Jon Saphier on High-Expertise Teaching & Cultural Proficiency

            “There are many outstanding professional teachers at work in our schools, including those serving our most economically disadvantaged children,” says PD guru Jon Saphier in this article in The Learning Professional. “But there are simply not enough of them… The fundamentals of high-expertise teaching have not been provided to or expected of large portions of our teacher corps.” What’s missing in too many cases, says Saphier, is a good understanding at the federal, state, district, and school level of the complexity of teaching and the kind of continuous professional learning needed to bring everyone up to par.

            Saphier imagines a situation where a teacher tells you about a successful classroom practice that’s different from the one you’ve been using. If you believe there’s generally a right and a wrong way to teach something (the effectiveness or “best practices” paradigm), your reaction may be that this colleague is trying to show you up or is patronizing you. But if you view teaching as a vast repertoire of practices that need to be matched to individual classroom situations, you’ll have a different reaction: Hmmm, that’s an interesting alternative. I might want to try it. “That view of professional knowledge not only accepts the legitimacy of different ways of doing things,” says Saphier, “but also encourages debate and professional problem solving.”

            A crucial first step for principals, then, is shifting colleagues from the “best practices” to the “repertoire and matching” way of thinking. Step two is orchestrating team meetings in which teachers are constantly talking about what’s working and what’s not, based on assessment evidence. Step three is getting people to see beyond their silos: “Fully professional teachers,” says Saphier, “are leaders who take the initiative to influence colleagues toward ideas they value and move the school toward practices they believe will strengthen everyone.” This involves giving up some classroom autonomy in service of the greater good.

            Cultural proficiency is a particularly important area for professional development, Saphier continues, given the increasing percentage of students from the Caribbean, Central and South America, Asia, Eastern Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. “Cultural improficiency in the classroom leaves students who are culturally and linguistically diverse feeling misunderstood and excluded,” he says. “Like all children in all schools, they need to feel known and valued to have their energy available for learning.” Among the proficiencies that need to be affirmed and developed in all teachers:

-   Curiosity and continuous learning about the cultures of all students;

-   Acknowledging and valuing cultures different from one’s own;

-   All students feeling valued and that they have a place in the classroom and school;

-   Curriculum, classroom artifacts, and instructional examples reflecting diverse cultures.

One problem is that discussions of culture are sometimes taken as an accusation of racism. “Racism is certainly a first cousin of cultural blindness and cultural improficiency,” says Saphier, “but it is profoundly different. Cultural improficiency arises from lack of interest, awareness, and respect for other cultures. It assumes the dominant white culture is just ‘normal.’ But racism comes from an ancient tradition of dominance and control,” he says. Some ways racism manifests itself in schools:

-   Views of intelligence as innate, fixed, and unevenly distributed by group;

-   Different educator behaviors toward students believed to be academically less able;

-   Tracking and disproportionate placement of students in special education;

-   Unequal application of discipline to some subgroups;

-   Microaggressions committed by unaware individuals;

-   Internalized racism in individuals belonging to marginalized groups;

-   Stereotype threat – the unconscious loss of performance edge based on racial cues.

“The quest for racial awareness and antiracist teaching should propel us to push back on negative stereotypes, correct distortions, and remedy omissions in our behavior and curriculum that stem from racism,” says Saphier. “Most powerfully, it should inspire us to ensure that if some students of color doubt themselves, it is our job to make them believe they can grow their ability and teach them how to act effectively from that belief. In the process, we will have to work hard to convince ourselves, since we are all, without exception, tainted by traces of racism and belief in the bell curve of ability.”

All this requires humble and skillful leadership by district officials, school principals, and teachers.

“The Equitable Classroom” by Jon Saphier in The Learning Professional, December 2017 (Vol. 38, #6, p. 28-31), e-link for members only http://bit.ly/2r55IHH; Saphier can be reached at saphier@rbteach.com.

The summary above is reprinted with permission from issue #719 of The Marshall Memo, an outstanding resource for educators.