3 Ways to Foster Teacher Agency

I've been thinking and writing a lot lately about fostering agency in our schools- I think in this phase of post-pandemic that we're in right now, it's the #1 thing that people need, and finding ways to foster it will help address a lot of the biggest crises we're facing in education today. I've been focusing on ways teachers can foster agency for our students first, but today I want to talk about ways school systems and administrators can foster agency for teachers. 

First I think it's important for me to explain my positionality in this conversation- I am on a full-time teacher contract but I am also what my district calls a department chair. That means 40% of my work load is administrative. I teach 60% of a normal full time teaching load. So I have my feet in both spaces, I have, I think, pretty good insight into both perspectives, and I certainly am on both "teams"- I am not here to villainize one side or another. 

I've been writing about agency over a series of posts (links to those at the end of this post for more in-depth discussion of the overall issue), but I think this definition is worth re-sharing:

"The send of agency refers to the subjective feeling of controlling one's own actions, and through them, external events." (source)

So agency is control. And I think one of the biggest reasons for the teacher shortage- one of the biggest problems we're facing in education today- is the loss of autonomy, or sense of control teachers feel they have over what happens in their classrooms. Teachers feel like they can't teach the way they want because the volatile behaviors they see in their classes prevents them from doing so. They feel constrained by the ever-present fear that something they do or say could be taken out of context and get them fired and/or publicly shamed. They feel misunderstood and mistrusted by society because the "bad apples" in the profession who do in fact do or say shameful things are the ones that are constantly in the news. They're forbidden from using the materials they want or bringing up the topics they want students to discuss and consider because of misguided and oppressive laws and bans. Just like we have a responsibility to foster agency for our students, we also have a responsibility to foster agency for teachers.

And just like the conversation around student agency, the topic of fostering teacher agency is obviously complex, multi-faceted, and not something I (or anyone else) have a complete answer for. But here are some things I believe school systems, policy makers, and school administrators can do this year- within the confines of the systemic issues that exist- to foster teacher agency.  

1. Hold teachers accountable for the end result, not the process

One of the best ways to foster teacher agency is to hold teachers accountable for the end result but be open to teachers having different ways to get there. Instead of "everyone must use this lesson activity to introduce fractions", let's try "we want all students to understand fractions at this specific level/ meet this criteria on this rubric by this time- here are a few tested and proven lesson plans that are effective for helping students learn this effectively, let us know if you have another idea that you think is equally effective and we'll talk". 

There are definitely areas where we want common language to ensure the most effective implementation, or common experiences we want to ensure all students have across the school or district, and we most definitely want to ensure all students have the best opportunity to be successful. But that doesn't always mean there is one most effective way to do something that will be the best way for every teacher, every student, every classroom situation (actually it rarely does). 

2. Create opportunities for discovery

In my experience the best way to get teacher buy-in on a new strategy, program, etc is to provide ways for them to experience / see it working (and maybe discover other strategies, programs etc that get to the same goal... going back to my first point). Give teachers time to go watch other teachers teach, talk to each other to get ideas of what's working and ask questions to figure out why something might be working for other teachers and not for them. Give teachers the tools and materials, and give them the opportunity to learn how to use them effectively from other teachers who are doing it well. 

This also goes back to my first point in the sense that teachers are more likely to buy into an effective strategy or program if they discover that it's better than what they're current doing (or not doing) on their own. That can come from seeing another teacher using it and seeing the results, or it can come from a conversation asking teachers questions that encourage them to reflect on whether what they are doing is getting those end results we want. School leaders can walk teachers through the thought process that leads them to discover new ideas, or how to effectively use them, or question what they are doing in ways that hadn't occurred to them before.

3. Maintain advisory groups

It is understandably difficult to find good ways to have teachers be meaningfully involved in policy decision-making processes, curriculum assessment, and other processes that teachers need to feel they have more say in to create a sense of agency in the workings of the school and district, because teachers are tired and overworked, and it's simultaneously very difficult to get teacher coverage. But it's important to find ways to have teachers involved in important conversations! The truth is most of the people in administration, boards of education, and other school leadership right now did not teach during the pandemic. As much as good leaders will listen and seek to understand, they will never be able to completely take on that perspective, and that perspective of pandemic teaching is a lens through which all school decisions must be viewed to be effective in today's classrooms.

Rather than pulling teachers out of the classroom to meet during the school day, or inviting teachers to attend meetings or do other work outside of contractual time and hoping they will give up personal time because they care, my best suggestion is to "flip" staff meetings the way we've all heard people talking about "flipping the classroom". Put all the announcements, information, and materials in an email, cloud storage, etc and use staff meeting time to get teachers involved in focus group conversations. 

I could write an entire sermon about each of these points, but I'll save those for future posts another time. For now I'll put the question to everyone reading this: what are your suggestions for fostering teacher agency? I'd love to hear your answers in the comments. And if you're just tuning into this discussion of agency, here is my introductory post on the need for agency for both students and teachers, my post on fostering student ownership, and my post on empowering students.