Criticism

Posted on by
Reply

We are admonished by President Truman, “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.”

Heat in this context is the hot breath of criticism and the red-faced anger of disagreement inflicted upon those whose decisions are vulnerable to public scrutiny. Harry Truman would tell us that if taking heat bothers you, don’t put yourself in positions where you can expect criticism. From a man known for plain speaking, this is good advice.

Extended applications of this Trumanism tell us that some heat will burn you, and some heat will strengthen you.  Or, there is bad heat and there is good heat. And, heat is what you make of it.

The “Oh, now you tell me!” of this are these recipes for living and working in a hot kitchen.

• When you make “high ground” decisions, heat will clarify your rationale and clarify your purpose. When you make “low ground” decisions, heat will consume you in defending the indefensible.

The “high ground” is philosophical and ethical and closely tied to organizational mission. If your considered decision cites educational theory and research, if it is aspirational in leading those impacted by its effects to do better than they otherwise would do, or if it is aligned with the stated and accepted objectives of the organization, you can assume a more calm and explanatory role. It is a teachable moment. Listen to the criticism and then ask, “Have you considered this?” Any indication that your critic(s) has not considered your high ground points opens the door for you to add illumination.

On the other hand, if your decision is “low ground” and more transactional than founded, you will slowly roast while making a defense of a situation that could have spawned a variety of lowly-grounded decisions. When there is high ground, take it. Let your critics attempt to assail your decision from the low ground but be silent when they then are swamped in making an indefensible argument.

If your decision is “low ground”, be the first to say “I am reconsidering this matter. Expect to hear from me in two days.”

• When you invite critics into your kitchen to understand their complaints, the kitchen is your friend. Use the kitchen to cook your work, don’t let your work get charred, overcooked or incinerated in your kitchen. When you close the kitchen to your critics, the mystique of what you do in the kitchen becomes a third entity in the scenario and that entity is not your friend.

The kitchen of decision-making is a unique environment. If it is your office or conference room and is adorned with images of your organization, then it is your home field and not a place that is overly familiar to your critics. You occupy the kitchen; it is your home turf so play the home field game. Keep the door to your kitchen open to anyone who wants to enter. Greet them as if they are entering your home, they are. Take the center stage chair in the room, it is your chair. Take care of the small talk, then get to business. It is your home field, set the agenda, set the goal, and set the time. Keep the kitchen open for business and keep it clear that you are the head cook in your kitchen.

Additionally, because this is your kitchen, you can authorize those who get to participate in your cooking session. Often, critics are accompanied by “others”. It is important to identify the critic and the supporters, because it is the critic’s criticism that is the meat of the conversation. Recognize the supporters but do not specifically engage with them. Let them add “support” but ignore the “extraneous”. Visual nodding at them is an appropriate recognition of their talk; verbal replies most often are not necessary for supporters.

When you close the kitchen to critics, the “closed” sign becomes just another negative issue. It adds to the list of things that someone holds against you. Don’t add to the list. Interestingly, inviting a critic into your kitchen often abates their ire and they decline the offer.

• When you can point at “policy and practice” as the basis for your decision, you can move the heat towards a discussion of the organization and its policies and practices and not a person – you. This is not a distractor; it is a focuser. When you can’t attach your decision to policy and practice, you stand naked and will be burned.

Every organization has its policy book or set of operating procedures. These are the adopted understandings that give direction and scope to organizational decisions. Most decisions that a seasoned organizational leader makes can be tied to policy and procedure, even if the leader did not make that connection at the time the decision was rendered. When the thermostat of criticism rises, pull out the policy and procedures book to make the proper connection, even if it is after the fact. Cite chapter and verse. When you can connect your decision and its backstory to adopted organizational policy, the decision is not your decision – you are the enactor of policy.

At the same time, do not hide behind the policy book. Your decision must be explained in everyday human language that recognizes the complaint, places it into an organizational context, and explains the application of policy as logical and appropriate. Policy can be perceived as “cold and impersonal.” Your challenge is to make the policy and its applications real and contemporary to topic of the criticism.

The same argument can be made for past practice, as long as there is clear similarity between the criticism and the massed practices. Give clear and concise examples of how the policy has been enacted in the past. These are real stories with real people. If there is no similarity, don’t invoke past practice. These would be a distracting and viewed as obstructive.

The importance of referring the conversation to policy is that it opens a door for discussion of policy and not people. The disagreement can be with the policy and not with the enactor and that disagreement can then be channeled into an invitation for further conversations about modifying policy. When a criticism can be turned into a mutual engagement in pro-activity, it is a win-win event.

