Portrait of an Educator
As educators, we strive to model what we hope to see in our students: compassion, collaboration, creative problem solving, critical thinking skills, a growth mindset, and more. If those skills and dispositions sound familiar, it’s because they are invariably included on Portraits of a Graduate that savvy schools and districts across the country have generated. The language of the portraits may differ, but the substance is pretty consistent; what school does not want to cultivate engagement, intellectual curiosity, a broad knowledge base, communication skills, confidence, and empathy in its students?
For us in New Hampshire’s SAU-16, creating our vision for our graduates sparked another profound question: If we expect educators to model those admirable qualities, why do we not have a Portrait of an Educator? Thus, in 2020, we brought together representatives–academic teachers, arts educators, paraeducators, principals, and others–from different schools to begin imagining what a Portrait of an Educator would look like. With support from 2Revolutions, we built a rubric of knowledge, skills, and mindsets that provide both a template and an aspirational document for the educators in our district.
These indicators are research-based and pull from diverse frameworks, but they also have direct bearing on our specific district by aligning with the SAU-16 Portrait of a Graduate and our focus on competency-based education. More importantly, they were generated by our own educators and leaders with the hope of having a direct and positive impact on the students they teach.
Getting the Portrait of an Educator off the ground was a monumental task that included finding consensus within a large group pulled from across 7 districts and 8 school boards, but we knew that it was just the beginning; we could list skills and attributes all day, but without the right evaluative tools and supports, the Portrait would simply be another piece of paper. Our current system of evaluating our educators would not be the vehicle that would move them toward demonstrating the knowledge, skills, and mindsets that we had so painstakingly named and codified. Like so many other districts, we were using a deficit-based system of evaluation, where teachers would set SMART goals that aligned with their particular school’s goals and then they would be observed and evaluated by administrators to see if those goals were met. If teachers received too many “needs improvement” notes, they would be moved to an improvement plan. Not surprisingly, many teachers found this approach constricting, punitive, and overly focused on what was wrong, rather than supportive, inspiring, or self-directed. Some educators would set SMART goals that were easily achieved, so as to avoid getting poor marks on an increasingly outmoded evaluation. Needless to say, this was not the outcome that we desired, and it was definitely not the approach that we strive to take with our students. So why were we imposing it on our teachers and modeling the very type of hoop-jumping evaluation that we were working to get away from?
Knowing that we wanted to move to an asset-based system, we proposed that teachers develop their own growth goals–one knowledge goal that focuses on pedagogy, and one skill or mindset goal based on the area in which they want to grow professionally. Once each year, they are observed by an assigned administrator, and twice per year, they can choose from among peers, students, community members, and others to conduct observations. We trained administrators in appreciative inquiry and framing feedback through a positive lens. To those being evaluated, we posed, “How can this feedback help you grow?” and then challenged them to create their own plan to achieve that growth. Throughout the year, educators complete growth reflection sheets and submit artifacts to their personal portfolios to document their progress. In the case of an educator who is truly struggling, we still provide intensive support in the form of a Professional Improvement Plan which exists separately from the growth goals.
It has taken two full years to create our Portrait of an Educator and establish a new assessment system. During our “soft launch”–the first full cycle of goal-setting, assessment, and improvement–about 95% of teachers who were offered the new system opted to give it a try. Feedback that we received from educators was overwhelmingly positive. One educator commented, “This process has been meaningful for me. I have been able to share and create wonderful lessons with my team. The feedback from my team was invaluable to me.” Another offered, “I love Portrait of an Educator. I think that it is extremely positive and empowering. Having multiple types of colleagues provide me feedback helped me grow in new and more profound ways. The process felt more meaningful than any evaluation system I have experienced in the past.”
More generally, educators cited the collaborative nature of the process as being beneficial; observing, sharing, and having rich conversations improved their practice and their sense of connectedness. Many appreciated the relevance of the growth process to their teaching, and noted that their freedom of choice throughout was a big factor in tailoring their professional development to their actual needs. This aspect–choice–was perhaps most often lauded in the feedback we received. The choices that they had in naming their goals, choosing their collaborators, and creating their own vehicles for growth were empowering. When someone has the fulfilling experience of identifying where they want and need to grow and then getting the support to do it, they cannot help but want to impart that same experience to others. This is the kind of transformational change that we need in our schools.
This system, which was developed and refined by many people through many hours of hard work, was just adopted system-wide in SAU-16. I couldn’t be more excited to see where it leads our district, and our students, in the coming years.