Lessons from a Pandemic

Posted on by

There are so many lessons to be learned from this Pandemic experience, although it is sad that it takes something like Covid-19 to teach or remind us.

The starkest lesson has been the vulnerability of so many segments of our population. There are inspirational lessons, as well, such as the courage of so many men and women committed to doing their essential jobs even when it places their lives and the lives of their families at risk. We should be immensely grateful for the latter lesson, but it is the former lesson that should give us pause and motivate us to soul-search.

How we can “better prepare ourselves for disasters such as this” is an invaluable lesson as we can be certain this will not be the last global disaster to test our character; both as individuals and as a society.

We must ask ourselves whether it is in our nation’s best interests to have such disparity between those who have and those who can only want. We like to think of the U.S. as a great nation and it is, in so many ways, but we, also, must be honest with ourselves and acknowledge that what we have witnessed, in these trying times, are not all things about which we can be proud.

What are a few of the things we are learning about education and healthcare: two of the essential components of a full and meaningful life? They are also the two issues with which I feel the strongest connection.

All children will be challenged to succeed when learning remotely but many of the students who will struggle the most while learning remotely are the same children who struggle the most in their classrooms. Can we hope this experience will enhance our understanding of the importance of relationships and supportive environments for learning; that these things are more important than determining who can learn the most, the fastest?

And think about what it would be like if hospitals were turning away coronavirus patients because they lack health insurance coverage. Thankfully, we have suspended some the rules in this extraordinary time, but should such rules exist at all? Would turning away patients with other life-threatening medical conditions be more justified than turning away coronavirus patients? Would the converse also be true?

Imagine the turmoil if the families of Covid-19 patients without health insurance coverage, both those who recovered and those who succumbed, begin receiving bills for their hospital and medical care. Is medical and hospital care for the sick and injured a right of citizenship?

The world around us is changing at such a pace that many of us do not even notice that things have changed. Does not this world-wide pandemic demonstrate how interconnected we are, on whichever corner of this planet we might reside?

Maybe it is time to step back and challenge all our assumptions about what is “just” and what is “unjust”; and about what differentiates “inequality” and “equality; about what makes a great nation.” Possibly we should rethink the logic behind all our government’s policies, both domestic and foreign.

We know that people are the same, in many ways, wherever they may live, but is anyone else concerned that Americans seem a little bit more likely to hoard scarce resources; to “not let this thing keep me from partying;” or to protest “shelter-in-place” policies because getting what they want is not only more important than other people getting what they need but also more important than other peoples’ lives?

Make no mistake, the world will never be the same after this 2020 “Covid-19 pandemic.” The question all of us should be asking is “do we want to lead or be led” by the changes that will be taking place around us?

As Simple as 1-2-3-4-5-6

Posted on by

Let us make the solution to the challenges facing public education in America as simple as possible.

Providing a quality education to every child who arrives at our door is as simple as 1-2-3-4-5-6.

  1. Children need to feel special and experience what it is like to have one or more favorite teachers on whom they can depend for the long term;
  2. Students must start at whatever point on the academic preparedness continuum where we find them when they arrive at our door;
  3. Boys and girls must be able to depend on us to give them however much time and attention they need to learn from the mistakes they make, every step along the way;
  4. Kids must understand they are being asked to both learn and employ the lessons, principles, and discipline with which each of them can create success for themselves, throughout their whole lives; it is a process of success;
  5. Our children must be taught to celebrate their successes and the successes of the people in their lives, always; as success is an experience best shared; and,
  6. Educators must learn that it is the success of our students, not the promises we make, that will draw parents and guardians in as partners.

We must understand there is no one, perfect solution to the challenges of public education. Technology is but one example. Digital technology is  not the solution to the problems in education rather it is a tool, the value of which is measured by its utility to teachers and students.

We must reimagine how to ensure that everything teachers and schools are asked to do will support our mission.  The mission is to send every young adult out into the world with the knowledge, skills, and wisdom they need to find joy for themselves and their families; in pursuit of whatever meaningful goals they set for themselves.

To carry out this mission superintendents, administrators, teachers and policy makers must be willing to break from the traditions of the past. The Hawkins Model© is one example of how that might be done.

The logic behind these six objectives might be simple, but the work they will require of educators will be hard. These goals require that we embrace the notion that education is an uncertain science. It requires that we all work, relentlessly, to develop our craft.