• Finally, experience and insight inform our decisions and help us to live in the kitchen. Kitchen flare-ups for rooky leaders can be frightening. Consider your kitchen a tanning booth for professional skills and emotions. Each time the heat rises, you have the opportunity to refine your skills and enhance your professional image.

And, each time the kitchen gets hot, your emotions are exposed to potentially damaging vibes. So, use your sun screen. Your UPF increases when you find and stay on the high ground, when you maintain an open door to YOUR KITCHEN, and when your decisions are connected to organizational policies and procedures.

Morale: A Wavering Variable That Can Be Improved

Posted on by
Reply

Early in my working career, a venerable mentor told me, “If you think there is a problem, there is a problem until you either resolve it or decide, with new information, that it is not a problem. Your job now is to pull up your socks and get to work.”

“I think we may have a morale problem. If we do, we need to find out how bad it is and do something about it.” Check the echoes of conversations in any work place and you will hear these words spoken at different times and in a variety of voices. It is a rare work place that does not have a residual of these echoes describing low points of organizational morale. Typically, the evaluation of morale is a second- or third-hand observation of a workplace environment triggered by a sense of a generalized feeling of workplace malaise. Verbal and body language clues may indicate that an undetermined number of people suffer from a prolonged negativity about their work or work environment. An indirect observation of a generalized feeling tone emanating from an undetermined number of people can result in this declaration. “We have a morale problem,” is not based on science; it is a perception of a perception.

Workplace morale is not the same as workplace output. Given the nature of the work, making widgets or providing a service or working on the creative edge, workplaces have measures of output or productivity. Workplaces set objective quantitative and qualitative goals for their products and services and construct metrics for measuring quantity and quality of work product. Morale is an entirely different animal because it is subjective. Finding a metric for measuring morale is parallel to considering a metric that measures love. You know it when you feel it but any effort to quantify or qualify love immediately runs afoul of what love is. So it is with morale. You know the “flavor of morale” when you sense it, but you cannot objectify it. And, morale may or may not be associated with workplace output. As much as we try to draw a linkage, high or low workplace output is not directly correlated with high or low workplace morale.

Morale is an inconstant human emotion of wellbeing. A person’s morale is a variable that rises and falls given environmental conditions. To violate the immeasurability of morale, consider a yardstick. Often, we push a yardstick vertically into fresh fallen snow to measure the depth of snow. We obtain a measured fact; five inches of snow fell within the last 24 hours. As a morale meter, view the middle of a horizontal yardstick, the 18-inch mark, as our morale neutral point. Higher numbers up to 36 indicate degrees of positive morale and lower numbers from 17 to zero indicate degrees of negative morale. If we hang our morale stick on the wall and watch it over time, we would expect normalcy to be a wavering of morale somewhere between 12 and 24 inches or rocking back and forward on either side of the mid-point. Like a barometer reading atmospheric pressures, morale changes, adjusts, re-centers and changes again and gives us a different measurement reading as wellbeing pressures are perceived. That is, if we could measure morale.

“We have a morale problem and need to do something about it,” leads to a question. What are the variables that affect workplace morale. To some extent, the variables may be as numerous as the number of employees, as each person may exude a differing degree of morale wellbeing. And, there are variables of morale wellbeing outside the organization’s control that enter the workplace. However, there are three solid concepts that affect morale, that are within an organizational reach, and that bear examination. These are engagement, respect and appreciation. These variables, unlike morale in general, can be quantified, qualified and measured. When they are on the positive end of the proverbial yardstick, each or all of these variables are associated with high morale. When each or all of these are not the negative end of the yardstick, they clearly are associated with low morale.

Daniel Pink writes in Drive (2009) that worker motivation is enhanced by three concepts of engagement. These are autonomy, mastery and purpose. He shows that workers who are positively motivated have a positive sense of well-being. Autonomy is the level of worker “self-determinism” in the work being done. Whereas, a traditional supervision of work leans toward worker conformity to routine processes, workers are better motivated when they participate in determining the schemes of their work effort. Additionally, workers are more motivated when they are provided continual training and education that leads them to be more skillful in their work. And, motivation increases when workers internalize the importance of their work. “We can affect worker autonomy.”

