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Brandon Adame is a third grade teacher at Blandford Elementary School. When this story was told, he was a second grade teacher at Blandford.
My first encounter with Ball was when I worked on one of the strategic planning teams for the district. My principal proposed that I be a part of the process, so I said, “Okay. I’ll see what this is all about.” Quite honestly, I didn’t know anything about Ball and I had no idea what I was getting into. Basically, what we did was meet and talk about where the district is currently, and where we want it to be based on our vision.
At first I was really skeptical and felt intimidated. Our strategic planning group was made up of teachers, principals, and parents from throughout the entire district, and I was a first-year teacher – straight from college. But in the end, I think it was good that I had just come out of college. During the process, I remember thinking, “Okay, what do I want?” So I read my old essays that I wrote in college about what I was going to do as a teacher and how the kids were going to do this and be so great. When I read that, I thought, “Wow, that’s so not what it is.” But I knew we could get there – and that’s what I think I brought to the process.
Ball gave us the opportunity to have an open forum to talk as if there were no limits on what we could do. They said to us, “Forget about the limits. We’ll worry about that later. Let’s talk about what you want.” So every day we started by saying, “Don’t have limits. Don’t say we can’t do this.” Instead, we talked about where we wanted our students to be, and about what we could do if there were no testing or monetary limitations. For me, it was really refreshing to sit down and get back to basics, and to see what everyone wanted for the students. We all wanted the same thing, but we all felt that testing prohibited that. The process also changed my thinking to, “Let’s think beyond testing, and maybe eventually we’ll get rid of the things that are holding us back.”
One thing we started talking about was technology. A lot of students have access to computer labs, but not their own computers. So we said, “Imagine a day where kids have their own laptops and can access the internet at any time.”
I think the greatest thing that we talked about was changing the whole report card system. Instead of having letter grades, have an individualized action plan for each student based on their strengths and needs, and actually have students demonstrate their knowledge through different means – not just test taking. For example, if students like to work with their hands, say to them, “Build this for me.”
Talking about the whole structure of education, and especially the report cards really made me think, “Wow, I’ve been stuck with the same model and haven’t thought of other ones. But thinking about these new models – wouldn’t that be a great thing to see happen with the kids?”
The hardest part of the process was the word-smithing that we did. We would develop a couple of objectives for our action plan, and then someone would say, “I don’t feel comfortable with that word, let’s change it.” Or we’d say, “We agree that we all believe this should happen for kids,” and then someone would say, “You know what? I don’t quite believe that.” So, we’d go back to the drawing board day after day, and we’d e-mail each other, “Is this okay? Do you think this would work?” We’d think we were done with our action plan, and then the next day someone would say, “Well, I don’t quite feel comfortable.”
So that was the hard part. We kept going back and changing it. Every single time we did that, my ideas changed. In fact, everyone’s ideas changed and we’d be back at square one. At first, it was pretty annoying. I was like, “Come on, guys, just settle for it.” But I think that was the best part because people had so much buy-in – they didn’t want to just settle for it. They wanted something that everyone was proud of, and that everyone felt comfortable with. I think that’s what we ended up with, too. So that was a very good thing.
I’ve been able to implement some of the things that came out of the strategic planning process, like the APA principles that we talked about. Honestly, I may have heard about the principles in college, but here we actually looked at them and dissected each one. I have them on the wall in my classroom now, and I look at them when I do my lesson plans, trying to accommodate the students’ needs. I also have little notebooks in which I make notes about the kids and what their strengths are. For example, in a science lesson I’ll let the students use different ways to show me what they learned. That’s really helped me out a lot.
I’ve noticed that the enthusiasm of my students is changing because now I’m targeting their strengths and letting them show me that they know something. A lot of my kids can’t pass a paper and pencil reading comprehension test, so instead I’ll ask them verbally to explain what’s going on in what they read – which is something they can do.
My relationship with other teachers has changed as well. During meetings, I now express different points of view, and I open my mind to new things. I also participate more, and I think I add a little more to conversations because of what I’ve learned and what I’ve learned from others.
Being part of this process was a great experience for me. I’ll be honest with you, it wasn’t the easiest thing. It was a lot of work, but at the end, I think we all looked at each other like, “Wow, we all gained a lot from this.” So, it was definitely worth it.
Word cloud created at wordle.net.
Rob Arias is the Assistant Superintendent for Human Resources.
The work with Ball has made me more cognizant of the idea of having more people involved in discussions and decisions regarding what we do on a daily basis. I think I’ve been trying to encourage that more. Personally, I feel like I’ve always been pretty collaborative in the way I do my work, but I think I recognize now that it’s not just a matter of having a collaborative leadership approach. You might have that, but in order to make that real, you almost have to make a conscious effort to get more people involved. I’ve always known this, but I think it has become clearer that a lot of people don’t have access to information that could be helpful.
