Snacks and Staff Meetings

Since it is SuperBowl weekend I thought that I would give my thoughts on a what if.

What if education had a superbowl? What would that look like. If teachers knew they were working to get to the big game, would it change the way they looked at things. If administrators knew that they would be on the sidelines during the big game would it change the way they would prepare?

As an old football player, knowing that your season could end in a big game if you prepared hard enough, had enough luck and won enough games was motivating.

Unfortunatley in education, there is no big game, sure there is high stakes testing and NCLB but I still don’t thing anybody really thinks they have to follow those directions until the state comes and takes them over.

Football teams get all week to practice and prepare, coachs spend hours upon hours reviewing game film, players as well. Everything is critiqued and critiqued again (and the players like, for the most part, being critiqued) so that their can be improvement from week to week. Then the assessment at the end of the week, the game. The outcome determines how well you prepared.

Schools have a game everyday. My teachers get 1 (one) day to prepare for the year. That is ridiculous. How can you plan for a 180 day long schedule on 1 day. I would like to see a pro sports team try that. Critiquing is another matter. It goes back to my post on change. Some teacher move towards improvement and use evaluations, critiquing and peer review to their benefit. Some go in their rooms and shut the door. Same for administrators; many of them float in the good ole boys network,although I think that is dying out.  Do administrators take the critique from their players (teachers) and use that to improve. And don’t get me started on critique from the fans (parents). Maybe that will be my next post.

So the question remains; What if education had a Super Bowl? Would your school be prepared, would they make it?

Prediction:

Indianapolis 34 Chicago 24