I teach fifth grade in an inner city school in Cleveland, Ohio. I run into situations like this often. I do feel that I question other teacher’s behavior or comments when they are negative or discriminatory. I feel that I do it in a non-confrontational manner. I often ask teachers to explain themselves or give examples. I than make them listen and analyze what they are saying.

There is one aspect of speaking up that I do not feel comfortable with and this includes speaking up to administration figures. Many times in our weekly meeting us teachers are holding tongues. I think this makes the situation worse and is placing a barrier between the teachers and administration. We all know that we need to work as a team to teach the students.

Thank you for the words of wisdom!

First, thanks for the kind words. I enjoyed our Voicethread as much as you did! Y’all were amazing.

Second, questioning colleagues is still really, really difficult in most schools. I know that in my years as a member of a learning team, I’ve worked to question more than once and it never goes well—even when I remember to use my favorite Crucial Conversation tip: Asking why a reasonable, rational person would act in a way that runs contrary to my vision of what is “right” or “should be.”

I think the barrier is that PLC work—especially in the early stages—is really, really difficult. Teachers and teams wrestle with new practices and processes far more than ever before, and that wrestling can be completely exhausting. It can also cause teams to question themselves.

I can remember several times where conflict felt like failure to our learning team. We’d have intellectual disagreements about practices and believe that everything we were building was coming to an end. Worse yet, we didn’t have the skills for conflict resolution AND we were fighting against a constant barrage of “be a team player” messages that surround schools.

It felt like everything we were doing was “wrong”—-and because other teams weren’t having powerful conversations, they weren’t having conflict, which looked “right” to us.

Crazy, huh?

Luckily, we stumbled across a phrase that we drilled into our heads: “Questioning isn’t about the person, it’s about the practice.”

By remembering that simple idea, questioning became safer for those doing the asking and for those being asked. It served as a reminder that we valued one another as individuals even when we had disagreements about our course of action. It helped us to pose questions—and to be questioned—in a neutral, dispassionate way.

And it worked.

Teachers are so wrapped up in our practices—we own them, we craft them, we believe in them—and in the nobility of our work that being questioned can be one of the most painful and personal “offenses.” It was only when we take the focus off of the person that questioning became safe on our learning team.

Any of this make sense?
Bill