What does a craftsperson do? They must apply all their knowledge, skills, and collective wisdom to discern the unique needs of individual children and then utilize an eclectic portfolio of tools and methodologies to instill success in the hearts and minds of those children. Not everything they do will work so they must keep striving until they find something that does. They must never stop learning and they must never give up. Teachers must never permit their students to give up and stop learning.

Our teachers must be free and willing to give fully of themselves, without fear of recrimination. Creating a quality education for all will require a level of effort, dedication, courage, and camaraderie comparable to that which our medical professionals, first-responders, and so many other men and women are demonstrating in response to Covid-19.

These men and women are heroes and the work they do saves lives and a nation. Teachers are also heroes and the work they do will save lives and, also a nation.

More than One Kind of Hunger, Part 2

Posted on by

There is more than one kind of hunger. We all know nourishment is essential to the health of young minds and bodies. It is difficult to stay focused on a lesson or challenge when there is an ache in one’s belly. It is even more difficult for children who are less able to rationalize away that ache long enough to finish a task. It is vital, therefore, that we feed the bodies of our nation’s children because not only does it enable growth, it frees their minds and hearts for learning.

Kids also hunger for nurturing  relationships. Many children, when away from their parents, are desperate for someone to care about them. It is so much easier to care about oneself when someone else cares for us. In this respect, the heart is a portal to the mind. Knowing someone cares frees the mind to allocate energy to learning.

Same is true of the hunger for safety and security. We all need to feel safe from harm and kids need that safety even more. Think about a time when something happened to startle or scare you. How long did it take before you could push that unsettling experience aside sufficiently to return to one’s task? Imagine how much more difficult it is for a child.

When young children are away from their home, they feel vulnerable. This is true for all kids but especially for children who come from homes and families that are distressed. Toxic though some home environments might be, however,  it is the only home they know, and it colors their expectations.  If we wish to alter those expectations, it is essential that we strive to provide nurturance and affirmation. For some children, school may be only place they experience the comfort of unconditional, loving relationships with adult human beings.

In these awkward times in which it has been deemed inappropriate for a teacher to touch a child, remember that wrapping one’s arms around someone is not the only way to give a hug. Hug them with the warmth of your smile, the sparkle in your eyes, and the loving words you say when you greet them as they enter your classroom or depart for the day. Even a fist bump can be a hug, if done with a warm smile. A hug, whether virtual or real, is nothing more than an affirmation of how important someone is to us.

Our objective is to convey to them that sense of value in whatever way we can, because they yearn for it, even when they shy away or act embarrassed. If genuine, such hugs will win over even the most recalcitrant child, over time. Once they come to believe in our affection for and belief in them, children will begin to open themselves up to us. From that point onward, anything becomes possible.

We must strive to keep our objective at the forefront of our minds as we strive to help children create patterns of success for themselves. This requires that they feel empowered. When, however, the education process requires that mistakes be counted against students, as if they were failures—and must be recorded as failures in a teacher’s gradebook—it is contrary to our purpose. In these instances, the education process usurps a child’s power to create patterns of success for themselves by imposing on them a pattern of failure.

Patterns of failure are the genesis of surrender. Once any human being gives up and stops striving, it is incredibly difficult to pull them from the maelstrom of hopelessness. This particularly true of children.

Kids do not want to feel hopeless and powerless, they want to be winners, which is just another way of saying they want to be successful.

To be continued.

More Than One Kind of Hunger!

Posted on by

Our society is learning much from its experience with this pandemic, but as the Novel Coronavirus saga plays out, it is revealing so much more. The most obvious lesson to be learned is with respect to our level of preparation for a phenomenon that is proving to have an adverse effect on, not only our health, but almost everything people do. For educators, our concern is with the impact on our nation’s students when our schools are shut down.

In schools, whether public, private, or parochial, we are learning just how vulnerable our nation’s children are in times of distress. One of the first revelations, beyond “how do we deliver subject matter, remotely,” is learning how much our students depend on us. Not only are many students hungry when they cannot attend school, they are enduring more than just a lack of food. We are seeing families unable to insure their children are being cared for when they must go to work. Given the low wages on which many American families must live, many mothers and/or fathers must work forty or more hours per week to provide a decent living for their families. Some must work more than one job, which only exacerbates the hardship s with which their children must deal.

