Education is currently undergoing a transformation in British Columbia.  We are in the midst of implementing a redesigned curriculum and we are continuing to develop our understanding of the meaningful learning experiences our students need in order to be prepared for the future.  As we do this work, there’s one question we need to be sure to ask ourselves. And that question is…

“What are we going to stop doing?”

Why is this so important that we ask ourselves this question?  It’s important because our plates cannot continue to grow. Educators are some of the hardest working people on the planet.  They spend countless hours both physically and mentally giving to the profession and their students.

Now when I say “our plates” I mean plates in a multi-faceted sense…

Plate #1 – School hours

• We only have so many hours with our students – our goal with that precious time is to maximize student agency and empower them as self-navigating learners.

Plate #2 – Outside school hours

• We only have so much time outside school – we fit so much in here: designing learning opportunities, assessing and giving feedback, connecting with parents/families, connecting and collaborating with colleagues, furthering our own learning.  This time is just as precious and we need to be strategic on how we use it. It’s also critical that we develop a healthy work-life balance for both our long and short term wellness.

Plate #3 – Brain space

• We only have so much “thinking” space in our brains – if we are focusing on things outside of our control when reflecting and thinking about any aspect of education, then we don’t leave the brain space needed to meaningfully think about how to improve the educational experience for the children that are in front of us every single day. Ruminating on things outside our control can quickly fill up our entire “brain space” plate if we aren’t careful.

So… what are we going to stop doing?  After all, everything that we’re doing is important, isn’t it?  

The answer to that second question is both yes and no.  Yes in the sense that nearly everything we do has some value.  This is something John Hattie articulated quite well by studying more than 1000 meta-analyses in his book Visible Learning for Teachers.  Hattie’s work draws conclusions about the factors that make the greatest difference in student learning, and as he notes, nearly everything we do has some value. The real question here however is all about how much value.

But there are certain things we can’t stop doing, right?  

Well… again… yes and no.  Some items fall under compliance, and while yes, you do have to do those things, I like to channel a mantra that I heard from Michael Fullan a few years back, in that we should aim for a “C” in Compliance (a reference to say that if “Compliance” was a class, don’t use up all your precious time and energy trying to get an “A” in it).  This doesn’t mean doing a sloppy job on these sorts of items, it just means meeting their requirements as efficiently as possible.  

In these cases, items that fall under “must/should do”, I apply a slightly different question… “What can we spend LESS time doing”?

A good example I can share around this is related to staff meetings.  Just like all the plates listed above that have a finite size/capacity, the amount of time that staffs come together as a whole team is limited at best.  In my previous school (North Glenmore Elementary), I often found that information items in staff meetings, while important to communicate, ate up a significant chunk of our team’s time together.  This greatly hindered our ability to share, collaborate, and learn from each other. So we made a shift. Instead of spending so much time going over each information item one-by-one with the whole team, we provided a comprehensive summary of items that were “for information” (not necessarily for discussion) prior to the meeting.  Our whole team had a few minutes to read through these on their own and anyone who needed clarification could connect with me directly (either in real time or afterwards). This cleared room on our plate for much more meaningful collaboration across our team, while still efficiently and effectively tackling the passing along of important information.     

How about the things that aren’t compliance (which in reality, the vast majority of what we do falls under)?  

How can we determine what to “let go of” and stop doing?

My advice here is to take yourself through a mini “desired impact” audit: 

(1) Write down a comprehensive list of the things you are currently doing (within a day, week, month, and/or year).  Think about all the responsibilities/tasks that you take on.

(2) Next, rank your list from the item that has the greatest impact on student learning to the one that has the least impact.  

• Be sure to use the lens of “deep and meaningful student learning” as your guide post (because we know, not all learning is created equal).  

(3) Finally, draw a line and determine a good handful of items that you can consider not doing any more.

Sounds easy, right?  Well in practice it can certainly be a lot tougher.  We are often invested in so much of what we do. Some of these items near the bottom of the list are rooted in tradition.  Some of them we just love to do, even if we know they aren’t the most “high leverage”. This is where you need to make some hard decisions.  

Letting go of “good” to make room for “great”.  

Maybe instead of morning calendar (good) you start your day with a morning meeting/talking circle to build and strengthen your class community (great).

Maybe instead of sharing pictures of your students on your website (good) you have students curate their own evidence of learning onto e-portfolios (great).

So I challenge you to ask yourself…

• What are a few things that I could consider no longer doing?  
• What things am I doing that are having the least impact on student learning?
• How could I gain back some valuable time to try something new and innovative?  

Either way, we can’t move to “great” if we don’t remove “good” from the plate.