The Night ProCert Made Sense

They arrived much as they have for any other ProCert meeting.  Someone plops down an opened box of Oreos, others make last minute cell-phone calls. They sign in with signatures that reflect the joys or frustrations of their teaching day. A new mom rushes out to pump for breast-milk one more time before the session begins just as the volleyball coach rushes in from practice. Two single teachers flirt a bit as others use sub-sandwich bags and water bottles to define personal space in the room. Candidates quickly organize the assignments they had intended to organize yesterday and set their piles of evidence and notebook materials under chairs. Everything seems familiar and routine. 

 But this night was different than other nights.  I know this because at 6:23 p.m. I had nothing left to say.  That is unusual for me.  As a National Board Certified teacher who facilitates both National Board Candidates and ProCert Candidates I say a lot of things a lot of the time--phrasing and rephrasing questions that are often variations of "How do you know that?" followed by  "But how do you REALLY know that?"  I hear myself say a lot of things to help ProCert candidates think more deeply about 12 criteria areas and how they are embedded in unique teaching contexts.  But at 6:23 I had nothing left to say, because the teacher candidates suddenly had everything to say.

From their discussion group, Doug, the teacher of non-verbal students who function at a 6-18 month-old level told Sharon, the teacher from the Day-Reporting school (who considers "growth over time" to be a student with a criminal record making it through one day without an offense), that he finally realized he could document student growth through evidence that his students required increasingly less assistance from their care-givers. Janet, from a wealthy private school was conversing with Marty who just discovered her school has the highest poverty rate in the district. They are comparing the methods they have developed to use to connect to families and community in more significant ways.  Meanwhile, Yong, who teaches both Math and Korean shares with her discussion group that she realized, through her journal writing, that it isn't that one math class has the "good kids" and the other has the "bad kids", as she had previously thought. It is that one class responds to the traditional teaching methods she is comfortable with and the other (based on the survey she gave this month) responds best to instructional strategies that use kinesthetic and interpersonal approaches to learning. That reminds Joan that she also had made a recent discovery that it wasn't adapting curriculum she really needed to focus on in her Professional Growth Plan, it was that she needed to collect feedback and reflect on her practice.  As a librarian she had assumed her work with students was central to student learning in her school building.  As one of her professional growth actions, she had collected feedback that revealed she is not perceived by others as she had perceived herself.  Members of her discussion group console her and help her form a plan for next steps.  From the discussion group in the corner, Tracy, who learned that no one in her school really knows how to use the expensive technology her school has purchased, is talking with two other teachers from her school about how they should explain this to their principal.  The two are encouraging Tracy to lead a training session for the school based on the skills she has gained through her ProCert efforts.  From the discussion group in the back corner, Trevor is still struggling with how to improve student motivation and says to cohort members, "They just don't care.  How do you get kids to care?"   The other teachers asked, "Well, first of all...how do you know they don't care?  Followed by, "How do you REALLY know they don't care?" Maybe you need to collect evidence first so we know what we're dealing with.  Maybe they care about parts of what you are doing and you can develop those areas.  The group begins helping Trevor draft a form to collect that evidence and they share workshops, books, videos, and web-sites that they have discovered through ProCert that might also support Trevor's needs.   Maggie, the special ed. Teacher, tells her group that she hadn't realized that what she is really doing through her "professional growth plan" is not just adapting and modifying curriculum but actually advocating for curriculum and instruction.  She never saw herself as an advocate, but the personal capacity sheet helped her see that she is one, and this makes her proud.  The group congratulates her.  Deanna shared from her reflective writing, " It just hit me this week that I relate best to the kids that are like I was when I was a kid. And kids that are very different from me, are the ones I tend to over-look.  I'm really glad I took that class on Differentiated Instruction..."  Annie asks her group if she can go "next". She wants feedback from her discussion group now since she has to be back at her school by 7:15 for a parent conference. She wants help in knowing what her best cross-section of student portfolio-work would look like and whether or not they think she should include the student-created rubrics she helped students develop for her final presentation of evidence? 

 Sound recordings, charts, graphs, logs, journals, reports, records, photos and written analyses are circulating around the room and being discussed in terms of impact on student learning. The room is alive with the kind of collaboration that teachers are ordinarily just too busy to have during the school day.  The newer teachers and teachers new to the state have stopped asking "Am I doing this right?" and "Is this what you want?" and they are asking themselves and their peers, "Am I making a difference with children?"  They know how to communicate to each other without pretense.  Vulnerabilities are met with understanding.  Success stories are celebrated.  Questions lead to more questions lead to more questions. 

That night I could see these teachers, many of whom began ProCert with rolling eyes and whiney resistance, as being the future education leaders of our state.  They needed no words from me because they had each other, a standard by which to measure their teaching effectiveness, and the understanding that this can be better for kids.  That night I knew that ProCert made sense to them.

When you have thought in terms of showing evidence that the things you do make a difference, you can expect no less from yourself, your colleagues, administrators, and programs.  At 6:55 we came back together, went over some things.  I, again found my voice and said words that were variations of other words I often say when closing up a group session. But this was the night that ProCert also made sense... for me.