Back to School Night

Could a Teacher Led Revolution Transform Schools?


It seemed like any other back to school night – until we reached Ms. Garcia’s class. She started the introduction to her class the same way as the other teachers, presenting the class syllabus that discussed what would be covered in her class, the text book to be used, grading policy, etc.

And then something unusual happened.

She said she wanted to show us an example of concepts that the children would be learning. She started describing how she analyzed data to find solutions to problems—but we soon discovered that the data she was analyzing was the performance in her classes. Without blinking an eye, she showed a graph from three years before when she did a study on the amount of wasted time in her class.

“Can anyone explain what information this graph is presenting?” she asked. Always the reluctant student, and sitting in my usual place in the back of the class, I resisted raising my hand. The other parents were a bit reserved as well, not used to a participatory process at this event. After studying the chart, I slowly raised my hand and blurted out “The pie chart shows that, at the time of the study, only 66% of classroom time was spent on educational activities.” I was shocked that she was essentially giving us a report card on her performance. And it was barely a passing grade. I then reflected that at my job, my work and that of my team was measured on a variety of dimensions and reported at regular intervals. So why shouldn’t teachers self-report on their performance and improvement efforts?

Ms. Garcia continued, saying she defined waste as any time spent in any activity that was not directly related to teaching or assessment of the subject taught in her classroom. Categories included time spent handling student discipline issues, dealing with general school issues and activities, late classroom starts due to weather problems, etc.

Before she did the study, she just assumed she was doing as well as anyone else, focusing on getting through the lesson plans in an attempt to achieve the course goals. But then her perspective changed, and she started looking for ways to do better than what was typical.

She knew she was a good teacher—but she wanted to be a great teacher. By focusing on the goal of maximizing class time spent on educational activities, she set about finding ways to improve. Some of the items she defined as waste were out of her control, such as an emergency disaster drill, but there were many things she had control over, and these were highlighted on her list and prioritized according to those items that would have the most impact. As she talked, I recognized that she was applying the Pareto principle (aka the 80/20 rule) to get the biggest bang for the buck, and quick results.

  Then she showed us a chart showing a trend over time, where she had progressively eliminated much of that waste, maximizing the time in class dedicated to learning, instruction, and assessment. I was a bit embarrassed at my rush to judgment from the first chart she presented. She was merely following the process we used at work, measuring current levels of performance in order to set a baseline, and then identify opportunities to eliminate “muda” (as it is called in Japan), or waste (activities not adding value to the customer, or, in this case, the students).

 Next, she showed us a list of the projects and activities she had created to attack each of these time wasters. Ideas such as experiments with class discipline policy; better preparation before class time; making better use of student volunteers for classroom management activities; using the internet for information sharing and collaboration with students instead of using class time; having lesson plans available for substitutes; etc. She said that as she chipped away at the issues involved in the process of education, she was able to improve her overall performance in the classroom. By using concepts from the math classes she taught, and what she had learned from a friend in another field, she is in the process of moving from “Good to Great” (in the words of bestselling author Jim Collins) in regards to her performance as a teacher. The secret was the same she used with her students – by measuring performance, she was able to assess progress toward the goal.

 Continuing with her presentation, she said that the goal of maximizing the amount of classroom time spent on education was only an interim step. The real challenge was how to improve student achievement. As she wrestled with this concept, she said that she decided to focus first on a section of the curriculum that students struggled with the most. In the previous year, she studied student’s test grades from the year earlier, and generated statistics showing how students performing at different levels in the class performed in this particular section of the course. After reviewing the data, she determined that students who had been achieving B’s and C’s up to that point in the class fared the worst in this section, and focused initially on their ability to grasp the concepts involved.

Ms Garcia put up a chart that looked like the bones of a fish. I recognized this as a “Fishbone Chart,” otherwise known by its inventor’s name as an Ishikawa diagram. Others describe it as a tree with no leaves, each limb branching out into even more branches. She explained how she used this tool to brainstorm through all the possible reasons for students’ struggles in this section. The main branches included the text book, the class lectures, the assignments, etc. As she worked through the possible reasons for lack of student performance in this section, Ms. Garcia thought that if she had more interim assessments to check on student learning at each step of the learning process, she could more easily identify the sources of failure. Last year, the first time she went through this process, she was able to identify two concepts that the students struggled with and developed some supplemental examples and instructional materials to better reinforce the concepts and transfer of learning. This year she would use these new ideas, and assess student performance compared to the prior year. By using the disciplined process of doing a “post mortem,” she would assess how well these new approaches worked, and then make further refinements to try the next year.

Well, the 15 minutes passed quickly, and felt as if only 60 seconds had transpired, and the bell rang signaling to the parents that it was time to move to the next period’s class. I ran up to the teacher, excited by her presentation, and asked her what influences she had that lead her to pursue her improvement activities.

Ms Garcia indicated that her friend lead process improvement efforts at the local hospital, and shared with her some of his experiences, training materials, and resources. She was most influenced by books about Lean Six Sigma, and case studies and her friend’s experiences from healthcare, government, and some service industries, as well as the inspiring success of Toyota. With her math background, she was intrigued both by what her students would need to know at the workplace, as well as how she could use these concepts to improve her own performance as a teacher, and how this could impact student achievement.

I promised to share some of my experiences with her, and told her I was excited about what my child would experience this year in her class. I then raced off to my daughter’s next class, energized by my exchange with a teacher with vision, who cared to do her best and willing to work diligently to achieve it, both for the benefit of the students, and for her own professional development.