For many kids, when there is no school there may be few, if any,  breakfasts, lunches, or snacks. One would think any doubts people might have had about the prudence of providing meals for hungry kids should be resolved, What is more central to caring for our children than making sure they have the healthy nutrition they need to learn and grow?

The suspension of so many schools will bring many other issues into sharper focus. It is not just how much our kids depend on school for healthy nutrition but also for safety, for social/emotional support, and for physical exercise, in addition to their intellectual and academic needs. We must keep kids safe from Covid-19, but when they return to school, we need to acknowledge that those schools are more than just places of learning.

As I said, in my book Reinventing Education, Hope, and the American Dream[1], “schools  have become the social milieu in which young people live and endure.” Teachers must realize that they are more than just educators. Whether we like it or not teachers and schools are a support system for the whole child, and we must structure the education process to serve all these needs.

Some teachers have expressed reservations about the level of responsibility they would be asked to bear, under such an education process. They are encouraged to think about how much they enjoy working with their favorite students from over the years. Educators are invited to examine The Hawkins Model© that is designed to increase, for both teachers and students,  the number and duration of these special relationships. Might this not enhance the satisfaction of teachers?

We must embrace the coronavirus as the learning opportunity it has the potential to be. It is unlikely this will be the last crisis of such magnitude we will face in the span of most of our lifetimes.

[1] Hawkins, Mel, Education, Hope and the American Dream: The Challenge for Twenty-First Century America, (2013), CreateSpace.

Changing the Way We Think about what We Do?

Posted on by

If we truly want to bring about transformative change, we must begin by changing the way we think about what we do. 

What does it say about the importance of relationships between teachers and students when we sever a student’s relationship with a teacher who cares about them, just because it is the end of a school year? What is the impact on a child when we move them ahead to material for which they lack perquisite understanding and, with the same stroke of a pen, separate them from a teacher with whom they feel both important and safe?

When we collect practice assignments and go over the mistakes students make, are we able spend as much time as we know we should with the kids who struggle most? Are we even allocated enough time for such a purpose? Should it be an expectation?

Does it really make sense to administer a chapter test to a child whose practice assignments suggest they are likely to fail? What would contribute more to our students’ long-term success: giving them more time to learn or by recording a “D” or an “F” in our gradebooks and then moving them on to the next lesson?

How far behind do students fall before they give up and stop trying? When we move kids along faster than their pace of comprehension and gage their performance against that of classmates, have we set them up for a pattern of failure that will follow them throughout their lives?

An athletic team can come from far behind to win a game or turn a losing season into a championship, and we celebrate not only their victory but also what they had to overcome. Do we give kids in the classroom the same opportunity to catch up and learn? Do we provide them with an equal opportunity to prove themselves winners?

For decades, teachers were expected to teach a diverse group of children in the same classroom; kids who were at different ages, with different life goals, and were at varying stages of academic development. Did we change the way we teach because what we were doing was proven to be ineffective, or did we change because it was perceived to be inefficient?

How many more things do we do with the kids in our classrooms that make little or no sense when we stop and think about them? We have taught kids the same way for generations because of tradition, even when results gave us reason to question our effectiveness.

Everything we know about early childhood development tells us that development follows an identifiable pattern but, also, that kids develop according to their own unique timetable. Are academic standards and curricula crafted around the way kids learn and develop or do they reject differentiation. Students of a given age are expected to advance down the same generic pathway, moving from one benchmark to the next, as a group, at the same relative speed. If they do not, schools and teachers are held accountable.

We evaluate achievement by comparing the performance of some kids to the performance of others rather than making sure they are each touching their essential bases. Imagine how it work if we treated early childhood development the same way we treat learning in school. Imagine labeling kids as slow because they did not roll over, crawl, walk and talk as quickly as their siblings.

There is a price to be paid when circumstances disrupt childhood development. Could the same thing be true when a child’s academic development is disrupted because there is too little time for kids to learn and for teachers to teach? Even under adverse circumstances, the brain will strive to learn, relentlessly. Do we help the brains of our students or do we get in the brain’s way?

While it may make sense to keep kids of a certain biological age together, is there any research to justify holding them to the same expectations as their classmates with respect to academic standards, development and achievement?

