It's practically a right of passage in education to declare that a meeting should have been an email. Like most educators, I have been in meetings where that felt true. However, in 2024, the number of sent and received emails is projected to grow to 361.6 billion. We are inundated with information all the time. What we don't need...is another email.
Walk the halls of any school building and various other negative comments about meetings permeate the educational space. We apologize when we have to have meetings, we promise to keep meetings short because people are busy, and we cancel meetings because the weather is too warm, or too cold, or any other sundry non weather related reasons. All of this sounds logical and respectful to busy professionals who are tasked with too much, but it is a short-term fix.
The solution is not to cancel or shorten meetings.
The solution is definitely not to send more emails.
The solution is to insist on better meetings.
There are a million reasons to forego meetings and only one irrefutable one to keep them on the calendar and make them more effective: Our students need us to better utilize the time we have together as professionals. Our professional learning community meetings, faculty meetings, department meetings, curriculum meetings, and student support team meetings must be purposeful and efficient so our schools focus on teaching and learning and our students get the support they need.
So, as we survive the trek toward spring break, here are three Ps to consider implementing in all of our end of the year meetings:
Passion
In her book, The Art of Gathering, Priya Parker argues that many of our gatherings are shaped "according to various unstated motivations" while "making half-hearted gestures toward loftier goals." We say we want a meeting to do something in particular -- improve the situation for a student, get a PLC aligned in their practices, learn a new strategy -- but we are not always prepared to do the things necessary to genuinely commit to that purpose, so the meeting falls flat. Parker has a wealth of resources in her Gathering Toolkit that can guide educators in building teams that will have meetings full of passion and purpose. The Convergence Group also created an Assessment and Planning Tool based on her work. In all these resources, the vital link is being very specific in purpose, outcome, and deliverables while allowing time for connection. Parker recommends that to ignite passion, you have to drill down into why the meeting is necessary. Keep asking why until a belief or value emerges. When people gather based on clearly articulated beliefs and values, passion increases and meetings are more meaningful.
Priority
In her new text Intentional Moves, author Eliza Macdonald asks educators not to settle for high-functioning teams but to insist on teams that impact student learning. She asserts that teams can follow norms, use protocols, have roles, and adhere to agendas but they still may not have created a meeting that will be a priority for attendees. Teams that agree to actively listen to alternate viewpoints, look closely at student performance and consider the deeper meaning behind it, and genuinely observe and engage in each other's classrooms will have meetings that naturally become a priority. The Harvard Business Review calls this dynamic "discussing undiscussable issues" in their Eight Ground Rules for Great Meetings. Whatever we call it, educators sit in a lot of meetings that never truly address barriers to student learning and never honestly discuss team dysfunction. The University of Chicago provides a quick guide to help us have real conversations in meetings that prioritize student learning. With clear priorities centered on the most important work we have to do, meetings become focused and essential.
Power
Meetings are often brimming with power struggles. At times they are led by people who have positional power and other times they are comprised of collaborative peers. No matter the situation, if we want educational meetings to be more effective, we must gain clarity about roles and train facilitators to use power in positive and intentional ways. Peter DeWitt explains in his podcast, Leaders Coaching Leaders, that establishing credibility as a leader requires trustworthiness, competence, dynamism, and immediacy (responsiveness). The School Reform Initiative also has a wealth of resources to help facilitators guide meetings where everyone has a voice and feels like they have the power to make change. Using a Charrette Protocol, a Compass Points Protocol, or a Tuning Protocol from SRI can help teams share power and find ways to offer support on lessons or policies without igniting defensiveness.
While this blog post wasn't filled with the usual practical strategy links, it was filled with what I am beginning to believe is one of the most powerful things we can do as educators to positively impact student learning. We must insist on real meetings with complex conversations that could not possibly be contained in an email.
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