Day 1 in Nakuru

Posted: December 24th, 2013 | Author: Michael Goldstein | | 2 Comments »

It begins.

This January we’ll debut some new lesson structures at Bridge. It’s for all the kids in 7th grade and nursery school, over 9,000 total. Here’s the general idea.

Typically, what happens with kids and teachers when a “new lesson structure” is put in place? Historically, around the world, it doesn’t go well.

Why? Teachers are used to the “old way.” The new way can feel “wrong.” (Heck, sometimes it *is* wrong — plenty of instances of teachers being handed bad lessons to teach). So teachers are tempted to revert. You need good lessons for sure, but you also need buy-in, training, and to solve a ton of “little problems” that combine to cause teachers big headaches if not addressed.

Our friend Ben Piper, who is leading an amazing roll-out of improved curriculum in Kenyan gov’t schools (PRIMR), has described these challenges to me. Ben tries to find a “sweet spot,” a Goldilocks “just right amount” of teacher change. And there’s some strong evidence (he’s set up his work as a randomized control trial) of success.

At Bridge, January will push the envelope on what we ask of teachers. BIG changes. It’ll require a real willingness of our teachers to circulate and help kids as individuals, rather than talking only to the “whole class.”

Will the changes work? Or are we setting up our teachers and pupils for failure?

Phase 1. Geordie and Theresa, our Innovation Managers, tested the changes in dozens of classrooms around Kenya. We got teacher feedback, video, etc. Made changes, big and small. Learned a lot. Overall, the “new way” was well received by teachers and kids alike.

Phase 2. Now we’re doing everything we can to get the changes to “stick.” Our plan is called “Winning January.”

One component of “Winning January” was a 3-day-retraining Dec 20, 21, 22. We gathered several hundred teachers. No small task! Emanuel, Salome, Zainab and 30+ faciliators actually run the trainings. The logistics, as you’d guess, are impossibly challenging. Yet they persevere. A tip of the cap to them!

Greg planned the trainings themselves, and on the ground we had Brittney, Alex, Kayt, and Josh all helping.

Josh, the science and social studies curriculum director, wrote a few emails that captured what happened. After Day 1, Josh wrote:

Hello from Nakuru! Beautiful town, lovely weather.

Today was Day 1 of Retraining for Class 7 and Nursery teachers. Going well. Here’s the deal:

Alex and I both got great early feedback from school leaders and facilitators about sessions (Geordie and Theresa rated those as 5.5/10), and altered them late into last night.

We made pretty major changes to sessions — same message, but slightly different angle. R eorganized sessions, added new video, and stated our case more clearly than we had before.

We rolled out sessions today: 7 rooms of 60+ teachers for C7, 5 rooms of 40+ teachers for nursery.

Lots of small initial questions were asked. I popped into each room several times got to know people, made my case for what we’re doing, and (I think) convinced a lot of skeptics. Introduced some new analogies. And I got one of the best rushes ever by getting our teachers asking questions, laughing (in good ways), and nodding with me as I answer. Facilitators had a preview of our powerpoints yesterday, so they have done a great job answering questions too.

Some questions remain in the air: continued stuff about marking, circulation, independent practice, and logistics–the “how is this actually executed” type of stuff. But we’ve gotten our message down pretty pat by now, and I think our pitch is working, especially on the big picture. The questions lately have been along the lines of “what do I do to support my really struggling pupils, particularly if my class happens to be big?” It’s a move beyond basic questions to what we care about, learning.

Big picture is that I (cautiously) think are on the road to winning here. Fairly high ratings for all sessions are coming in on exit tickets. Teachers are excited, a little anxious, and (increasingly) bought in. Reactions like, “Oh, I see now why student practice is so important. I’ll have to stick to the script so that I can get to independent practice, and then I’ll have time to check in with pupils and see what they misunderstand.” Seriously, good stuff so far.

Geordie and Theresa rate training as a 7 out of 10 right now. We think the last 3 points will be “won” by having teachers practice new stuff, watching more videos of Bridge teachers in action to see what it looks like, and seeing that our vision is achievable — not because we say so, but because they see it and believe it, both the pig picture and the small details.

On a personal note, this retraining is probably one of my best days at Bridge so far. Meeting these amazing teachers, as well as the facilitators and the rest of Brittney’s team, has been beyond cool. Teachers are getting fired up. We still have an uphill battle, but we’ve made a very strong start. And we’ve only completed the morning of day 1. As Kayt has said many times, we have some of the coolest jobs in the world.

3 quick additional comments:

-First, Brittney’s operation here is simply amazing. I just want to recognize the amazing work that she and her team have done to make this happen. She and Kayt pretty much don’t sleep. They are CRANKING (shoot, I’m starting to sound like MG. That’s no good). And it’s working. I’m beyond impressed.

-Second, C7 has had some big wins today. But nursery is blowing this retraining out of the water. Geordie reported that in one room, when changes were rolled out, there was actual applause. Geordie also related that during AM training, AMs who had not tried any Nursery sessions, but were excited by common pages, stood up and spoke to the group in testimonials that were almost tear jerking. Alex’s team is NAILING IT today. Huge kudos to him for making these sessions compelling. Totally amazing.

Let me end with a note of caution. I’m sure this message has been full of some early, naive enthusiasm. Many challenges remain. We haven’t bought everyone in yet. But I’m feeling really good about where we’ve gotten so far.

Josh

I’ll pick up Josh’s Day 2 tomorrow.