Far too many young men and women are leaving school only to discover their choices are limited. What does it say about what we do when the regimen through which we guide our students serves to limit rather than expand their range of choices? Could it be that the same thing has happened to educators? Have their perceptions been forged by traditions and practices that serve to discourage rather than reward divergence.

The problem when we are taught to “think alike” is that we end up “thinking alike.” How well does what we do for kids in classrooms prepare kids to enter a dynamic world that rewards broader rather than narrower visions?  What if we could do better?

Do you believe in your hearts that all kids will be successful next year or the year after next if only you work a little harder and give more of yourself?

What if disappointing academic achievements occur not because of our inability to teach and not because of our students’ inability to learn? What if unacceptable outcomes are a consequence of an education process that impedes and constrains  rather than enables and supports the efforts of teachers and students?  

What are you willing to do, differently?

A Child’s Brain is Programmed to Learn, with a Little Help from Us!

Posted on by

A healthy human brain begins its life from a starting point on an individual human being’s genetic map and is influenced by the unique, multi-layered environment into which it is born. It is programmed to learn; to soak up the world around it; to make sense of it all; and, to find its own place and personality. As it drives the physical growth of the body, it is reaching further out into the world, giving it access to more sensory treasures. It is a relentless effort to learn about the world and gain influence over it.

The human brain learns through a remarkable process of gathering information from an environment that includes the body in which it resides;  the support it receives from the people who provide care and nourishment; and from the infinite but unique physical universe around it.

No two brains are the same and each is born at a unique juncture of the dimensions of space, time, and energy. How it functions, physiologically is a process of collecting data from the stimuli in the universe, through all its sensory apparatus, and forming connections and pathways along its neural network. While science has learned much about how a brain forms those connections and pathways along its neural network, there is much more to learn. The brain remains one of the great mysteries of the universe.

The world’s scientists seem to agree about how we describe this process, based upon their collective observations, and have identified key developmental milestones that are common to every brain, whatever the time frame in which the milestones are reached—a lesson the drafters of academic standards would do well to learn. We must remember, however, that the observations of these scientists only describe the brain’s function, they do not define it. The brain, we might, say is its own architect.  The brain functions at its own pace and rhythm within a world of incessant change.

Educators who assume responsibility for teaching the child in whom the brain resides must remind themselves they have no control over what the brain may have experienced before we became involved. We must begin our work at the unique point where we find it on its developmental path. It is not ours to command.

Whatever he or she has endured, the brain’s motivation to learn is intrinsic. If environmental factors impede the brain’s growth and development, at any point along the way, there is a price to be paid but the brain is, also, a remarkably resilient entity that can learn almost anything. We have seen how people, even at an advanced age, can recover from debilitating strokes and some injuries. The brain is, at once, fragile and virile. It helps if we remember the brain does not unlearn things rather it keeps making new connections, gradually building on and/or replacing what was known before. Thus it is never too late to start anew.

The more stress and trauma a young brain may have endured, however, the more it needs our patient time, love, attention, and protection. Any challenges the child presents to his or her teachers reflect life experiences over which that child has had no control. Our purpose is to neither label nor pass judgment; neither should we keep score or assign grades.  Our mission is to help the brain move down its development path and help the child become the best version of him or herself. Even after periods of deprivation the brain is ready to learn, again. As it learns, the pace of learning accelerates.

We must never give up on a child’s potential to learn, to catch up when they are behind, or to create something of value to the world; with a little help from us.

An Open letter to the United States Senate: re: Impeachment Trial

Posted on by

Senate Republicans have openly stated their intentions to acquit President Trump based on their assertion that the charges do not rise to the level of impeachable offenses. Thus far, they have refused to allow witnesses to be called.

Critics are correct that impeachment of any president is an awful thing. It is also understood that Republicans are fearful that removing President Trump from office will strike a blow to the advancement of his platform, as there are many political issues about which people feel strongly and were the reasons many people voted for Donald Trump in 2016.

Other than an election, however, impeachment is the only recourse available to the American people and their elected representatives, to hold accountable a president—any president—who demonstrates a willingness to set aside the principles and traditions of democracy for the advancement of his or her own personal agenda.

If either the Senate or the people choose to turn their heads, their silence amounts to tacit approval of that President’s actions. Given a free run, so to speak, is no one worried about how far this President would go?