For instance, there have been times this year during some open public meetings where questions were being asked about delicate and difficult matters regarding layoffs. Some of the questions didn’t have to be answered, and I had a choice there, personally. I could have done the administrative two-step and shuffled my way through those questions without answering them. But I thought it would be better for me to be very upfront about the challenges that the district was facing – to try to be as clear and transparent as possible.
Now, was my choice to do that a result of the work that we did through the Ball Foundation and our strategic plan? You know, it’s hard to say exactly. But I think it did have some impact. I think you have to practice those behaviors of being clear and transparent, and I think I’ve been practicing them because of the work I did with strategy eight. And I think as you begin to practice that, it becomes part of a fabric of what you do.
So, the impact of me being open, transparent, and just laying it out there for folks was very positive. I don’t think anybody was crazy about my answer or said, “Way to go!”, but I think it settled that particular audience. They could accept the reality that we had to deal with because they understood it. I also think the fact that I didn’t have to answer any more questions about the subject once I spoke about it in a very open way was evidence that the approach was the appropriate one.
Word cloud created at wordle.net.
Sue Cook is an English and history teacher at Alvarado Intermediate School.
This is hard because I have more than one story. I’ve enjoyed the whole picture because I’ve been involved since the beginning. So, my story is more all-encompassing that shows the process we’ve gone through to get to where we are now, and how the Ball Foundation has directed our thinking somewhat, but ultimately has made us do the thinking. It’s been quite a learning experience in that respect. I’ve learned a lot, and I’ve grown a lot. The Ball Foundation has given me opportunities that I might not otherwise have had. On a personal note, I have gained some really, really good friends through this experience that I may not have had the opportunity to meet. Some of the best friends I have right now in my life are part of this group, so that makes it very meaningful to me. On a professional note, the experience has been invaluable, and I almost wish I had had this when I was younger.
I have also taken to heart the leaderful behavior that Ball has instilled in us. I feel more empowered and have a different level of confidence in myself both as a leader and a teacher in my classroom, in the school, and in the district.
CHICAGO
The first trip to Chicago was very intense. It was all about being patient and learning to go with the flow of process. I kept thinking, “What are we doing?” I was used to the classroom where I have a lesson and I need to do this and this in order to go from point A to points B and C in order to end up at point D. So in Chicago, I was wondering, “Where are the points?” There was no definite structure, which taught me to be a little bit more patient and go with the flow. But by the second Chicago trip, I knew darn well what we were doing.
I was intrigued and excited to see where all this was going. I knew we would come up with an idea that would encompass the entire district and that would evolve as we went along. I got hooked in by that, and thought of the process as a kind of think-tank. That’s what intrigued me. We were going to actually delve into new ways of educating our diverse group of students across the entire district. We were going to do research on what we already had here and make it better. We weren’t going to do anything new because nobody has time for that, but we were going to take what we were doing and make better teachers. I thought this was a really good way to develop great teachers for our district who are forward thinkers. Not ones who are just “okay” in the classroom, but ones who look at the whole picture of what we’re doing for the entire child. When we were in these think-tank sessions, we were totally thinking outside the box, and we weren’t looking at this group of EL kids, or this group of junior high kids or this group of AP students who are seniors in high school. We were looking at the whole district and doing new research. Not book research, but a different kind of research that was more real to me.
At the first Chicago trip, there was no “You’re a teacher, you’re a principal, you’re a district administrator, you work for the Ball Foundation.” We were all in an equal plane on a first name basis. I think we got a little bit more done because everybody heard everybody else’s viewpoint, and we got to see a different side of things. I think that was really good for everyone. Occasionally, someone would stop and say, “You guys are in the classroom. How does this play out in a classroom as opposed to the district?” As an 8th grade teacher, I’m caught in the middle. My students are caught in the middle and so is the school. We’re kind of a renegade group because we teach junior high, and we’re rarely thought of when a decision is made at the district level. So, seeing that we were all in this together and that a 12-year old hormonal student is just as important as that five-year old in Kindergarten intrigued me and kept me going.
WORLD CAFES WITH STUDENTS AND STAFF:
I’ve incorporated some of the things that we’ve learned from the Ball Foundation—like the World Cafe—into my classroom and with the school staff.
Doing the World Cafe with a bunch of eighth graders is mind boggling. It’s kind of a free for all, and you have to set down rules because you can’t just say, “Move to a group without anybody who has been in your group before.” So, I had to adjust it a little bit. But I thought that it was a good way to get the kids up and moving and talking to each other.