Engagement, whether as Pink describes it, or simply as the level of worker personal connection to the work being done, is an essential part of workplace morale. A response to “… we need to do something about it” can begin with an understanding of the degree to which workers exhibiting low morale are engaged and connected to their work. If barriers to engagement have been purposefully constructed or have arisen as unforeseen outcomes, begin to diminish those barriers. We can encourage engagement by listening to employees. Listening to their comments about their work, their complaints and their suggestions. Listening to how they “would like to see their work” managed. Listening to them as employees and as “people” we work with on a daily basis. Connecting engaged employees may mean accepting and adopting their recommendations. Real connections are made when employee contributions to work improvement is recognized and publicized. And, listening as a step toward engagement and connection is virtually a cost-free step toward moral improvement. On our morale yardstick, higher and positive morale measures are associated with the degree of worker engagement. “We can affect engagement.” “We can affect connections.”

Secondly, examine the degree of mutual respect exhibited by workers and supervisors toward each other. As Aretha Franklin sang of it in Otis Redding’s song, “Respect” means

“…R-E-S-P-E-C-T

Find out what it means to me

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

Take care, TCB…”

Mutuality of respect is taking care of the people-side of business. The literature about organizational respect describes respect as a conditional and earned value and as an unconditional and granted value. Any discussion will teeter between respect being conditional or unconditional, but regardless of a discussion’s conclusion, values of mutually respectful behavior are essential for positive measurements of morale. Respect in the workplace is like the concept of connections, but it goes deeper into the worker well-being.

Environments of respect exhibit an open and mutual recognition of value. Openness is a public recognition; it is a declaration of how the work efforts of employees contributes to organizational success. Mutuality is the act of supervisors openly valuing workers and workers openly valuing supervisors. Too often, measurements of respect are unidirectional; they measure the degree to which workers perceive they are respected by supervisors. Respect in the workplace also must measure the degree to which supervisors perceive they are respected by workers. In truth, if there is no mutuality, there is no respect.

The concept of respect may be more easily observed in its absence. Disrespect often shows as interpersonal personal detachment and animosity verging on hostility. The flavor or the much characterized “water cooler” talk of a workplace indicates the presence of disrespect. Respect is openly portrayed while disrespect is a closed and oppositional behavior that works against both supervisors and workers.

On our morale yardstick, higher and positive morale measures are associated with the degree of mutual respect. “We can affect mutual respect.”

Lastly, appreciation is a necessary variable for positive workplace morale. Appreciation, or consideration, is the quid pro quo that exists between the organization and each working employee and is displayed in wages and salary and benefit programs. Pink writes that financial compensation is not an enduring motivator. A paycheck and employment benefits only meet the immediate and superficial elements of personal motivation, Pink says. However, time and experience have proved that if financial appreciation is not present on the first day of a person’s employment, that lack of appreciation will have a continuing negative affect of the employee’s morale. Appreciation matters.

Also, if appreciation and consideration are drastically altered for reasons unassociated with workplace effort, they can have a horrific effect upon worker morale. Political and economic policies have a direct impact upon appreciation and consideration. As a case in point, when Act 10 was passed in 2011, it initiated a multi-year effect upon the workplace morale of public employees in Wisconsin. State law effectively reduced worker wages and salaries and transferred the costs of specific benefits from the employer to the employee. Secondly, the Act legally ended the employees’ right to bargain for their employment’s compensation. In addition, the legislator’s annual funding of public education was slashed resulting in the loss of employment and educational programming. Subsequent state policy assured that these changes were continued each of the past six years. A result of this political manipulation is that a politically constrained level of worker appreciation has become the status quo and a constant damper upon workplace morale

Additionally, the political back story associated with Act 10 was that unionism in public employment was a direct cause of high state and local taxes. The back story went further in describing public employees as enjoying employment benefits that were uncommon for non-union workers and that the costs of these benefits were borne by all taxpayers in Wisconsin. The result was not just a financial restructuring of public employment; it also was a redefining of the way in which private employers and employees looked at public employees. Morale was sacrificed for political gain. Appreciation and consideration do matter. “We can affect appreciation and consideration.”

My mentor gave me two additional reminders about problem-solving. “Once you get your socks pulled up and get active in solving a problem, it is important to keep your socks up. Problem-solving opens may opportunities for time, people and circumstances to tug your socks down to your ankles and no one works well stumbling on his socks.” And, “Once you are comfortable with your socks pulled up, be ready to for the next problem. It awaits you.”

