April New Ideas

As a new teacher, I find even when I solicit feedback directly from students, families, and colleagues, I sometimes feel like I am not hearing the whole story. For whatever reason, I think these people are holding back, and based on conversations I have had with teachers at my own school and others around California, I assume that this is true not only for teachers but administrators as well. I wonder whether we would benefit from knowing what everyone really thinks and whether there is a way to open up conversations without damaging relationships.

It seems to me that individuals are more likely to give input they think is "safe," even if it does not reflect their most pressing concerns, and there is a missed opportunity for us to learn from others. You might be familiar with the collaboration norm "hard on content, soft of people." I think that in practice we might not be hard enough on content because we are disproportionately concerned about being soft on people. How can we actually do both things at the same time?

I have spent a lot of time thinking about structures that can be used in schools to generate honest discourse where individuals do not necessarily have positive, longstanding relationships. I will share a few of them that I think would give me a better chance of garnering honest feedback and improve the dialogue at my school.

• Honoring feedback by including it in the collaboration norms and putting it near the top because of the inherent challenges associated with being hard on content, while being soft on people.
• Explicitly modeling the kind of feedback the group needs and publicly spotlighting individuals (with their permission sought before the meeting) who are giving that feedback. 
• Creating an expectation that giving feedback is one of the most important things an individual can do as part of the group. There should be a sense that if an individual is doing a great job at everything else, but not reflecting on others' work and sharing those reflections, he or she is not fulfilling his or her responsibilities to the group.
• Fostering shared ownership over a wider range of group projects. There should be an individual who is tasked with critiquing every project completed by someone else in the group, and his or her role should be as publicly visible as the primary author of the work itself, thereby applying the value of making all work public to critique.
• Ensuring anonymity by always using online surveys, instead of handwritten feedback forms.
• Providing an opportunity for individuals to share anonymously without it having to be made public. Perhaps they have things to share with the facilitator that they think could potentially harm the group dynamic if highlighted at the wrong time or place or shared outside of the broader context.
• Providing public roles for individuals to take on during meetings. This provides with individuals the safety of putting on different hats, like that of the devil's advocate, who provides something valuable to the group, but is usually an unpopular role.
• Emphasizing the "be helpful" aspect of critique. The facilitator should ask, "Is that the kind of critique that could potentially improve the overall quality of the group?"