Shortly after the Patriot Act had been enacted by the George W. Bush administration, opened a concert by saying, 鈥�Patriot. What the f&*% happened to that word? Just when we needed it, too.鈥�
Most teachers feel the same way about the word 鈥渁ccountability.鈥� It was always a boring and sterile word, but it has gotten worse. These days, it generally means 鈥減unishment through standardized test scores.鈥�
But the concept the word should stand for is a crucial one. If we rephrase accountability as 鈥渄oing right by our students,鈥� it gets at the heart of our profession.
Education policy often fails because it tries to remove the human element from the most human profession imaginable. You can鈥檛 force teachers to feel true accountability to arbitrary cutoff scores on tests that seem to have been written by machines.
More importantly, you don鈥檛 need to. Teachers already feel a deep sense of accountability to the people most directly impacted by our work: parents, our colleagues, and the children who only get one shot at the grade or class we teach. Let me give you some examples.
Answering to Our Students
Teachers can lose their way at times. I lost mine just this morning.
I used to pride myself on never yelling at my students. I have come to realize, though, that what I consider 鈥渟peaking sternly鈥� sounds a lot like yelling to the 2nd graders I teach.
During the first week of school, I always teach my students how to do a 鈥�,鈥� a simple way to resolve their own conflicts one-on-one when they hurt each other鈥檚 feelings. Today this happened:
Monique, in a very serious tone: I want to have a peace talk.
Me: OK, great! Who do you want to have a peace talk with?
Monique, pointing right at my chest: You.
Me, gobsmacked: Me?! What did I do?!
Monique: You yelled at us. I want you to quit yelling at us.
Monique, age seven, held me accountable. On the first day of school, I promised my class I would respect them. But my actions this morning didn鈥檛 match those words. I had raised my voice, and Monique didn鈥檛 hesitate to call me on it.
I try to think through each day from the point of view of a child in my class. Are they getting to move around enough? Are they making enough of their own choices? But attempts at empathy can only take you so far. There鈥檚 no substitute for finding out, in students鈥� own words, what your classroom is like for them.
One way to find out what students like (and don鈥檛 like) about your class is to use the 鈥�stoplight method,鈥� an exercise where the kids write down one thing they want you to stop doing, one thing they want you to start doing, and one thing they want you to keep doing.
A I read this week by Oregon teacher Brett Bigham had a great reminder: 鈥�Too many teachers forget that the classroom is home to students for a good portion of their waking hours.鈥� We have to encourage kids to keep us accountable for the way we fill those hours鈥攊ncluding students who aren鈥檛 as bold as Monique.
Answering to Our Colleagues
We can feel the right kind of accountability to our colleagues, too. Last week, a first-year teacher on our team was glowing after getting some positive feedback from our assistant principal following a classroom walk-through. Our colleague Andy sent her a wise text:
鈥淭hat鈥檚 the thing about teaching: It鈥檚 not a job where you get instantly rewarded because you did a good job. No corner office, no huge promotion, no bonus money. You know you are doing a great job when your colleagues recognize it.鈥�
As teachers, our colleagues can be right across the hall, but they can also be scattered across the country.
For example, I didn鈥檛 do a good job last year of integrating technology into my classroom. This afternoon I sought help from a friend who teaches in Kansas, 2013 State Teacher of the Year . She is amazing at bringing the world to kids through technology, and she encourages them to shape that world through some mind-blowing tech tools.
A 45-minute Google Hangout with her was the best professional development in terms of learning-per-minute I have ever experienced. 鈥淢rs. Smoke鈥� gave me several ideas I can act on this month, ranging from 鈥榮 green screen videos and images to virtual field trips through that include conversations with experts from around the world.
But she did something else, too. Just by making time in her day to have that 45-minute conversation, she helped ensure I鈥檇 actually follow through on the ideas she shared. I feel accountable to her because I respect her expertise. When we touch base in a few weeks, I want to make sure I have something to show for the time and talent she invested in me.
Answering to Parents
Every mother or father would take a bullet for their child. They love their sons and daughters immeasurably, and they know how precious their children are in a way we can鈥檛鈥攅specially at the start of the year, when we have only known them for a few weeks.
More affluent parents have a reputation for intervening in their children鈥檚 school experience to a fault. But the parents where I teach鈥攎any of them immigrants, most of them poor鈥攔arely complain. In all honesty, I wish they would complain a little more. Even dedicated teachers sometimes need the nudge to make sure we鈥檙e doing right by other people鈥檚 children.
Now that my own son and daughter have started school, I realize how different things can look through a parent鈥檚 eyes. Taking away 10 minutes of recess, or failing to immediately send a child to the nurse when she has a stomachache, can seem mean-spirited or neglectful to moms and dads in a way they don鈥檛 to teachers.
Part of it is the law of numbers鈥攖eachers have 20 or 30 kids to care for, while many parents have two or three. But to moms and dads, that one child is the most important human being on Earth. It鈥檚 a perspective worth keeping in mind, especially when we鈥檙e tired or cranky at the end of a hard day.
I may not always agree with what a parent wants me to do, and I can鈥檛 accommodate every request. But it鈥檚 worth putting my actions as a teacher to the 鈥減arent test鈥濃�攊f that child was mine, would I be happy with the way he or she was treated?
Many parents are reluctant to offer constructive criticism. But asking them two simple questions early on鈥斺�淲hat does your child like about school?鈥� and 鈥淲hat does your child not like about school?鈥濃�攃an reveal problems while there鈥檚 still plenty of time in the year to address them.
Honoring the People Closest to Our Work
I love my students. We鈥檙e only two weeks into the school year, and already I鈥檓 delighted to see them every morning. Already their little faces and mannerisms make me smile, long after they have gone home for the day.
But I will never know or love them as deeply as their moms and dads do. Being accountable to parents for their children鈥檚 happiness and progress in school makes sense to me, and it goes far beyond reporting how they fared on the state test that year.
It鈥檚 hard for me to imagine a worse botch of school accountability than the systems put in place during the George W. Bush years, left largely intact during Barack Obama鈥檚 time in office, and taken to sheer lunacy by state legislatures in North Carolina and elsewhere. But those policy follies don鈥檛 discredit the notion of being accountable to those whose lives are shaped by our work.
Parents, their children, and our colleagues have the most to gain or lose from our level of skill, dedication, and professionalism. They can help us get better, and they deserve the best we can become.
