I’ve been enjoying Sam Chaltain’s posts about the video series,  A Year at Mission Hill, where, among other things, he talks about the importance of building school cultures.

Here’s a piece from one of his recent posts (citing educator Ron Berger) that talks about building an ethic of excellence:

Of course, what we see at Mission Hill is more than just relevant projects. There’s a culture in place, an ethic, that demands the best of its teachers and students. As longtime educator Ron Berger puts it in his wonderful book An Ethic of Excellence, “Weighing yourself constantly doesn’t make you lighter and testing children constantly doesn’t make them smarter. The only way to really lose weight and keep it off, it seems, is to establish a new ethic – exercise more and eat more sensibly. It’s a long-term commitment. It’s a way of life.

“I have a hard time thinking about a quick fix for education,” Berger continues, “because I don’t think education is broken. Some schools are very good; some are not. Those that are good have an ethic, a culture, which supports and compels students to try and to succeed. Those schools that are not need a lot more than new tests and new mandates. They need to build a new culture and a new ethic.”

To build a new ethic at a school, of course, one must begin somewhere. Berger believes student work is the logical place to start. “Work of excellence is transformational,” he writes. “Once a student sees that he or she is capable of excellence, that student is never quite the same. We can’t first build the students’ self-esteem and then focus on their work. It is through their own work that their self-esteem will grow.”

I love Berger’s emphasis on building self-esteem through careful attention to the work we do, and how that process can be transformative. How true for students, but also how true for teachers. One of the biggest frustrations for teachers is that we are constantly shifting focus from one thing to another and, as a result, we do not have the time to develop excellence through drafting, reflecting, and revising. Imagine the transformations that could occur if we remembered that the pathway toward excellence winds through the land of Try, Try Again.

So, for next year, a small-ish group of teachers and I have decided that (however tentatively) we will meet to talk about our practice. That talk may, or may not be related to our district PD, but we will try to bring our teaching “drafts” to each other for conversation and reflection. We know we will have to carve out time outside our normal PD, and that with all the demands of our jobs we might have a hard time meeting, but we’re going to give it a try. We’ve already started the journey. I’m excited.

Finally, if you haven’t seen the video Austin’s Butterfly it’s the epitome of what can happen when respectful, clear critique is combined with time for revision. Next year I hope to help students create some “butterflies” in our classroom, and for me to create some in my teaching.

Austin’s Butterfly: Building Excellence in Student Work – Models, Critique, and Descriptive Feedback from Expeditionary Learning on Vimeo.