Whether the fate of President Trump is left in the hands of the Senate or American voters, does not obviate the need for those decision-makers to have seen the full body of  evidence before casting their votes.

Since there is reason to believe that witnesses are available who might further incriminate or exonerate President Trump, it appears to this American that, in the grand scheme of things, the principles of truth and justice trump the political issues, if you will pardon the pun.

Over the life of the American republic, leaders of other nation’s must have pondered the question, “What is to prevent an American president from refusing to leave office after losing an election or after an impeachment?” One might expect that an authoritarian president—one who believes himself to be ordained to lead a nation out of crisis—might be inclined to seize and utilize any power they have been given.

Democracy and autocracy are separated by the thinnest of membranes and it is only the will of the people that preserves the former.

With respect to the Impeachment of President Donald Trump, it boils down to several questions, beginning with:

“Do the American people need to hear the evidence?” and,

“Is the United States Senate going to protect or deny their right to hear it?”

The bigger questions are:

“Can we allow this or any president to put their own interests above that of the nation, whatever we think of his or her policies?” and,

“Do we need a president who divides a nation or one who rallies the American people around a common purpose?”

Today, the battle lines have been carved so deeply into the ground it seems improbable that conservatives, moderates, and liberals can work together to solve the great challenges we face as a democratic society, in a troubled world.

Make no mistake, the outcome of this impeachment trial will determine far more than the term of a single president and survival of his administration. It will determine whether we continue to be a nation of principles and law or one governed solely by power.

Remember, always, democracy requires a balance between freedom and responsibility.

Strategic Plans and Mission Statements Provide Focus

Posted on by

It is not often that I disagree with @davidgeurin as he is an educator whom I follow on Twitter, regularly, and have learned to respect. He said:

“. . . culture isn’t made by mission statements, strategic plans . . . . School culture is built on behaviors, one action or interaction at a time. “

David is correct, of course, that cultures are built on the behavior of its people. He then said:

“It’s what people consistently do that shapes cultures.”

It has been my experience that what people do is, indeed, what “shapes cultures.” The problem is doing it  “consistently;” it is sustaining one’s focus and assuring that the message is shared throughout an organization.

While working with leaders and their organizations, across many venues, it was always disappointing to see when the underlying values that drive behavior do not penetrate deeply throughout the entity. A common pattern I would observe was how often values are shoved aside under the pressure of the daily challenges of demanding jobs, and in times of crisis.

Many leaders have been observed making verbal commitments to do this or that, or in our case, to behave and interact with people in a positive way. One after another, I’ve seen those same people drift. It is not a question of their lack of sincerity or commitment. It is simply a function of being distracted by the frenetic challenges of work and leadership. It happens to the best of us.

Building culture is also a shared responsibility and school cultures are no different. It is not just the man or woman in charge that matters, it is every member of the leadership team, however many layers of leadership there might be.

Even the most powerful message of a leader can be diluted, easily, by members of the leadership team who stray from course. It doesn’t matter what the CEO says and does if supervisors on the floor behave contrarily and tell a different story. The latter creates an alternate reality for the people of an organization and diminishes the credibility leadership. Few things are as disillusioning and demoralizing to the people of an organization as losing trust in one’s leaders.

If we are truly committed to a positive culture, we need every man and woman in the organization treating each other in a manner consistent with leadership’s message all the way out to the people on the line, in the pits, or in the classrooms. That message and associated behavior must resonate and reverberate throughout the organization and its supply chain.

This is where mission statements, strategic plans, and value statements come in. Putting one’s commitment is writing is a powerful thing and it makes reminding one another of that commitment so much easier. Mission statements, strategic plans, and value statements—no matter how eloquent—have minimal impact if they are stashed away in the principal’s bookcase or file cabinet, however. People must be able to see how those values motivate people and organizations in all things, both large and small.

Many organizations have mission and value statements etched on their walls and have copies of the strategic plans in break and conference rooms, as well as lobbies, for all the world to see.

Falling off the cultural/behavioral path is just as easy as a dieter or drinker “falling off the wagon.” We need to remind ourselves, and each other, to stay the course, relentlessly. The people of an organization, also, must be able to articulate mission and purpose as effectively as the man or woman in charge.

