Building capacity. The first time I heard these two words associated with education, I thought it meant how many students and staff could fit into a school. For instance, in the following scenario:
Question: "What it the building's capacity?"
Response: "Oh, I'd say about 500 students and staff."
But upon explanation from colleagues and further exploration of education periodicals, they are buzzwords used in our field cloaked in professional development and growth terminology but its true implementation in education is more complicated.
Question: "What it the building's capacity?"
Response: "Oh, I'd say about 500 students and staff."
But upon explanation from colleagues and further exploration of education periodicals, they are buzzwords used in our field cloaked in professional development and growth terminology but its true implementation in education is more complicated.
Here is my attempt at a general definition of building capacity in education. It is sometimes used interchangeably (and I would argue, erroneously) with teacher professional development and it encompasses any interventions or efforts to improve the expertise of teachers in the classroom in order to reduce a school's reliance on outside services or expertise, eg.) technology advisers, English second language experts, diverse learning or special education consultants, mental health counsellors, etc.
On the surface, that sounds just great. What self-respecting teacher would not want to become a more informed, knowledgeable and independent professional, right? Except what I've discovered about its practise is that it has downloaded more and more responsibilities onto the classroom teacher that he/she does not, in actual practise, have the background to deal with effectively. The classroom teacher is expected to have similar skills to the experts and use those newly acquired skills (sometimes in workshops lasting less than an hour) in lieu of accessing the experts.
I recall telling a colleague that a few struggling readers in my language class of 29 students really needed another adult, another teacher, to "echo read" with them, or even read aloud to the students and to check for comprehension. I felt blindsided by the remark that I received. "How are we ever going to build internal capacity if you don't learn to manage this by yourself? You can't expect that there will be help in the form of another person for these students with learning disabilities."
Likewise, as we are ramping up our efforts to integrate more technology for all of our students (and especially for our gifted students and their individual learning programs), school districts, under the banner of building capacity, are removing support in the form of Technology Mentor Teachers, (the TMTs). Our technology "advisors" who have formal training and are best suited to introduce and encourage coding programs for the students, explore digital citizenship rules with students, review and test new applications and software for education and who basically troubleshoot all things with respect to learning management systems like D2L, are scheduled to be cut. School districts expect that their role is now obsolete since the TMTs "worked towards building internal capacity", (ie. the teachers can now troubleshoot and implement on their own). Except, what happens when the capacity has not been built?
This is counterintuitive. As schools invest more and more dollars into the purchase of Google chromebooks, tablets and iPads, we remove those very adults that have the passion and the expertise in tech ed. Moreover, it is as if we forgot that classroom teachers do not already have a specific curriculum to learn, interpret and teach along with finding the best ways to make it accessible and meaningful for their students in a disciplined and well-managed classroom. And what about the important role of evaluation of the students and communication with parents? The reporting piece/paperwork of teacher duties has also expanded and the writing of reports gobble up time that could be used for more teacher development and collaboration.
I value a school counsellor, the tech educators, the special education experts and the amazing people that work for social services who are seasoned and experienced professionals and who have skills and education that I could never acquire in a few hours. Better than any technological innovation, (and I love many of them), investment in people--and their expertise--will always be my preferred choice.
On the surface, that sounds just great. What self-respecting teacher would not want to become a more informed, knowledgeable and independent professional, right? Except what I've discovered about its practise is that it has downloaded more and more responsibilities onto the classroom teacher that he/she does not, in actual practise, have the background to deal with effectively. The classroom teacher is expected to have similar skills to the experts and use those newly acquired skills (sometimes in workshops lasting less than an hour) in lieu of accessing the experts.
I recall telling a colleague that a few struggling readers in my language class of 29 students really needed another adult, another teacher, to "echo read" with them, or even read aloud to the students and to check for comprehension. I felt blindsided by the remark that I received. "How are we ever going to build internal capacity if you don't learn to manage this by yourself? You can't expect that there will be help in the form of another person for these students with learning disabilities."
Likewise, as we are ramping up our efforts to integrate more technology for all of our students (and especially for our gifted students and their individual learning programs), school districts, under the banner of building capacity, are removing support in the form of Technology Mentor Teachers, (the TMTs). Our technology "advisors" who have formal training and are best suited to introduce and encourage coding programs for the students, explore digital citizenship rules with students, review and test new applications and software for education and who basically troubleshoot all things with respect to learning management systems like D2L, are scheduled to be cut. School districts expect that their role is now obsolete since the TMTs "worked towards building internal capacity", (ie. the teachers can now troubleshoot and implement on their own). Except, what happens when the capacity has not been built?
This is counterintuitive. As schools invest more and more dollars into the purchase of Google chromebooks, tablets and iPads, we remove those very adults that have the passion and the expertise in tech ed. Moreover, it is as if we forgot that classroom teachers do not already have a specific curriculum to learn, interpret and teach along with finding the best ways to make it accessible and meaningful for their students in a disciplined and well-managed classroom. And what about the important role of evaluation of the students and communication with parents? The reporting piece/paperwork of teacher duties has also expanded and the writing of reports gobble up time that could be used for more teacher development and collaboration.
I value a school counsellor, the tech educators, the special education experts and the amazing people that work for social services who are seasoned and experienced professionals and who have skills and education that I could never acquire in a few hours. Better than any technological innovation, (and I love many of them), investment in people--and their expertise--will always be my preferred choice.