The Purpose of Practice

I am currently reading Doug LeMov's book, Practice Perfect. I love it when you are reading something and the whole time you are thinking, "This makes so much sense. Why didn't I think about it this way before?" In Practice Perfect, LeMov goes deeper into reflecting on how effective instructional practices become a part of our practice - it's not that we either have it or we don't, it's that we can develop it with purposeful practice.

I am a pianist. My parents insisted on getting piano lessons for me beginning at age 5. I understand practice and both it's value and purpose. But as I read this book, I am seeing that I have not often in my career truly practiced, or rehearsed, for an "in-classroom performance" - like I would if I were putting on a recital. This is where LeMov distinguishes between practice and preparation. As teachers, we spend a lot of time preparing. But preparation is actually dramatically different from practice. When I am preparing, I am thinking about what I will do when I have children in front of me, but I am not actually rehearsing what I will say, what I think they will say or do, and how I will respond next.

When I was preparing for my recitals in college, I wasn't practicing until I got it right - I was practicing until I couldn't get it wrong. What a difference that is. Think about that in terms of your instruction. What if we practiced our instructional delivery? What if we practiced our questioning and our re-directions? What if we practiced our pacing and our flow of our read aloud?

Does practicing my instructional delivery make me a robot? I know that practicing for a recital did not make me play like a robot. I know that when I see a play or a musical that I don't believe I am watching robots on stage. I know that mastery requires practice. The musical analogy to putting all of our time into preparation and not into practice is sightreading. When I sightread music, my time is invested in gathering the music and looking it over. But the first time I play it, I am sightreading the music, which means I might leave out notes, miss things, and make mistakes, but I would always keep on going. That's what we do in teaching. We gather our materials, we look things over, but then we are basically sightreading in front of a classroom of students who are counting on us to get it right. Then we reflect on the lesson and try to fix it tomorrow.

We all have had lessons where we walked away and said "that didn't work." We have all had times where we had to re-teach because we realized that we didn't hit it out of the park. Ultimately, our effectiveness is gauged by student actions - our teacher actions must lead students toward productive struggle, engagement, and ultimately, mastery of the skills and material. What if purposeful practice allowed us to have fewer "misses" and more "home-runs?" Wouldn't that be worth it?

Do the Most Good

I originally wrote this blog post about a year ago. This seems to be the time of year when teachers and leaders wonder if the grass is greener in some other district. I think it is important for us to reflect on our level of commitment to the students we serve and the vision of our organization. As with any marriage or long-term relationship, commitment is a choice. We could always choose another way, but staying committed...that takes patience, communication, and work.

Why did you get into education? What made you decide to be a teacher in the first place? I think it is important to revisit this connection at this time of year because it is a time of the school year when there is a lot of contemplation about how things could be easier or better or more convenient in another school or in another district.

I don't think I thought about the impact I could have on other people's lives or on the greater community when I got into education - I was 23 and I was so excited to have a job - my focus wasn't on my role in changing the lives of children or families. Soon after I got a handle on my new position, I became aware of how my role extended past my classroom and into the greater community. As I grew as a teacher, I reflected on my role as a teacher and I knew that I had to admit that I knew that there was places where I could have a greater impact. That was my draw to urban education.

I believe that we need to "do the most good" - that if we are capable that we have a responsibility to help others.

While we can do good in any district, not everyone has the competencies for urban education. And urban education is where we have the greatest need. The children in urban classrooms need the absolute best teachers. They need committed teachers who have deep content knowledge, extensive strategies for managing classrooms, and who appreciate the diversity of our urban classrooms. While the grass may appear a brighter color of green in suburban districts, the reality is that the same grass grows everywhere. Urban, suburban, and rural districts all face challenges. However, the challenges in urban education cannot be solved without the best teachers working to overcome the disadvantages our children may have and strengthen the future of our urban communities. 

Urban teachers have to have strong classroom management skills and have a deep commitment to educating our future. Those are the teachers that we need in urban classrooms. And we need those teachers to stay committed to solving the challenges of urban education. Too often in urban education, we invest in developing a teacher with potential and then after a couple of years they think teaching will be easier somewhere else. Suburban schools are smart - they know that successful urban teachers can be successful anywhere. However, the inverse is definitely not true. It takes grit to be an urban teacher. Anything that is worth doing in life will have challenges. There are classrooms everywhere - but really making a difference means teaching where you can do the most good. Even when it is tough. They say that teachers aren't "in it for the income - they are in it for the outcome." Being the one who can help to shape the future is the best perk that we can have as a teacher - better than summers off or great health insurance or snow days. We are opening doors to the future.