What Are You Measuring?

I’m a lover-of-nature. I write from a seat facing the forest – it inspires me. A walk through the trees leaves me feeling peaceful and refreshed. The forest’s colors delight my eyes. The leaves under my feet cushion my step.  The canopy overhead shields and shadows me. Music is provided by the birds that call the forest home.  How can I measure that?
 
In his book, Messy, the Power of Disorder, Tim Harford describes how, in 1763 a forest was measured by Johann Beckmann and his crew.  Each man had a belt with five leather pouches containing a known-number of differently-colored nails. At one edge of the forest, the team formed a line. They walked abreast through the forest, assessing every tree in their path and tagging it with a nail colored to identify its size. At the other edge of the forest, they emptied their pouches, counted their remaining nails, and determined how many trees of each size the forest held. They had systematically measured the forest for timber production.
 
What are you and the teachers you work with measuring in the classroom?  How are you measuring it?  Are you measuring engagement? Curiosity? Connectedness?  Are you measuring passion for learning? Participation? Comprehension?  Are you measuring rage at injustice?  Whether students treat one another with respect? Whether the teacher invites all voices to participate? How high the expectations for learning are?  We are subtly – or not so subtly – influenced by what we are measuring. “What gets tested gets taught.” 
 
Although the institutions that govern schools have a hand in deciding what gets measured, teachers and coaches have freedom to decide what to emphasize. As we create lesson objectives and goals for coaching cycles, let’s not forget to measure the walk through the forest.
 
This week, you might want to take a look at:
 
 This podcast about rubric repair:
 
https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/rubric-repair/
 
 
Shifting from trauma-informed care to healing-centered engagement:
 
https://medium.com/@ginwright/the-future-of-healing-shifting-from-trauma-informed-care-to-healing-centered-engagement-634f557ce69c
 
 
Conferring with mentor texts:
 
https://ccira.blog/2020/12/08/conferring-with-mentor-texts/
 
 
A video of Tanya Wright doing a remote read-aloud to support vocabulary development (scroll down):
 
https://www.heinemann.com/products/e11277.aspx
 
 
Are educators recharging or recovering?
 
http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/dec20/vol78/num04/When-Netflix-Isn't-Enough@-Fostering-True-Recovery-for-Educators.aspx
 
That’s it for this week.  Happy Coaching!
 
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