School Choice Is Complicated And Intentional

Posted on by
Reply

One should not accept a blatantly generalized statement as Gospel, especially any statement ladened with politico-economic overtones. Parsing a person’s motives and self-interests is an important tool for screening generalizations for truth and untruth, transferability and usability. School choice is one of those subjects burdened with so many motives and interests that every statement that begins with “I support school choice, because…” should be rephrased as “My interest(s) in supporting school choice are …” or “The school I chose has/does/provides these things for me.” Clear reasons in clear statements for clearer understanding. At the end of the day, there are good and valid reasons for school choice as long as the self-interests are known.

A discussion of school choice begins with this understanding – argument about the legitimacy of school choice is a waste of time and resources. Consumer choice has permeated almost every marketable commodity in our contemporary life. And clearly, politics has made education a marketable commodity. Given that school choice is a fact of life, the discussion no longer is whether to choose but why and how to choose and how choice affects the education landscape.

Historically, there always has been some choosing of schools. For several American centuries, children attended a parochial school affiliated with the family’s religious preference. Most frequently, these were Catholic and Lutheran parochial schools, but Episcopalians, Seventh-Day Adventists, Calvinists, Mennonites, Amish and Orthodox Jews also provided parochial education. In southern states, there are hundreds of schools affiliated with fundamentalist churches. The discussion of faith-based school choices has a history of community acceptance and only the availability of tax-funded school vouchers brings parochial schools back into the new discussion.

Equally, private schools or academies have existed over time. Sometimes organized as military schools to educate boys with structure and discipline. Finishing schools for girls taught grace and style. Elite academic preparatory schools existed for families interested in their children attending prestigious colleges and universities.

Families always have had choices. The simple and single difference between choice then and choice now is that families historically paid to make those choices. Today, public money is becoming increasingly available to fund school choice.

Today there is a bogeyman of reality in the discussion of school choice that cannot be ignored. Government at all levels enforces a “sum certain” and a “zero sum loss” equation on the use of state tax revenues available to fund education. If the equation was “sum sufficient,” the bogeyman would go away. But, education funding is never sum sufficient. Politics today says that tax money no longer is connected to funding schools; tax money is connected to funding the education of a child and whither the child goes, there goes the money. This, the bogeyman tells us, makes school choice all about the money. If a child who was enrolled in a public school enrolls in a private or charter school, the public school loses money and the private or charter school gains money. With choice, there always are financial winners and losers.

In our consumer society, we should know these things about the choosing of schools. Traditionally, parents considered the local, neighborhood when they chose their home residence. “We want this house in this school district, partly because this house is in this school district.” For some, residence and school district no longer are connected. Regardless of the location of their residence, parents can choose the location of their child’s school – these are two independent decisions. Literally, “I have the right to choose where I want to live and I the right to choose where I want my child to attend school.” The caveat in this new paradigm is that parents who choose also are parents who transport. If you want your child to attend a school out of your neighborhood, it is your responsibility to transport your child to your school of choice.

At the same time, the new options of school choice are not equally available to all children. Engaging in school choice is a parental decision. For some parents, employment and paying the bills consumes them and engaging in school choice is something they do not have the time, energy or resources to undertake. The lack of money excludes children. Or, their child’s education is not important. The lack of interest excludes children. Or, their grandparents and parents grew up in the house or neighborhood where the family now lives and everyone in their family attended the local school. The disinterest in change excludes children. Or, the family lives in a rural area where few physical schools of choice are organized and the distance between school districts makes daily transport an unrealistic endeavor. Physical location and sparsity of options exclude children. School choice is an option for more affluent, motivated, urban/suburban parents.

There also is the issue of selective acceptance that creates a significant difference in who attends a public school and who attends a choice school. Public schools educate every child regardless of educational ability and challenge. That is the law. Choice schools do not. Because they are not accountable to the same state statutes as public schools, choice schools can decline to accept students with special education needs, the socially maladjusted, and those that create disciplinary problems once enrolled. These children are the responsibility of public schools and are generally excluded from schools of choice.

It is easiest to parse the reasons for school choice for older children than it is for younger children. Simply stated, given the schooling experiences of older children and the refining of their learning styles and preferences, academic interests, and career and continuing education goals, it is much easier to match an older student with a school choice option. It is more difficult to match a younger child with little experience and unformed preferences, interests and goals. In my experience, parents who are in tune with their older children and can discern educational options reasonably available to the family make very good use of school choice. I worked with a parent whose son was a highly-gifted diver and had outgrown the resources of our school’s swimming and diving program, the local YMCA, and private coaching in our community. His interests and goals as a twelve-year old were best served by moving to Florida and being home schooled so that he could devote the enormous amount of daily time required for training as a world class diver. He never attended a K-12 school again. I watched him compete in two Olympics. School choice worked for him because a quality match of child and school was achieved. I also assisted parents of children with gifts in dance and music to extend their education in specialty schools for ballet and violin, and children with interests in science and language to enroll in magnet schools for those subjects.

