This message is not an easy one, but it is a necessary one. It is written out of love for educators and educational leaders with the knowledge of how hard your job is daily. Sometimes though, we have to step back and look ourselves in the mirror and face some tough looks back. Hopefully that’s what you’ll see this post as, just a mirror to reflect and make moves happen. Some may find the message hard to swallow, others may find it reinforces what you already do and still more may find that it inspires some small change you can start making today for the learning in the building.
To the Leaders in the Building
I’ve had a lot of administrators in my career. Some were leaders, but most were managers. Here is the bottom line: Leaders, you belong in the learning. Why? Because that is why the school exists in the first place, for learning! If you aren’t leading the learning in the building and in the classroom, then you are not a leader, you are a manager.
Look at it this way: You are the head coach of your team. You are heading into the championship. I guarantee that no head coach will look at the team and say, “Hey, I want you to go out there, play the game and just have fun because you all know how to play the game.” No, a head coach watches tape, examines plays, gives feedback, coaches, trains, examines. They lead. We would never see a coach act like this, not for long at least. But I’ve seen, and worked under, school leaders who take this same hands-off approach to the learning in the building. Why? Here’s some of the common hesitations from leaders when it comes to leading the learning.
“I am not a content expert.”
Good. You do not need to be. You need to be fluent in learning. Can you name what clarity looks and sounds like in any room? Can you spot whether a task will produce visible evidence of learning? Can you see and identify engagement and its causes? Can you ask a learner the three magic questions and hear confident answers? What are learning? Why does it matter? How will you know you learned it? If you can do that, you can lead any content because you are coaching learning.
“I do not have time.”
You do. You have priorities. Put learning first. Learning IS the leader’s job. Protect calendar blocks for daily walkthroughs, five minute dialogues about tasks and success criteria, brief feedback notes, and rapid follow ups. The work you shift toward the classroom repays you in culture, clarity, and momentum. It can also take other things off your workload like discipline issues and classroom management crises. Leaders who put learning at the center change what meetings are about, how collaborative teams run, and what gets celebrated in the building. THAT is leadership, not management.
“It will make my staff uncomfortable and the culture will suffer.”
Your presence is not a punishment. It is a partnership. People do not need perfection from you. They need proximity, curiosity, and specific appreciation. You being in classrooms and team meetings should not make anyone uncomfortable. If it does, then we have a culture problem that has created that climate. That needs your attention! Teachers actually want their success to be seen, and you cannot celebrate what you never witness. Two or three visits a year cannot grow anyone. Frequent, short, learning centered check-ins build trust because they keep the focus where it should be, on evidence of learning and next steps.
If you want a starting place, start here: trade compliance for clarity. Help teams anchor every lesson to a clear learning target and success criteria, then design tasks that actually show the learning happened. That is how celebrations become specific and feedback becomes useful. That is also how equity becomes real because designed learning gives every learner access to the thinking and learning, not just access to seat work and grades.
To the Teachers Room
You have shown up for kids today. Full stop. You can do no wrong! There are no gotchas here. When leaders walk in, it is not a trap. It is a chance to celebrate what you have built and to get another adult thinking with you about how to make learning even stronger. Visiting is about celebration and improvement. Be excited that your leaders want to see your thinking, your design moves, your daily wins.
“It feels like a gotcha when they walk in.”
Let us reframe. If a visitor can’t name your learning target, your success criteria, and the task that will make thinking visible, here’s a chance to ask for help clarifying those pieces. That is not about you being wrong. That is about all of us doing the real work of making learning visible on purpose for everyone in the room. When learning is designed for, you can feel it and you can see it. There is no “Gotcha! You aren’t doing your job!” Instead, it is a, “Don’t worry! I got you! Let’s work together and see how we can make this better for learning because we both care about our kids in here.”
“They do not know my content or my classroom.”
They do not have to. They should know learning. A leader who asks your learners about the learning in the room is honoring your craft. They are doing what we ask learners to do every day. Make the thinking visible. Show the evidence. Invite them into that conversation. It sharpens everyone. Besides, we ALL want to do well. And deep down, we ALL appreciate when others see it happening. That doesn’t require content knowledge. That requires commitment to what matters, and what matters most is the learning in the room and how you are designing it in the best ways for your learners.
“I do not need to get better. I know what I am doing.”
You are a professional. Professionals learn. We grow by designing with more clarity, building richer tasks, and studying impact, not by repeating moves on autopilot. The difference between assigning and designing is the difference between activity and learning. We are not in the busywork business. We are in the learning business, for our learners and ourselves.
Here is the win for you. When learning is intentionally designed on the front end, those kids in the room do the cognitive heavy lifting. Your energy shifts from managing behavior to coaching thinking. That makes your day more sustainable and your impact more visible. And, if you are that rock star teacher who is making huge gains, your leader may want to send others to see the impact you are making. That is something to share!
Decide. Design. Deploy. Daily.
Schools drift when they forget what matters most, and what matters most is learning. Decide now to center learning. Leaders, if you aren’t involved in the learning, then you are managing the building, its people, its schedule and its functioning. Clocks can do the same thing. Managers follow to react; Leaders lead with intention. Decide on the climate you want to create. Create the practices that lead it. Now, go and lead that learning.
Teachers, be proud to showcase your hard work! I resented the administrators I worked for who were only in my room a couple times a year and never in our collaborative teams. If they gave praise, it was empty because they really didn’t know what was going on. Imagine how great it would feel to show off and get the reward for your hard work while also having a partner to help you along the way. I want my leader involved in my room. I want a vision and goal to work towards because that’s the only way we can truly say we accomplished something, and I want them to see it, celebrate it and give me feedback that helps me grow in my craft because I care about what I do and who I do it for.
My apologies if this caused any offense. Sometimes we just have to get real about the work. Getting real shows that we really care about something. We are all in this together, we all are leaders, we all have something to learn from and with each other. Let’s get excited about the most important room in the school building. Let’s visit it daily. Let’s work together to make what happens in those classrooms the best it can be!