The first time I did it was right after we came back from summer vacation. I wanted the students to write about what they did on their vacation, so I had three groups, each with a different question: “What did you do with your family?”, “What did you learn in the summer?”, and I can’t remember the third one. Anyway, I split the class in half and had them rotate through the three questions, writing answers in circle maps. Then, after we were done with the chaos, I had them go back to their seats and make their own tree map of some of the things they did during the summer. Finally, they wrote the standard, “What I did during my summer vacation,” but they had their three paragraph topics. Usually they say, “I can’t remember what I did,” or “What I did wasn’t any fun.” But after they did the World Café and talked to their friends, they could remember, “Oh yeah. I did this and this. I went to the beach.” They fed off each other which gave them more things to write about.
We also did the World Cafe with the school staff. Last year we were having issues with discipline, but nobody liked the school’s discipline plan. Everybody was complaining about it. So, as a team leader, I suggested to the principal and vice principal that we use the World Cafe process to discuss the discipline issues with the staff. The three team leaders came up with the topics for the circles. The principal and vice principal were involved, but they were not running the meeting. They could give their input, but they were just the same as everybody else. For most of the teachers, it was their first time doing a World Cafe. Everybody felt like they had their say. There wasn’t anybody who was left out or said, “So and so always dominates the conversation.” After, we created a discipline committee made up of about ten teachers, administrators, guidance assistants and counselors who made up a new discipline plan that everybody could live with.
It was a great experience as professionals. Everybody walked away saying, “I feel better about the issue now because I had a chance to say what I wanted to say.”
NETWORK DAYS:
I’ve noticed that people are changing as a result of the work with Ball. Some people are still negative – you’re always going to have those – but there are a lot more people who are positive about the work and are willing to step out of their comfort zone. They’re not being naysayers, and are more interested in what we can learn as professionals to help our students. Our school has the most people involved in the networks. There are 15 of us teachers out of 40. So, it’s making an impression. I think that’s to be commended because we’re a high performing school. We can sit back on our laurels and say, “You know what, we’re doing what we need to do,” but that is not what’s happening. People at my school asked me about the Network Days because they know I’ve been involved. They want to know what’s going to happen at them, so I tell them, “I don’t know. But jump onboard because there are lots of different ways this network thing can work – and we’ll make it work. What have you got to lose?”
So, on one of the Network Days during an Open Space exercise, our school met together. I had the idea to form a “Teachers as Leaders” network group. My colleagues said to me, “You’re already a leader. What are you talking about?” I said, “No, no, no. I’m not talking about that. I’m wondering how can we as teachers be leaders in our district? You have to start from the ground up because we are the ones in the trenches.” We came up with a whole plan for doing our own voluntary staff development. We thought we’d go back to our school and say, “I want to learn about this. Who wants to learn with me?” Then we could make our own networks and take responsibility for our own learning. Of course, this will all be voluntary, but we thought that with fifteen of us willing to do this, we can make it work.
The schools are having to take care of their own staff development now because the district is dropping the instructional support services. So somebody has to know what to do. Somebody has to step out on that limb. We have 200 people who are attending these Network Days who are willing and able and have the tools to help the other 700 do it as well – that, to me, has been one of the most powerful outcomes of all this work. If you have 200 teachers who are willing to say, “We want to learn about this,” and then go to whomever and say, “What can we do because we want to learn about this? Where can we get some resources? We just need to know who to talk to.” Then that person can answer, “Maybe you can start by looking at some educational books or maybe you should try this in your classroom or you can have this time to go visit other people.” Teachers are taking ownership of their own professional learning instead of somebody saying, “You must do this.” That would transform the teaching profession because it makes us responsible for our own learning. It makes us step out of our classrooms. Teachers helping teachers. What a thought. That’s what doctors and lawyers do. Anybody in a profession – this is what they do. They go and figure it out, and then they spread the word.
I call the work with Ball my “think tank.” I come home exhausted, but “thinking” exhausted, not “physically” exhausted. But I think it’s been great. People who have not experienced this are missing out, especially the young teachers because it will transform their lives. It’s not really cutting edge, but it’s a new way of thinking. I think that because we are all teachers, we’ve been in school our whole life and we think that there is a certain way to do school. But we need to get out of the classroom. I’m an out-of-the-box thinker – so I’m out there.
Word cloud created at wordle.net.
Katie Elder was a Staff Development Specialist when she told this story. She is currently on medical leave.
