Thursday evening I was invited to hear Brett Wigdortz, Founder and CEO of Teach First, the UK-based partner of Teach for All (formerly Teach for America). The basic, very simplified premise is to get high potential women and men graduating from university to spend two years teaching in the classroom of a disadvantaged or low-income school. Many are spreading the model worldwide, and this year the first cohort of Teach for Bangladesh teachers are classrooms across Dhaka.
Teach First has achieved some amazing improvements in the education quality provided to low-income students, especially in London. Nationally they account for 2 out of every 7 teachers in low-income schools, and also have a number of alumni (they call them "ambassadors") as head teachers, and policy-makers. Teach First recently became one of the top recruiters of graduating university students in England. It's no wonder that the president of a British teacher college recently mentioned in a speech that Teach First has "detoxified the teaching profession" and made it an exciting option for many young adults.
He had some interesting insights that I found useful both at an individual and organizational level. I asked what they'd had to change in order to scale up, and he said, "everything except our values and vision." They have a few people who have been trained in value-based interviewing, and they always do the first screen on job applicants before passing it off to the hiring manager. This sounds a little cult-like, but if part of your mission is to change systems and tackle inequality through service and a movement of leaders, it's pretty important!
In fact, there's some research to support this. Brett cited a recent study that looked at public schools across the UK to try to determine what made some more effective than others. One of their findings was that the religious schools performed better than secular schools. On deeper inspection, they revised this finding to say that schools where there was a common ethos performed better. In secular schools where leadership created a vision that others adopted and practiced, students performed better. It just so happened that all the religious schools had a common ethos, but the ethos itself didn't have to be religious to have an impact.
My favorite suggestion was what he tells first-year fellows, when they first go into a school and immediately see a million things that could be improved.
"We are playing a long-term game. I tell them to write all these ideas down in a notebook. Don't share them with anyone right away. No one will listen to you right now. But keep writing them down and save them until you have more authority, when you have an opportunity to speak and be listened to. Because by then, you'll be part of the system, and you won't have the same outside perspectives that you had when you first walked in the door."
This is great advice. It validates the amazing insights that outside vision can bring, while also acknowledging that changing systems takes time and usually comes internal leadership. A newbie has to earn the legitimacy and the power to bring about big changes. The problem for some newbies is that they are impatient and don't feel heard. Some organizations have cultures that compound this--they may say that you earn your right to speak based on the number of years you have been with the organization, and/or working at the grassroots level. You can quickly become disillusioned and think about moving onto other things.
Brett's suggestion is a perfect solution. It asks the fellow to readjust their own mindset and therefore perceive the situation differently. The current moment is one to observe, learn, and absorb. The time for action will come later, and you're preparing for that. It creates an activeness and planning to the waiting, and a sense that bigger things lie ahead.
Mid-level managers, and even senior leaders, can sometimes complain about the lack of resources and decision-making power at their disposal. But the truth is that there are very frugal management tools that can make a big difference (Chip and Dan Heath explore this in-depth in Switch with a lot of helpful examples). The creation of a common ethos, making values a central part of hiring, and lastly, empowering staff to find ways to get through the difficult phases (such as the beginning) by changing their mindset, are tools that require little besides some reflection and prioritization.
I'm off to buy my own notebook to start keeping notes! Or wait, isn't that the point of this blog?
I haven't watched this yet, but Brett recommended a BBC documentary following four fellows in the classroom called "Tough, young teachers."
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