Leading Literacy: Bringing Colleagues Along
By Edna Varner, Cornerstone

As a newcomer to Cornerstone, I have been overwhelmed by what I have learned in getting to know leadership teams in our schools and the incredible support staff at Cornerstone. What dedication! I've seen enough already to know that our children are in very good hands. I've seen coaches and co-teachers deep in conversation with Lu about creating environments that invite children to read, wonder, and make the classroom their own special world. I've heard parents address faculties, encouraging them to embrace our literacy philosophy, and I've sat in on a session with a principal who taught teaching assistants to make blank books for student writing. I've watched a critical friend teach (awesome is the best way to describe her interaction with children), and observed in Denver as other Critical Friends and strategy managers worked with Ellin, modeling the kind of inquiry, rigor, and engagement we want for children.

I have participated with the Cornerstone staff in pondering every word of school reviews, asset map goals, charts from role-alike groups at the summer institute, and other feedback from school teams to determine what we can do to better support schools. All of that in two months!

As I listen to members of our team--principals, coaches, Critical Friends, strategy managers—I know that one of our challenges is bringing our colleagues along in the schools. The other teachers are not attending the summer institute and regional meetings, video conferencing, engaging in learning forums, observing teachers in Denver demonstrating what classes can look like after years of crafting, or developing colleagueship through a deepening understanding of our literacy initiative. Not so many now, but a few still say they don't know what Cornerstone is. Drawing them into book studies or coaches' classrooms is like pulling teeth; getting into their classrooms is even harder. Some leadership teams are tiptoeing around union rules that make scheduling time for adult learning a real challenge, while others face a steadfast unwillingness to break away from practices that do not help students achieve. We know, however, that adults—not unlike children—will do what they want to do. So, how do we make them want what we want for every student—a life as a passionate, proficient reader?

I won't suggest I know the full answer. We will have to work at the answers together. I do know what has helped me and my former colleagues, so I offer some ideas to ponder. First this—and I really believe it: We do the best we can with what we know. I believe the vast majority in our schools are doing just that, the best they can with what they know. Some of our colleagues don't know that children can learn at very high levels. Some don't know that they don't know. Some don't know what classrooms should feel like, and they don't know how to encourage or support children taking their first bold steps as learners. (Some would say, “Then they shouldn't be teachers.” The reality is—they are, and we must have high expectations for them as well as students.) Some other educators know all of these things, but they don't know how to make them happen. I was in that group when I started teaching. I wanted someone to bring me along.

As we are developing colleagueship for literacy, perhaps we can learn from our work with children. In excerpts from In the Company of Children (Hindley) in one of our previous newsletters, we have the following suggestions for building community. I've taken out the word “student” and substituted “teachers.” Read it and tell me what you think:

Here are a few things school leaders (principals, Critical Friends, coaches) can do to bring the faculty along:

• Create rituals together: Have longer meetings to do this important work with each other, rather than deciding everything before teachers arrive.
• Choose read-aloud texts carefully: What book will pull us together because we'll respond emotionally to the text? What book do I know so well I can read it beautifully, making teachers realize that this is going to be a special part of our day?
  
  Note: Each day on the faculty announcement sheet, I wrote a quotation that expressed something from the literature I wanted teachers to consider or from an article I wanted them to read. At meetings, leadership team members can read short passages that powerfully express what we believe about teaching and learning.
  
  
• Get teachers to "bring themselves" into the classroom by sharing hobbies, collections, and favorite books from home.
  
  Note: We also had a hall display of teachers' writing from the same prompts we used for students. Students loved reading about teachers' fears during October, Fright Month.
  


• Make the environment inviting: Display teachers' work as soon as possible.
  
  Note: Invite teachers into each others' classrooms with enticements like the following in a memo from the principal, the coaches, and the critical friend:
  

  Where to see it:
  Cooperate Group Work: Mrs. Corbett's students have developed routines that make cooperate groups really work!
  Learning Stations: See models of independent learning by visiting Mrs. Ford's second graders.
  Crafting Sessions: Invite the coaches in to work with your students. Morning and afternoon slots are available daily.

• Ask teachers to be part of the decision-making about room and library arrangements. (Add school day arrangements.)
• Survey teachers to find out their interests, strengths, and needs. I usually ask things like:
  
  
  1. Who is the [teacher] you admire most and why?
  2. What are some things you are really good at?
  3. What's one thing you'd like to be better at?
  4. What things are you interested in that you'd like to learn more about?
  5. Does anything make you nervous [in the classroom]?
  6. If you were going to be our teacher tomorrow, what would you want to teach us?
  7. What would your favorite school day look like?
     

• Make connections between school and home. Note: Be sensitive to the fact that teachers do have another life and other interests. Capitalize on that.
• Be open with teachers about your own teaching and learning process: share your own responses to the literature you read together, your struggles with problems, entries from your own writer's notebook.

Ellin's ìEssentials in Literacy Learningî also offers suggestions for bringing the faculty along. Read the following and think about it as a work plan for the faculty:

Create a culture of rigor, inquiry and intimacy by continually expecting more, probing ideas further and pressing teachers to explore their intellect:

• Create a culture conducive to in-depth study of books, genres, topics, authors, and comprehension strategies.
• Serve as lead learner by living literate lives and sharing insights from those more experienced.
• Provide equal access for all to the materials and expertise needed by adult readers and writers.
• Model what readers [and good teachers] think about and how they create a literate life.
• Model what writers [and good teachers] think about and how they observe the world to feed their writing

Invite conversations during which teachers and school leaders carefully express their ìlines in the sandî and thoughtfully defend practices in relation to evidence that those practices are effective with children.

Challenge each other, grow together, and enjoy the rewards of leading a literacy initiative with a whole faculty!