It is not so apparent for very young children. I observe that school choice for children in 4K through elementary school is not an educational decision but an associational decision. Parents with the resources to engage in school choice for their very young children are deciding “who their child will go to school with” and “who their child will NOT go to school with” more than they are choosing a school that matches their child’s interests, preferences and goals. Sadly, the decision regarding “who my child will NOT go to school with” creates a re-segregation of schools based upon family ethnicity and economics. Parents choosing “who my child will go to school with” are leaving behind schools with higher percentages of educationally challenged students and schools with diminished financial resources to educate those children.

School choice is not easy. It has, as the bogeyman tells us, real implications for the financial stability of schools, both public and private. Because school finance is sum certain and zero sum loss, there will be financial winners and financial losers. For secondary students who have refined educational preferences, interests and goals, school choice is a wonderful application of American consumerism. For students whose families are not educationally engaged or who have educational challenges and disadvantages, school choice creates educational backwaters and leaves them there. School choice also is creating a greater rift between families with financial resources and aspirations and leaves families without those resources with lower aspirations.

Finally, school choice is the child of politics and it was enacted to provide advantage to families that have the resources to choose. The monied interests that created the laws of school choice knew what they were doing when they put their money behind legislation that created school choice for their state. They created new schools for their socio-economic class, not necessarily for the improvement of their community or for the advancement of all children.

If You Are Lost in the Lesson, Call a Time Out, Kiddo. It’s Okay

Posted on by
Reply

“Time out! Stop, take a breather, and let’s take a moment to talk about this.”

In many games there are signals a player can make that says “Time out!” Athletes use their hands to make a letter “T” to stop play. When actors lose their line, they stop, look to the prompter, and get their cue and proceed. When kids play tag or other run-around games, they yell “Freeze” and everybody stops cold in their tracks. Children need a time out signal in the classroom; a signal that says, “Stop the action. We need to talk about this.” Or, to extend the sports analogies, kids need a time out for a breathing space and a chance to talk over what they are learning so that they get their lesson right.

The problem is that most children think saying “time out” in the classroom means that they are dumb. If other children are not needing a time out, they must be smart enough to be learning the lesson. Hence, if I need a time out, I am not smart – I am dumb. And, no child wants to draw “look at the dumb kid” attention down upon himself. They would rather not learn than appear dumb.

At first blush, one might wonder if learning time outs really are necessary or a good thing in the management of a classroom. Should children be allowed to stop the flow of a lesson? Would they abuse the opportunity? The answer to these questions should be viewed from the student perspective. After all, causing all students to be successful learners is the outcome of interest. With student learning in mind, heck yes, allowing any child the option to pause and review what the class is learning makes a lot of sense. We know that the usual and traditional teacher inquiry asking “Does anyone have a question?” usually creates no more than silence. And, we know that waiting until after children take a quiz or test to identify what they did not learn through initial teaching is not the most effective strategy for creating successful learning. Then correct answer is this – for children and their teacher to be responsible for learning both need to have the authority to call a time out and to assure that everyone is getting the learning right.

So, we need a “no harm, no foul” classroom time out signal. Maybe something like the red towel a football coach waves or throws to request a review of the last play. Perhaps a purple card will do. Purple is a noticeable and regal color. A child could hold up or casually flash a purple card at the teacher, a simple gesture that does not draw too much peer attention to a request a review of past instruction. On seeing a purple card, if a teacher only said, “Okay, let’s pause. Tell me what you (heard, saw, known, can do) at this point,” all children would have the opportunity to consider what they heard, saw, know and can do with what they have just learned. And, if the teacher asks several children to review their learning, the teacher can make corrections and add instruction to strengthen student learning and then proceed with confidence.

From the long view, how good would it be if at the end of a unit of instruction a teacher knew that all children were ready for an assessment because there had been enough pauses to create confidence that all children had heard, saw, know and can do what was taught. Not knowing if children learned really is not an acceptable option and not having a “time out” protocol increases the likelihood that we do not have confidence in what children learned.