The opportunities that the Ball Foundation has given us to collaborate with each other have made a difference for me. When I chose to become a high school teacher many years ago, one thing that was interesting to me was the solitary nature of the work. I could go into the classroom, close my door, and do my thing, all by myself. It was like that for years and years of my teaching. One of the things I’ve learned through the work with Ball is that not only do I now see the need for collaboration, I also recognize that two heads are better than one. Because more people are involved, there’s more opportunity for creative thinking and moving projects forward. This work has also changed me as a person. I now want that kind of collaborative working relationship with people. I look for opportunities to bring other people into the conversation, to encourage bigger thinking and more ideas and more avenues to move forward.
As a staff development specialist, I’m responsible for the implementation of some of the district staff development initiatives. For instance, my partner and I conduct workshops on dynamic lessons and classroom management for brand new teachers in the fall of their first teaching year. We also do teaching training in the spring for all the second year teachers. The work with Ball has changed the way that I work with these teachers. My thinking has opened up about how our programs might look and how we could do things differently.
To give you an example of this change – my partner and I implemented a very different model this year by making the whole new teacher program more collaborative. We asked the teachers what they wanted to work on, and we actually created the curriculum based on their needs. The teachers could choose from topics like discipline, assessment, or differentiation. The workshops were well-attended even though they weren’t mandatory.
Before, the program was dreaded which was partly the state’s fault. It was very form-heavy. The teachers felt like they were jumping through hoops, checking off boxes that really didn’t have the intended effect of improving their instruction. Now they feel empowered to use different models of professional development, like maybe go watch another teacher teach. Or find someone who’s good at something that they don’t feel as good at and collaborate with that person.
The teachers love this model. We’ve gotten great response. The idea that they have choice and that they actually have a say in developing the choices has made everything better. Everything feels more open. I’m sure that it’s not a coincidence that we’re working with Ball and having these collaborative kinds of conversations.
Word cloud created at wordle.net.
Chris Ericson is Assistant Superintendent of Schools.
The district’s partnership with the Ball Foundation has really had an impact not only on the district, but also on me personally. On a district level, working with Stephanie Pace Marshall has helped us to appreciate this district as a living, dynamic system. She has made us aware of the process of transformation and the power of story. Story helps us translate our vision from something abstract to what it will look like when realized. It also helps us to honor our past and appreciate what we do not want to lose.
Our focus is on transforming teaching and learning but we have broadened that concept in that we are transforming the system as a whole. We’re creating how we are “going to be” in that system, how we’re going to evolve, and how we’re going to work. We have a frame of reference for how we’ve operated in the past and how we are now living into a new reality.
How we talk to each other has been impacted. We talk about the work that we’re doing, but just as importantly is how we work and interact with each other, including the relationships that we’re forming. We’ve all come to value process to a greater degree. That was an “aha” for me – I knew as a district that we’ve always valued process and relationships, but we are now more conscious of being genuinely more inclusive.
Our Ball partnership work has made us better thinkers. In the past, when we’ve talked about work, it has often been from ground level. But one thing Stephanie talked to us about was taking different perspectives, from the 50,000 foot level down to the ground. To really make a difference for students, we have to be able to strike a balance. While we need to address what’s in front of us every day, we also need to be able to take a more comprehensive, in depth approach to transforming teaching and learning. This concept has really impacted how we approach major initiatives including the strategic plan and the redesign work. We try to take that higher, broader perspective, and yet, appreciate the rigor and complexity of our work. It takes us away somewhat from being mired in the mundane. There are those days where you feel like all you’re doing is putting out fires, but the partnership is elevating.
On a personal level, this work has helped me to be more patient and more reflective. I’ve always valued relationships, process and true collaboration. But now I try to use my time differently. I am outcome-driven, and while I know the value of giving time toward goals, I didn’t always spend my time aligned to my values. I gave what I thought I should or could give, and then I’d move on. Now I am more reflective about how my time is aligning to what I value as important rather than urgent.
I’m also trying to be more cognizant of distributing leadership. Sometimes it’s hard for me to delegate. And yet, I’ve started to see that with an investment of time with people – maybe by putting more time into the beginning of a project or spending more time on mutual reflection – that we’re all in a better place to continue the work and do what we need to do. It’s really made me appreciate how we can sometimes impact the work that we think is so important by letting go and sharing responsibility.
In my meetings, I’ve also tried very hard to eliminate strictly informational kinds of items. I try to create open space to work more on instruction and learning issues to have greater impact on student achievement.
Our partners from the Ball Foundation have been, in every sense of the word, true partners. They are critical friends who raise our sense of self-efficacy and professionalism. They share with us specific information and expertise, but their questions are what are most impactful to helping us move our work forward. They challenge us. There will be a tremendous void once the formal partnership comes to an end but I feel confident that the culture of the district has been impacted for the better related to both what our work is and how we work together.
Word cloud created at wordle.net.