During a strategic planning meeting with a client, a member of the leadership team commented that all the things I was talking about were nothing more than “time-worn platitudes.” My response to him was that I prefer to think of them as the principles positive leaders utilize, daily, and remind themselves of, relentlessly.

My thanks to David Geurin for sharing his positive messages with us on Twitter, and for his indulgence of this piece.

“Social welfare programs? – A Conundrum”

Posted on by

In a recent gathering, someone remarked that the last things we need are more social welfare programs.

He was correct in implying that such programs do not fix dysfunctional systems. Social welfare programs almost always treat the symptoms of such dysfunctions, not the underlying problems; they are damage control. Unfortunately, until we address the underlying causes of our nation’s problems, we will continue to need damage control.

Social programs help support people who are damaged, in some way, by society’s dysfunctional processes, the most significant of which is the education process within which teachers and students must work.

What we need is a systems’ thinking approach that drills down to the proverbial root causes of our society’s challenges so we can begin to develop strategies to address them. Systems’ thinking not only helps us understand why systems are dysfunctional; it also helps us recognize the forces that influence human processes and organizations. Just as importantly, systems’ thinking helps us understand how we contribute to the problems that concern us; problems that plague our planet and our society.

As we noted above, our single greatest “systems’ failure” is public education. This is despite the heroic effort of America’s several million teachers. It is this observer’s assertion that every other social problem that exists is a product of that dysfunction, to one degree or another.

Because it is structured like a race to see who can learn the most, the fastest, the education process creates populations of winners and losers, along with a huge group of people in the middle. That latter population of people in the middle may not be losers but rarely do they experience satisfactory success. They are left wanting.

Because this population of men and women has not acquired a quality education, they have not learned the science of critical thinking or the art/science of creative problem-solving. This gives them little or no control over most of the outcomes in their lives. Although they cling to hope, they often feel powerless to elevate themselves to point from which they can achieve the level of affluence to which they aspire. Instead, these Americans hover in a netherworld of resentment and disappointment, never quite understanding the forces that play havoc with their lives or how their own behavior and beliefs contribute to their plight.

Such people are likely to resent the affluent, whose lives seem out-of-reach to them; and, even more, they resent when the tax dollars they so begrudgingly pay are expended to support the dependency of the less fortunate. That this population of the less fortunate includes a disproportionate percentage of people of color and those for whom English is a second language, creates another layer of complexity.  It validates, in the minds of many, the prejudices acquired from their families and subcultures. Such prejudices are socially destructive.

What our society requires of its education system, is that all children learn as much as they are able from their unique starting point, at their own best pace. Such an environment transforms the experience of young children, beginning at ages five and six. Because they are progressing along a learning continuum, they experience success not failure; in fact, one success after another.

What happens to any of us, while we are learning a skill, is that one gets better with practice. The better one gets the more confident one becomes. The more confident one becomes, they more often he or she succeeds in what becomes a perpetual growth process; a growth mindset, if you will. It is not long until students begin to expect success. As the success continues, the rate of learning begins to accelerate and the limits that have constrained these youngsters for generation begin evaporate.

Consider how different a teacher’s challenge would be if, rather than a classroom of students who are pushed ahead before they are ready and are experiencing disappointing outcomes, routinely; that teacher found him or herself in the midst of a classroom of students who expect to be successful and are enthusiastic about learning.

Which students are most likely to perform well on dreaded high-stakes, state competency examinations

If such outcomes became the norm in public schools, how quickly would the need for programs that provide public support to the poor, begin to diminish? How long before high-risk testing would be rendered irrelevant? How quickly could our teachers be able to shift the focus of students from learning answers to questions on state competency examinations to critical thinking and creativity?

This is the world we could envision if superintendents of districts with struggling elementary schools chose to utilize The Hawkins Model©.

We would have an education process designed to produce the outcomes the American people and society need if they are to flourish and also compete in the global marketplace?

Making Transformational Change

Posted on by

We all know how hard it is to change things that we’ve been doing  for what seems like forever. If you have ever tried to quit smoking, lose weight, start exercising, or one of a thousand other things, you know inertia can seem almost insurmountable.

Sometimes, however, we cannot get the need for change out of our head. It eats away at us and we might even lose sleep because we can’t stop thinking about it! Deep down we know something is wrong and we also know someone must do something about it. Why not let that someone be you?

Usually, we are only one among many who suffer the consequences of someone else’s inaction.  In the case of public education, everyone suffers because we seem to be stuck in time.

It is even harder when people are bashing us, always telling us we need to do something about this habit or that. No one likes to feel nagged into doing something and we don’t want to be blamed for it.

There is a part of us, however, that just wants to dig in and resist. Often, it is simply a matter of not wanting to admit that the other person might be right, especially when they are right for the wrong reasons; or to suffer what we feel is a blow to our self-esteem; or, just feel the need to defend ourselves from being unfairly blamed.

So, what do we do when there is a crisis and the need for a dramatic transformation is compelling? How do we overcome the monumental power of inertia and, often, self-defense?

Many teachers and administrators are experiencing all these things. They know public education is in crisis and they are sick and tired of taking the blame. They know many of their students are struggling and nothing we do seems to change that fact. Of course, even in struggling schools and classrooms, we do help some of our students but, often, there are just too many of them.

Teachers also know that all the attention they are asked to pay to high-stakes testing  only makes it worse, not better. The seemingly incessant focus on preparation for high-stakes testing just makes it harder to find the time to do the things we know are more important. We also have learned to resent the data from testing and how the numbers have been weaponized to attack teachers and the public schools to which we are so fiercely dedicated.

The truth is, teachers don’t need test scores to understand the problems in public education, because they see them every day in their schools and classrooms. The education system, however, is like a runaway train and all educators feel a sense of powerlessness to slow it down, let alone bring it to a halt.

Even teachers in high-performing schools and classrooms know, deep down, how fortunate they are to be teaching in district, school, or classroom where students want to learn. But for the grace of God—or good fortune–they could be laboring in a classroom where students who want to learn are few.

I challenge all public-school educators to take a step back and acknowledge that something is wrong and that the education process within which we are asked to teach offers no solutions.

I also challenge teachers and administrators to understand that legislators and policy makers cannot fix what is broken because they are too far removed from it to comprehend the full breadth and scope of the challenges facing our public schools.

It is imperative, also, that public school educators understand that education reformers; with their focus on charter schools, teacher- and union-bashing, and voucher programs; cannot fix public education because not only do they not understand how to fix it, they even fail to comprehend how much damage they do with their criticisms and misguided reforms.

The truth is that the only people who can fix what is wrong in so many of our schools and that harms so many of our nation’s precious sons and daughters, are the teachers and administrators who are up to their gills in challenges. What these teachers and educators must be willing to consider is that the answers cannot be found in the trenches.

It is the trenches, however, where professionals learn what is not working and they must feel compelled to utilize what they witness, daily, and what they have learned from those experiences as powerful motivations to embrace transformational change.

We must take back to the laboratories and drawing boards that which we learn in the pits, and then utilize the principles of systems’ thinking, of organizational development, and of positive leadership to create and entirely new way to structure, organize, task, and resource our schools. Only then are we ready to take these new solutions back to our community schools and classrooms.

Have no illusions. The only place we can fix public education in America is in our communities where men, women, and children live, learn, work, and play; and, the only people who can fix it are the teachers, administrators, and the parents of our students.

The key to transformational change is not in complaints, protests, demonstrations, and labor actions—as necessary as they might, sometimes, be.

The key to transformational change will come when professional educators and the communities they serve unite as positive advocates for a new and innovative idea. It must be understood that the sweeping changes that will be required will not be found in incremental changes, new approaches, methodologies, and new technologies, although each of these things will find a home in a new and well-conceived, 21st Century education process.

I respectfully offer an education model  I have developed as a point of embarkation. I call it The Hawkins Model© only to claim the right of authorships. If implemented, someday, my model will be available for free to any public, parochial, or private not-for-profit school that wants to utilize it. The Hawkins Model© was developed from all that I have learned after forty-five years of working with kids, leading organizations, solving problems, working as an independent organizational development and leadership consult, and of walking in the shoes of public school teachers as a substitute teacher in the elementary, middle school, and high school classrooms of a diverse, urban public school corporation.

Please take time to investigate my model. It may prove to be the solution we need. The very worst that can happen is that it will spark a better idea in the minds and imaginations of a few of you who are reading this post. If you are intrigued by what you read, please share it, widely, and open a dialogue.